The Fifty-Third Canto might be the longest yet (twelve pages) and, at first glance, appears almost like an academic chapter, filled with Chinese characters, references to figures from the history of China.

Woven within a sort of history of Chinese rulers (and other figures, as well, but it is hardly post-colonial historiography that Pound practices), is another tale, that of the development of accounting techniques (like using knotted rope to record figures) and early money (metal disks, pierced in the middle so that they can be strung onto a string). Within also are admonishments to rulers on how govern effectively and justly.

And MOU-OUANG said:
                 ‘ as a tiger against me,
                          a man of thin ice in thaw
aid me in the darkness of rule’ 

While I won’t pretend to offer a definitive meaning (particularly since it is a fragment taken out of a much larger whole), I simply want to draw attention to that Asian style of writing – which, as I have noted before, should perhaps be better described as ‘style of English translations of Asian literature.’