>As a beginning, are you familiar with what prayer wheels are? (i.e., Tibetan
>Buddhism, although I have seen similar in temples in Taiwan.) This may be
>your sticking-point (Harold Bauer's term, but I've always loved
>it.)...."night and light" are night and day, and a reference to the
>revolution of the Earth, prayer-wheel-like.
 
A couple more quibbles: A general question, really‹considering this is
the first poem of the first book, how early on can we say with certainty
that Pound was aware of Eastern ideas and culture and expressed his
interest in his writings?  If I'm not deceived, Fenollosa and all that
jazz came well after Lume‹but were there other roots?  Not to credit all
of Pound's Eastern fascinations to Fenollosa, but it's a convenient
reference point for a greenhorn like me.
 
>Prayer-wheels are vertically mounted cylinders that rotate easily on their
>axes, usually painted an auspicious red color, I believe, that are spun
>while monks--or the faithful--pray. The idea is that as they spin the prayer
>is lifted upward toward heaven. This spiralling motion notion was important
>in Tibetan Buddhism, and through the absurdities of theosophy reached Willy
>the Spook Yeats, as in  "perne in a gyre". [Sailing to Byzantium.]
 
Another question: what's the relation of this spiralling motion, the
rotation of the earth, and the power of God behind it all with the
subsequent imagery of oblivion and momentary beauty (via raindrops in the
sea surge etc.) in the rest of the poem?
 
>[BTW, Dight: think about the relationship with DICHT (Basil Bunting,
>DICHTEN=CONDENSARE) and the latin origins of the word, _dictare_, to compose
>(create) or dictate, in conjunction with the word _light_ on the next
>line--an important word in Pound--and its Genesis resonances. Dight also
>meant to ordain or equip, and a "dighter" was a poet. Etc. Hmmm....]
 
Being a student of German, I pretty much smack my forehead in shame at
this point.....Yikes!  But thank you for pointing it out!  Dichter =
dighter.  So essentially on the basis of etymology and rhyme Pound brings
together the notion of poetic/theologic creation with the notions of
night and light as antagonistic life-animating aesthetic forces etc. ‹
there's more here than I even thought of before.  Still, I would ask what
the connection is with the rest of the poem, and the imagery of offering
oneself into a sort of oblivion.  Maybe the eternal spiralling exchange
of "Night and light" can be read as a foil to the once-and-done-with
disappearance of rain into sea, word into silence, art into indifference,
etc.  But I'm only conjecturing.
 
Also I would still quibble over the third line, in getting down to the
basic roots of grammar: the meaning up to the end of line 2 is clear, and
I read "that with mercy dight" etc. as a relative clause, but what's the
connection with "Eternal hath to thee"?  What's the object of "hath"; why
is it eternal (or possibly clipped "eternally")?  What is going on,
grammtically speaking, in this line?
 
Thank you, Mr. Booth, for your very helpful suggestions.
 
Cheers, Michael Kicey
 
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"you love in spite of, not because of"
                      -Lucas Klein
 
_________________________________________________
Michael Kicey
F&M #836
Franklin and Marshall College
PO Box 3220
Lancaster PA  17604-3220
 
email: [log in to unmask]
net: http://acad.fandm.edu/~M_Kicey/
phone: 717.399.6747
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