No More Learning

''Strange Tales'': Herbert A. Giles (1845-1935), Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1916), a version of Liaozhai zhiyi by Pu Songling (1640-1715).
? : see Letter 28.
28 Fang to EP (TLS-4; Lilly)
Dear Mr Pound,
Thank you ever so much for your two ''anonymous communications. '' As
Mrs Pound might have conveyed to you how I enjoyed meeting you, ''every minute of it'' (as people in this country would say), I do not repeat myself here. Sometimes it's a pity that one remains a heathen, for one cannot draw upon the saying, ''The Lord has been good to me. ''
What edition of the Shu [Book of History] have you got? I have here a copy of Legge, pirated, exactly identical with the Four Books you have: Chinese text, notes, etc. If you are interested in it, I shall be glad to mail it to you.
I believe Couvreur's Li Ki and Tso Tchouan (Tso's commentary on Spring and Autumn) are in the library there.
Li Ki may be considered as a Reallexikon or encyclopedia of ancient learning, while Tso Tchouan (anglice: Tso Chuan) is a model for later historians, who have a penchant for the anecdotal.
But the liber librorum [book of books] is the Shu. It is not so dull as most ignoramuses think but often very lively. And it has direct bearing on Kung and Meng [Mencius].
Legge's translation of the Shu is, it is humbly submitted, comparable to Giles' Strange Tales. Both the Presbyterian missionary and the British consul are heavy
[Cambridge, Mass. ] January 3, 1951
48 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
in style; so are the Shu and the Liao Chai Chih I [Strange Tales]. I mean, Legge's Shu is not bad at all.
As soon as you give me word, I shall mail the book post-haste. (A friend of mine here has a copy of Liao Chai Chih I; do you like to have it? He is willing to part with his duplicate copy. )
I wonder if you would like to read Edouard Chavannes' Les me ? moires historiques de Se ? -ma Ts'ien: a readable translation of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih Ki, which very often reads like Herodotus. By the way, Ssu-ma Ch'ien has served as a model for most of the best prosateurs of China and Japan (and Korea and Annam). The last chapter in the last volume (Vol. 5) contains Kung's biography. (Chavannes' book is not complete; of the original 130 chapters he translated about half. )
Now I can see where you got that chen, circumXex. It is the mistake of Tsang's dictionary. The fact is, chen and che^n do not make any diVerence; both are pronounced dj n. The circumXex is meant to indicate that e is not pro- nounced e as in end but something like u in (American and not British) under. The proofreading of Tsang's book is at fault: e, when not in diphthongs, should have been made uniformly either e^ or e.
Hope Fenollosa's ''East and West'' was not dreary reading. Tomorrow I am sending Williams' dictionary, which has the good point, inter alia, of distin- guishing between k and ch.
Yours respectfully [signed] Achilles Fang
Thank you for the new address of Peter Russell.
Very sorry to have caused you to write on Paige's editorship of Letters. Mr Horton might have spared you the pain by simply ignoring what I had to gabble out of sheer inadvertency. However, I am glad to get another anonymous communication. (When I see Macleish, I shall tell him that you had no hand in the editing of that book. May I show him your letter? I will not undertake anything rash without your permission, of course. )
I wonder if
And they worked out the Y-king or changes to guess from (Canto LIII p. 12)
could be revised to
And he etc etc
or to Wen Wang etc etc (for Wen Wang see p. 11),
for I should like to use the (revised) passage as motto for my Pisan-explication. De Mailla 1. 239-240 (s. v. 1142 av. Chr. ) has:
Ouen-ouang (Wen-wang ? ? ) resta trois ans dans les prisons de Yeou-ly (Yu-li ? ? ): [ . . . ]
? ? ? ? ? ? e
a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 49
Doesn't this describe E. P in Pisan?
(By the way, Wen-wang was thrown into prison by the last king of the Yin-- also called Shang--dynasty, Cheou-sin (p. 12, i. e. Shou-sin ? ? ), who saw, and correctly, his Nemesis in this amiable man. )
A propos of ? (at the beginning of the Analects translation in Hudson Review and at the end of Canto LIX, London ed. ), pronounced king (k unaspirated) or ching (Mandarin, which turns k and k' followed by i or u ? into ch and ch', e. g. Hummel's LEE GEE). [ . . . ]
Speaking of the term ? , Chu Hi once said:
My teacher Ch'eng I-ch'uan was the Wrst to elucidate this term ad- equately. In recent years Ch'eng Sha-sui would refute his view, saying that ancient sages never spoke of the term ? in isolation but always spoke of respecting one's parents, respecting one's sovereign, or respecting one's elders (? ? , j? , j? ), the object being always attached to the verb. But this doesn't make sense. The sage (Confucius? ) spoke of ? ? ? ? [cultivate oneself and be respectful], ? ? ? ? [be respectful and no fault] and ? ? ? ? [be respectful and advance daily]. Do not these instances prove that the term was used unattached? If, for argument's sake, we are to practise ''respect'' when we have parents, a sovereign, or elders, then should we be disrespectful when they are not about? . . .
---------
(By the way, will you please drop ''respectfully'' when you write to me; for
you are an ''elder'' ? to me. ) ---------
Isn't it remarkable that [Leo] Tolstoi should say ''Simply, without any relation to anything deWnite''?
---------
Do you suppose the term ? has any relation to reverentia in Maxima debetur puero reverentia [The greatest respect is owed to the boy]
(I'm quoting from Juvenal and not from Thackeray's The Newcomes)? or to And Kung said
''Respect a child's faculties (Canto XIII p. 59)
----------
Karlgren (Analytical Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese, Paris 1923, p. 138, no. 396), s. v. ? :
The seal shows this to contain, besides ? to beat, not kou ? but ? and ? :
to ? speak ? nicely (cf. ? , ? ).
----------
By the way, Karlgren, no. 929, analyses your character ? into ''to ? roast ? dog's ? meat. '' Speaking of dogs, I was a bit amused to notice, near Hartford, the sign-board ''Uncle Ezra's Dog Farm,'' which forcibly reminded me of Congress Heights.
? ? ? 50 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
the Four Books you have: James Legge, The Four Books (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1923). Couvreur's Li Ki and Tso Tchouan: Se ? raphin Couvreur (1835-1919), Li Ki (Ho Kien Fu: Mission
catholique, 1913) and Tch'ouen ts'iou et Tso-tchouan (Ho Kien Fu: Mission catholique, 1914). Giles' Strange Tales: see Letter 27 n.
Ssu-ma Ch'ien: see Glossary on Sima Qian.
Tsang's dictionary: O. Z. Tsang, A Complete Chinese-English Dictionary (Shanghai: Lin Nan Middle
School, 1920). EP's unWnished essay ''Preliminary Survey'' (see Appendix) is based on Tsang's
dictionary. See Letter 30 n.
''East and West'': Ernest Fenollosa (see Glossary), East and West: The Discovery of America and Other
Poems (1893; New York: Crowell and Co. , 1936).
Williams' dictionary: Samuel Wells Williams, Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language (1950). Peter Russell: see Letter 91 n.
Paige: Douglas Duncan Paige (b. 1924) interviewed EP and edited Selected Letters, 1907-1941 (1950)
while teaching at Wellesley College.
Horton: see Glossary on Horton, T. David.
MacLeish: see Glossary on MacLeish, Archibald.
De Mailla: see Glossary on De Mailla, Joseph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac.
Wen-wang: see Glossary on Wen, King.
? : jing; cf. Confucius, 193: ''? respect for the kind of intelligence that enables grass seed to grow grass; the
cherry-stone to make cherries. '' See also Cantos 85/575 and 98/711 where ? occurs without an
object attached.
Ch'eng I-ch'uan: Cheng Yichuan (1033-1107), cofounder with Zhu Xi (see Glossary) of the Cheng-
Zhu school of Confucian ethics.
Juvenal: Roman poet Juvenal (c. 55-127 ad), Satires 14. 47.
Thackeray's The Newcomes: William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63), The Newcomes (1853-5). Karlgren: see Glossary on Karlgren, Bernhard.
29 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [5 January 1951]
hnBL FANG
kindly NOT show letter to M[a]cLeish, but convey comfort ANonymously. Ez/ haz CHOU; ideogram, latin and frog [French]/ Couvreur also Legge
english. HERE
Li Ki in Rapallo. no need or desire for it in D. C. seeking CHINESE texts not
yet chewed thru.
Young Igor <i. e. my son-in-law's kid brother> sends half dozen proverbs in
his last letter.
Don't much want translations unless I can get the original at the same time. How can I tell what the style is if I have only the trans/? ?
Fenollosa's notes interesting, and HIS ''style'' OF the period.
***
no objection to hnBL Fang misquoting or improving ''they'' to ''he'' re the
I CHING (or King) but I had in mind the successive returns, and wasn't setting
a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 51
up to be Ouen-ouang [King Wen]. and didn't get Mr Sung's edition, or see ideogramic text until I had got out of the gorilla cage into the hell hole.
As to RESPECT/there are degrees/I SUSpect Tolstoi and ALL goddam hrooshuns [Russians]/ seem to recall that Kung mentioned cases where respect was NOT required. Tolstoi? A Mihite? Or at any rate a slav/
will look up text and see what verb Kung uses in the case of the bloke aetat [aged] Wfty who was still an ass. as distinct from the neo-nato. The neo-nato might be held to have some of the sense of the cherry-stone?
of course if the hnBL Fang is THAT MUCH older than a neonato? ?
Also/as change from seal to the 214 root system was cert/ one of [the] greatest intellectual acts in all history. I see no reason to exclude the idea that the 214 root system may occasionally have improved on the preceding.
The good Hawley will probably rise thru the ceiling, if such idea is ever mentioned in his vicinage.
as to Chu Hi and the Ch'eng.
I d/n well know that respect is sometimes used in speciWc ref/ and that when I had got to grass-seed and looked back to Italian version to see if I needed to revise, I found that I could NOT revise/ because it would not Wt context/
BUT surely the term is pretty well isolated where Kung distinguishes between the Chun[g] [respecting one's sovereign] and the Hsiao [respecting one's par- ents] (if there is ANY use my trying to transliterate romanJikly anyhow between the gent and the piker.
(Hope Uncle Ezra's dawg farm aint an imitation of Amy's High-Lo kennels. Mebbe he got there Wrst. (precedingly born)
Oh yes, once again, if I start answering back to Fang, and continue to read, then F/has already puttt down at least part of the answer. Canto XIII.
AND: them bloomink SWEEDES! ! ! !
Thanks for indicating the Stilwell which will rd/at 1st/op/and probably the Belden/as to White Papers? ? is it safe? I once recd/ten vols/of U. S. treasury reports, read several pages and LOOK where it landed me.
CHOU: Se ? raphin Couvreur, Chou King (Paris: Cathasia, 1950), a Latin-French-Chinese edition of Shu jing (Book of History), source of Cantos 85-6.
Igor: see Glossary on De Rachewiltz, Igor.
Sung's edition: Z. D. Sung, The Symbols of Yi King (Shanghai: China Modern Education, 1934). cherry-stone: see Letter 28 n.
214 root system: the 214-radical system Wrst adopted by Mei Dingzuo in Zihui (Character Treasure,
1615). See Letter 57.
Hawley: see Glossary on Hawley, Willis Meeker.
Chu Hi and the Ch'eng: see Letter 28 n. and Glossary on Zhu Xi.
SWEEDES: see Glossary on Karlgren, Bernhard.
Belden: Fang sent EP a copy of Jack Belden's China Shakes the World (New York: Harper, 1949) to stir
interest in modern China.
52 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
30 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
Dear Mr. Pound,
Yesterday I had the temerity to mail you the Stilwell book; and this in spite of
your injunction and Meng's advice (IV B xxiii, second sentence. Legge's version is very much perverted; a more sensible translation would be--''When to give and not to give are both equally proper, etc. ''). I already seem to hear you declaiming, Quo usque, o Achilles, abutere nostra patientia? [Abuse our patience, O Achilles, to what extent? ]
Hope to send you the Belden book soon. I can't say whether it would be ''safe'' to read White Papers. 1054 pages of it cannot all serve the triple objective, ut doceat, ut moveat, ut delectet [to teach, to move, to delight]; and yet, part of the Annexes (pp. 413 sqq. ) seems to be quite readable.
Thank you ever so much for two more anonymous communications. As for your notes, I am now writing down the ideograms. (I am afraid, some of the CH words have to be regrouped under K. ) After they are retouched here and there, no ''comments, castigatory, astringent, tolerant etc. '' would be needed. Please give me a bit more time for the work. Hope to use the plenipotentiary power judiciously.
Thank you sincerely for the three A books. Adams is fascinating; Agassiz is a little heavy; as for Alighieri's Paradiso, I should not forget that Eliot proWted by your advice. If a bloke happens to have a name beginning with B, would you prescribe him Boccaccio, Baudelaire, and Browning-Sordello? (Excuse this Xippancy. )
It is true that the Wrst word in ''Respect a child's faculties'' stands for ? and not ? ; but Kung surely was using the two terms synonymously. At any rate, in [Analects] XVI viii (p. 177), ? seems to stand for ? .
By the way, your interpretation of ? seems to solve a number of knotty problems in Kung's book. I've been looking through commentaries, but so far failed to come across any that lays emphasis on that term. Please accept my congratulations. I shall not fail to expand on this aspect of Your Confucianism.
Respectfully yours [signed] Achilles Fang
I have here a few texts (? [Book of Changes],? [Book of History],? [Book of Odes],? ? [Book on Filial Piety]) belonging to my wife, who is willing to part with them. As soon as I hear from you, I shall mail them to you.
Stilwell book: see Letter 27 n. Belden book: see letter 29 n.
Cambridge, Mass. January 12th 1951
a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 53
your notes: ''Preliminary Survey'' (see Appendix). In the winter of 1950-1 EP used O. Z. Tsang's Complete Chinese-English Dictionary (1920) as a guide to speculate about sound-symbolism in primitive Chinese. He didn't use Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary because Hawley had warned of its ''scrambled romanization'' (12 January 1947, Lilly). For Fang's criticism of Tsang's dictionary, see Letter 28.
Adams: see Glossary on Adams, Brooks.
Agassiz: see Glossary on Agassiz, Louis.
your interpretation of ? : see Appendix. Cf. Confucius, 232: ''There is no more important technical term in
the Confucian philosophy than this chih (3) the hitching post, position, place one is in, and works from. '' ? appears in Canto 85/563, 573 and Canto 87/591, 596.
31 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [18 January 1951]
Hnbl FANG
two rolls Chou Change [Book of Changes] arrived S. Liz/4 other presumable
rolls of something also recd/ at Tenth Place [DP's apartment]. Enjoyable sight. regret
inform
hnbl F/ that some goddam worm has been at respected pages. Problem? shd/ one (i. e. Ez) attempt to treat worst worm-holes with crass occidental stickum
as per sample
or wd/ it do more harm than good. and shd/one trust sd/goddam worms now deceased and not likely to gnaw while Ez peruses or after shake-up?
Evidently overlooked commas in your letter and thought change--odes some other text. No harm done save ''disturbo'' to Fang, and pleasant to read from nicely printed text.
at least recognize a few terms without having crib on next page.
Iggurunt man wanting to know what ELSE one shd/ read after material that Legge has already trapsed through? Fg/ realize the very fragmentary state of Ez' formation,
Not read ANY guide or history of Chinese literature since closed Giles history Ch/ Lit/ about 1909. Had Fenollosa's notes and selections and thaZZZall.
AND take it Bhud and Taoists bamboogroving ad lib/ thru a good deal of it? ?
Of course there is enough in the 4 BOOKS and the Odes to occupy any normal male for a life time,
but frailties of idle curiosity assail from time to time.
Will certainly READ the Chinese MORE and see MORE in this edtn/ than in the Shanghai bilingual.
Enjoying the simpatico but not infallible Stilwell. Too bad he knew nothing of Europe, and, as you say, ? [humanity].
54 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
Later: yes, yes, very Wne. Will try to work Sun Li-jen in somehow. If the ass of a pub[lishe]r/ wd. put a SCALE (miles, parsangs or whatever, on his MAP! ! ! )
p. 292/translation? unconscious? have I got to look up that ideogram with a DAWG in it? ?
incidentally our damn SWEEDE dont seem to diVerentiate ? &? ad interim/ and strictly anonYmouse.
Mr (Sumner? ) Wells Williams dont like that one either.
verry good INK used on that Y Ching [Book of Changes].
Giles history: Herbert A. Giles (1845-1935), A History of Chinese Literature (New York: Appleton, 1901). Fenollosa's notes: see Glossary on Fenollosa, Ernest.
Shanghai bilingual: Z. D. Sung, The Symbols of Yi King (1934).
Sun Li-jen: in The Stilwell Papers Sun Liren is referred to as Stilwell's favorite Chinese army
commander.
? : in Analytic Dictionary (1923) Bernhard Karlgren deWnes ? huo (#120) as ''catch, seize, obtain. ''
? surfaces in Canto 85/567. Wells Williams: see Letter 28 n.
32 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [5 February 1951]
Hnbl/ FANG
strictly anonymous communication.
What could save inWnite time and labour fer pore mutts trying to learn a little
chinese, esp/ SOUND. would be (without waiting to make perfect word-book) to print RADICAL index, now pages 1179/80 of Mathews, as pages 1180 and 1181, THAT IS so that one could see them ALL without turning the page every time one wants one on the other side as at present.
AND <pages 1181-1221> print with the sounds and tone numbers. enough space could be made by omitting heading and the ''colloquial designations. '' p 1180 plenty of meanings I know, but have to look up the sound to understand
metric in 1000 family/
Mathews is certainly VERY good on groups.
as ref/ ''balanced expression 7 word''
''meet the moon coming oV '', all verbs theatre words.
Spose if weren't so goddamlaZy I cd/ Wnd out when etc/ the 1000 might also investigate obstacles to PRINTING above item.
Mathews: R. H. Mathews, Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary (Shanghai: China Inland Mission and Presbyterian Mission Press, 1931; rpt. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1944).
1000 family: Tang Song qian jia shi (Poems by a Thousand Tang and Song Poets). In 1951 Fang sent EP a set in four volumes.
a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 55
33 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Lilly)
Dear Mr Pound,
On February 16, Friday (9-9:30 P. M. ), Ass. Prof. Richard Ellmann (quite a nice
chap) and A. F. are to talk 'unrehearsed and live,' over the Harvard Yard radio (which cannot be heard beyond Harvard dormitories). Subject: Ezra Pound's Cantos. I am expected to elucidate, if I can, your Confucianism.
Have you any special message that I may quote in the course of my talk? Your greetings to the Kremlin, 'tell them to read cantos' (as the author of Eimi reports), is hardly necessary. I think your cantos are being read at Harvard; how intelligently, that is another question, of course.
If a public message is not to your liking, will you at least give me some strictly private suggestions?
Yours respectfully [signed] Achilles Fang
P. S. : Yesterday I mailed you the Jack Belden book.
Richard Ellmann: Richard Ellmann (1918-87) would join Northwestern (fall 1951), Yale (1968), and Oxford (1970).
Jack Belden book: China Shakes the World (1949).
34 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [10 February 1951]
O FANG
in ignorance of wot't'ell the Achilles is doing re/ alledged dictionary/ and of
position of 1000 family selection.
Does the sd/ Achilles want stray observations?
per es/ re diVerence between one dawg and another, i. e. the shaggy dawg and
the friend of man? or in SEVEN WORD no. 45/ the vurry nice contrast of chih and szu/ ?
backed by position of chih as derived or putt in arrow [? ] category not mouth [? ] category rad[ical]/
no Wnd in dic/ ? signiWcance clear but noise in doubt.
[Cambridge, Mass. ] Feb 10, 1951
56 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
1000 family selection: see Letter 32 n.
SEVEN WORD no. 45: see Letter 32 on ''balanced expression 7 word'' in Mathews' English-Chinese
Dictionary.
? : see Letter 36.
35 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [13 February 1951]
FANG
can be NO direct message from bug-house. EVERYthing useful can be clearly
derived from published works.
1.