|
(2.) “The Odes have it thus:--‘We may gaze up to the mountain’s
brow:
we may travel along the great road;’ signifying that although we
cannot
hope to reach the goal, still we may push on thitherwards in
spirit.
“While reading the works of Confucius, I have always fancied
I
could see the man as he was in life; and when I went to Shantung
I
actually beheld his carriage, his robes, and the material parts of
his
ceremonial usages. There were his descendants practising the old
rites
in their ancestral home, and I lingered on, unable to tear
myself
away. Many are the princes and prophets that the world has seen
in
its time, glorious in life, forgotten in death. But Confucius,
though
only a humble member of the cotton-clothed masses, remains among
us
after many generations. He is the model for such as would be wise.
By
all, from the Son of Heaven down to the meanest student, the
supremacy
of his principles is fully and freely admitted. He may indeed
be
pronounced the divinest of men.”
(3.) “In the 9th moon the First
Emperor was buried in Mount Li, which
in the early days of his reign he had
caused to be tunnelled and
prepared with that view. Then, when he had
consolidated the empire,
he employed his soldiery, to the number of 700,000,
to bore down to
the Three Springs (that is, until water was reached), and
there a
foundation of bronze[10] was laid and the sarcophagus placed
thereon.
Rare objects and costly jewels were collected from the palaces and
from
the various officials, and were carried thither and stored in
vast
quantities. Artificers were ordered to construct mechanical
cross-bows,
which, if any one were to enter, would immediately discharge
their
arrows. With the aid of quicksilver, rivers were made, the
Yang-tsze,
the Hoang-ho, and the great ocean, the metal being poured from one
into
the other by machinery. On the roof were delineated the
constellations
of the sky, on the floor the geographical divisions of the
earth.
Candles were made from the fat of the man-fish (walrus), calculated
to
last for a very long time.
“The Second Emperor said, ‘It is not
fitting that the concubines of
my late father who are without children should
leave him now;’ and
accordingly he ordered them to accompany the dead monarch
to the next
world, those who thus perished being many in number.
“When
the interment was completed, some one suggested that the workmen
who had made
the machinery and concealed the treasure knew the great
value of the latter,
and that the secret would leak out. Therefore,
so soon as the ceremony was
over, and the path giving access to the
sarcophagus had been blocked up at
its innermost end, the outside
gate at the entrance to this path was let
fall, and the mausoleum was
effectually closed, so that not one of the
workmen escaped. Trees and
grass were then planted around, that the spot
might look like the rest
of the mountain.”
The history by Ssŭ-ma
Ch’ien stops about 100 years before Christ. To
carry it on from that point
was the ambition of a scholar named Pan
Piao (A.D. 3-54), but he died while
still collecting materials
for his task. His son, PAN KU, whose scholarship
was extensive
and profound, took up the project, but was impeached on the
ground that
he was altering the national records at his own discretion, and
was
thrown into prison. Released on the representations of a brother,
he
continued his work; however, before its completion he became
involved
in a political intrigue and was again thrown into prison, where
he
died. The Emperor handed the unfinished history to PAN CHAO,
his gifted
sister, who had been all along his assistant, and by her it
was brought to
completion down to about the Christian era, where the
occupancy of the throne
by a usurper divides the Han dynasty into two
distinct periods. This lady was
also the author of a volume of moral
advice to young women, and of many poems
and essays.
[Sidenote: HSU SHEN]
Lexicography, which has since
been so widely cultivated by the Chinese,
was called into being by a famous
scholar named HSU SHEN (_d._
A.D. 120). Entering upon an official career, he
soon retired
and devoted the rest of his life to books. He was a deep student
of the
Five Classics, and wrote a work on the discrepancies in the
various
criticisms of these books. But it is by his _Shuo Wen_ that he is
now
known. This was a collection, with short explanatory notes, of all
the
characters--about ten thousand--which were to be found in Chinese
literature
as then existing, written in what is now known as the Lesser
Seal style. It
is the oldest Chinese dictionary of which we have any
record, and has
hitherto formed the basis of all etymological research.
It is arranged under
540 radicals or classifiers, that is to say,
specially selected portions of
characters which indicate to some extent
the direction in which lies the
sense of the whole character, and its
chief object was to exhibit the
pictorial features of Chinese writing.
FOOTNOTE:
[10] Variant
“firm,” _i.e._ was firmly laid.
CHAPTER
IV
BUDDHISM
The introduction of Buddhism into China must now
be considered,
especially under its literary aspect.
So early as B.C.
217 we read of Buddhist priests, Shih-li-fang and
others, coming to China.
The “First Emperor” seems to have looked upon
them with suspicion. At any
rate, he threw them into prison, from
which, we are told, they were released
in the night by a golden man
or angel. Nothing more was heard of Buddhism
until the Emperor known
as Ming Ti, in consequence, it is said, of a dream in
which a foreign
god appeared to him, sent off a mission to India to see what
could be
learnt upon the subject of this barbarian religion. The mission,
which
consisted of eighteen persons, returned about A.D. 67, accompanied
by
two Indian Buddhists named Kashiapmadanga and Gobharana. These
two
settled at Lo-yang in Honan, which was then the capital, and
proceeded
to translate into Chinese the Sutra of Forty-two
Sections--the
beginning of a long line of such. Soon afterwards the former
died, but
the seed had been sown, and a great rival to Taoism was about to
appear
on the scene.
Towards the close of the second century A.D.
another Indian
Buddhist, who had come to reside at Ch’ang-an in Shensi,
translated
the _sutra_ known as the Lotus of the Good Law, and Buddhist
temples
were built in various parts of China. By the beginning of the
fourth
century Chinese novices were taking the vows required for the
Buddhist
priesthood, and monasteries were endowed for their
reception.
[Sidenote: FA HSIEN]
In A.D. 399 FA HSIEN started on
his great pedestrian journey from the
heart of China overland to India, his
object being to procure copies
of the Buddhist Canon, statues, and relics.
Those who accompanied him
at starting either turned back or died on the way,
and he finally
reached India with only one companion, who settled there and
never
returned to China. After visiting various important centres, such
as
Magadha, Patna, Benares, and Buddha-Gaya, and effecting the object
of
his journey, he took passage on a merchant-ship, and reached
Ceylon.
There he found a large junk which carried him to Java, whence,
after
surviving many perils of the sea, he made his way on board
another
junk to the coast of Shantung, disembarking in A.D. 414 with
all
his treasures at the point now occupied by the German settlement
of
Kiao-chow.
The narrative of his adventurous journey, as told by
himself, is still
in existence, written in a crabbed and difficult style. His
itinerary
has been traced, and nearly all the places mentioned by him have
been
identified. The following passage refers to the desert of Gobi,
which
the travellers had to cross:--
“In this desert there are a great
many evil spirits and hot winds.
Those who encounter the latter perish to a
man. There are neither birds
above nor beasts below. Gazing on all sides, as
far as the eye can
reach, in order to mark the track, it would be impossible
to succeed
but for the rotting bones of dead men which point the
way.”
Buddha-Gaya, the scene of recent interesting explorations conducted
by
the late General Cunningham, was visited by Fa Hsien, and is
described
by him as follows:--
“The pilgrims now arrived at the city
of Gaya, also a complete waste
within its walls. Journeying about three more
miles southwards, they
reached the place where the Bodhisatva formerly passed
six years in
self-mortification. It is very woody. From this point going west
a
mile, they arrived at the spot where Buddha entered the water to
bathe,
and a god pressed down the branch of a tree to pull him out of
the
pool. Also, by going two-thirds of a mile farther north, they
reached
the place where the two lay-sisters presented Buddha with congee
made
with milk. Two-thirds of a mile to the north of this is the place
where
Buddha, sitting on a stone under a great tree and facing the east,
ate
it. The tree and the stone are both there still, the latter being
about
six feet in length and breadth by over two feet in height. In
Central
India the climate is equable; trees will live several thousand,
and
even so much as ten thousand years. From this point going
north-east
half a yojana, the pilgrims arrived at the cave where the
Bodhisatva,
having entered, sat down cross-legged with his face to the west,
and
reflected as follows: ‘If I attain perfect wisdom, there should
be
some miracle in token thereof.’ Whereupon the silhouette of
Buddha
appeared upon the stone, over three feet in length, and is
plainly
visible to this day. Then heaven and earth quaked mightily, and
the
gods who were in space cried out, saying, ‘This is not the place
where
past and future Buddhas have attained and should attain perfect
wisdom. The
proper spot is beneath the Bo tree, less than half a yojana
to the south-west
of this.’ When the gods had uttered these words,
they proceeded to lead the
way with singing in order to conduct him
thither. The Bodhisatva got up and
followed, and when thirty paces from
the tree a god gave him the _kus’a_
grass. Having accepted this, he
went on fifteen paces farther, when five
hundred dark-coloured birds
came and flew three times round him, and
departed. The Bodhisatva went
on to the Bo tree, and laying down his _kus’a_
grass, sat down with
his face to the east. Then Mara, the king of the devils,
sent three
beautiful women to approach from the north and tempt him; he
himself
approaching from the south with the same object. The Bodhisatva
pressed
the ground with his toes, whereupon the infernal army retreated
in
confusion, and the three women became old. At the above-mentioned
place
where Buddha suffered mortification for six years, and on all
these
other spots, men of after ages have built pagodas and set up
images,
all of which are still in existence. Where Buddha, having
attained
perfect wisdom, contemplated the tree for seven days, experiencing
the
joys of emancipation; where Buddha walked backwards and forwards,
east
and west, under the Bo tree for seven days; where the gods produced
a
jewelled chamber and worshipped Buddha for seven days; where the
blind dragon
Muchilinda enveloped Buddha for seven days; where Buddha
sat facing the east
on a square stone beneath the nyagrodha tree, and
Brahma came to salute him;
where the four heavenly kings offered their
alms-bowls; where the five
hundred traders gave him cooked rice and
honey; where he converted the
brothers Kasyapa with their disciples to
the number of one thousand souls--on
all these spots stupas have been
raised.”
The following passage refers
to Ceylon, called by Fa Hsien the Land
of the Lion, that is, Singhala, from
the name of a trader who first
founded a kingdom there:--
“This
country had originally no inhabitants; only devils and spirits
and dragons
lived in it, with whom the merchants of neighbouring
countries came to trade.
When the exchange of commodities took place,
the devils and spirits did not
appear in person, but set out their
valuables with the prices attached. Then
the merchants, according
to the prices, bought the things and carried them
off. But from the
merchants going backwards and forwards and stopping on
their way,
the attractions of the place became known to the inhabitants of
the
neighbouring countries, who also went there, and thus it became a
great
nation. The temperature is very agreeable in this country; there
is
no distinction of summer and winter. The trees and plants are
always
green, and cultivation of the soil is carried on as men please,
without
regard to seasons.”
* * * *
*
[Sidenote: KUMARAJIVA--HSUAN TSANG]
Meanwhile, the Indian
Kumarajiva, one of the Four Suns of Buddhism, had
been occupied between A.D.
405 and 412 in dictating Chinese
commentaries on the Buddhist Canon to some
eight hundred priests. He
also wrote a _shastra_ on Reality and Appearance,
and translated the
Diamond Sutra, which has done more to popularise Buddhism
with the
educated classes than all the material parts of this religion
put
together. Chinese poets and philosophers have drawn inspiration
and
instruction from its pages, and the work might now almost be classed
as
a national classic. Here are two short extracts:--
(1.) “Buddha
said, O Subhūti, tell me after thy wit, can a man see the
Buddha in the
flesh?
“He cannot, O World-Honoured, and for this reason: The Buddha
has
declared that flesh has no objective existence.
“Then Buddha told
Subhūti, saying, All objective existences are
unsubstantial and unreal. If a
man can see clearly that they are so,
then can he see the
Buddha.”
(2.) “Buddha said, O Subhūti, if one man were to collect the
seven
precious things from countless galaxies of worlds, and bestow all
these
in charity, and another virtuous man, or virtuous woman, were to
become
filled with the spirit, and held fast by this _sutra_, preaching
it
ever so little for the conversion of mankind, I say unto you that
the
happiness of this last man would far exceed the happiness of that
other
man.
“Conversion to what? To the disregard of objective
existences, and to
absolute quiescence of the individual. And why? Because
every external
phenomenon is like a dream, like a vision, like a bubble, like
shadow,
like dew, like lightning, and should be regarded as
such.”
* * * * *
In A.D. 520
Bodhidharma came to China, and was received with
honour. He had been the son
of a king in Southern India. He taught that
religion was not to be learnt
from books, but that man should seek and
find the Buddha in his own heart.
Just before his arrival Sung Yun had
been sent to India to obtain more
Buddhist books, and had remained two
years in Kandahar, returning with 175
volumes.
Then, in 629, HSUAN TSANG set out for India with the same
object,
and also to visit the holy places of Buddhism. He came back in
645,
bringing with him 657 Buddhist books, besides many images and
pictures
and 150 relics. He spent the rest of his life translating these
books,
and also, like Fa Hsien, wrote a narrative of his travels.
This
brings us down to the beginning of the T’ang dynasty, when
Buddhism had
acquired, in spite of much opposition and even
persecution, what has since
proved to be a lasting hold upon the masses
of the Chinese
people.
BOOK THE THIRD
_MINOR DYNASTIES_ (A.D.
200-600)
CHAPTER I
POETRY--MISCELLANEOUS
LITERATURE
The centuries which elapsed between A.D. 200 and 600 were
not
favourable to the development and growth of a national
literature.
During a great part of the time the empire was torn by civil
wars;
there was not much leisure for book-learning, and few patrons
to
encourage it. Still the work was carried on, and many great names
have
come down to us.
The dark years between A.D. 196 and 221, which
witnessed the
downfall of the House of Han, were illumined by the names of
seven
writers, now jointly known as the Seven Scholars of the
Chien-An
period. They were all poets. There was HSU KAN, who fell
under
the influence of Buddhism and translated into Chinese the
_Pranyamula
shastra tika_ of Nagardjuna. The following lines are by
him:--
“_O floating clouds that swim in heaven above,
Bear on your
wings these words to him I love...
Alas! you float along nor heed my
pain,
And leave me here to love and long in vain!
I see other dear
ones to their homes return,
And for his coming shall not I too
yearn?
Since my lord left--ah me, unhappy day!--
My mirror’s dust has
not been brushed away;
My heart, like running water, knows no
peace.
But bleeds and bleeds forever without cease._”
[Sidenote:
K’UNG JUNG--WANG TS’AN]
There was K’UNG JUNG, a descendant of Confucius
in the twentieth
degree, and a most precocious child. At ten years of age he
went with
his father to Lo-yang, where Li Ying, the Dragon statesman, was at
the
height of his political reputation. Unable from the press of
visitors
to gain admission, he told the doorkeeper to inform Li Ying that
he
was a connection, and thus succeeded in getting in. When Li Ying
asked
him what the connection was, he replied, “My ancestor Confucius
and
your ancestor Lao Tzŭ were friends engaged in the quest for truth,
so
that you and I may be said to be of the same family.” Li Ying was
astonished,
but Ch’en Wei said, “Cleverness in youth does not mean
brilliancy in later
life,” upon which K’ung Jung remarked, “You, sir,
must evidently have been
very clever as a boy.” Entering official life,
he rose to be Governor of
Po-hai in Shantung; but he incurred the
displeasure of the great Ts’ao Ts’ao,
and was put to death with all his
family. He was an open-hearted man, and
fond of good company. “If my
halls are full of guests,” he would say, “and my
bottles full of wine,
I am happy.”
The following is a specimen of his
poetry:--
“_The wanderer reaches home with joy
From absence of a
year and more:
His eye seeks a beloved boy--
His wife lies weeping
on the floor._
“_They whisper he is gone. The glooms
Of evening
fall; beyond the gate
A lonely grave in outline looms
To greet the
sire who came too late._
“_Forth to the little mound he
flings,
Where wild-flowers bloom on every side....
His bones are in
the Yellow Springs,
His flesh like dust is scattered wide._
“‘_O
child, who never knew thy sire,
For ever now to be unknown,
Ere
long thy wandering ghost shall tire
Of flitting friendless and
alone._
“‘_O son, man’s greatest earthly boon,
With thee I bury
hopes and fears.’
He bowed his head in grief, and soon
His breast
was wet with rolling tears._
“_Life’s dread uncertainty he
knows,
But oh for this untimely close!_”
There was WANG TS’AN
(A.D. 177-217), a learned man who wrote an _Ars
Poetica_, not, however, in
verse. A youth of great promise, he excelled
as a poet, although the times
were most unfavourable to success. It
has been alleged, with more or less
truth, that all Chinese poetry is
pitched in the key of melancholy; that the
favourite themes of Chinese
poets are the transitory character of life with
its partings and other
ills, and the inevitable approach of death, with
substitution of the
unknown for the known. Wang Ts’an had good cause for his
lamentations.
He was forced by political disturbances to leave his home at
the
capital and seek safety in flight. There, as he tells
us,
“_Wolves and tigers work their own sweet will._”
On the way
he finds
“_Naught but bleached bones covering the plain
ahead,_”
and he comes across a famine-stricken woman who had thrown among
the
bushes a child she was unable to feed. Arriving at the Great River,
the
setting sun brings his feelings to a head:--
“_Streaks of light
still cling to the hill-tops,
While a deeper shade falls upon the steep
slopes;
The fox makes his way to his burrow,
Birds fly back to their
homes in the wood,
Clear sound the ripples of the rushing waves,
Along
the banks the gibbons scream and cry,
My sleeves are fluttered by the
whistling gale,
The lapels of my robe are drenched with dew.
The
livelong night I cannot close my eyes.
I arise and seize my
guitar,
Which, ever in sympathy with man’s changing moods,
Now sounds
responsive to my grief._”
But music cannot make him forget his kith and
kin--
“_Most of them, alas! are prisoners,
And weeping will be my
portion to the end.
With all the joyous spots in the empire,
Why must
I remain in this place?
Ah, like the grub in smartweed, I am growing
insensible to
bitterness._”
By the last line he means to hint
“how much a long communion tends to
make us what we are.”
There was
YING YANG, who, when his own political career was
cut short, wrote a poem
with a title which may be interpreted as
“Regret that a Bucephalus should
stand idle.”
There was LIU CHENG, who was put to death for daring to cast
an eye
upon one of the favourites of the great general Ts’ao Ts’ao,
virtual
founder of the House of Wei. CH’EN LIN and YUAN YU complete the
tale.
[Sidenote: TS’AO TS’AO]
To these seven names an eighth and a
ninth are added by courtesy:
those of TS’AO TS’AO above mentioned, and of his
third son,
Ts’ao Chih, the poet. The former played a remarkable part in
Chinese
history. His father had been adopted as son by the chief eunuch of
the
palace, and he himself was a wild young man much given to coursing
and
hawking. He managed, however, to graduate at the age of twenty,
and,
after distinguishing himself in a campaign against insurgents,
raised
a volunteer force to purge the country of various powerful
chieftains
who threatened the integrity of the empire. By degrees the
supreme
power passed into his hands, and he caused the weak Emperor to
raise
his daughter to the rank of Empress. He is popularly regarded as
the
type of a bold bad Minister and of a cunning unscrupulous rebel.
His
large armies are proverbial, and at one time he is said to have had
so
many as a million of men under arms. As an instance of the
discipline
which prevailed in his camp, it is said that he once condemned
himself
to death for having allowed his horse to shy into a field of
grain,
in accordance with his own severe regulations against any injury
to
standing crops. However, in lieu of losing his head, he was
persuaded
to satisfy his sense of justice by cutting off his hair. The
following
lines are from a song by him, written in an abrupt metre of four
words
to the line:--
“_Here is wine, let us sing;
For man’s
life is short,
Like the morning dew,
Its best days gone by.
But
though we would rejoice,
Sorrows are hard to forget,
What will make us
forget them?
Wine, and only wine._”
After Ts’ao Ts’ao’s death came
the epoch of the Three Kingdoms, the
romantic story of which is told in the
famous novel to be mentioned
later on. Ts’ao Ts’ao’s eldest son became the
first Emperor of one of
these, the Wei Kingdom, and TS’AO CHIH, the poet,
occupied an
awkward position at court, an object of suspicion and dislike. At
ten
years of age he already excelled in composition, so much so that
his
father thought he must be a plagiarist; but he settled the question
by
producing off-hand poems on any given theme. “If all the talent of
the
world,” said a contemporary poet, “were represented by ten, Ts’ao
Chih would
have eight, I should have one, and the rest of mankind one
between them.”
There is a story that on one occasion, at the bidding
of his elder brother,
probably with mischievous intent, he composed an
impromptu stanza while
walking only seven steps. It has been remembered
more for its point than its
poetry:--
“_A fine dish of beans had been placed in the pot
With a
view to a good mess of pottage all hot.
The beanstalks, aflame, a fierce
heat were begetting,
The beans in the pot were all fuming and
fretting.
Yet the beans and the stalks were not born to be foes;
Oh,
why should these hurry to finish off those?_”
The following extract from
a poem of his contains a very well-known
maxim, constantly in use at the
present day:--
“_The superior man takes precautions,
And avoids
giving cause for suspicion.
He will not pull up his shoes in a
melon-field,
Nor under a plum-tree straighten his hat.
Brothers- and
sisters-in-law may not join hands,
Elders and youngers may not walk
abreast;
By toil and humility the handle is grasped;
Moderate your
brilliancy, and difficulties disappear._”
[Sidenote: LIU
LING]
During the third century A.D. another and more mercurial set
of
poets, also seven in number, formed themselves into a club, and
became widely
famous as the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. Among
these was LIU LING, a
hard drinker, who declared that to a
drunken man “the affairs of this world
appear but as so much duckweed
on a river.” He wished to be always
accompanied by a servant with wine,
followed by another with a spade, so that
he might be buried where
he fell. On one occasion, yielding to the entreaties
of his wife, he
promised to “swear off,” and bade her prepare the usual
sacrifices of
wine and meat. When all was ready, he prayed, saying, “O God,
who didst
give to Liu Ling a reputation through wine, he being able to
consume a
gallon at a sitting and requiring a quart to sober him again,
listen
not to the words of his wife, for she speaketh not truth.”
Thereupon
he drank up the sacrificial wine, and was soon as drunk as ever.
His
bias was towards the Tao of Lao Tzŭ, and he was actually plucked
for
his degree in consequence of an essay extolling the heterodox
doctrine
of Inaction. The following skit exhibits this Taoist strain to a
marked
degree:--
“An old gentleman, a friend of mine (that is,
himself), regards
eternity as but a single day, and whole centuries as but an
instant
of time. The sun and moon are the windows of his house; the
cardinal
points are the boundaries of his domain. He wanders unrestrained
and
free; he dwells within no walls. The canopy of heaven is his roof;
his
resting-place is the lap of earth. He follows his fancy in all
things.
He is never for a moment without a wine-flask in one hand, a goblet
in
the other. His only thought is wine: he knows of naught
beyond.
“Two respectable philanthropists, hearing of my friend’s
weakness,
proceeded to tax him on the subject; and with many gestures
of
disapprobation, fierce scowls, and gnashing of teeth, preached
him
quite a sermon on the rules of propriety, and sent his faults
buzzing
round his head like a swarm of bees.
“When they began, the old
gentleman filled himself another bumper;
and sitting down, quietly stroked
his beard and sipped his wine by
turns, until at length he lapsed into a
semi-inebriate state of placid
enjoyment, varied by intervals of absolute
unconsciousness or of
partial return to mental lucidity. His ears were beyond
the reach of
thunder; he could not have seen a mountain. Heat and cold
existed for
him no more. He knew not even the workings of his own mind. To
him,
the affairs of this world appeared but as so much duckweed on a
river;
while the two philanthropists at his side looked like two wasps
trying
to convert a caterpillar” (into a wasp, as the Chinese believe is
done).
Another was HSI K’ANG, a handsome young man, seven feet
seven
inches in height, who was married--a doubtful boon--into the
Imperial
family. His favourite study was alchemistic research, and he passed
his
days sitting under a willow-tree in his courtyard and experimenting
in
the transmutation of metals, varying his toil with music and
poetry, and
practising the art of breathing with a view to securing
immortality.
Happening, however, to offend by his want of ceremony
one of the Imperial
princes, who was also a student of alchemy, he
was denounced to the Emperor
as a dangerous person and a traitor, and
condemned to death. Three thousand
disciples offered each one to take
the place of their beloved master, but
their request was not granted.
He met his fate with fortitude, calmly
watching the shadows thrown by
the sun and playing upon his
lute.
[Sidenote: HSIANG HSIU--YUAN CHI]
The third was HSIANG HSIU,
who also tried his hand at alchemy,
and whose commentary on Chuang Tzŭ was
stolen, as has been already
stated, by Kuo Hsiang.
The fourth was YUAN
HSIEN, a wild harum-scarum fellow, but a
performer on the guitar and a great
authority on the theory of music.
He and his uncle, both poverty-stricken,
lived on one side of the road,
while a wealthier branch of the family lived
on the other side. On the
seventh of the seventh moon the latter put out all
their grand fur
robes and fine clothes to air, as is customary on that day;
whereupon
Yuan Hsien on his side forked up a pair of the short breeches,
called
calf-nose drawers, worn by the common coolies, explaining to a
friend
that he was a victim to the tyranny of custom.
The fifth was
YUAN CHI, another musician, whose harpsichords became
the “Strads” of China.
He entered the army and rose to a high command,
and then exchanged his post
for one where he had heard there was a
better cook. He was a model of filial
piety, and when his mother died
he wept so violently that he brought up
several pints of blood. Yet
when Chi Hsi went to condole with him, he showed
only the whites of
his eyes (that is, paid no attention to him); while Chi
Hsi’s brother,
who carried along with him a jar of wine and a guitar, was
welcomed
with the pupils. His best-known work is a political and
allegorical
poem in thirty-eight stanzas averaging about twelve lines to
each. The
allusions in this are so skilfully veiled as to be quite
unrecognisable
without a commentary, such concealment being absolutely
necessary for
the protection of the author in the troublous times during
which he
wrote.
The sixth was WANG JUNG, who could look at the sun
without
being dazzled, and lastly there was SHAN T’AO, a follower
of
Taoist teachings, who was spoken of as “uncut jade” and as “gold
ore.”
Later on, in the fourth century, comes FU MI, of whom nothing
is
known beyond his verses, of which the following is a specimen:--
“_Thy
chariot and horses
have gone, and I fret
And long for
the lover
I ne’er can forget._
_O wanderer,
bound
in far countries to dwell,
Would I were thy
shadow!--
I’d follow thee well;_
_And though
clouds and though darkness
my presence should hide,
In
the bright light of day
I would stand by thy
side!_”
We now reach a name which is still familiar to all students of
poetry
in the Middle Kingdom. T’AO CH’IEN (A.D. 365-427), or T’ao
Yuan-ming
as he was called in early life, after a youth of poverty obtained
an
appointment as magistrate. But he was unfitted by nature for
official
life; all he wanted, to quote his own prayer, was “length of years
and
depth of wine.” He only held the post for eighty-three days,
objecting
to receive a superior officer with the usual ceremonial on the
ground
that “he could not crook the hinges of his back for five pecks of
rice
a day,” such being the regulation pay of a magistrate. He then
retired
into private life and occupied himself with poetry, music, and
the
culture of flowers, especially chrysanthemums, which are
inseparably
associated with his name. In the latter pursuit he was seconded
by his
wife, who worked in the back garden while he worked in the front.
His
retirement from office is the subject of the following piece, of
the
poetical-prose class, which, in point of style, is considered one
of
the masterpieces of the language:--
“Homewards I bend my steps. My
fields, my gardens, are choked with
weeds: should I not go? My soul has led a
bondsman’s life: why should I
remain to pine? But I will waste no grief upon
the past; I will devote
my energies to the future. I have not wandered far
astray. I feel that
I am on the right track once again.
“Lightly,
lightly, speeds my boat along, my garments fluttering to the
gentle breeze. I
inquire my route as I go. I grudge the slowness of the
dawning day. From afar
I descry my old home, and joyfully press onwards
in my haste. The servants
rush forth to meet me; my children cluster
at the gate. The place is a
wilderness; but there is the old pine-tree
and my chrysanthemums. I take the
little ones by the hand, and pass in.
Wine is brought in full jars, and I
pour out in brimming cups. I gaze
out at my favourite branches. I loll
against the window in my new-found
freedom. I look at the sweet children on
my knee.
“And now I take my pleasure in my garden. There is a gate, but
it is
rarely opened. I lean on my staff as I wander about or sit down
to
rest. I raise my head and contemplate the lovely scene. Clouds
rise,
unwilling, from the bottom of the hills; the weary bird seeks its
nest
again. Shadows vanish, but still I linger around my lonely pine.
Home
once more! I’ll have no friendships to distract me hence. The times
are
out of joint for me; and what have I to seek from men? In the
pure
enjoyment of the family circle I will pass my days, cheering my
idle
hours with lute and book. My husbandmen will tell me when
spring-time
is nigh, and when there will be work in the furrowed fields.
Thither
I shall repair by cart or by boat, through the deep gorge, over
the
dizzy cliff, trees bursting merrily into leaf, the streamlet
swelling
from its tiny source. Glad is this renewal of life in due season;
but
for me, I rejoice that my journey is over. Ah, how short a time it
is
that we are here! Why then not set our hearts at rest, ceasing to
trouble
whether we remain or go? What boots it to wear out the soul
with anxious
thoughts? I want not wealth; I want not power; heaven is
beyond my hopes.
Then let me stroll through the bright hours as they
pass, in my garden among
my flowers; or I will mount the hill and sing
my song, or weave my verse
beside the limpid brook. Thus will I work
out my allotted span, content with
the appointments of Fate, my spirit
free from care.”
The
“Peach-blossom Fountain” of Tao Ch’ien is a well-known and charming
allegory,
a form of literature much cultivated by Chinese writers.
It tells how a
fisherman lost his way among the creeks of a river,
and came upon a dense and
lovely grove of peach-trees in full bloom,
through which he pushed his boat,
anxious to see how far the grove
extended.
“He found that the
peach-trees ended where the water began, at the
foot of a hill; and there he
espied what seemed to be a cave with
light issuing from it. So he made fast
his boat, and crept in through
a narrow entrance, which shortly ushered him
into a new world of
level country, of fine houses, of rich fields, of fine
pools, and of
luxuriance of mulberry and bamboo. Highways of traffic ran
north and
south; sounds of crowing cocks and barking dogs were heard around;
the
dress of the people who passed along or were at work in the fields
was
of a strange cut; while young and old alike appeared to be
contented
and happy.”
He is told that the ancestors of these people
had taken refuge there
some five centuries before to escape the troublous
days of the “First
Emperor,” and that there they had remained, cut off
completely from
the rest of the human race. On his returning home the story
is noised
abroad, and the Governor sends out men to find this strange region,
but
the fisherman is never able to find it again. The gods had
permitted
the poet to go back for a brief span to the peach-blossom days of
his
youth.
One critic speaks of T’ao Ch’ien as “drunk with the fumes
of spring.”
Another says, “His heart was fixed upon loyalty and duty, while
his
body was content with leisure and repose. His emotions were real,
his
scenery was real, his facts were real, and his thoughts were real.
His
workmanship was so exceedingly fine as to appear natural; his adze
and
chisel (_labor limae_) left no traces behind.”
Much of his poetry
is political, and bristles with allusions to events
which are now forgotten,
mixed up with thoughts and phrases which are
greatly admired by his
countrymen. Thus, when he describes meeting
with an old friend in a far-off
land, such a passage as this would be
heavily scored by editor or critic with
marks of commendation:--
“_Ere words be spoke, the heart is
drunk;
What need to call for wine?_”
The following is one of his
occasional poems:--
“_A scholar lives on yonder hill,
His
clothes are rarely whole to view,
Nine times a month he eats his
fill,
Once in ten years his hat is new.
A wretched lot!--and yet the
while
He ever wears a sunny smile._
_Longing to know what like was
he,
At dawn my steps a path unclosed
Where dark firs left the
passage free
And on the eaves the white clouds dozed._
_But he,
as spying my intent,
Seized his guitar and swept the strings;
Up
flew a crane towards heaven bent,
And now a startled pheasant
springs....
Oh, let me rest with thee until
The winter winds again
blow chill!_”
PAO CHAO was an official and a poet who perished, A.D. 466,
in a
rebellion. Some of his poetry has been preserved:--
“_What do
these halls of jasper mean,
and shining floor,
Where
tapestries of satin screen
window and door?
A lady
on a lonely seat,
embroidering
Fair flowers which
seem to smell as sweet
as buds in spring.
Swallows
flit past, a zephyr shakes
the plum-blooms down;
She
draws the blind, a goblet takes
her thoughts to
drown.
And now she sits in tears, or hums,
nursing
her grief
That in her life joy rarely comes
to bring
relief...
Oh, for the humble turtle’s flight,
my
mate and I;
Not the lone crane far out of
sight
beyond the sky!_”
The original name of a
striking character who, in A.D. 502,
placed himself upon the throne as first
Emperor of the Liang dynasty,
was HSIAO YEN. He was a devout Buddhist, living
upon priestly
fare and taking only one meal a day; and on two occasions, in
527 and
529, he actually adopted the priestly garb. He also wrote a
Buddhist
ritual in ten books. Interpreting the Buddhist commandment “Thou
shalt
not kill” in its strictest sense, he caused the sacrificial victims
to
be made of dough. The following short poem is from his
pen:--
“_Trees grow, not alike,
by the mound and the
moat;
Birds sing in the forest
with varying note;
Of
the fish in the river
some dive and some float.
The
mountains rise high
and the waters sink low,
But the why
and the wherefore
we never can know._”
Another
well-known poet who lived into the seventh century is HSIEH
TAO-HENG. He
offended Yang Ti, the second Emperor of the Sui
dynasty, by writing better
verses than his Majesty, and an excuse was
found for putting him to death.
One of the most admired couplets in the
language is associated with his name
though not actually by him, its
author being unknown. To amuse a party of
friends Hsieh Tao-heng had
written impromptu,
“_A week in the spring
to the exile appears
Like an absence from home of a couple of
years._”
A “southerner” who was present sneered at the shallowness of
the
conceit, and immediately wrote down the following:--
“_If home,
with the wild geese of autumn,
we’re
going,
Our hearts will be off ere the spring
flowers
are blowing._”
An official
of the Sui dynasty was FU I (A.D. 554-639), who became
Historiographer under
the first Emperor of the T’ang dynasty. He
had a strong leaning towards
Taoism, and edited the _Tao-Te-Ching_.
At the same time he presented a
memorial asking that the Buddhist
religion might be abolished; and when Hsiao
Yu, a descendant of Hsiao
Yen (above), questioned him on the subject, he
said, “You were not
born in a hollow mulberry-tree; yet you respect a
religion which
does not recognise the tie between father and son!” He urged
that at
any rate priests and nuns should be compelled to marry and bring
up
families, and not escape from contributing their share to the
revenue,
adding that Hsiao Yu by defending their doctrines showed
himself
no better than they were. At this Hsiao Yu held up his hands,
and
declared that hell was made for such men as Fu I. The result was
that
severe restrictions were placed for a short time upon the teachers
of
Buddhism. The Emperor T’ai Tsung once got hold of a Tartar priest
who could
“charm people into unconsciousness, and then charm them
back to life again,”
and spoke of his powers to Fu I. The latter said
confidently, “He will not be
able to charm me;” and when put to the
test, the priest completely failed. He
was the originator of epitaphs,
and wrote his own, as
follows:--
“_Fu I loved the green hills and the white clouds... Alas!
he died of drink._” |
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