[Hummel]: Arthur William Hummel (1884-1975), director of the Library of
Congress
Orientalia Division (1928-54).
Ezra-Pounds-Chinese-Friends-Stories-in-Letters
Three or four verses are probably okay, but I have to revise the others.
I saw (literally SAW) the ideogram ''sincerita`''/perfection or adjusting the word to Wt the thought/
The TIGER [? ] is important/
But I was far from understanding the cliV; and I have had to think half a night to come up with an equivalent of the Wre underneath what Morrison calls ''house'' but was more likely a tent; or at best a very underdeveloped form of house.
I hope to get some REAL work done before I publish my little volume. My collaborator Luchini is a great Wnd because he is very meticulous with Italian words. Until now the translators have been hypnotized by the noun, always trying to link the ideograms to a ''part''/noun, verb, adjective. Maybe the Italian language has more possibilities than English.
Change ''process'' to continuation and one has to translate the radical: the hand that grasps the earth is the root; the vegetable hand, not the animal hand.
At least it seems to me like this/
And in a classical and ancient text, I think one has to preserve the original meanings of the ideograms, and not to follow the formless and colorless value given words in a newspaper of today.
I hope to see you when you return to Rome; and also to hear your opinion about our version. We are now doing the Ta S'eo. Then we'll start the Mencius, one book at a time. As far as I can see, the true tradition is Kung/Tseng/Meng. The others are irrelevant; they are interesting, but not in the direct line.
yang as pound's opponent and collaborator 39 Of course the comment that is printed in Chapter 5 is beyond the ethical scope,
whether Tseng is missing, etc. Good luck with your work. I'll see you soon I hope. ]
(TL-2; Beinecke): The original letter is lost. Our text is transcribed from its carbon copy (Beinecke). Legge: James Legge (1815-97), The Four Books (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1923). EP's copy of
Legge's one-volume Four Books is kept at the Burke Library of Hamilton College.
Il TIGRE [? ]: Reference to the etymology of the character ? (consider). EP renders ? as ''keep his head in the presence of a tiger'' in The Great Digest (Confucius, 29). Cf. Canto 85/569: ''and
then consider the time j liu ? ? . ''
Morrison: Robert Morrison (1782-1834), A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, in Three Parts (Macao:
The Honorable East India Company Press, 1815). EP's and DP's copy of the multivolume
dictionary is kept at the Burke Library of Hamilton College.
Luchini: Alberto Luchini, cotranslator with EP of Ta S'eu, was then director of the Department of
Racial Studies and Propaganda under the Italian Ministry of Popular Culture.
Mencio: at the suggestion of Sig. Tchu (see Letter 49), EP moved on to Zhong yong, the second of the Four Books, instead. The result was Chiung Iung: L'Asse che non vacilla (1945), rpt. in Confucio:
Studio integrale & L'Asse che non vacilla (1955).
23 Yang to EP (ALS-2; Beinecke)
Caro Sig. Pound
Stamane quello amico (del ministero) mi ha telefonato dicendo che voi
volevate qualche idiograma cinese, ma non ho capito bene le parole quindi non ho potuto rispondere [a] quello che mi domandava ed ora non so, se voi avete gia` trovato sul vocabolario o no; se vi ne ha bisogno ancora vi prego di scrivermi. Il Sig. Tchu e` piaciuto quel suo libro di ''Ta Hsiao'' (? ? ) e vorrebbe ancora alcune copie <per gli amici suoi> e se non vi dispiace vi prego di mandarai [mandare] altre 10 copie quando vi e` comodo.
Tanti saluti cordiali dal Sig. Tchu e da me molte grazie e saluti cari, Yang Fengchi
[Dear Mr Pound: This morning my friend (from the ministry) called to tell me that you wanted some Chinese ideograms, but I didn't catch the words, so I couldn't respond to what he asked. Now I don't know if you have found them in a dictionary; if you still need them, please write to me. Mr Zhu liked your book ''Ta Hsiao'' (? ? ) very much and he would like more copies to give to his friends, and if it's no trouble to you I would like you to send me ten more copies when you have time. Regards from Zhu and many thanks, Yang Fengchi]
altre 10 copie: in a card of 30 July 1942 (Beinecke), Yang acknowledged receipt of ten more copies of Ta S'eu (? ? ) from EP.
Albergo d'Italia Roma 15. 6. '42.
4
Achilles Fang and Pound's Bilingual Confucius ''All answers are in the FOUR BOOKS''
Brought from Italy to the United States, Pound was pronounced unWt for trial and committed to St Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC. During his Wrst years of incarceration at the federal hospital for the criminally insane (1946-52), Pound was engrossed in Confucian translations, not writing any new cantos. Apart from making draft versions of The Analects (1950) and the Odes (1954), he prepared a bilingual edition of The Great Digest & The Unwobbling Pivot with reproductions of rubbings from the Tang Stone-Classics. It was Willis Meeker Hawley (1896-1987), a Hollywood bookseller and sinologist, who gave him the idea of the Stone-Classics. Pound had purchased Chinese books and dictionaries from Hawley, and in a letter of 6 October 1948, Hawley told him about ''some of the Chinese deluxe editions which are made up of rubbings from monuments on which the classics were carved in the handwriting of famous calligraphers'' (Lilly). Two years later, in August 1950, samples of the Tang Stone-Classics Wnally reached St Elizabeths (see Fig. 4. 1). When Hawley oVered to compose ''a one page preface or post-face about the Stone Classics'' (Beinecke), Pound chose to brush the proposal aside.
What Pound had in mind was someone with real authority to treat this topic. At the same time, a man who was ideally qualiWed for the task was also looking for Pound. That summer Pound's American publisher, James Laughlin of New Directions, forwarded to him a letter from a ''Reverend Fang,'' suggesting consistent and correct spellings of Chinese names in Cantos 52-61. On 28 September 1950 that man wrote to Laughlin again to inquire about how ''the remaining Cantos [would] turn out'' and if some of them might ''deal with modern China'' (Lilly).
The man who inquired about The Cantos was Achilles Fang (Fang Zhitong ? ? ? , 1910-95), whom the Harvard-Yenching Institute had hired in 1947 to work on a Chinese-English dictionary. Born of Chinese ancestry in Korea, Fang went to Shanghai, China to attend the American Baptist College before entering Qinghua University in Beijing where he earned a BA in philosophy in 1932. After
a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 41
two more years of graduate studies at Qinghua, he joined the Guangxi Medical College in South China as a Latin instructor (1934-7). Having also taught German at two colleges in Beijing (Catholic University and Deutschland- Institut) and edited the Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies of Catholic University, Fang was overqualiWed for the job (see Fig. 4. 2). Before long he understandably grew bored with the dictionary project and began pursuing a Ph. D. degree in comparative literature at Harvard. His chosen topic for a dissertation was Pound's Pisan Cantos.
Fang and Pound initially communicated through Laughlin, and by November 1950 Fang oVered to compose a note on the Stone-Classics for Pound's bilingual edition of The Great Digest & The Unwobbling Pivot (1951). After making a draft, Fang decided to come down to Washington to meet Pound. Pound was overjoyed. Fang's visit to St Elizabeths on 27 December 1950 was described by Dorothy as ''a pleasure--to both of us. '' It was a pleasure to Dorothy because she was relieved that after several years' isolation Ezra had ''somebody to talk with, who understood some of his problems'' (Beinecke).
This Wrst meeting between Pound and Achilles Fang was immediately fol- lowed by vigorous exchanges of letters. The extant Pound-Achilles Fang cor- respondence consists of some 214 items, 108 from Pound to Fang and 106 from Fang to Pound. Considering their massiveness and importance I have given these letters two chapters: the letters of 1950-2 are reproduced in this chapter, and those of 1952-8 are presented in Chapter 7.
Many of the early Pound-Fang letters concern the Stone-Classics edition of The Great Digest & The Unwobbling Pivot. They reveal that Fang contributed more than just ''A Note on the Stone-Classics'' (Confucius, 11-15), which Pound found ''very well written'' (Letter 46). During their Wrst meeting, Fang handed over to Pound a list of recommended changes in the romanization of Chinese names. Pound accepted them, conceding that they would ''Wt without ruining sonor- ity'' (Letter 27). As the edition was more complex than any other Pound books he had handled, Laughlin invited Fang to review the proofs, not only to ''mark in pencil the changes in spelling'' but also to ''examine the proofs of the facing Chinese characters and see whether they were all right, and whether they were lined up properly'' (Beinecke). Fang graciously complied with the request, a relief for both Laughlin and Pound.
The letters tell us a great deal about Pound's Confucian studies at St Elizabeths. As a fervent book collector, Fang took pleasure in sharing his own copies of Chinese classics with Pound. (Before his death Fang willed his collection to Beijing University, with an initial shipment of some 5,000 volumes. ) Among those texts he sent Pound was Shu jing (Book of History) in the original, a source of Rock-Drill (1955), and at Pound's request Fang gave him an account of the ''Thirteen Classics. '' After reading through some of these volumes, Pound
42 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
came to a conclusion, which he repeated again and again in subsequent letters: ''All the answers are in the FOUR BOOKS. ''
As a scholar Fang delighted in discussing Confucian terminologies with Pound. The two usually disagreed with each other on readings of Confucius and Mencius. Their debate on one issue could continue for weeks, even months. Occasionally Pound's interpretation would strike Fang as brilliant. One such example is Pound's deWnition of the Confucian word zhi ? , which prompted Fang to say: ''your interpretation of ? seems to solve a number of knotty problems in Kung's book'' (Letter 30). The exchanges between Pound and Fang on concepts such as jing ? (respect) and ''four TUAN'' ? ? (four virtuous beginnings of human nature) may appear tedious, but they have a bearing on Pound's late cantos. When read in conjunction with Letters 42, 44, and 58, Pound's uses of the ''four TUAN'' in Cantos 85, 89, and 99 recall and intensify his earlier references to the Confucian belief in ren ? or virtuous human nature.
As a dictionary compiler, Fang was able to answer Pound's trying queries about Chinese dictionaries, evaluating in speciWc terms their respective strengths and weaknesses. From the beginning Pound surprised Fang with his insight into the reorganization (in the seventeenth century) of Chinese diction- aries from a 540-root (radical) system to a 214-root system. For him the change was ''one of [the] greatest intellectual acts in all history'' (Letter 29). At Pound's urging, Fang investigated the development of Chinese dictionaries from Shuo- wen (100-21 ad) to Kangxi (1716), resulting in a working bibliography that illuminates the organizational changes (Letter 57).
Pound was of course curious to know what Fang might think of Fenollosa's essay ''re/ the chinkese langwidG OR ideogram which is fer somethings the most precise and, in fact, only satisfactory medium for making certain statements'' (Letter 37). His own view on the Fenollosan approach had under- gone some noticeable transformation. With Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary he was able to study Chinese sound, even its tone. He would rhyme Chinese syllables with English syllables in Thrones (1959). In one of his letters to Fang, he wrote: ''For years I never made ANY attempt to hitch ANY sound to the ideograms/content with the meaning and the visual form'' (Letter 56).
The exchanges between Pound and Fang in 1950-2 encouraged them to continue their work together. During that period Pound was increasingly frustrated by his failed attempts to bring out an edition of the Confucian Odes with a Chinese sound key and a Chinese seal text. Fang oVered to assist him in this complex project. The story of how the Odes project was going to strain their friendship will be uncovered in their late correspondence.
? Fig. 4. 1. Sample of the Tang Stone-Classics. (Lilly)
? Fig. 4. 2. Achilles Fang with his daughter Madeleine, 1951. (Ilse Fang)
But very necessary. ancient awareness
& practice. --------------
as to excitement, Dr Fang, I had some.
very cordially yours & hoping see you soon.
a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 45
24 Fang to EP (ALS-2; Lilly)
Dear Dr Pound,
Many thanks for your kind letter. Now I can proceed and do that short note
on Stone Classics. K'ienlung's edict does not contain anything very exciting; should I succeed in turning out a fairly readable version, I shall submit it for your inspection.
I hope to come to Washington around Christmas and have written to that eVect to the Superintendent.
Yours respectfully Achilles Fang
your kind letter: EP's message delivered by James Laughlin on 25 November 1950: ''I sent your letter down to him and he replies as follows: 'All glory to the nobl Fang/whom shall be DEEElighted to see at any time gawd letZim git here. It is the T'ang text we are using. ' He also likes very much the little snapshot you sent of the stones, and I hope we may keep this, and have it enlarged and use it for some of our publicity'' (Beinecke).
short note: ''A Note on the Stone-Classics'' (Confucius, 11-15).
K'ienlung's edict: for Qianlong's preface to the Qing Stone-Classics, see Fang's version in Confucius,
13-15. Emperor Qianlong (1711-99) succeeded Yongzheng (Yong Tching of Canto 61) in 1736, who succeeded Kangxi (Kang Hi of Canto 60) in 1723.
25 EP to Fang (ALS-1; Beinecke)
EP
23 Boylston Hall Harvard College Cambridge, Mass. Nov. 26, 1950
S. Eliz DC 2 Dec [1950]
46 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
26 EP to Fang (ALS-2; Beinecke)
S. Elizabeths Hospital Wash D. C. [5 December 1950]
Dear Dr Fang,
Thanks so much for the foto.
I shall be delighted to see you if you manage to get to Washington.
Visiting hours any day from 1-4 P. M. but please write to Superintendent,
S. Eliz, now & your name will then be on the visiting list and no time lost after your arrival.
It is the T'ang lettering, rubbings, but text as in Legge & opinions as per Yong Ching or Sacred Edict of Kang H(s)i.
gratefully yours E. P.
the foto: see Letter 24 n.
Legge: see Letter 22 n.
Yong Ching or Sacred Edict of Kang H(s)i: F. W. Baller, ed. , Sacred Edict (Shanghai: China Inland Mission,
1907), with Emperor Yongzheng's literary and Salt Commissioner Wang Youpu's colloquial expan- sions of Kangxi's Edict and Baller's English translation of the latter, source of Cantos 98-9.
27 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [30 December 1950]
to FANG, Achilles
strictly anonymous communication.
Thanks very much.
Also the corrections will Wt without ruining sonority.
**
Probably no need to send the Stilwell and other book if you give me the titles,
they can probably be got from library. **
BUT the next question is: which of the OTHER 13 classics can be got at? Neither Hawley nor Orientalia [Hummel] have mentioned any of them in their catalogues. The Four, the Odes, Spr/ and Aut, the Shu/yes, got 'em. Also Li Ki, Couvreur. (Hummel sez call it LEE GEE)
What else can a man read? i. e. GET the original texts of? **
? a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 47
Meant to say that Giles ''Strange Tales,'' one of the few evidences of civilized sinology. Fellow named Orr, or Ogg or something did decent trans/ of the Shu, as far as I can remember.
and take tranquility to feed my breath
? the italians say: e` paciWco [it's obvious]
? ? when a thing is acceptable without discussion dog's man too active
Stilwell: The Stilwell Papers, ed. Theodore White (New York: Sloane Associates, 1948). During World War II Joseph W. Stilwell (1883-1946) was US chief of the joint staV in the China-Burma-India war zone.
13 classics: Book of Odes, Book of History, Book of Changes, Book of Rites, Gongyang's Commentary, Guliang's Commentary, Zuo's Commentary, Rites of Zhou, Records of Rites, Book on Filial Piety, Analects, Erya, and Mencius. For reference to ''the 13 classics,'' see Fang's version of Qianlong's preface (Confucius, 15).
[Hummel]: Arthur William Hummel (1884-1975), director of the Library of Congress Orientalia Division (1928-54).
''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? ?
I saw (literally SAW) the ideogram ''sincerita`''/perfection or adjusting the word to Wt the thought/
The TIGER [? ] is important/
But I was far from understanding the cliV; and I have had to think half a night to come up with an equivalent of the Wre underneath what Morrison calls ''house'' but was more likely a tent; or at best a very underdeveloped form of house.
I hope to get some REAL work done before I publish my little volume. My collaborator Luchini is a great Wnd because he is very meticulous with Italian words. Until now the translators have been hypnotized by the noun, always trying to link the ideograms to a ''part''/noun, verb, adjective. Maybe the Italian language has more possibilities than English.
Change ''process'' to continuation and one has to translate the radical: the hand that grasps the earth is the root; the vegetable hand, not the animal hand.
At least it seems to me like this/
And in a classical and ancient text, I think one has to preserve the original meanings of the ideograms, and not to follow the formless and colorless value given words in a newspaper of today.
I hope to see you when you return to Rome; and also to hear your opinion about our version. We are now doing the Ta S'eo. Then we'll start the Mencius, one book at a time. As far as I can see, the true tradition is Kung/Tseng/Meng. The others are irrelevant; they are interesting, but not in the direct line.
yang as pound's opponent and collaborator 39 Of course the comment that is printed in Chapter 5 is beyond the ethical scope,
whether Tseng is missing, etc. Good luck with your work. I'll see you soon I hope. ]
(TL-2; Beinecke): The original letter is lost. Our text is transcribed from its carbon copy (Beinecke). Legge: James Legge (1815-97), The Four Books (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1923). EP's copy of
Legge's one-volume Four Books is kept at the Burke Library of Hamilton College.
Il TIGRE [? ]: Reference to the etymology of the character ? (consider). EP renders ? as ''keep his head in the presence of a tiger'' in The Great Digest (Confucius, 29). Cf. Canto 85/569: ''and
then consider the time j liu ? ? . ''
Morrison: Robert Morrison (1782-1834), A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, in Three Parts (Macao:
The Honorable East India Company Press, 1815). EP's and DP's copy of the multivolume
dictionary is kept at the Burke Library of Hamilton College.
Luchini: Alberto Luchini, cotranslator with EP of Ta S'eu, was then director of the Department of
Racial Studies and Propaganda under the Italian Ministry of Popular Culture.
Mencio: at the suggestion of Sig. Tchu (see Letter 49), EP moved on to Zhong yong, the second of the Four Books, instead. The result was Chiung Iung: L'Asse che non vacilla (1945), rpt. in Confucio:
Studio integrale & L'Asse che non vacilla (1955).
23 Yang to EP (ALS-2; Beinecke)
Caro Sig. Pound
Stamane quello amico (del ministero) mi ha telefonato dicendo che voi
volevate qualche idiograma cinese, ma non ho capito bene le parole quindi non ho potuto rispondere [a] quello che mi domandava ed ora non so, se voi avete gia` trovato sul vocabolario o no; se vi ne ha bisogno ancora vi prego di scrivermi. Il Sig. Tchu e` piaciuto quel suo libro di ''Ta Hsiao'' (? ? ) e vorrebbe ancora alcune copie <per gli amici suoi> e se non vi dispiace vi prego di mandarai [mandare] altre 10 copie quando vi e` comodo.
Tanti saluti cordiali dal Sig. Tchu e da me molte grazie e saluti cari, Yang Fengchi
[Dear Mr Pound: This morning my friend (from the ministry) called to tell me that you wanted some Chinese ideograms, but I didn't catch the words, so I couldn't respond to what he asked. Now I don't know if you have found them in a dictionary; if you still need them, please write to me. Mr Zhu liked your book ''Ta Hsiao'' (? ? ) very much and he would like more copies to give to his friends, and if it's no trouble to you I would like you to send me ten more copies when you have time. Regards from Zhu and many thanks, Yang Fengchi]
altre 10 copie: in a card of 30 July 1942 (Beinecke), Yang acknowledged receipt of ten more copies of Ta S'eu (? ? ) from EP.
Albergo d'Italia Roma 15. 6. '42.
4
Achilles Fang and Pound's Bilingual Confucius ''All answers are in the FOUR BOOKS''
Brought from Italy to the United States, Pound was pronounced unWt for trial and committed to St Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC. During his Wrst years of incarceration at the federal hospital for the criminally insane (1946-52), Pound was engrossed in Confucian translations, not writing any new cantos. Apart from making draft versions of The Analects (1950) and the Odes (1954), he prepared a bilingual edition of The Great Digest & The Unwobbling Pivot with reproductions of rubbings from the Tang Stone-Classics. It was Willis Meeker Hawley (1896-1987), a Hollywood bookseller and sinologist, who gave him the idea of the Stone-Classics. Pound had purchased Chinese books and dictionaries from Hawley, and in a letter of 6 October 1948, Hawley told him about ''some of the Chinese deluxe editions which are made up of rubbings from monuments on which the classics were carved in the handwriting of famous calligraphers'' (Lilly). Two years later, in August 1950, samples of the Tang Stone-Classics Wnally reached St Elizabeths (see Fig. 4. 1). When Hawley oVered to compose ''a one page preface or post-face about the Stone Classics'' (Beinecke), Pound chose to brush the proposal aside.
What Pound had in mind was someone with real authority to treat this topic. At the same time, a man who was ideally qualiWed for the task was also looking for Pound. That summer Pound's American publisher, James Laughlin of New Directions, forwarded to him a letter from a ''Reverend Fang,'' suggesting consistent and correct spellings of Chinese names in Cantos 52-61. On 28 September 1950 that man wrote to Laughlin again to inquire about how ''the remaining Cantos [would] turn out'' and if some of them might ''deal with modern China'' (Lilly).
The man who inquired about The Cantos was Achilles Fang (Fang Zhitong ? ? ? , 1910-95), whom the Harvard-Yenching Institute had hired in 1947 to work on a Chinese-English dictionary. Born of Chinese ancestry in Korea, Fang went to Shanghai, China to attend the American Baptist College before entering Qinghua University in Beijing where he earned a BA in philosophy in 1932. After
a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 41
two more years of graduate studies at Qinghua, he joined the Guangxi Medical College in South China as a Latin instructor (1934-7). Having also taught German at two colleges in Beijing (Catholic University and Deutschland- Institut) and edited the Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies of Catholic University, Fang was overqualiWed for the job (see Fig. 4. 2). Before long he understandably grew bored with the dictionary project and began pursuing a Ph. D. degree in comparative literature at Harvard. His chosen topic for a dissertation was Pound's Pisan Cantos.
Fang and Pound initially communicated through Laughlin, and by November 1950 Fang oVered to compose a note on the Stone-Classics for Pound's bilingual edition of The Great Digest & The Unwobbling Pivot (1951). After making a draft, Fang decided to come down to Washington to meet Pound. Pound was overjoyed. Fang's visit to St Elizabeths on 27 December 1950 was described by Dorothy as ''a pleasure--to both of us. '' It was a pleasure to Dorothy because she was relieved that after several years' isolation Ezra had ''somebody to talk with, who understood some of his problems'' (Beinecke).
This Wrst meeting between Pound and Achilles Fang was immediately fol- lowed by vigorous exchanges of letters. The extant Pound-Achilles Fang cor- respondence consists of some 214 items, 108 from Pound to Fang and 106 from Fang to Pound. Considering their massiveness and importance I have given these letters two chapters: the letters of 1950-2 are reproduced in this chapter, and those of 1952-8 are presented in Chapter 7.
Many of the early Pound-Fang letters concern the Stone-Classics edition of The Great Digest & The Unwobbling Pivot. They reveal that Fang contributed more than just ''A Note on the Stone-Classics'' (Confucius, 11-15), which Pound found ''very well written'' (Letter 46). During their Wrst meeting, Fang handed over to Pound a list of recommended changes in the romanization of Chinese names. Pound accepted them, conceding that they would ''Wt without ruining sonor- ity'' (Letter 27). As the edition was more complex than any other Pound books he had handled, Laughlin invited Fang to review the proofs, not only to ''mark in pencil the changes in spelling'' but also to ''examine the proofs of the facing Chinese characters and see whether they were all right, and whether they were lined up properly'' (Beinecke). Fang graciously complied with the request, a relief for both Laughlin and Pound.
The letters tell us a great deal about Pound's Confucian studies at St Elizabeths. As a fervent book collector, Fang took pleasure in sharing his own copies of Chinese classics with Pound. (Before his death Fang willed his collection to Beijing University, with an initial shipment of some 5,000 volumes. ) Among those texts he sent Pound was Shu jing (Book of History) in the original, a source of Rock-Drill (1955), and at Pound's request Fang gave him an account of the ''Thirteen Classics. '' After reading through some of these volumes, Pound
42 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
came to a conclusion, which he repeated again and again in subsequent letters: ''All the answers are in the FOUR BOOKS. ''
As a scholar Fang delighted in discussing Confucian terminologies with Pound. The two usually disagreed with each other on readings of Confucius and Mencius. Their debate on one issue could continue for weeks, even months. Occasionally Pound's interpretation would strike Fang as brilliant. One such example is Pound's deWnition of the Confucian word zhi ? , which prompted Fang to say: ''your interpretation of ? seems to solve a number of knotty problems in Kung's book'' (Letter 30). The exchanges between Pound and Fang on concepts such as jing ? (respect) and ''four TUAN'' ? ? (four virtuous beginnings of human nature) may appear tedious, but they have a bearing on Pound's late cantos. When read in conjunction with Letters 42, 44, and 58, Pound's uses of the ''four TUAN'' in Cantos 85, 89, and 99 recall and intensify his earlier references to the Confucian belief in ren ? or virtuous human nature.
As a dictionary compiler, Fang was able to answer Pound's trying queries about Chinese dictionaries, evaluating in speciWc terms their respective strengths and weaknesses. From the beginning Pound surprised Fang with his insight into the reorganization (in the seventeenth century) of Chinese diction- aries from a 540-root (radical) system to a 214-root system. For him the change was ''one of [the] greatest intellectual acts in all history'' (Letter 29). At Pound's urging, Fang investigated the development of Chinese dictionaries from Shuo- wen (100-21 ad) to Kangxi (1716), resulting in a working bibliography that illuminates the organizational changes (Letter 57).
Pound was of course curious to know what Fang might think of Fenollosa's essay ''re/ the chinkese langwidG OR ideogram which is fer somethings the most precise and, in fact, only satisfactory medium for making certain statements'' (Letter 37). His own view on the Fenollosan approach had under- gone some noticeable transformation. With Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary he was able to study Chinese sound, even its tone. He would rhyme Chinese syllables with English syllables in Thrones (1959). In one of his letters to Fang, he wrote: ''For years I never made ANY attempt to hitch ANY sound to the ideograms/content with the meaning and the visual form'' (Letter 56).
The exchanges between Pound and Fang in 1950-2 encouraged them to continue their work together. During that period Pound was increasingly frustrated by his failed attempts to bring out an edition of the Confucian Odes with a Chinese sound key and a Chinese seal text. Fang oVered to assist him in this complex project. The story of how the Odes project was going to strain their friendship will be uncovered in their late correspondence.
? Fig. 4. 1. Sample of the Tang Stone-Classics. (Lilly)
? Fig. 4. 2. Achilles Fang with his daughter Madeleine, 1951. (Ilse Fang)
But very necessary. ancient awareness
& practice. --------------
as to excitement, Dr Fang, I had some.
very cordially yours & hoping see you soon.
a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 45
24 Fang to EP (ALS-2; Lilly)
Dear Dr Pound,
Many thanks for your kind letter. Now I can proceed and do that short note
on Stone Classics. K'ienlung's edict does not contain anything very exciting; should I succeed in turning out a fairly readable version, I shall submit it for your inspection.
I hope to come to Washington around Christmas and have written to that eVect to the Superintendent.
Yours respectfully Achilles Fang
your kind letter: EP's message delivered by James Laughlin on 25 November 1950: ''I sent your letter down to him and he replies as follows: 'All glory to the nobl Fang/whom shall be DEEElighted to see at any time gawd letZim git here. It is the T'ang text we are using. ' He also likes very much the little snapshot you sent of the stones, and I hope we may keep this, and have it enlarged and use it for some of our publicity'' (Beinecke).
short note: ''A Note on the Stone-Classics'' (Confucius, 11-15).
K'ienlung's edict: for Qianlong's preface to the Qing Stone-Classics, see Fang's version in Confucius,
13-15. Emperor Qianlong (1711-99) succeeded Yongzheng (Yong Tching of Canto 61) in 1736, who succeeded Kangxi (Kang Hi of Canto 60) in 1723.
25 EP to Fang (ALS-1; Beinecke)
EP
23 Boylston Hall Harvard College Cambridge, Mass. Nov. 26, 1950
S. Eliz DC 2 Dec [1950]
46 a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius
26 EP to Fang (ALS-2; Beinecke)
S. Elizabeths Hospital Wash D. C. [5 December 1950]
Dear Dr Fang,
Thanks so much for the foto.
I shall be delighted to see you if you manage to get to Washington.
Visiting hours any day from 1-4 P. M. but please write to Superintendent,
S. Eliz, now & your name will then be on the visiting list and no time lost after your arrival.
It is the T'ang lettering, rubbings, but text as in Legge & opinions as per Yong Ching or Sacred Edict of Kang H(s)i.
gratefully yours E. P.
the foto: see Letter 24 n.
Legge: see Letter 22 n.
Yong Ching or Sacred Edict of Kang H(s)i: F. W. Baller, ed. , Sacred Edict (Shanghai: China Inland Mission,
1907), with Emperor Yongzheng's literary and Salt Commissioner Wang Youpu's colloquial expan- sions of Kangxi's Edict and Baller's English translation of the latter, source of Cantos 98-9.
27 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [30 December 1950]
to FANG, Achilles
strictly anonymous communication.
Thanks very much.
Also the corrections will Wt without ruining sonority.
**
Probably no need to send the Stilwell and other book if you give me the titles,
they can probably be got from library. **
BUT the next question is: which of the OTHER 13 classics can be got at? Neither Hawley nor Orientalia [Hummel] have mentioned any of them in their catalogues. The Four, the Odes, Spr/ and Aut, the Shu/yes, got 'em. Also Li Ki, Couvreur. (Hummel sez call it LEE GEE)
What else can a man read? i. e. GET the original texts of? **
? a. fang and pound's bilingual confucius 47
Meant to say that Giles ''Strange Tales,'' one of the few evidences of civilized sinology. Fellow named Orr, or Ogg or something did decent trans/ of the Shu, as far as I can remember.
and take tranquility to feed my breath
? the italians say: e` paciWco [it's obvious]
? ? when a thing is acceptable without discussion dog's man too active
Stilwell: The Stilwell Papers, ed. Theodore White (New York: Sloane Associates, 1948). During World War II Joseph W. Stilwell (1883-1946) was US chief of the joint staV in the China-Burma-India war zone.
13 classics: Book of Odes, Book of History, Book of Changes, Book of Rites, Gongyang's Commentary, Guliang's Commentary, Zuo's Commentary, Rites of Zhou, Records of Rites, Book on Filial Piety, Analects, Erya, and Mencius. For reference to ''the 13 classics,'' see Fang's version of Qianlong's preface (Confucius, 15).
[Hummel]: Arthur William Hummel (1884-1975), director of the Library of Congress Orientalia Division (1928-54).
''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? ?
