It was not until 1985 that the principal Greek model for this poem was discovered by Joan Retallack.14
14. "H.D., H.D." Parnassus: Poetry in Review 12 (1985): 67-88, here 70-71.I don't have access to Retallack's article.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Pereant Qui Ante Nos Nostra Dixerunt
I thought I was the first to discover the ancient Greek source of H.D.'s poem Priapus Keeper-of-Orchards, but I wasn't. Ian Jackson sent me a copy of Robert G. Babcock, "Verses, Translations, and Reflections from 'The Anthology': H.D., Ezra Pound, and the Greek Anthology," Sagetrieb 14.1-2 (Spring and Fall, 1995) 201-216, where I read (at 207):