The Cantos Project - LXI

LXI

YONG TCHING
his fourth son, to honour his forebears
and spirits of fields
of earth
heaven
utility public
sought good of the people, active, absolute, loved
No death sentence save a man were thrice tried
and he putt out Xtianity
chinese found it so immoral
his mandarins found this sect so immoral
‘The head of a sect’ runs the law ‘who deceives folk
‘by pretending religion, ought damn well to be strangled.’
No new temples for any hochang, taoists or similars
sic in lege
False laws are that stir up revolt by pretense of virtue.
Anyone but impertinent fakers wd have admitted
the truth of the Emperor’s answer:
What I say now I say as Emperor
Applied to this daily and all day
Not seeing my children not seeing the Empress
till the time of mourning be ended
Xtians being such sliders and liars.
Public kitchen in famine
Public works for the unemployed, 1725,
a dole, nothing personal against Gerbillon and his colleagues, but
Xtians are disturbing good customs
seeking to uproot Kung’s laws
seeking to break up Kung’s teaching.
Officers at Tientsing
who faked rice distribution
and gave bad rice to the needy
can damn well pay up what they have embezzled.
Lieu-yu-y, state examiner said:
Put magazines in the 4 towns of Chan-si
(that there be set up a fondego)
Look whom you choose to administer
that these be not the overworked Governors
To keep out graft ... if any man have loaned rice in secret ...
A 100,000 pund capital
wd/ mean Thirty thousand great measures
At moderate price we can sell in the spring
to keep the market price decent
And still bring in a small revenue
which should be used for getting more next crop
AMMASSI or sane collection,
to have bigger provision next year,
that is, augment our famine reserve
and thus to keep the rice fresh in store house.
IN time of common scarcity; to sell at the just price
in extraordinary let it be lent to the people
and in great calamities, give it free
Lieou-yu-y
Approved by the EMPEROR
(Un fontego^*)
And in every town once a year
to the most honest citizens: a dinner
at expense of the emperor
no favour to men over women
Manchu custom very old, revived now by YONG TCHING
An’ woikinmen thought of. If proper in field work
get 8th degree button and
right to sit at tea with the governor
One, european, a painter, one only admitted
And Pope’s envoys got a melon
And they druv out Lon Coto fer graftin’
sent him to confino to watch men breakin’ ground
He had boosted the salt price.
And they received the volumes of history
with a pee-rade with portable cases like tabernacles
the dynastic history with solemnity.
‘I cant’, had said KANG HI
‘Resign’ said Victor Emanuel, you Count Cavour can resign
at your convenience.
‘To comfort the soul of my father
Emperor now defunct and in heaven’, said YONG TCHING;
Don’t think that soft talk is wanted
you write down what you take for the facts
call pork pork in your proposals
your briefs shd/ be secret and sealed and our Emperor
will publish at his discretion.
Eleventh month 23rd day for ceremonial ploughing
(I take it december)
Out by the Old Worker’s Hill
YONG ploughed half an hour
three princes, nine presidents did their stuff
and the peasants in gt/ mass sang the hymns
befitting this field work
as writ in LI KI in the old days
And they sowed grain and in autumn the grain of that field
was for ceremonial purposes put in sacks of Imperial
yellow as fit for this purpose.
‘You Christers wanna have foot on two boats
and when them boats pulls apart
you will d/n well git a wettin’ ’ said a court mandarin
tellin’ ’em.
And they set up a yellow pavilion
with a buffet beneath it
And the dishes and the court silver
and in deep silence sounded suddenly trumpets
and music for the Emperor YONG TCHING
and Dom Metello and the Europeans went to their places
a cushion for Dom Metello
and the Emperor’s wine was brought in, which he offered to
Dom Metello
who knelt, drank, and returned to his cushion
whereon they offered him fruit piled high in a pyramid
and the Emperor YONG said: take him somewhere where it is cooler.
So they dined him and showed him a comedy
and gave him seven trunks of stuff for himself
and 35 for the Portagoose boss who had sent him
i.e. he wuz honoured but cdn’t spill proppergander
and the chink grandees took him down the canal
with a dinner cooked by the chefs of the Palace
and his trappings up- (as they say) -held the honour of Europe
and as to Sounou being Xtian, he wuz probably also a conspiracy
But the population of Yun-nan was growing
and the price of grain kept goin’ up.
Lot of land undeveloped
so they opened it
tax exemption for six years on good rice land
and for ten years on dry
and honours in proportion to
how much a bloke wd put under culture
button 8th class for enough, and diplomas
for 15 arpens. A peasant got two bouquets for his cap
and a cramoisi scarf and a band to walk home wiff.
And a boost for any mandarin
that wd stake out new settlers
800,000 in doles
a million on canal reparations
Good of the empire of any part of the empire
concerns every mandarin
no matter where he is located
It is like a family affair
Ghost frightens no honest man. No house is
durable if perched on yr neighbor’s ruin
An honest peasant is a prognostic
wrote YONG TCHING
passing in silence the other ‘prognistics’ of the Governor’s letter
Men are born with a fund of rightness you will
find good men in any small village
but the bureaucrats take no notice
let Chiyeou be made a 7th class mandarin
give him 100 ounces of silver as incentive to other men
Heaven has scattered riches and poverty
but to profit on other men’s loss is no better than banditry
in momentum of avarice, no longer steers his own course.
Chiyeou didn’t do it on book readin’
nor by muggin’ up history.
Million in earthquake relief
and a thousand taels to the capital Jesuits
but expelled the rest from Canton
‘they go on buying converts’
Died 1735 at 58
in the 13th year of his reign
Came KIEN, 40 years before ‘our revolution’
YONG TCHING unregretted by canaglia and nitwits
‘A man’s happiness depends on himself,
not on his Emperor
If you think that I think that I can make any man happy
you have misunderstood the FU
(the Happiness ideogram) that I sent you.
Thus Tching whom Coupetai had brought up,
for the number of bye-laws
for his attention to detail
unregretted by scoundrels
never had death sentences such attention
three trials, publication of details, examination,
to poorest as for the highest
CAI TSONG HIEN HOANG TI be he credited
so his son Kien Long came to the throne
in the 36th of that century———
and as to the rise of the Adamses———
Extensive Mohamedan treasures
‘Question of coin in these conquered towns is very important.
I advise a few of YOUR mintage
and to leave the old pieces current.
Those used here,
Haskai, yerqui and hotien
are of bronze weighing about 1/5th of one of our ounces
50 of these mahometan discs make a teuke
about one of our taels.
There are some useless old cannon here
which I suggest we melt up for small cash
to keep commerce moving.’
Tchao-hou
to his EMPEROR
from the camp before Hashan
(or Kasgar, a city in little Boucaria)
This princess entered the palace when YONG TCHING was emperor
as ‘a young lady merely of talents
recited with beautiful voice
and had other amiable qualities’
concubine, and having a son was made queen
and for forty two years had seen him, this son,
on the first throne of Asia
in the 86th year of her age
posthumous EMPRESS
Hiao Ching Hien Hoang Héou
and her son as memorial
exempted his empire from the land tax
for a year as indeed he had done before on her birthdays
when she was 70 and when she reached her eightieth birthday
and now, in memoriam. And he wrote
a poem on the Beauties of Mougden
and condensed the Ming histories
literary kuss, and wuz Emperor
fer at least 40 years.
Perhaps you will look up his verses.

Note: Canto XXXV.

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