This Canto is very much like the previous one – a history of Chinese rulers with a focus on economics (viewed from the top, of course – no Marxian social history for Pound). In fact, it picks up with the other one left off: LIV ended at 756 a.d. and this one picks up at 805 a.d.

I am beginning to see some sense in how Pound arranges his stanzas here. To a limited extent, the Canto is broken into stanzas that represent incidents or mini-themes within it.

Much of the economic discussion is about taxes.

He also throws in some little futurisms – at least relative to the topic of medieval Chinese history – such as:

Y TSONG his son brought a jazz age HI-TSONG