No More Learning

YEH? ? dark as the devil's oxter?
leaf, arm-pits, profession, dimpled cheek, carry food to labourers in the field, choke;
can there be any focus or nexus in 19 YEH?
The first YEH: and, still, also, besides a simple graph of something that might be a
tent flap, or by stretch of imagination the flap of an arm is sleeve (such as primitive man does not wear? )
yeh 2.
You can take leaf as lateral, if you like, and the ideogram given in dictionaries as ''leaf '' you can, as well, take as shade. There are 4 yeh that fit gathering under armpit, or 5 if you count no. 1.
No. 9 contains the embedded Y and a gloriously divided top, a tree with fork: occupation, profession, the divided parts above the organic or organized tree. And from the sense of merit, listed among this yeh's meanings, you can, with perhaps excessive phantasy, suppose a title of honour. The dimpled cheek seems to start as a disagreeable black soot, found again in one of the yen.
And the YEH rad/ meaning head also means page of a book. Will the remaining 17 word sounds starting with Y shed any light on this one? Is EH separative indicating what branches off from, as leaf from forked twig or arm from body? This wd/ satisfy the 9th pictogram in the yeh list.
appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951) 223
59 YEN for ire and fire.
At least if there is any nexus between these YEN it wd/ seem to be in the fire sign, the pictogram indicating how this is applied, whether for banquet or for the ''2 accensio sanguinis circum cor. ''
It wd/ be rash to say that for beneath every Y word in chinese there is the idea of the forked sign, in this case the forked tongues of the flame, the words from the mouth. Nevertheless where two diametrically opposite meanings are given for one ideogram, or where the same components appear as is two YEN on the heart radical, differentiated only by the radical being given in two different forms, one must look for an idea that BOTH could come out of.
In the first of two YI, we have: rush together, disperse (the second is a fish hawk or the cackling of geese).
YIA is a river bank. YO indicates music and jollity, the most used showing a tree bursting into the fine white teeth of its blossom. The 4 pictograms indicate whether a winged foot or a flute serve as joy's exponent.
The YEN and the YIN
the word and the tone
35 Yin which apparently run from lewd to gums, yet do not present great difficulty to
unification. YIN 16 is ''warm genial aura, breath of nature, generative influence of heaven ''ideogram air and cause (man in enclosure) 2 and the abbreviated pictures pretty well guide one as to direction and modus of this influence with the forked Y idea coming to the surface now and again.
YIN is emphaticly the INNER, it is the partner of the YANG the feminine as against the masculine, but always the inner, the YIN (tone) is the build up over the sun yin 29 (treasure or silver) if we take it the hidden. The 12th ideogram is given the alternative sound of AN, peaceful, composed.
6, 17, 18, lewd, soak, sink are all nicely and satiricly pictured.
Note that the YIN shade is dark because inner as in contrast to the outer PEH (north) cold and darkness. And looking at the points of the compass we must follow associations of suavity of the South; NG the energetic or active sun coming up from the earth in the East, HSI in relation with the low gentle light of the sunset. With P in the North, and the operant pivot CHUNG in the centre (the chinese give these as the FIVE points of their compass, a symptom of their solid sense as distinct from the infamies passing for intelligence in the occident.
I think we shd. probably translate NE^NG circumflex as the capacity to do a thing quietly and K'e^ (circumflex) to imply simply the requisite energy for an operation.
As to the humours of the ideographers painting YIN: the husband's house, relation by marriage, shows a female with a man in a box (or at least enclosed, I dare say the corral is the more ancient form of enclosure).
We must watch the je^n (or ge^n) in composed YIN 6, lewd, 17 soak, 32 long drenched in rain. Here the graph is clear; whereas in 18 & 23 there appears to be a WANG (king) under the HSI of the sunset. More than one foreigner has the decorum of the chinese, their reticence. I do not know whether the Je^n has any relationship with the primitive altar signs now rendered ''moreover. ''
224 appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951)
YIN is the south bank of the river, as against YANG the North side (vide supra) the ideograms for YIN to be pregnant (7) and 22, abundance can almost be read by their pictured syllables NAI, to be, with the child inside it, and nai to be more in the dish or over it. The pictogram for YIN, heir, posterity suggests a matriarchal epoch.
YING, the radiance, resonance
The ideograms are the earliest comment we have on the mentality which inherited the chinese phonetic associations. The word vibration may seem alien to cave man mentality, but the ideogram for YIN (tone) is a build up, an orderly build up over the sun.
YING No. 1 is ''the melody of many birds,'' birds calling, a simple mnemonic device for the american wd/ be to associate YING, with sing and ring. YIN tone is the ideogramicly the runs resonance. 26 YING ideograms show five with the doubled fire root above a base, two cases of the inverted Y (middle) and seven cases of the shell rad/ doubled in the upper position. The branching off sense of the forked twig inheres in most cases, specified by the graph. The dictionary word in english may not be our idea of a branch off or convergence, thus YING 2, a grave or cemetery might strain our ingenuity in finding either a Y or a radiance were it not for the graph the double fire over covered earth, anyone's guess whether this is phosphorescent hob goblin, animistic awe or trace of corpse burning. But the idea of YING as specified in generalization is present, as it is in 18 fringe, tassel, 20, glow-worm.
YING 3 concubine, 4, an infant, a suckling, here the nu ? (umlaut) female surmounted by the two opulent shells in primitive maternity, and the lactic emanation. Other YING give shadow, reflection (not the Odes, where it occurs for reflected image in water), 8 mid sun, dazzle, reflection 6 influence. 17 the awn of grain follows 16 tassel, profit, go out to welcome. 11 ocean is a graph indicating mermaids, and in combination Fairy land named in the dictionary. Column or pillar is ideogramicly spelled Tree plus YIN, to be more above the ''dish'' base depicted.
Encampment, 12 is the doubled fire over two connected squares of a plan, and the oriole shows the double fire in upper position. 10 is cherries, the Y might be the forked stems, and with mouth it? ? Tsang notes ''cherry lips. ''
If all the YING do not accord with our present way of considering radiation or Y division, most of 26 ideograms can help us in figuring out how they ''got that way'' and what sort of fringe is intended. Onomatopoeic attractions stretch fundamental associ- ations, i. e. apparent exceptions can sometimes be easily accounted for in this way, as the very learned Karlgren often indicates in his gloss to the Shih, in particular cases. 9
YU, the hand's Y closes.
The hand, that by tradition grips the moon (or, quite possibly, a moon clouded piece fat-covered meat) is present, upper left, in 10 of 40 YU, though the hasty looker might miss it in 10, more, especially blame, murmur (ascribed to a radical under which Tsang lists only three words)
YU the simple prolongation or protuberance of the central upright line from the field rad/ differs in tone from YU, to have, although tonal changes often FAIL to occur where today's western reader would think they were most needed to prevent phonetic ambiguity.
Another curious, and possibly QUITE irrelevant fact is that the sequence of graphed radicals often seems to result in the change of aspect of our conjectural phonetic radicals at
9
Bernhard Karlgren, Glosses on the Book of Odes (Stockholm: BMFEA, 1964).
appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951) 225
some definite point in the list of homophones so that all or most of one lot are above the division line. This may be pure chance or an hallucination of the present commentor.
1. YU [? ], aid, man rad/ and right or gripping hand
2. [? ] man plus have, or as one chooses, man and hand gripping? meat,
meaning to wait on.
3. [? ] Man standing beside the 15th YU, meaning melancholy, but here the
combination given as abundance, distinguished actor.
4. agree (ger/ stimmt) i. e. it grips
5. [? ] more, again
6. [? ] friend, graphed by hand above the preceding, but the tone is that
have (17th YU) evidently the grip, hand clasp, predominates in primitive idea of friendship, whatever or rather whenever the polite bow over one's own clasped hands supervened.
7. [? ] the right (as in right hand, the gripping hand, cf. YU 1. the hand that holds the weapon the TSO hand, with the work rad/ being that used one supposes in artisanship where both hands are needed.
8. [? ] park, the enclosed having, to pen up.
9. [? ] excuse, indulgent, the covered hand.
10. [? ]moreover,andtheideogramisnottobemistakenforacombination
of legs running, the upper left element is the hand. The only case so far where tonal change seems to some sort of orders is in the YU 5, 10, i. e. this one and 17, have.
The little Commercial Press dictionary translates YU 10 as best,10 still more, so that in the order 17, 5, 10 we wd/ have a sort of progress; have, more, still more (if not a superlative best, at least degrees of have. )
11. [? ] youth, delicate, graph: little strength.
12. [? ] umbrageous, space between peaks of mountain filled with ''small''
(leaves)
13. stack of grain graph showing it under cover (thatch) and stacked round a
Y inverted, as suggest at least Tyrolese customs whatever may have been
modus in early China)
14. [? ] far, sorry
15. [? ] melancholy
16. [? ] go on water, quickly, to a distant place. 17. [? ] HAVE
18. the reed of a loom
YU 4
21. [? ] a lattice
22. [? ] plan, like, a monkey
10
Chinese-English Dictionary, ed. Zhang Tiemin et al. (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1933). EP's copy (with the inscription: ''To my friend Ezra Pound, From Lyons, Milan January 1938'') is kept at the Burke Library of Hamilton College.
226 appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951)
23. [? ] plan, meaning same as preceding, save that the sign is not used to mean monkey, i. e. like, simulacrum. The graph is in fact, the headman and his dog.
24. [? ] follow, means, enter by, pass thru graph FIELD with projection.
27. elaborate graph given to mean clouds in three colours, flee in alarm
28. [? ] protect, spirit or descending light and right (hand) 29. flourish, luxuriant, a ditty.
evening moon and silk (cords) over clay bowl (of musical instrument)
30. [? ] weeds
31. 32. long for, watch
33. [? ] lead on, seduce, word rad/ and weed component
34. flatter, containing inverted Y
35. far distant, distort the foot and trench rad/ carrying the to or thru Yu ?
umlaut three stroke sign
36. [ ? ] saunter idly
37. [? ] post office etc. mound plus suspend
38. [? ] one of the 12 branches, ripe, mellow, graph looks like a bottle, and is
composed of HSI (west) plus one horizontal stroke)
39. [? ] enamel, glossy
40. [? ] ash colour, black rad/ and little strength.
Out of 40 YU we have a number of cases where the Y of the gripping hand is clearly
present, others where the meaning is clarified by the graph, and still others that it wd/ be decidedly rash to pronounce on until we have made further examination, both of the tone groups and of varied components
YU ? (umlaut) 78 characters
Can any communication be made with 78 homophones, or can 78 words have a common basis? Before we start feeling superior to man in the animalistic phases, remember that we say aye aye! and pronounce it ''I,'' we speak of in of the ins and out and of an inn.
The 78 YU ? , umlaut, have clear tonal divisions jewel, rain, fish, wings, I, give etc. are not all sounded identically BUT the tonal distinctions do NOT fall into the divisions you or I make were we inventing a new esperanto on a logical basis.
We are in fact, in the case of YU ? , umlaut, faced with one of these very early grunts that need gesture to show its meaning, or, in later phase, the pictogram or other written sign. And, in the main, YU ? umlaut is far from being our worst monkey puzzle. Me, give, in, at thru, I myself (Nos. 1, 2, 3) are all explicable homophones if we are speaking and making a gesture. A group of YU umlaut begin with 4 which is listed under the jen (man) rad/ but is clearly graphed ju (yo enter). this rad/ is clearly graphed in various compound ideograms and with similar components, moon (flesh) knife, or two chevron stood on end and pointing left, which seems to be used loosely for the knife element elsewhere) sometimes in crowded compound the little top projection to the left of the ju seems to have been obliterated.
Sometimes the graph indicates what sort of interior is intended. In the slang of at least three languages and indication of interior (videlicet ''inside,'' ''dedans'' ''dentro'' are used as
appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951) 227
polite symonyms for jail. On dit ''je ne voudrais pas vous dire, Monsieur, mais . . . il . . . eh . . . il est dedan. ''
And one also uses the word ''towards'' for ''something towards'' with indication of going well.
The simplest general term for YU ? umlaut is ''to, or toward,'' that is to say it starts from the sense of the two arms of the Y converging, in a visible number of cases.
One wd/ suppose that various primitive words have melted together, but I suspect the necessary starts are fewer than one wd/ at first suppose. The wings of the rain are in upper tone. The fish is in, and I suppose the primitive fisherman found it enough to point to the water.
The 78 YU ? umlaut need Karlgrens researches into archaic sound, that is to say, some of them do, others do not. Incidentally the idea of Cornelia's jewels seems to have preceded her.
Three YUAN mean: eyes without luster; a plant whose boiled flowers stupify fish when thrown in the water, and (3) the drake of the mandarin duck. The plant ideogram is grass over YU ? AN (No. 1) umlaut.
The moon and curl appearing as upper element of YUAN 1 and #3 occur in five cases of WAN under a cover, these rads/combined can have nothing to do with AN as the combination does not occur in any case of chan, tan, suan, san, pan, nan, luan, kuan, juan, kan, jan. An can be left till we analyze WAN, with small prospect of solving its implication. It does not occur by itself, but only in composition.
YU ? AN, umlaut, 28 cases
I don't know that these will convince the tough minded of the sense of AN suffix implying calm, calm of the yon, the far, the circumference of the heavens, the great sea turtle with cosmic associations.
YUAN in a number of cases has clearly to do with circling, enclosing, it means first, in a sign given alternate sound of WAN, it means the squirming of snakes, all of which may draw the mind to the original figuration of the encircling heaven, AN, the calm circumference. The antipathetic yu ? an might be discussed in an appendix one doesn't want to lose the main idea in too much minor detail.
YUEH, the moon, producing in graph with metal and lance YUEH No. 4 a large ax or halberd, obviously shaped like a fullish crescent, with moon
YUEH No. 1 I suppose the action of such an ax, meaning specificly to cut off the feet. Yueh 3, the name of a couple of provinces.
The YING and the MING
YING is definitely given as the ''sound of many birds. '' MING is the voice of one bird. It seems unlikely that single consonant shd/ have the general homogeneity, or say the degree of homogeneity found in Y, the sound whence both vowels and consonants branch off. And indeed the first trials of M words seem interesting, from their divergence, but discouraging. Let us see if we can sort of a few M root. Ming is bright, the sun and moon, the total light process; MEI and MENG are in certain cases dark, from definite black ink to young ignorance. MA presents several probably fortuitous to common european words, the italian ma (but) ma and old lady MA means horse, and nothing phoneticly to do with a male horse, but the sound is indubitably initial in mare.
228 appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951)
MEI is perhaps the simplest chinese M, starting with black ink, and indicated by graph in derivative, as the black eyebrow, the connotations of female eyebrow, the door's eyebrow, the streams eyebrow (all useful for budding poets), the tree branches over the eye. And where MENG has the sense of youth or stupid, the graph indicates the young animal (rad/ pig, that can enter compound cat) say kitten with grass over it, that is before its eyes are open.
Perhaps the most elusive M connotation corresponds to the latin mag- and maj-
GLOSSARY
Adams, Brooks (1848-1927). Great-grandson of John Adams and brother of Henry Adams. He was the author of The Law of Civilization and Decay (1895) and The New Empire (1902). EP praises his ''cyclic vision of the West'' in Carta da Visita (1942) and draws on his Law of Civilization and Decay in Canto 100.
Agassiz, Louis (1807-73). Swiss-American geologist and naturalist. He was the author of Recherches sur les poissons fossiles (1833-43) and a contributor to the Natural History of the United States (1857-62). He is listed in ABC of Reading (1934) and Cantos 89, 93, 94, 100, 103, 107, and 113.
Ariga Nagao (1860-1921). Japanese scholar of international law. He served as an interpreter for Ernest Fenollosa during Mori's lectures on Chinese poetry. EP acknow- ledges that Cathay (1915) is ''For the most part. . . from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa, and the decipherings of professors Mori and Ariga'' (Personae, 130).
Benton, Thomas Hart (1782-1858). US senator (1821-51). He is listed in Cantos 88 and 89. A part of his Thirty Years' View, 1820-1850 (1854-6)--''Bank of the United States''-- appeared in the Square Dollar series.
Blackstone, William (1723-80). British jurist. In Guide to Kulchur (1938) EP lists his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-9) as one of the essential books ''dealing with history and philosophy of law'' (352).
Bo(Bai) Juyi ? ? ? (772-846). Tang government official and poet. Fenollosa's ''Hirai and Shida'' notebook (Beinecke) records one of his masterpieces (Pipaxing or ''The Lute Ballad''), which EP marked ''Po Chu ? 'i, 9th century, 772-846. '' For Bo Juyi's career and poetry in translation, see Burton Watson's Po Chu ? -i: Selected Poems (2000).
Bynner, Witter (1881-1968). American poet and translator. He first met EP in 1910. In 1917 and 1921-2 he toured China. Among his translations from the Chinese are The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology: Being Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty 618-906 (with Kiang Kang-hu, 1929) and The Way of Life According to Laotzu (1944).
Cairns, Huntington (1904-85). American scholar. His books include Leibniz's Theory of Law (1947) and The Limits of Art (1948). As general counsel for National Gallery of Art (1946-65), he also served on the Harvard Dumbarton Oaks administrative committee (1951-4). His correspondence with EP (1948-60) is housed at Beinecke and Lilly.
Chiang Kai-shek ? ? ? (1887-1975). President of the Nationalist Chinese govern- ment (1928-49). He assumed command on outbreak of war against Japan in 1937. EP was critical of Chiang's reliance on foreign loans, a policy, as he saw it, based not on Confucianism.
Confucius or K'ung Fu-tzu (Kong Fuzi) ? ? ? (551-479 bc). Chinese philosopher. Unsuccessful in his political career, he spent his late years editing classics and teaching disciples from all parts of China. Confucian thought appealed to EP as humanist discourse. He translated into English the first three of the Confucian Four Books: Da xue as Ta Hio (1928) and The Great Digest (1947); Zhong yong as The Unwobbling Pivot (1947);
230 glossary
and Lun yu as Confucian Analects (1951). Confucianism plays an important role in The Cantos. EP's Confucianism is treated in Mary Paterson Cheadle's Ezra Pound's Confucian Translations (1997) and Feng Lan's Ezra Pound and Confucianism (2005).
Cummings, Edward Estlin (1894-1962). American poet and prose writer. He and EP first met in 1921. Excerpts from Eimi by Cummings (1933) are included in EP's Active Anthology (1933) and poems by Cummings are presented in EP's and Marcell Spann's Confucius to Cummings (1964). The Pound/Cummings relation is detailed in Barry Ahearn's Pound/Cummings: The Correspondence of Ezra Pound and E. E. Cummings (1996).
De Mailla, Joseph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac (1669-1748). French Jesuit. EP depended mainly on his multivolume Histoire ge ? ne ? rale de la Chine (1777-85), a translation of a Qing (Manchu) expansion of the Chinese history compiled by Zhu Xi (see below), to make Cantos 52-61.
De Rachewiltz, Boris (1926-97). Italian archeologist and Egyptologist. In 1946 he married EP's daughter Mary Rudge (b. 1925). His Papiro Magico Vaticano (1954) and Massime degli antichi Egiziani (1954) play a role in Cantos 91 and 93.
De Rachewiltz, Igor (b. 1929). Brother of Boris de Rachewiltz. He studied Chinese, Mongolian, and Asian history at the University of Rome (1948-51) and the Instituto Universitario Orientale, Naples (1952-5). He worked at the Australian National Univer- sity at Caberra until retirement in 1994.
Del Mar, Alexander (1836-1926). American historian. He headed the US Bureau of Statistics from 1866 to 1869. Parts of his A History of Monetary Crimes (1899) and other works appeared in the Square Dollar series.
Du Fu (712-70). Tang poet. He and Li Bo (701-62) are often considered the two greatest poets in China's literary history. The Du Fu/Li Bo relation is treated in Sam Hamill's Endless River: Li Po and Tu Fu: A Friendship in Poetry (1993). For Du Fu's work in translation, see Burton Watson's Selected Poems of Du Fu (2002).
Fenollosa, Ernest (1853-1908). American orientalist. After a twelve-year sojourn in Japan he became the curator of oriental art in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1890-7). His Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art was published posthumously in London in 1912. In 1913 his widow Mary Fenollosa entrusted to EP his notes and manuscripts, which yielded Cathay (1915), ''Noh'' or Accomplishment (1917), and ''The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry'' (1919).
Frobenius, Leo (1873-1938). German anthropologist and archeologist. He led twelve expeditions to Africa between 1904 and 1935. His works include Unter den unstra ? flichen Athiopen (1913) and Erlebte Erdteile (Parts of the Earth Experienced), 7 vols. (1925-9). He and EP met in 1927. He is listed in Cantos 38, 74, 87, and 89.
Guan Zhong ? ? or Guanzi ? ? (c. 725-645 bc). Ancient Chinese statesman and economist. He served as prime minister to Duke Huan of Qi. His teachings are recorded in the work Guanzi. For its first thirty-three essays in translation, see Allyn Rickett's Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China; A Study and Trans- lation (2001).
Hawley, Willis Meeker (1896-1987). Hollywood book-seller and sinologist. He sup- plied the Stone-Classics texts of The Great Digest & The Unwobbling Pivot (1951). He also
glossary 2 3 1 provided EP characters for Rock-Drill (1955) and Thrones (1959). The EP/Hawley relation
is treated in Mary Paterson Cheadle's Ezra Pound's Confucian Translations (1997).
Horton, T. David (b. 1927). American poet and publisher. A graduate from the Catholic University of America, he was a regular visitor to EP at St Elizabeths. At EP's instigation he and John Kasper co-founded the Square Dollar series of inexpensive paperbacks.
Hu Shi ? ? (1891-1962). Chinese poet and scholar. Educated at Cornell and Columbia, he championed the modern Chinese literary language based on vernacular. His works include Outline of Chinese Philosophy (1919) and Chinese Renaissance (1934). He was ambassador to the US from 1938 to 1942.
Karlgren, Bernhard (1889-1978). Swedish sinologist. His works include Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese (1923), Glosses on the Book of Odes (1946, 1964), and Grammata Serica (1957) of which EP owned copies of the first two.
Kasper, John (b. 1929). American publisher. A graduate from Columbia he began visiting and corresponding with EP in 1950. At EP's instigation he and David Horton brought out the Square Dollar series. He later became a Nazi sympathizer and a segregationist.
Kimball, Dudley. American printer. He founded the Blue Ridge Mountain Press in Boonton, New Jersey. From 1949 to 1951 he worked on EP's Confucian Odes manuscript with an English translation, a Chinese sound key, and a seal text.
King Wen ? ? (11th century bc). Father to China's third dynasty Zhou. After capture and imprisonment, he continued to fight the Shang, a dynasty eventually overthrown in the hands of his son King Wu. As one of Confucius' ideal model rulers, he is listed in Canto 53.
Kwock, C. H. ? ? ? (b. 1920). Honolulu-born journalist. As editor of Chinese World (San Francisco) he requested a message from EP to be printed on Confucius' birthday. The message released in Chinese World 23 September 1954 was ''Kung is to China as water to fishes. '' In 1980 he co-founded with painter Walter Leong and poet Gary Gach the Li Po Society of America. He is co-translator with Vincent McHugh of Old Friend from Far Away (1980) and translator of Tiger Rider and Other Chinese Epigrams (1986).
Laozi ? ? (6th century bc). Ancient Chinese philosopher. The Taoist classic Daode jing is attributed to him. He is listed in Canto 54. See Stephen Mitchell's Tao Te Ching (1988).
Laughlin, James (1914-99). American poet and publisher. In 1936, at EP's instigation, he founded the publishing company New Directions. For six decades he was EP's chief American publisher. The EP/Laughlin relation is chronicled in David Gordon's Ezra Pound and James Laughlin: Selected Letters (1994).
Lewis, Percy Wyndham (1884-1957). English painter and writer. He and EP first met in London in 1909.