Tim,

Many thanks for recalling this propeller image.  We can now see,
outside of its uses in the "Ed ascoltando" stanzas, Pound's
*conscious* employment of the green world/military connection.

As to the scarab connection, no question about it!  And no
one can miss the military meaning of "shell," can we?

==Dan

At 11:29 AM 8/25/00 -0400, you wrote:
>The green casque could refer also to the 'scarab' in these lines from Canto
>74:
>
>    the great scarab is bowed at the altar
>    the green light gleams in his shell
>
>
>The katydid's another candidate:
>
>
>   being given a new green katydid of a Sunday
>   emerald, paler than emerald
>                  minus its right propeller
>
>Here we find also the intersection of 'war' with 'green world', in 'its
>right propeller'.
>
>Tim Romano
>
>
>
>
>
>Burt Hatlen wrote:
>> I haven't been following the "green casques" thread very closely, and
>> I've erased a good many messages, so someone may have made this point
>> already.  But the association of the green casques with army helmets
>> seems to me totally wrong. I have always associated the "Paquin"
>> passage with the final lines of Canto LXXX, five pages previous:
>>
>> as the young lizard extends his leopard spots
>>     along the grass-blade seeking the green midge half an ant-size
>> [then five lines about London]
>> and if her green elegance
>>     remains on this side of my rain ditch
>>     puss lizard will lunch on some other T-bone
>>
>> sunset grand couturier.
>>
>> We have here an association of "green" with "elegance," and Paquin was
>> in fact a couturier. A midge is a small fly, and its closed wings might
>> look like a "casque."  But I also think that Carroll Terrell is correct
>> in association the green casque with the cocoon from which the wasp
>> emerges, in Canto LXXXIII.
>>
>> Burt Hatlen
>>
>>
>
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