Chinois Poetry Year Continued…Ezra Pound on The Song of the Bowmen of Shu and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

From Ezra Pound and 1915. This is a translation of an old Chinese poem about men on the front line facing the Mongols. He obviously saw links with the trenches of World War One. Pound adapted the traditional Chinese poem and sent it to the French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who Pound massively admired but who died at the Front in 1915. He wrote to Pound that he saw the resonances between the Chinese bowmen on the Great Wall watching and waiting for the Mongol attacks and his own position sitting in a trench waiting for the inevitable German onslaught. Pound recognised Gaudier-Brzeska’s talent and so mourned his loss while celebrating him as a inspiration for Vorticism. And so here is The Song of the Bowmen of Shu by Pound but with a picture of the muse for the piece Gaudier-Brzeska.

Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots
And saying: When shall we get back to our country?
Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen,
We have no comfort because of these Mongols.
We grub the soft fern-shoots,
When anyone says “Return,” the others are full of sorrow.
Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry and thirsty.
Our defence is not yet made sure, no one can let his friend return.
We grub the old fern-stalks.
We say: Will we be let to go back in October?
There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort.
Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country.
What flower has come into blossom?
Whose chariot? The General’s.
Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were strong.
We have no rest, three battles a month.
By heaven, his horses are tired.
The generals are on them, the soldiers are by them.
The horses are well trained,
the generals have ivory arrows and quivers ornamented with fish-skin.
The enemy is swift, we must be careful.
When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring,
We come back in the snow,
We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty,
Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know of our grief?