Of all the sorrows of all the
prisoners
mine is the hardest to bear!
Waley - 170 Chinese Poems
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-yu 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
_Lu-shih_. "The world," writes Po to Yuan Ch? n, "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. Yuan 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 N? Play and has even
become a kind of Shint? 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.
AN EARLY LEVEE
ADDRESSED TO CH'? N, THE HERMIT
At Ch'ang-an--a full foot of snow;
A levee 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'? n Chu-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
At the western window I paused from writing rescripts;
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-M? N STREET IN CH'ANG-AN AND SEEING A DISTANT VIEW OF
CHUNG-NAN[50] MOUNTAIN
The snow has gone from Chung-nan; spring is almost come.
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 Yuan Ch? n, 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 talked together in the Yung-shou Temple;
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'? ng.
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'? N HSIUNG
(_Circa_ A. D. 812)
When the yellow bird's note was almost stopped;
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'? n 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
When I was almost forty
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
Ruined and ill,--a man of two score;
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
Sad, sad--lean with long 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
Deep the waters of the Black Pool, coloured like ink;
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
When the dragon comes, ah!
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]
[52] Parody of a famous Han dynasty hymn.
Meats lie stacked on the rocks of the Pool's shore;
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?
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.
There came an officer knocking by night at my door--
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
In the land 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'? ng 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
Of cord and cassia-wood is the harp compounded:
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.
* * * * *
How did it come to be neglected so?
Because of the Ch'iang flute and the Ch'in flageolet. [53]
[53] Barbarous modern instruments.
THE HARPER OF CHAO
The singers have hushed their notes of clear song:
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 yu. [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.
Alas, alas that the ears of common men
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
In the Royal City spring is almost over:
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,
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 Yueh.
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-yuan. [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-yuan 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-chun, 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)
A Government-bull yoked to a Government-cart!
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.
[61] The negative and positive principles in nature.
THE MAN WHO DREAMED OF FAIRIES
This poem is an attack on the Emperor Hsien-tsung, A. D. 806-820, who
"was devoted to magic. " A Taoist wizard told him that herbs of longevity
grew near the city of T'ai-chou. The Emperor at once appointed him
prefect of the place, "pour lui permettre d'herboriser plus a son aise"
(Wieger, Textes III, 1723). When the censors protested, the Emperor
replied: "The ruin of a single district would be a small price to pay,
if it could procure longevity for the Lord of Men. "
There was once a man who dreamt he went to Heaven:
His dream-body soared aloft through space.
He rode on the back of a white-plumed crane,
And was led on his flight by two crimson banners.
Whirring of wings and flapping of coat tails!
Jade bells suddenly all a-tinkle!
Half way to Heaven, he looked down beneath him,
Down on the dark turmoil of the World.
Gradually he lost the place of his native town;
Mountains and water--nothing else distinct.
The Eastern Ocean--a single strip of white:
The Hills of China,--five specks of green.
Gliding past him a host of fairies swept
In long procession to the Palace of the Jade City.
How should he guess that the children of Tz? -m? n[62]
Bow to the throne like courtiers of earthly kings?
They take him to the presence of the Mighty Jade Emperor:
He bows his head and proffers loyal homage.
The Emperor says: "We see you have fairy talents:
Be of good heart and do not slight yourself.
We shall send to fetch you in fifteen years
And give you a place in the Courtyard of Immortality. "
Twice bowing, he acknowledged the gracious words:
Then woke from sleep, full of wonder and joy.
He hid his secret and dared not tell it abroad:
But vowed a vow he would live in a cave of rock.
From love and affection he severed kith and kin:
From his eating and drinking he omitted savoury and spice.
His morning meal was a dish of coral-dust:
At night he sipped an essence of dewy mists.
In the empty mountains he lived for thirty years
Daily watching for the Heavenly Coach to come.
The time of appointment was already long past,
But of wings and coach-bells--still no sound.
His teeth and hair daily withered and decayed:
His ears and eyes gradually lost their keenness.
One morning he suffered the Common Change
And his body was one with the dust and dirt of the hill.
Gods and fairies! If indeed such things there be,
Their ways are beyond the striving of mortal men.
If you have not on your skull the Golden Bump's protrusion,
If your name is absent from the rolls of the Red Terrace,
In vain you learn the "Method of Avoiding Food":
For naught you study the "Book of Alchemic Lore. "
Though you sweat and toil, what shall your trouble bring?
You will only shorten the five-score years of your span.
Sad, alas, the man who dreamt of Fairies!
For a single dream spoiled his whole life.
[62] _I. e. _, the Immortals.
MAGIC
Boundless, the great sea.
Straight down,--no bottom: sideways,--no border.
Of cloudy waves and misty billows down in the uttermost depths
Men have fabled, in the midst there stand three sacred hills.
On the hills, thick growing,--herbs that banish Death.
Wings grow on those who eat them and they turn into heavenly "hsien. "
The Lord of Ch'in[63] and Wu of Han[64] believed in these stories:
And magic-workers year by year were sent to gather the herbs.
The Blessed Islands, now and of old, what but an empty tale?
The misty waters spread before them and they knew not where to seek.
Boundless, the great sea.
Dauntless, the mighty wind.
Their eyes search but cannot see the shores of the Blessed Islands.
They cannot find the Blessed Isles and yet they dare not return:
Youths and maidens that began the quest grew grey on board the boat.
They found that the writings of Hsu[65] were all boasts and lies:
To the Lofty Principle and Great Unity in vain they raised their
prayers.
Do you not see
The graves on the top of Black Horse Hill[66] and the tombs at
Mo-ling? [67]
What is left but the sighing wind blowing in the tangled grasses?
Yes, and what is more,
The Dark and Primal Master of Sages in his five thousand words[68]
Never spoke of herbs,
Never spoke of "hsien,"
Nor spoke of soaring in broad daylight up to the blue heaven.
[63] The "First Emperor," 259-210 B. C.
[64] Wu Ti, 156-87 B. C.
[65] Ssu Shih. Giles, 1276.
[66] The burial-places of these two Emperors.
[67] _Ibid. _
[68] Lao-tz? , in the Tao T? Ching.
THE TWO RED TOWERS
(A SATIRE AGAINST CLERICALISM)
The Two Red Towers
North and south rise facing each other.
I beg to ask, to whom do they belong?
To the two Princes of the period Ch? ng Yuan. [69]
The two Princes blew on their flutes and drew down fairies from the
sky,
Who carried them off through the Five Clouds, soaring away to Heaven.
Their halls and houses, that they could not take with them,
Were turned into Temples planted in the Dust of the World.
In the tiring-rooms and dancers' towers all is silent and still;
Only the willows like dancers' arms, and the pond like a mirror.
When the flowers are falling at yellow twilight, when things are sad
and hushed,
One does not hear songs and flutes, but only chimes and bells.
The Imperial Patent on the Temple doors is written in letters of
gold;
For nuns' quarters and monks' cells ample space is allowed.
For green moss and bright moonlight--plenty of room provided;
In a hovel opposite is a sick man who has hardly room to lie down.
I remember once when at P'ing-yang they were building a great man's
house
How it swallowed up the housing space of thousands of ordinary men.
The Immortals[70] are leaving us, two by two, and their houses are
turned into Temples;
I begin to fear that the whole world will become a vast convent.
[69] 785-805.
[70] Hsien Tsung's brothers?
THE CHARCOAL-SELLER
(A SATIRE AGAINST "KOMMANDATUR")
An old charcoal-seller
Cutting wood and burning charcoal in the forests of the Southern
Mountain.
His face, stained with dust and ashes, has turned to the colour of
smoke.
The hair on his temples is streaked with gray: his ten fingers are
black.
The money he gets by selling charcoal, how far does it go?
It is just enough to clothe his limbs and put food in his mouth.
Although, alas, the coat on his back is a coat without lining.
He hopes for the coming of cold weather, to send up the price of
coal!
Last night, outside the city,--a whole foot of snow;
At dawn he drives the charcoal wagon along the frozen ruts.
Oxen,--weary; man,--hungry: the sun, already high;
Outside the Gate, to the south of the Market, at last they stop in
the mud.
Suddenly, a pair of prancing horsemen. Who can it be coming?
A public official in a yellow coat and a boy in a white shirt.
In their hands they hold a written warrant: on their tongues--the
words of an order;
They turn back the wagon and curse the oxen, leading them off to the
north.
A whole wagon of charcoal,
More than a thousand pieces!
If officials choose to take it away, the woodman may not complain.
Half a piece of red silk and a single yard of damask,
The Courtiers have tied to the oxen's collar, as the price
of a wagon of coal!
THE POLITICIAN
I was going to the City to sell the herbs I had plucked;
On the way I rested by some trees at the Blue Gate.
Along the road there came a horseman riding;
Whose face was pale with a strange look of dread.
Friends and relations, waiting to say good-bye,
Pressed at his side, but he did not dare to pause.
I, in wonder, asked the people about me
Who he was and what had happened to him.
They told me this was a Privy Councillor
Whose grave duties were like the pivot of State.
His food allowance was ten thousand cash;
Three times a day the Emperor came to his house.
Yesterday he was called to a meeting of Heroes:
To-day he is banished to the country of Yai-chou.
So always, the Counsellors of Kings;
Favour and ruin changed between dawn and dusk!
Green, green,--the grass of the Eastern Suburb;
And amid the grass, a road that leads to the hills.
Resting in peace among the white clouds,
At last he has made a "coup" that cannot fail!
THE OLD MAN WITH THE BROKEN ARM
(A SATIRE ON MILITARISM)
At Hsin-f? ng an old man--four-score and eight;
The hair on his head and the hair of his eyebrows--white as the
new snow.
Leaning on the shoulders of his great-grandchildren, he walks in
front of the Inn;
With his left arm he leans on their shoulders; his right arm is
broken.
I asked the old man how many years had passed since he broke his arm;
I also asked the cause of the injury, how and why it happened?
The old man said he was born and reared in the District of Hsin-f? ng;
At the time of his birth--a wise reign; no wars or discords.
"Often I listened in the Pear-Tree Garden to the sound of flute and
song;
Naught I knew of banner and lance; nothing of arrow or bow.
Then came the wars of T'ien-pao[71] and the great levy of men;
Of three men in each house,--one man was taken.
And those to whom the lot fell, where were they taken to?
Five months' journey, a thousand miles--away to Yun-nan.
We heard it said that in Yun-nan there flows the Lu River;
As the flowers fall from the pepper-trees, poisonous vapours rise.
When the great army waded across, the water seethed like a cauldron;
When barely ten had entered the water, two or three were dead.
To the north of my village, to the south of my village the sound of
weeping and wailing.
Children parting from fathers and mothers; husbands parting from
wives.
Everyone says that in expeditions against the Min tribes
Of a million men who are sent out, not one returns.
I, that am old, was then twenty-four;
My name and fore-name were written down in the rolls of the Board of
War.
In the depth of the night not daring to let any one know
I secretly took a huge stone and dashed it against my arm.
For drawing the bow and waving the banner now wholly unfit;
I knew henceforward I should not be sent to fight in Yun-nan.
Bones broken and sinews wounded could not fail to hurt;
I was ready enough to bear pain, if only I got back home.
My arm--broken ever since; it was sixty years ago.
One limb, although destroyed,--whole body safe!
But even now on winter nights when the wind and rain blow
From evening on till day's dawn I cannot sleep for pain.
Not sleeping for pain
Is a small thing to bear,
Compared with the joy of being alive when all the rest are dead.
For otherwise, years ago, at the ford of Lu River
My body would have died and my soul hovered by the bones that no one
gathered.
A ghost, I'd have wandered in Yun-nan, always looking for home.
Over the graves of ten thousand soldiers, mournfully hovering. "
So the old man spoke.
And I bid you listen to his words
Have you not heard
That the Prime Minister of K'ai-yuan,[72] Sung K'ai-fu,
Did not reward frontier exploits, lest a spirit of aggression should
prevail?
And have you not heard
That the Prime Minister of T'ien-Pao, Yang Kuo-chung[73]
Desiring to win imperial favour, started a frontier war?
But long before he could win the war, people had lost their temper;
Ask the man with the broken arm in the village of Hsin-f? ng?
[71] A. D. 742-755.
[72] 713-742.
[73] Cousin of the notorious mistress of Ming-huang, Yang Kuei-fei.
KEPT WAITING IN THE BOAT AT CHIU-K'OU TEN DAYS BY AN ADVERSE WIND
White billows and huge waves block the river crossing;
Wherever I go, danger and difficulty; whatever I do, failure.
Just as in my worldly career I wander and lose the road,
So when I come to the river crossing, I am stopped by contrary winds.
Of fishes and prawns sodden in the rain the smell fills my nostrils;
With the stings of insects that come with the fog, my whole body is
sore.
I am growing old, time flies, and my short span runs out.
While I sit in a boat at Chiu-k'ou, wasting ten days!
ON BOARD SHIP: READING YUAN CH? N'S POEMS
I take your poems in my hand and read them beside the candle;
The poems are finished: the candle is low: dawn not yet come.
With sore eyes by the guttering candle still I sit in the dark,
Listening to waves that, driven by the wind, strike the prow of
the ship.
ARRIVING AT HSUN-YANG
(TWO POEMS)
(1)
A bend of the river brings into view two triumphal arches;
That is the gate in the western wall of the suburbs of Hsun-yang.
I have still to travel in my solitary boat three or four leagues--
By misty waters and rainy sands, while the yellow dusk thickens.
(2)
We are almost come to Hsun-yang: how my thoughts are stirred
As we pass to the south of Yu Liang's[74] tower and the east of
P'? n Port.
The forest trees are leafless and withered,--after the mountain
rain;
The roofs of the houses are hidden low among the river mists.
The horses, fed on water grass, are too weak to carry their load;
The cottage walls of wattle and thatch let the wind blow on one's
bed.
In the distance I see red-wheeled coaches driving from the town-gate;
They have taken the trouble, these civil people, to meet their new
Prefect!
[74] Died A. D. 340. Giles, 2526.
MADLY SINGING IN THE MOUNTAINS
There is no one among men that has not a special failing:
And my failing consists in writing verses.
I have broken away from the thousand ties of life:
But this infirmity still remains behind.
Each time that I look at a fine landscape:
Each time that I meet a loved friend,
I raise my voice and recite a stanza of poetry
And am glad as though a God had crossed my path.
Ever since the day I was banished to Hsun-yang
Half my time I have lived among the hills.
And often, when I have finished a new poem,
Alone I climb the road to the Eastern Rock.
I lean my body on the banks of white stone:
I pull down with my hands a green cassia branch.
My mad singing startles the valleys and hills:
The apes and birds all come to peep.
Fearing to become a laughing-stock to the world,
I choose a place that is unfrequented by men.
RELEASING A MIGRANT "YEN" (WILD GOOSE)
At Nine Rivers,[75] in the tenth year,[76] in winter,--heavy snow;
The river-water covered with ice and the forests broken with their
load. [77]
The birds of the air, hungry and cold, went flying east and west;
And with them flew a migrant "yen," loudly clamouring for food.
Among the snow it pecked for grass; and rested on the surface of the
ice:
It tried with its wings to scale the sky; but its tired flight was
slow.
The boys of the river spread a net and caught the bird as it flew;
They took it in their hands to the city-market and sold it there
alive.
I that was once a man of the North am now an exile here:
Bird and man, in their different kind, are each strangers in the
south.
And because the sight of an exiled bird wounded an exile's heart,
I paid your ransom and set you free, and you flew away to the clouds.
Yen, Yen, flying to the clouds, tell me, whither shall you go?
concubines, ladies, plough-boys, and grooms. " They were inscribed "on
the walls of village-schools, temples, and ships-cabins. " "A certain
Captain Kao Hsia-yu 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
_Lu-shih_. "The world," writes Po to Yuan Ch? n, "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. Yuan 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 N? Play and has even
become a kind of Shint? 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.
AN EARLY LEVEE
ADDRESSED TO CH'? N, THE HERMIT
At Ch'ang-an--a full foot of snow;
A levee 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'? n Chu-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
At the western window I paused from writing rescripts;
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-M? N STREET IN CH'ANG-AN AND SEEING A DISTANT VIEW OF
CHUNG-NAN[50] MOUNTAIN
The snow has gone from Chung-nan; spring is almost come.
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 Yuan Ch? n, 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 talked together in the Yung-shou Temple;
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'? ng.
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'? N HSIUNG
(_Circa_ A. D. 812)
When the yellow bird's note was almost stopped;
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'? n 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
When I was almost forty
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
Ruined and ill,--a man of two score;
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
Sad, sad--lean with long 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
Deep the waters of the Black Pool, coloured like ink;
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
When the dragon comes, ah!
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]
[52] Parody of a famous Han dynasty hymn.
Meats lie stacked on the rocks of the Pool's shore;
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?
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.
There came an officer knocking by night at my door--
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
In the land 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'? ng 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
Of cord and cassia-wood is the harp compounded:
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.
* * * * *
How did it come to be neglected so?
Because of the Ch'iang flute and the Ch'in flageolet. [53]
[53] Barbarous modern instruments.
THE HARPER OF CHAO
The singers have hushed their notes of clear song:
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 yu. [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.
Alas, alas that the ears of common men
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
In the Royal City spring is almost over:
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,
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 Yueh.
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-yuan. [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-yuan 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-chun, 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)
A Government-bull yoked to a Government-cart!
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.
[61] The negative and positive principles in nature.
THE MAN WHO DREAMED OF FAIRIES
This poem is an attack on the Emperor Hsien-tsung, A. D. 806-820, who
"was devoted to magic. " A Taoist wizard told him that herbs of longevity
grew near the city of T'ai-chou. The Emperor at once appointed him
prefect of the place, "pour lui permettre d'herboriser plus a son aise"
(Wieger, Textes III, 1723). When the censors protested, the Emperor
replied: "The ruin of a single district would be a small price to pay,
if it could procure longevity for the Lord of Men. "
There was once a man who dreamt he went to Heaven:
His dream-body soared aloft through space.
He rode on the back of a white-plumed crane,
And was led on his flight by two crimson banners.
Whirring of wings and flapping of coat tails!
Jade bells suddenly all a-tinkle!
Half way to Heaven, he looked down beneath him,
Down on the dark turmoil of the World.
Gradually he lost the place of his native town;
Mountains and water--nothing else distinct.
The Eastern Ocean--a single strip of white:
The Hills of China,--five specks of green.
Gliding past him a host of fairies swept
In long procession to the Palace of the Jade City.
How should he guess that the children of Tz? -m? n[62]
Bow to the throne like courtiers of earthly kings?
They take him to the presence of the Mighty Jade Emperor:
He bows his head and proffers loyal homage.
The Emperor says: "We see you have fairy talents:
Be of good heart and do not slight yourself.
We shall send to fetch you in fifteen years
And give you a place in the Courtyard of Immortality. "
Twice bowing, he acknowledged the gracious words:
Then woke from sleep, full of wonder and joy.
He hid his secret and dared not tell it abroad:
But vowed a vow he would live in a cave of rock.
From love and affection he severed kith and kin:
From his eating and drinking he omitted savoury and spice.
His morning meal was a dish of coral-dust:
At night he sipped an essence of dewy mists.
In the empty mountains he lived for thirty years
Daily watching for the Heavenly Coach to come.
The time of appointment was already long past,
But of wings and coach-bells--still no sound.
His teeth and hair daily withered and decayed:
His ears and eyes gradually lost their keenness.
One morning he suffered the Common Change
And his body was one with the dust and dirt of the hill.
Gods and fairies! If indeed such things there be,
Their ways are beyond the striving of mortal men.
If you have not on your skull the Golden Bump's protrusion,
If your name is absent from the rolls of the Red Terrace,
In vain you learn the "Method of Avoiding Food":
For naught you study the "Book of Alchemic Lore. "
Though you sweat and toil, what shall your trouble bring?
You will only shorten the five-score years of your span.
Sad, alas, the man who dreamt of Fairies!
For a single dream spoiled his whole life.
[62] _I. e. _, the Immortals.
MAGIC
Boundless, the great sea.
Straight down,--no bottom: sideways,--no border.
Of cloudy waves and misty billows down in the uttermost depths
Men have fabled, in the midst there stand three sacred hills.
On the hills, thick growing,--herbs that banish Death.
Wings grow on those who eat them and they turn into heavenly "hsien. "
The Lord of Ch'in[63] and Wu of Han[64] believed in these stories:
And magic-workers year by year were sent to gather the herbs.
The Blessed Islands, now and of old, what but an empty tale?
The misty waters spread before them and they knew not where to seek.
Boundless, the great sea.
Dauntless, the mighty wind.
Their eyes search but cannot see the shores of the Blessed Islands.
They cannot find the Blessed Isles and yet they dare not return:
Youths and maidens that began the quest grew grey on board the boat.
They found that the writings of Hsu[65] were all boasts and lies:
To the Lofty Principle and Great Unity in vain they raised their
prayers.
Do you not see
The graves on the top of Black Horse Hill[66] and the tombs at
Mo-ling? [67]
What is left but the sighing wind blowing in the tangled grasses?
Yes, and what is more,
The Dark and Primal Master of Sages in his five thousand words[68]
Never spoke of herbs,
Never spoke of "hsien,"
Nor spoke of soaring in broad daylight up to the blue heaven.
[63] The "First Emperor," 259-210 B. C.
[64] Wu Ti, 156-87 B. C.
[65] Ssu Shih. Giles, 1276.
[66] The burial-places of these two Emperors.
[67] _Ibid. _
[68] Lao-tz? , in the Tao T? Ching.
THE TWO RED TOWERS
(A SATIRE AGAINST CLERICALISM)
The Two Red Towers
North and south rise facing each other.
I beg to ask, to whom do they belong?
To the two Princes of the period Ch? ng Yuan. [69]
The two Princes blew on their flutes and drew down fairies from the
sky,
Who carried them off through the Five Clouds, soaring away to Heaven.
Their halls and houses, that they could not take with them,
Were turned into Temples planted in the Dust of the World.
In the tiring-rooms and dancers' towers all is silent and still;
Only the willows like dancers' arms, and the pond like a mirror.
When the flowers are falling at yellow twilight, when things are sad
and hushed,
One does not hear songs and flutes, but only chimes and bells.
The Imperial Patent on the Temple doors is written in letters of
gold;
For nuns' quarters and monks' cells ample space is allowed.
For green moss and bright moonlight--plenty of room provided;
In a hovel opposite is a sick man who has hardly room to lie down.
I remember once when at P'ing-yang they were building a great man's
house
How it swallowed up the housing space of thousands of ordinary men.
The Immortals[70] are leaving us, two by two, and their houses are
turned into Temples;
I begin to fear that the whole world will become a vast convent.
[69] 785-805.
[70] Hsien Tsung's brothers?
THE CHARCOAL-SELLER
(A SATIRE AGAINST "KOMMANDATUR")
An old charcoal-seller
Cutting wood and burning charcoal in the forests of the Southern
Mountain.
His face, stained with dust and ashes, has turned to the colour of
smoke.
The hair on his temples is streaked with gray: his ten fingers are
black.
The money he gets by selling charcoal, how far does it go?
It is just enough to clothe his limbs and put food in his mouth.
Although, alas, the coat on his back is a coat without lining.
He hopes for the coming of cold weather, to send up the price of
coal!
Last night, outside the city,--a whole foot of snow;
At dawn he drives the charcoal wagon along the frozen ruts.
Oxen,--weary; man,--hungry: the sun, already high;
Outside the Gate, to the south of the Market, at last they stop in
the mud.
Suddenly, a pair of prancing horsemen. Who can it be coming?
A public official in a yellow coat and a boy in a white shirt.
In their hands they hold a written warrant: on their tongues--the
words of an order;
They turn back the wagon and curse the oxen, leading them off to the
north.
A whole wagon of charcoal,
More than a thousand pieces!
If officials choose to take it away, the woodman may not complain.
Half a piece of red silk and a single yard of damask,
The Courtiers have tied to the oxen's collar, as the price
of a wagon of coal!
THE POLITICIAN
I was going to the City to sell the herbs I had plucked;
On the way I rested by some trees at the Blue Gate.
Along the road there came a horseman riding;
Whose face was pale with a strange look of dread.
Friends and relations, waiting to say good-bye,
Pressed at his side, but he did not dare to pause.
I, in wonder, asked the people about me
Who he was and what had happened to him.
They told me this was a Privy Councillor
Whose grave duties were like the pivot of State.
His food allowance was ten thousand cash;
Three times a day the Emperor came to his house.
Yesterday he was called to a meeting of Heroes:
To-day he is banished to the country of Yai-chou.
So always, the Counsellors of Kings;
Favour and ruin changed between dawn and dusk!
Green, green,--the grass of the Eastern Suburb;
And amid the grass, a road that leads to the hills.
Resting in peace among the white clouds,
At last he has made a "coup" that cannot fail!
THE OLD MAN WITH THE BROKEN ARM
(A SATIRE ON MILITARISM)
At Hsin-f? ng an old man--four-score and eight;
The hair on his head and the hair of his eyebrows--white as the
new snow.
Leaning on the shoulders of his great-grandchildren, he walks in
front of the Inn;
With his left arm he leans on their shoulders; his right arm is
broken.
I asked the old man how many years had passed since he broke his arm;
I also asked the cause of the injury, how and why it happened?
The old man said he was born and reared in the District of Hsin-f? ng;
At the time of his birth--a wise reign; no wars or discords.
"Often I listened in the Pear-Tree Garden to the sound of flute and
song;
Naught I knew of banner and lance; nothing of arrow or bow.
Then came the wars of T'ien-pao[71] and the great levy of men;
Of three men in each house,--one man was taken.
And those to whom the lot fell, where were they taken to?
Five months' journey, a thousand miles--away to Yun-nan.
We heard it said that in Yun-nan there flows the Lu River;
As the flowers fall from the pepper-trees, poisonous vapours rise.
When the great army waded across, the water seethed like a cauldron;
When barely ten had entered the water, two or three were dead.
To the north of my village, to the south of my village the sound of
weeping and wailing.
Children parting from fathers and mothers; husbands parting from
wives.
Everyone says that in expeditions against the Min tribes
Of a million men who are sent out, not one returns.
I, that am old, was then twenty-four;
My name and fore-name were written down in the rolls of the Board of
War.
In the depth of the night not daring to let any one know
I secretly took a huge stone and dashed it against my arm.
For drawing the bow and waving the banner now wholly unfit;
I knew henceforward I should not be sent to fight in Yun-nan.
Bones broken and sinews wounded could not fail to hurt;
I was ready enough to bear pain, if only I got back home.
My arm--broken ever since; it was sixty years ago.
One limb, although destroyed,--whole body safe!
But even now on winter nights when the wind and rain blow
From evening on till day's dawn I cannot sleep for pain.
Not sleeping for pain
Is a small thing to bear,
Compared with the joy of being alive when all the rest are dead.
For otherwise, years ago, at the ford of Lu River
My body would have died and my soul hovered by the bones that no one
gathered.
A ghost, I'd have wandered in Yun-nan, always looking for home.
Over the graves of ten thousand soldiers, mournfully hovering. "
So the old man spoke.
And I bid you listen to his words
Have you not heard
That the Prime Minister of K'ai-yuan,[72] Sung K'ai-fu,
Did not reward frontier exploits, lest a spirit of aggression should
prevail?
And have you not heard
That the Prime Minister of T'ien-Pao, Yang Kuo-chung[73]
Desiring to win imperial favour, started a frontier war?
But long before he could win the war, people had lost their temper;
Ask the man with the broken arm in the village of Hsin-f? ng?
[71] A. D. 742-755.
[72] 713-742.
[73] Cousin of the notorious mistress of Ming-huang, Yang Kuei-fei.
KEPT WAITING IN THE BOAT AT CHIU-K'OU TEN DAYS BY AN ADVERSE WIND
White billows and huge waves block the river crossing;
Wherever I go, danger and difficulty; whatever I do, failure.
Just as in my worldly career I wander and lose the road,
So when I come to the river crossing, I am stopped by contrary winds.
Of fishes and prawns sodden in the rain the smell fills my nostrils;
With the stings of insects that come with the fog, my whole body is
sore.
I am growing old, time flies, and my short span runs out.
While I sit in a boat at Chiu-k'ou, wasting ten days!
ON BOARD SHIP: READING YUAN CH? N'S POEMS
I take your poems in my hand and read them beside the candle;
The poems are finished: the candle is low: dawn not yet come.
With sore eyes by the guttering candle still I sit in the dark,
Listening to waves that, driven by the wind, strike the prow of
the ship.
ARRIVING AT HSUN-YANG
(TWO POEMS)
(1)
A bend of the river brings into view two triumphal arches;
That is the gate in the western wall of the suburbs of Hsun-yang.
I have still to travel in my solitary boat three or four leagues--
By misty waters and rainy sands, while the yellow dusk thickens.
(2)
We are almost come to Hsun-yang: how my thoughts are stirred
As we pass to the south of Yu Liang's[74] tower and the east of
P'? n Port.
The forest trees are leafless and withered,--after the mountain
rain;
The roofs of the houses are hidden low among the river mists.
The horses, fed on water grass, are too weak to carry their load;
The cottage walls of wattle and thatch let the wind blow on one's
bed.
In the distance I see red-wheeled coaches driving from the town-gate;
They have taken the trouble, these civil people, to meet their new
Prefect!
[74] Died A. D. 340. Giles, 2526.
MADLY SINGING IN THE MOUNTAINS
There is no one among men that has not a special failing:
And my failing consists in writing verses.
I have broken away from the thousand ties of life:
But this infirmity still remains behind.
Each time that I look at a fine landscape:
Each time that I meet a loved friend,
I raise my voice and recite a stanza of poetry
And am glad as though a God had crossed my path.
Ever since the day I was banished to Hsun-yang
Half my time I have lived among the hills.
And often, when I have finished a new poem,
Alone I climb the road to the Eastern Rock.
I lean my body on the banks of white stone:
I pull down with my hands a green cassia branch.
My mad singing startles the valleys and hills:
The apes and birds all come to peep.
Fearing to become a laughing-stock to the world,
I choose a place that is unfrequented by men.
RELEASING A MIGRANT "YEN" (WILD GOOSE)
At Nine Rivers,[75] in the tenth year,[76] in winter,--heavy snow;
The river-water covered with ice and the forests broken with their
load. [77]
The birds of the air, hungry and cold, went flying east and west;
And with them flew a migrant "yen," loudly clamouring for food.
Among the snow it pecked for grass; and rested on the surface of the
ice:
It tried with its wings to scale the sky; but its tired flight was
slow.
The boys of the river spread a net and caught the bird as it flew;
They took it in their hands to the city-market and sold it there
alive.
I that was once a man of the North am now an exile here:
Bird and man, in their different kind, are each strangers in the
south.
And because the sight of an exiled bird wounded an exile's heart,
I paid your ransom and set you free, and you flew away to the clouds.
Yen, Yen, flying to the clouds, tell me, whither shall you go?
