Interesting thoughts, Louis!

Though I don't see any connection to Spain in the passage in
question, you do nudge me to think about the phrase "scaled
invention," which I haven't examined closely till now.  He
is undoubtedly thinking of Order, proportion, the musical scale,
but (without excluding the possibility of meaning you suggest
below), I see the phrase now as another *military* image in this
passage.  What is Pound seeing by way of "scales" in the
green world?  The lizard?  The segmented exoskeleton of
insects?  In any case, a protective covering that has been
imitated throughout history in military armament, from
medieval armor to the modern tank.  I think EP is looking
with irony at the comparatively clunky, from an esthetic
point of view, human imitations of the natural forms here.

==Dan

At 06:08 AM 8/24/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>"The ant's a centaur in his dragon world"!!
>
>I've enjoyed the exploratory form that debate on this line has taken, by
>all involved, concerning this line, and offer the following inklings of a
>reading, hoping it's not (over) done already.
>
>"Man" is no better than ant-sized, if properly scaled to the "green
>world". At issue in this line, then (and, in the libretto), is the vanity
>of *humanist* values: "man" is no better than ant. Hence: "Learn of the
>green world what can be thy place," a place that has been lost. In fact,
>it seems the sole redeeming quality of "man" is "scaled invention or true
>artistry" (humanist values if there ever were, of course: but wait!). In
>other words, if there is any remorse that this presumably Althea-like
>figure is demanding from the reader/ego scriptor (Pound)/masque-persona
>(all seem probable), it is remorse as artist for over-stepping the bounds
>of art's "scaled invention", for distorting the scale of the "green world"
>(wherein the practice of "true artistry" lies, if one knows one's
>art's "place") with hate-based 'politics', etc. It is a lesson that other
>poets, reading Pound at this time, are eager to learn from as well (and
>do, I think).
>
>I'd also like to twist this line, the canto, and the question of remorse,
>towards the issue of Spain, particularly the Civil War, about which Pound
>has very little to say in The Cantos - in fact, in Canto 81, he writes the
>most about it, followed by Canto 105. Spain is a tactically convenient
>socio-political ground (established in roughly the first half of Canto 81)
>from which to then receive a visitation from the Althea-like figure in a
>libretto, because the Spanish Civil War did not see any Western nations
>bringing official support to the democractic uprising, so that the
>concerns of the Spanish people were tragically compromised by the World
>War's victors' side. In this Canto, Pound does not say what political side
>he is on (concerning the Civil War, he reveals his allegiances in C105 [in
>case there was any doubt!]), and this enables him to present the materials
>of the canto as in support of 'the people themselves', including the
>artist among them, set in their idyllic "green world," which has to be
>re-found.
>
>Remorse is tactical, and specific to Canto 81's artistry.
>
>I'd need to deal with the huge word, "humanism," but I hope my drift,
>well, drifts... "Green world" is pre-Renaissance, I'd say...
>
>
>Louis Cabri
>
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