The Anathemata
Middle-sea and Lear-sea (continued)
How long, since
on the couch of time
departed myth
left ravished fact
till Clio, the ageing mid-wife3 found hera
nine calends gone
huge in labour with the Roman people?
[O, him! she said,
himself, m’lord
the square-pushing Strider,4 him?
and how should I?
David Jones notes
3 Kleio, ‘she that extols’ , the Muse of History.
4 Perhaps it has already become necessary to note that around about the period 1914--18 and subsequently, a ‘square-pusher’ was a soldier out courting. I do not know if the expression is still current among soldiers.
See the surname of Mars, Gradivus.
additional notes
DJ note 4: Gradivus: not, of course, a surname in the genealogical sense, but a title indicative of which aspect of the god in question was being invoked. Mars had at least half-a-dozen such titles. Mars Gradivus (from gradus, step or stride) was one of the gods by whom a general or soldiers might swear an oath to be valorous in battle.
a i.e. Rhea Silvia, the mother of Romulus and Remus. As a Vestal Virgin, she was sworn to celibacy for 30 years. She claimed that the god Mars was the father of the children. Livy says that she was raped by an unknown man, but ‘declared Mars to be the father of her illegitimate offspring, either because she really imagined it to be the case, or because it was less discreditable to have committed such an offence with a god.’ Hence ‘How should I?’. DJ neatly has it both ways: Mars Gradivus and rape.
comments
‘How long?’ The foundation of Rome is traditionally dated to 753 BCE.
‘departed myth left ravaged fact’ is a neat way of saying that myths often have little respect for the original facts of the case.
‘sacred commerce’: a bit of a medieval cliché, but here used deliberately as irony, because in her view it was neither sacred nor commerce, but rape and robbery.