luka

Well-known member
flowing toward the Villa Catullo

where with sound ever moving

in diminutive poluphloisboios


loud-roaring. Homeric epithet for the sea.
 

luka

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Giachino Nicoletti - prefect at Gardone he negotiated between Mussolini and the socialists at the time of the Salo government
 

luka

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Cosa deve... ginnocchion-why must it continue? if i fall, i'll not fall on my knees
 

luka

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you could of picked a shorter one but as it is i should be finished by the end of the year. imagine if i was actually trying to research this myself instead of copying and pasting.
 

luka

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and with one day’s reading a man may have the key in his hands
Lute of Gassir. Hooo Fasa ( Canto LXXIV , 842/427)

‘Gassire’s Lute’ is the anthropologist Leo Frobenius’ title for a published section of the Dausi epic which purports to record the founding of Wagadu, the ancient West African Empire of Ghana. ‘Hooo Fasa’ means, approximately, ‘Hail [the city of] Fasa!’ – the fourth legendary city of the Wagadu empire . The relevant section of Frobenius’ original text (translated by Douglas Fox) is as follows:

The smith made the lute. The smith brought the lute to Gassire. Gassire struck on the lute. The lute did not sing. Gassire said: ‘Look here, the lute does not sing.’ […] The smith said: ‘This is a piece of wood. It cannot sing if it has no heart. You must give it a heart. Carry this piece of wood on your back when you go into battle. The wood must ring with the stroke of your sword. The wood must absorb down-dripping blood, blood of your blood, breath of your breath. Your pain must be its pain, your fame its fame. The wood may no longer be like the wood of a tree, but must be penetrated by and be a part of your people. Therefore it must live not only with you but with your sons. Then will the tone that comes from your heart echo in the ear of your son and live on in the people, and your son’s life blood, oozing out of his heart, will run down your body and live on in this piece of wood.
 

luka

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this line introduces the folk song about Wagadu which is an important motif in LXXIV and in The Cantos as a whole, as it concerns the recurrent destruction and rebuilding of an ideal city - Dioce, etc.
 

luka

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The traditions described the kingdom as having been founded by a man named Dinga, who came "from the east" (e.g., Aswan, Egypt[10]), after which he migrated to a variety of locations in western Sudan, in each place leaving children by different wives. In order to achieve power in his final location he had to kill a goblin, and then marry his daughters, who became the ancestors of the clans that were dominant in the region at the time of the recording of the religion
 

luka

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His writings with Douglas Fox were a channel through which some African traditional storytelling and epic entered European literature. This applies in particular to Gassire's lute, an epic from West Africa which Frobenius had encountered in Mali. Ezra Pound corresponded with Frobenius from the 1920s, initially on economic topics. The story made its way into Pound's Cantos through this connection.

In the 1930s, Frobenius claimed that he had found proof of the existence of the lost continent of Atlantis.[7]
 

luka

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les six potences etc

the six gallows/Forgive, may you forgive us all

Villon’s Epitaph (Ballade of the Hanged Men)​


Villon’s Epitaph (Ballade of the Hanged Men)

O brother men who after us remain,
Do not look coldly on the scene you view,
For if you pity wretchedness and pain,
God will the more incline to pity you.
You see us hang here, half a dozen who
Indulged the flesh in every liberty
Till it was pecked and rotted, as you see,
And these our bones to dust and ashes fall.
Let no one mock our sorry company,
But pray to God that He forgive us all.

If we have called you brothers, don’t disdain
The appellation, though alas it’s true
That not all men are equal as to brain,
And that our crimes and blunders were not few.
Commend us, now that we are dead, unto
The Virgin Mary’s son, in hopes that He
Will not be sparing of His clemency,
But save our souls, which Satan would enthrall.
We’re dead now, brothers; show your charity
And pray to God that He forgive us all.

We have been rinsed and laundered by the rain,
And by the sunlight dried and blackened too.
Magpie and crow have plucked our eyeballs twain
And cropped our eyebrows and the beards we grew.
Nor have we any rest at all, for to
And fro we sway at the wind’s fantasy,
Which has no object, yet would have us be
(Pitted like thimbles) at its beck and call.
Do not aspire to our fraternity,
But pray to God that He forgive us all.
Prince Jesus, we implore Your Majesty
To spare us Hell’s distress and obloquy;
We want no part of what may there befall.
And, mortal men, let’s have no mockery,
But pray to God that He forgive us all.



[Translated by Richard Wilbur]
 

luka

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Barabbas is mentioned in all four gospels of the New Testament: Matthew 27:15–26; Mark 15:6–15; Luke 23:18–24; and John 18:40. His life intersects that of Christ at the trial of Jesus.

Jesus was standing before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who had already declared Jesus innocent of anything worthy of death (Luke 23:15). Pilate knew that Jesus was being railroaded and it was “out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him” (Mark 15:10), so he looked for a way to release Jesus and still keep the peace. Pilate offered the mob a choice: the release of Jesus or the release of Barabbas, a well-known criminal who had been imprisoned “for an insurrection in the city, and for murder” (Luke 23:19).

The release of a Jewish prisoner was customary before the feast of Passover (Mark 15:6). The Roman governor granted clemency to one criminal as an act of goodwill toward the Jews whom he governed. The choice Pilate set before them could not have been more clear-cut: a high-profile killer and rabble-rouser who was unquestionably guilty, or a teacher and miracle-worker who was demonstrably innocent. The crowd chose Barabbas to be released.
 
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