He was the last emperor of the Chou dynasty
recorded
in Chou King.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
traveler, Wellington's
[ibid. , 44].
57. Geschaft: iness. "
eventually receipts
and duke of
later Edward VIII
[cf. 89/601; 95:39]. According to Von
54. Miss Wi'let: Prob. Violet Hunt. Answer
to the question, "Will there be war? " [38/188]. Answer the same [38:26].
55. 20 years . . . Bonaparte: Echo of re- peated anecdote [78: 10].
G, "employment" or "bus-
70. apud: L, "from the writing of. "
71. Chris Hollis: Christopher Hollis, author ofTwo Nations, a study of the development of power based on money and banking in
Windsor
and
emerged "with . . . in his hand"
69. Regius Professorships: See "Chris Hollis" below.
gloss to
58. Buchanan: [34:84]. Buchanan said to
65. Alexander: [85:88].
Alexander
the Great
66. OBIT apud Baby1onios: L, "He [Alex- ander] died among the Babylonians. "
67. Arrian: Flavius Arrianus, 2d C. A. D. , pupil of Epictetus. His chief book, Anabasis, is a history of Alexander; the book's main source was Ptolemy.
68. Hamurabi: Hammurabi.
king, fl. 2100 B. C. His code of laws carved on a diorite column in 3600 lines of cunei- form is one of the greatest and most human- itarian of all ancient codes.
Babylonian
? 486
86/565
86/565-567
England, which Pound cites often in his prose works on money [SP, 160, 326, 328J. In that book Hollis cites the seminal state- ment about Paterson and the founding of the Bank of England: "the bank hath benefit of the interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing" [Two Nations, 30J. In a chapter entitled "The Origin of the Progres- sive Legend," Hollis traces the careful plans made by the Whig government to see to it that the history of England was properly understood by the people, which meant be- ing understood from their highly sectarian vangtage point. Several steps were involved.
First they sponsored a Whig history, The History of our Own Times, "calculated to impose the debt system on the gentry in return for freedom from enslavement. " The next step was to get the book read. That was more difficult because both Oxford and Cambridge were hotbeds of Toryism: "In
those seats of education instead of being formed to love their country and constitu- tion, the laws and liberties of it, they are rather disposed to love arbitrary government and to become slaves to absolute monarchy"
[ibid. , 37-38J. Right away it was perceived that "the important task was to capture the educational machine. " This they did. In 1724 it was arranged for 24 persons, "'Fellowsof Colleges in the two Universities,
12 from Oxford and 12 from Cambridge' to preach a sermon each year at Whitehall. " As money men, they understood that money would do the trick; they paid ? 30 for each sermon, an enormous sum at the time. But no one could receive the sum except those who were "staunch Whigs and openly de- clare themselves to be so. " The number of enthusiastic Whigs who had been secretly hiding out at these universities was a suprise
to some but not to those behind the con~ spiracy. This program finally became firmly entrenched by the establishment of a Regius Professorship in the name of King George for the teaching of history and modern lan- guages. People were selected to fill the posi- tions only if they avowedly adopted and
promulgated the new Whig theory of his- tory. Thus, says Hollis, the entire nation was
bemused with a curriculum of half~truths, and this result was achieved intentionally and with malice aforethought [ibid. , 37-52J.
72. Bowers: [81:12J.
73. La Spagnuola: I, "The Spanish Woman. " 74. scripsit: L, "wrote. "
75. Woodward: William E. Woodward, au- thor of A New American History, which Pound quoted from [SP, 169J, and an econ- omist whose writings on money Pound liked. Pound corresponded with him and, since he was an adviser to the Roosevelt administra- tion, Pound "occasionally suggested items that he might pass on to the President" [EM, Difficult, 258J. The lines are W. E. W. 's response.
76. HE: Franklin D. Roosevelt.
77. Cato speaking: In Cicero's De Officiis we have a discussion of things that have great value in life, such as strength, health, glory, wealth, and so on. Then we read of an anecdote told of Cato. When asked about the most profitable feature of an estate, he said it was raising cattle. When asked the next most profitable, he said it was raising crops. After several such questions he was asked, "What about money-lending? " and he
answered, "What about murder? " [Bk. II, 89;96/664J.
78. some Habsburg: Joseph II [cf. 81 be- low], an elightened despot, was strongly in- fluenced by his mother Maria Theresa of Austria. During the 18th century there was a vogue in Europe for Chinese customs. France, following the physiocrats, wanted to use China as a model for economic and
agrarian reform. The frontispiece of a book by Mirabeau, Philosophie Rurdl (1764), showed a Chinese emperor plowing an im- perial furrow to hearten his subjects and to carryon an age-old ritual [53:122J. Hence the young Dauphin was required to hold a toy plow in his delicate hands to show princely sympathy with the French peasants. In 1769 Joseph went the whole way: he took a real plow and plowed some real land
to show he meant business. Pound's interest was sparked by a particular book that con~ tains these data: China A Model for Europe, 1946 [DG,Pai, 5-3, 394J.
79. old Theresa: Prob. not Maria Theresa of Austria, but suggested by association.
80. Cleopatra: [85:13J.
81. Joseph two: Emperor of Austria, 1741- 1790, who came to the throne in 1765 and continued the reforms begun by his mother, including the 1786 reform of the code of civil law.
82. Tuscany: Province in central Italy which includes Pisa, Siena, Florence, etc. , an area subjected to punishment in many wars, in particular the latter part of WWII.
83. Konody: Paul K. , an art critic from Austria who settled in London; Pound "saw a good deal of him from 1909 or even 1908" [letter to Patricia Hutchins, 16 Nov. , 1957, MS in British Library (BK)J. He is men- tioned among the blessed in BLAST I.
85. Schwartz: Repeat of a similar conversa- tion overheard during WWII. Point: As al- ways, the little, innocent people are the ones led to slaughter in Bellum perenne [cf. 108 belowJ.
86. "Mai . . . chic homme": F, "But the Prussian! The Prussian is a natty man. "
87. femme de menage: F, "lady of the establishment" or "madam. "
88. "Vous . . . rosse": F, "You would like to roll [slang for sex actJ me, but you do not roll me because I am too decrepit. "
89. litigantium dona: L, "gifts of litiga- tion. " Return to Couvreur. The whole sen? tence in Legge is: "Gain got by the decision of cases [litigation} is no precious ac- quisition. "
90. Ideogram: Fei [MI819J, "not. "
91. Ideogram: Pao [M4956], "precious. "
92. non coelum . . . medio: L, "not heaven not neutral. " Legge: "It is not Heaven that does not deal impartially with men, but men ruin themselves. "
93. Fortuna: L, "destiny. " Pound is saying that the words "but man is under Fortuna" is a forced translation of the Latin line be- fore it, as indeed it is. A recurrent theme [96/656; 97/676J.
94. La Donna . . . : I, "The lady who turns. " From "10 son la [I am theJ donna che volga," the opening line of Cavalcanti's "Canzone to Fortune," where Dame For- tune (of Fortune's Wheel) is speaking [An- derson,Pai, 12-1, 41-46J.
95. Ideogram: Chen [M315J, "terrify. " The sequence of lines in Cavalcanti's poem says that fortune's wheel, in its turning (not from heaven's will), is terrifying.
96. Iou Wang: Yu Wang, Chou ruler, 781- 770, whose bad administration contributed to the decay of the Chou dynasty. Ideo- gram: yu [M7505J , "dark"; Ideogram: wang [M703 7J , "king. "
97. King Jou: Legge's transcription. He says, "King Jou was a recipient of divine justice. " Thus he was "A Man under For- tune. " As proof of a fateful destiny we read: "In the sixth year of his reign . . . occurred an eclipse of the sun. It is commemorated in the Chou King . . . as 'an announcement of evils by the sun and moon. ' " Couvreur has a note that says Yu Wang was killed by barbar- ians from the West ("barbares occidentaux") in the 770th year before our era.
98. Ideogram: I [M3002J, "right conduct"; Ideogram: ho [M2115J, "harmony. " The name of an uncle of King Ping Wang, who was a valuable aid to his administration.
99. in angustiis . . . : L, "Y ou have defended me in my difficulties. " The quote is trans- posed from Couvreur's Latin: "defendisti me in angustiis. " From a speech of Ping Wang, who said, according to Legge: "Uncle E-ho . . . you have done much to repair my
. . . ":
84.
overheard during the years of the mittel- europe cantos 35 and 38.
"We fight
Perhaps
conversation
487
? 488
86/567-568
87/569
489
losses and defend me in my difficulties. . . . I reward you with a jar of spirits, made from the black millet, mixed with odoriferous herbs; with one red bow and a hundred red arrows; with one black bow, and a hundred black arrows. "
100. ne inutile quiescas: L, "be not useless- ly at ease. " The speech made by Ping Wang, known as "the Tranquillizer" (reigned 770- 719), ends with these words.
He was the last emperor of the Chou dynasty recorded in Chou King.
101. Ideogram: Pe [M4977], "uncle" or "elder"; Ideogram: k'in, ch'in [MII00], "birds" or "animals. " Here the name of "the prince of Loo under the reign of Ch'eng Wang. " Pound returns to the next to last chapter of Chou King for more data COD- cerning the disintegration of the Chou dy- nasty. Legge gives us for Pe K'in's speech: "We must now largely let the oxen and horses loose . . . shut up your traps, and fill up your pitfalls, and do not presume to injure any of the animals let loose. . . . When your followers . . . abscond, presume not to leave the ranks to pursue them. . . . And let none of your people presume to rob
or detain vagrant animals or followers, or to jump over enclosures and walls to steal away horses or oxen . . . . On the day Keii-shu I will punish the tribes of Seu;-prepare
roasted grain and other provisions. "
102. Ideogram: Tch'eng, ch'eng [M379], "to perfect"; Ideogram: wang [M7037], "king. " Ch'eng Wang (reigned 1115-1078)
was the son of Wu Wang and the second and last great Chou emperor. His name and reign are evoked here as a contrast to the present disorder.
103. HE: [cf. 76 above].
104. Woodward: [cf. 75 above].
105. Dwight L. Morrow: Dwight Whitney M. , 1873-1931, American banker and diplo- mat who was a civilian aide to Gen. John J. Pershing in WWI. In 1927 he was ambassador to Mexico, where he started a new era of understanding and cooperation. He served in the U. S. Senate 1930-1931. His daughter, Anne Morrow, married Charles Lindbergh. Pound tells a story of how he asked the late
Senator Cutting in a letter, "How many liter- ate senators are there? " Said Pound: "He sent nine hames, ending 'and I suppose Dwight L. Morrow' " [GK,260].
106. Br . . . C . . . . g: Prob. Bronson Cutting, although the dots in the name are not exact as in Pound's usual practice. [E. P. Walkie- wicz and H. Witemeyer, Pai, 9-3, 441-459]. It was not 1932 but earlier, since Morrow died in 1931.
107. "hysteric presiding . . . ": A controver- sial reference. The context convinces me that Roosevelt is intended. Based on note- books Pound gave him, W. Cookson believes the "hysteric" is Hitler [Pai, 8-2, 361]. The " '39" appears to go with this line.
108. Bellum carro perenne: L, "I sing of war everlasting. " A musical figure that occurs often in the poem [88:21; 87:2].
Background
EP, America, Roosevelt and the Causes of the Present War,
London, Peter Russell, 1951 [ARCPW], GK, 46, 105, 58, 324, 357,77,109,278-279,225,57,182, 15;SP, 323, 272-273, 311, 65, 29, 53, 240, 436; L, 255, 348, 173-176; NPL, 149-158; Francis Steegmuller, ed. , The Letters of Gustwe Flaubert, 1830- 1857, Harvard Univ. Press, 1980 [Steegmuller]; Aeschylus, Eu- menides, line 752; William Cabell Bruce, John Randolph ofRoa- noke, New York and London, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1922, Vol. II, 232; Philip Spencer, Flaubert, A Biography, New York, Grove Press, 1952; G. Legman, The Guilt of the Templars, New York, Basic Books, 1966 [Guilt]; Jessie L. Weston, From Ritual to Romance, Cambridge, 1920; M de R, Discretions, 196; Charles Norman, Ezra Pound, Macmillan, 1960 [Norman]; Ford Madox Ford, Portraits from Life, 1937 (later published as Mightier than the Sword, London, Allen & Unwin, 1938); D'Arcy W. Thomp- son, On Growth and Form, Cambridge, 1916, rpts. MacMillan,
1942-1948; Sir Arthur Evans, The Palace o f Minos at Knossos, Vol. III, Biblo and Tannen, New York, 1964.
Exegeses
CE, Ideas, 47-56; Achilles Fang, Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard, Vol. III; EH, Pai, 2-1, 141; CFT, Pai, 2-2, 223 ff. ; Grieve, Pai, 4-2 & 3, 481; HK, Era, 331, 335 ff. ; FR, Pai, 7-2 & 3, 29 ff. ; WB,
Approaches, 303-318; L. Surette, A Light From Eleusis, Oxford University Press, 1979, 263-267; HK, Pai, 4-2 & 3, 381.
Glossary
CANTO LXXXVII Sources
EP WT 8 50 54; Dante, Vita Nuova, 12. 4 [VN]. ; Sophocles, EI~ctra:li~e 351; EP, CON, 22, 27, 232; Seraphin Couvreur, Chou King, Paris, Cathasia, 1950 [Couvreur]; James Legge, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1923 [Legge].
4. perche . . . meltere: I, "why do you wish to put. " In 1932 Mussolini asked this ques- tion. Pound gives the question and his an- swer, "Pel mio poema" ("For my poem"'), later [93:75], thereby showing insistence on a Confucian order in his own mind [GK, 105].
5. Grock: The stage name of Charles Wet- tach (1880-1959), circus performer, acrobat, and comic musician with violin a9d piano.
T
I. between the usurer: [45:1]. This recur- rent theme js further developed in many of Pound's writings on economics [GK, 46; cf. also CE, Ideas, 47-57], e. g. , "To repeat: an expert, looking at a painting . . . should be able to determine the degree of the tolerance of usury in the society in which it was painted" [SP, 323].
2. perenne: L, "continued, perennial. " Part of recurrent tag: "bellum perenne. " For, usury is the cause: "Wars are provoked in succession, deliberately, by the great usurers, in order to create debts, to create scarcity, so that they can extort the interest on these debts, so that they can raise the price of money . . . altering the prices of the various
monetary units when it suits them . . . com- pletely indifferent to the human victim"
[ARCPW,8].
3. without . . . credit: Partial usury [45/230].
definition of
? ? ? 490
87/569
87/569-570
491
Originator of routine developed later by Jack Benny, Victor Borge, and others. Grock made a London appearance in 1911, where Pound may have first seen him: "He per- fected those adventures of a simpleton among musical instruments . . . wonder as to where the strings had gone when he held his fiddle the wrong side up and at his labours to sit nearer the piano by pushing it toward
the stool. " The French dialog is typical of the nonsequiturs he used with his straight- man partner, a clown he teamed up with named "Brick. " Grock's autobiography ap- peared in 1956 [Die Memoiren des Konigs der Clowns].
6. OU ca? : F, "How's that? "
7. 1'ai une idee: F, "I have an idea. "
8. Berchtold: Leopold, Graf von B. , 1863- 1942, Austro? Hungarian foreign minister who, after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo, followed a harsh, reckless policy that contributed to the start of WWI. Although he was outwardly calm, the effect of the assassination on him was dynamite. The lines suggest that Pound met Berchtold, perhaps during his visit to Vienna in 1928 [35:6;76:132].
9. Varchi: Italian historian who made no judgment as he did not have enough facts
[5:33,58].
10. Of Roanoke: John Randolph, 1773- 1833, American statesman called "of Roa- noke. " During the years 1799-1829, he served a total of 24 years in the U. S. House of Representatives and 2 years in the Senate (for 4 of those years he was out of office). He became a powerful force as well as a flamboyant orator. The more he was against something, the more dramatic and biting his oratory became. His violent excoriations of Henry Clay and JQA led to the famous duel
[88:passim]. Because of his opposition to Jefferson on the acquisltion of Florida, he lost his leadership in the House temporarily. He also opposed James Madison and the Northern Democrats, the War of 1812, the second Bank of the United States, the tariff
measures, and the Missouri compromise. He is a continuous, if at times shadowy, pres- ence in Cantos 87-89.
II. "Nation silly . . . ": A recurrent theme cited in all of Pound's writings on the eco- nomic history of the United States, and a major theme of R-D [88:passim]. ln a letter to Benton [88:80], Dec. 12, 1829, Ran- dolph said: "It is obvious that the discount- ing of private paper has no connection with the transfer of public monies, or a sound paper currency. My plan was to make the great custom-houses branches of our great
national bank of deposit-a sort of loan of- fice, if you will . . . . This would give one description of paper, bottomed upon sub- stantial capital, and whensoever Government might stand in need of a few millions, in- stead of borrowing their own money from a knot of brokers on the credit of said brokers, it might, under proper restriction, issue its own paper in anticipation of future
revenues on taxes to be laid; such notes to be cancelled within a given time" [Bruce, Randolph, Vol. II, 232]. N. B. : Herein is the heart of the social credit idea as well as Pound's basic attitude about debt-free money.
12. Polk: James K. P. , 1795-1849, lith U. S. president (1845-1849), lawyer and statesman from Tennessee; supporter of President Jackson, especially in the war against the bank. Thus, he deserves to be among those honored for fighting the "usu- rocracy. "
13. Tyler: John T. , 1790-1862, 10th U. S. president (1841-1845). He stood between the great parties and was opposed to most of the policies of Jackson and Van Buren, ex- cept for a brief period while senator from Virginia [34:81; 37:39].
14. paideuma: A word taken from Fro- benius [38:45] which Pound defines not as the Zeitgeist but as "the gristly roots of ideas that are in action" during a period of time [GK, 58].
15. Buchanan: James B. , 1791-1868. As
president (1847-1861) he was not a rigorous henchman of the money interests [34: 84].
16. Infantilism: An epithet Pound applies to those who continue to have puerile or sim- pleminded ideas about economics, who em- phasize the idea of "circulation" and neglect the importance of the source of money andl or credit.
