The Anathemata
Sherthursdaye and Venus day (continued)
He does what is done in many places
what he does other
he does after the mode
of what has always been done.
What did he do other
recumbent at the garnished supper?
What did he do yet other
riding the Axile Tree?
David Jones notes
additional notes
DJ thought it important to note the allusion to the medieval hymn Pange Lingua which contains the phrase Recumbens cum fratribus (‘reclining with his brethren’) referring to the Last Supper.
Axile Tree: The motto of the Carthusians (founded 1084) is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, Latin for ‘The cross is steady while the world is turning (around it)’ — ‘the still centre of the turning world’.
comments
A re-statement of the theme, that all man’s ritual acts of sacrifice are fundamentally one, with particular reference to the Last Supper and Crucifixion and the return to the Mass with which the poem started.