It is easy to say that the language of "Cathay" is due to the
Chinese. If one looks carefully at (1) Pound's other verse, (2)
other people's translations from the Chinese (e.g., Giles's), it
is evident that this is not the case. The language was ready for
the Chinese poetry. Compare, for instance, a passage from
"Provincia Deserta":
I have walked
into Périgord
I have seen the torch-flames, high-leaping,
Painting the front of that church,--
And, under the dark, whirling laughter,
I have looked back over the stream
and seen the high building,
Seen the long minarets, the white shafts.
I have gone in Ribeyrac,
and in Sarlat.
I have climbed rickety stairs, heard talk of Croy,
Walked over En Bertran's old layout,
Have seen Narbonne, and Cahors and Chalus,
Have seen Excideuil, carefully fashioned.
with a passage from "The River Song":
He goes out to Hori, to look at the wing-flapping storks,
He returns by way of Sei rock, to hear the new nightingales,
For the gardens at Jo-run are full of new nightingales,
Their sound is mixed in this flute,
Their voice is in the twelve pipes here.
It matters very little how much is due to Rihaku and how much to
Pound. Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer has observed: "If these are
original verses, then Mr. Pound is the greatest poet of this
day." He goes on to say:
The poems in "Cathay" are things of a supreme beauty. What
poetry should be, that they are. And if a new breath of
imagery and handling can do anything for our poetry, that
new breath these poems bring....
Poetry consists in so rendering concrete objects that the
emotions produced by the objects shall arise in the
reader....
Where have you better rendered, or more permanently
beautiful a rendering of, the feelings of one of those
lonely watchers, in the outposts of progress, whether it be
Ovid in Hyrcania, a Roman sentinel upon the great wall of
this country, or merely ourselves, in the lonely recesses of
our minds, than the "Lament of the Frontier Guard"?...
Beauty is a very valuable thing; perhaps it is the most
valuable thing in life; but the power to express emotion so
that it shall communicate itself intact and exactly is
almost more valuable. Of both these qualities Mr. Pound's
book is very full. Therefore, I think we may say that this
is much the best work he has done, for, however closely he
may have followed his originals--and of that most of us have
no means of judging--there is certainly a good deal of Mr.
Pound in this little volume.
"Cathay" and "Lustra" were followed by the translations of Noh
plays. The Noh are not so important as the Chinese poems
(certainly not so important for English); the attitude is less
unusual to us; the work is not so solid, so firm. "Cathay" will,
I believe, rank with the "Sea-Farer" in the future among Mr.
Pound's original work; the Noh will rank among his translations.
It is rather a dessert after "Cathay." There are, however,
passages which, as Pound has handled them, are different both
from the Chinese and from anything existent in English. There
is, for example, the fine speech of the old Kagekiyo, as he
thinks of his youthful valour:
He thought, how easy this killing. He rushed with his
spearshaft gripped under his arm. He cried out, "I am
Kagekiyo of the Heike." He rushed on to take them. He
pierced through the helmet vizards of Miyanoya. Miyanoya
fled twice, and again; and Kagekiyo cried: "You shall not
escape me!" He leaped and wrenched off his helmet. "Eya!"
The vizard broke and remained in his hand, and Miyanoya
still fled afar, and afar, and he looked back crying in
terror, "How terrible, how heavy your arm!" And Kagekiyo
called at him, "How tough the shaft of your neck is!" And
they both laughed out over the battle, and went off each his
own way.
The "Times Literary Supplement" spoke of Mr. Pound's "mastery of
beautiful diction" and his "cunningly rhythmically prose," in
its review of the "Noh."
Even since "Lustra," Mr. Pound has moved again. This move is to
the epic, of which three cantos appear in the American "Lustra"
(they have already appeared in "Poetry"--Miss Monroe deserves
great honour for her courage in printing an epic poem in this
twentieth century--but the version in "Lustra" is revised and is
improved by revision). We will leave it as a test: when anyone
has studied Mr. Pound's poems in _chronological_ order, and has
mastered "Lustra" and "Cathay," he is prepared for the Cantos--
but not till then. If the reader then fails to like them, he has
probably omitted some step in his progress, and had better go
back and retrace the journey.