The Anathemata
Keel, Ram, Stauros (continued)
Or horizontal’d ?
ceremonially dressed
the whole complement paraded
awaiting the venerable man
his pallid boy with his book and bucket.
His homily’s text:
‘Satur fu fere Mars
—leap the limes!
He can gloss text and context
for a park of ordnance.2
Asperged?a
the better to wear-down the proud?
David Jones notes
2 Cf. The Hymn of the Arval Brethren:
Satur fu fere Mars: limen sali
which is said to mean:
‘Be satiated fierce Mars, leap the threshold’ but which, it is thought, may have originally run:
‘Be thou sower, sower Mars, sow the soil.’
So that the priest come to bless the siege-engines, in substituting ‘frontier’ for ‘threshold’ is only underlining a metamorphosis already suffered by Mars the agriculture god.
additional notes
DJ note 1: In ancient Roman religion, the Arval Brethren (Latin: Fratres Arvales, ‘Brothers of the Fields’) were a body of priests who offered annual sacrifices to the gods to guarantee good harvests.
see also
semantic structures
glossary
a asperge: to sprinkle with holy water.
comments
Although there is no whitespace in the text separating the first line here from the previous one of the page, the sense clearly demands it, because the poem takes a turn here, to the idea of Ram; compare the big whitespace before ‘vertical’d’ on page 178 marking the turn from Ram to Stauros.
A Ram is a Roman siege engine seen as a horizontal timber construction. The army is awaiting the priest of Mars with his acolyte holding a bucket of holy water to come and bless it.