Page "The Cantos" Paragraph 37

Canto LXXXI opens with a complex image that illustrates well Pound's technical approach.

The opening line, " Zeus lies in Ceres ' bosom ", merges the conception of Demeter, passages in previous cantos on ritual copulation as a means of ensuring fertility, and the direct experience of the sun ( Zeus ) still hidden at dawn by two hills resembling breasts in the Pisan landscape.

This is followed by an image of the other mountain that reminded the poet of Taishan surrounded by vapors and surmounted by the planet Venus (" Taishan is attended of loves / under Cythera, before sunrise ").