The Anathemata
Middle-sea and Lear-sea (continued)
One hundred and sixty-seven years
since Tiberius Gracchusa
wept for the waste-land
and the end of the beginnings
. . . arid where I had a vineyard
on a very fruitful hill fenced and wateredb
the syndicate’s agent
pays-off the ranch operatives
(his bit from the Urbs
waits in the car).
David Jones notes
additional notes
a Tiberius Gracchus (born c. 169-164 BCE – died c. 133 BCE) was a Roman Populist politician of the 2nd century BCE. As a plebeian tribune, he caused political turmoil in the Republic with his reforms of agrarian legislation that sought to transfer wealth from the wealthy, patricians and otherwise, to the poor. These reforms threatened the holdings of rich landowners (the ‘syndicate’) in Italy. He was murdered, along with many of his supporters, by members of the Roman Senate and supporters of a conservative faction; needless to say, the redistribution did not succeed. This dates the time of the text to 33 or 34 CE. For more details see the article in Wikipedia.
b This is a biblical quotation from Isaiah 5:1-2: ‘Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill/ And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine’.
comments
A new theme is beginning to emerge here: the beginnings of civilisation. Although Rome has its in(or con)ception in the assumed right of domination of man over woman, the poet has begun to question other asssumed rights: that of the conqueror over the conquered (Etruscans/Romans) and that of the rich over the poor (landgrabbers/dispossessed). Such questions mark the beginnings of a more civilised morality. Jesus was aware of this.