LIX

 

  1. De libro CHI-KING sic censeo

  2. wrote the young MANCHU, CHUN TCHI,
  3. less a work of the mind than of affects
  4. brought forth from the inner nature
  5. here sung in these odes.
  6. Urbanity in externals, virtu in internals
  7. some in a high style for the rites
  8. some in humble;
  9. for Emperors; for the people
  10. all things are here brought to precisions
  11. that we shd/ learn our integrity
  12. that we shd/ attain our integrity
  13. Ut animum nostrum purget, Confucius ait, dirigatque
  14. ad lumen rationis
  15. perpetuale effecto/
  16. That this book keep us in due bounds of office
  17. the norm
  18. show what we shd/ take into action;
  19. what follow within and persistently
  20. CHI KING ostendit incitatque. Vir autem rectus
  21. et libidinis expers ita domine servat
  22. with faith, never tricky, obsequatur parentis
  23. nunquam deflectat
  24. all order comes into such norms
  25. igitur meis encomiis, therefor this preface
  26. CHUN TCHI anno undecesimo
  27. (a.d. 1655)
  28. periplum, not as land looks on a map
  29. but as sea bord seen by men sailing.
  30. Now tarters in the murk night
  31. sent great numbers of sojers with lanthorns
  32. which they held up very high
  33. and thus spread light on proceedings
  34. causing great fear in Nanking.
  35. so the last mingsters fled out by the Tchinkiang road.
  36. And the ammiral put to sea thinking perhaps that
  37. a few minutes more resistance
  38. wd/ be of no mortal use.
  39. And on the tenth came an officer
  40. to say that the port was in tartar hands
  41. But MiLord the Prince and his eating companions
  42. were in no shape to take in the message
  43. They weren’t sober till the following midnight
  44. whereon they skedaddled
  45. And the Nankings set up a new emperor
  46. And the order to off pigtails stiffened resistance
  47. put new guts into mingsters
  48. Kouei born to ill fortune
  49. no mingster cd/ trust any other; cd/ agree with any six others
  50. utilité publique, motif trop élevé
  51. for vile courtiers
  52. and when the young MANCHU was 14 they gave him to wife a mogul
  53. and took in Galileo’s astronomy,
  54. chucked the mohametan
  55. And there came a hong-mao or red-headed Dutchman
  56. And the portagoose to Macao
  57. and they say that the Emperor CHUN TCHI
  58. died of sorrow, for the death of one of his queens
  59. an officer’s wife who had risen.
  60. And the four regents put eunuchs out of high office
  61. a thousand purged out of palace
  62. and a half ton block of iron inscribed
  63. Let there be no Eunuch in office hereafter.
  64. And in ’64 they putt out the Xtians
  65. Portageese were confined to Macao
  66. Thus KANG HI
  67. who played the spinet on Johnnie Bach’s birthday
  68. do not exaggerate/ he at least played on some such instrument
  69. and learned to pick out several tunes (european)
  70. and were demarked the borders of Russia

  71. with a portagoose and a frog priest to interpret
  72. to whom each a robe brocaded with dragons
  73. but not embroidered
  74. and short coats of martin, satin lining, gold buttons
  75. Pereira and Gerbillon

  76. made mandarins second order
  77. And that embassy went out via Mt Paucity
  78. and paid visit to the ho fo, the lama who dies not
  79. as he sat on a pair of great cushions
  80. one brocade and the other plain yellow
  81. who blessed them with tea and a luncheon
  82. and in another room assez mal propre
  83. singing his prayers was another
  84. and in yet another temple apartment another said frankly
  85. he didn’t see how he cd/ have lived in another body
  86. before this and in any case had no such remembrance
  87. but only the ho fo’s word
  88. and they went on toward the Hans of Kalkas
  89. where they got order to turn about and come home
  90. was a war on between Eleutes and Kalkas

  91. and to tell the Oros (the O Rossians) to meet ’em at Selinga
  92. or some other place on the frontier
  93. to determine frontiers.
  94. which they accomplished next year at Nipchou.
  95. With these ambassadors were a lot of domestics
  96. five thousand 800 sojers
  97. and a spot of artillery
  98. who all passed the gt wall at Cha houkoen.
  99. And KANG walked to his grandmother’s funeral
  100. a distance of 500 ly from the capital.
  101. And this embassy was concerning the Amur frontier
  102. coming from Petersburg
  103. but we wanted our martin sables, our huntin’
  104. that was on the north side of the Amur
  105. where are mountains and great lakes in the valleys.
  106. Year 28th of KANG HI, under the 7th moon
  107. was this treaty in latin with copies in tartar and muscovite
  108. and the chinks swore by the god of Xtians
  109. thinking nothing else wd/ have more force with the muscovites
  110. ‘To spare further bloodshed on our frontiers
  111. we here near the town of Nipchou
  112. swear peace solid, eternal
  113. state that boundary stones shall be set.
  114. Pray we to the GOD of all things
  115. who seeth our hearts
  116. that if any man here have reservation
  117. or plot his own profit
  118. in violence to this treaty
  119. he die before he reach a ripe age
  120. So the envoys
  121. embraced to the music of instruments
  122. and the rhoosians (Orosians) served a sort of lunch
  123. to the chinese ambassadors
  124. confitures and three sorts of wine
  125. vintage of europe
  126. and this was due to the frog and the portagoose
  127. Gerbillon and Pereira
  128. to Gerbillon in the most critical moment
  129. that he kept their tempers till they came to conclusion.