I'd like to respond to C81, and to the ant line, within the larger
sphere of close attention to Pound's work that Leon Surette proposes (C4 &
C93). In the process I too have synthesized various positions already
affirmed by some list members.

        Three ontological orders are represented in "The ant's a centaur
in his dragon world." At one pole, the ant (= natural world, pure
'outside' -- from Imagisme); at the other, the dragon (= nonnatural, pure
'inside', elemental energy); and in between these two worlds, a ratio of
them both, attempting to shape both, the centaur.
        C93 reintroduces a recurring opposition in Pound's work --
between, in this canto's terms, "natural science" (pure 'outside') and
"moral science" (what Pound calls here, "agenda"):
                Avicenna and Algazel
                The 8th being natural science, 9th moral
                8th the concrete, 9th the agenda,
                Agassiz with the fixed stars, Kung to the crystaline,
The visitation in C81's libretto can be read in light of these lines to be
calling for (i.e. the call of "Pull down thy vanity") a return to natural
proportion between the concrete (the "green world") and the purposed
agenda (the proposed ethical imperative for change). Why this call to
vanquish vanity? Because the proposed "agenda" has overtaken the
"concrete," is out of  natural proportion. The term "agenda" now picks up
particular resonance within the context of Leon Surette's assertion, which
I agree with, that after 1931 "*The Cantos* began to serve Pound's
economic and political agenda rather than merely being informed by it"
(*Pound in Purgatory* 2).
        Thus the task of the centaur is to correlate concrete natural
science with the moral agenda; ideally (and this is the sense of the
phrase, 'natural proportion'), *it is the agenda of nature itself*, of the
way (tao), the process. This conclusion about the centaur resonates with
the following sentence in Ronald Bush's 1976 book (and interestingly for
us, Bush's sentence builds out of a comment on list-member Dan Pearlman's
book): "*The Cantos* describe a process of learning to direct the energy
of the will so that it is in harmony with the energies of what Canto 81
calls the "green world'" (Genesis 17). Is this process a success, or a
failure?
        "Dragon" signals a state of being (state of emotional being, or
state of being in action, or state of intellectual attention) that is no
longer in 'natural' proportion with the "green world." The dragon is
neither "swollen magpie," nor "beaten dog," but is far worse-off, from the
perspective of the judgment coming down in C81's libretto: the dragon's
state of being is *already* non-natural, is figmentary (as real as an
imaginary/mythic projection -- myths which Pound felt it necessary to
recuperate from Ovid, for modern times, etc).
        What does one do with dragons in 'Western Civ.'? One "kills" them
-- like Cadmus, in order to found a great city (Thebes). One must
shape/control their creative-destructive, otherworldly (nonhuman)
energies. Cadmus establishes (in C4) an important precedent for
understanding the dragon world, both in terms of success and failure
(terms which conclude C81). The seeds Cadmus sows from the dragon's teeth
turn into warriers, most of whom die (i.e., fail to accomplish anything),
while some live to help Cadmus build Thebes. To answer my question I
pose above, the "process of learning" Bush describes as
being one goal of *The Cantos* fails. To put this in the figurative
language of the dragon metaphor, the dragon is not killed/controlled. One
wonders, however --to all of Pound's words to the contrary -- if this
ultimately was what Pound thought mattered most (I return to this
below, in my conclusion).
        Pound's sense of "agenda" (in Avicenna's sense, above) has
exploded beyond recuperation by the 'thirties, the world itself has become
dragon-like for Pound, and good/evil, phantasmal (the phantasy of
conspiracy theory, etc) -- all is unscaled (even the notes/birds on the
wire, who come and go at random, in C75). Evidence of this is that,
tragically, the vicious hatreds flagged in C81 have become inextricably
bound to the ideal character (Kung) of the serious artist or ruler, as
lines in C93 attest:
                But still,
                        The duration
                        in re/ mental velocity
                as to antennae
                as to malevolence.
"[M]ental velocity" is of course highly praised by Pound, and the
characteristic figure for it is the artist's "antennae" tuned to the
world's agenda -- but in these lines, the antennae are fatefully,
inextricably associable with malevolence. The good desire to "Know agenda,
/ to the utmost of its virtu / of its own" (C93) by staying tuned to the
world by means of artist's antennae, is in constant danger at this point
of being interchangable with malevolence. (Earlier in C93, there is a
reference to the "trigger-happy mind," suggesting velocity of thought like
a bullet ("the direct shooting mind" [GK 106]. Here the association of
mental alertness with violence is further confirmed.)
        C93 attempts to contemplate the nature of human sociality (not
surprisingly, with Aristotle appearing in the poetic argument only
indirectly, via Dante: i.e., the political context is not that of an
Athenian democracy, but that of the Italian city-state). C93 argues for a
fascist sense of sociality by juxtaposing Dante's Aristotelian phrase with
the event of Pound meeting Mussolini:
                "compagnevole animale"
                        or "Perche" said the Boss
                "vuol mettere le sue idee in ordine?"
                        "Pel mio poema,"
To paraphrase, Pound wants to put his ideas in order ("mettere le sue idee
in ordine") *because* it is in the nature of "man" to be sociable. Non
sequitor? No! Remarkably, the syllogism here is operational: Order is the
essence of sociality, sociality best articulated as a form of rule
(Muss)/order (poem) (the Kung canto, 13, would corroborate this view of
sociality as order). The same conclusion is reached by juxtaposing a
clown's (Glock's) routine with the statement, "I have an idea," in C87:
                "Why do you want to
                        "--perche si vuol mettere--
                your ideas in order?"
                                        Date '32
                Or Grock: Ou ca?
                        (J'ai une idee.)
                Grock: Ou ca?
The 'wisdom' of a clown reveals where true foolishness lies -- in the
unnamed speaker, who declares, "I have have idea." For where is it, your
idea? asks the clown. Clown's lesson: An idea needs to be put into action,
in order for it to be perceived by others; otherwise, to "have" an idea is
merely a form of vanity.
        The individual who acts, inherently cuts a military figure for
Pound -- action requires military force. Thus, the ant, representing
sociality (as Leon Surette has interestingly suggested), represents
specifically the fascist version of sociality, the military ant (as others
have been suggesting, I think!). The end of C81 confirms that in this
understanding of sociality, action is its own justification *on
principal*, or in other words that action itself is the history of the
conquerer (history is made by the conquerer, as Hegel would say). Success
= having acted (regardless of outcome, good or bad); failure = never
having tried.
        Pound tends to want to assert (to brag?) that such a brute and
basic idea of action is ultimately what counts in the end, even if the
"process of learning" that Bush detects as a thread in *The Cantos* fails
-- or more accurately, is the casualty of such action.
        I could go on (and on!) expanding the sphere of attention on *The
Cantos*, and providing more detail, but will stop for now. I am grateful
to those who manage to read this far, and I hope some of this has been
worth your time.

Louis Cabri