We have had some quiet days on the Poundian front of late. Here's a quiet question maybe someone can answer. Among the Rubaiyat quatrains of Canto 80, we have this one: Tudor indeed is gone and every rose, Blood-red, blanch-white that in the sunset glows Cries: “Blood, Blood, Blood!” against the gothic stone Of England, as the Howard or Boleyn knows. Given all the blood shed by and under the Tudors, and all the family names involved, what had EP been reading to cause him to cite "Howard" and "Boleyn" as the gists to evoke the Tudors? He had no books at Pisa except Kung and that poetry anthology he picked up in the latrine, so he's remembering something he'd read--perhaps read long ago. The names Howard and Boleyn in the blood and sunset context suggest he's thinking of two of the wives of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, both beheaded. But why these two people? My guess is that he's remembering a historical novel by one of his friends like Maurice Hewlett who wrote in that genre. Can anyone pin this down? Cheers-- Wayne