Cultured Oyster Books

without any ownership marks or foxing, but some dog-eared preliminaries. There are a
number of elegant half-page woodcut designs throughout the text as well as chapter
heading and final vignettes. The title is difficult to translate but seems to be close to the
meaning: alleviations, or assuagements, of pain, specifically pain or suffering caused by
the death of a loved one. The text consists of a long series of structured and stylized
short ‘lenitive’ sentiments addressed to the Portuguese monarch, Pedro II, for his
assuagement on the recent death of his queen, Maria Sofia Isabella. A major portion is
devoted to an elaborate alphabetically-based listing of the various experiences of life and
the need to celebrate the joyous portions as well as suffer the inevitable vicissitudes. The
extensive marginal print notations throughout indicate that these sentiments, embodied in
allusions and quotations, are drawn principally from biblical, but also from classical and
contemporary European history and thought. We may well sense that this entire exercise
functions as an elaborate conceit on the part of the author, a Carmelite friar, to
demonstrate his own broad humanistic learning. This title is quite scarce with OCLC
recording only two copies in the U.S. $1,450.00
78. [Pound, Ezra] POETRY A MAGAZINE OF VERSE. Vol. II, No. 1, April 1913.
Fine in illustrated wrappers, partially uncut. Contains Ezra Pound’s Contemporania, a
group of 12 poems, most of which were later published in book form in Lustra. Included
are three of Pound’s best-known lyrics, Dance Figure, A Pact, and In a Station of the
Metro. Also containing The Grey Rock by William Butler Yeats, which was
simultaneously published in The British Review in London. [Gallup C76] $100.00