(continued from previous post)


Pound had been broadcasting fascist propaganda for
several months when, on December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.  Then
he took off
about two months time to consider whether he would continue broadcasting
against the U.S.,
which was now a member of the military alliance dedicated to defeating the
Tokyo-Berlin-Rome
Axis.  He suspected continued broadcasts might constitute treason.  When he
does continue on
Jan. 29, 1942, he begins with a reference to the notion of empire.

   On Arbour Day, Pearl Arbour Day, at 12 o'clock
  noon, I retired from the capital of the old Roman
  Empire to seek wisdom from the ancients
        (Doob, 23).

His next thought is of China.

  I wanted to figure things out.  I had a perfectly
  good alibi, if I wanted to play things safe.  I was
  and am officially occupied with a new translation
  of the Ta S'eu  of Confucius
      (Doob, 23).


This "alibi" was already in print.  Time magazine had reported three days
earlier that Pound had
"retired to continue his study of Chinese philosophy" (Time, Jan. 26,
1942).  But his irrepressible
dedication to fascism and his belief in empire were too strong by now.  One
American journalist
records,

  The day of Pearl Harbor, Pound unexpectedly came
  to our house and told us the war between the United
  States and Italy was inevitable but that he intended
  to stay on.  [I] told him that he would be a traitor if he
  did so, and now was the time for him to pipe down about the alleged
glories of Fascism.  "But I believe in Fascism," said Pound, giving the
Fascist salute, "and I want to defend it . . .
   (Reynolds and Eleanor Packard, Balcony Empire,
     Chatto & Windus, 1943, 179).

Pound also believed in empire and was striving to discover the relevance of
his Chinese studies
to the crucial political choice he was making.  In Canto 53 he had written

  Empire down in the rise of princes
  Tçin drave the Tartar, lands of the emperor idle
  Tcheou tombs fallen in ruin
   from that year was no order
  No man was under another
   9 Tcheou wd/not stand together
   were not rods in a bundle. . .
     (53/271).

Nolde informs us that this passage summarizes

"the period described by Confucius in the Ch'un
Ch'iu (The Spring and Autumn Annals), which is traditionally dated 722 - 481
B.C. . . .  The
reference to 'rods in a bundle' clearly refers to the symbol of Italian
fascism -- the need to work
together" (Nolde, 76).

Confucius had thoroughly analyzed the disintegration of the Chou empire; and
what was needed then, Canto 53 implies, was fascist discipline.  In 1942,
Pound inverts this logic.  Now, what is needed, he thinks, is the study of
Confucius' reflections to prevent a
breakup of the fascist empire..  In the radio speech of Jan. 29, 1942, he
says,

  I have in Rapallo the text of Confucius, the text
  of the world's finest anthology, namely that which
  Confucius compiled from earlier authors. . .
  I spent a month tryin' to figure things out. . . At any
  rate, I had a month to make up my mind about some
  things.  I had Confucius and Mencius, both of whom
  had been up against similar things, Both of whom had
  seen empires fallin' [emphasis added].  Both of whom
  had seen deeper into the causes of human confusion
  than most men ever even think of lookin'
        (Doob, 24).

Later in the same speech, for the sake of Axis solidarity, he goes on to
defend the Japanese Noh-plays, which had seemed so childish to him a few
months after translating them.

  Anybody who had read the plays entitled Kumasaka
  and Kagekiyo would have AVOIDED the sort of bilge
  printed in Time and the American press, and the
  sort of fetid imbecility I heard a few nights ago
  from the British Broadcasting Corporation
        (Doob, 26).

Pound's rededication to the Axis cause leads him to defend the Japanese,
whose racial
characteristics are being maligned by the enemy.

  A BBC commentator somewhere about January 8
  was telling his presumably music hall audience
  that the Japs were jackals, and that they had
  just recently, I think he said, within living
  men's lifetimes, emerged from barbarism. . .
   A glance at Japanese sword guards, a glance
  at Jimmy Whistler's remarks about Hokusai, or, as
  I indicated a minute ago, a familiarity with the Awoi
  no Uye, Kumasaka, Nishikigi, or Funa- Benkei.  These
  are Japanese classical plays, and would convince
  anyone with more sense than a pea-hen, of the degree
  of Japanese civilization, let alone what they conserved
  when China was, as Fenellosa put it, incapable of
  preserving her own heritage.
   China lettin' Confucius go OUT of the schools
  for example.

 Each member of the Axis, it seems, had its assigned task.  Japan's was to
extend the Empire in
Asia in order to preserve the teachings of Confucius.  Italy's was to
perfect the fascist social
system and confer the benefits on its colonies in Africa.  Germany's role:
to perfect the "breed" and show how racial purity was important in Empire
building.  Japanese Confucianism, Italian social reform and German eugenics
were united only by the collective imperial drive.
 Pound began to praise Hitler's writings very openly in 1942.  On the radio
he admits almost
sheepishly, "I was behindhand in reading Mein Kampf."   Then he asks
scoldingly, "but do you know
YET what is IN it?  Have you a clear idea of the program?"

We have a fairly good idea, don't we?




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