No More Learning

Caleb Cushing: see Letter 109.
108 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [15 March 1954]
No, my very dear ACHILLES, almost sole comfort to my declining years. The PENalty for altering a VOWEL in verse is DEATH.
You are reprieved because of yr/love of exactitude, but don't do it again.
I am trying to teach these buzzards PROSODY, as well as respect for a few civilized chinese.
Naturally the dichotomy, splitting, ERH etc. makes the edtn/annoying.
I shall prob/try to elevate Hawk[es] when he has Wnished the job.
***
alZO/the noises made by yr/compatriots have almost NO relation to sounds
represented by barbarian alphabets.
and the changing from one fad to another adds nowt to the poeTIKKK
values.
142 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
I meant you to have carte blanche in the romanj/which, incidentally, can serve as datum for my conjecture re/what wobbles and what does not during the Xow of time, from the original onomatopoeia.
BUTTT FURST, the ODES were SUNG.
Secondly a FEW (very few) chinese place names are known to yanks/brits/ etc. and have a poetic association. Ergo a poetic value.
DON'T go Nipponic, or feel downcast. We learn by living. And apart from one Wan/no partic/damage has been done/it all depends on relation to vowels in the context.
Dont let 'em waste time trying to re-consult my orig/text. I have putt back the three necessary spellings/Wan once, Hsin once, Kiang once.
OUAN SUI [Cheers].
When Wang Yang-ming is pronounced by purr-light chinkessa as Wei-ya- min. . . etc.
phonograms are NOT revealing.
Though you are dead right to stick to what you think the best system IN PROSE and philologic displays.
Dont despair/Wen is even better in some places than Wan was.
***
B. B. C. says they are to broadcast TRAXINIAI on Apr/25, now someone can
hear what funny noises the brits/make when dealing with a MURKN text. Thank GAWD ONE intelligent actor at least will be in it. The Hyllos part, which needs more understanding than most of the others.
BUT gornoze wot he will SOUND like.
A few gents/survive EVEN in britain, one turned up last week. Race and not goulash.
In case it may have escaped yr/aquiline eye/study of Spanish 40 years ago/ was useful in Odes/Odes useful in TRAX/
AND I suppose some mainland composer preceded Hokusai on the length of apprentissage. Brancusi said he had Wnished his 30 years ago. But it is doubtful if that was more than momentary optimism on his part.
I don't know oV hand whether the altering of a consonant is fatal. YOU had some deWnite feelings about THAT. I shd/have to consider particular cases. Certainly the dropping of the pwt pwt, wd/be a defect/in fact HAS been a defect.
The simple dropping of consonants with no compensation is presumably evil (low morals).
I trust yr/consort and descendants are Xourishing and beginning to appreci- ate Kung as well as Bach.
dev/mo
Wang Yang-ming: see Glossary on Wang Shouren.
TRAXINIAI: EP, ''Sophokles: Women of Trachis,'' Hudson Review 6. 4 (Winter [1953/]1954).
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 143
one turned up: probably the BBC radio actor Denis Goacher (b. 1925), who wrote the Foreword to Sophokles: Women of Trachis (1956).
Hokusai: Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849), Japanese artist noted for his wood-block prints of landscape.
Brancusi: EP met the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) in Paris c. 1922.
109 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
March 17, 1954
Dear Mr Pound,
So far little success with Caleb Cushing, 1800-19[8]79, US Commissioner to
China 1843-1845. When he negotiated the socalled peace treaty, he was rather unfortunate in that he had to handle the matter along with the French, and all this a short while after the ignominious Nanking treaty of 1842, when the British drove a rapacious bargain on the strength of the Opium War. (You know, the British forced Indian opium on the Ch. ; when the Ch. burned the drug, the British blasted right and left). The Ch. thought Yanks and frogs were trying to share the spoils of the British. If you can wait a while, I shall look into contemporary diaries etc. to see if anything visible can be dug out.
As for Wan, Hsin, Ching, etc. I confess I overdid it. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa [my fault, my utmost fault]. The proofs are arranged as you desire. In my extenuation I like to observe that in
Wan's line
and clan
Wan and clan should rhyme. But the trouble is: when Legge wrote Wa ? n he meant it to [be] pronounced either wa? n or w@n (WEN, now)/ ? is never pronounced waen in any dialect or at any time. I was afraid that some pedants might charge you with not knowing Legge's sound key. Hence changed all your wan to wen.
At any rate, I have changed wen there back to wa ? n. (Put the extra circumXex to show that it is sounded like English wan, as in ''Why so pale and wan, fond lover? '' and not as wOn. ) Sin would not be behovely, ergo Hsin. (Shin is tempting, then it is an English word. )
is altered to Ching. Thought Khing might be pronounced as English king (sinice^, k'ing).
All in all, please set your mind at east: I have looked through the galley sheets and have restored your corrections as you wished. Your reproof meekly and ruefully accepted.
Hawkes brought me the 3rd batch of galley, up to Ode 256 today. Your instructions duely [duly] carried out.
Hope you like the seal-script for SHIH, to appear on the title page. (Keep the cut please, if you like. )
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 144 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
Am now writing a few words on the nature and history of the Anthology. Wilson insists that I should do so.
Cordially [signed] Achilles Fang
110 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [March 1954]
REPine not, oh my Achilles/
le'ZOpe you haven't gone back and recorrected too much/In some places Wen improves.
AND there were only the three places where one needed to restore my original barbarisms.
***
Of course I shd/be glad to see Archie [MacLeish]/CAN you get it into his head that I am perhaps the only other member of our rabbit-headed generation of yokels and amateurs who might sympathize with him/to extent of approving his taking oYce, or seeing that a man might get more DONE in a govt/oYce than in a night-clubb or an arte-shoppe? ? ?
You might even tip him oV that as Mon/Wed/Fri are NOT visiting days, he might by saying he is in Wash/fer limited time, get in on one of those days, and so have uninterrupted CONverSayShun.
***
Thanks for debunking the English treaty/'1843/Quite possible that the Em- peror did NOT bother to make ANY note re/Caleb [Cussing]/
Benton properly lambastes him (C. C. )
However Bent/dont mention the hop/A brief Spring and Autumn to the eVect
another s. o. b. , this time from the land of the Cherokees, has got to Goa, and probably wants to put in MORE opium, presumably of inferior quality.
Benton said: ''200 years of trade, no trouble, why treaty? '' Caleb went over, in some fancy clothes, and after hanging round for some time, the Emperor said: ''200 years trade no trouble, why treaty. ''
''HAW! '' sez T[homas]. B[enton]. ''an they burnt up a frigate in doing it. ''
Thanks for SHIH, seal script, does the tree over one hand, occur regularly for earth over inch/in a lot of cases, or is this PEculiarrr? ANYhow, vurry in'erestin'.
WHEN I git the REAL edtn/I shall start investigatin SEAL.
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 145
fer yr intro/do HAMMER that the anthol. is a WHOLE not scattered jems/ and that the bhloody translator does NOT consider translation complete without the accompaniment of ideograms and sound-graph.
No need to pretend that I know anything about it except what KUNG himself says/re/ORDER, and the Wnal summary
''no twisty thoughts. ''
fer the rest je m'en conbougrement FOUTRE [I couldn't give a damn fuck]. any literation with a ' (such as K'ing') is O. K. Kiang is READ by common people with a NICE sonority. S'in, would also do/it is the INITIAL impression that matters in getting the feel of the passage TO the reader.
GIT the MEANING across.
///note recent Kenner/not question of whether I omit Soph[ocles]'s WORDS. DO I omit any of his meaning?
Hell, NO. or let us whope knot.
Apparently some Xylosophic periodical has discovered that I may have philosophic intentions. (nooZitem, note the date. )
recent wop (Tempo, Roma) to eVect that all Ez did was to say at sbagliato [wrong] time, on sbagliato [wrong] microphone wot all murkns are now saying. (the bloomin HOPtimist, wop tendency to overestimate murkn mind). Vanni's li'l books putt a few dots on some iiii s.
benedictions
Archie: see Glossary on MacLeish, Archibald.
debunking the English treaty . . . Caleb: see Letter 109.
Benton: see Glossary on Benton, Thomas Hart.
recent Kenner: Hugh Kenner, Introduction to EP's The Translations (1953). Vanni: see Glossary on Scheiwiller, Vanni.
111 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
March 27, 1954
Dear Mr Pound,
Archie MacLeish is very happy to learn that you like the idea of his visiting
you. (I should have told him so long ago. ) However, he Wnds that he can't come to Washington in the near future. Presumably he will be in D. C. this summer.
The proof sheets are all back in the Press; Soon to have page proofs.
Glad to know that you like ? . For ? ? ? I am using the Stone-Classic text of Analects.
By the way the upper-right part of shy stands for ? , originally picture of bud ? or ? out of the ground _; hence deWned (in Shuo-wen) as ? . And ? 1/4 inch ? .
? 146 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
B. t. w. again, ? was originally written ? 1/4 ? (there's no <such> ideogram now) 1/4 ? , which is analysed into ? ? , hence the phrase ? ? ? in Shu [Book of History], ch. 2. Directio voluntatis.
Hope to Wnish the introduction next week and submit a carbon copy to you.
Cordially [signed] Achilles Fang
? ? ? : ? ? ? [No twisty thoughts] from Analects, 2. 2 at the end of Classic Anthology. Cf. Confucius, 197: ''He said: The anthology of 300 poems can be gathered into the one sentence: Have no twisty thoughts.
''
Shuo-wen: see Glossary on Xu Shen.
112 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 18 Giugn [ June]/[1954]
yes, my Achilles,
ber' nice introduction.
VERY glad the photo is on destructable jacket not in volume itself.
WHEN the real edition is done, there shd/alzo be a[n] index, or table of
contents, or both, of the poEMZ.
Now the jacket is VERY interesting, AND on some future occasion when the
Hnbl FANG is present, coram, IN person, his anonymous correspondent will attempt to explain moeurs [customs] of the utter barbarians to banished celestial LAMPRA SUMBAINAI [symbolic light] perhaps. We await the real edition.
Van der Loon/Leiden E. J. Brill 1943/did an index which cd/be oVset/or rather one wd/oVset his Wrst and second colums, and then give Wrst lines as in my version. no need of alphabetical chinese romanj.
In fact I reckon the simple list of contents with Wrst lines of the english wd/be suYcient.
some stewdent might be given a pass mark for tabulating Hid, hid
Shade o' the vine
She: Curl grass
In the South be drooping trees.
Locusts a-wing
O omen tree/ in fact if nobuddy wants to do, I might even have a go at it myself. It is the most BEEyewteeful anthology in the world, and CONFUCIO had
more to do with making it than had yr/anon/crspdt
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? a. fang and pound's classic anthology 147
perhaps the hnbl F/g shd hv/enc/for his Wle the buzzard who sent it did not, if I recall say what smear sheet conveyed the item of infamy.
In any case they putt the portrait on the BACK cover and the hnbl Kuan's Wnger on the FRONT cover is O. K. since/or even not since/THAT is good emphasis/GOOD, yes, grampa pleased with that. IF however the hnbl FANG will consult Marsano edtn Guido, he will encounter a diVerent Anschauung.
Salute the member of his family.
Not knowing IF or what goDDAMMbrit is dealing with what/, I limit addition to the addresses of (review copies) ABC, co/Boris de Rachewiltz
33 via Quattro Fontane
Il CaVe ?
co/G. B. Vicari via Salaria 334 Roma Italy.
(I am putting men, with names of papers where they will see that a review gets printed.
Camillo Pellizzi 12 via d Villa Albani, Roma
Carlo Scarfoglio
(haven't address of paper where he writes; send him co/O. R. Agresti, 36 via
Ciro Monotti. <Largo Pon chielli 4 Roma> He has just done large blurb in Paese Sera/havn't that address, issue for June 16th/
The CaVe ? splurges are in March and April issues. Absence is making the EyeTalYan heart grow fonder.
Mark the above/''review copies. ''
Ask the Mercure de France, 26 rue de Conde ? , Paris V, IF they desire copy for review? dont send it until they say YES.
AND you can transfer the personal names in yester letter to the ADVERTIS- ING column. and add
Stanislas de Yankowski/co Mrs Demant 540 East Ab 28 Los Angeles 31
Pinkafornia (which yu be'r spell Cal on the henvelope. he is now on TRAXINIAI
Old Yarp has been asked to state that SOPHOKLES wrote the play. similar ideogramic or sense of permanence wd/become.
the utter barbarians: the reference is to the typography of EP's name larger than that of Confucius. F/g shd hv/enc/: an enclosed clipping of news from Tokyo: ''Peking Working on an Alphabet. '' Kuan's Wnger: in a letter to EP of 14 June 1954, Fang explains: ''As for the picture of the Wve Wngers on
the front cover, it is that of Kuan P'ing-hu . . . [my wife] Ilse's lute (k'in) teacher in Peking--one
of the foremost masters of the ancient instrument'' (Beinecke).
Boris de Rachewiltz: see Glossary on De Rachewiltz, Boris.
G. B. Vicari: Giambattista Vicari (1909-78), publisher of EP's Carta da Visita (1942), founded the
review Il CaVe ? in 1945.
Carlo Scarfoglio: in 1964 journalist Carlo Scarfoglio (1887-1964) published an Italian version of EP's
Classic Anthology (Gallup, D81b).
? ? ? ? ? 148
a. fang and pound's classic anthology
113
EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
?
without arogance?
They have been using a plain bit of print font/I asked x for a proper one made
with brush, but La Sibille says it shows arogance.
I had not looked at it carefully/neither the tree [? ] grows as tree, nor does
the piled wood have weight, and the axe [? ] is Xighty.
Now there are feelings to be considered. Those of the olblging wielder of the
brush and black ink/
BUT there is also the higher aim/
I forget if yu hv/old Legge's 4 bks/pirated edtn/in which the tree is a TREE
(title page)
None of the vanity of the RAYS/in the Jap hand, used for the Fenollosa. Know anything about a buzzard named Chang Kuangchi acc/Morgan itz a
nuthr of 'em, not Carson [Chang].
? : ? ['make it new'] appears in Cantos 87, 93, and 94.
La Sibille: Veronica Huilan Sun (see Glossary).
Chang Kuangchi: K. C. Chang (1931-2001), author of The Archaeology of Ancient China (1968) and
numerous other books.
Morgan: Frederick Morgan (1922-2004), editor of the Hudson Review.
114 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
June 24, 1954
Dear Mr Pound,
Mrs DuVy told me that she had the 8 review copies and 5 advertising copies all
mailed to the addresses you gave me. She further told me that she had your 9 copies mailed to DP.
As I wrote in my last, the Press is out to kill: they sent out quite a number of review and advertising copies themselves, so much so that the stock of their free copies is practically exhausted. I wonder if I can ask them to give a couple of free copies to me. (May I impose on you to the extent of requesting you to honor me with a copy of (out of ) your lot, --with appropriate inscription. If you don't have any to spare, I shall not feel unhappy either. )
O my Achilles
have yu a Kalligraphist who can make a hsin [new or make it new] sign
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 21 Jun/[1954]
? eye suppose.
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 149
Am enclosing SIN [? ]. Are you planning to re-issue any of your books? Yours
[signed] Achilles Fang
115 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 27 Jun [1954]
O FANG
yu are certainly welcome to two copies or whatso yu can bone out of the
LOCAL powers/
and D. P. <[in DP's hand:] with pleasure> will probably consent to carry a
signed copy to the post/at any rate a signature is at yr/hnrb disposal.
Now as to character showing in brush strokes/Hui Lan gave a feathery axe etc. The YOUNG using that hsin sign as basis, point out the solidity of the plain damn
print block.
queery [:] DOES the tree grow and STAND/has the wood pile weight, will
the AXE cut, or at any rate strike hard [? ] The young said re/my clumsy attempts in ANALECTS/frontpiece yes, they were clumsy but humble
AS to PLANNING//dirty word/I am ever blasting at pubrs/to get on with JOB/
However, the Sq/$/and possibly Scheiwiller are BUILDIING basic kulch/fer wops [Italians] and yanks/
The author is not the person to be pestered/clean men should blast kick DAMN and push pubrs/Mc hoRRse has velleity/The fringe has DELAYity.
Jobs are TOLD 'em/then time meanders.
Remember I want <to see> front matter of real EDITION when and/or/if. Cause there is something more to print in that front. In fact I think something was missed out, this time, but it don't matter.
Hui Lan: see Glossary on Sun, Veronica Huilan.
Sq/$: the Square Dollar series copublished by John Kasper and David Horton reissued EP's favorite
works in booklets that sold for a dollar.
Scheiwiller: see Glossary on Scheiwiller, Vanni.
Mc hoRRse: New Directions managing editor Bob MacGregor.
116 EP to Fang (AL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [3 September 1954]
150 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
? opposite p. 155 stone classics, or rather is it a way of writing p'ing ? [just, equal, peaceful]
mathews 5303.
& if not what?
-----------
near to benevolence but the strokes sure do seem to be put on diVerently.
? : in Unwobbling Pivot EP renders ? ? ? ? ? as ''energy is near to benevolence'' (Confucius, 155). See also Canto 93/648-9:
? li4
? hsing2 ? chin4 ? hu1 2154 ? je^n2
holding that energy is near to benevolence.
117 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
9/12/54
Dear Mr Pound,
Under the date of Dec. 6, I wrote to Farrar as follows:
Harvard University Press has forwarded to me your letter of inquiry about The Classic Anthology of Ezra Pound. I am sorry to disappoint you but I have no information as to when and under what circumstances Mr Pound pro- duced the work you admire so much. All that I know is that Mr Pound executed the translation all by himself and that he spent much eVort on the scholarly apparatus to be published soon in the second edition of the book.
Once more I apologize for my inability to oVer you any information. ''All by himself,'' because a number of people have asked me, just because
I wrote the introduction, if I had helped with translation.
''The second edition''--loose language, of course.
Abstained from entering into the matter concerning Bollingen. Since I were
not to quote you, I can't take the matter into my hand.
The Press is mailing a copy of the book to Mr Moore as you desire.
Yours [signed] Achilles
Farrar: Robert Farrar and Stanley Rinehart in New York issued the Wrst American editions of A Draft of XXX Cantos (1933) and The Fifth Decad (1937).
Mr Moore: The American poet and psychiatrist Merrill Moore (1903-57) visited EP in 1952 and 1954.
? ? ? a. fang and pound's classic anthology 151
118 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [29 January 1955]
ages before the year of the sheep [1955]/Herr [Mr] Fang sent a work in krautisch/nippisch und chink/by KUNZE. given my imperfect knowledge of krautisch, HAS Mr Fang ANY idea what bloodysodam Herr Kunze thought he was up to?
A totally unreliable source told me Weenie's [Harvard] were GOING to print a decent edtn/of the ODES.
a man of probably very bad character enquires IF?
I gather Mr Personal-violence (or Force-of-Nature) [Tze-chiang] Chao is unknown to you. He has an admiration, most respectable, for Tu Fu.
whether any celestial [Chinese] can be mentioned in presence of, or in letter to, any OTHER celestial (any more than with a damWOpp [Italian]) I do not know. Li Ki may have some light on subject but it has not reached me. Neither has
current Hudson YET, tho I hear that blue ink has been employed. ----------
29 Jan/and will be posted I spose domani [tomorrow] o lunedi [Monday]
this day recd/one dried tortoise shell with remarks in probably hindoostani, possibly sanscrit, and arabic. Any demand for this ware among the high intelligentsia?
KUNZE: Reiner Kunze, Praktisches Zeichenlexikon chinesisch-deautsch-japanisch: 6000 Zeichen etymolo- gisch erklart mit neum praktischen Schlasse (1938). See Letter 119.
current Hudson: Hudson Review, 7/4 ([1954/]1955) with Canto 85.
119 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
3/II/55
Dear Mr Pound,
I haven't heard that Herr Kunze passed sinological aptitude test, nor does his
Zeichenlexikon indicate its author as possessing high sinological I. Q.
I forced the book upon you imprimis [Wrstly] because I (or rather meine Gattin [my wife]) thought (at that time she did not know that you had thumbed through Mathews more than she had done) the book with numerous clear-type ideograms might be of some use to you, secundo [secondly]--I (not Ilse) thought you might take kindly (not that you weren't kind) to the unfortunates
in S. Liz's, who seemed to me saner than Herr Kunze.
152 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
Who's this Chao? Not Chao Yuen-ren. (Half of Chinese verse-mongers are for Li Po, and the other half for Tu Fu. ) A certain William Hung, D. D. (here at Harvard), native missionary, in 1952 published an unreadable book (Harvard Press) entitled TU FU, China's Greatest Poet. (Preface: Bible and Tu Fu are the two greatest books to Hung pater Wliusque [father and son]. )
Please enlighten me on Weenie's project. Haven't heard anything about the Odes project.
As for the scratched tortoise-shell, I am really interested. I always thought that Chinks were the only ones who had socalled oracle-bones. It would be very interesting to see what the East Indians scratched on crustacean. I know no Sanskrit, but there are people here who read it without much trouble (I hope). It may turn out to be a real Ch. specimen (Hsia Dynasty). Grateful if DP could consign the shell to mail when she goes to the PO next time.
Notice a short prose-piece in japonaise by Reck (on VOU) in that egregious ''Poetlore. ''
Yours [signed] Achilles
Chao Yuen-ren: mathematician, linguist, and composer Zhao Yuanren compiled Concise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese (1947).
William Hung: William Hung, Tu Fu, China's Greatest Poet and Notes for Tu Fu, China's Greatest Poet, 2 vols. (1952).
Reck: Michael Reck traveled to Japan in 1953. In a letter Katue Kitasono, of the avant-garde poetry journal VOU, reports: ''I was surprised to see him speak Japanese so Xuently'' (Pound/Japan, 125).
120 EP to Fang (TL-1)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 7 Feb [1955]
o ACHilles/estimated age of turtle (shell) about 80 years/age of animal at date of demise, uncertain.
Inscription presumably made by friend of Gege, as I don't spose SHE knows enuf snskrt or even aRABik to have done it herself.
The term WEENIE, diminutive of one of the minor poets of the Spewsfeld era/both of 'em Harvard men of the WORST variety hence application of term to institution for degradation of learning which feeds yu
? ? ? ?
mr Chao Tse-Chiang (''personal violence'' or ''force of nature,'' as yu choose
to select from Mathews' list of whichwhats. He LIKES his Tu Fu. AT any rate brot in several Tu Fu that I did not know and was glad to read.
-----------
? a.