30

33

where the same are now on the walls. Four hundred
ducats to be paid back to the *abbazia* by the said swindling
Cardinal or his heirs.

grnnh! rrnnh, pthg.

Wheels, plaustra, oxen under night-shield,
And on the 13th of August: Aloysius Purtheo
The next abbot to Sigismundo, receipt for 200 ducats
Corn-salve for the damage done in that scurry.

And there was the row about that German-Burgundian female

And it was his messianic year, Poliocetes,
but he was being a bit too POLUMETIS

And the Venetians wouldn't give him six months vacation.

And he went down to the old brick heap of Pèsaro
and waited for Feddy

And Feddy finally said “I am coming! . . .
. . . to help Alessandro.”

And he said: “This time Mister Feddy has done it.”

He said: “Broglio, I’m the goat. This time
Mr. Feddy has done it (m’la calata).”

And he'd lost his job with the Venetians,

And the stone didn't come in from Istria:

And we sent men to the silk war;

And Wattle never paid up on the nail
Though we signed on with Milan and Florence;

And he set up the bombards in muck down by Vada
where nobody else could have set 'em
and he took the wood out of the bombs
and made 'em of two scoops of metal

And the jobs getting smaller and smaller,
Until he signed on with Siena;
And that time they grabbed his post-bag.

And what was it, anyhow?
Pitigliano, a man with a ten acre lot,

Two lumps of tufa,
and they'd taken his pasture land from him,
And Sidg had got back their horses,
and he had two big lumps of tufa
with six hundred pigs in the basements.

And the poor devils were dying of cold

And this is what they found in the post-bag:

*“Magnifice ac potens domine, mi singularissime*

*“I advise yr. Lordship how I have been with master Alwidge who*

Ex Arimino
die xx Decembris

Orsini

34

" has shown me the design of the nave that goes in the middle of
" the church and the design for the roof and ..."

"JHesus,

"Magnifico exso. Signor Mio

" Since today I am recommanded that I hav to tel you my father's
" opinium that he has shode to Mr. Genare about the valts of the
" cherch... etc....

" Giovane of Master alwise P.S. I think it advisabl that I shud go
" to rome to talk to mister Albert so as I can no what he thinks
" about it rite.

"Sagramoro..."

" Illustre signor mio, Messire Battista......"

" First: Ten slabs best red, seven by 15, by one third,

" Eight ditto, good red, 15 by three by one,

" Six of same, 15 by one by one.

" Eight columns 15 by three by one third

etc.... with carriage, danars 151

Ixotta
da Rimini

"MONSEIGNEUR:

" Madame Isotta has had me write today about Sr. Galeazzo's
" daughter. The man who said young pullets make thin soup, knew
" what he was talking about. We went to see the girl the other
" day, for all the good that did, and she denied the whole matter,
" and kept her end up without losing her temper. I think Madame
" Ixotta very nearly exhausted the matter. Mi pare che avea decto
" hogni chossia. All the children are well. Where you are everyone
" is pleased and happy because of your taking the chateau here we
" are the reverse as you might say drifting without a rudder. Madame
" Lucrezia has probably, or should have, written to you, I suppose
" you have the letter by now. Everyone wants to be remembered to
" you.
21 Dec. D. de M."

"... sagramoro to put up the derricks. There is a supply of
" beams at..."

" MAGNIFICENT LORD WITH DUE REVERENCE:

"Messire Malatesta is well and asks for you every day. He
" is so much pleased with his pony, It wd. take me a month to
" write you all the fun he gets out of that pony. I want to again
" remind you to write to Georgio Rambottom or to his boss to fix
" up that wall to the little garden that madame Isotta uses, for it is
" all flat on the ground now as I have already told him a lot of
" times, for all the good that does, so I am writing to your lordship/

35

" in the matter I have done all that I can, for all the good that
" does as nobody hear can do anything without you.

" your faithful

LUNARDA DA PALLA.

"... gone over it with all the foremen and engineers. And about
" the silver for the small medal..."

" Magnifice ac poten ...

" because the walls of ..."

" Malatesta de Malatestis ad Magnificum Dominum Patremque suum.

" Exmo Domo et Domeno sin Domo Sigismundum Pandolfi Filium

" Malatestis Capitan General

" Magnificent and Exalted Lord and Father in especial my lord with
" due recommendation: your letter has been presented to me by
" Gentilino da Gradara and with it the bay pony (ronzino baiectino)
" the which you have sent me, and which appears in my eyes a fine
" caparison'd charger, upon which I intend to learn all there is to
" know about riding, in consideration of yr. paternal affection for
" which I thank your excellency thus briefly and pray you continue
" to hold me in this esteem notifying you by the bearer of this that
" we are all in good health, as I hope and desire your Exmo Lordship
" is also: with continued remembrance I remain

Young
Salustio

Your son and servant

MALATESTA DE MALATESTIS.

" ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE:

" Unfitting as it is that I should offer counsels to Hannibal..."

" Magnifice at potens domine, domini mi singularissime, humili reco-
" mendatione permissa etc. This to advise your Mamo Ldhp how the
" second load of Veronese marble has finally got here, after being
" held up at Ferrara with no end of fuss and botheration, the whole
" of it having been there unloaded.

" I learned how it happened, and it has cost a few florins to get
" back the said load which had been seized for the skipper's debt
" and defalcation; he having fled when the lighter was seized. But
" that Yr Mamo Ldhp may not lose the moneys paid out on his account

Trachulo

36

33

"I have had the lighter brought here and am holding it, against his
"arrival. If not we still have the lighter.

"As soon as the Xmas fêtes are over I will have the stone floor
"laid in the sacresty, for which the stone is already cut. The wall
"of the building is finished and I shall now get the roof on.

"We have not begun putting new stone into the martyr chapel;
"first because the heavy frosts wd. certainly spoil the job; secondly
"because the aliofants aren't yet here and one can't get the measure-
"ments for the cornice to the columns that are to rest on the
"aliofants.

"They are doing the stairs to your room in the castle ... I
"have had Messire Antonio degli Atti's court paved and the stone
"benches put in it.

"Ottavian is illuminating the bull. I mean the bull for the chapel.
"All the stone-cutters are waiting for spring weather to start work
"again.

"The tomb is all done except part of the lid, and as soon as
"Messire Agostino gets back from Cesena I will see that he finishes
"it, ever recommending me to y: M. Ld.

" believe me y: faithful

" PETRUS GENARIUS."

That's what they found in the post-bag

And some more of it to the effect that
he "lived and ruled"

"et amava perdutamente Ixotta degli Atti"
"e "ne fu degna"

"constans in proposito

"Placuit oculis principis

"pulchra aspectu"

"populo grata (Italïaque decus)

"and built a temple so full of pagan works"
i.e. Sigismund

and in the style "Past ruin'd Latium"

The flagree hiding the gothic,
with a touch of rhetoric in the whole

And the old sarcophagi,
such as lie, smothered in grass, by San Vitale.

34

AND the poor devils dying of cold, outside Sorano,
And from the other side, from inside the château,
Orsini, Count Pitigliano, on the 17th of November:
"Siggy, darlint, wd. you not stop making war on insensible
"objects, such as trees and domestic vines, that have no
"means to hit back... but if you will hire yourself out to
"a commune (Siena) which you ought rather to rule than
"serve..."

which with Trachulo's damn'd epistle ...
And what of it anyhow? a man with a ten acre lot,
Pitigliano.... a lump of tufa,

And S. had got back their horses
And the poor devils dying of cold ...

(And there was another time, you know,
He signed on with the Fanesi,

and just couldn't be bothered ...)
And there were three men on a one man job

And Careggi wanting the baton,
And not getting it just now in any case.

And he, Sigismundo, refused an invitation to lunch
In commemoration of Carmagnola
(vide Venice, between the two columns
where Carmagnola was executed.)

Et

"anno messo a saccho el signor Sigismundo"

As Filippo Strozzi wrote to Zan Lottieri, then in Naples,
"I think they'll let him through at Campiglia"

Fierment, Archibyn Storin, 4th Series, v. iii. e.
"La Guerra dei Senzi et cœur di Pitigliano."

And he found Carlo Gonzaga sitting like a mud-frog
in Orbetello

And he said:
"Caro mio, I can not receive you

It really is not the moment."

And Broglio says he ought to have tipped Gorro Lolli.

But he got back home here somehow,
And Piccinino was out of a job,

Ei

38

And the old row with Naples continued.
And what he said was all right in Mantua;
And Borso had the pair of them up to Bel Fiore,
The pair of them, Sigismundo and Federico Urbino,
Or perhaps in the palace, Ferrara, Sigismund upstairs
And Urbino's gang in the basement,
And a regiment of guards in, to keep order,
For all the good that did:

"Te cavero la budella del corpo!"

El conte levatosi:

"Io te cavero la corata a te!"

And that day Cosimo smiled,
That is, the day they said:

"Drusiana is to marry Count Giacomo . . ." (Piccinino) un sorriso malizioso.

Drusiana, another of Franco Sforza's;
It would at least keep the row out of Tuscany.
And he fell out of a window, Count Giacomo,
Three days after his death, that was years later in Naples,
For trusting Ferdinando of Naples,
And old Wattle could do nothing about it.

Et:

NTEREA PRO GRADIBUS BASILICÆ S. PIETRI
EX ARIDA MATERIA INGENS PYRA EXTRUITUR IN
CUJUS SUMMITATE IMAGO SIGISMUNDI COLLOCATUR
HOMINIS LINEAMENTA, ET VESTIMENTI MODUM ADEO
PROPRIE REDDENS, UT VERA MAGIS PERSONA, QUAM
IMAGO VIDERETUR; NE QUEM TAMEN IMAGO
FALLERET, ET SCRIPTURA EX ORE PRODIIT, QUÆ
DICERET: SIGISMUNDUS HIC EGO SUM
MALATESTA, FILIUS PANDULPHI, REX PRODITORUM,
DEO ATQUE HOMINIBUS INFESTUS, SACRI CENSURA
SENATUS IGNI DAMNATUS;

SCRIPTURUM
MULTI LEGERUNT. DEINDE ASTANTE POPULO, IGNI
IMMISSO, ET PYRA SIMULACRUM REPENTE FLAGRAVIT.

Com. Pio II. Luv. vii. p. 85

VIAKARTI, p. 288.

So that in the end that pot-scraping little runt Andreas
Benzi, da Siena

Got up to spout out the bunkum

39

That that monstrous swollen, swelling s.o.b.

Papa Pio Secundo
Æneas Silvius Piccolomini
da Siena

Had told him to spout, in their best bear's-greased latinity

Stupro, cæde, adulter,
homocidia, parricidia ac periurus,
presbitericidia, audax, libidinosus,
wives, jew-girls, nuns, necrophiliast, fornicarium ac sicarium,
proditor, raptor, incestuosus, incendiarius, ac
concubinarius,
and that he rejected the whole symbol of the apostles,
and that he said the monks ought not to own property
and that he disbelieved in the temporal power,
neither christian, jew, gentile,
nor any sect pagan, nisi forsitan epicured.

And that he did among other things
Empty the fonts of the chiexa of holy water
And fill up the same full with ink
That he might in God's dishonour
Stand before the doors of the said chiexa
Making mock of the inky faithful, they
Issuing thence by the doors in the pale light of the sunrise
Which might be considered youthful levity
but was really a profound indication;

" Whence that his, Sigismundo's, fœtor filled the earth
And stank up through the air and stars to heaven
Where—save they were immune from sufferings—
It had made the emparadised spirits pewk"
from their jeweled terrace

" Lussurioso, incestuoso, perfide, sozzure ac crapulone
assassino, ingordo, avaro, superbo, infidele
fattore di monete false, sodomitico, uxoricido,"


and the whole lump lot
given over to . . .

I mean after Pio had said, or at least Pio says that he
Said that this was elegant oratory "Orationem
Elegantissimam et ornatissimam
Audivimus venerabilis in Xti fratres ac dilectissimi

Eij

40

filii . . . (stone in his bladder
*testibus idoneis*)

The lump lot given over

To that kid-slapping fanatic il cardinale di San Pietro in Vincoli
To find him guilty, of the lump lot

As he duly did, calling rumour, and Messire Federico d'Urbino

And other equally unimpeachable witnesses.

So they burnt our brother in effigy

A rare magnificent effigy costing 8 florins 48 bol

(i.e. for the pair, as the first one wasn't a good enough likeness)

And Borso said the time was ill-suited

to tanta novità, such doings or innovations,

God's enemy and man's enemy, stuprum, raptum

I.N.R.I. Sigismund Imperator, Rex Proditorum.

And old Pills who tried to get him into a front rank action

In order to drive the rear guard at his buttocks

Old Pills listed among the murdered, although he

Came out of jail living later.

*Et les angloys ne povans desraciner . . . venin de hayne*

Had got back Gisors from the Angevins,

And the Angevins were gunning after Naples

And we dragged in the Angevins,

And we dragged in Louis Eleventh,

And the tiers Calixte was dead, and Alfonso;

And against us we had "this Æneas" and young Ferdinando

That we had smashed at Piombino and driven out of the
Terrene of the Florentines;

And Piccinino, out of a job;

And he, Sidg, had had three chances of

Making it up with Alfonso, and an offer of

Marriage alliance;

And what he said was all right there in Mantua;

But Pio, sometime or other, Pio lost his pustulous temper.

And they struck alum at Tolfa, in the pope's land,
To pay for their devilment.

And Francesco said:

I also have suffered.

When you take it, give me a slice.

And they nearly jailed a chap for saying

41

The job was mal hecho; and they caught poor old Pasti

In Venice, and were like to pull all his teeth out;

And they had a bow-shot at Borso

As he was going down the Grand Canal in his gondola
(the nice kind with 26 barbs on it)

And they said: Novvy'll sell any man

for the sake of Count Giacomo.

(Piccinini, the one that fell out of the window).

And they came at us with their ecclesiastical legates

Until the eagle lit on his tent pole.

And he said: The Romans would have called that an augury

*E gradment li antichi cavaler romanj*

davano fed a quisti annutti,

All I want you to do is to follow the orders,

They've got a bigger army,

but there are more men in this camp.

37

THE
ELEVENTH
CANTO

davano fed a quisti annutii

And he put us under the chiefs,
and the chiefs went back to their squadrons:
Bernardo Reggio, Nic Benzo, Giovan Nestorno,
Paulo Viterbo, Buardino of Brescia,
Cetho Brandolino,

And Simone Malespina, Petracco St Archangelo, Rioberto da Canossa,
And for the tenth Agniolo da Roma

And that gay bird Piero della Bella,

And to the eleventh Roberto,
And the papishes were three thousand on horses, dilly cavalli tre milia,
And a thousand on foot,

And the Lord Sigismundo had but mille tre cento cavalli

And hardly 500 fanti (and one spingard),

And we beat the papishes and fought them back through the tents

And he came up to the dyke again

And fought through the dyke-gate

And it went on from dawn to sunset

And we broke them and took their baggage

and mille cinquecento cavalli

E li homini di Messire Sigismundo non furono che mille trecento

And the Venetians sent in their compliments

And various and sundry sent in their compliments;

But we got it next August;

And Roberto got beaten at Fano,

And he went by ship to Tarentum,

I mean Sidg went to Tarentum

And he found 'em, the anti-Aragons,

busted and weeping into their beards.

And they, the papishes, came up to the walls,

And that nick-nosed s.o.b. Teddy Urbino

Said: "*Par che e fuor di questo ... Sigis ... mundo.*"

"They say he dodders about the streets

"And can put his hand to neither one thing nor the other,"

And he was in the sick wards, and on the high tower

And everywhere, keeping us at it.

43

And, thank God, they got the sickness outside

And we had the sickness inside.

And they had neither town nor castello

But dey got de mos' bloody rottenes' peace on us—

Quali lochi sono questi:

Sogliano,

Torrano and La Serra, Sbrigara, San Martino,

Ciola, Pondo, Spinello, Cigna and Buchio,

Prataline, Monte Cogruzzo,

and the villa at Rufiano

Right up to the door-yard

And anything else the Rev'mo Monsignore could remember.

And the water-rights on the Savio.

(And the salt heaps with the reed mats on them

Gone long ago to the Venetians)

And when lame Novvy died, they got even Cesena.

And he wrote to young Piero:

Send me a couple of huntin' dogs,

They may take my mind off it.

And one day he was sitting in the chiexa,

On a bit of cornice, a bit of stone grooved for a cornice,

Too narrow to fit his big beam,

hunched up and noting what was done wrong,

And an old woman came in and giggled to see him

sitting there in the dark

She nearly fell over him,

And he thought:

Old Zuliano is finished,

If he's left anything we must see the kids get it,

Write that to Robert.

And Vanni must give that peasant a decent price for his horses,
Say that I will refund:

And the writs run in Fano,

For the long room over the arches

Sub annulo piscatoris, palatium seu curiam OLIM de Malatestis.

Gone, and Cesena, Zezena d'e b'e colonne,

And the big diamond pawned in Venice

And he gone out into Morea,

Where they sent him to do in the Mo'ammeds,

With 5,000 against 25,000,

and he nearly died out in Sparta,

Morea, Lakedæmon,

and came back with no pep in him

44 And we sit here. I have sat here

For forty four thousand years,
And they trapped him down here in the marsh land,
in '46 that was;

And the poor devils dying of cold, that was Rocca Sorano;
And he said in his young youth:

Vogliamo,
che le donne, we will that they, le donne, go ornate,
As be their pleasure, for the city's glory thereby.

And Platina said afterward,
when they jailed him

And the Accademia Romana, for singing to Zeus in the catacombs,
Yes, I saw him when he was down here

Ready to murder fatty Barbo, "Formosus,"

And they want to know what we talked about?

"de litteris et de armis, præstantibusque ingeniis,
Both of ancient times and our own; books, arms,
And of men of unusual genius,

Both of ancient times and our own, in short the usual subjects
Of conversation between intelligent men."

And he with his luck gone out of him

64 lances in his company, and his pay 8,000 a year,

64 and no more, and he not to try to get any more

And all of it down on paper

sexaginta quatuor nec tentatur habere plures
But leave to keep 'em in Rimini

i.e. to watch the Venetians.

Damn pity he didn't
(i.e. get the knife into him)

Little fat squab "Formosus"

Barbo said "Call me Formosus"

But the conclave wouldn't have it
and they called him Paolo Secondo.

And he left three horses at one gate
And three horses at the other,

And Fatty received him
with a guard of seven cardinals "whom he could trust."

And the castelan of Montefiore wrote down,
"You'd better keep him out of the district.

"When he got back here from Sparta, the people

"Lit fires, and turned out yelling: 'PANDOLFO'!"

45

In the gloom, the gold gathers the light against it.

And one day he said: Henry, you can have it,
On condition, you can have it: for four months
You'll stand any reasonable joke that I play on you,
And you can joke back

provided you don't get too ornry.

And they put it all down in writing:
For a green cloak with silver brocade

Actum in Castro Sigismundo, presente Roberto de Valturibus
... sponte et ex certa scientia ... to Enricho de Aquabello.

Fi

13

THE
TWELFTH
CANGO

ND we sit here
under the wall,
Arena romana, Diocletian's, les gradins
quarante-trois rangées en calcaire.

Baldy Bacon
bought all the little copper pennies in Cuba:
Un centavo, dos centavos,
told his peons to "bring 'em in."

"Bring 'em to the main shack," said Baldy,
And the peons brought 'em;

"to the main shack brought 'em,"
As Henry would have said.

Nicholas Castaño in Habana,
He also had a few centavos, but the others
Had to pay a percentage.

Percentage when they wanted centavos,
Public centavos.

Baldy's interest
Was in money business.

"No interest in any other kind uv bisnis,"
Said Baldy.

Sleeping with two buck niggers chained to him,
Guardia regia, chained to his waist
To keep 'em from slipping off in the night;
Being by now unpopular with the Cubans;
By fever reduced to 1/3 108.

Returned to Manhattan, ultimately to Manhattan.

24 E. 47th, when I met him,
Doing job printing, i.e., agent,

going to his old acquaintances,
His office in Nassau St., distributing jobs to the printers,

Commercial stationery,
and later, insurance,

Employers' liability,
odd sorts of insurance,

Fire on brothels, etc., commission,
Rising from 15 dollars a week,

Pollon d'anthropon idem,
Knew which shipping companies were most careless;
where a man was most likely

To lose a leg in bad hoisting machinery;

Also fire, as when passing a whore-house,

Arrived, miraculous Hermes, by accident,
Two minutes after the proprietor's angelos

Had been sent for him.
Saved his people 11,000 in four months

on that Cuba job,

But they bustèd,
Also ran up to 40,000 bones on his own,
Once, but wanted to "eat up the whole'r Wall St."

And dropped it all three weeks later.
Habitat cum Quade, damn good fellow,

Mons Quade who wore a monocle on a wide sable ribbon.
(Elsewhere recorded).

Dos Santos, José Maria dos Santos,
Hearing that a grain ship

Was wrecked in the estuary of the Tagus,
Bought it at auction, nemo obstabat,
No one else bidding. "Damn fool!" "Maize

Spoiled with salt water,
No use, can't do anything with it." Dos Santos.

All the stuff rotted with sea water.
Dos Santos Portuguese lunatic bought it,

Mortgaged then all his patrimony,
e tot lo sieu aver,

And bought sucking pigs, pigs, small pigs,
Porkers, throughout all Portugal,
fed on the cargo,

First lot mortgaged to buy the second lot, undsoweiter,
Porkers of Portugal,

fattening with the fulness of time,

And Dos Santos fattened, a great landlord of Portugal
Now gathered to his fathers.

Did it on water-soaked corn.

(Water probably fresh in that estuary)
Go to hell Apovitch, Chicago aint the whole punkin.

Fij

47