Those Trachis lines would seem to support my suggestion that
the ant/centaur of 81 is more likely to refer to the US army
than to Pound himself.

==Dan

At 08:33 AM 8/22/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Dan Pearlman recently pulled up from his files an exchange we had here last
>year, regarding this line from Canto 81:
>
>    The ant's a centaur in his dragon world...
>
>In that exchange, I took issue with Michael Coyle's characterization of the
>man-beast as "lascivious" and "randy".  I described the centaur as
>"prodigious". In re-reading Women of Trachis, I've found some lines that
>shed some more light on Pound's exemplum; here, Herakles is speaking:
>
>... and those unsociable bardots, half man and half horse,
>the whole gang of them all together
>ARROGANT, LAWLESS, SURPASSING STRONG...
>
>[ emphasis mine]
>
>
>Tim Romano
>
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