The Anathemata
Sherthursdaye and Venus day (continued)
past anenome-
dell where poor Ishtar is a-weeping in the burning sun of day
where her precious
bloods the flowery carpet she shall kneel
at the tum of the hog-track.
Up by the parched concentric bends over the cariousa demarcations between the tawny ramps and the gone-fallow lynchetsb
into vision-lands.
On to one of the mountains there
on an indicated hill
not on any hill
but on Ariel Hill
that is as three green hills of Tegeingl1
in one:
the hill of the out-cry
the hill of dereliction
the moel of the mamau2
that is all help-heights
the mound of the in-cries.
Of which cry?
His, by whom all oreogenesis is
his hill-cry who cries from his own oreosc .
Ante collesd he is and
before the fleeting hills
in changing order stood.
David Jones notes
1 Tegeingl, teg-ine-gl, stress accent on first syllable, gl as gle in angle.
There are three hills of which my father used to speak to be seen from the vicinity of his birthplace in that part of Wales once called Tegeingl, now called Flintshire. Y Foel-y-Crio, the Hill of the Cry, Moel Famau, Hill of the Mothers, and Moel Ffagnallt, which I was once told signified hill of despair or dereliction, but I can find no confirmation of this supposed meaning nor anything resembling it. As, however, that is the meaning I associated with it from an early age, and as it has become integrated with the text I shall retain it.
2 moel, moil, hill; mamau, mothers. As has already been noted, the Welsh au rhymes with the ei in heights, and in this case has assonance with ‘out-cry’ and ‘in-cries’.
additional notes
see also
semantic structures
glossary
a carious: having surface depressions.
b lynchet: a strip of land left unploughed between furrows.
c oreos (correctly oros): mountain (Greek).
d ante colles: before the mountains (Latin).
comments
Abraham is imagined as journeying to Ariel Hill through bare stony country, foreshadowing Christ’s journey to the hill of Calvary, hence the sense of desolation and despair.