A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems
Play Sample
By Wei Wēn-ti, son of Ts’ao Ts’ao, who founded the dynasty of Wei, and died in A.D. 220. (The poem has been wrongly attributed to Han Wēn-ti, died 157 B.C.)
I look down and examine / his table and mat.
The things are there / just as before.
But the man they belonged to / is not there.
His spirit suddenly / has taken flight
And left me behind / far away.
To whom shall I look / on whom rely?
My tears flow / in an endless stream.
“Yu, yu” / cry the wandering deer
As they carry fodder / to their young in the wood.
Flap, flap / fly the birds
As they carry their little ones / back to the nest.
I alone / am desolate
Dreading the days / of our long parting:
My grieving heart’s / settled pain
No one else / can understand.
There is a saying / among people
“Sorrow makes us / grow old.”
Alas, alas / for my white hairs!
All too early / they have come!
Long wailing, / long sighing
My thoughts are fixed on my sage parent.
They say the good / live long:
Then why was he / not spared?
THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST WU
TWO POEMS
By Wei Wēn-ti (A.D. 188-227)
(1)
For I must go on a journey far away.
“Where are you going on your journey far away?”
To the land of Wu where my enemies are.
But I must ride many thousand miles,
Beyond the Eastern Road that leads to Wu.
Between the rivers bitter winds blow,
Swiftly flow the waters of Huai and Ssŭ.
I want to take a skiff and cross these rivers,
But alas for me, where shall I find a boat?
To sit idle is not my desire:
Gladly enough would I go to my country’s aid.
(2)
(He abandons the campaign)
Stretched on high, like a chariot’s canvas-awning.
Alas that I was born in these times,
To be blown along like a cloud puffed by the wind!
It has blown me away far to the South-east,
On and on till I came to Wu-hui.
Wu-hui is not my country:
Why should I go on staying and staying here?
I will give it up and never speak of it again,—
This being abroad and always living in dread.
THE RUINS OF LO-YANG
By Ts’ao Chih (A.D. 192-233), third son of Ts’ao Ts’ao. He was a great favourite with his father till he made a mistake in a campaign. In this poem he returns to look at the ruins of Lo-yang, where he used to live. It had been sacked by Tung Cho.
And look down on the city of Lo-yang.
In Lo-yang how still it is!
Palaces and houses all burnt to ashes.
Walls and fences all broken and gaping,
Thorns and brambles shooting up to the sky.
I do not see the old old-men:
I only see the new young men.
I turn aside, for the straight road is lost:
The fields are overgrown and will never be ploughed again.
I have been away such a long time
That I do not know which street is which.
How sad and ugly the empty moors are!
A thousand miles without the smoke of a chimney.
I think of the house I lived in all those years:
I am heart-tied and cannot speak.
The above poem vaguely recalls a famous Anglo-Saxon fragment which I will make intelligible by semi-translation:
Weirdly[19] broken;
Burgh-steads bursten,
Giants’ work tumbleth,
Roofs are wrenched,
Towers totter,
Bereft of rune-gates.
Smoke is on the plaster,
Scarred the shower-burghs,
Shorn and shattered,
By eld under-eaten.
Earth’s grip haveth
Wealders[20] and workmen.”
[19] By Fate.
[20] Rulers.
THE COCK-FIGHT
By Ts’ao Chih
Our ears are weary with the sound of “kung” and “shang.”[21]
Our host is silent and sits doing nothing:
All the guests go on to places of amusement.
Round a cleared room, watching the fighting-cocks.
The gallant birds are all in battle-trim:
They raise their tails and flap defiantly.
Their beating wings stir the calm air:
Their angry eyes gleam with a red light.
Where their beaks have struck, the fine feathers are scattered:
With their strong talons they wound again and again.
Their long cries enter the blue clouds;
Their flapping wings tirelessly beat and throb.
“Pray God the lamp-oil lasts a little longer,
Then I shall not leave without winning the match!”
[21] Notes of the scale.
A VISION
By Ts’ao Chih
I want to soar high among the clouds,
And, far beyond the Eight Limits of the compass,
Cast my gaze across the unmeasured void.
I will wear as my gown the red mists of sunrise,
And as my skirt the white fringes of the clouds:
My canopy—the dim lustre of Space:
My chariot—six dragons mounting heavenward:
And before the light of Time has shifted a pace
Suddenly stand upon the World’s blue rim.
The doors of Heaven swing open,
The double gates shine with a red light.
I roam and linger in the palace of Wēn-ch’ang,[22]
I climb up to the hall of T’ai-wei.[22]
The Lord God lies at his western lattice:
And the lesser Spirits are together in the eastern gallery.
They wash me in a bath of rainbow-spray
And gird me with a belt of jasper and rubies.
I wander at my ease gathering divine herbs:
I bend down and touch the scented flowers.
Wang-tzŭ[23] gives me drugs of long-life
And Hsien-mēn[23] hands me strange potions.
By the partaking of food I evade the rites of Death:
My span is extended to the enjoyment of life everlasting.
[22] Stars.
[23] Immortals.
THE CURTAIN OF THE WEDDING BED
By Liu Hsün’s wife (third century A.D.).
After she had been married to him for a long while, General Liu Hsün sent his wife back to her home, because he had fallen in love with a girl of the Ssu-ma family.
I hung you there to screen us from the light of day.
I brought you with me when I left my father’s house;
Now I am taking you back with me again.
I will fold you up and lay you flat in your box.
Curtain—shall I ever take you out again?
REGRET
By Yüan Chi (A.D. 210-263)
And was better at it than Crooked Castle.[24]
My spirit was high as the rolling clouds
And my fame resounded beyond the World.
I took my sword to the desert sands,
I drank my horse at the Nine Moors.
My flags and banners flapped in the wind,
And nothing was heard but the song of my drums.
And a fierce anger burns within me:
It’s thinking of how I’ve wasted my time
That makes this fury tear my heart.
[24] A famous general.
TAOIST SONG
By Chi K’ang (A.D. 223-262)
My thoughts shall wander in the Great Void (bis).
Always repenting of wrongs done
Will never bring my heart to rest.
I cast my hook in a single stream;
But my joy is as though I possessed a Kingdom.
I loose my hair and go singing;
To the four frontiers men join in my refrain.
This is the purport of my song:
“My thoughts shall wander in the Great Void.”
A GENTLE WIND
By Fu Hsüan (died A.D. 278)
A bright moon shines on the high tower.
A voice whispers, but no one answers when I call:
A shadow stirs, but no one comes when I beckon.
The kitchen-man brings in a dish of lentils:
Wine is there, but I do not fill my cup.
Contentment with poverty is Fortune’s best gift:
Riches and Honour are the handmaids of Disaster.
Though gold and gems by the world are sought and prized,
To me they seem no more than weeds or chaff.
WOMAN
By Fu Hsüan
Nothing on earth is held so cheap.
Boys stand leaning at the door
Like Gods fallen out of Heaven.
Their hearts brave the Four Oceans,
The wind and dust of a thousand miles.
No one is glad when a girl is born:
By her the family sets no store.
When she grows up, she hides in her room
Afraid to look a man in the face.
No one cries when she leaves her home—
Sudden as clouds when the rain stops.
She bows her head and composes her face,
Her teeth are pressed on her red lips:
She bows and kneels countless times.
She must humble herself even to the servants.
His love is distant as the stars in Heaven,
Yet the sunflower bends toward the sun.
Their hearts more sundered than water and fire—
A hundred evils are heaped upon her.
Her face will follow the years’ changes:
Her lord will find new pleasures.
They that were once like substance and shadow
Are now as far as Hu from Ch’in.[25]
Yet Hu and Ch’in shall sooner meet
Than they whose parting is like Ts’an and Ch’ēn.[26]
[25] Two lands.
[26] Two stars.
DAY DREAMS
By Tso Ssŭ (third century A.D.)
And was passionately devoted to reading all sorts of books.
In prose I made Chia I my standard:
In verse I imitated Ssŭ-ma Hsiang-ju.
But then the arrows began singing at the frontier.
And a winged summons came flying to the City.
Although arms were not my profession,
I had once read Jang-Chū’s war-book.
I shouted aloud and my cries rent the air:
I felt as though Tung Wu were already annihilated.
The scholar’s knife cuts best at its first use
And my dreams hurried on to the completion of my plan.
I wanted at a stroke to clear the Yang-tze and Hsiang,
And at a glance to quell the Tibetans and Hu.
When my task was done, I should not accept a barony,
But refusing with a bow, retire to a cottage in the country.
THE SCHOLAR IN THE NARROW STREET
By Tso Ssŭ
Beating its wings against the four corners.
Depressed, depressed the scholar in the narrow street:
Clasping a shadow, he dwells in an empty house.
When he goes out, there is nowhere for him to go:
Bunches and brambles block up his path.
He composes a memorial, but it is rejected and unread,
He is left stranded, like a fish in a dry pond.
Without—he has not a single farthing of salary:
Within—there is not a peck of grain in his larder.
His relations upbraid him for his lack of success:
His friends and callers daily decrease in number.
Su Ch’in used to go preaching in the North
And Li Ssŭ sent a memorandum to the West.
I once hoped to pluck the fruits of life:
But now alas, they are all withered and dry.
Though one drinks at a river, one cannot drink more than a bellyful;
Enough is good, but there is no use in satiety.
The bird in a forest can perch but on one bough,
And this should be the wise man’s pattern.
THE DESECRATION OF THE HAN TOMBS
By Chang Tsai (third century A.D.)
Those high mounds, four or five in the fields!
What men lie buried under these tombs?
All of them were Lords of the Han world.
“Kung” and “Wēn”[27] gaze across at each other:
The Yüan mound is all grown over with weeds.
When the dynasty was falling, tumult and disorder arose,
Thieves and robbers roamed like wild beasts.
Of earth[28] they have carried away more than one handful,
They have gone into vaults and opened the secret doors.
Jewelled scabbards lie twisted and defaced:
The stones that were set in them, thieves have carried away,
The ancestral temples are hummocks in the ground:
The walls that went round them are all levelled flat.
Over everything the tangled thorns are growing:
A herd-boy pushes through them up the path.
Down in the thorns rabbits have made their burrows:
The weeds and thistles will never be cleared away.
Over the tombs the ploughshare will be driven
And peasants will have their fields and orchards there.
They that were once lords of a thousand hosts
Are now become the dust of the hills and ridges.
I think of what Yün-mēn[29] said
And am sorely grieved at the thought of “then” and “now.”
[27] Names of two tombs.
[28] In the early days of the dynasty a man stole a handful of earth from the imperial tombs, and was executed by the police. The emperor was furious at the lightness of the punishment.
[29] Yün-mēn said to Mēng Ch’ang-chün (died 279 B.C.), “Does it not grieve you to think that after a hundred years this terrace will be cast down and this pond cleared away?”Mēng Ch’ang-chün wept.
BEARER’S SONG
By Miu Hsi (died A.D. 245). Cf. the “Han Burial Songs,” p. 38
Now that I am dead, I am left to lie in the fields.
In the morning I drove out from the High Hall:
In the evening I lodged beneath the Yellow Springs.[30]
When the white sun had sunk in the Western Chasm
I hung up my chariot and rested my four horses.
Now, even the mighty Maker of All
Could not bring the life back to my limbs.
Shape and substance day by day will vanish:
Hair and teeth will gradually fall away.
Forever from of old men have been so:
And none born can escape this thing.
[30] Hades.
THE VALLEY WIND
By Lu Yün (fourth century A.D.)
Silently enjoying isolation,
I pull the rope of my door tighter
And stuff my window with roots and ferns.
My spirit is tuned to the Spring-season:
At the fall of the year there is autumn in my heart.
Thus imitating cosmic changes
My cottage becomes a Universe.
CHAPTER III
POEMS BY T’AO CH’IEN
(1)
At midsummer full of calm shadows.
The south wind follows summer’s train:
With its eddying-puffs it blows open my coat.
I am free from ties and can live a life of retirement.
When I rise from sleep, I play with books and harp.
The lettuce in the garden still grows moist:
Of last year’s grain there is always plenty left.
Self-support should maintain strict limits:
More than enough is not what I want.
I grind millet and make good wine:
When the wine is heated, I pour it out for myself.
My little children are playing at my side,
Learning to talk, they babble unformed sounds.
These things have made me happy again
And I forget my lost cap of office.
Distant, distant I gaze at the white clouds:
With a deep yearning I think of the Sages of Antiquity.
(2)
I threw on my clothes and opened it myself.
I asked who it was who had come so early to see me:
He said he was a peasant, coming with good intent.
He brought a present of wine and rice-soup,
Believing that I had fallen on evil days.
“You live in rags under a thatched roof
And seem to have no desire for a better lot.
The rest of mankind have all the same ambitions:
You, too, must learn to wallow in their mire.”
“Old man, I am impressed by what you say,
But my soul is not fashioned like other men’s.
To drive in their rut I might perhaps learn:
To be untrue to myself could only lead to muddle.
Let us drink and enjoy together the wine you have brought:
For my course is set and cannot now be altered.”
(3)
I went on a journey,
Right to the corner
Of the Eastern Ocean.
The road there
Was long and winding,
And stormy waves
Barred my path.
What made me
Go this way?
Hunger drove me
Into the World.
I tried hard
To fill my belly:
And even a little
Seemed a lot.
But this was clearly
A bad bargain,
So I went home
And lived in idleness.
(4)
SUBSTANCE, SHADOW, AND SPIRIT
High and low, wise and simple, all busily hoard up the moments of life.How greatly they err!
Therefore I have to the uttermost exposed the bitterness both of Substance and Shadow, and have made Spirit show how, by following Nature, we may dissolve this bitterness.
Substance speaks to Shadow:
Mountains and rivers never change.
But herbs and trees in perpetual rotation
Are renovated and withered by the dews and frosts:
And Man the wise, Man the divine—
Shall he alone escape this law?
Fortuitously appearing for a moment in the World
He suddenly departs, never to return.
How can he know that the friends he has left
Are missing him and thinking of him?
Only the things that he used remain;
They look upon them and their tears flow.
Me no magical arts can save,
Though you may hope for a wizard’s aid.
I beg you listen to this advice—
When you can get wine, be sure to drink it.
Shadow replies:
Drugs of Immortality are instruments of folly.
I would gladly wander in Paradise,
But it is far away and there is no road.
Since the day that I was joined to you
We have shared all our joys and pains.
While you rested in the shade, I left you a while:
But till the end we shall be together.
Our joint existence is impermanent:
Sadly together we shall slip away.
That when the body decays Fame should also go
Is a thought unendurable, burning the heart.
Let us strive and labour while yet we may
To do some deed that men will praise.
Wine may in truth dispel our sorrow,
But how compare it with lasting Fame?
Spirit expounds:
He cannot control the things he has made.
Man, the second of the Three Orders,
Owes his precedence to Me.
Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another:
Nor by any means can we escape
The intimate sharing of good and ill.
The Three Emperors were saintly men,
Yet to-day—where are they?
P’ēng[31] lived to a great age,
Yet he went at last, when he longed to stay.
And late or soon, all go:
Wise and simple have no reprieve.
Wine may bring forgetfulness,
But does it not hasten old-age?
If you set your heart on noble deeds,
How do you know that any will praise you?
By all this thinking you do Me injury:
You had better go where Fate leads—
Drift on the Stream of Infinite Flux,
Without joy, without fear:
When you must go—then go,
And make as little fuss as you can.
[31] The Chinese Methuselah.
(5)
In my cotton dress I seek sunlight on the porch.
In the southern orchard all the leaves are gone:
In the north garden rotting boughs lie heaped.
I empty my cup and drink it down to the dregs:
I look towards the kitchen, but no smoke rises.
Poems and books lie piled beside my chair:
But the light is going and I shall not have time to read them.
My life here is not like the Agony in Ch’ēn,[32]
But often I have to bear bitter reproaches.
Let me then remember, to calm my heart’s distress,
That the Sages of old were often in like case.
[32] Confucius was maltreated in Ch’ēn.
(6)
BLAMING SONS
(AN APOLOGY FOR HIS OWN DRUNKENNESS)
I am wrinkled and seared beyond repair,
And though I have got five sons,
They all hate paper and brush.
A-shu is eighteen:
For laziness there is none like him.
A-hsüan does his best,
But really loathes the Fine Arts.
Yung-tuan is thirteen.
But does not know “six” from “seven.”[33]
T’ung-tzŭ in his ninth year
Is only concerned with things to eat.
If Heaven treats me like this,
What can I do but fill my cup?
[33] Written in Chinese with two characters very easy to distinguish.
(7)
Yet near me there sounds no noise of horse or coach.
Would you know how that is possible?
A heart that is distant creates a wilderness round it.
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
Then gaze long at the distant summer hills.
The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day:
The flying birds two by two return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us.
(8)
MOVING HOUSE
Was not because I had taken a fancy to the house.
But I heard it was a place of simple-minded men
With whom it were a joy to spend the mornings and evenings.
Many years I had longed to settle here:
Now at last I have managed to move house.
I do not mind if my cottage is rather small
So long as there’s room enough for bed and mat.
Often and often the neighbours come to see me
And with brave words discuss the things of old.
Rare writings we read together and praise:
Doubtful meanings we examine together and settle.
(9)
RETURNING TO THE FIELDS
My only love was for the hills and mountains.
Unwitting I fell into the Web of the World’s dust
And was not free until my thirtieth year.
The migrant bird longs for the old wood:
The fish in the tank thinks of its native pool.
I had rescued from wildness a patch of the Southern Moor
And, still rustic, I returned to field and garden.
My ground covers no more than ten acres:
My thatched cottage has eight or nine rooms.
Elms and willows cluster by the eaves:
Peach trees and plum trees grow before the Hall.
Hazy, hazy the distant hamlets of men.
Steady the smoke of the half-deserted village,
A dog barks somewhere in the deep lanes,
A cock crows at the top of the mulberry tree.
At gate and courtyard—no murmur of the World’s dust:
In the empty rooms—leisure and deep stillness.
Long I lived checked by the bars of a cage:
Now I have turned again to Nature and Freedom.
(10)
READING THE BOOK OF HILLS AND SEAS
And round my cottage thick-leaved branches sway.
There is not a bird but delights in the place where it rests:
And I too—love my thatched cottage.
I have done my ploughing:
I have sown my seed.
Again I have time to sit and read my books.
In the narrow lane there are no deep ruts:
Often my friends’ carriages turn back.
In high spirits I pour out my spring wine
And pluck the lettuce growing in my garden.
A gentle rain comes stealing up from the east
And a sweet wind bears it company.
My thoughts float idly over the story of King Chou
My eyes wander over the pictures of Hills and Seas.
At a single glance I survey the whole Universe.
He will never be happy, whom such pleasures fail to please!
(11)
FLOOD
And the settled rain, dripping, dripping,
In the Eight Directions—the same dusk.
The level lands—one great river.
Wine I have, wine I have:
Idly I drink at the eastern window.
Longingly—I think of my friends,
But neither boat nor carriage comes.
(12)
NEW CORN
Solemn the stillness of this fair morning.
I will clothe myself in spring-clothing
And visit the slopes of the Eastern Hill.
By the mountain-stream a mist hovers,
Hovers a moment, then scatters.
There comes a wind blowing from the south
That brushes the fields of new corn.
CHAPTER IV
INVITING GUESTS
By Ch’ēng-kung Sui (died A.D. 273)
To summon guests.
I collected together
All my friends.
Loud talk
And simple feasting:
Discussion of philosophy,
Investigation of subtleties.
Tongues loosened
And minds at one.
Hearts refreshed
By discharge of emotion!
CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN
By Tao-yün (circa A.D. 400), wife of General Wang Ning-chih. The general was so stupid that she finally deserted him.
Soaring up to the blue sky.
Among the rocks—an empty hollow,
Secret, still, mysterious!
Uncarved and unhewn,
Screened by nature with a roof of clouds.
Times and Seasons, what things are you
Bringing to my life ceaseless change?
I will lodge for ever in this hollow
Where Springs and Autumns unheeded pass.
SAILING HOMEWARD
By Chan Fang-shēng (fourth century A.D.)
Without a break,
Lake that stretches a hundred miles
Without a wave,
Sands that are white through all the year,
Without a stain,
Pine-tree woods, winter and summer
Ever-green,
Streams that for ever flow and flow
Without a pause,
Trees that for twenty thousand years
Your vows have kept,
You have suddenly healed the pain of a traveller’s heart,
And moved his brush to write a new song.
FIVE “TZŬ-YEH” SONGS
Fall from the cherry-tree:
On a day when yellow birds
Hovered in the branches—
You said you must stop,
Because your horse was tired:
I said I must go,
Because my silkworms were hungry.
Because of the moonlight on my bed.
I kept on hearing a voice calling:
Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered “yes.”
With unpainted eyebrows I will stand at the front window.
My tiresome petticoat keeps on flapping about;
If it opens a little, I shall blame the spring wind.
And went with him as far as Ch’u-shan.
For a moment when you held me fast in your outstretched arms
I thought the river stood still and did not flow.
So come to me and play with me awhile.
With so much quarrelling and so few kisses
How long do you think our love can last?
THE LITTLE LADY OF CH’ING-HSI
(A CHILDREN’S SONG)
Close by the side of the timber bridge:
That’s where the little lady lived
All alone without a lover.
PLUCKING THE RUSHES
(A BOY AND GIRL ARE SENT TO GATHER RUSHES FOR THATCHING)
Anon.(fourth century)
Long leaves bending to the wind—
You and I in the same boat
Plucking rushes at the Five Lakes.
We started at dawn from the orchid-island:
We rested under the elms till noon.
You and I plucking rushes
Had not plucked a handful when night came!
BALLAD OF THE WESTERN ISLAND IN THE NORTH COUNTRY
And I plucked a branch to send to the North Country.
I put on my dress of apricot-yellow silk
And bound up my hair black as the crow’s wing.
But which is the road that leads to the Western Island?
I’ll ask the man at the ferry by the Bridge of Boats.
But the sun is sinking and the orioles flying home:
And the wind is blowing and sighing in the walnut-tree.
I’ll stand under the tree just beside the gate:
I’ll stand by the door and show off my enamelled hair-pins.”
She’s opened the gate, but her lover has not come:
She’s gone out at the gate to pluck red lotus.
As she plucks the lotus on the southern dyke in autumn,
The lotus flowers stand higher than a man’s head.
She bends down—and plays with the lotus seeds,
The lotus seeds are green like the lake-water.
She gathers the flowers and puts them into her gown—
The lotus-bud that is red all through.
She thinks of her lover, her lover that does not come:
She looks up and sees the wild geese flying—
The Western Island is full of wild geese.
To look for her lover she climbs the Blue Tower.
The tower is high: she looks, but cannot see:
All day she leans on the balcony rails.
The rail is twisted into a twelve-fold pattern.
She lets fall her hand white like the colour of jade.
She rolls up the awning, she sees the wide sky,
And the sea-water waving its vacant blue.
“The sea shall carry my dreams far away,
So that you shall be sorry at last for my sorrow.
If the South wind—only knew my thoughts
It would blow my dreams till they got to the Western Island.”
SONG
By Tsang Chih (sixth century)
My window opened on to the castle tower.
In the castle were beautiful young men
Who waved to me as they went in and out.
SONG OF THE MEN OF CHIN-LING
(MARCHING BACK INTO THE CAPITAL)
By Hsieh T’iao (fifth century A.D.)
And Chin-ling an exalted and kingly province!
The green canals of the city stretch on and on
And its high towers stretch up and up.
Flying gables lean over the bridle-road:
Drooping willows cover the Royal Aqueduct.
Shrill flutes sing by the coach’s awning,
And reiterated drums bang near its painted wheels.
The names of the deserving shall be carved on the Cloud Terrace.[34]
And for those who have done valiantly rich reward awaits.
[34] The Record Office.
THE SCHOLAR RECRUIT
By Pao Chao (died A.D. 466)
I follow Time’s Necessity:[35]
Mounting a barricade I pacify remote tribes.
Discarding my sash I don a coat of rhinoceros-skin:
Rolling up my skirts I shoulder a black bow.
Even at the very start my strength fails:
What will become of me before it’s all over?
[35] I.e., “enlist.”
THE RED HILLS
By Pao Chao
And fiery mountains glare terrible in the south.
The body burns, the head aches and throbs:
If a bird light here, its soul forthwith departs.
Warm springs
Pour from cloudy pools
And hot smoke issues between the rocks.
The sun and moon are perpetually obscured:
The rain and dew never stay dry.
There are red serpents a hundred feet long,
And black snakes ten girths round.
The sand-spitters shoot their poison at the sunbeams:
The flying insects are ill with the shifting glare.
The hungry monkeys dare not come down to eat:
The morning birds dare not set out to fly.
At the Ching river many die of poison:
Crossing the Lu one is lucky if one is only ill.
Our living feet walk on dead ground:
Our high wills surmount the snares of Fate.
The Spear-boat General[36] got but little honour:
The Wave-subduer[37] met with scant reward.
If our Prince still grudges the things that are easy to give,[38]
Can he hope that his soldiers will give what is hardest to give?[39]
[36] Hou Yen (first century B.C.).
[37] Ma Yüan (first century A.D.).
[38] Rewards and titles.
[39] Life.
DREAMING OF A DEAD LADY
And knew that you were thinking of me.”
As she spoke, the doors of Heaven opened
And our souls conversed and I saw her face.
She set me a pillow to rest on
And she brought me meat and drink.
But suddenly woke and she was not there:
And none knew how my soul was torn,
How the tears fell surging over my breast.
THE LIBERATOR
A POLITICAL ALLEGORY
By Wu-ti, emperor of the Liang dynasty (A.D. 464-549)
The ocean waters—lashed into waves.
If the sharp sword be not in your hand,
How can you hope your friends will remain many?
Do you not see that sparrow on the fence?
Seeing the hawk it casts itself into the snare.
The fowler to catch the sparrow is delighted:
The Young Man to see the sparrow is grieved.
He takes his sword and cuts through the netting:
The yellow sparrow flies away, away.
Away, away, up to the blue sky
And down again to thank the Young Man.
LO-YANG
By the Emperor Ch’ien Wēn-ti (sixth century)
The big streets are full of spring light.
The lads go driving out with harps in their hands:
The mulberry girls go out to the fields with their baskets.
Golden whips glint at the horses’ flanks.
Gauze sleeves brush the green boughs.
Racing dawn, the carriages come home,—
And the girls with their high baskets full of fruit.
WINTER NIGHT
As the cold increases, the night-wind begins to blow.
It rustles the curtains, making a noise like the sea:
Oh that those were waves which could carry me back to you!
THE REJECTED WIFE
By Yüan-ti (508-554). See page 15
Leaving the gate, she runs into her former husband.
Words stick: she does not manage to say anything:
She presses her hands together and hesitates.
Agitates moon-like fan—sheds pearl-like tears—
Realizes she loves him just as much as ever:
That her present pain will never come to an end.
PEOPLE HIDE THEIR LOVE
By Wu-ti
That it’s by my desire,
This separation, this living so far from you?
My dress still smells of the lavender you gave:
My hand still holds the letter that you sent.
Round my waist I wear a double sash:
I dream that it binds us both with a same-heart knot.
Did not you know that people hide their love,
Like a flower that seems too precious to be picked?
THE FERRY
By the Emperor Ch’ien Wēn-ti, of the Liang dynasty, who reigned during the year A.D. 500.
The ropes are lily-roots.
The pole-star is athwart the sky:
The moon sinks low.
It’s at the ferry I’m plucking lilies.
But it might be the Yellow River—
So afraid you seem of the wind and waves,
So long you tarry at the crossing.[40]
[40] A lady is waiting for her lover at the ferry which crosses a small stream. When he does not come, she bitterly suggests that he is as afraid of the little stream as though it were the Yellow River, the largest river in China.
THE WATERS OF LUNG-T’OU
(THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER)
By Hsü Ling (A.D. 507-583)
The river that I crossed hangs a hundred fathoms.
The brambles so thick that in summer one cannot pass!
The snow so high that in winter one cannot climb!
With branches that interlace Lung Valley is dark:
Against cliffs that tower one’s voice beats and echoes.
I turn my head, and it seems only a dream
That I ever lived in the streets of Hsien-yang.
FLOWERS AND MOONLIGHT ON THE SPRING RIVER
By Yang-ti (605-617), emperor of the Sui dynasty
The spring colours just open to their full.
Suddenly a wave carries the moon[41] away
And the tidal water comes with its freight of stars.[41]
[41] I.e., the reflection in the water.
TCHIREK SONG
Altun (486-566 A.D.)was a Tartar employed by the Chinese in drilling their troops “after the manner of the Huns.”He could not read or write.The “Yo Fu Kuang T’i” says: Kao Huan attacked Pi, king of Chou, but lost nearly half his men.Kao Huan fell ill of sadness and Pi, to taunt him, sent out a proclamation, which said:
Dared to attack King Pi.
But at the first stroke of sword and bow,
The aggressor’s plot recoiled on himself.
When this reached Kao Huan’s ears, he sat up in bed and tried to comfort his officers.All the nobles were summoned to his room, and Altun was asked to sing them a song about Tchirek, his native land.He sang:
Lies under the Dark Mountains:
Where the sky is like the sides of a tent
Stretched down over the Great Steppe.
The sky is gray, gray:
And the steppe wide, wide:
Over grass that the wind has battered low
Sheep and oxen roam.
“Altun” means “gold” in Tartar. No one could teach him to write the Chinese character for gold, till at last some one said: “Draw the roof of your house and then put a few strokes underneath.”He thus learnt, in a rough fashion, to write his own name.
CHAPTER V
BUSINESS MEN
By Ch’ēn Tzŭ-ang (A.D. 656-698)
But in philosophy they are like little children.
Bragging to each other of successful depredations
They neglect to consider the ultimate fate of the body.
What should they know of the Master of Dark Truth
Who saw the wide world in a jade cup,
By illumined conception got clear of Heaven and Earth:
On the chariot of Mutation entered the Gate of Immutability?
TELL ME NOW
By Wang Chi (circa A.D. 700)
But to sit alone, sipping his cup of wine?”
I should like to have visitors come and discuss philosophy
And not to have the tax-collector coming to collect taxes:
My three sons married into good families
And my five daughters wedded to steady husbands.
Then I could jog through a happy five-score years
And, at the end, need no Paradise.
ON GOING TO A TAVERN
By Wang Chi
I fail to satisfy the appetites of the soul.
But seeing men all behaving like drunkards,[42]
How can I alone remain sober?
[42] Written during the war which preceded the T’ang dynasty.
STONE FISH LAKE
By Yüan Chieh (flourished circa A.D. 740-770).
Yüan Chieh, a contemporary of Li Po, has not hitherto been mentioned in any European book.“His subjects were always original, but his poems are seldom worth quoting,” is a Chinese opinion of him.
With your rock-island shaped like a swimming fish!
On the fish’s back is the Wine-cup Hollow
And round the fish,—the flowing waters of the Lake.
The boys on the shore sent little wooden ships,
Each made to carry a single cup of wine.
The island-drinkers emptied the liquor-boats
And set their sails and sent them back for more.
On the shores of the Lake were jutting slabs of rock
And under the rocks there flowed an icy stream.
Heated with wine, to rinse our mouths and hands
In those cold waters was a joy beyond compare!
For Caps and Coaches I do not care at all.
But I wish I could sit on the rocky banks of the Lake
For ever and ever staring at the Stone Fish.
CIVILIZATION
By Yüan Chieh
The Yüan and Hsiang form into a mighty lake.
Above the lake are deep mountain valleys,
And men dwelling whose hearts are without guile.
Gay like children, they swarm to the tops of the trees;
And run to the water to catch bream and trout.
Their pleasures are the same as those of beasts and birds;
They put no restraint either on body or mind.
Far I have wandered throughout the Nine Lands;
Wherever I went such manners had disappeared.
I find myself standing and wondering, perplexed,
Whether Saints and Sages have really done us good.
A PROTEST IN THE SIXTH YEAR OF CH’IEN FU (A.D. 879)
By Ts’ao Sung (flourished circa A.D. 870-920)
You have made your battle-ground.
How do you suppose the people who live there
Will procure “firewood and hay”?[43]
Do not let me hear you talking together
About titles and promotions;
For a single general’s reputation
Is made out of ten thousand corpses.
[43] The necessaries of life.
ON THE BIRTH OF HIS SON
By Su Tung-p’o (A.D. 1036-1101)
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.
THE PEDLAR OF SPELLS
By Lu Yu (A.D. 1125-1209)
He writes out spells to bless the silkworms and spells to protect the corn.
With the money he gets each day he only buys wine.
But he does not worry when his legs get wobbly,
For he has a boy to lean on.
BOATING IN AUTUMN
By Lu Yu
My heart leaps with a great gust of joy.
Through the leafless branches I see the temple in the wood;
Over the dwindling stream the stone bridge towers.
Down the grassy lanes sheep and oxen pass;
In the misty village cranes and magpies cry.
And need not fear the greed[44] of the evening wind.
[44] Which “eats” men.
THE HERD-BOY
By Lu Yu
With his naked feet stands on the ox’s back.
Through the hole in his coat the river wind blows;
Through his broken hat the mountain rain pours.
On the long dyke he seemed to be far away;
In the narrow lane suddenly we were face to face.
And a dark smoke oozes through the thatched roof.
HOW I SAILED ON THE LAKE TILL I CAME TO THE EASTERN STREAM
By Lu Yu
In the evening sunlight,—three or four houses.
Youths and boys minding geese and ducks:
Women and girls tending mulberries and hemp.
The place,—remote: their coats and scarves old:
The year,—fruitful: their talk and laughter gay.
The old wanderer moors his flat boat
And staggers up the bank to pluck wistaria flowers.
A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CHINESE POEM
Ch’ēn Tzŭ-lung was born in 1607.He became a soldier, and in 1637 defeated the rebel, Hsü Tu.After the suicide of the last Ming emperor, he offered his services to the Ming princes who were still opposing the Manchus.In 1647 he headed a conspiracy to place the Ming prince Lu on the throne.His plans were discovered and he was arrested by Manchu troops.Escaping their vigilance for a moment, he leapt into a river and was drowned.
The following song describes the flight of a husband and wife from a town menaced by the advancing Manchus.They find the whole country-side deserted.
THE LITTLE CART
The man pushing behind: the woman pulling in front.
They have left the city and do not know where to go.
“Green, green, those elm-tree leaves: they will cure my hunger,
If only we could find some quiet place and sup on them together.”
Above it in the distance they see the walls of a house.
“There surely must be people living who’ll give you something to eat.”
They tap at the door, but no one comes: they look in, but the kitchen is empty.
They stand hesitating in the lonely road and their tears fall like rain.
PART II
Po Chü-i
(A.D. 772-846)
INTRODUCTION
Po Chü-i was born at T’ai-yüan in Shansi.Most of his childhood was spent at Jung-yang in Honan.His father was a second-class Assistant Department Magistrate.He tells us that his family was poor and often in difficulties.
He seems to have settled permanently at Ch’ang-an in 801. This town, lying near the north-west frontier, was the political capital of the Empire. In its situation it somewhat resembled Madrid. Lo-yang, the Eastern city, owing to its milder climate and more accessible position, became, like Seville in Spain, a kind of social capital.
Soon afterwards he met Yüan Chēn, then aged twenty-two, who was destined to play so important a part in his life.Five years later, during a temporary absence from the city, he addressed to Yüan the following poem:
Seven years I have lived in Ch’ang-an.
What have I gained?Only you, Yüan;
So hard it is to bind friendships fast.
We have roamed on horseback under the flowering trees;
We have walked in the snow and warmed our hearts with wine.
We have met and parted at the Western Gate
And neither of us bothered to put on Cap or Belt.
We did not go up together for Examination;
We were not serving in the same Department of State.
The bond that joined us lay deeper than outward things;
The rivers of our souls spring from the same well!
Of Yüan’s appearance at this time we may guess something from a picture which still survives in copy; it shows him, a youthful and elegant figure, visiting his cousin Ts’ui Ying-ying, who was a lady-in-waiting at Court.[45] At this period of his life Po made friends with difficulty, not being, as he tells us, “a master of such accomplishments as caligraphy, painting, chess or gambling, which tend to bring men together in pleasurable intercourse.” Two older men, T’ang Ch’ü and Tēng Fang, liked his poetry and showed him much kindness; another, the politician K’ung T’an, won his admiration on public grounds. But all three died soon after he got to know them. Later he made three friends with whom he maintained a lifelong intimacy: the poet Liu Yū-hsi (called Mēng-tē), and the two officials Li Chien and Ts’ui Hsuan-liang. In 805 Yüan Chēn was banished for provocative behaviour towards a high official. The T’ang History relates the episode as follows: “Yüan was staying the night at the Fu-shui Inn; just as he was preparing to go to sleep in the Main Hall, the court-official Li Shih-yüan also arrived. Yüan Chēn should have offered to withdraw from the Hall. He did not do so and a scuffle ensued. Yüan, locked out of the building, took off his shoes and stole round to the back, hoping to find another way in. Liu followed with a whip and struck him across the face.”
The separation was a heavy blow to Po Chü-i.In a poem called “Climbing Alone to the Lo-yu Gardens” he says:
Red dust flanked by green trees!
Coaches and horsemen alone fill my eyes;
I do not see whom my heart longs to see.
K’ung T’an has died at Lo-yang;
Yüan Chēn is banished to Ching-mēn.
Of all that walk on the North-South Road
There is not one that I care for more than the rest!
In 804 on the death of his father, and again in 811 on the death of his mother, he spent periods of retirement on the Wei river near Ch’ang-an.It was during the second of these periods that he wrote the long poem (260 lines) called “Visiting the Wu-chēn Temple.”Soon after his return to Ch’ang-an, which took place in the winter of 814, he fell into official disfavour.In two long memorials entitled “On Stopping the War,” he had criticized the handling of a campaign against an unimportant tribe of Tartars, which he considered had been unduly prolonged.In a series of poems he had satirized the rapacity of minor officials and called attention to the intolerable sufferings of the masses.
His enemies soon found an opportunity of silencing him.In 814 the Prime Minister, Wu Yüan-hēng, was assassinated in broad daylight by an agent of the revolutionary leader Wu Yüan-chi.Po, in a memorial to the Throne, pointed out the urgency of remedying the prevailing discontent.He held at this time the post of assistant secretary to the Princes’ tutor.He should not have criticized the Prime Minister (for being murdered!)until the official Censors had spoken, for he held a Palace appointment which did not carry with it the right of censorship.
His opponents also raked up another charge.His mother had met her death by falling into a well while looking at flowers.Chü-i had written two poems entitled “In Praise of Flowers” and “The New Well.” It was claimed that by choosing such subjects he had infringed the laws of Filial Piety.
He was banished to Kiukiang (then called Hsün-yang) with the rank of Sub-Prefect.After three years he was given the Governorship of Chung-chou, a remote place in Ssech’uan.On the way up the Yangtze he met Yüan Chēn after three years of separation.They spent a few days together at I-ch’ang, exploring the rock-caves of the neighbourhood.
Chung-chou is noted for its “many flowers and exotic trees,” which were a constant delight to its new Governor.In the winter of 819 he was recalled to the capital and became a second-class Assistant Secretary.About this time Yüan Chēn also returned to the city.
In 821 the Emperor Mou Tsung came to the throne.His arbitrary mis-government soon caused a fresh rising in the north-west.Chü-i remonstrated in a series of memorials and was again removed from the capital—this time to be Governor of the important town of Hangchow.Yüan now held a judicial post at Ningpo and the two were occasionally able to meet.
In 824 his Governorship expired and he lived (with the nominal rank of Imperial Tutor) at the village of Li-tao-li, near Lo-yang.It was here that he took into his household two girls, Fan-su and Man-tzŭ, whose singing and dancing enlivened his retreat.He also brought with him from Hangchow a famous “Indian rock,” and two cranes of the celebrated “Hua-t’ing” breed.Other amenities of his life at this time were a recipe for making sweet wine, the gift of Ch’ēn Hao-hsien; a harp-melody taught him by Ts’ui Hsuan-liang; and a song called “Autumn Thoughts,” brought by the concubine of a visitor from Ssech’uan.
In 825 he became Governor of Soochow.Here at the age of fifty-three he enjoyed a kind of second youth, much more sociable than that of thirty years before; we find him endlessly picnicking and feasting.But after two years illness obliged him to retire.
He next held various posts at the capital, but again fell ill, and in 829 settled at Lo-yang as Governor of the Province of Honan.Here his first son, A-ts’ui, was born, but died in the following year.
In 831 Yüan Chēn also died.
Henceforth, though for thirteen years he continued to hold nominal posts, he lived a life of retirement.In 832 he repaired an unoccupied part of the Hsiang-shan monastery at Lung-mēn,[46] a few miles south of Lo-yang, and lived there, calling himself the Hermit of Hsiang-shan. Once he invited to dinner eight other elderly and retired officials; the occasion was recorded in a picture entitled “The Nine Old Men at Hsiang-shan.” There is no evidence that his association with them was otherwise than transient, though legend (see “Mémoires Concernant les Chinois” and Giles, Biographical Dictionary) has invested the incident with an undue importance. He amused himself at this time by writing a description of his daily life which would be more interesting if it were not so closely modelled on a famous memoir by T’ao Ch’ien. In the winter of 839 he was attacked by paralysis and lost the use of his left leg. After many months in bed he was again able to visit his garden, carried by Ju-man, a favourite monk.
In 842 Liu Yü-hsi, the last survivor of the four friends, and a constant visitor at the monastery, “went to wander with Yüan Chēn in Hades.”The monk Ju-man also died.
The remaining years of Po’s life were spent in collecting and arranging his Complete Works.Copies were presented to the principal monasteries (the “Public Libraries” of the period) in the towns with which he had been connected.He died in 846, leaving instructions that his funeral should be without pomp and that he should be buried not in the family tomb at Hsia-kuei, but by Ju-man’s side in the Hsiang-shan Monastery.He desired that a posthumous title should not be awarded.
The most striking characteristic of Po Chü-i’s poetry is its verbal simplicity.There is a story that he was in the habit of reading his poems to an old peasant woman and altering any expression which she could not understand.The poems of his contemporaries were mere elegant diversions which enabled the scholar to display his erudition, or the literary juggler his dexterity.Po expounded his theory of poetry in a letter to Yüan Chēn.Like Confucius, he regarded art solely as a method of conveying instruction.He is not the only great artist who has advanced this untenable theory.He accordingly valued his didactic poems far above his other work; but it is obvious that much of his best poetry conveys no moral whatever.He admits, indeed, that among his “miscellaneous stanzas” many were inspired by some momentary sensation or passing event.“A single laugh or a single sigh were rapidly translated into verse.”
The didactic poems or “satires” belong to the period before his first banishment.“When the tyrants and favourites heard my Songs of Ch’in, they looked at one another and changed countenance,” he boasts. Satire, in the European sense, implies wit; but Po’s satires are as lacking in true wit as they are unquestionably full of true poetry.We must regard them simply as moral tales in verse.
In the conventional lyric poetry of his predecessors he finds little to admire.Among the earlier poems of the T’ang dynasty he selects for praise the series by Ch’ēn Tzŭ-ang, which includes “Business Men.”In Li Po and Tu Fu he finds a deficiency of “fēng” and “ya.”The two terms are borrowed from the Preface to the Odes.“Fēng” means “criticism of one’s rulers”; “ya,” “moral guidance to the masses.”
“The skill,” he says in the same letter, “which Tu Fu shows in threading on to his lü-shih a ramification of allusions ancient and modern could not be surpassed; in this he is even superior to Li Po. But, if we take the ‘Press-gang’ and verses like that stanza:
On the road the bones of one who was frozen to death.
what a small part of his whole work it represents!”
Content, in short, he valued far above form: and it was part of his theory, though certainly not of his practice, that this content ought to be definitely moral.He aimed at raising poetry from the triviality into which it had sunk and restoring it to its proper intellectual level.It is an irony that he should be chiefly known to posterity, in China, Japan, and the West, as the author of the “Everlasting Wrong.”[47] He set little store by the poem himself, and, though a certain political moral might be read into it, its appeal is clearly romantic.
His other poem of sentiment, the “Lute Girl,”[48] accords even less with his stated principles. With these he ranks his Lü-shih; and it should here be noted that all the satires and long poems are in the old style of versification, while his lighter poems are in the strict, modern form.With his satires he classes his “reflective” poems, such as “Singing in the Mountains,” “On being removed from Hsün-yang,” “Pruning Trees,” etc. These are all in the old style.
No poet in the world can ever have enjoyed greater contemporary popularity than Po.His poems were “on the mouths of kings, princes, concubines, ladies, plough-boys, and grooms.” They were inscribed “on the walls of village-schools, temples, and ships-cabins.”“A certain Captain Kao Hsia-yü was courting a dancing-girl.‘You must not think I am an ordinary dancing-girl,’ she said to him, ‘I can recite Master Po’s “Everlasting Wrong.”’ And she put up her price.”
But this popularity was confined to the long, romantic poems and the Lü-shih“The world,” writes Po to Yüan Chēn, “values highest just those of my poems which I most despise.Of contemporaries you alone have understood my satires and reflective poems. A hundred, a thousand years hence perhaps some one will come who will understand them as you have done.”
The popularity of his lighter poems lasted till the Ming dynasty, when a wave of pedantry swept over China.At that period his poetry was considered vulgar, because it was not erudite; and prosaic, because it was not rhetorical.
Although they valued form far above content, not even the Ming critics can accuse him of slovenly writing.His versification is admitted by them to be “correct.”
Caring, indeed, more for matter than for manner, he used with facility and precision the technical instruments which were at his disposal.Many of the later anthologies omit his name altogether, but he has always had isolated admirers.Yüan Mei imitates him constantly, and Chao I (died 1814) writes: “Those who accuse him of being vulgar and prosaic know nothing of poetry.”
Even during his lifetime his reputation had reached Japan, and great writers like Michizane were not ashamed to borrow from him.He is still held in high repute there, is the subject of a Nō Play and has even become a kind of Shintō deity.It is significant that the only copy of his works in the British Museum is a seventeenth-century Japanese edition.
It is usual to close a biographical notice with an attempt to describe the “character” of one’s subject.But I hold myself absolved from such a task; for the sixty poems which follow will enable the reader to perform it for himself.
[45] Yüan has told the story of this intrigue in an autobiographical fragment, of which I hope to publish a translation. Upon this fragment is founded the famous fourteenth-century drama, “The Western Pavilion.”
[46] Famous for its rock-sculptures, carved in the sixth and seventh centuries.
[47] Giles, “Chinese Literature,” p. 169.
[48] Giles, “Chinese Literature,” p. 165.
AN EARLY LEVÉE
Addressed to Ch’ēn, the Hermit
A levée at dawn—to bestow congratulations on the Emperor.
Just as I was nearing the Gate of the Silver Terrace,
After I had left the suburb of Hsin-ch’ang
On the high causeway my horse’s foot slipped;
In the middle of the journey my lantern suddenly went out.
Ten leagues riding, always facing to the North;
The cold wind almost blew off my ears.
I waited for the bell outside the Five Gates;
I waited for the summons within the Triple Hall.
My hair and beard were frozen and covered with icicles;
My coat and robe—chilly like water.
Suddenly I thought of Hsien-yu Valley
And secretly envied Ch’ēn Chü-shih,
In warm bed-socks dozing beneath the rugs
And not getting up till the sun has mounted the sky.
BEING ON DUTY ALL NIGHT IN THE PALACE AND DREAMING OF THE HSIEN-YU TEMPLE
The pines and bamboos were all buried in stillness.
The moon rose and a calm wind came;
Suddenly, it was like an evening in the hills.
And so, as I dozed, I dreamed of the South West
And thought I was staying at the Hsien-yu Temple.[49]
When I woke and heard the dripping of the Palace clock
I still thought it the murmur of a mountain stream.
[49] Where the poet used to spend his holidays.
PASSING T’IEN-MĒN STREET IN CH’ANG-AN AND SEEING A DISTANT VIEW OF CHUNG-NAN[50] MOUNTAIN
Lovely in the distance its blue colours, against the brown of the streets.
A thousand coaches, ten thousand horsemen pass down the Nine Roads;
Turns his head and looks at the mountains,—not one man!
[50] Part of the great Nan Shan range, fifteen miles south of Ch’ang-an.
THE LETTER
Preface:—After I parted with Yüan Chēn, I suddenly dreamt one night that I saw him. When I awoke, I found that a letter from him had just arrived and, enclosed in it, a poem on the paulovnia flower.
We parted to the north of the Hsin-ch’ang dyke.
Going home—I shed a few tears,
Grieving about things,—not sorry for you.
Long, long the road to Lan-t’ien;
You said yourself you would not be able to write.
Reckoning up your halts for eating and sleeping—
By this time you’ve crossed the Shang mountains.
Last night the clouds scattered away;
A thousand leagues, the same moonlight scene.
When dawn came, I dreamt I saw your face;
It must have been that you were thinking of me.
In my dream, I thought I held your hand
And asked you to tell me what your thoughts were.
And you said: “I miss you bitterly,
But there’s no one here to send to you with a letter.”
When I awoke, before I had time to speak,
A knocking on the door sounded “Doong, doong!”
They came and told me a messenger from Shang-chou
Had brought a letter,—a single scroll from you!
Up from my pillow I suddenly sprang out of bed,
And threw you my clothes, all topsy-turvy.
I undid the knot and saw the letter within;
A single sheet with thirteen lines of writing.
At the top it told the sorrows of an exile’s heart;
At the bottom it described the pains of separation.
The sorrows and pains took up so much space
There was no room left to talk about the weather!
But you said that when you wrote
You were staying for the night to the east of Shang-chou;
Sitting alone, lighted by a solitary candle
Lodging in the mountain hostel of Yang-Ch’ēng.
Night was late when you finished writing,
The mountain moon was slanting towards the west.
What is it lies aslant across the moon?
A single tree of purple paulovnia flowers—
Paulovnia flowers just on the point of falling
Are a symbol to express “thinking of an absent friend.”
Lovingly—you wrote on the back side,
To send in the letter, your “Poem of the Paulovnia Flower.”
The Poem of the Paulovnia Flower has eight rhymes;
Yet these eight couplets have cast a spell on my heart.
They have taken hold of this morning’s thoughts
And carried them to yours, the night you wrote your letter.
The whole poem I read three times;
Each verse ten times I recite.
So precious to me are the fourscore words
That each letter changes into a bar of gold!
REJOICING AT THE ARRIVAL OF CH’ĒN HSIUNG
(Circa A.D. 812)
And half formed the green plum’s fruit;
Sitting and grieving that spring things were over,
I rose and entered the Eastern Garden’s gate.
I carried my cup and was dully drinking alone:
Suddenly I heard a knocking sound at the door.
Dwelling secluded, I was glad that someone had come;
How much the more, when I saw it was Ch’ēn Hsiung!
At ease and leisure,—all day we talked;
Crowding and jostling,—the feelings of many years.
How great a thing is a single cup of wine!
For it makes us tell the story of our whole lives.
GOLDEN BELLS
I had a daughter whose name was Golden Bells.
Now it is just a year since she was born;
She is learning to sit and cannot yet talk.
Ashamed,—to find that I have not a sage’s heart:
I cannot resist vulgar thoughts and feelings.
Henceforward I am tied to things outside myself:
My only reward,—the pleasure I am getting now.
If I am spared the grief of her dying young,
Then I shall have the trouble of getting her married.
My plan for retiring and going back to the hills
Must now be postponed for fifteen years!
REMEMBERING GOLDEN BELLS
Pretty and guileless,—a girl of three.
Not a boy,—but, still better than nothing:
To soothe one’s feeling,—from time to time a kiss!
There came a day,—they suddenly took her from me;
Her soul’s shadow wandered I know not where.
And when I remember how just at the time she died
She lisped strange sounds, beginning to learn to talk,
Then I know that the ties of flesh and blood
Only bind us to a load of grief and sorrow.
At last, by thinking of the time before she was born,
By thought and reason I drove the pain away.
Since my heart forgot her, many days have passed
And three times winter has changed to spring.
This morning, for a little, the old grief came back,
Because, in the road, I met her foster-nurse.
ILLNESS
Monotonous, monotonous—days and nights pass.
The summer trees have clad themselves in shade;
The autumn “lan”[51] already houses the dew.
The eggs that lay in the nest when I took to bed
Have changed into little birds and flown away.
The worm that then lay hidden in its hole
Has hatched into a cricket sitting on the tree.
The Four Seasons go on for ever and ever:
In all Nature nothing stops to rest
Even for a moment.Only the sick man’s heart
Deep down still aches as of old!
[51] The epidendrum.
THE DRAGON OF THE BLACK POOL
A Satire
They say a Holy Dragon lives there, whom men have never seen.
Beside the Pool they have built a shrine; the authorities have established a ritual;
A dragon by itself remains a dragon, but men can make it a god.
Prosperity and disaster, rain and drought, plagues and pestilences—
By the village people were all regarded as the Sacred Dragon’s doing.
They all made offerings of sucking-pig and poured libations of wine;
The morning prayers and evening gifts depended on a “medium’s” advice
The wind stirs and sighs
Paper money thrown, ah!
Silk umbrellas waved.
When the dragon goes, ah!
The wind also—still.
Incense-fire dies, ah!
The cups and vessels are cold.[52]
Wine flows on the grass in front of the shrine.
I do not know, of all those offerings, how much the Dragon eats;
But the mice of the woods and the foxes of the hills are continually drunk and sated.
Why are the foxes so lucky?
What have the sucking-pigs done,
That year by year they should be killed, merely to glut the foxes?
That the foxes are robbing the Sacred Dragon and eating His sucking-pig,
Beneath the nine-fold depths of His pool, does He know or not?
[52] Parody of a famous Han dynasty hymn.
THE GRAIN TRIBUTE
Written circa 812, showing one of the poet’s periods of retirement. When the officials come to receive his grain-tribute, he remembers that he is only giving back what he had taken during his years of office. Salaries were paid partly in kind.
In a loud voice demanding grain-tribute.
My house-servants dared not wait till the morning,
But brought candles and set them on the barn-floor.
Passed through the sieve, clean-washed as pearls,
A whole cart-load, thirty bushels of grain.
But still they cry that it is not paid in full:
With whips and curses they goad my servants and boys.
Once, in error, I entered public life;
I am inwardly ashamed that my talents were not sufficient.
In succession I occupied four official posts;
For doing nothing,—ten years’ salary!
Often have I heard that saying of ancient men
That “good and ill follow in an endless chain.”
And to-day it ought to set my heart at rest
To return to others the corn in my great barn.
THE PEOPLE OF TAO-CHOU
Many of the people are dwarfs;
The tallest of them never grow to more than three feet.
They were sold in the market as dwarf slaves and yearly sent to Court;
Described as “an offering of natural products from the land of Tao-chou.”
A strange “offering of natural products”; I never heard of one yet
That parted men from those they loved, never to meet again!
Old men—weeping for their grandsons; mothers for their children!
One day—Yang Ch’ēng came to govern the land;
He refused to send up dwarf slaves in spite of incessant mandates.
He replied to the Emperor “Your servant finds in the Six Canonical Books
‘In offering products, one must offer what is there, and not what isn’t there’
On the waters and lands of Tao-chou, among all the things that live
I only find dwarfish people; no dwarfish slaves.”
The Emperor’s heart was deeply moved and he sealed and sent a scroll
“The yearly tribute of dwarfish slaves is henceforth annulled.”
The people of Tao-chou,
Old ones and young ones, how great their joy!
Father with son and brother with brother henceforward kept together;
From that day for ever more they lived as free men.
The people of Tao-chou
Still enjoy this gift.
And even now when they speak of the Governor
Tears start to their eyes.
And lest their children and their children’s children should forget the Governor’s name,
When boys are born the syllable “Yang” is often used in their forename.
THE OLD HARP
Within it lie ancient melodies.
Ancient melodies—weak and savourless,
Not appealing to present men’s taste.
Light and colour are faded from the jade stops:
Dust has covered the rose-red strings.
Decay and ruin came to it long ago,
But the sound that is left is still cold and clear.
I do not refuse to play it, if you want me to:
But even if I play, people will not listen.
Because of the Ch’iang flute and the Ch’in flageolet.[53]
[53] Barbarous modern instruments.
THE HARPER OF CHAO
The red sleeves of the dancers are motionless.
Hugging his lute, the old harper of Chao
Rocks and sways as he touches the five chords.
The loud notes swell and scatter abroad:
“Sa, sa,” like wind blowing the rain.
The soft notes dying almost to nothing:
“Ch’ieh, ch’ieh,” like the voice of ghosts talking.
Now as glad as the magpie’s lucky song:
Again bitter as the gibbon’s ominous cry.
His ten fingers have no fixed note:
Up and down—“kung,” chih, and yü.[54]
And those who sit and listen to the tune he plays
Of soul and body lose the mastery.
And those who pass that way as he plays the tune,
Suddenly stop and cannot raise their feet.
Should love the modern and not love the old.
Thus it is that the harp in the green window
Day by day is covered deeper with dust.
[54] Tonic, dominant and superdominant of the ancient five-note scale.
THE FLOWER MARKET
Tinkle, tinkle—the coaches and horsemen pass.
We tell each other “This is the peony season”:
And follow with the crowd that goes to the Flower Market.
“Cheap and dear—no uniform price:
The cost of the plant depends on the number of blossoms.
For the fine flower,—a hundred pieces of damask:
For the cheap flower,—five bits of silk.
Above is spread an awning to protect them:
Around is woven a wattle-fence to screen them.
If you sprinkle water and cover the roots with mud,
When they are transplanted, they will not lose their beauty.”
Each household thoughtlessly follows the custom,
Man by man, no one realizing.
There happened to be an old farm labourer
Who came by chance that way.
He bowed his head and sighed a deep sigh:
But this sigh nobody understood.
He was thinking, “A cluster of deep-red flowers
Would pay the taxes of ten poor houses.”
THE PRISONER
Written in A.D. 809
Tartars led in chains!
Their ears pierced, their faces bruised—they are driven into the land of Ch’in.
The Son of Heaven took pity on them and would not have them slain.
He sent them away to the south-east, to the lands of Wu and Yüeh.
A petty officer in a yellow coat took down their names and surnames:
They were led from the city of Ch’ang-an under escort of an armed guard.
Their bodies were covered with the wounds of arrows, their bones stood out from their cheeks.
They had grown so weak they could only march a single stage a day.
In the morning they must satisfy hunger and thirst with neither plate nor cup:
At night they must lie in their dirt and rags on beds that stank with filth.
Suddenly they came to the Yangtze River and remembered the waters of Chiao.[55]
With lowered hands and levelled voices they sobbed a muffled song.
Then one Tartar lifted up his voice and spoke to the other Tartars,
“Your sorrows are none at all compared with my sorrows.”
Those that were with him in the same band asked to hear his tale:
As he tried to speak the words were choked by anger.
He told them “I was born and bred in the town of Liang-yüan.[56]
In the frontier wars of Ta-li[57] I fell into the Tartars’ hands.
Since the days the Tartars took me alive forty years have passed:
They put me into a coat of skins tied with a belt of rope.
Only on the first of the first month might I wear my Chinese dress.
As I put on my coat and arranged my cap, how fast the tears flowed!
I made in my heart a secret vow I would find a way home:
I hid my plan from my Tartar wife and the children she had borne me in the land.
I thought to myself, ‘It is well for me that my limbs are still strong,’
And yet, being old, in my heart I feared I should never live to return.
The Tartar chieftains shoot so well that the birds are afraid to fly:
From the risk of their arrows I escaped alive and fled swiftly home.
Hiding all day and walking all night, I crossed the Great Desert:[58]
Where clouds are dark and the moon black and the sands eddy in the wind.
Frightened, I sheltered at the Green Grave,[59] where the frozen grasses are few:
Stealthily I crossed the Yellow River, at night, on the thin ice,
Suddenly I heard Han[60] drums and the sound of soldiers coming:
I went to meet them at the road-side, bowing to them as they came.
But the moving horsemen did not hear that I spoke the Han tongue:
Their Captain took me for a Tartar born and had me bound in chains.
They are sending me away to the south-east, to a low and swampy land:
No one now will take pity on me: resistance is all in vain.
Thinking of this, my voice chokes and I ask of Heaven above,
Was I spared from death only to spend the rest of my years in sorrow?
My native village of Liang-yüan I shall not see again:
My wife and children in the Tartars’ land I have fruitlessly deserted.
When I fell among Tartars and was taken prisoner, I pined for the land of Han:
Now that I am back in the land of Han, they have turned me into a Tartar.
Had I but known what my fate would be, I would not have started home!
For the two lands, so wide apart, are alike in the sorrow they bring.
Tartar prisoners in chains!
Of all the sorrows of all the prisoners mine is the hardest to bear!
Never in the world has so great a wrong befallen the lot of man,—
A Han heart and a Han tongue set in the body of a Turk.”
[55] In Turkestan.
[56] North of Ch’ang-an.
[57] The period Ta-li, A.D. 766-780.
[58] The Gobi Desert.
[59] The grave of Chao-chün, a Chinese girl who in 33 B.C. was “bestowed upon the Khan of the Hsiung-nu as a mark of Imperial regard” (Giles). Hers was the only grave in this desolate district on which grass would grow.
[60] I.e., Chinese.
THE CHANCELLOR’S GRAVEL-DRIVE
(A Satire on the Maltreatment of Subordinates)
Moored by the bank of Ch’an River, a barge loaded with gravel.
A single load of gravel,
How many pounds it weighs!
Carrying at dawn, carrying at dusk, what is it all for?
They are carrying it towards the Five Gates,
To the West of the Main Road.
Under the shadow of green laurels they are making a gravel-drive.
For yesterday arrove, newly appointed,
The Assistant Chancellor of the Realm,
And was terribly afraid that the wet and mud
Would dirty his horse’s hoofs.
The Chancellor’s horse’s hoofs
Stepped on the gravel and remained perfectly clean;
But the bull employed in dragging the cart
Was almost sweating blood.
The Assistant Chancellor’s business
Is to “save men, govern the country
And harmonize Yin and Yang.”[61]
Whether the bull’s neck is sore
Need not trouble him at all.