] lin
perfectly
easy once one had the [?
Ezra-Pounds-Chinese-Friends-Stories-in-Letters
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. all answers are in the FOUR BOOKS, i. e. all answers re/ conduct. E. P.
translating and publishing Confucius in italian/ E. P. 's DIFFERENCES from Fascist theory and practice, PUBLICATION of same permitted in Italy. in brief: J. Adams and the U. S. A. Constitution.
Leahy (Admiral) ''I was there''/showing Petain wanted: something between U. S. Constitution and Mussolini's Wrst proposals.
Can Fang indicate new Bill of Rights pubd/ in England, as program? perhaps not in this talk but as topic of future curiosity.
Note appalling IGNORANCE, foetid in Hull and Leahy, but present also in Mme de Chambrun AND Stilwell, the latter Wne value, BUT unaware of Europe, balance of power in Europe, European history also moral fury vs/C[hiang]. K. Chek, who under no obligation to prefer excessive Russia to a victorious Germany. Naturally no sympathy with Charlie [T. V. ] Sung and his gang.
Gentle curiosity re/ LATER developments of Gesellism, cd/ be touched LIGHTLY, more in nature of enquiry as to what Mr P/ believes.
Write Rev. Henry Swabey, Lindsell Vicarage, Chelmsford, Essex, England, for proposed Bill of Rights/ useful subject for some stewed-dent's thesis re/''on which he leans. '' Hnbl/ Fang not LEAN on ANY asst/ profs.
the FOUR BOOKS: the four quintessential Confucian books Da xue, Zhong yong, Lun yu, and Mencius. See Glossary on Confucius. See also Letter 22 n.
Leahy: Admiral William Daniel Leahy (1875-1959) was President Roosevelt's chief of staV (1942-5). Petain: Philippe Pe ? tain (1856-1951), premier of the Vichy government, was tried and convicted
in 1945.
Hull: Cordell Hull (1871-1955) was US Secretary of State from 1933 to 1944.
Mme de Chambrun: Jose ? Laval, daughter of French head of state Pierre Laval (1883-1945), married
Rene ? de Chambrun in 1935.
Charlie Sung: T. V. Soong (1894-1971), Chiang Kai-shek's brother-in-law, was his Wnance minister
from 1928 to 1933 and foreign minister from 1942 to 1945.
Gesellism: the monetary theories of the German businessman and economist Silvio Gesell
(1862-1930).
Henry Swabey: see Glossary on Swabey, Reverend Henry.
a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 57
36 Fang to EP (TL-2; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
[February 1951]
RE ? , mu4.
---------
This ideogram is a mistaken vulgar variation of ? , which is [not] pro-
nounced mo4 (in the sense of ''do not'', like i`? ) but mu4 (in the sense of ''evening'' or ''late'' as in The Analects XI xxv, 7, p. 112 ? ). The K'ang-hsi dictionary (i. e. the dictionary compiled under the auspice of that emperor) and all later dictionaries list ? under ? and ? under ? .
---------- As for ? ,
The oracle-bone inscriptions of the Yin (Shang) dynasty write it both as ? (the sun among four grasses) and as ? (among four trees).
In bronze inscriptions of the Chou dynasty, the second form (four grasses) alone is found.
The Wrst etymological dictionary Shuo-wen chieh-tzu ? ? ? ? of Hsu ? Shen ? ? (second century A. D. ; exact date not known) does not list ? ; instead it gives ? , under Radical ? . (This dictionary employs 540 Radicals. )
The dictionary Yu ? -p'ien ? ? of Ku Yeh-wang ? ? ? (519-581) records ? under Radical 542 ? . (This dictionary uses 542 Radicals. )
------------
Whether ? was originally written ? or ? (as on the scroll in your room), it is to be considered as the correct form. ? cannot but be considered as a mistaken variation.
-----------
Hey Snag wots in the bibl'? wot are the books ov the bible?
Name 'em, don't bullshit ME.
? ? O? O^ E? O?
a man on whom the sun has gone down
. . . [Canto 74/450]
May one read ''ME'' as the pronunciation of ? <mo or mu>? ME at the same time reminds one of i`? , which in turn makes one think of i? y? . And ? O? O^E? O? , ''Odessey'', ! ''a man on whom the sun has gone down''. Of course, the lower part of ? should represent neither ? [big] nor ? (man) but two grasses (? ); but does that matter? ? ? ? non mihi [nothing].
Written two weeks or so ago, but got lost all this while among the pile of Poundiana on my desk.
? ? ? ? ? ? 58 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
Shuo-wen chieh-tzu: see Glossary on Xu Shen.
scroll in your room: a scroll of calligraphy by the etymologist Shen Jianshi, a gift from Achilles Fang.
37 EP to Fang (TL-4; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [March 1951]
what has the hnbl/FANG to say to thick-headed occidental re/ the chinkese langwidG OR ideogram which is fer somethings the most precise and, in fact, only satisfactory medium for making certain statements, and IS in others the most damblasted and DAMbiguous modus loquendi, wot yu cant bust open with a meat AX? ?
[? ] man
[? ] mist
[? ] cold < not example of ambiguity/>
[? ] orange
[? ] pumelo/
mean the blighter's face is all scrunched up like a[n] orange? ? or wot the HELL? ? Further fantasies fer child's guide to quick-chink:
numbers from yr/ beelUvvid' Mathews'.
[? ] she, 5699/shed
[? ] kan as in CANdy and sugar CANE
[? ] 2095/ hen, as in french haine.
[? ] lo, 4122/low, and LOC as in location.
[? ] su 5509/SUper
Lan 3807, as in LANiard [? ]
[? ] fou, 1906, as in frog/fou
[? ] li, 3864, LIning (here only to the eye, not to ear)
I suppose that indistinguishable left-component, plus 3 mouths signiWes Gavin
Douglas' ''blaisterand bubb''/ but still cant Wnd which rad[ical]/ it is used for. [?
] lin perfectly easy once one had the [? ] ch'en rad/
thought I HAD tried it, anyhow, but eye very untrained and no nack for
running up and down columns.
VERY stupid of me not to see the sun under the grass/ but had Wnally done
so. [? ] **
the melopoeia, or part that matters TO ME, seems to resist all vagaries of dialect. **
now this pumelo? can the id/ refer to familiar tree (i. e. fam/ in Rapallo) the
uncultivated orange, looks like an orange, but no taste and inedible (or at least until famine times. )
a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 59
could that line mean: hearths cold, oranges reverted
i. e. to wild and useless state, from lack of care? probably the yu [? ] cannot mean mock-orange/ and this probably useless barbarian conjectured. a one-eyed wind with three mouths, three whoofs, blowing 3 ways makes more (//more mare's nests). Will remember that blooming ''lin'' [? ] from now on.
Cdn't be expected to know Sieh [? ] was proper name (as hadn't looked at commentary)
2630 [? ], a, b, c, d, wot a twister
any more data re Belden himself ?
Belden might be improved? ? ? question.
He is O. K. in loathing the Dewey, Luce, Fortune swine, BUT only objects to
smear when aimed at pinks and commies. He is illiterate re/K'ung. Obviously Chiang K-S did NOT (p 425) practice the Confucian doctrine of ANYthing.
doubt if B[elden]/ ever read the text of K'ung even in Legge. also a bit of know-it-all when he generalizes, but good re/ what he has seen. Also still dodges fact that Roose was Roose. less competent than Chiang? and wd/hv/ made worse mess in C[hiang]'s circumstances. A swine of the smeariest.
Erigena is sd/ to hv sd/ ''authority comes from right reason'' have never spotted the chapter and verse where he says it, but had v. limited time for the search.
the Ta S'eu (or HIO, or whatever trans/lit/approx you use) knocks the tar out of almost every assumption B/ makes re K'ung, tho doubtless he is accurate enough re/ what Chiang or the mutts pretended was Confucian.
Bunting is howling for a bilingual oriental series (all oriental langs/) like the Loeb greek, latin. Might be tea time subject of talk with Harvard weaklings? ? ? ? A. F. ever glance at Erigena or Avicenna? just to see that there have been nice
minds outside the Middle Kingdom. But only one K/
Did I say Santayana half admitted: ''no philosophy, only philo-epistemology
since,'' I forget when, possibly Leibnitz, possibly Ocellus. I think I drew him by saying: since Ocellus: Sin, jih, jih sin [Day by day make it new].
Kindergarten mnemonics for sound. Do I know the sound of 60 id[eogram]s/? ? Further mnemonic triXes/
shu1 [? ] 5851/kill, very
as we say ''dead right, dead certain''
***
re FOUR grasses, trees, etc/ I repeat: the reorganization from 500 down to 214 radicals was one of [the] greatest intellectual acts of all time. Lacking in english (so far as I know) a clear and adequate report on what actually happened/ did it need 1000 scholars or 40 or six?
Cannot rule out a priori the possibility that they did not simply DERIVE, but that they made new combinations of abbreviated root-pictograms with new connotations.
Sin jih jih sin
? 60 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
A. F. rad[ical]/ card gives rad/ 136 [? ], as confuse.
is there any speciWc known evidence that rules out idea of ''opposites'' i. e. waxing and waning moon
Some review OUGHT to print an A. F. account of the reorganization DOWN to 214 unless it wd/ interrupt A. F. 's more pressing commitments.
E. hasn't SEEN any hist/chin/lit/ since he read Giles in some internat/lit/ series, over 40 years ago. Do not recall that he (G/) had given a thought ''entertained a thought'' (Mat. yu ? 7622, 3 [? ? ]) to the amount of thought needed to reorganize the rad/ system.
***Also lot of fuss re,/ exact rhyme/ whereas inexact syzogy, SHADINGS of sound, one of most useful devices for melody, not only shifts of do, re, mi etc/ but also of fengs, fangs, Wns, fons, etc. no reason to suppose we waited fer Bill Yeats to start use of it.
**
already noted (? ) lo [? ] as in low, lower//
spanish ll, Xuids, etc. one of [the] most common associations in numerous
languages.
[? ] man. . . [? ] pumelo: a line from ''On the Northern Tower'' (? ? ? ? ) by Xie Tiao ? ? (464-99). In a letter to EP of 2 March 1951 (Lilly) Fang copied out the poem with a sound key illustrating its rhyme scheme and tonal arrangement.
Gavin Douglas: Gavin Douglas (1474-1522), Scottish translator of Virgil's Aeneid.
Dewey: Jack Belden holds that Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey (1902-71) and Time-Life-Fortune publisher Henry Luce (1898-1967) endorsed Chiang because of shared anti-
Communist sentiment.
Belden . . . (p 425): Belden refers to Chiang as a dictator.
Bunting: the British poet and translator Basil Bunting (1900-85) Wrst met EP in Paris c. 1923.
the Loeb greek, latin: a series of Greek and Roman classics with translations published in England by
Heinemann and in America Wrst by Macmillan and then by Harvard University Press.
Erigena: the Irish-born theologian John Scotus Erigena (c. 815-c. 877) is listed in Cantos 74, 83, and 87. Avicenna: Ibn S ? ? na ? (c. 980-1037), Persian author of nearly 240 books. EP owned a copy of his
Metaphysics Compendium (1926).
Santayana: see Glossary on Santayana, George.
Leibnitz: EP writes about the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) in Guide
to Kulchur (1938; New York: New Directions, 1970), 74 as follows: ''After Leibniz, the precedent
kind of thought ceased to lead men. ''
Ocellus: the Pythagorean philosopher Ocellus (5th century bc) is listed in Cantos 87 and 107.
38 Fang to EP (TLS-3; Lilly)
[Cambridge, Mass. ] 3/14 [1951]
Dear Mr Pound,
The rad/card was not made by A. F. ; it was done some years ago, when A. F. was
still in Peking, by the ignoramuses here for the confusion of poor students. Of course,
? a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 61
rad/ 136 [? ] does not mean ''confuse. '' The cardinal meaning of that ideogram might be found in the last entry under that ideogram in Mathews: DISCREP- ANCY, from which ideas like ''opposing, perverse, disobedient, error, disorder, confusion, contradictory'' can be derived. Anciently the id/ was written ?
Now, Hsu ? [Xu] Shen thinks the pictogram stands for two persons lying back against back ? ? , but later etymologists disagree with him and assert that the pict/ represents two things placed back against back. At any rate, the funda- mental meaning is ''discrepancy'' or ''overlapping. '' I have failed to Wnd any evidence supporting the idea of ''opposites,'' etc.
Since I am at it, allow me to disillusion you about Mathews. This dictionary is full of errors, even after revision. Almost every third sentence (I mean, entry) is either erroneous or misleading. Take the phrase ? ? ; it never means ''to entertain a thought. '' <''to entertain a thought'' or ''to give a thought to . . . '' would be ? ? . > NEVER. Lit. it means to house a thought in a thing, in which ''in a thing'' is either expressed or implied. Or shall I say, ''to charge a thing with one's thought''? It is often used in the sense of ''allegory''; in some contexts it means something <quite like> POSSUM's [Eliot's] objective correlative. E. g. in speaking of the Eulogy of Oranges supposedly written by Ch'u ? Yu ? an (jap. Kutsugen or Kutsu Gen) critics say he was making use of yu ? -i [? ? ]; the orange was a mere allegory. When T'ao Yu ? an-ming (Toenmei) wrote
? ? ? ? ?
''Calmly I see the Southern Hills,''
he is supposed to have taken recourse to yu ? -i: it was immaterial whether he actually saw the hills, for the important thing is that his mind was at peace. Objective correlative?
When students can make use of vernacular dictionaries I always advise them to throw Mathews out of the window. The best v. dictionary is ? ? .
I like your analysis of ? ; Hsu ? [Xu] Shen's is very weak, nor is there any satisfactory explanation. I think yours can be maintained.
Yesterday I forwarded the galley proofs of Stone-Classics, with the necessary ideograms.
Yours respectfully [signed] Achilles Fang
For the moment I cannot squeeze out a minute and write on the development of radicals. However, I shall keep this subject in mind.
I am sincerely grateful to you for introducing me to Erigena and Avicenna. For the moment I am studying the Oirishman. ''Authority comes from right reason,'' occurring in many of your writings, has intrigued me quite. In fact the entire chapter (De divisione naturae, liber primus, cap. 69; Joannis Scoti opera
? ? 62 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
quae supersunt omnia,/1853, ex typis Migne, au Petit-Montrouge,--publ. as a vol. in Patrologiae cursus completus,/column 513) is quite interesting. [ . . . ]
''No philosophy, only philo-epistemology since . . . '' What Santayana said to you is unfortunately true. In college A. F.
