Way back in the last century Ezra Pound stumbled on the writings of a 19th Century scholar of Asian Art, Ernest Fenollosa. The historian came from Salem and after graduated from Harvard traveled to Japan with the Orientalist and naturalist Edward Sylvester Morse, who developed a great love for ceramics during his stay at Tokyo’s Imperial University.
Japan underwent great changes during the Meiji Dynasty.
The kingdom welcomed the West.
The fall of the Shogunate destroyed the Samurai.
They became ronin or outlaws.
Worse happened to China under the invasion of the Gwai-loh, but in 1913 Ezra Pound lived in London, where he met Ernest Fenollosa’s wife. She gave WB Yeats’ assistant her husband’s notes and he constructed CATHAY by creating a supposedly modernist version of the ancient classics by using the technique of Ideogrammic method.
木 or tree met 日 or sun to become the light of sunset trapped in the leaves.
The man was capable of great thought as well as madness.
I have always loved these faux translations
Especially THE EXILE’S POEM
The poem has been attributed to Li Po, usually considered the greatest poet of China: written by him while in exile about 760 A. D., to the Hereditary War-Councillor of Sho, “recollecting former companionship.”
SO-KIN of Rakuho, ancient friend, I now remember
That you built me a special tavern,
By the south side of the bridge at Ten-Shin.
With yellow gold and white jewels
we paid for the songs and laughter, 5
And we were drunk for month after month,
forgetting the kings and princes.
Intelligent men came drifting in, from the sea
and from the west border,
And with them, and with you especially,
there was nothing at cross-purpose;
And they made nothing of sea-crossing
or of mountain-crossing,
If only they could be of that fellowship.
And we all spoke out our hearts and minds …
and without regret.
And then I was sent off to South Wei,
smothered in laurel groves,
And you to the north of Raku-hoku,
Till we had nothing but thoughts and memories between us.
And when separation had come to its worst
We met, and travelled together into Sen-Go
Through all the thirty-six folds of the turning and twisting waters;
Into a valley of a thousand bright flowers …
that was the first valley,
And on into ten thousand valleys
full of voices and pine-winds.
With silver harness and reins of gold,
prostrating themselves on the ground,
Out came the East-of-Kan foreman and his company;
And there came also the “True-man” of Shi-yo to meet me,
Playing on a jewelled mouth-organ.
In the storied houses of San-Ko they gave us
more Sennin music;
Many instruments, like the sound of young phoenix broods.
And the foreman of Kan-Chu, drunk,
Danced because his long sleeves
Wouldn’t keep still, with that music playing.
And I, wrapped in brocade, went to sleep with my head on his lap,
And my spirit so high that it was all over the heavens.
And is not again to be met with.
I went up to the court for examination,
Tried Layu’s luck, offered the Choyu song,
And got no promotion,
And went back to the East Mountains white-headed.
And once again we met, later, at the South Bridge head.
And then the crowd broke up—you went north to San palace.
And if you ask how I regret that parting?
It is like the flowers falling at spring’s end,
confused, whirled in a tangle.
What is the use of talking! And there is no end of talking—
There is no end of things in the heart.
I call in the boy,
Have him sit on his knees to write and seal this,
And I send it a thousand miles, thinking.
I know that land of exile well.
No drink.
No women.
No future.
Here’s Li Po’s poem FAREWELL TO A FRIEND.
Green mountains
steeple across the North Wall.
White riverwater
rushes round the city’s east end.
From this place
once we part, a lone
tumbleweed, my friend
will be tossed ten thousand miles.
Like drifting clouds
his wanderer’s dreams.
Like the sinking sun
his old friend’s heart.
We wave hands
as he starts away, our horses
neighing to each other
as we shout our last goodbyes.
In the word of Gloria Gaynor.
NEVER CAN SAY GOOD-BYE.
She must have understood Li Po too.
To hear NEVER CAN SAY GOOD BYE, please go to this URL
