Cecco del Caravaggio, Christ Expels the Money-changers, 1610. Courtesy Humane Pursuits.
The Ballad of the Goodly Fere is a poem by Ezra Pound, originally published in his 1909 book Exultations. The narrator is Simon Zelotes, speaking after the Crucifixion about his memories of Jesus, the "goodly fere" (Old English for "companion") of the title.[1]
Ballad of the Goodly Fere[]
Simon Zelotes speaketh it somewhile after the Crucifixion.
Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O’ ships and the open sea.
When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
“First let these go!” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Or I’ll see ye damned,” says he.
Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears
And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
“Why took ye not me when I walked about
Alone in the town?” says he.
Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine
When we last made company.
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere,
But a man o’ men was he.
I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men
Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free.
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.
They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book, I think,
Though they write it cunningly;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.
If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
“I’ll go to the feast,” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Though I go to the gallows tree.”
“Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead,” says he.
“Ye shall see one thing to master all:
’Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.”
A son of God was the Goodly Fere
That bade us his brothers be.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men.
I have seen him upon the tree.
He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free.
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue,
But never a cry cried he.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o’ Galilee.
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi’ his eyes like the gray o’ the sea.
Like the sea that brooks no voyaging,
With the winds unleashed and free,
Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi’ twey words spoke suddently.
A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb
Sin’ they nailed him to the tree.
Fere = Mate, Companion
Origin[]
Pound wrote the poem as a direct response to what he considered inappropriately effeminate portrayals of Jesus, comparing Jesus -- a "man o' men" -- to "capon priest(s)";[2] he subsequently told T.P.'s Weekly that he had "been made very angry by a certain sort of cheap irreverence".[3]
Critical reception[]
Charles Elkin Mathews expressed his concerns that readers would find Fere's humanization of Jesus offensive.[4]
Edward Marsh sought permission to reprint Fere, which Pound denied because he wished to reprint it himself.[3]
T.S. Eliot said that Fere showed Pound's "great knowledge of the ballad form".[5]
William Butler Yeats said that Fere "will last".[6]
See also[]
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References[]
Notes[]
- ↑ Ezra Pound, "Ballad of the Goodly Fere," Exultations. London: Elkin Mathews, 1909. Project Gutenberg, Web, Apr. 8, 2023.
- ↑ The Last Temptation Reconsidered by Carol Iannone, from First Things 60, February 1996
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 A Guide to Ezra Pound's Personae: 1926 by K. K. Ruthven, University of California Press, 1969]
- ↑ Ezra Pound: poet. A Portrait of the Man & His Work. Volume 1: The young genius, 1885-1920, by Anthony David Moody, Oxford University Press, 2007
- ↑ T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry". New York: Knopf, 1917.
- ↑ The Work of Ezra Pound by Carl Sandburg, originally published in Poetry, February 1916
External links[]
- Text
- Text of the poem, via Google Books
- About
- "Ezra Pound and the Unexpected Fere" at Humane Pursuits