Showed them
Cavalcanti
& Faber ed.
Ezra-Pounds-Chinese-Friends-Stories-in-Letters
Between one hell and another/as it used to read on Jastrow's door ''there is small choice in rotten apples. ''
You wd/be nearer Europe but equally far from the altar of Heaven. I shd/ prefer you in Eng/IF I were Europe/but I damn AINT.
fer the honour of Haaavud/now known as Weenie's beanery/and associated with 20 years of american degradation.
The USE, i. e. the possible of TSE wd/be to blast yr/local tyrants and stick-in- the-muds into action/NOW, not post mortem.
The Confucian concept of ''in season''/TSE is NOT Confucian/the timely moment was 4 years ago/BUT Eliot expected someone in the U. S. to get started. so he is not criminal/merely excessively patient/and NOT given to extra exertion/God DAMN it.
my lively friends <of my own generation and before it> are under the sod/ save Wyndham [Lewis] who is blind.
putt down a row of them arrow ideograms with emphatic and that special signiWcance/gawDDDAMMMit.
Cambridge eng[ land]/: a possible job at Cambridge, UK.
Jastrow: Morris Jastrow (1861-1921), Penn professor at the turn of the last century, authored The
Study of Religion (1901).
? ? ? [Wlial piety]
96 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [ June 1953]
Sagetrieb, as I see it, ties in with verse re/son, the bloke that carries on with father's job. tradition
renewal idea, and also ? [respect]
---------
[DP's postscript] I can hardly tell you how happy we were with your visit [see Fig. 7. 1].
Believe me Sincerely
Dorothy Pound. ? Sagetrieb: Sagetrieb plays a role in Thrones (1959).
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 135
97 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [22 June 1953]
Achilles/himself/see what you can do without busting the whole negotiation. 15% royalties are not unusual on sales over 1000 copies.
Anyhow the H[arvard]. Univ Press can sell sheets to Faber or [Peter] Owen
and leave question of paying the ten% on retail price of copies sold. BLAST this ribbon.
In fact probably just as comfortable for the Press. Isn't the title
the CLASSIC ANTHOLOGY
compiled by Confucius.
The fact that that buzzard Eliot has bitched the title on my Essays, is no reason for letting everyone ruin other titles.
arranged, compiled, cant remember but there was the right word on the ms/ NOT Confucian Book of Odes.
and to arise from the slums for a moment
Couvreur S. J. translates in Re ? gle de Iao
?
as exsequi [carry out]
which conWrms something I may hv/sd or even writ on that K-raKter
of course you know why Iao gave TWO daughters not one, but is it written down anywhere?
negotiation: on 17 June 1953 Thomas Wilson sent EP two contracts to cover a trade edition and a scholar's edition of the Odes (Beinecke). EP asked Fang to negotiate certain points.
Owen: see Letter 91 n.
Couvreur S. J. : Se ? raphin Couvreur (1835-1919), Chou King (1950). See Letter 29 n.
Iao: see Glossary on Yao.
? as exsequi: Couvreur 10-11: ? ? ? ? as ''Si tu possis exsequi mandata (mea). . . . ''
98 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
June 24, Thursday, noon [1953]
Dear Mr Pound,
Just now the signed contract, which I shall keep here with me; shall return it
to you together with the new ones.
136 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
All your letters (and Mrs Pound's) as well as telegram received earlier.
Your provisos can be negotiated; hope to get most of the points, if not all of them (and why not? ), accepted by good old Wilson (he's a good fellow, let me assure you). Shall make appointment immediately.
Yes, Yao gave Shun his two daughters--attested in Shu, 2nd chapter. If you still have the worm-bitten text of ? ? [Book of History] I brought to you two years ago, you will Wnd the story there.
Thanks for the information about Henry M, pe`re et Wls. Have a bunch of doubtful things; shall bother you after the contract is settled.
Always thought Harriet stood for Harriet Wilson, who had aVair with Wellington. Today saw a copy of Pagany, in which EP refers to her. After all, EP is not so ''obscure. ''
University of Philadelphia [Pennsylvania] wants me to participate in a discussion on Ch. poetry with Cleanth Brooks (Nov. ) and give a lecture on Walt Whitman in the light of Lu Ch'i's Wen-fu (Feb. 54), paid. Columbia paper will not earn a penny; on the contrary, I have to pay my expenses and $7 ticket.
Yours [signed] Achilles Fang
attested in Shu: Yao (see Glossary) married both his daughters to his successor Shun (see Glossary) because he wanted to ''try him'' and ''see his behaviour'' (Legge, iii. 26-7).
Henry M: Henry Morgenthau (1856-1946), American banker and diplomat, and his son Henry Morgenhau, Jr. , US Treasury Secretary (1934-5), targets of EP's animosity. Cf. Canto 74/459: ''That old H. . . . /. . . /and young H/''
Harriet Wilson: in her Memoirs (1825) Harriet Wilson (1789-1846) records a conversation about sex with Wellington. Cf. Canto 78/502: ''Harriet's spirited heir j (the honours twice with his boots on, j that was Wellington). ''
Pagany: in ''The First Year of 'Pagany' and the Possibility of Criteria,'' Pagany 2/1 (1931), EP writes: ''Some day I shall perhaps do a monograph of the British woman of letters from Harriet Wilson to Harriet Weaver'' (110).
Cleanth Brooks: Cleanth Brooks (1906-94) professor of English at Yale, 1947-75, was the author of The Well Wrought Urn (1942) and co-editor with Robert Penn Warren of The Southern Review, 1935-42.
Lu Ch'i's Wen-fu: see Letter 53 n.
99 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [13 July 1953]
FANG
got any bright ideas re/this KER/akter? Mencius VII, 1, 15
? YES,
my Achilles,
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 137
I don't recall it in KEY position in Odes, Shu, or 3 Kungs/cd/be mere deWnition of term in the Mang/
on other hand he not much given to deWnitions Kung style.
question whether the liang [? ] occurs in INTeresting contexts elsewhere/ FANG not go thru a whole reading course in obscure CHINK authors to
gratify this idle fantasy.
In text before me the typography dont suggest what it sometimes looks like.
i. e. bloke seated looking at his food in lap or x/d/legs
and i am too lazy to look up seal/alzo the top isn't an eye ANYhow.
In fact, an idle question re/usage.
Mang and Orage concur re/compassion.
Legge OBvious BUTTT mebbe all that is there.
## LATER ##
CONsiderin' the use of that radical <138> in various characters on next 3 or 4
pages/wdn't it be livelier to translate that liang: NUTRITIVE? Nutritive know- ledge, nutritive ability?
? : Legge renders ? ? and ? ? in Mencius, 7. 1. 15. 1 as ''intuitive ability'' and ''intuitive knowledge'' (ii. 456).
Orage: Alfred Richard Orage (1873-1934) edited the New Age (1907-22). In a letter to John Drum- mond of 1934, EP praises Orage for having done ''more to feed me than anyone else in England'' (Selected Letters 1907-1941, ed. D. D. Paige (1950; rpt. New York: New Directions, 1971), 259).
? 100 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] 27 Ag [1953]
Mathews (R. H. ) is doubtless an occidental GOrillaaah. Nevertheless I pray you, do NOT omit any <vide infra> of the nasty little ref/numbers in my romanj/
they refer to points at which the sd/Mat is NOT being a GOrillaaaa.
AND, as I remarked with perhaps too light a tone, they DO save the helluVAlot of commentary, and a whale of a lot of printing eggspentz/and they are calculated to NOT distract from the initial perusal, as the goddam notes to annotated edns/of Dante often do.
AND they, as against the ubiquitous s. o. b. , protect ME from charges of impressionism, or to some eggstent justify certain interpretations/
? ? 138 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
and a stewd-dent who brot in a[n] attempt at 4 lines (of I suppose Li Po) deMONstrates how bloody much need the yankstew/has of PARticular eeel- ucidation.
Kenner seems in his intro to have shot ONE good pinch of insecticide at a notorious nuisance and vulgarisateur (in the wust sense of the term vul) **************
INFRA
I mean I can damn well see how yr/revulsion from M/wd/spur yr/conscience to WANT to omit 'em. BUT nondimeno [nevertheless], leave in them damn numerals. s. v. p.
OBviously a stewed-dent who RELIED on Mat/wd/NEVER get to the Wner nuance of various passages/one of which has just been drawn neath my iggurunt eye. must beat the young into analyzing separate components of compounds.
Kenner: in The Poetry of Ezra Pound (London: Faber and Faber, 1951), Hugh Kenner argues, ''what the reader of the Cantos should try to grasp is not where the components came from but how they go together'' (13-14).
101 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[New York] Sept. 9, 1953
Dear Mr Pound,
Gracias for the helpful notes. I have been a dolt to overread.
As for your wishes about the Mathew[s] reference, I shall retain them: when-
ever I have some problem, I shall duly consult you. Please set your mind at ease. Getting a free ride to N. Y. this morning; in fact, a few minutes from now. (My paper, Wnished last night, will provoke some anger among the audience.
Like a Xtian preacher, I took courage in my hand and hinted that the 170 professors are all, or mostly sinners. )
HAS
An item labled
Yours in haste, [signed] Achilles Fang
102 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [25 November 1953]
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 139
IN CIRCUIT
yet reached Achilles? nif not/WHY not.
103 Fang to EP (ALS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
Nov. 30, '53
Dear Mr Pound,
In Circuit is, apparently, still in circulation. Is it ''subversive''? Shall I ask the
postmaster about it?
The Odes are now in order--the printer is taking care of them by this time. Sat. morning, young Morton Lebeck (Yale) came to inquire about Ch. studies
here. Told him to concentrate on Greek & French--Ch. (o leider Gott [unfor- tunately] Jap) he can study on the graduate level.
Best regards & yours Achilles Fang
104 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
Jan. 26, 1954
Dear Mr Pound,
After three weeks of sampling, Jack Hawkes and Mrs Chase DuVy (very
sympathisch, 30ish, copy-reader of the Odes) have made the enclosed; this afternoon I was with them studying this and that samples.
I hope you Wnd it satisfactory. If you have any suggestion to make, the Press people are willing to accept. But I can see that they have done their best.
In case you have no objection--as I piously hope--will you kindly inform me of your OK and keep the sample (if you care to)--the printing will start immediately. If you wish some alteration, your wishes will be complied with, of course.
I shall be at Univ. of Panna. [Pennsylvania] on Feb. 9, to talk on (Heaven help me) on Whitman vs Lu Chi. If you are NOT otherwise engaged, I like to come to visit you on the 10th P. M.
The Pound Newsletter is quite interesting. Hope something good could come out of it.
Yours [signed] Achilles Fang
Pound Newsletter: Pound Newsletter edited by John Edwards and William Vasse ran for ten issues from January 1954 to April 1956.
? 140 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
Be de- -lighted
see Achilles.
3 Nod. EP
105 EP to Fang (ALS-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [30 January 1954]
106 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
Feb. 2, 1954
Dear Mr Pound,
Yours with sample this noon. Went to see Jack Hawkes and Chase DuVy
(further information: a southern lady, prob. Virginian).
Showed them Cavalcanti & Faber ed. Cantos. J. H. thought the former was more or less Caslon and the latter pt 10 on 12 of Bodoni bold face. And I am told that the Ode sample I sent you was Bodoni 8 on 10 bold.
J. H. is completely agreeable to your wishes. Why shouldn't he, for your points are well taken. He is going to try out a completely new sample (by the way he has sampled 6 or seven), perhaps Gramont 11. If the new sample is ready before I leave for Philadelphia and Washington, I shall bring it to you. If not, through mail. The delay wouldn't be very much. Hawkes, who thought (inno- cently) that the sample could have pleased you, is willing to make another try. He also knows full well that your heart's desire is the ideographic ed. , and is sorry that the sample was wide of the mark. The same is shared by Chase DuVy and the entire production department.
Wrote to Overholser for permission. With anticipated pleasure
Yours [signed] Achilles Fang
Received NOIGANDRES yesterday; very excellent. (Wish knew some Prota- goose [Portuguese], instead of trying to make out on the strength of Ital. and Span. ) Pound Newsletter is quite interesting too.
NO!
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 141
Cavalcanti: Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti (1912).
Overholser: Dr Winfred Overholser, superintendent of St Elizabeths Hospital.
NOIGANDRES: a magazine started in 1952 by Brazilian concrete poets Haroldo de Campos,
Augusto de Campos, and De ? cio Pignatari, the Noigandres group, of Sao Paulo, who took the disputed word in the Provenc ? al poet Arnaut Daniel (c. 1180-1220) from Canto 20.
107 EP to Fang (TL-1; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [11 March 1954]
10 Mx/NOW see possibility of acceding to precedent and at the time appar- ently TOTALLY impract/request of ACHILLES.
IF he can get news of what happen[e]d in Pekin at Imp/Ct/when Mr Caleb Cushing arruv with treaty proposals in 1844/5.
something concrete/and VISIBLE, i. e. the event as seen NOT from Hong Kong or wherever, Goa/or whatso but in view of the Temple of Heaven. ----------
[in DP's hand:] It is quite a thrill to be correcting galleys of Odes! D. P.
Caleb Cushing: see Letter 109.
108 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [15 March 1954]
No, my very dear ACHILLES, almost sole comfort to my declining years. The PENalty for altering a VOWEL in verse is DEATH.
You are reprieved because of yr/love of exactitude, but don't do it again.
I am trying to teach these buzzards PROSODY, as well as respect for a few civilized chinese.
Naturally the dichotomy, splitting, ERH etc. makes the edtn/annoying.
I shall prob/try to elevate Hawk[es] when he has Wnished the job.
***
alZO/the noises made by yr/compatriots have almost NO relation to sounds
represented by barbarian alphabets.
and the changing from one fad to another adds nowt to the poeTIKKK
values.
142 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
I meant you to have carte blanche in the romanj/which, incidentally, can serve as datum for my conjecture re/what wobbles and what does not during the Xow of time, from the original onomatopoeia.
BUTTT FURST, the ODES were SUNG.
Secondly a FEW (very few) chinese place names are known to yanks/brits/ etc. and have a poetic association. Ergo a poetic value.
DON'T go Nipponic, or feel downcast. We learn by living. And apart from one Wan/no partic/damage has been done/it all depends on relation to vowels in the context.
Dont let 'em waste time trying to re-consult my orig/text. I have putt back the three necessary spellings/Wan once, Hsin once, Kiang once.
OUAN SUI [Cheers].
When Wang Yang-ming is pronounced by purr-light chinkessa as Wei-ya- min. . . etc.
phonograms are NOT revealing.
Though you are dead right to stick to what you think the best system IN PROSE and philologic displays.
Dont despair/Wen is even better in some places than Wan was.
***
B. B. C. says they are to broadcast TRAXINIAI on Apr/25, now someone can
hear what funny noises the brits/make when dealing with a MURKN text. Thank GAWD ONE intelligent actor at least will be in it. The Hyllos part, which needs more understanding than most of the others.
BUT gornoze wot he will SOUND like.
A few gents/survive EVEN in britain, one turned up last week. Race and not goulash.
In case it may have escaped yr/aquiline eye/study of Spanish 40 years ago/ was useful in Odes/Odes useful in TRAX/
AND I suppose some mainland composer preceded Hokusai on the length of apprentissage. Brancusi said he had Wnished his 30 years ago. But it is doubtful if that was more than momentary optimism on his part.
I don't know oV hand whether the altering of a consonant is fatal. YOU had some deWnite feelings about THAT. I shd/have to consider particular cases. Certainly the dropping of the pwt pwt, wd/be a defect/in fact HAS been a defect.
The simple dropping of consonants with no compensation is presumably evil (low morals).
I trust yr/consort and descendants are Xourishing and beginning to appreci- ate Kung as well as Bach.
dev/mo
Wang Yang-ming: see Glossary on Wang Shouren.
TRAXINIAI: EP, ''Sophokles: Women of Trachis,'' Hudson Review 6. 4 (Winter [1953/]1954).
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 143
one turned up: probably the BBC radio actor Denis Goacher (b. 1925), who wrote the Foreword to Sophokles: Women of Trachis (1956).
Hokusai: Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849), Japanese artist noted for his wood-block prints of landscape.
Brancusi: EP met the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) in Paris c. 1922.
109 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
March 17, 1954
Dear Mr Pound,
So far little success with Caleb Cushing, 1800-19[8]79, US Commissioner to
China 1843-1845. When he negotiated the socalled peace treaty, he was rather unfortunate in that he had to handle the matter along with the French, and all this a short while after the ignominious Nanking treaty of 1842, when the British drove a rapacious bargain on the strength of the Opium War. (You know, the British forced Indian opium on the Ch. ; when the Ch. burned the drug, the British blasted right and left). The Ch. thought Yanks and frogs were trying to share the spoils of the British. If you can wait a while, I shall look into contemporary diaries etc. to see if anything visible can be dug out.
As for Wan, Hsin, Ching, etc. I confess I overdid it. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa [my fault, my utmost fault]. The proofs are arranged as you desire. In my extenuation I like to observe that in
Wan's line
and clan
Wan and clan should rhyme. But the trouble is: when Legge wrote Wa ? n he meant it to [be] pronounced either wa? n or w@n (WEN, now)/ ? is never pronounced waen in any dialect or at any time. I was afraid that some pedants might charge you with not knowing Legge's sound key. Hence changed all your wan to wen.
At any rate, I have changed wen there back to wa ? n. (Put the extra circumXex to show that it is sounded like English wan, as in ''Why so pale and wan, fond lover? '' and not as wOn. ) Sin would not be behovely, ergo Hsin. (Shin is tempting, then it is an English word. )
is altered to Ching. Thought Khing might be pronounced as English king (sinice^, k'ing).
All in all, please set your mind at east: I have looked through the galley sheets and have restored your corrections as you wished. Your reproof meekly and ruefully accepted.
Hawkes brought me the 3rd batch of galley, up to Ode 256 today. Your instructions duely [duly] carried out.
Hope you like the seal-script for SHIH, to appear on the title page. (Keep the cut please, if you like. )
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 144 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
Am now writing a few words on the nature and history of the Anthology. Wilson insists that I should do so.
Cordially [signed] Achilles Fang
110 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [March 1954]
REPine not, oh my Achilles/
le'ZOpe you haven't gone back and recorrected too much/In some places Wen improves.
AND there were only the three places where one needed to restore my original barbarisms.
***
Of course I shd/be glad to see Archie [MacLeish]/CAN you get it into his head that I am perhaps the only other member of our rabbit-headed generation of yokels and amateurs who might sympathize with him/to extent of approving his taking oYce, or seeing that a man might get more DONE in a govt/oYce than in a night-clubb or an arte-shoppe? ? ?
You might even tip him oV that as Mon/Wed/Fri are NOT visiting days, he might by saying he is in Wash/fer limited time, get in on one of those days, and so have uninterrupted CONverSayShun.
***
Thanks for debunking the English treaty/'1843/Quite possible that the Em- peror did NOT bother to make ANY note re/Caleb [Cussing]/
Benton properly lambastes him (C. C. )
However Bent/dont mention the hop/A brief Spring and Autumn to the eVect
another s. o. b. , this time from the land of the Cherokees, has got to Goa, and probably wants to put in MORE opium, presumably of inferior quality.
Benton said: ''200 years of trade, no trouble, why treaty? '' Caleb went over, in some fancy clothes, and after hanging round for some time, the Emperor said: ''200 years trade no trouble, why treaty. ''
''HAW! '' sez T[homas]. B[enton]. ''an they burnt up a frigate in doing it. ''
Thanks for SHIH, seal script, does the tree over one hand, occur regularly for earth over inch/in a lot of cases, or is this PEculiarrr? ANYhow, vurry in'erestin'.
WHEN I git the REAL edtn/I shall start investigatin SEAL.
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 145
fer yr intro/do HAMMER that the anthol. is a WHOLE not scattered jems/ and that the bhloody translator does NOT consider translation complete without the accompaniment of ideograms and sound-graph.
No need to pretend that I know anything about it except what KUNG himself says/re/ORDER, and the Wnal summary
''no twisty thoughts. ''
fer the rest je m'en conbougrement FOUTRE [I couldn't give a damn fuck]. any literation with a ' (such as K'ing') is O. K. Kiang is READ by common people with a NICE sonority. S'in, would also do/it is the INITIAL impression that matters in getting the feel of the passage TO the reader.
GIT the MEANING across.
///note recent Kenner/not question of whether I omit Soph[ocles]'s WORDS. DO I omit any of his meaning?
Hell, NO. or let us whope knot.
Apparently some Xylosophic periodical has discovered that I may have philosophic intentions. (nooZitem, note the date. )
recent wop (Tempo, Roma) to eVect that all Ez did was to say at sbagliato [wrong] time, on sbagliato [wrong] microphone wot all murkns are now saying. (the bloomin HOPtimist, wop tendency to overestimate murkn mind). Vanni's li'l books putt a few dots on some iiii s.
benedictions
Archie: see Glossary on MacLeish, Archibald.
debunking the English treaty . . . Caleb: see Letter 109.
Benton: see Glossary on Benton, Thomas Hart.
recent Kenner: Hugh Kenner, Introduction to EP's The Translations (1953). Vanni: see Glossary on Scheiwiller, Vanni.
111 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
March 27, 1954
Dear Mr Pound,
Archie MacLeish is very happy to learn that you like the idea of his visiting
you. (I should have told him so long ago. ) However, he Wnds that he can't come to Washington in the near future. Presumably he will be in D. C. this summer.
The proof sheets are all back in the Press; Soon to have page proofs.
Glad to know that you like ? . For ? ?
