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WANG CHI of the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., was a wild
and
unconventional spirit, with a fatal fondness for wine, which caused
his
dismissal from office. His capacity for liquor was boundless, and
he
was known as the Five-bottle Scholar. In his lucid intervals he
wrote
much beautiful prose and verse, which may still be read with
pleasure.
The following is from an account of his visit to Drunk-Land, the
story
of which is told with all due gravity and in a style modelled upon
that
which is found in ordinary accounts of strange outlandish
nations:--
“This country is many thousand miles from the Middle Kingdom.
It is a
vast, boundless plain, without mountains or undulations of any
kind.
The climate is equable, there being neither night, nor day, nor
cold,
nor heat. The manners and customs are everywhere the
same.
“There are no villages nor congregations of persons. The
inhabitants
are ethereal in disposition, and know neither love, hate, joy,
nor
anger. They inhale the breeze and sip the dew, eating none of the
five
cereals. Calm in repose, slow of gait, they mingle with birds,
beasts,
fishes, and scaly creatures, ignorant of boats, chariots, weapons,
or
implements in general.
“The Yellow Emperor went on a visit to the
capital of Drunk-Land, and
when he came back, he was quite out of conceit
with the empire, the
government of which seemed to him but paltry trifling
with knotted
cords.
“Yuan Chi, T’ao Ch’ien,[11] and some others, about
ten in all, made a
trip together to Drunk-Land, and sank, never to rise
again. They were
buried where they fell, and now in the Middle Kingdom they
are dubbed
Spirits of Wine.
“Alas, I could not bear that the pure and
peaceful domain of Drunk-Land
should come to be regarded as a preserve of the
ancients. So I went
there myself.”
* * *
* *
The period closes with the name of the Emperor known as Yang
Ti,
already mentioned in connection with the poet Hsieh Tao-heng.
The
murderer, first of his elder brother and then of his father, he
mounted
the throne in A.D. 605, and gave himself up to extravagance
and
debauchery. The trees in his park were supplied in winter with
silken leaves
and flowers, and birds were almost exterminated to
provide a sufficient
supply of down for his cushions. After reigning
for thirteen years this
unlikely patron of literature fell a victim to
assassination. Yet in spite of
his otherwise disreputable character,
Yang Ti prided himself upon his
literary attainments. He set one
hundred scholars to work editing a
collection of classical, medical,
and other treatises; and it was under his
reign, in A.D. 606,
that the examination for the second or “master of arts”
degree was
instituted.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] Here the poet makes a
mistake. These two were not contemporaries.
CHAPTER
II
CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP
In the domains of classical and
general literature HUANG-FU MI
(A.D. 215-282) occupies an honourable place.
Beginning life
at the ploughtail, by perseverance he became a fine scholar,
and
adopted literature as a profession. In spite of severe rheumatism
he
was never without a book in his hand, and became so absorbed in
his
work that he would forget all about meals and bedtime. He was
called
the Book-Debauchee, and once when he wished to borrow works from
the
Emperor Wu Ti of the Chin dynasty, whose proffers of office he
had
refused, his Majesty sent him back a cart-load to go on with.
He
produced essays, poetry, and several important biographical works.
His
work on the Spring and Autumn Annals had also considerable
vogue.
SUN SHU-JAN, of about the same date, distinguished himself
by
his works on the Confucian Canon, and wrote on the _Erh Ya_.
HSUN
HSU (_d._ A.D. 289) aided in drawing up a Penal Code for
the
newly-established Chin dynasty, took a leading part in editing
the
Bamboo Annals, which had just been discovered in Honan, provided
a
preface to the _Mu T’ien Tzŭ Chuan_, and also wrote on music.
KUO
HSIANG (_d._ A.D. 312) occupied himself chiefly with the philosophy
of Lao
Tzŭ and with the writings of Chuang Tzŭ. It was said of him
that his
conversation was like the continuous downflow of a rapid, or
the rush of
water from a sluice.
KUO P’O (_d._ A.D. 324) was a scholar of great
repute. Besides editing
various important classical works, he was a brilliant
exponent of the
doctrines of Taoism and the reputed founder of the art of
geomancy as
applied to graves, universally practised in China at the present
day.
He was also learned in astronomy, divination, and natural
philosophy.
FAN YEH, executed for treason in A.D. 445, is chiefly famous
for his
history of the Han dynasty from about the date of the Christian
era,
when the dynasty was interrupted, as has been stated, by a
usurper,
down to the final collapse two hundred years later.
SHEN YO
(A.D. 441-513), another famous scholar, was the son of a
Governor of
Huai-nan, whose execution in A.D. 453 caused him to go
for a time into
hiding. Poor and studious, he is said to have spent
the night in repeating
what he had learnt by day, as his mother,
anxious on account of his health,
limited his supply of oil and fuel.
Entering official life, he rose to high
office, from which he retired
in ill-health, loaded with honours. Personally,
he was remarkable for
having two pupils to his left eye. He was a strict
teetotaller, and
lived most austerely. He had a library of twenty thousand
volumes.
He was the author of the histories of the Chin, Liu Sung, and
Ch’i
dynasties. He is said to have been the first to classify the
four
tones. In his autobiography he writes, “The poets of old, during
the
past thousand years, never hit upon this plan. I alone discovered
its
advantages.” The Emperor Wu Ti of the Liang dynasty one day said
to
him, “Come, tell me, what are these famous four tones?” “They
are
whatever your Majesty pleases to make them,” replied Shen Yo,
skilfully
selecting for his answer four characters which illustrated, and in
the
usual order, the four tones in question.
[Sidenote: HSIAO
T’UNG]
HSIAO T’UNG (A.D. 501-531) was the eldest son of Hsiao Yen,
the
founder of the Liang dynasty, whom he predeceased. Before he was
five
years old he was reported to have learned the Classics by heart,
and
his later years were marked by great literary ability, notably
in
verse-making. Handsome and of charming manners, mild and forbearing,
he
was universally loved. In 527 he nursed his mother through her
last illness,
and his grief for her death impaired his naturally fine
constitution, for it
was only at the earnest solicitation of his father
that he consented either
to eat or drink during the period of mourning.
Learned men were sure of his
patronage, and his palace contained a
large library. A lover of nature, he
delighted to ramble with scholars
about his beautiful park, to which he
declined to add the attraction of
singing-girls. When the price of grain rose
in consequence of the war
with Wei in 526, he lived on the most frugal fare;
and throughout his
life his charities were very large and kept secret, being
distributed
by trusty attendants who sought out all cases of distress. He
even
emptied his own wardrobe for the benefit of the poor, and spent
large
sums in burying the outcast dead. Against forced labour on public
works
he vehemently protested. To his father he was most respectful,
and
wrote to him when he himself was almost at the last gasp, in the
hope
of concealing his danger. But he is remembered now not so much for
his
virtues as for his initiation of a new department in literature.
A
year before his death he completed the _Wen Hsuan_, the first
published
collection of choice works, whole or in part, of a large number
of
authors. These were classified under such heads as poetry of
various
kinds, essays, inscriptions, memorials, funeral orations, epitaphs,
and
prefaces.
The idea thus started was rapidly developed, and has
been continued
down to modern times. Huge collections of works have from time
to
time been reprinted in uniform editions, and many books which
might
otherwise have perished have been preserved for grateful
posterity.
The Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms by Fa Hsien may be quoted as
an
example.
BOOK THE FOURTH
_THE T’ANG DYNASTY_
(A.D. 600-900)
CHAPTER I
POETRY
[Sidenote:
POETRY]
The T’ang dynasty is usually associated in Chinese minds with
much
romance of love and war, with wealth, culture, and refinement,
with
frivolity, extravagance, and dissipation, but most of all
with
poetry. China’s best efforts in this direction were chiefly
produced
within the limits of its three hundred years’ duration, and they
have
been carefully preserved as finished models for future poets of
all
generations.
“Poetry,” says a modern Chinese critic, “came into
being with the
Odes, developed with the _Li Sao_, burst forth and reached
perfection
under the T’angs. Some good work was indeed done under the Han
and
Wei dynasties; the writers of those days seemed to have material
in
abundance, but language inadequate to its expression.”
The
“Complete Collection of the Poetry of the T’ang Dynasty,” published
in 1707,
contains 48,900 poems of all kinds, arranged in 900 books,
and filling thirty
good-sized volumes. Some Chinese writers divide
the dynasty into three
poetical periods, called Early, Glorious, and
Late; and they profess to
detect in the works assigned to each the
corresponding characteristics of
growth, fulness, and decay. Others
insert a Middle period between the last
two, making four periods in
all. For general purposes, however, it is only
necessary to state,
that since the age of the Hans the meanings of words had
gradually
come to be more definitely fixed, and the structural arrangement
more
uniform and more polished. Imagination began to come more freely
into
play, and the language to flow more easily and more musically,
as
though responsive to the demands of art. A Chinese poem is at best
a
hard nut to crack, expressed as it usually is in lines of five or
seven
monosyllabic root-ideas, without inflection, agglutination, or
grammatical
indication of any kind, the connection between which has
to be inferred by
the reader from the logic, from the context, and
least perhaps of all from
the syntactical arrangement of the words.
Then, again, the poet is hampered
not only by rhyme but also by tone.
For purposes of poetry the characters in
the Chinese language are all
ranged under two tones, as _flats_ and _sharps_,
and these occupy
fixed positions just as dactyls, spondees, trochees, and
anapæsts in
the construction of Latin verse. As a consequence, the natural
order
of words is often entirely sacrificed to the exigencies of tone,
thus
making it more difficult than ever for the reader to grasp the
sense.
In a stanza of the ordinary five-character length the following
tonal
arrangement would
appear:--
_Sharp sharp flat flat sharp
Flat flat sharp
sharp flat
Flat flat flat sharp sharp
Sharp sharp sharp
flat flat._
The effect produced by these tones is very marked and
pleasing to
the ear, and often makes up for the faultiness of the rhymes,
which
are simply the rhymes of the Odes as heard 2500 years ago, many
of
them of course being no longer rhymes at all. Thus, there is as
much
artificiality about a stanza of Chinese verse as there is about
an
Alcaic stanza in Latin. But in the hands of the most gifted
this
artificiality is altogether concealed by art, and the very
trammels
of tone and rhyme become transfigured, and seem to be
necessary
aids and adjuncts to success. Many works have been published
to
guide the student in his admittedly difficult task. The first rule
in
one of these seems so comprehensive as to make further perusal
quite
unnecessary. It runs thus:--“Discard commonplace form; discard
commonplace
ideas; discard commonplace phrasing; discard commonplace
words; discard
commonplace rhymes.”
A long poem does not appeal to the Chinese mind.
There is no such thing
as an epic in the language, though, of course, there
are many pieces
extending to several hundred lines. Brevity is indeed the
soul of a
Chinese poem, which is valued not so much for what it says as for
what
it suggests. As in painting, so in poetry suggestion is the end and
aim
of the artist, who in each case may be styled an impressionist.
The
ideal length is twelve lines, and this is the limit set to
candidates
at the great public examinations at the present day, the
Chinese
holding that if a poet cannot say within such compass what he has
to
say it may very well be left unsaid. The eight-line poem is also
a
favourite, and so, but for its extreme difficulty, is the
four-line
epigram, or “stop-short,” so called because of its abruptness,
though,
as the critics explain, “it is only the words which stop, the
sense
goes on,” some train of thought having been suggested to the
reader.
The latter form of verse was in use so far back as the Han dynasty,
but
only reached perfection under the Tangs. Although consisting of
only
twenty or twenty-eight words, according to the measure employed, it
is
just long enough for the poet to introduce, to develop, to
embellish,
and to conclude his theme in accordance with certain established
laws
of composition. The third line is considered the most troublesome
to
produce, some poets even writing it first; the last line should
contain
a “surprise” or _denouement_. We are, in fact, reminded of the
old
formula, “Omne epigramma sit instar apis,” &c., better known in
its
English dress:--
“_The qualities rare in a bee that we
meet
In an epigram never should fail;
The body should always be
little and sweet,
And a sting should be left in the tail._”
The
following is an early specimen, by an anonymous writer, of the
four-line
poem:--
“_The bright moon shining overhead,
The stream beneath
the breeze’s touch,
Are pure and perfect joys indeed,--
But few are
they who think them such._”
Turning now to the almost endless list of
poets from which but a scanty
selection can be made, we may begin with WANG
PO (A.D. 648-676), a
precocious boy who wrote verses when he was six. He took
his degree
at sixteen, and was employed in the Historical Department, but
was
dismissed for satirising the cock-fighting propensities of the
Imperial
princes. He filled up his leisure by composing many beautiful
poems.
He never meditated on these beforehand, but after having prepared
a
quantity of ink ready for use, he would drink himself tipsy and lie
down
with his face covered up. On waking he would seize his pen and
write off
verses, not a word in which needed to be changed; whence
he acquired the
sobriquet of Belly-Draft, meaning that his drafts,
or rough copies, were all
prepared inside. And he received so many
presents of valuable silks for
writing these odes, that it was said “he
spun with his mind.” These lines are
from his pen:--
“_Near these islands a palace
was built
by a prince,
But its music and song
have departed long
since;
The hill-mists of morning
sweep down on the
halls,
At night the red curtains
lie furled on the
walls.
The clouds o’er the water
their shadows still
cast,
Things change like the stars:
how few autumns have
passed
And yet where is that prince?
where is he?--No
reply,
Save the plash of the stream
rolling ceaselessly
by._”
[Sidenote: CH’EN TZŬ-ANG]
A still more famous contemporary
of his was CH’EN TZŬ-ANG (A.D.
656-698), who adopted somewhat sensational
means of bringing himself to
the notice of the public. He purchased a very
expensive guitar which
had been for a long time on sale, and then let it be
known that on the
following day he would perform upon it in public. This
attracted a
large crowd; but when Ch’en arrived he informed his auditors that
he
had something in his pocket worth much more than the guitar.
Thereupon
he dashed the instrument into a thousand pieces, and forthwith
began
handing round copies of his own writings. Here is a sample,
directed
against the Buddhist worship of idols, the “Prophet” representing
any
divinely-inspired teacher of the Confucian school:--
“_On Self
the Prophet never rests his eye,
His to relieve the doom of
humankind;
No fairy palaces beyond the sky,
Rewards to come, are
present to his mind._
_And I have heard the faith by Buddha
taught
Lauded as pure and free from earthly taint;
Why then these
carved and graven idols, fraught
With gold and silver, gems, and jade,
and paint?_
_The heavens that roof this earth, mountain and
dale,
All that is great and grand, shall pass away;
And if the art
of gods may not prevail,
Shall man’s poor handiwork escape
decay?_
_Fools that ye are! In this ignoble light
The true faith
fades and passes out of sight._”
As an official, Ch’en Tzŭ-ang once
gained great _kudos_ by a truly
Solomonic decision. A man, having slain the
murderer of his father,
was himself indicted for murder. Ch’en Tzŭ-ang caused
him to be put to
death, but at the same time conferred an honorific
distinction upon his
village for having produced so filial a son.
Not
much is known of SUNG CHIH-WEN (_d._ A.D. 710), at any rate to his
good. On
one occasion the Emperor was so delighted with some of his
verses that he
took off the Imperial robe and placed it on the poet’s
shoulders. This is one
of his poems:--
“_The dust of the morn
had been laid by
a shower,
And the trees by the bridge
were all covered with
flower,
When a white palfrey passed
with a saddle of
gold,
And a damsel as fair
as the fairest of
old._
_But she veiled so discreetly
her charms from my
eyes
That the boy who was with her
quite felt for my
sighs;
And although not a light-o’-love
reckoned, I
deem,
It was hard that this vision
should pass like a
dream._”
[Sidenote: MENG HAO-JAN]
MENG HAO-JAN (A.D. 689-740) gave
no sign in his youth of the genius
that was latent within him. He failed at
the public examinations, and
retired to the mountains as a recluse. He then
became a poet of the
first rank, and his writings were eagerly sought after.
At the age of
forty he went up to the capital, and was one day conversing
with his
famous contemporary, Wang Wei, when suddenly the Emperor was
announced.
He hid under a couch, but Wang Wei betrayed him, the result being
a
pleasant interview with his Majesty. The following is a specimen of
his
verse:--
“_The sun has set behind the western slope,
The
eastern moon lies mirrored in the pool;
With streaming hair my balcony I
ope,
And stretch my limbs out to enjoy the cool.
Loaded with
lotus-scent the breeze sweeps by,
Clear dripping drops from tall bamboos
I hear,
I gaze upon my idle lute and sigh;
Alas, no sympathetic soul
is near.
And so I doze, the while before mine eyes
Dear friends of
other days in dream-clad forms arise._”
Equally famous as poet and
physician was WANG WEI (A.D. 699-759). After
a short spell of official life,
he too retired into seclusion and
occupied himself with poetry and with the
consolations of Buddhism,
in which he was a firm believer. His lines on
bidding adieu to Meng
Hao-jan, when the latter was seeking refuge on the
mountains, are as
follows:--
“_Dismounted, o’er
wine
we had said our last say;
Then I whisper, ‘Dear
friend,
tell me, whither away?’
‘Alas!’ he
replied,
‘I am sick of life’s ills,
And I long for
repose
on the slumbering hills.
But oh seek not to
pierce
where my footsteps may stray:
The white clouds
will soothe me
for ever and ay.’_”
The accompanying
“stop-short” by the same writer is generally thought
to contain an effective
surprise in the last line:--
“_Beneath the bamboo grove,
alone,
I seize my lute and sit and croon;
No ear to hear me, save
mine own:
No eye to see me--save the moon._”
Wang Wei has been
accused of loose writing and incongruous pictures. A
friendly critic defends
him as follows:--“For instance, there is Wang
Wei, who introduces bananas
into a snow-storm. When, however, we come
to examine such points by the light
of scholarship, we see that his
mind had merely passed into subjective
relationship with the things
described. Fools say he did not know heat from
cold.”
[Sidenote: TS’UI HAO]
A skilled poet, and a wine-bibber and
gambler to boot, was TS’UI
HAO, who graduated about A.D. 730.
He wrote
a poem on the Yellow-Crane pagoda which until quite recently
stood on the
bank of the Yang-tsze near Hankow, and was put up to mark
the spot where Wang
Tzŭ-ch’iao, who had attained immortality, went up
to heaven in broad daylight
six centuries before the Christian era. The
great Li Po once thought of
writing on the theme, but he gave up the
idea so soon as he had read these
lines by Ts’ui Hao:--
“_Here a mortal once sailed
up
to heaven on a crane,
And the Yellow-Crane Kiosque,
will
for ever remain;
But the bird flew away
and will come
back no more,
Though the white clouds are there
as the
white clouds of yore._
_Away to the east
lie fair
forests of trees,
From the flowers on the west
comes a
scent-laden breeze,
Yet my eyes daily turn
to their
far-away home,
Beyond the broad River,
its waves, and
its foam._”
[Sidenote: LI PO]
By general consent LI PO himself
(A.D. 705-762) would probably be
named as China’s greatest poet. His wild
Bohemian life, his gay and
dissipated career at Court, his exile, and his
tragic end, all combine
to form a most effective setting for the splendid
flow of verse which
he never ceased to pour forth. At the early age of ten he
wrote a
“stop-short” to a firefly:--
“_Rain cannot quench thy
lantern’s light,
Wind makes it shine more brightly bright;
Oh why not
fly to heaven afar,
And twinkle near the moon--a star?_”
Li Po began
by wandering about the country, until at length, with five
other tippling
poets, he retired to the mountains. For some time these
Six Idlers of the
Bamboo Grove drank and wrote verses to their hearts’
content. By and by Li Po
reached the capital, and on the strength of
his poetry was introduced to the
Emperor as a “banished angel.” He
was received with open arms, and soon
became the spoilt child of the
palace. On one occasion, when the Emperor sent
for him, he was found
lying drunk in the street; and it was only after having
his face well
mopped with cold water that he was fit for the Imperial
presence. His
talents, however, did not fail him. With a lady of the seraglio
to hold
his ink-slab, he dashed off some of his most impassioned lines;
at
which the Emperor was so overcome that he made the powerful eunuch
Kao
Li-shih go down on his knees and pull off the poet’s boots. On
another
occasion, the Emperor, who was enjoying himself with his
favourite
lady in the palace grounds, called for Li Po to commemorate the
scene
in verse. After some delay the poet arrived, supported between
two
eunuchs. “Please your Majesty,” he said, “I have been drinking with
the
Prince and he has made me drunk, but I will do my best.” Thereupon
two
of the ladies of the harem held up in front of him a pink silk
screen,
and in a very short time he had thrown off no less than ten
eight-line
stanzas, of which the following, describing the life of a
palace
favourite, is one:--
“_Oh, the joy of youth
spent
in a gold-fretted hall,
In the Crape-flower
Pavilion,
the fairest of all,
My tresses for
head-dress
with gay garlands girt,
Carnations
arranged
o’er my jacket and skirt!
Then to wander
away
in the soft-scented air,
And return by the
side
of his Majesty’s chair ...
But the dance and the
song
will be o’er by and by,
And we shall
dislimn
like the rack in the sky._”
As time went on,
Li Po fell a victim to intrigue, and left the Court in
disgrace. It was then
that he wrote--
“_My whitening hair would make a long, long
rope,
Yet would not fathom all my depth of woe._”
After more
wanderings and much adventure, he was drowned on a journey,
from leaning one
night too far over the edge of a boat in a drunken
effort to embrace the
reflection of the moon. Just previously he had
indited the following
lines:--
“_An arbour of flowers
and a kettle of
wine:
Alas! in the bowers
no companion is mine.
Then
the moon sheds her rays
on my goblet and me,
And my shadow
betrays
we’re a party of three._
“_Though the moon
cannot swallow
her share of the grog,
And my shadow must
follow
wherever I jog,--
Yet their friendship I’ll
borrow
and gaily carouse,
And laugh away
sorrow
while spring-time allows._
“_See the moon,--how
she glances
response to my song;
See my shadow,--it
dances
so lightly along!
While sober I
feel
you are both my good friends;
When drunken I
reel,
our companionship ends.
But we’ll soon have a
greeting
without a good-bye,
At our next merry
meeting
away in the sky._”
His control of the “stop-short”
is considered to be perfect:--
(1.) “_The birds have all flown to their
roost in the tree,
The last cloud has just floated lazily by;
But we
never tire of each other, not we,
As we sit there together,--the
mountains and I._”
(2.) “_I wake, and moonbeams play around my
bed,
Glittering like hoar-frost to my wondering eyes;
Up towards the
glorious moon I raise my head,
Then lay me down,--and thoughts of home
arise._”
The following are general extracts:--
A
PARTING.
(1.) “_The river rolls crystal as clear as the sky,
To
blend far away with the blue waves of ocean;
Man alone, when the hour of
departure is nigh,
With the wine-cup can soothe his
emotion._
“_The birds of the valley sing loud in the sun,
Where
the gibbons their vigils will shortly be keeping:
I thought that with tears
I had long ago done,
But now I shall never cease weeping._”
(2.)
“_Homeward at dusk the clanging rookery wings its eager flight;
Then,
chattering on the branches, all are pairing for the night.
Plying her busy
loom, a high-born dame is sitting near,
And through the silken
window-screen their voices strike her ear.
She stops, and thinks of the
absent spouse she may never see again;
And late in the lonely hours of
night her tears flow down like rain._”
(3.) “_What is life after all
but a dream?
And why should such pother be made?
Better far to be
tipsy, I deem,
And doze all day long in the shade._
“_When I
wake and look out on the lawn,
I hear midst the flowers a bird
sing;
I ask, ‘Is it evening or dawn?’
The mango-bird whistles, ‘’Tis
spring.’_
“_Overpower’d with the beautiful sight,
Another full
goblet I pour,
And would sing till the moon rises bright--
But soon
I’m as drunk as before._”
(4.) “_You ask what my soul does away in the
sky,
I inwardly smile but I cannot reply;
Like the peach-blossoms
carried away by the stream,
I soar to a world of which you cannot
dream._”
One more extract may be given, chiefly to exhibit what is held
by
the Chinese to be of the very essence of real poetry,--suggestion.
A
poet should not dot his i’s. The Chinese reader likes to do that
for
himself, each according to his own fancy. Hence such a poem as
the
following, often quoted as a model in its own particular
line:--
“_A tortoise I see on a lotus-flower resting:
A bird ’mid
the reeds and the rushes is nesting;
A light skiff propelled by some
boatman’s fair daughter,
Whose song dies away o’er the fast-flowing
water._”
[Sidenote: TU FU]
Another poet of the same epoch, of whom
his countrymen are also justly
proud, is TU FU (A.D. 712-770). He failed to
distinguish himself at
the public examinations, at which verse-making counts
so much, but had
nevertheless such a high opinion of his own poetry that he
prescribed
it as a cure for malarial fever. He finally obtained a post at
Court,
which he was forced to vacate in the rebellion of 755. As he
himself
wrote in political allegory--
“_Full with the freshets of
the spring the torrent rushes on;
The ferry-boat swings idly, for the
ferry-man is gone._”
After further vain attempts to make an official
career, he took to a
wandering life, was nearly drowned by an inundation, and
was compelled
to live for ten days on roots. Being rescued, he succumbed next
day
to the effects of eating roast-beef and drinking white wine to
excess
after so long a fast. These are some of his poems:--
(1.)
“_The setting sun shines low upon my door
Ere dusk enwraps the river
fringed with spring;
Sweet perfumes rise from gardens by the
shore,
And smoke, where crews their boats to anchor
bring._
“_Now twittering birds are roosting in the bower,
And
flying insects fill the air around....
O wine, who gave to thee thy subtle
power?
A thousand cares in one small goblet drowned!_”
(2.) “_A
petal falls!--the spring begins to fail,
And my heart saddens with the
growing gale.
Come then, ere autumn spoils bestrew the ground,
Do not
forget to pass the wine-cup round.
Kingfishers build where man once laughed
elate,
And now stone dragons guard his graveyard gate!
Who follows
pleasure, he alone is wise;
Why waste our life in deeds of high
emprise?_”
(3.) “_My home is girdled by a limpid stream,
And
there in summer days life’s movements pause,
Save where some swallow flits
from beam to beam,
And the wild sea-gull near and nearer
draws._
“_The goodwife rules a paper board for chess;
The
children beat a fish-hook out of wire;
My ailments call for physic more or
less,
What else should this poor frame of mine require?_”
(4.)
“_Alone I wandered o’er the hills to seek the hermit’s den,
While sounds of
chopping rang around the forest’s leafy glen.
I passed on ice across the
brook, which had not ceased to freeze,
As the slanting rays of afternoon
shot sparkling through the trees._
“_I found he did not joy to gloat
o’er fetid wealth by night,
But, far from taint, to watch the deer in the
golden morning light....
My mind was clear at coming; but now I’ve lost my
guide,
And rudderless my little bark is drifting with the
tide!_”
(5.) “_From the Court every eve to the pawnshop I
pass,
To come back from the river the drunkest of men;
As often as
not I’m in debt for my glass;--
Well, few of us live to be threescore and
ten._
_The butterfly flutters from flower to flower,
The
dragon-fly sips and springs lightly away,
Each creature is merry its brief
little hour,
So let us enjoy our short life while we may._”
Here
is a specimen of his skill with the “stop-short,” based upon a
disease common
to all Chinese, poets or otherwise,--nostalgia:--
“_White gleam the
gulls across the darkling tide,
On the green hills the red flowers seem
to burn;
Alas! I see another spring has died....
When will it
come--the day of my return?_”
Of the poet CHANG CH’IEN not much is known.
He graduated in 727, and
entered upon an official career, but ultimately
betook himself to the
mountains and lived as a hermit. He is said to have
been a devotee of
Taoism. The following poem, however, which deals with
_dhyana_, or
the state of mental abstraction in which all desire for
existence is
shaken off, would make it seem as if his leanings had been
Buddhistic.
It gives a perfect picture, so far as it goes, of the Buddhist
retreat
often to be found among mountain peaks all over China, visited
by
pilgrims who perform religious exercises or fulfil vows at the feet
of
the World-Honoured, and by contemplative students eager to shake
off
the “red dust” of mundane affairs:--
“_The clear dawn creeps
into the convent old,
The rising sun tips its tall trees with
gold,
As, darkly, by a winding path I reach
Dhyana’s hall, hidden
midst fir and beech.
Around these hills sweet birds their pleasure
take,
Man’s heart as free from shadows as this lake;
Here worldly
sounds are hushed, as by a spell,
Save for the booming of the altar
bell._”
There can be little doubt of the influence of Buddhism upon the
poet
TS’EN TS’AN, who graduated about 750, as witness his lines on
that
faith:--
“_A shrine whose eaves in far-off cloudland hide:
I
mount, and with the sun stand side by side.
The air is clear; I see wide
forests spread
And mist-crowned heights where kings of old lie
dead.
Scarce o’er my threshold peeps the Southern Hill;
The Wei
shrinks through my window to a rill....
O thou Pure Faith, had I but known
thy scope,
The Golden God[12] had long since been my
hope!_”
[Sidenote: WANG CHIEN]
WANG CHIEN took the highest degree
in 775, and rose to be Governor of a
District. He managed, however, to offend
one of the Imperial clansmen,
in consequence of which his official career was
abruptly cut short. He
wrote a good deal of verse, and was on terms of
intimacy with several
of the great contemporary poets. In the following
lines, the metre of
which is irregular, he alludes to the extraordinary case
of a soldier’s
wife who spent all her time on a hill-top looking down the
Yang-tsze,
watching for her husband’s return from the wars. At
length--
“_Where her husband she sought,
By the
river’s long track,
Into stone she was wrought,
And
can never come back;
’Mid the wind and the rain-storm for ever and
ay,
She appeals to each home-comer passing that way._”
The last line
makes the stone figure, into which the unhappy woman was
changed, appear to
be asking of every fresh arrival news of the missing
man. That is the skill
of the artist, and is inseparably woven into the
original.
[Sidenote:
HAN YU]
Passing over many poets equally well known with some of those
already
cited, we reach a name undoubtedly the most venerated of all those
ever
associated in any way with the great mass of Chinese literature. HAN
YU
(A.D. 768-824), canonised and usually spoken of as Han Wen-kung,
was
not merely a poet, but a statesman of the first rank, and
philosopher
to boot. He rose from among the humblest of the people to the
highest
offices of State. In 803 he presented a memorial protesting
against
certain extravagant honours with which the Emperor Hsien Tsung
proposed
to receive a bone of Buddha. The monarch was furious, and but for
the
intercession of friends it would have fared badly with the bold
writer.
As it was, he was banished to Ch’ao-chou Fu in Kuangtung, where
he
set himself to civilise the rude inhabitants of those wild parts. In
a
temple at the summit of the neighbouring range there is to be seen
at this
day a huge picture of the Prince of Literature, as he has been
called by
foreigners from his canonisation, with the following
legend
attached:--“Wherever he passed, he purified.” He is even said to
have
driven away a huge crocodile which was devastating the watercourses
in
the neighbourhood; and the denunciatory ultimatum which he addressed
to
the monster and threw into the river, together with a pig and a
goat, is
still regarded as a model of Chinese composition. It was
not very long ere he
was recalled to the capital and reinstated in
office; but he had been
delicate all his life and had grown prematurely
old, and was thus unable to
resist a severe illness which came upon
him. His friend and contemporary, Liu
Tsung-yuan, said that he never
ventured to open the works of Han Yu without
first washing his hands
in rose-water. His writings, especially his essays,
are often of the
very highest order, leaving nothing to be desired either in
originality
or in style. But it is more than all for his pure and noble
character,
his calm and dignified patriotism, that the Chinese still keep
his
memory green. The following lines were written by Su Tung-p’o,
nearly
300 years after his death, for a shrine which had just been put up
in
honour of the dead teacher by the people of Ch’ao-chou Fu:--
“_He
rode on the dragon to the white cloud domain;
He grasped with his hand the
glory of the sky;
Robed with the effulgence of the stars,
The wind
bore him delicately to the throne of God.
He swept away the chaff and husks
of his generation.
He roamed over the limits of the earth.
He clothed
all nature with his bright rays,
The third in the triumvirate of
genius.[13]
His rivals panted after him in vain,
Dazed by the
brilliancy of the light.
He cursed Buddha; he offended his prince;
He
journeyed far away to the distant south;
He passed the grave of Shun, and
wept over the daughters of Yao.
The water-god went before him and stilled
the waves.
He drove out the fierce monster as it were a lamb.
But
above, in heaven, there was no music, and God was sad,
And summoned him to
his place beside the Throne.
And now, with these poor offerings, I salute
him;
With red lichees and yellow plantain fruit.
Alas! that he did not
linger awhile on earth,
But passed so soon, with streaming hair, into the
great unknown._”
Han Yu wrote a large quantity of verse, frequently
playful, on an
immense variety of subjects, and under his touch the
commonplace was
often transmuted into wit. Among other pieces there is one on
his
teeth, which seemed to drop out at regular intervals, so that he
could
calculate roughly what span of life remained to him. Altogether,
his
poetry cannot be classed with that of the highest order, unlike
his
prose writings, extracts from which will be given in the next
chapter.
The following poem is a specimen of his lighter
vein:--
“_To stand upon the river-bank
and snare the
purple fish,
My net well cast across the stream,
was all
that I could wish.
Or lie concealed and shoot the
geese
that scream and pass apace,
And pay my rent and
taxes with
the profits of the chase.
Then home to peace
and happiness,
with wife and children gay,
Though
clothes be coarse and fare be hard,
and earned from day to
day.
But now I read and read, scarce knowing
what ’tis
all about,
And, eager to improve my mind,
I wear my body
out.
I draw a snake and give it legs,
to find I’ve
wasted skill,
And my hair grows daily whiter
as I hurry
towards the hill.[14]
I sit amid the sorrows
I have
brought on my own head,
And find myself estranged from
all,
among the living dead.
I seek to drown my
consciousness
in wine, alas! in vain:
Oblivion passes
quickly
and my griefs begin again.
Old age comes on, and
yet withholds
the summons to depart....
So I’ll take
another bumper
just to ease my aching
heart._” |
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