The 7
instructions
follow in the canto.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
.
: Prob.
Mary Russell Mitford, 1789?
1855, a popular writer of sketches, tales, poetry, and plays, who be- came quite a public figure after her dramas were performed by some of the great tragic actors of her time, including William Mac- ready.
Her plays included Foscari, Julian, Rienzi, and Charles I, as well as one of defi?
nite interest to Pound: Inez de Castro [3:23].
The source of the quote is un?
known, but Miss Mitford would go far to avoid the taint of "gothic" in her work, which was based solidly on village and coun?
try life and historical' fact.
She was univer- sally referred to as "Miss Mitford," in criti- cism of her work as well as in books about her.
Other candidates could be the 20th?
century Mitfords Nancy, Jessica, or Unity.
163. XIV: this light: Dante's "viva luce . . . che non si disuna" [Par. XIII, 55? 56] : "vivid light . . . that is not disunited [from its Lu? cent Source]. " Correlates with Pound's light symbolism and the "total light process," functioning throughout the poem.
164. No . . . contraptions: "Extirpate Here? sy and so exact Orthodoxy," K'ang's saying for Chap. VII. Again Pound uses his own reaction to the characters and gives an even more colJoquial rendering than does the salt commissioner [VII, 72].
168. pen yeh: [Cf. 55, 56 above].
169. ne ultra crepidam: Variation on a story told by Pliny about a shoemaker who criti? cized an artist's work because he had painted one too few loops in a sandal. The artist corrected it, which so encouraged the shoe- maker that he then criticized the painting of the leg, whereupon the artist said, "a shoe- maker in his criticism must not go beyond the sandal-a remark that has also passed into proverb. " A footnote says: "Ne sutor ultra crepidam. 'Let the shoemaker stick to his last' " [Pliny, History, XXXV, 36, 85? 86 (Loeb IX, 323? 325)].
170. children . . . evil: "Consider-what do children know about good and evil? They are wholly dependent upon their elders to excite in them good affections" [XI, 121].
171. Not a fixed charge: The Edict has a long passage on the "Tithing System," which requires different payments (not a fixed charge) based on ability to pay [XV, 156-
157].
172. Mang Tzu: Mencius. Pound wrote: "Mencius distinguishes a tax from a share, he is for an economy of abundance" ["Mang Tsze,"SP,86].
173. Ideogram: Merig [M4428] , "Mencius. "
174. Yield not . . . : The Edict has a sub? heading that reads, "Evils of Yielding to Anger. " It is followed by many examples [XIV, 170 ff].
175. those who lie . . . : K'ang's saying at the head of Chap. XII is, "Prevent False Ac- cusations, and so shield the Law-abiding. " But Chap. XII of the Wen-Ii of Yung Cheng [cf. 128 above] asked the people to listen and hear clearly: "You soldiers and Civilians, give this (material) your most careful hearing and don't disregard it" [Wen? li XII, 203]. The characters can be seen in the upper right hand corner of p. 203 of the facsimile edition of Baller.
176. Ideogram: Wu [M7193], "don't. "
177. Ideogram: Hu [M2194], "disregard. "
161. "from rib to cheek
"Then the light within which the wondrous life . . . had been narrated to me broke the silence . . . You believe that into the breast from which the rib was drawn to form her beautiful cheek whose palate costs so dear to all the world" [Par. XIII, 31? 39; trans. Sin? gleton].
": Dante:
165. State the laws . . . : K'ang's
heading Chap. VIII: "Explain the Law, to Warn the Foolish and Wayward" [VIII, 88].
166. Iu-an . . . fed it: An illustration of good manners and customs tells of a better way then stealing someone's cow: "There was a (man named) Kuan Iu-an; he also was most willing to give way to others. Some- body else's cow ate grain in his field. He was not in the least vexed; on the contrary he tied the cow up to a tree and brought it grass to eat" [IX, 108].
167. The Xth clause: "Let the People at? tend to their Proper Callings, that they may have Settled Determination" [X, 110]. Pound calls the K'ang 7? character slogan a clause.
statement
? ? 636
98/693 99/694
637
178. colour of Nature: [90:2].
179. hsien: [M2692] ,
[85:143]. The character occurs often in the
"light descending" passages.
180. mingo [M4534]. What Pound calls "the total light process . . . hence the in- telligence" [CON,20].
18! ' (Pitagora): Pythagoras [91: II] . 182. non si disuna: [Cf. 163 above].
184. 2nd year . . . : The 9 characters at the beginning of the Wen-Ii, on the upper left of p. 183 in the facsimile edition, read: "Yung Cheng, the 2nd year, the 2nd month, begin- ning the 2nd day. "
Exegeses
EP, GK, 290; CFT, Pai, 2-1, 69-112; DG, Pai, 3-2, 169-190; DG,
Pai, 4-1, 121-168; DG, Ezra Pounds's Use o f the Sacred Edict, in process [EP: Edict]; JW, Later, 133-147.
[For most of Canto 98, Pound used the language of the salt commissioner. For most of Canto 99, he goes to the Wen-Ii (Literary Text) of Yung Cheng, analyzes all the components of the characters, and gives the results in his own idiomatic or colloquial English. His method will be illustrated in the first page or so; after that the lines will not be glossed unless the meaning in context is unclear. Translations from the Wen-Ii cited in the glosses are based on the work of David Gordon, which will appear in a book presently being edited. ]
Glossary
183. Splendor: [109: 17]. Pound is deliberately bringing together elements of Greek wisdom, in the tables of opposites of Pythagoras and the "coherence" of splendor in the Women of Trachis, with the Chinese yin-yang and other Confucian doctrines in the Edict, which in turn had later expression in Dante: "That which cannot die and that which can die is only the splend;;lr of that Idea which in His love our Sire begets; for that living light which so streams from its Lucent Source that It is not disunited from It nor from the Love" [Par. XIII, 52-57].
"manifest"
prob.
CANTO XCIX
Sources
F. W. Baller, trans. , The Sacred Edict, Shanghai, 1924, rpl.
Orono, Me. , 1979 pp. 182-211 [Edict]; Dante, Par. XIII, VIII; Homer, Od. XI, Ill; Pliny, History XXXV (Loeb IX); Diogenes Laertius, Philosophers VII (Loeb) [Diogenes]; Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. A. H. Armstrong, II, III (Loeb) [Enneads]; Dante, Convivio II [Conv. ].
Background
EP, LE, 41-47, 178,437-440; SP, 64-98; Frobenius, Leo Frobe-
nius 1873-1973: An Anthology, ed. Eike Haberland, Wiesbaden, F. Steiner, 1973 [Anthology]; Charles Singleton, trans. The Divine Comedy, 6 vols. , Bollingen Series LXXX, Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1970; 3 vols. text and 3 vols. commentary [Commen- tary]; 1. P. Migne, Patrologiae Latina, vol. 14 [Migne, column no. ].
2. long Cheng: [98:60].
3. KangHi: [98:111,112].
185. Sheng: [M5753], [M7641], "edict. "
"sacred";
yu
186. "Each year . . . : The source is Wen-Ii: "Each year in the first month of spring" [po 182; DG, Pai, 4-1, 162-163].
187. The herald: "The herald with wooden- tongued bell goes all along the roads" [ibid. ].
188. six rites: "The minister of education uses the six rites to form the character of the people" [ibid. ].
189. not to lose life: "Suddenly in a fit of anger they quarrel with others, and either kill them, or are killed by them, and forfeit their lives in consequence" [XVI, 170].
the
! . Till . . . air: The Wen-Ii really says, "The Sacred Edict with Expanded Meanings . . . there is no better than this. " A component of the character for "expanded" is the char- acter for "yellow," and a component of "there is not" means "grass. " From a line that reads, "The Edict dealt with . . . mul- berry culture," the character for "mulberry tree" has components that look like leaves
say: 'The Minister of Education attends to the six kinds of ceremonies in order to tem- per the character of the people, and he illu- minates the seven teachings in order to uplift the peoples moral aim' " [Edict, 182].
The 7 instructions follow in the canto.
10. tun' : [M6572], "to urge; cement friendly relations; to consolidate. " Thus, Pound's "converge. "
II. pen3 : [M5025], "root. "
12. shih2 -s : [M5821], "solid. " Wen-Ii has in this context ch'ung2 [MI526] , for which Mathews gives several meanings: "to Yener- ate; discriminate. "
13. Mohamed no popery: The idea ofvener- ating solid evidence or objective reality, or discriminating the realm of faith and reason, came into scholastic or medieval thought via A venoes [LE, 183-186] and was advanced by Siger de Brabant in the 13th century. The papal position and that of the Dominicans was championed by Aquinas; but the early Christian thinkers Pound celebrates are clos- er to the Mohammedan tradition as ex- pressed by Averroes and Avicenna. Dante places Siger along with Bede and Richard of St. Victor? as an eternal light in Paradise [Par. X, 136]. Singleton says of Siger: "He was no doubt one of those at whom in 1270, a general condemnation of Averroism was
(~",) in a tree ( * ' ) : [DG, EP: Edict].
~,sang
[M5424].
4. silk cords . . . : In the character hsien [98: 179] , Pound sees silk threads, which he often relates to "light descending" or "intel- ligence. " At the end of "The Unwobbling Pivot," we read, "As silky light, King Wen's virtue I Coming down with the sunlight, I what purity! . . . This unmixed is the tensile light, the Immaculata. There is no end to its
action" [CON, 187].
5. Nondisunia: [98:163].
6. 2nd year . . . : [98:184].
what he is translating or reacting to.
7. SHENG U: [98:185].
8. Each year . . . converge: [98:186-188]. 9. 7 instructions: Wen-Ii: "And the rites
Pound's cue to
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 638
99/694-698
99/698-700
639
aimed" [Commentary, 192]. The issue is by no means a minor one in Pound's religion. Faith based on the necessity of a continuous denial of reason and of solid objective evi- dence is destructive both to the religious sect that requires it and to the adherents of such a sect: such rhetorical dogma is "popery. "
[LE,41-47].
2
14. mu : [M4588], "to follow a pattern. "
15. fal . . . szul : Pound gives the meanings. 16. Odysseus' old rna: Anticlea [I: 15] said:
"Nay, it was longing for thee, and for thy counsels, glorious Odysseus . . . that robbed me of honey-sweet life" rOd. XI, 202-203].
17. sinceritas: L, "sincerity" [74:45].
18. KOINE ENNOIA: H, "Thoughts of the common people [public]. "
19. Chou: [53:77]. Founder of 3d Dy- nasty.
20. cognome . . . : I, "name [and] address. "
21. Chen: [M 316] , "We, I. The emperor. Once a general pronoun, it was later appro- priated to imperial use only.
practitioners reduce the vision of the found- er into a tissue of absurd practices and super- stitions.
26. floaters: Those sitting by the road with begging bowls instead of working on the land: a theme first sounded in Canto 13
[13:17].
27. Redson: Name contrived from two char-
acters: chu [MI346], meaning "red," and tzu [M6939], meaning "son. " Indicating the great Neoconfucian Chu Hsi [80:345].
28. papists . . . calendar: [60: 1,5, 15].
leisurely, some fast, just as pronunciations are not all alike. These things are influenced by water and earth. "
35. ne ultra . . . ": [98:169].
36. Mang Tzu: Mencius.
37. Crysippus: An early minor philosopher who said: "Vices are forms of ignorance of those things where of the corresponding vir- tues are the knowledge" [Diogenes, 93].
38. Simbabwe: Frobenius wrote of the great Temple in Simbabwe-where human sacrifice was practiced, which seemed to be con-
ters and rhetorical discourses the decline of humane culture.
22. Yo el rey:
23. Rats' . . . business: Wen-Ii: "Therefore,
when over a basket of food or bean soup the reason for strife doesn't arise, then the back-biting scandal-mongers have no cause to go to law. And then how can one contract hatreds, ruin property, waste time, and fail in business? " The components in the se- quence of characters give Pound the names
of animals and birds. Pound used to call the squirrels at St. Elizabeths "oak cats" [87:104].
24. Nor scrape iron . . . : [98:153].
25. Bhud rot: This phrase does not say "all Buddhists are rotten. " If one respects the precise meaning of the words-according to t h e d i c t i o n a r y - i t i s c l e a r t h a t ~'to r o t " means to disintegrate from a former pristine state. This is a judgment Pound makes against all the great organized religions: later
30. Nestor . . . : Athene said to Telemachus: "But corne now, go straightway . . . , let us learn what counsel he keepeth. . . . A lie he will not utter for he is wise indeed" rOd. III, 18-20].
31. pen yeh: [98:55,56]. A recurrent leit- motif.
32. Wang . . . incense: Wen-Ii: "The mind of man, as given by heaven, was, in the first instance upright and free from depravity; but from no other reason than cupidity it has deviated into depraved courses. . . . If you fulfill your duty to your parents at home, what need is there to go to a distance to burn incense. "
33. INTENZIONE: I, "Intention. " Pound translates the word in Donna mi prega [36/178]: "Deeming intention to be rea- son's peer and mate. " But he says there is "a mare's nest" in the word and allies it with a number of scholars in the Aristotelian tradi- tion, including the Arabs Alfarabi and Aver- roes, and Albertus Magnus and Scotus Eri- gena in the European tradition [LE, 178]. The "mare's nest" includes such canto themes as directio voluntatis and reason as "the light descending. "
34. Han: Wen-Ii: The Han scholars had a saying: "The nature of all people contains the five basic principles. But temperamen- tally some are energetic, some gentle, some
S, "I the
king. "
29. Odysseus'
. . .
: [Cf. 16 above].
disintegration-
l
nected with social
symbolized by increasing droughts [An- thology, 204-210].
39. se non fosse cive: I, "if he were not a citizen" [Par. VIII, 116]. The end of a ques- tion that began, "Now tell me would it be worse for man or earth. . . . "
40. Heaven . . . biceps: Wen-li: "Now in the laws and statutes there are a thousand sec- tions . . . and none go beyond the measure of affection and the calculation of reason. "
41. fa3 -5 : [MI762], tt, "law. " This char- acter has three components: r = "water"; . ? = "earth"; and ,. . L. . . . = "biceps. "
42. Crusaders' . . . : Whatever good intent the crusaders may have had was undone by those who lusted for money.
163. XIV: this light: Dante's "viva luce . . . che non si disuna" [Par. XIII, 55? 56] : "vivid light . . . that is not disunited [from its Lu? cent Source]. " Correlates with Pound's light symbolism and the "total light process," functioning throughout the poem.
164. No . . . contraptions: "Extirpate Here? sy and so exact Orthodoxy," K'ang's saying for Chap. VII. Again Pound uses his own reaction to the characters and gives an even more colJoquial rendering than does the salt commissioner [VII, 72].
168. pen yeh: [Cf. 55, 56 above].
169. ne ultra crepidam: Variation on a story told by Pliny about a shoemaker who criti? cized an artist's work because he had painted one too few loops in a sandal. The artist corrected it, which so encouraged the shoe- maker that he then criticized the painting of the leg, whereupon the artist said, "a shoe- maker in his criticism must not go beyond the sandal-a remark that has also passed into proverb. " A footnote says: "Ne sutor ultra crepidam. 'Let the shoemaker stick to his last' " [Pliny, History, XXXV, 36, 85? 86 (Loeb IX, 323? 325)].
170. children . . . evil: "Consider-what do children know about good and evil? They are wholly dependent upon their elders to excite in them good affections" [XI, 121].
171. Not a fixed charge: The Edict has a long passage on the "Tithing System," which requires different payments (not a fixed charge) based on ability to pay [XV, 156-
157].
172. Mang Tzu: Mencius. Pound wrote: "Mencius distinguishes a tax from a share, he is for an economy of abundance" ["Mang Tsze,"SP,86].
173. Ideogram: Merig [M4428] , "Mencius. "
174. Yield not . . . : The Edict has a sub? heading that reads, "Evils of Yielding to Anger. " It is followed by many examples [XIV, 170 ff].
175. those who lie . . . : K'ang's saying at the head of Chap. XII is, "Prevent False Ac- cusations, and so shield the Law-abiding. " But Chap. XII of the Wen-Ii of Yung Cheng [cf. 128 above] asked the people to listen and hear clearly: "You soldiers and Civilians, give this (material) your most careful hearing and don't disregard it" [Wen? li XII, 203]. The characters can be seen in the upper right hand corner of p. 203 of the facsimile edition of Baller.
176. Ideogram: Wu [M7193], "don't. "
177. Ideogram: Hu [M2194], "disregard. "
161. "from rib to cheek
"Then the light within which the wondrous life . . . had been narrated to me broke the silence . . . You believe that into the breast from which the rib was drawn to form her beautiful cheek whose palate costs so dear to all the world" [Par. XIII, 31? 39; trans. Sin? gleton].
": Dante:
165. State the laws . . . : K'ang's
heading Chap. VIII: "Explain the Law, to Warn the Foolish and Wayward" [VIII, 88].
166. Iu-an . . . fed it: An illustration of good manners and customs tells of a better way then stealing someone's cow: "There was a (man named) Kuan Iu-an; he also was most willing to give way to others. Some- body else's cow ate grain in his field. He was not in the least vexed; on the contrary he tied the cow up to a tree and brought it grass to eat" [IX, 108].
167. The Xth clause: "Let the People at? tend to their Proper Callings, that they may have Settled Determination" [X, 110]. Pound calls the K'ang 7? character slogan a clause.
statement
? ? 636
98/693 99/694
637
178. colour of Nature: [90:2].
179. hsien: [M2692] ,
[85:143]. The character occurs often in the
"light descending" passages.
180. mingo [M4534]. What Pound calls "the total light process . . . hence the in- telligence" [CON,20].
18! ' (Pitagora): Pythagoras [91: II] . 182. non si disuna: [Cf. 163 above].
184. 2nd year . . . : The 9 characters at the beginning of the Wen-Ii, on the upper left of p. 183 in the facsimile edition, read: "Yung Cheng, the 2nd year, the 2nd month, begin- ning the 2nd day. "
Exegeses
EP, GK, 290; CFT, Pai, 2-1, 69-112; DG, Pai, 3-2, 169-190; DG,
Pai, 4-1, 121-168; DG, Ezra Pounds's Use o f the Sacred Edict, in process [EP: Edict]; JW, Later, 133-147.
[For most of Canto 98, Pound used the language of the salt commissioner. For most of Canto 99, he goes to the Wen-Ii (Literary Text) of Yung Cheng, analyzes all the components of the characters, and gives the results in his own idiomatic or colloquial English. His method will be illustrated in the first page or so; after that the lines will not be glossed unless the meaning in context is unclear. Translations from the Wen-Ii cited in the glosses are based on the work of David Gordon, which will appear in a book presently being edited. ]
Glossary
183. Splendor: [109: 17]. Pound is deliberately bringing together elements of Greek wisdom, in the tables of opposites of Pythagoras and the "coherence" of splendor in the Women of Trachis, with the Chinese yin-yang and other Confucian doctrines in the Edict, which in turn had later expression in Dante: "That which cannot die and that which can die is only the splend;;lr of that Idea which in His love our Sire begets; for that living light which so streams from its Lucent Source that It is not disunited from It nor from the Love" [Par. XIII, 52-57].
"manifest"
prob.
CANTO XCIX
Sources
F. W. Baller, trans. , The Sacred Edict, Shanghai, 1924, rpl.
Orono, Me. , 1979 pp. 182-211 [Edict]; Dante, Par. XIII, VIII; Homer, Od. XI, Ill; Pliny, History XXXV (Loeb IX); Diogenes Laertius, Philosophers VII (Loeb) [Diogenes]; Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. A. H. Armstrong, II, III (Loeb) [Enneads]; Dante, Convivio II [Conv. ].
Background
EP, LE, 41-47, 178,437-440; SP, 64-98; Frobenius, Leo Frobe-
nius 1873-1973: An Anthology, ed. Eike Haberland, Wiesbaden, F. Steiner, 1973 [Anthology]; Charles Singleton, trans. The Divine Comedy, 6 vols. , Bollingen Series LXXX, Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1970; 3 vols. text and 3 vols. commentary [Commen- tary]; 1. P. Migne, Patrologiae Latina, vol. 14 [Migne, column no. ].
2. long Cheng: [98:60].
3. KangHi: [98:111,112].
185. Sheng: [M5753], [M7641], "edict. "
"sacred";
yu
186. "Each year . . . : The source is Wen-Ii: "Each year in the first month of spring" [po 182; DG, Pai, 4-1, 162-163].
187. The herald: "The herald with wooden- tongued bell goes all along the roads" [ibid. ].
188. six rites: "The minister of education uses the six rites to form the character of the people" [ibid. ].
189. not to lose life: "Suddenly in a fit of anger they quarrel with others, and either kill them, or are killed by them, and forfeit their lives in consequence" [XVI, 170].
the
! . Till . . . air: The Wen-Ii really says, "The Sacred Edict with Expanded Meanings . . . there is no better than this. " A component of the character for "expanded" is the char- acter for "yellow," and a component of "there is not" means "grass. " From a line that reads, "The Edict dealt with . . . mul- berry culture," the character for "mulberry tree" has components that look like leaves
say: 'The Minister of Education attends to the six kinds of ceremonies in order to tem- per the character of the people, and he illu- minates the seven teachings in order to uplift the peoples moral aim' " [Edict, 182].
The 7 instructions follow in the canto.
10. tun' : [M6572], "to urge; cement friendly relations; to consolidate. " Thus, Pound's "converge. "
II. pen3 : [M5025], "root. "
12. shih2 -s : [M5821], "solid. " Wen-Ii has in this context ch'ung2 [MI526] , for which Mathews gives several meanings: "to Yener- ate; discriminate. "
13. Mohamed no popery: The idea ofvener- ating solid evidence or objective reality, or discriminating the realm of faith and reason, came into scholastic or medieval thought via A venoes [LE, 183-186] and was advanced by Siger de Brabant in the 13th century. The papal position and that of the Dominicans was championed by Aquinas; but the early Christian thinkers Pound celebrates are clos- er to the Mohammedan tradition as ex- pressed by Averroes and Avicenna. Dante places Siger along with Bede and Richard of St. Victor? as an eternal light in Paradise [Par. X, 136]. Singleton says of Siger: "He was no doubt one of those at whom in 1270, a general condemnation of Averroism was
(~",) in a tree ( * ' ) : [DG, EP: Edict].
~,sang
[M5424].
4. silk cords . . . : In the character hsien [98: 179] , Pound sees silk threads, which he often relates to "light descending" or "intel- ligence. " At the end of "The Unwobbling Pivot," we read, "As silky light, King Wen's virtue I Coming down with the sunlight, I what purity! . . . This unmixed is the tensile light, the Immaculata. There is no end to its
action" [CON, 187].
5. Nondisunia: [98:163].
6. 2nd year . . . : [98:184].
what he is translating or reacting to.
7. SHENG U: [98:185].
8. Each year . . . converge: [98:186-188]. 9. 7 instructions: Wen-Ii: "And the rites
Pound's cue to
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 638
99/694-698
99/698-700
639
aimed" [Commentary, 192]. The issue is by no means a minor one in Pound's religion. Faith based on the necessity of a continuous denial of reason and of solid objective evi- dence is destructive both to the religious sect that requires it and to the adherents of such a sect: such rhetorical dogma is "popery. "
[LE,41-47].
2
14. mu : [M4588], "to follow a pattern. "
15. fal . . . szul : Pound gives the meanings. 16. Odysseus' old rna: Anticlea [I: 15] said:
"Nay, it was longing for thee, and for thy counsels, glorious Odysseus . . . that robbed me of honey-sweet life" rOd. XI, 202-203].
17. sinceritas: L, "sincerity" [74:45].
18. KOINE ENNOIA: H, "Thoughts of the common people [public]. "
19. Chou: [53:77]. Founder of 3d Dy- nasty.
20. cognome . . . : I, "name [and] address. "
21. Chen: [M 316] , "We, I. The emperor. Once a general pronoun, it was later appro- priated to imperial use only.
practitioners reduce the vision of the found- er into a tissue of absurd practices and super- stitions.
26. floaters: Those sitting by the road with begging bowls instead of working on the land: a theme first sounded in Canto 13
[13:17].
27. Redson: Name contrived from two char-
acters: chu [MI346], meaning "red," and tzu [M6939], meaning "son. " Indicating the great Neoconfucian Chu Hsi [80:345].
28. papists . . . calendar: [60: 1,5, 15].
leisurely, some fast, just as pronunciations are not all alike. These things are influenced by water and earth. "
35. ne ultra . . . ": [98:169].
36. Mang Tzu: Mencius.
37. Crysippus: An early minor philosopher who said: "Vices are forms of ignorance of those things where of the corresponding vir- tues are the knowledge" [Diogenes, 93].
38. Simbabwe: Frobenius wrote of the great Temple in Simbabwe-where human sacrifice was practiced, which seemed to be con-
ters and rhetorical discourses the decline of humane culture.
22. Yo el rey:
23. Rats' . . . business: Wen-Ii: "Therefore,
when over a basket of food or bean soup the reason for strife doesn't arise, then the back-biting scandal-mongers have no cause to go to law. And then how can one contract hatreds, ruin property, waste time, and fail in business? " The components in the se- quence of characters give Pound the names
of animals and birds. Pound used to call the squirrels at St. Elizabeths "oak cats" [87:104].
24. Nor scrape iron . . . : [98:153].
25. Bhud rot: This phrase does not say "all Buddhists are rotten. " If one respects the precise meaning of the words-according to t h e d i c t i o n a r y - i t i s c l e a r t h a t ~'to r o t " means to disintegrate from a former pristine state. This is a judgment Pound makes against all the great organized religions: later
30. Nestor . . . : Athene said to Telemachus: "But corne now, go straightway . . . , let us learn what counsel he keepeth. . . . A lie he will not utter for he is wise indeed" rOd. III, 18-20].
31. pen yeh: [98:55,56]. A recurrent leit- motif.
32. Wang . . . incense: Wen-Ii: "The mind of man, as given by heaven, was, in the first instance upright and free from depravity; but from no other reason than cupidity it has deviated into depraved courses. . . . If you fulfill your duty to your parents at home, what need is there to go to a distance to burn incense. "
33. INTENZIONE: I, "Intention. " Pound translates the word in Donna mi prega [36/178]: "Deeming intention to be rea- son's peer and mate. " But he says there is "a mare's nest" in the word and allies it with a number of scholars in the Aristotelian tradi- tion, including the Arabs Alfarabi and Aver- roes, and Albertus Magnus and Scotus Eri- gena in the European tradition [LE, 178]. The "mare's nest" includes such canto themes as directio voluntatis and reason as "the light descending. "
34. Han: Wen-Ii: The Han scholars had a saying: "The nature of all people contains the five basic principles. But temperamen- tally some are energetic, some gentle, some
S, "I the
king. "
29. Odysseus'
. . .
: [Cf. 16 above].
disintegration-
l
nected with social
symbolized by increasing droughts [An- thology, 204-210].
39. se non fosse cive: I, "if he were not a citizen" [Par. VIII, 116]. The end of a ques- tion that began, "Now tell me would it be worse for man or earth. . . . "
40. Heaven . . . biceps: Wen-li: "Now in the laws and statutes there are a thousand sec- tions . . . and none go beyond the measure of affection and the calculation of reason. "
41. fa3 -5 : [MI762], tt, "law. " This char- acter has three components: r = "water"; . ? = "earth"; and ,. . L. . . . = "biceps. "
42. Crusaders' . . . : Whatever good intent the crusaders may have had was undone by those who lusted for money.
