Chung1 (or Zhong) is one the most frequently used characters in Chinese, and has an extremely large number of meanings. Pound uses it, or a variation on it, at least nine times in the Cantos. Properly represented it looks something like this. I I I I ---------- I ---------- I I I I I I I I I I I I ---------- I ---------- I I I I It is essentially a square with a vertical line drawn through to signify centrality or the middle. This is the first character in the word Zhongguo (which literally means middle country, center country, or the middle kingdom). This signifies China, and for Chinese the character zhong by itself means China in many contexts, and can be used to modify other words to signify "something Chinese." For instance, when "zhong" is added to "wen", a word meaning language, we get "zhongwen", meaning the Chinese language. The character zhong can signify, depending on the context, all of the following : Traditional Chinese, midday, center, heart, midlevel, medium, between, intermediate, suspend, Communist (as in Zhonggong), centrality, polytechnic, as well as the mean, the middle way, the center, neutral, and other simpler words, such as "in" or "among". So we can easily choose to interpret the meaning of the character to be whatever we wish to read into it. The same is true for Pound, and the same is true for Confucius. Carpenter reports that in a letter Pound wrote to W. Lewis, he "signed EZ with the E, in the shape of a swastika" (Carpenter, 558). I have not seen the letter myself, but I think it reasonable to take Carpenter at his word. I pointed out before that Pound wrote the swastika symbol in his notes to Canto 54, where he describes Hitler and Mussolini watching submarine maneuvers, and depicts the Chinese empire at its high point. (Nolde is the source for this observation). One can choose to interpret such things in various ways. Mr. Moody, for instance, may choose to interpret Pound's use of Chung1 (zhong) as indicative of the poets search for the principle of the pivot, or the center, or "the mean" as expressed in Chinese philosophy. He may interpret the Confucian concepts apolitically. This is his choice. Furthermore, if Mr. Moody wishes to interpret the poetry as something apart from the prose and the radio broadcasts, he may choose to do so. Tim Romano may choose to interpret certain passages of the poetry in the light of certain prose passages. That is his right. After all, each of is guided by our own principles of selectivity. For example, when reading in the opening of the Pisan Cantos the line, "Thus Ben and la Clara at Milano . . .", I could choose to ignore that particular line and leave it out. I could read the passage without that reference to Mussolini, or interpret it to be something other than a reference to Mussolini. In fact, when reading the first page of the Cantos, I might choose to leave out all the vowels, in which case we would get nd th n w nt d wn t th sh p . . . Perhaps I dislike vowels and find them unattractive, or I believe they ruin the aesthetic effect of the poem. So I could choose not to read them. I believe in the absolute freedom of the interpreter. So that if I were an interpreter who liked Hitler MORE than Pound did, I could read the first line of the Cantos this way And then HITLER HITLER went down HITLER to the HITLER ship HITLER HITLER HITLER . . . My own opinion (OPINION, mind you) is that Pound liked Chung1, he liked Confucius, he liked Mussolini, and he liked Hitler; and that he thought they were all compatible. And I also believe that he SAID they were all compatible (on numerous occasions). But he also liked the word "and" (which is used quite freqently in the Cantos, more often than the word, Chung, or the word, Confucius, or the word Mussolini). So it might be more accurate to say that the essence of Pound's thought is contained in the word "and" ( or maybe in the letter "a", which he used even more often than the word "and"). We are all free to choose our own interpretations!!! Let us exercise that freedom. Regards, Wei ____ I I I ---------- I ---------- I I I I I I I I I I I I ---------- I ---------- I I I____ ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com