The Cantos Project - LV

Orbem bellis, urbem gabellis
implevit
And the troops not even paid
And TCHUN the new Lord was dying
but awoke to name Li-Chun his heir
And at this time died Ouei-Kao the just taxer
that set up pensions for widows
His temple stands to this day
that his soldiers built for him.
Honour to TCHUN-TSONG the sick man.
‘Cut it! you bastard’ said Lin-Yun
‘Do you take my neck for a whetstone?’
And the rebel Lieou Pi was delighted.
And the censors said Liki has hogged ten provinces’ treasure
If these go to the national treasury
they will go out of circulation
the people thereby deprived,
so HIEN-TSONG threw this into commerce
And yet he was had by the eunuchs,
the army 800 thousand
not tilling the earth
And half of the Empire tao-tse hochangs and merchants
so that with so many hochangs and mere shifters
three tenths of the folk fed the whole empire, yet
HIEN reduced the superfluous mandarins
and remitted taxes in Hoai
Li Kiang and Tien Hing were his ministers
remembering TCHING-OUANG, KANG,
HAN-OUEN and HAN KING TI
‘Men are the basis of empire’, said our lord HIEN-TSONG
yet he died of the elixir,
fooled by the eunuchs, and more Tou-san (tartars) were raiding
MOU-TSONG drove out the taozers
but refused to wear mourning for HIEN his father.
The hen sang in MOU’S time, racin’, jazz dancin’
and play-actors, Tartars still raidin’
MOU’s first son was strangled by eunuchs,
Came OUEN-TSONG and kicked out 3000 fancies
let loose the falcons
yet he also was had by the eunuchs after 15 years reign
OU-TSONG destroyed hochang pagodas,
spent his time drillin’ and huntin’
Brass idols turned into ha’pence
chased out the bonzes from temples
46 thousand temples
chased out the eunuchs
and Tsaï-gin whom he had wished to make empress
hanged herself after his death
saying: I follow to the nine fountains’
So SIUEN decreed she shd/ be honoured as First Queen of OU-TSONG
Ruled SIUEN with his mind on the ‘Gold Mirror’ of TAI TSONG
Wherein is written: In time of disturbance
make use of all men, even scoundrels.
In time of peace reject no man who is wise.
HIEN said: no rest for an emperor. A little spark
lights a great deal of straw.
SIUEN’S income was 18 million strings of a thousand
on salt and wine only
not counting grain, silk etc.
(calculated at french louis d’or 1770
say about 90 millyun pund sterling)
A man who remembered faces
and had by the taozers
tho’ he stood for just price and sound paper
13 years on the throne.
Y TSONG his son brought a jazz age HI-TSONG
cock fights poverty archery
Squabbles of governors, eunuchs
{tip title="Sun Te" content="28. Sun Te – Sun De Zhao (Zh. 孫德昭; W/G Sun-té-tchao; pinyin: Sun Dezhao), general in the service of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang (r. 888-904).
Pound refers to a coup attempt by the eunuch Liu Jishu (Zh.刘季述) in 900. Liu managed to depose Emperor Zhaozong of Tang (r. 888-904), putting him in house arrest and forcing on him the title of “Retired Emperor” so that his son could assume the throne. On the lunar new year of 901, Sun Dezhao led a countercoup that restored the emperor to power. He killed one of Liu’s allies, Wang Zhongxian (Zh. 王仲先). Nolde 203; Histoire VII: 55-6.
Sun Dezhao was not murdered, as Pound states in the canto. It was emperor Zhaozong who was assassinated in 904, three years after the coup. Achilles Fang speculated the error must have emerged because of the “tchao” (Zh. 昭; pinyin: zhao) that is a component in both the name of the emperor and that of the general (Fang I: 128).
and got himself murdered
Then came little dynasties, came by murder, by treason, with
the Prince of TÇIN rising.
Li-ké-Yong is not dead’ said Tchu
‘for his son prolongs him’
whereas my sons are mere pigs and dogs.
HIU cut down taxes and douanes
was hell on extorters
10 years chançons de gestes
Khitans rising, Yeliou Apaoki and Chuliu, some gal,
HIU, gallant, pugnacious. So they said
In the city of Tching-tcheou are women like clouds of heaven,
Silk, gold, piled mountain high.
Take it before Prince Tçin gets there.
Thus Ouang Yeou to the Khitan of Apaoki
whose son was lost in the mulberry forest
Thus Thus came Tçin into empire
calling themselves later TANG
hunters and jongleurs. Comedians were the king’s eyes
but unstable.
Took Chou land in 70 days without disorder
A Prince this was, but no Emperor, paladin, useless to rule.
Tartar Yuen ruled as protector
cut down taxes, analphabetic.
And yet he set all the hawks loose,
said huntin’ is hell on the crops
This Li-ssé Yuen, called MING TSONG , had eight years of good reign
Li Tsongkou ruled his troops by affection
was Prince of Lou at this time
that is Kungfutseu’s country.
The dowager empress chose him
a great captain under MING TSONG
and they needed troops for defence against tartars
in Chéking-Tang’s department
Called Apaoki son of Chuliu to assist them
And Chéking Tang founded a dynasty
coming up from the ranks
Dry spring, a dry summer
locusts and rain in autumn
and beyond that, lack of specie
tax collectors inhuman.
Chuliu a great Queen of the Tartar
Te Kouang put the emperor in a temple
and supplied him with comforts
tartars put on chinese clothes
Ouan soui!! ten thousand
evviva, evviva Lieou-Tchi-Yuen.
Turk of the horde of Chato, set his city at Caïfon fou
And the tartars called their dead emperor “salted”
And it wd/ be now 13 years until SUNG.
Teoui-tchéou said : Lou land has produced only writers.
Said TAÏ-TSOU: KUNG is the master of emperors.
and they brought out Ou-tchao’s edition, 953,
And TAÏ ordered himself a brick tomb with no flummery
no stone men sheep or tigers
CHI-TSONG in the thick by Tçé-tchéou, against Han and tartars
sent reserve troops to the left wing
while he held firm on the right,
saying: now, that they think they have beaten us!
And CHI cleared out the temples and hochang
cleared out 30 thousand temples
and that left 26 hundred
with 60 thousand bonzes and bonzesses.
Chou coin was of iron
And CHI’S men drove the Tang boats from the Hoaï-ho
all north of the great Kiang was to CHI-TSONG.
who lent grain to Hoaï-nan devast.
Died Ouang-po the advisor.
SUNG was for 300 years.
Light was in his birth room and fragrance
as if it were almond boughs
Red was the robe of his dynasty
pourvou que ça doure, said his mother
He said: let brothers inherit
you are not here by virtush/
the last HAN was a minor
eunuchs, hochangs and taxers
princes get too much power
TCHAO KOUANG reviewed all capital sentences
took tax power from governors
and centered the army command
South Han was rotted with douanes
was rotted with tortures
Tsiuenpiu in snow had all Chou
and was sixty six days only in taking it. And the emperor
Sent his own coonskin coat to this general
who promptly went gay
Five stars shone in Koué, five planets
TAI TSONG brought out the true BOOKS
and there arose in the province of Ssétchuen a revolt
because of the greed of the mandarins.
Not content with their salaries
began to bleed merchants for licences
which new damn tax made money so scarce in that province
that men cdn’t buy the necessities.
Therefore Ouang Siaopo of the people
demanded just distribution
and they went against Tsing-chin city and took Pongchan
by violence and cut open the governor’s belly
which they filled up with silver
(bit of what he had extorted)
and TAI TSONG reigned 22 years
caring for field work. Meanwhile Jelly Hugo
the tartar, a Khitan, freed his people of taxes
and started old age relief. Ghengis rising
And Tchin-Song declined a present of sables (marte zibbeline)
saying it was just as cold for the soldiers.
and in ten four men cried once again Ouan Soui
may he live for 10 thousand years
TCHIN-TSONG
ouan soui, may he live for ten thousand years
who said: don’t worry about coming ages
the people need time to breathe.
And he made terms with the tartars, paid ’em in
silk and in silver
to keep ’em quiet as far as the wall.
And the King of Khitan set court at Tchongking
our lord TCHIN going mumbo
and they buried him with the tracts about heaven
which had wrought his dishonour
and GIN TSONG cleaned out the taozers
and the tartars began using books
Han, Khitan, tartar wars, boredom of.
Money and all that, stabilization, probably racket
1069
And now Fou-Pié to whom we owed the peace of 1042 with the tartars
returned and was kept and made minister
and CHIN-TSONG lived soberly
with no splurge of table or costumes
and at this time began Ngan
(or more fully Ouang-Ngan-ché) to demand that they reset the market tribunals,
posting every day what was on sale and what the right price of it
as had been under TCHEOU emperors
and that a market tax shd/ go to the emperor from this
thereby relieving the poor of all douanes
giving them easy market for merchandise
and enlivening commerce
by making to circulate the whole realm’s abundance.
and said he knew how hard it wd/ be to find personnel
to look after this, as when YAO had appointed Koen
who could not, and then YU who had drawn off the flood water
And these changes annoyed, greatly, the bureaucrats
whom he sent to confino
that is the most stubborn
and got younger men to replace ’em.
And Liu-hoei said Ngan was a twister
but the Emperor sent back Hoei’s protest
So Hoei begged to retire, and
was sent out to Tengtcheou as governor.
And Ngan saw land lying barren
because peasants had nowt to sow there
whence said: Lend ’em grain in the spring time
that they can pay back in autumn
with a bit of an increase, this wd/ augment the reserve,
This will need a tribunal
and the same tribunal shd/ seek
equity
for all lands and all merchandise
according to harvest and soil
so that the emperor’s tithes shd/ be proportionate
to the rarity or the abundance of merchandise
to make commerce more easy, that the folk be not overburdened
nor yet the imperial revenue be made less.
and Ngan made yet a third point
that was to fix the value of money
“and to coin enough denars
that shd/ stay always on the same footing.
and Fan-chungin protested
but
Heoi-king argued for Ngan:
no man is forced to borrow this grain in spring time
if peasants find it no advantage
they will not come borrow it.
and Ssé-ma; said, all right in theory
but the execution will be full of abuse
they’ll take it, but not bring it back
TSONG of TANG put up granaries
somewhat like those you want to establish
a measure of ten or twelve pounds cost no more than ten pence
and when the price was put up
they went on buying
and the whole province was ruined
CHIN stayed pro-Ngan; and it was suggested that
drought was due to Ngan’s reforms,
whereto Ngan said droughts had happened before.
and at the 12th moon of the 17th year of this Emperor
Ssé-ma Kouang, Fan Tsuyu and Lieou Ju offered the
HISTORY, called
Tsé-tchi tong kien hang mou
on the model of Tso kieou ming
and this began with the 23rd year of
OUEÏ-LIE of TCHEOU dynasty
and was in 294 books.
Honour to CHIN-TSONG the modest
Lux enim per se omnem in partem
Reason from heaven, said Tcheou Tun-y
enlighteneth all things
seipsum seipsum diffundit, risplende
Is the beginning of all things, et effectu,
Said Ngan: YAO, CHUN were thus in government
Died now the master of Nenuphar
Mandarins oppressing peasants to get back their grain loans,
and his dictionary is, they say, coloured with hochang
interpretations and Taozer, that is Ngan’s.
and merchants in Caïfong put up their shutters in mourning for Ssé-kouang
anti-tao, anti-bhud, anti-Ngan
whose rules had worked 20 years
till Ssé-kouang reversed ’em
Students went bhud rather than take Kung via Ngan,
Flood relief, due to Ngan?
joker somewhere?
came Tsaï King pro-Ngan, probably crooked
and they put Ngan’s plaque in a temple
HOEÏ went taozer, an’ I suppose
Tsaï ran to state usury. The tartar lord
wanted an alphabet
by name Akouta, ordered a written tongue for Kin tartars
And a fox walked into the Imperial palace
and took his seat on the throne
a mad man ran shrieking: change, tartars more tartars
tartars pass over Hoang-ho
And they used paper notes when coin was too heavy for transport
and redeemed those notes at one third /
And there were ever all sorts of disturbers
For there were the tartars, Khitan, that had
taken the old Turk’s country,
and these tartars are called also Leao
And there are Kin tartars, that were under Akouta
and these are called also Nutsche, from north of Corea,
and there were the hordes of Ghengiz (TAI-TSOU, Témougin)
of whom was CHI-TSOU or Koublai
Hoang ho, Hoang ho, tartars pass over Hoang ho.
SUNG died of taxes and gimcracks
Mongrels in fish-skin (shagreen, or shark’s skin)
till 1157 the Kin used coin made in China
and Oulo stopped swapping silk for the toys of Hia,
said: men cannot eat jewels
Oulo of Kin, greatest of Kin, under him were books set into Nutché
in his reign were only 18 beheaded
but his brat was run by his missus
and they had an ideological war
‘mediocrity’s childhood lasts into middle age’
they brought out a text book on music
Ghingiz (Tchinkis) hearing of alphabets
hearing of mores
and saw a green unicorn speaking
fumée maligne in the underground 1219
said Yéliu Tchutsaï: tax; don’t exterminate
you will make more if you tax ’em.
this was a new idea to the mongols
who wanted to turn all land into grazing
and saw no use for human inhabitants
these mongrels bein’ ’orsemen
Ten percent tax on wine, three and 1/3rd on necessities
mohammeds say different
make more anyhow if you tax ’em
SUNG falling, Antzar went against Kin
by Tang and Teng, let ’em pass.

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