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Subject:
From:
"Booth, Christopher" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 19 May 1998 13:06:04 -0400
Content-Type:
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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.
 
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.]
 
Does this help any?
 
[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....]
> ----------
> From:         Milton
> Reply To:     Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
> Sent:         Monday, May 18, 1998 7:36 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      EP: "Grace Before Song" 1-3
>
> Fellow Poundians:
>
> In a fit of chronological affections a few nights ago I started reading
> the "collected shorter poems of ezra pound" (New Directions, '76, ed.
> Michael J. King) for the first time (me being a self-professed neophyte
> of Pound, and deciding to begin at the beginning) and was instantly
> somewhat disheartened by the opening lines of "Grace Before Song" (1st
> poem in A Lume Spento, pg 7):
>
>      Lord God of heaven that with mercy dight
> Th' alternate prayer wheel of the night and light
> Eternal hath to thee . . .
>
> Not so much the fact that I wasn't entranced by the rest of the poem
> (which I was, re "rain drops in the sea surge" imagery) but I was more
> disheartened by the fact that I can't make out the syntax, let alone the
> MEANING of the three lines quoted above.  "Dight" put me off at first,
> naturally, but I found it in my Webster's all right: "archaic: to dress,
> adorn".  That much is okay.  But what does the rest *mean*?
>
> Thanks in advance to all who boot me in this business.  I'm not chafing
> in protest against the intentional archaism in Pound's earlier poems, I
> just want to know what it bloody MEANS.  And mayhaps this will lead to a
> discussion of Pound's earlier poems, which would be interesting in
> itself, and a remedy to the silence on the list.
>
> Thanks again to all.
>
> Cheers, Michael Kicey
>
> _________________________________________________
>
> "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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