Dictions Dictionaries and The Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry

Diction, Dictionaries, and the Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry Author(s): William H. Nienhauser Jr.
Source: T'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 64, Livr. 1/3 (1978), pp. 47-109 Published by: BRILL Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4528128 . Accessed: 29/07/2011 16:58
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Toung Pao, Vol. LXIV, I-3
DICTION, DICTIONARIES, AND THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY')

BY
WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER
ABBREVIATIONS
Jr.
AM AO BSOAS BMFEA
CHHP
Asia Major Archiv Orientalnti Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities
Ch'ing-hua hsiieh-pao (Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies)
HJAS JAOS JA S MS OE PMLA SPPY SPTK TP
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of A sian Studies Monumenta Serica Oriens Extremus Publications of the Modern Language Association Ssu-pu pei-yao Ssu-pu ts'ung-k'an T'oung Pao Sorgfaltig priif ich Meinen Plan: er ist GroB genug, er ist Unverwirklichbar. -Brecht INTRODUCTION
When a critic speaks of "culture" or "cultural background" in a discussion of translation 2), one immediately calls for a definition
') I should like to thank Professors F. A. Bischoff, Michael B. Fish, Karl Kao, Gerald Mathias, Joachim Schoeberl, and especially Mau-tsai Liu, for their suggestions, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin for their support, and the staff of the Institute for Sex Research, Bloomington, Indiana, for its kindness. None of the above are responsible for the content of this essay. 2) This paper was in part provoked by Wang Fang-yu's discussion of "culture" and "culture background" in the translation of classical Chinese poetry ["On Translating Chinese Poems Written in Cursive Script," Journal Therein Mr. Wang seems of Chinese Linguistics, 2.2 (May 1974), pp. 2I9-228]. to advocate reading classical Chinese poetry without the use of any "tools" [his term] human or otherwise (cf. p. 227). It is obvious that a Western reader, no matter how proficient in classical Chinese, cannot sense the subtleties which a T'ang poet, with much of the Shih-ching and Wen-hsiian as well
48
WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.
of such terms. Often it seems that they refer to a native speaker's intuitive feeling for his language. Yet although native speakers of Chinese certainly share a portion of the culture or cultural background with their literary ancestors, this store of knowledge can be found as well in the printed depositories-dictionaries and concordances-which grace so many sinological studies. Without attempting to consider the human resources, therefore, this paper proposes to examine the possibilities for the use of these printed tools of translation as illustrated in several translations, and to append a postface which attempts to apply the lessons of this practice toward the improveinent of existing reference materials and the initiation of new dictionaries and concordances. One of the central difficulties in translation is the question of diction. Diction, as defined by Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary 3), signifies the "choice of words especially with regard to correctness, clearness, or effectiveness." This is the basic stuff of translation 4). Only through an understanding of diction, of the correctness, clearness, and effectiveness of the words of the poet, can such larger concerns as tone, cliche, dialect (be it geographical, social, or occupational), mood, connotation, style and allegory be determined. Without an understanding of these aspects of language, translation efforts will remain "culturally deficient." A century ago most serious translators attempted to correct this deficiency by working closely with native speakers. This is, of course, still desirable today, but the traditionally educated native speaker of James
as their imnportantcommentaries by heart, could. The common corpus was, however, already jeopardized by the social changes among the literati during the late T'ang and Sung and by the continuation of the sixty-chiian Wenhsiian in a work of much larger proportions, the Wen-yu-an ying-hua i<;V A V. Thus David Lattimore's observation in his "Allusion and T'ang Poetry", in Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett, eds., Perspectives on the T'ang (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 410, that Americans today "read too many books, too seldom the same books" to facilitate a literary tradition such as that of traditional China, can also be applied to a certain extent to modern Chinese scholars attempting to read classical Chinese poetry. 3) Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton and Company, I963, p. 231. 4) See Peter A. Boodberg, "Cedules from a Berkeley Workshop," CHHP, 7 (I969), p. io: the "search for diction in some degree commensurate with that of the original" is the "primary responsibility of the translator"; see also his "Diction and Poetic UJnity," Ibid., pp. 27-28.
CHINESE POETRY OF CLASSICAL THE TRANSLATION
49
Legge'sday is no longerso widelyorreadilyavailable5). Fortoday's and punctuated grammars and concordances, student dictionaries editionshave of necessitybegun to supplanthim. This, it would seem, is a healthy trend, since sinology, like many of its sister disciplineswhich deal with all aspects of a long-lived culture, of other literahas laggedsadly behindthe criticaldevelopments native speakers upon over-dependence of its because tures,primarily (whohave beenforthe mostpart,andhereone mustspeakof those less interestedin such problems),and the educatedtraditionally, field of Chineselinguistics.Thus entire relativelyunderdeveloped can only such as the formalist-structuralist, schools of criticism} be applied superficiallyto Chineseliterature,because we have data. In many ways Harmut not yet the syntacticalor semantical Fahndrich'sbleak evaluation of Near Eastern Studies could be applied to contemporarysinology: "... a field of study, grounds,partlybecauseof the alibi whichpartlyon organizational of the necessarymasteringof difficultlanguages,and partly-so one fears-out of indolence,continuesto allow resultsof research and orientsitself, to go unobserved, disciplines of its neighboring and permanently with regardto content as well as methodology of its own discipline almost exclusivelytowardsthe predecessors of recentconthe application . . . } 6). What can be done? Perhaps
5) The lack of interest and method in classical studies in Taiwan and the heavily political tone of recent post-CulturalRevolution works add to the dilemma. One thinks of some of the interpretationsof poems by Kuo Mo-jo in his study, Li Po yis Tu Fx f t4itJrX (Peking: Chung-hua gt Chung-kgo shu-chu, I97^), or the latest revision of Liu Ta-chieh's RIJ7t7> t Mg t (Yol.I; Shanghai:Jen-minch'u-pan fa-chan-shih@ S $1; wen-hsixeh she, I973; vol. 2, I975) which praises (in chapter I, vol. 2) highly the four socalled "Legalist" poets, I,i Po, Li Ho, Li Shang-yin and Liu Tsung-yuan, feels it necessary to mildly chastise Tu Fu, and ends in a depiction of the close cultural relationships between T'ang China and Heian Japan, to whichis appendedthe hope for continuedpresent-daygood relationsbetween the two nations. Two other importantworks in the last few years published in the People's Republic illustrate the inadequacy of these studies as aids in translation (and suggest in the latter case possibly the inadequacy of the editorial staff as well): Chang Shih-chao g + iIJ, Liu-wen chih-yao a study of Liu Tsung00 ;ttE]X (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chu, I97I), yuan's prose written is classical Chixese, and the newest edition of the in which there I975), Hsix T'axg-shg gfi24 (Peking: Chung-hua-shu-chu, are practically no notes or commentary (in contrast to, for example, the ). shu-chuedition of the Shih-chi t =-e detailedexegesisof the I959 Chung-hua und Arabistik,Einzellfalloder Symptom 6) In his "Literaturwissenschaft ?", Die Weltdes Orients,7 (I974), pp. o59-z66. einer 'Altertumswissenschaft'
50
cepts of language to our needs would produce at least a provisional solution. For example, Saussurian-influencedlinguists and literary critics have long divided language (langage) into the particular language system of a nation or period (langue) and the manner of speech of an individual within this system (parole).Such a dichotomy calls quite naturally for dictionaries (for langue) and concordances (to classify parole of a single author, work, or school). Moreover, these concepts correspondwell to two important features of diction: vocabulary and trope 7). They would provide for the description of the literal or denotative meaning (dictionaries) and the figurative or connotative values (to be found to some extent in dictionaries, but primarily in concordances),and finally (gradually, at least) for the understandingand recording of special or symbolic readings of a tradition or corpus 8). But before one sets out to describe in detail lexicographicdesiderata, perhaps some attempt should be made to describe what is currently available. With no claim to completeness and in the interests primarily of this study (which is concernedwith the translation of poetry), five works beg mention: i) Morohashi Tetsuji ft:d-, Daikanwa jiten .t - t (I2 vols.; Tokyo: Taishiukan shoten, I955-I960 [hereafterDaikanwa]); 2) ChangCh'i-yiin T; v], (38 vols.; Taipei: Chung-kuowenta-tz'u-tien -p Chung-wen 'M' 3) P'ei-wenyiinhua yen-chiu-so, I962-I968 [hereafterChung-wen]); I937 [hereafter Press, Commercial vols.; Shanghai: fu Wrffigf (7 (Shanghai: T'ung-wen J)'ei-wen]);4) P'ien-tzu lei-pien 9) # JM shu-chii, I887 [hereafter P'ien-tzu]); and 5) Chang Hsiang Tt yii-tz'u hui-shih S j IR f Slhih-tz'u-ch'ii (Hong Kong: Chunga four of works The first these are quite exhaushua shu-chii, i962).
The original passage reads: ". . . fuir eine Wissenschaft, die es sich z.T. aus organisatorischen Griinden, z. T. unter den Alibi der notwendigen Erlernung schwieriger Sprachen und z. T.-so ist zu befiirchten-aus Bequemlichkeit weitgehend gestattet, Forschungsergebnisse ihrer Nachbarfacher unbeachtet zu lassen und sich standig fast ausschliesslich-sowohl inhaltlich als auch methodisch-an ihren innerfachlichen Vorgangern orientiert .... [p. 259]." 7) See Maureen Robertson's comments, "Poetic Diction in the Works of Li He (791-817)," (Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, UJniversity of WXashington,
8) 1970),
p. v.
Each personal symbol of every school or author cannot, of course, be identified, but certain important traditional symbols and those for which a poet may be well known should be; cf. also note 38. 9) Now infinitely more convenient to use since the publication of Wallace P'ien-tzu lei-pien yin-te 1 I-1 (Taipei: Ssu-k'u S. Johnson, Jr.'s (fA,E)
shu-Cllii,
T966).
THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY
5I
tive in their inclusion of graphs. Yet it is precisely this feature which proves a major drawback, for it shifts the emphasis from diachronic changes in meaning which are so important in any language. It is noteworthy, too, that these four works are all arranged according to traditional Chinese methods (rhyme or radical). No attention has been paid to the Chinese "words" themselves. No cognates listed, no archaic pronunciations given 10). Moreover, glosses are often based upon traditional commentaries and much too vague ("the appearance of water flowing," etc.) which tends to produce translations more dependent upon the poetic sense of the translator (and thus often virtually new poems) than semantic exactness. Teng Ssu-yui and Knight Biggerstaff, in their An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Chinese Reference Works 11), suggest that the Chung-wen is only "partly based" upon the Daikanwa. They provide character and compound counts which imply certain additions made by the Chung-wen editors. These editors have also reputedly carefully checked the citations given in Daikanwa before incorporating them 12). Endymion Wilkinson, however, in his dis10) Despite Peter Boodberg's complaint that in sinology ' the study of the living tissue of the word has almost completely been neglected in favor of that of the graphic integument encasing it," in "Some Proleptical Remarks on the Evolution of Archaic Chinese", HJAS, 2 (I937), pp. 329-372 (quotation from p. 329), this aspect of etymological studies has been shamelessly neglected. This has resulted in the publication of works such as Chang Hsiian's .F M, Chung-wen ch'ang-yung san-ch'ien tzu hsing-i shih r* U ,' E PX T (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, I968), which, as Paul L.-M. Serruys has noted in his review (Journal of Chinese Linguistics, I.3 [September I973], p. 479) "deals with the graphic aspects and not 'etymology,' i.e. the relation between graph and word in its sound and meaning." One of the few scholars to apply such considerations to translation is Todo AkiyasuC O see his "Kodaigo no imi to koten no kaidoku" t ft - t Xgk Of C M (The Meaning of Ancient Words and the Decipherment of the Classics), see also Todo's Kanji gogen Nihon Ch?igokugakkai ho, I3 (I96I), pp. I32-I44; jiten; Bernhard Karlgren, "Cognate Words in Chinese Phonetic Series," BMFEA, 28(I956), pp. i-i 8; Karlgren, "Word Families in Chinese, "BMFEA and E. G. Pulleyblank, "Some New Hypotheses Conpp. 9-I20; 5(I934), cerning Word Families in Chinese," Journal of Chinese Linguistics, i . i
(January 1973), pp. III-I25. 11) 3rd ed.; Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press,
12) 1971,
p.
I33.
In a spot check of the characters discussed by Teng and Biggerstaff, i - (one) and huang fi (yellow), a textual error in Daikanwa had been corrected in Chung-wen: the title Huang-ho-lou ming r tAit , cited properly in Chung-wen, vol. 38, p. I7030, item 489o4.133b, was given incorrectly as Huang-ho-lou luiW. item 47926.I44, in Daikanwa, vol. 12, p. 13549,
52
cussion of the relative merits of these two works (in The History of Imperial China, A Research Guide [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I973, p. 9]) calls the Chung-wen a "Chinese version of the Dai kanzea jiten." These descriptions are so typical of those heard among sinologists today, that a study of the indebtcdness of the Chung-zwen to the Daikanwa would certainly prove of great interest 13). The former, although it seems to list more compounds as Teng and Biggerstaff have pointed out, is sometimes less detailed in its glosses or definitions (compare the two page section under in Daikanwa, vol. I0, pp. I0960-I096I, item 35658.35 Lun-yii , to the four-sentence textual history of the same work given in vol. 3I, p. I3532, item 365II.75. Although cross refChung-zwen, erences are given in Chung-wen, they do not provide the specific item-number information cited in Daikanzwa. Moreover, occasionally Chung-zeen lists a figurative meaning without indicating it as such glosses in Daikanzea, vol. I, p. 4I, item (cf. i-tao liang-tuan - j vol. I, p. 5, item I.4I). Finally, some graphs I.I457 and Chung-wen,
Liu Yeh-ch'iu IJ t4 t, moreover, warns against discrepancies between passages cited in P'ei-wen and original texts, see his Chung-kuo ku-tai te tzu-tien J# (Peking: Chung-huashu-chii, I964), pp. I32-I33. 1E 13) Reviews and studies of sinological lexicographic aids in general such as "Tz'u-hai k'an-wu" a (Critical Notes and Wang I-t'ung's ZET W a Correctionsto the Tz'u-hai), CHHP, 2. i(May I960), pp. I30-I42 or Iriya Yoshitaka's A,N & Ai review of Chang Hsiang's Shih-tz'u-ch'ii yi-tz'u huishih in Chilgokubungakuh5,I(I954), pp. 137-I56, are all too uncommon. The work of Irwin von Zach is the outstanding exception. His Lexicographische Beitrdge (4 vols.; Peking, 1902-06) and corrections and additions to various reference works (both Chinese and Western) are still of importance (see Alfred Hoffman's bibliography of von Zach's work in his "Dr. Erwin OE, Io[i963], pp. i-6o). For example, in a Ritter von Zach [1872-1942]," recent lively discussion with several scholars (including one traditionally educated native sinologist) the simile "tsui ju ni" a An F (drunk as "mud") which had been encountered in a Tu Fu poem elicited some minutes of personal drinking stories and dissertations on Tu Fu's morals, before the poem itself was ruled untranslatable because of this uniquely recalcitrant figure of speech. A chance paging of von Zach's Beitrage several months thereafter revealed the solution (vol. II, p. 8, item #279; a check in P'eiweenor Daikanwa would have revealed as much, but none of the group was bothered by the common term ni E [mud] enough to consult a dictionary): ni in this trope refers to an organism which lives primarily in water and sways and reels as if intoxicated when set upon the dry land. Von Zach's translations of Li Po (some 985 verses out of a total of roughly I ioo), incidentally, have been edited by Professor Hoffman, and are at last to appear as a volume in the series Veroffentlichungen des Ostasien-Institutes der Ruhrin the near future. Unlversitdt Bochumn
53
are glossed in more detail in Daikanwa (compare the ten items under huang-ho AM [yellow crane] in Daikanwa, vol. I2, Pp. I3458I3459, items 47926.I36-I45 to Chung-wen'snine, vol. 38, p. I7030, items 48904.I336-I344). Thus it seems these two works should be used as complements, inuch in the manner that the Ssu-k'tt ch'iianshutsung-mueditors advocated employing the P'ei-wenand P'ien-tzu. These two large phrase dictionaries, the P'ei-wen and P'ien-tzu, contain many of the faults of their modern successors. Their corpora of examples are larger, but their design facilitates composition more than exegesis (thus they often do not give titles to works cited, but merely genres as an indication of usage). They are, moreover, somewhat limited to imagistic or substantival compounds. The fifth work mentioned above, that of Chang Hsiang, deals primarily with colloquialisms in the various poetic genres from the T'ang through the Ming periods. It cites examples, gives definitions, and, to some degree indicates the usage of a compound or word (see its preface, p. I) 13). The most apparent weakness of all these works is also that which unites them: they are all based upon traditional commentaries and editions. The P'ei-wen and P'ien-tzu have undoubtedly provided much of the material for their contemporary counterparts, the Chung-wen and the Daikanwa, which are essentially abridged versions of these earlier works, punctuated, with glosses taken from traditional commentaries. Given the deficiencies of these works, it seems imperative that new dictionaries and concordances (which will in turn allow lexicographers to select their illustrations from a broader corpus) be compiled. To this topic, however, ample discussion will be allowed in the postface. In anticipation of the appended suggestions for the improvement of existing reference works, the author must apologize for the failure of the following translations and analyses to meet all the standards of contemporary literary criticism. It is to be hoped, however, that the inadequacies of these translations may illustrate not only the author's shortcomings, but further the need for the materials and methodology called for in the postface below.
THE POEMS
in A Demonstrationof the Role of Dictionaries and Concordances Translationand Exegesis

The first poem with which this study will attempt to portray some of the problems involved in translating classical Chinese poetry
54
is the initial of a thirty-eight piece allegoricalseries of five-syllableline, old-style verses by Ch'en Tzu-ang J, y-pp (A.D. 66I-70I) entitled "Kan-yii" ga (Moved by Events [literally 'Moved by What Has Happened'])14):
m
NA X
'
miai qiau njuen 9qiim thai sam tsiii sam
yiuaet iay kuay bA phaek khiak yiuaen tsiey nui
tshiuit sia tsiey ED

id
sei thai tiy a tiet then jpiaei sie nai
hai 15) sidy man im YiaY thisi hiagy tshdi

tiay
16)
shaey kiiy liay shiuii
14) On Ch'en Tzu-ang and this series in particular see Man-wui Ho, "Ch'en Tzu-ang (66I-702), Innovator in T'ang Poetry," (Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, London University, 1975), especially section 2, chapter 3. 15) This poem is transcribed according to Hugh Stimson's Middle-Chinese reconstructions (see Stimson, The Jongyuan in yunn [New Haven: Far Eastern Publications, I966]) which attempts to reproduce the pronunciation of the early T'ang period. I have further used this transcription system for the other T'ang poems under discussion, although E. G. Pulleyblank's work on the changes in mid- and late-T'ang pronunciation could also have been CHHP, considered (see his "The Rhyming Categories of Li Ho [79I-817]," 7[I969], [pp. 1-22] p. 5: "Though the evidence cited shows the shift in linguistic standards already in the first half of the eighth century, I have not so far found evidence of its effect on poetic rhyming until around 8oo. . ."; pp. 197-239, AM, i6[i97T], and his "Late Middle Chinese," AM, 15[1970], To transcribe Li Ch'ing-chao's verse I have employed Stimson's pp. 12I-I68). Old Mandarin readings. Poems or excerpts of poems fromi reference wN-orks have not been transcribed. $ (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chu, i96o), p. 2; 16) Ch'en Tzu--angchi 0 (Hong Kong: Kao Pu-ying Ai9 ig , T'ang Sung shih chii-yao )f 51 3g I , Chung-hua shu-chii, 1973), vol. I, pp. I-3; Ch'en Po-yii wen-chi 1 it ch. I, fol. 2a (SPTK); and Ch'iian T'ang shih ;ff (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1960) [hereafter Shih], ch. 83, pp. 889-890.
55
As the faint moon emerges from the western sea, A dimmed sun begins to rise and take its place. When its globular glare floods the East, The shadowy soul will already be frozen in the dawn. From the Great Ultimate rose heaven and earth, The three primaries decline and flourish in turn. The quintessence, one suspects, resides in that, But who can be certain on the night of the fifteenth?
17)
This poem and the entire "Kan-yiu"series are generally considered to be allegorical18). One interpretation of this verse identifies the usurper, Empress Wu R (r. A.D. 690-705), with the moon, and her son, the legitimate ruler, with the sun whose light will inevitably grow so strong as to obliterate his moon-mother. Other readings of the poem find no sun at all, but see it as a depiction of the phases of the moon 19).These interpretations are weakened, however, by astronomical verity, for when the moon is full (on the fifteenth of the lunar month) as it is in this poem, its rise and set are exactly opposite that of the sun. At midnight it is directly overhead, as the sun is at noon, and in the morning at approximately 6 a.m. it sets while gradually being made invisible by the light of the rising sun 20). Although such knowledgemay be arcane to many a humanist today, the T'ang poets, who often sat up through the night moon-viewing or were required to rise and go to court in the pre-dawn, were certainly cognizant of it. But one would hope to be able to demonstrate that there is strong evidence supporting this interpretation within the text itself, emphasizing especially what can be learned from dictionaries and concordances. The first line is of particular interest. It was conventional to speak of the crescent moon (miai yiuaet, fl) rising or appearing in the West, since it is there that it first becomes visible (having risen in the East during daylight hours) in the early evening of the
17) Variants are t for lLS (line one), IL for ft (line two), and 'f for 1E (line three). 18) During the T'ang it was a practice to use "Kan-yii" as a vehicle for ch. I30, fol. 3a (PN). political criticism; see Chiu T'ang shu * J, 19) See Ho, "Ch'en," for a discussion of the various traditional interpretations. 20) See note 41.
56

21).
first week of the lunar month
Ch'en's line echoes closely Fu
Hsulan J4
(A.D. 2I7-278):
The slight moon rises in the western quarter 22). In "Kan-yil," however, there is a full moon. Thus this first line can better be taken as an allusion to the "Li ch'i" fT-, (Take Ritual as a Measure) 23) chapter of the Li chi 1TO (Book of Rites), as Yii has noted in his short essay Cheng-hsieh MtTE (A.D. I775-I840) i (The Moon is Born from the Sea) 24). "Yiieh sheng yui hai" ,A The original Li chi passage reads: The way of heaven is the highest teaching, the sage the highest [manifestation] of virtue. In the ancestral temple the jar with clouds and lightning represented upon it stood on the eastern steps, and that with the ox on it on the western. Down in the hall, the larger drums were suspended in the west, and the smaller drums answering to them in the east. The ruler appeared on the top of the eastern steps, his wife was in the apartment (to the west). The great luminary (sun) makes his appearance in the east; the moon makes her appearance in the west 25). Such are the divisions of yin and yang, and such are the positions of husband and wife. The ruler in the west pours his cup from the jar with the ox represented upon it, his wife in the east fills hers from that of clouds and lightning. When the ritual pledges are made to one another above, and the
"Yung-huai" 21) See, for example Juan Chi's KfN (A.D. 2Io-263), C in Han Wei Liu-ch'ao pai-erh chi A 2/ A #7, Juan Pu-ping chi G _-i (Taipei: Hsin-hsing shu-chui, i963), section 4 (Wei), fol. 65a, p. 240, a poem belonging to a series which commentators have often claimed influenced Ch'en's "Kan-yii". 22) The translation is Jordan Paper's, "The Life and Thought of Fu Hsiian
(Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, (A.D. 217-278)," "Ch'iian p. I3I. The original line can be found in Ting Fu-pao T Vy, I970), Chin shih" - E, , in Ch'iian Han San-kuo Chin Nan-pei ch'ao shih Effl:ffMk#A:1, (Taipei: I-wen yin-shu-kuan, I96I), ch. 2, fol. I4b (p. 400).
23) On the title of this chapter see Karlgren, "Glosses on the Li Ki," p. 25. BMFEA, 43(I97I), 24) Kuei-ssu ts'un-hao 4P , (Reprint; Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu-
kuan, I957),
pp. 54-55. I would like to thank Ms. Sharon Shih-chuan
Hou for
pointing out this passage. 25) Author's italics.
57
>XtA.XtFt, ARA. XttA. X R#68. RegA}, AMS t-E tESgt. tAXSg. MER)1R2L, xp!ST;, T|2i 27
music echoes (from drum to drum) below, this is the ultimate of harmony 26), iXi, Ai82W- 22S, tAt tXttS. rkt2w, 4Rt&-A-
References to the contemporary political situation in Ch'en Tzuang's day are obvious. The association of empress, west, moon, and propriety is also significant. By alluding to this passage, the poem proposes that the empress return to her proper place according to the Confucianritual. The second line describes the growth of qiX-iag , literally "the obscuredyang," a term which accordingto the referenceworks originated with Ch'en Tzu-ang 28), Our understanding of this term is based upon an Erh-ya gE gloss: ,t 29). The sun is not normally obscured and this discord suggests again the underlying allegory (sun-legitimate rulerobscuredby his mother). Associations of the sun and moon with female and male are common from the legend of Hou I S X and Ch'ang O XR through the theories of F. Max Muller. Traditionally, of course, the sun and moon have also functioned as symbols of emperor and empress. In Yang Chen's %t (d. A.D. I24) biography in the Hog Han shg&, for example, one finds the following: If women are entrusted with tasks involving contact with the outside, cause they will disorder and confusion in the empire, harm and bring shame on the Imperialcourt, and sully sun and moon (i.e. Emperorand Empress). A R X X, M GL X X, g t iX, # ,% El X 30).
26)Author's translation having consulted James Legge, TheLi Ki (Oxford: Clarendon Press, I885), vol. 2, p. 4II and Takeuchi Teruo t t H>> , Ri ki "e, vol. I (Tokyo: Kabushiki kaisha, I97I), pp. 373-374. 27) Li-chi cheng-ii&, ch 24, fol sb (sPPy) 28) See Daikanwa, vol. 4, p. 3944, item 9205.439; Chmng-wen,vol. II, p. 47II, item g4II.230; P'ei-wen, vol. 2, p. g6g-middle; and P'ien-tz>, ch. 238, fol. 38a. Both Daikanwaand Chgng-wen gloss it as "moon." However, Gerty Kallgren, in her "Studies in Sung Time Colloquial Chinese as Revealed in Chu Hi's Ts'"an shg," BMFEA, 30(I958), p. 9, notes in her discussion of these reference works that the earliest citation given therein does not always indicate that the term originated in that passage. 29) See Eth-ya yin-tc 18e (Reprint; Taipei: Ch'eng-wen Publishing Co., I965), p. 3, section IB, paragraph 36. 30) Fan Yeh t , Hoqx Han shg (Hong Kong: Chung-hua shu-chu, I97I), vol. 7, p. I76I. The translation is that of Robert H. van Gulik, Sexmal Life in Sncient Chixa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, I96I), pp. 86-87.
WILLIAMH. NIENHAUSER JR.
This passage is excerpted from a memorial Yang Chen tried to present to rexeal the illicit activities of the daughter of Emperor An's tW (r. A.D. I07-I26) wet nurse, one Po Jung AX 31).This second line further signifies a royal succession in the words thai fe "to replace" and si # "to ascend." The latter term, and thus the entire )oem, belongs to the tsieg -7g rhyme, which counts among its lneanings "lord, ruler" and "to have sexual relations with a woman of a higher social status than oneself" 32), Again a topical )urport is a)parent, for Empress Wu practiced this violation of propriety every time she engaged in sexual relations with any of her subjects. This final word in line two, sieg, also initiates a crescendo built by the series of velar nasals of the third line: nj?,len kag tsiegtzg man. They accompany the sun's splendorousrise in the East (one is llere teml)ted to think of present-day parallels). Another example of the use of man aZ, (to fill) to describe the s?n's light (the term is more often associated with the full moon, as is cited by those who favor the "phases-of-the-moonreading") can be found in a near-contemporary verse by Li Ch'iao W (A.D. 644-7I3) entitled "Jih" E (The Sun): Amidst the clouds its [the sun'sgfive colors grow full 33). The fourth line completes the first quatrain. Qizm-phaek e t*,
31) Tllis wet-nurse was ennobled and allowe(l to live in tlle palace. When her daughter visited her she brought bribes. Yang Chen dared to openly criticize this family and their allies, tlle imperial-in-laws and the eunuchs. He was later disgraced and took llis own life; cf. also T'ung-tsu Ch'u, Hax Social strTGctGre (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1962), pp. 464-466 32) This gloss explains 4< (g) as shan<gr-yin eiX (upwarcl licentiousness). This term is in turn glossed in Daikanwa, vol. I, p. I97, itenl I3.I4, as relations with a woman of higher social status. The locss classicus cited is Hsiao Erh-ya /J \ a (Shgo-fg ed., fol. 4a). The context there is reminiscent of the passage from the Li chi cited above: "When a man and a woman do not base their relations on ritual, tlliS iS called licentiousness. Upward licentiousness is termed tsieS [,73]". The term is also often used to describe incestuous relations. Empress Wu, of course, served in the harems of both T'ai-tsung and Kao-tsung. Althougll r}lynaecategories given in the T'ang examinations usually corresponded semantically to the themes, one cannot be sure that this holds valid for T'ang poetry in general. Nevertheless all rhyme words are semantically joined to a certain extent, cf. Jonathan Culler, Strgsturalist Poetics (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, I975), p. 66. 33) Shih, ch^. 59, p. 700. See also note 73.
THE TRANSLATION
OF CLASSICAL
CHINESE
POETRY
59
literally "the yin soul," was a not uncommon epithet for the moon. Li Ching-fang iT a (fl. A.D. 825-850) wrote the following lines for his "T'ien-t'ai chien wang" i Mm (A View from the Heavenly Pavilion): PtOR
34)
The yang raven [sun] spreads its wings at dawn; The yin soul [moon], lets fly its wheel in the night. The entire fourth line may also be read (out of context) as "The yin soul has already established herself at court"; (reading tieu-yfiay # g as an inversion and using the Kuang-ya % a gloss ting t for yiag [cf. Daikanwa, vol. 2, p. I243, item I720, gloss i.e under heading] although "frozen" or "congealed" at court would also work well). In any event this final graph, yiag ik "to freeze," retards the forward motion of the poem in favor of a final view of the heavenly changes of influence. The following passage from the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu W75c9s of {rI (ca. I79-ca. I04 B.C.) might also have been Tung Chung-shu M4f called to mind by this first quatrain: Heaven had its dual operation of yin and yang (passive and active cosmic forces), and the person also has his dual nature of humanity and greed. There are cases when Heaven restricts the operation of yin and yang, and there are cases when the person weakens his feelings and desires. [The way of man] and the Way of Heaven are the same. Consequently as yin functions, it cannot interfere with spring or summer (which correspond to yang), and the full moon is always overwhelmedby sunlight, so that at one moment it is full and at another it is not 35). This is the way Heaven restricts the operation of yin. How can [man] not reduce his desires and stop his feelings (both corresponding to yin) in order to respond to Heaven ? As the person restricts what Heaven restricts, it is therefore said that , the person is similar to Heaven 36). X
34) See Ch'iian T'ang shih-hIua - W flA,ch. 4, fol. 4ib in Helmut Martin, Index, vol. I, p. II7, #04089.i8. See also Shih, ch. 508, p. 5774. 35) Author's italics. 36) The translation is that of Wing-tsit Chan, Source-book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, I963), p. 274.
8 * R t h4X 4& t H t- EI J\ I>. }\ fFt S . MA t S t X ,@
60
SS:E;t}E i4eFe,
44JlWtt. SiA
@..XR1RAH,;h?efWt.,
dominance of the sun over the full moon. The first binomeof the fifth line, thai-kAiak i @E, leadsthe reader from the observatoryto the pages of the I-ching %#g (Book of Changes).In Daikanwa,vol. 3, p. 2700, item 5834.93 one finds thai-kAiak glossedas the "originalmatter of the universe"with a reference to the Hsi-tz'qo *S commentary to the I-chi1og. Thereone finds the followingpassage: Therefore in the changes[orBookof Chaxges] thereis the Great Ultimate,whichproduced the two Elementary Forms.The two ElementaryFormsproducedthe Four Figurations. The Four Figurationsgive birth to the Eight Trigrams.The Eight Trigramsserve to determinethe auspiciousand the baleful, and the auspicious and the balefulgive riseto the greataffairs [of the throne].Therefore amongmodelsand figurations there is nothinggreaterthan heavenand earth; amongtransformations and successions, nothingis greaterthan the fourseasons; of figurations suspended(in the sky) conspicuous and bright, there are none greaterthan the sun and the moon. Rt%4%;
'-t. XXit. XtR4. "\ttX 38)
The two Elementary Forms are, of course,yin and yang (-- and -). The Four Figurationsare those "bigrams" upon which the trigramswere based:new yang _, old yang =, new yin __, and old yin _-39). This passagesets the generaltone of the poem, one of change.The diction of the piece supportsthis tone variously. First, there is the progression of time seen in the first quatrain: tshiuzt,, sif t^, tsieg iE, and if E,. The verbaleffects of thai X, man jX,giag iX, shaeS, kisg , piasi , and hiag g all involve
37) 38) 39)
Ch. IO, fol. 3b (SPPY). Choqx I, ch. 7, fol. IOb-IIa (SPTK). See James Legge, The Yi King (Oxford:Clarendon Press, I882),
p. I2.
6I
some form of change. The passage also suggests wider reading in works such as the Ts'an-t'ung-ch'i $ HM attributed to Wei Poyang S /EM (d. A.D. I42) 40) of the Later Han. In this work one finds, indeed, numerous passages concerning the relationships and successions of the sun and the moon, and two specifically concerned with the triumph of the yang powers on the night of the fifteenth 41). The fifth line further suggests both heavenly (describedin the first quatrain) and earthly (impliedin the same four lines) developments are controlled by the Great Ultimate. That these concepts were not only politically significant at this time, but also Ch'en's personal predilections can be seen in the following excerpt from a letter he wrote in A.D. 674: ... With regard to the way of heaven and earth, there is nothing more significant than yin and yang; with regard to the spiritual nature of all living things, there is nothing more significant than the human race; with regardto the responsibilities of a kingly government, nothing is of greater import than pacifying the people. Therefore,if one pacifies the people, then yin and yang will be in accord; if yin and yang are in accord, then heaven and earth will be at peace; if heaven and earth are at peace, then the original ether 42) will be properly positioned.
2f-fi; IT R]5i}tAM~~~~0RI T,,M ftAm E,
43
40) See especially Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, vol. 5 (forthcoming), part III and Fukui K6jun, "A Study of the Chou-i ts'ant'ung-ch'i", Acta Asiatica, 26 (I974), pp. 19-32. Needham's comments on the general contents of the Ts'an-t'ung-ch'i (vol. 2, p. 441) are also of relevance: "In this work we find an elaborate correlation between the eight trigrams (kua) and the denary cycle of stems' (kan), serving to symbolize the various stages of the movements of the sun and moon, and hence the supposed fluctuations, waxing, and wanings of the Yang and Yin influences in the world." 41) See Ts'an-t'ung-ch'i chi-chieh %, ch. A, fol. i6a and fol. 44b (Hsiuehchin t'ao-yizan ed.). The latter passage is specially apt, for it strengthens the association of the verb man A with the sun: "The moon on the fifteenth exchanges glances with the sun . . . one knows by illustration that this is E + I T_i 33 the time of the round and full fire of yang [i.e., of the sun]."
42) Ch'en had just defined yiian-ch'i iJr (original ether) in the preceding passage as "the origin of heaven and earth, the ancestor of all living things, ik the great principle of princely rule" X ti12 eAt1 2 a i
Atl.
43)
Ch'en Po-yii wen-chi, ioa-iob. The entire letter (fol. 9b-14b) discusses
62
It is obvious that both in language and in spirit (accordingat least to the interpretation presented herein) this passage bears close resemblance to our poetic text. Yet another significance might be read into this line, given that one of the basic semantic associations of every word is that of its antonym 44). This is especially true in the parallel style of much of classical Chinesepoetry. In this verse alone there are the expressed pairs qidn 9 (dim) / iay M (sun), tiy ; (east) / sei Ej (west), then i (heaven) / thiii }t (earth) and piaei jk (decline)/ hidy x (flourish). Would it be a misinterpretation to infer the unexpressed siii yg (death) to foil shaey t (birth-here rendered as "rose")? Support for this reading might be found in Yen Yen-chih's ft (A.D. 384-456) "Sung Wen huang-ti Yuan Huang-hou ai-ts'e-wen" 3 t rL AM 3X (Epidecium for Emperor Wen of Sung's Empress Yuan [Wen hsiian 3U, ch. 58, fol. ia-6b (SPTK)]). Therein one finds a similar vocabulary and the line , A ,I (In the dawn the moon lets rise its soul). Although this may merely be a metonymic portrayal of the moon at dawn (i.e., on the point of its "death"), it has been interpreted as the "ascension of the soul-spirit into heaven" by the T'ang dynasty Wen hsiian commentator, Lu Yen-
chi
g g45).
the movements of the sun and moon. This attention to the heavens and their relationship to man and his machinations was typical of the T'ang, see Schafer's remarks in his review of Twitchett and Wright, eds., Perspectives, JAOS, 95.3(July-September I975), p. 471, on "the concordance between celestial and terrestial powers" and Burton Watson, Chinese Lyricism (New York: ColunmbiaUniversity Press, 1971), p. I32 and p. I34. 44) See, for example, Yoshihiko Ikegami's "ME Dight: A Structural Study in the Obsolescence of Words," Proceedings of the Department of Foreign Language and Literature, College of General Education, University of Tokyo, XI.4(I963), pp. 1-63 (especially pp. 3 ff.). 45) For the original text of this commentary, see Wen hsiian, ch. 58, fol. 5b. On Lii Yen-chi and the other five T'ang commentators (all flourished during the K'ai-yiian period [A.). 713-742] and seem to have been acquainted with one another), cf. Hsin T'ang shu, vol. i 8, ch. 202, pp. 5758-5759 (20 vols.; Peking: Clhung-hua shu-chiu, 1975). It is interesting to note how little one knows today of these men whose commentaries probably provided the introluction to the singly most important literary work of T'ang times. It may be that their exegesis had become practically an integral part of the Wen hsiian, which therefore somelhow no longer allowed them to be considered commentators. A similar case is that of the two relatively unknown T'ang Shih-chi g 0. These develA and Chang Shou-chieh 3 exegetes, Ssu-ma Cheng , A opments reflect as well, it would seem, the social transformations of the literati class during the late T'ang and early Sung periods; see also note 2.
63
In the sixth line sam-g1,uasn vT: may referto the three great full moons(of the first,seventh,and tenth lunarmonths),the three eras of any imperialreign46), and, perhaps, even to the three originaldynasties of Hsia, Shang, and Chou (EmpressWu had styled her house Chou).Such a succession wouldfit well with the final two graphsof the line, piaei hi W^. The firstwordof the finalcouplet,this tsieg i 3W (quintessence), takes one againback to the I-ching: If it [theI-ching] werenot the quintessence of all underheaven, how could it be concerned in this? tiTAig, tS,Xt
JLe 47)
But an even morereliablecontext for quintessence is foundin the secondline of the sixth poemof the {'Kan-y" series:
Eh:ffi"kXt,
48Xt,
75thM3g.
^MWH 48)
WhenI observethe changesof the dragon, I understand the quintessence of yang; The forestof rocks,how darkand dense! The obscured cave, no one to stay his leaving! This quatrainbringsthe readerback, however,to the first hexagram, ch'ient; (-), of the I-ching.The "changesof the dragon" refersto the exegesisof the six lines of this hexagramand their corresponding commentaries. Dragonis, of course,the symbol of the emperor, and the advice containedwithin the I-chingexegesis is intendedto guidehis conduct.The quintessence of yang is both this hexagram,composedof six yang lines, and the emperor himself. The "forestof rocks"alludesto Tso Ssu's A., (fl. ca. A.D. 300) "Wu-tufu" %%R (Prose-poem on the Capitalof Wu) an(l indicates a dangerous placeor situation(according to the Daikanwa,
46) These glosses are all given by Daikanwa, vol. I, p. I29, item I2.475C, On the three eras of an imperial reign, see '{Fu Chien tsai-chi" 0:eQE (Chronic]es of Fu Chien)in the Chinshg E @, ch. II4, fol. Ia-2a (translation by Michael C. Rogers, The Chronicleof Fg Chien: A Case of ExemplGlry History [Berkeley:University of California Press, I968], p. I54. Rogersnotes (p. 263, n. 535) that the phrase "three cycles" is not common in secular literature, but a Bud(lhist term, the last cycle [mo-fa,t.t] being characteristic of the Dharma'sdegenerationand ultimate extinction). 47) Ch. 7, fol ga 48) Ch'enPo-yi wen-chi,ch. I, fol. 2b.
64
the dilemma of the emperor vol.. 8, P. 8470, item 24024.835b)-i.e., the dragon is obscured (cf. the at that time. The cave in which explication of the first line of the ch'ien hexagram: "The hidden Chou I, ch. i, fol. Ia dragon must not be employed;" j 1to, [SPTK]) is specified by the same modifier (iui S) used to describe the yang (sun) in line two above. To "stay his leaving" is taken from Mencius 49); it alludes to the King of Ch'i's attempts to convince Mencius through an intermediary not to leave. Mencius, however, felt the king should have recalled him personally, and left Ch'i. This could refer to the empress' failure to keep righteous advisors (or the emperor himself) at court. The final line of the poem seems straightforward and unambiguous at first reading. Daikanwa gives the glosses "the fifteenth," "the night of the fifteenth," and "the moon of the fifteenth-full moon" (vol. I, p. I54, item I2.993a) for sam-nui zT. But it also explains the term as (item I2.993g) "the three calendars and the five elements" (cf. commentary by Sung Chuin It1 [d. A.D. 76] [Biography of Lang I], Hou Han quoted in "Lang I chuan" P5.,g4fA shu, vol. 4, ch. 30B, p. io6o: "Three is the three calendars. Five is the five elements. The three calendars and the five elements [determine] the auspicious times at which the one who rules reforms the This fits in H t . iE, 1i EH, if._X age." well with the corpus of texts alluded to above [Ts'an-t'ung-ch'i, I-ching, etc.]). It further suggests proper rule and natural succession. After studying the entire poem, one might even read it as a response to a verse written by Empress Wu herself entitled "T'ang(Music for the T'ang Hsiang hsiang hao-t'ien yiieh" ig Sacrifice to Heaven):
ik e-tik
VT FA
4L, A 9AWA;
, V H
; 50)
The Grand Yin [moon] brings about supreme changes, Its true brilliance is stored from the loftiest of the Elementary Forms [yang]; Its virtue surpasses the E Terrace display, Its humanity unfolds higher than Ssu's canopy;
chu-shu S 49) Meng-tzu fol. 5a (p. 201). 50) Shih, ch. 5, p. 52.
- i leiL (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii,
I957),
ch. 4B,
65
"Laying hold of the heavens" complying with the separation of the Ultimate, "Dreaming of the sun'" then ascending as the light of day. This poem is the first of a series of twelve written for the Ta-hsiang (r. A.D. 649-683) had written X autumn sacrifice. Kao-tsung , similar verses 51). Since Empress Wu performed this sacrifice in person (see Chiu T'ang shu, ch. 6, fol. 3a [PN ed.] and passim), and since she founded a new dynasty, she needed new hymns which she ostensibly composed herself. In the first line hua IL signifies the moralizinginfluence the ruler is to exert upon the people. It also initiates the metaphoricrelationship Grand Yin moon -Empress. Line two refers to the moon taking its light from the sun. The third line asserts the empress as more brilliant than the moon (indicated by the metonymical E Terrace-the terrace to which the mythical Ch'ang E had fled). Line four continues to eulogize the empress; here another metonomy figures, for Ssu's bed-canopy refers to the wife nee T'u-shan of Yii the Great (Ssu was his surname) who personally instructed their son Ch'i )g 52). The final couplet is built around two allusions: of the Later Han line five directs attention to Empress Teng MiUs who took hold of heaven in a dream; line six alludes to the mother of Emperor Wu of Han, who dreamt of the sun entering her breast while still carrying the future monarch. Both of these women were prominent in political affairs-Empress Teng virtually ruled from A.D. I02 until her death in I2I and Emperor Wu's mother had the
ch. 566, fol. iia (p. 2550) (Taipei: Hsin51) T'ai-p'ing yii-lan kzI;Ip, hsing shu-chii, I959). 52) The allusion here (identifiable only through P'ei-wen, vol. 5, p. 356ibottom) is to Hsieh Chuang's i4t]E (A.D. 421-466) "Hsiao Wu Hsiian Kueiincluded in the Wen hsiian, ch. 57, fol. 27a-33b f fei lei" * AE A (SPTK). The specific couplet alluded to (fol. 29b-29b) reads: "[she was] as helpful in instruction as Ssu's bed canopy, as supportive of precedent as J 6, t1 *JL Yao's gate". !11 -a P Thus through this allusion to such a wellknown anthology the empress was able to flatteringly compare herself to Yii's wife Yao's mother (= gate; she dutifully carried Yao through a fourteen month pregnancy which became a model for later palace women to emulate, see commentary, fol. 2ga-29b, and finally to the beautiful Hsiian Kuei-fei who had so captured the emperor's heart that he refused to have her buried, keeping her coffin in the palace so he could gaze upon her (see commentary to the title, fol. 27a-27b and Nan-shih Ig P, ch. ii, fol. 8a-ga [Taipei: I-wen yin-shu-kuan, 1956]).
5
66
heir apparent deposed and a rival executed 53). The entire couplet suggests that the rule of a female is natural; line five names the division of the ultimate into yin and yang and line six wittily describes both a political chronicle and the normal rising of the sun following the period of dreams [i.e., the night]. The similarity of the diction and imagery strongly suggests Ch'en may have written his first "Kan-yii" poem as a rejoinder to this piece. The allegorical nature of Ch'en's poem is, however, strongly supported by the allusions provided by the reference works without insisting upon this association. Secondary material for wider reading has also been suggested by the dictionaries. Moreover, by pointing to the originality of the term qiau-iay these works help the reader to sense the topicality (especially with regard to the allegory) of the poem, for no established vocabulary could fit the unprecedented situation of rule by an empress. The verse is an allegorical admonition, but one that threatens somewhat cautiously with the natural powers of Heaven. The readership's attention is thus called to the Li chi, which sets forth standards of royal deportment, to the Hsi-tz'u commentary to the I-ching, which speaks of using heavenly phenomena as a guide to earthly behavior 54), to the workings of the heavens to the human political condition, to the epideictic pieces of the Six Dynasties (which provide ironic points of reference), and finally perhaps even to Empress Wu's own poem. That Ch'en's verse is so starkly bifurcated into two quatrains, one dealing with the heavens, and the other alluding to various works intended to interpret them for political application, is no coincidence. These allusions at first overshadow the realistic depiction of the changes of the night sky, but eventually blend together with it (in a model of the traditional clz'i-ch'eng-chutan-ho X 'e structure) to present the anticipated symbolic break of a new day.
53) See Hou Han shu, vol. 2, p. 418, and Han shut ch. 96A, fol. ioa (PN), respectively. 54) See, for example, Chou I, ch. 7, fol. 3a: ' Therefore it [the I-ching] can restore the Way of heaven and earth. One looks up with it to observe the patterns of heaven, and looks down with it to examine the organization on earth. Thus one comes to know the causes of dimness and brightness." MC
X AIA
;L-. 1 4P1 0fi
ffiX 3, *f P #Q
tIt . Z PAt lifiJ-7 N
On the terms t'ien-wen X 3; and ti-li I 3 see Bodo Wiethoff, "Bemerkungen zur Bedeutung der Regionalbeschreibungen (fang-chih)," OE, 15(I968), p. 154, n. I5. This entire concept is taken by James J. Y. Liu as one of the bases for what he terms "Metaphysical Theories of Literature," see his discussion in Chinese Theories of Literature (Clhicagoand London: University of Chlicago Press, 1975), pp. i6-i8.
67
The second poem to be studied again illustrates the importance of the locus classicus (as opposed to the actual locus) in classical Chinese versification (and thus the significance of reference works which are needed to locate the former). It is a conventionally structured seven-word lii-shih if 9 (regulated-style poem) by Liu Yii-hsi VIJ X fi (A.D. 772-842) written in reply to a poem sent Liu by Tou Ch'ang * (A.D. 756-825) 55). Although Liu's poem does not echo Tou's in rhyme or conform exactly in theme, Tou's verse, "Chih jen Wu-ling Han-shih-jih t'u-tz'u Sung-tzu-tu hsien-chi Liu (Going , Yuian-wai Yii-hsi" 2 fE k A0 , ;k , ~R A3 * to Take up a Position at Wu-ling, Stopped Enroute on the Cold Food Festival Day at the Pine-nourishing Crossing-Sent First to Liu Yii-hsi), will be read first for an understanding of it is prerequisite to a discussion of Liu's reply: haey hiuan
ff
hua tsiei
4
iui lie
t
kep lie
fy
heu shiay
ak
piiy haep
im
tshen tshiuen
,
kay tshii khan suan hey tshai
tiuen tsay
4
siui
Es-
thiey hui
a
qjem
/ $>
iek
A
khje qien tset nen sia phien 56)
sam
X,
sieu
4
ni n
HA
tshiuin lau
1:4 i1
hiiu thiuiy qiuay thian
kua key sen hiuaey
tshiey kiuji
'FEI
miaey shia
a g
tak tieu
tay pik
khiuan kii
55) See biographical comments in Chiu T'ang shu, ch. I55, fol. 6a (PN) and Hsin T'ang shu, ch. I75, fol. ib (PN). Tou had lived in retirement for nearly twenty years before serving under Tu Yu. Liu Yii-hsi was a secretary (Shuchi, #;2) to Tu Yu, but Tou is not to be found among the higher ranking members of his staff (cf. Cheng Ho VA., Ti Yu nien-p'u $ [Shanghai: Commercial Press, I932], pp. 83-87). During the Yuan-ho reign period (A.D. 8o6-82o) he served as Shih yii-shih P_ - (Censor) and Kuo-tzu chi-chiu ' (Rector of the National University). Of an original corpus of A E eighteen chuan, twenty-six poems remain (see Shih, ch. 271, pp. 3030-3034). 56) Shih, ch. 271, pp. 3032-3033.
68
Apricot blossoms, elm-seed pods, under the dawn wind, Horizons of clouds, distant and dense, the boat for the gorges upstream; The river winds several times across the road, slowing the post horses, Ch'u had three households, scarcely a column of smoke. Watching spring again go by, it's the Clear and Bright; I count myself old to pass another kuei-ssu year. But rejoice to find Mount Wang will serve as my Yamen, For at court long did I chant the "Divining for a Course." This poem was written in early April A.D. SI3 as Tou was enroute (modern Ch'angto take up the position of prefect in Lang-chou S g1'11 te 'g' , in northern Hunan Province) where Liu Yui-hsi had been serving as Ssu-ma ,% (marshal) since the dismemberment of the Wang Shu-wen clique in A.D. 8o6. Tou Ch'ang was the son of the well known literary figure Tou Shu-shang W,f (fl. A.D. 768-780) and the eldest of five brothers, all of whom were poets of some repute 57). Though nearly a generation Liu's senior, he had served with Liu under Tu Yu et {ti (A.D. 735-8I2) in Huai-nan during the first years of the ninth century 58). Tou seems not to have been active in the Wang Shu-wen clique 59), but held several important
57) There is only meager biographical data available on Tou Shu-shang (see Hsin T'ang shu, ch. I75, fol. ia). He was an official at court (Tso-shih-i neiVi#,* "Functionary at the Disposition of the Omissioner kung-feng, A of the Left [Department of the Chancellary]"-cf. Robert des Rotours, Traite'des fonctionnaires et Traite'de l'armee [Leiden: E. J. Brill, i1947, vol. I, reign (A.D. p. 294, n. 3) and a poet of some renown during Tai-tsung's Jt including one composed 763-780); nine poems (Shih, ch. 27I, pp. 3028-3029), at the emperor's request, are extant. Tou Ch'ang's brothers were Tou Mou * (A.D. 759-822), Tou Ch'iin 1 (A.D. 765-814), Tou Hsiang J1, and Tou Kung 3V; biographical data in Chiu T'ang shu, ch. i55, fol. 5a-6b and Hsin T'ang shu, ch. I75, fol. ia-ib. Their extant poetry is in Shih, ch. 27I, pp. 3035-3054. Tou Kung has also written a poem to Liu Yii-hsi (p. 3052). The entire family seems to have been a part of the most important literary circles of the time, cf. T'ang-shih chi-shih J~-, *e (Taipei: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1970), vol. 2, ch. 3I, pp. 482-485. 58) Cf. note 55 above. While in Lang-chou Tou seems to have renewed his friendship with Liu Yii-hsi-Liu has nearly a dozen poems written to Tou during this period. 59) On this clique see William H. Nienhauser, Jr., et. al., Liu Tsung-yiian (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1973), pp. 29-30. Tou's younger brother, Tou Ch'iin (see note 87) cautioned Liu Yii-hsi about the clique, see Chiu vol. 8, ch. 236, T'ang shu, ch. i6o, fol. gb and Tzu-chih t'u'ng-chien l
p. 76I3
(Peking:
Ku-chi ch'u-pan-she,
I956).
69
(r. A.D. 8o6-820), including the court posts under Hsien-tsung , position of Auxiliary Secretary to the Bureau Chief in the Ministry X i). of Waterways (Shui-pu yiian-wai-lang, 7Jk 1A The initial couplet of Tou's verse sets the contrast upon which both poems play: a locus amoenus which should be eminently appropriate for a meeting of old acquaintances 60), but which, because of the time of the year, the Cold-Food and Clear-Bright Festival when officials usually received seven days leave to return to their home towns and enjoy the holiday period with their families 61), and the location of the setting, the minority-dominated South, appears disjoint and desolate. The haey-hua 4TL"apricot blossoms" of the first line are topically associated with this holiday period (see Daikanwa,vol. 6, p. 585I, item 14461. I3). Apricot-kernelmeal (hsing-jen fen, A CzK) was also used to prepare a kind of congee traditionally eaten during this festival. Apricot blossoms, moreover, suggest the Apricot Blossom Garden (Hsing-huayian, -E I 1) in the capital where scholars were wont to gather for spring outings 62). Iui-kep ji,A "elm-seed pods"
60) The actual location of "Pine-nourishing Crossing" is, according to southeast of Chiang-ling in Hunan Daikanwa, vol. 6, P. 5923, item I45I6.157, on the Li River t 7k about fifty miles north of Lang-chou. The Daikanwa gloss is somewhat misleading here (it locates the crossing in Hupei), but the texts it cites are clear. The minimal ingredients of a locus amoenus or pleasance are, according to Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (New York: Harper and Row, I963), p. 195: "a tree (or several trees), a meadow, and a spring or brook. Bird song and flowers may be added. The most elaborate examples also add a breeze." 61) Much of the information on the traditions of this holiday during the T'ang has been taken from Hiraoka Takeo 2fRfi A fJ, "Haku Kyo-i to , 4I(I970), Toho gakuhi J Kanshoku-seimei" 9tAAmM, pp. 289-322. His discussion of emotions expressed by travelers (pp. 292-294) and exiles (p. 305) on this day is especially pertinent. See also Burton Watson's translation of a Lu Yu verse which contains many of these conventions, The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases, Selections from the Poetry and Prose of Lu Yu (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1973), p. 3I, and Alsace Yen's consummate dissertation in his "The Parry-Lord Theory Applied to Vernacular Chinese Stories," JAOS, 95.3(July-September I975), pp. 407-408, n. ii. 62) Liu Yii-hsi himself has a poem answering Po Chu-i beneath the blossoms in the Apricot Garden, see Shih, ch. 365, p. 4I22. That this festival typifies the literati concept of spring in the capital may be seen in Pao Fang's (late 8th part of a series written century A.D.) "I Ch'ang-an, erh yueh" t% IiZ, -, by a group of poets outside the capital remembering Ch'ang-an in a calendar of verse; see Shih, ch. 307, p. 3448.
70
were similarly used to prepare a broth for Clear and Bright meals. Heu piig fin, "the morning wind" is to some extent also a part of the festive set, for wind and rain were common accoutrements to this vacation week. The wind before, like the upstream journey of the boat, portrays the difficulty of this trip away from court life and colleagues into the provinces. The horizons (in hiu;n-tsiei F "horizons of clouds") evoke a feeling of isolation 63) (t'ien-chi, i p "edges of heaven" is probably the basic referent from which a number of similar expressions have developed). It also calls to mind a XJ X (The Lesser Master of Fate) line from the "Shao-ssu-ming" 1P in the Ch'u tz'u MS: "Whom are you waiting for at cloud's edge ?" 64) (cf. Takeji Sadao tS-Ajiak ji s 2-"t5a@2t i [Tokushima: Department of Chinese Literature, Tokushima University, I964], p. 290). "Clouds" and the binome lie-lie *ff "distant and dense" are part of the concept that the lushness or luxuriance of a landscape partakes of sadness 65). Thus Daikanwa, vol. ii, provides four glosses for lie-lie as follows: p. I2590, item 42I40.I9I, a) grain in such flourish that it droops down; b) the appearance of clouds drifting or linked together; c) luxurious (of vegetation); and d) to feel isolated (also from the Ch'u tz'u, see Takeji, p. 385, and therefore the highlighted connotation here). The full range of associations of the term can be seen in a line cited under gloss "c" above from, coincidently, a poem by Tou Ch'ang's younger brother, Tou Hsiang W (ca. A.D. 768-ca. 830): "Clouds of sorrow vast and : 67), empty 66), grasses distant and dense :" X In the third line the landscape continues to appear to retard Tou's progress: "The river winds several times across the road." Through the order of the last words (qjem A-V and iek-khje , &-0)
63) In contrast to this reading, the line seems also to suggest the boat is "amidst the clouds." 64) Ch'u tz'u, ch. 2, fol. 2oa (SPTK), tranislation, David Hawkes, Ch'u Tz'u, The Songs of the South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 4I, line i8. 65) Cf. Schafer, Supplement, glosses (p. 34 and p. 35, respectively) to youyou f1t,! "fading away, dim (in distance or time): (hence) the melancholy of loss or separation;" iwet-iwet V, "jungly, densely and gloomily forested; darkly over-shadowed; mental gloom;" and Boodberg's commentary to the in "'Ideography' or Iconolatry?" TP, 35(I940), binome mang-tsang 4$ p. 275 text and n. 2. also has the connotations vast, luxurious, and lonely, see 66) Mo-mo A Daikanwa, vol. 7, p. 7I30, item I8I49.I3a-f. pp. 3047-3048. 67) Shih, ch. I71,
7I
the river seems to play an active role in this delay. The first quatrain ends in an allusion to the "Hsiang Yui pen-chi" 4I:*C (Basic Annals of Hsiang Yui). Sam-hu -. , (see Daikanwa, vol. I, p. 130, item I2.453d 68)) refers to the passage in which a certain Nan-kung / (commentatorsare in disagreement about his identity-explanations range from an expert diviner to simply an old man) 69) is reported to have said: "Even if Ch'u has three households, that which does away with Ch'in will have to be Ch'u." ,i 70). Here the term certainly suggests the unzip friendly environment Tou feels about him (he has just come from the former capital of Ch'in), but it is also twisted to depict the desolation and uncivilized appearanceof the land then in the ninth century: scarcely a trace of man (literally "scarcely any kitchenfire/hearth smoke," i.e., traces of man-civilization) 71). This contrast is all the more vivid in Tou's perception, for in Ch'ang-an from which he has just come, such a setting would be crowded with people admiring the flowers, hills and streams according to the traditional dictates of the Clear and Bright tradition. The fifth and sixth lines pick up another topic associated with this holiday, for this was a time when one often noted a sort of communal "birthday" 72) (similar to the New Year). The passing of spring and Tou Ch'ang's sixtieth birthday do little to relieve his growing depression (the translation of line six is free, for suan-lau :t refers literally only to "counting one's age"). Yet in a fitting
68)
(A.D. ch. 5.
Here Daikanwa by way of exception refers the reader to Chao I's X 1727-I8I4) discussion of this term in Kai-yii ts'ung-k'ao P .t,
69) See Shih-chi (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, I962), vol. 7, p. 30I, n. 3, and Edouard Chavannes, Les mdmoires historiqutesde Se-ma Ts'ien (Paris: E. Leroux, I897), p. 256, n. 2. 70) Shih-chi, vol. 7, p. 308. 71) This traditional concept of human smoke indicating man's presence and civilization (cf. Daikanwa, vol. I, p. 557, items 344.I8 and I9) is often expressed in Western literature (see Berthold Brecht's little five-line verse "Der Rauch," in Gedichte[Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, I964], p. I5, for example). Irving Yucheng Lo has proposed translating qien as "house(hold) fire" or "kitchen fire" (see his "Fidelity in Translation and the Limits of Uncivility," in The Art and Profession of Translation [Hong Kong: Hong Kong Translation Society, I977], ed. by T. C. Lai, p. II4). Here, however, it is the smoke from the kitchen fires which is meant, but this is virtually a paraphrase and difficult to incorporate into a line of verse, albeit translation. 72) Hiraoka, "Haku," p. 300.
72
response (Confucius claimed that at sixty he no longer heard [i.e., experienced] anything incomprehensible or exasperating 73)) the final couplet changes slightly in mood. Mount Wang, not far from Wu-ling, was the retreat of Shan Chuian t 8, who refused the throne when Yao offered it him 74). The final line hints at the reasons for Tou's demotion. In "Divining for a Course[of Action]" (Pu-chiip'ien, F Jg9), again from the Ch'u tZ'U 75), Ch'ii Yuian g, iq calls upon the diviner ChanYin ,@ Xtto ask (rhetorically)if it would not have been better for him to have flattered his lord and thereby retained a position at court. The obvious implication is that Tou Ch'ang, too, chose to admonish when he might have spoken softer words and as a result was exiled. The assertion that Tou makes in line seven ("rejoicing"in his new position) should be viewed in the light of Mei Tsu-lin and Kao Yu-kung's conclusion that such statements in regulated-style poetry are ironic 76). Indeed, the entire scene is less expository than allusive-it is an emotional picture of Tou's mental state projected upon a canvas with little relationship to the actual natural surroundings. Liu Yii-hsi's reply is entitled "Ch'ou Tou Ytian-wai Shih-chiin 'Han-shih-jih t'u-tz'u Sung-tzu-tu hsien chi' shih ssu-yiin" HK % WAB L-4 i! A t T E R (Four Rhymes in Answer to tk a "Cold Food Festival Day at the Pine-nourishing Crossing"which GovernorTou, the Auxiliary Secretary, Had First Sent to Me): tshii ia tshau siuii
siuii
73) X
hiay thui siak mIan

Midn
han hiim lien
sidk piiz hiuen

R
kiit tiui niin AN

qeni
hua tshai khii a tshid
shid khia tini itiia thid
An ni nii
0
hik
Cf. Lun-yii chi-chiek " ~, Lun-yPi hsin-chieh Affi
J , ch. i, fol. ioa (SPTK) and Ch'ien Mu rP (Hong Kong: Hsin-ya yen-chiu-so, I964),
pp. 31-37.
74) See Daikanwa, vol. 6, p. 5934, item I4530.33b. Ihe story is found in Chuang-tzu, see Wang Fu-chih IE -, Chuang-tzu chieh 9 -T- (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, I964), ch. 28, p. 252. 75) Ch'u tz'u, ch. 6, fol. Ia-4a. 76) See their "Syntax, Diction and Imagery in T'ang Poetry," HJAS, 3I(I97I), p. 131.

A AI )' 9f A X
73
thiii kjui I ,% ma
sid 77)
tsiui tshe?y 4W piai siuii
lihun shiiu X shie tshau
shiay tshii AR Phian ha
qiok
khiuagn piai kui Xl sid sin
huen tsa JA ffi khiiu shiey tshia ii
The Cold Food Festival in hometowns of the south is orange blossom time, At a rural ford in the face of a wind, halted bright pennants. The colors of the grasses drawn into the clouds, people come and go, The waters ripple like silken gauze, swallows high and low. Vermilion wheels recall a covey of flying pheasant, On a black sash newly strung a left-looking tortoise; I'm not the old marshal of P'en City, Why does an Administratorof Waterways then give me his new poem ? Liu picks up the theme of spatial dislocation with which Tou's verse began. It is difficult to determine whether Liu, too, depicts the crossing from which Tou despatched his poem, or presents a in line one supports the view from Lang-chou 78). Tshii-hian V W15 latter point of view. In any event Liu shifts the emphasis in his first line from distances (physical or temporal) to disorientation"the Cold Food Festival" of the North is already "orange blossom time" in Ch'u-which causes part of the cultural shock he knows Tou must feel. After this indirect enjoinder to reset his perception to southern time, Liu rejects Tou's reminiscencesof the capital and turns his view to the actual southern setting. He asks Tou to see the culture of the South in the beauty of the orange blossoms (perhaps a local orange festival is implied or the "Chii sung" j44 [In Praise of the Orange-Tree]from the Ch'u tz'u intended, the latter a verse which praises a tree/man sent to the South 79)). He portrays a
Shih, ch. 371, p. 4075. Tou's poem was probably sent ahead as an announcement of his imminent arrival. Liu replied in greeting. 79) Ch'u tz'u, ch. 4, fol. 36a-38a; translation, Hawkes, pp. 76-77.
77)
78)
74
landscape almost lacking in verbal force in this first line to brake the rapid flow of time and miles Tou sensed. The second line, with the image of the wind halting the pennants rather than setting them in motion (although another reading might simply understand that the procession-flags, poles, and those who held them had stopped, and not that the pennants themselves were stilled), echoes Tou's first couplet and adds to the seeming eternity of the setting. Line three, in which the greenness of the grass is reflected or drawn into (lien X is related to several terms with the idea of "carry" and has also the meaning itself of "alliance"-see Bernhard Karlgren, Analytic Dictionary of Chineseand Sino-Jaapanese [Paris: Geuthner, I923], p. I79, section 55I or Tod6 Akiyasu's Htjzfg word family [Tokyo: I49 [pp. 553 ff.] in his Kanji gogeni jiten , Gakut6sha, i965], where he constructs the basic meaning of this group as "to be joined together in a trail-like fashion") the hovering or linking (see discussion of lie-lie above) clouds, parallels Tou's second line and the concept of grass-clouds-loneliness.Yet Liu uses this association to refute Tou. He points out that the setting is quite populated ("people come and go"). The suppressionof movement is continued: the river does not flow, but barely ripples, perhaps stirred only by the wind, and the antithetical verbs "come and go" and "(hovering) high and low" seem to negate all motion. The strong visual appeal of these lines is created by the predominance of substantives and the use of colors. One sees a district of Ch'u, a new holiday and all of its associations, blossoming orange trees, a rural river crossing, bright pennants (to which one must mentally add a car, retainers, and trappings), a luxuriant vegetation, clouds above, passersby, the wind-blown waves (this image of a silken-rivermay imply waters reflectingthe colorsof the landscape so that it appears as if silks were being washed therein, as was a common practice), and swallows hovering almost motionless at different heights. After this ersatz version of the pagentry of the ColdFood Festival, the third distich becomes pivotal. It populates the landscape with allusive fauna: the "covey of flying pheasant", which may refer to Liu, Tou and their associates under Tu Yu a decade before 80), and
80) There are several other significances which may be intended by "pheasants." In Hellmut Martin's Index to the Ho Collection of Twenty-Eight Shih-hua (2 vols.; Taipei: Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Center, I973), vol. I, p. 370, one finds a comment by Ko Li-fang ;IVE 7&
75
the "left-lookingtortoise", alluding to a reptile freed by K'ung Yui

LAti (A.D. 258-332), a Chin dynasty official, which glanced back at K'ung in gratitude 81). The "vermillon wheels" similarly have no basis in reality but refer metonymically to high officials (during the Han dynasty they were the only persons allowed to dye their wheels red 82)). These lines call upon Tou to turn his view inward, in a device typical to consolatory and refutatory rhetoric, and to recall these allusions. In the final couplet Liu continues to flatter Tou Ch'ang with allusions which compare their relationship to that of Ho Hsiin E a (d. ca. A.D. 527), who was then Personally Appointed Administrator of Waterways (Shui-pu hsing-ts'an chiin, Jkg : ),and Marshal Yui ,*X, of P'en-chou. The specific reference is to a poem 83) which Ho, one of the most famous poets of his day 84), sent to Yui relating his sorrow at being unable to return to Loyang. Thus the allusion praises Tou Ch'ang by comparing him to Ho Hsfin, and attempts to assuage Tou's depression by pointing to a time when all Chinese were "exiled" from the North by a succession of barbarian dynasties. Although both poems depict the southern environmentand utilize
on a line by Liu Yu-hsi to the effect that the image of (fl. A.D. II3I-II62) pheasants flying was intended to depict the desolation of an area. This would parallel the "note of restiveness" lent the scene by the swallows (cf. Kao and Mei, "Diction," pp. 46-47). The pheasant more traditionally, however, symbolized a loyal friendship, since it always remained true to its mate, and was in ancient times exchanged as a gift indicating such loyalty (see Daikanwa, vol. II, p. I2543, item 4I987, first gloss under the heading). Pheasants can also, it seems, represent the scholar-official class; see Wen Chun's comments on the poem "Mosquitoes" (original "Chiu wen yao ,tVX, Shih, ch. 356, p. 400) in "Liu Yii-hsi's Political Poems," Chinese Literature, (June I975), p. 97 (the translation of the poem appears Ibid., p. 88). 81) Chin shu, ch. 78, fol. ia. There one reads that K'ung Yii bought a turtle in a cage and released it. The animal crawled into a stream, but then looked back to K'ung in gratitude. Later, when the seals of office were being cast for K'ung, the artisan could not prevent the embossed turtle from turning its head back to the left. 82) See Daikanwa, vol. 6, p. 5766, item 14424.605. 83) The poem is entitled "Jih-hsi wang chiang-shaan tseng Yii Ssu-ma" (At Twilight Watching the Rivers and Mountains H3 7 S E I [ii i -Presented to Marshal Yii), in Han Wei Liu-ch'ao pai-san chia chi, vol. 4,
p.
3290. 84)
See his biography, Liang shu X t: (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, 1973), vol. 3, p. 699. Tu Fu also alludes to Ho's fame among his contemporariesA Concordanceto the Poems of Tu Fu, vol. 2, p. 478.
76
the traditional exile argot and conventions of the Ch'u tz'u, their tones differ greatly. Tou looks back to the North in his memory, and it is therein that his descriptionsare primarilycomposed, under the monochromatic and allusive gaze of his mind. Liu, however, provides an interpretation of the lands Tou is seeing for the first time on behalf of his old acquaintance. His oranges, greens, vermilions, blacks, and the bright-colored pennants are seen through eyes more accustomed to the southern light. On the allusive level, Tou's disparaging three households of Ch'u is countered by Liu's subtle assurance that pheasant, symbols of loyalty, inhabit the South, too. Like Ch'en Tzu-ang's "Kan-yii", Liu's poem pivots about the third (chutan ".) couplet. It links the first quatrain, depicting the natural setting, and the last allusive couplet. It is a poem demanding a deep knowledge of Chinese literature common to T'ang literati, but found most often in reference works today, as the repeated citations in the explication have shown. The final poem to be examined is a thirty-three syllable tz'u (lyric) by the Sung poetess Li Ch'ing-chao P_ (A.D. I084-ca. II52) 85) written to the tune Ju-meng ling An (As if in a Dream):
9 3E '-l 7e Elg
tsrhiay
NE
kii
M
khii
T-
thiiy
t0
riiq
a
mui
M
tsrhiim hiiy
K
ui
q
tsuii tsrii puiq lRt~~~~~~~~~~~t van tsiin huui t A A9 hua rni ii

A
kuii
tsriun
liii
iX
sniim tsrhhui
tsriy tsriy kiiy
liii tui khii iiq than

iu lii
86)
85) On Li Ch'ing-chao see Hu Pin-ching, Li Ch'ing-chao (New York: Twayne Publishers, I966); Lu-Chao Ho, "More Gracile than the Yellow Flowers," the Life and Works of Li Ch'ing-chao (Hong Kong: Mayfair Press, I968); Yu Cheng-hsieh, Kuei-ssu lei-kao E M.i (Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, I957), pp. 597-6II; She Hsiieh-man j%, Nil tz'u-jen Li Ch'ing-chao t Qp 1E i (Taipei: Wen-kuang t'u-shu kung-ssu, I96I), and the back matter to Li Ch'ing-chao chi % (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, i962). 86) Li Ch'ing-chao chi, p. i. There are several variants: for a subtitle, read also A ; for A, read #;; for i TL,read ; and for M, read J . Cf. also standard tune patterns for this lyric in Wan Shu -It (preface A.D. I687), Tz'ut lii 'I, ch. 2, fol. 3b-4a (SPPY).
77
Often rememberedis the creek-pavilion sunset; Deeply drunk not knowing the road back. Exhilaration gone, late the returning boat Blundered into a place thick with lotus blossoms, Struggling to get through, Struggling to get through, Startles up a shoal of gulls and herons. In this poem, or more accurately in its translation, one senses somehow a missing connection. Many poems, of course, have personal meanings or simply do not obtain a harmony. Others, and here one would probably have to include the majority, can sustain more than a single reading. Still others are strung together on a single thread, be it an allusion, a symbol, or a connotative significance. Theodor Fontane's (A.D. I8I9-I898) "Die Briick' am Tay," a poetic description of an actual train wreck, might serve as an example in Western literature 87). The poem itself, and especially the three mysterious "perpetrators" of the accident, can be interpreted variously. The quotation from Macbethwith which the piece begins, however, gives one to understandthat the trio are witches. Although this does not preclude other readings, it lends logical and structural coherence to the ballad. Li Ch'ing-chao'slyric at first examination lacks such coherence. There is one reading, however, which provides this missing continuity and structure, a reading which Western sinologists have been traditionally loth to proffer 88) and native scholars too unvol. 87) Theodor Fontane, Sdmtliche Werke (Miinchen: Carl Hauser, I964), 6, pp. 285-287. 88) This has been pointed out by B. B. Panov in his "Theme of Love in Chinese Poetry [in Russian]," Narody Asii i Afriki, 1974.3 [pp. I08-II3] pp. III-II2: "The point is that many Western sinologists lately find themselves dependent upon Chinese scholars. For this reason, sinological conceptions beyond the borders of China were formed under the influence
of the theories of Chinese scholars
.. . One
of the reasons
for the mis-
taken interpretation by researchers of the love theme in Chinese literature is that all their information was received from Confucian scholars of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries . .. A third reason lies in the fact that the traditional notion for European-Christian civilization of physical love as a sin, completely different in Chinese civilization, could have contributed to Western sinologists choosing in their translation the meaning which was most acceptable to them, if a text allowed for several interpretations (which is often the case in Chinese literature)." [I would like to thank Ms. Jeanne Kelly for her translation assistance].
78
willing (or too uncomfortable) to discuss: that which ascribes a sexual context or erotic background. The term "erotic" intends here that which portrays sexual matters aesthetically, rather than explicitly, as, for example, pornography would 89). Whether the following explication can convince every reader of the erotic nature of this poem is unlikely, but it is to be hoped that the discussion will cause him to realize the need for an organized compendium of Chinese erotic terms. Certainly the foreground of the poem presents merely a landscape: a boat returning from a festive outing loses its way because of the tipsiness of its pilot, and, after becoming entangled in a patch of lotus plants, frightens away a flock of birds. Yet several disparate or anomalous passages fail to submit to such an exegesis. What, for example, is a sriim-tsrhiui jy,A "deep place" (literal meaning; it is rendered "a place thick with" in the translation above) among lotus flowers? And why must one, tired from long revels of drinking and exuberance, battle this strech of water? Finally, what is it-the sudden suddenlyr reappearance of the boat from the "deep place," the noise of the "struggle,"or the general confusion of the return trip-that startles the gulls and herons? To some degree these are questions which first arise in translation. It seems that the vague sensory imagery suffices when the poem is read (or criticized) in the original, and a rational understandingof the scene is not called into play, for the poem has been admired for centuries. Only in several recent attempts to render it into Western languages has the problem ostensibly begun to concern scholars. Let us, therefore, examine the contextual solutions provided by these translators. has Hsu Kai-yu,who translatedthe poem nearlytwo decadesago90), opted for the explanationthat therewas a considerablenumberof persons on boardthe boat and that "the sound and motion of the oars,as well as the excited chatter and movement of the people on the boat" startled the birds. His translation of lines four through seven reads: Entered by mistake a patch of clustering lotus. As we hurried to get through, Hurried to get through, A flock of herons, startled, rose to the sky.
in "Erotic Poetry," in Princetoit 89) See Robert M. Durling's comminents Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
I972),
pp. 250-253.
90) Hsu Kai-yu, "The Poems of Li Ch'ing-chao (I084-1141)," 77.5(December 162), [pp. 521-5281, p. 525.
PMLA,
79
Yet in the original text one finds no crowd of party-goers, no clustering lotus (this elusive phrase is puzzling-can one visualize lotus "clustering"?), and no indication that the boat is hurrying, despite the late hour. A more recent rendering91) by Hu Pin-ch'ing in her study of Li Ch'ing-chaoportrays a couple aboard the boat. The translation of the relevant lines reads: But by error our nocturnal boat penetrates into the depth of lotus flowers. Pushing ahead, pushing ahead, We wake up the sea gulls and herons of the bank. Hu feels the poem describes a "happy occasion" in which drinking and admiration of nature's beauties are the chief themes 92). Again, however, the translation is much more explicit than the original text and gains this clarity through added modification. "Nocturnal" is not in the Chinese. "Penetrates" is certainly a muscular equivalent of rui A. "Pushing ahead" renders tsriy tui T too freely (unless the erotic pun is intentional). What is meant by a "depth of lotus flowers"? Kiiy X is "to startle" not "to wake up"-there is no textual clue to indicate that the gulls and heronswere sleeping 93). There is also a version by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung which reads (again lines four-seven only): By mistake we rowed into dense Clusters of lotus blossoms, And startled the gulls and egrets From the sand bars. They crowed into the air And hastily flapped away To the opposite shore 94). This is obviously the most expansive attempt with perhaps stronger affinities to other English-language versions of the lyric than to the original text itself. In his review of the work in which this
91) Li Ch'ing-chao, p. 44.
Ibid. There is, however, another poem by Li which depicts sailing past sleeping gulls and herons, see n. 143. 94) Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung, translators, The Orchid Boat (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972), p. 38.
92) 93)
80
translation appeared Stephen Owen 95) has pointed out that the change in scene producedby this expansion detracts from the ending which he calls "a momentary flash of perception." But Mr. Owen's own "How are we to cross? / How are we to cross? / We startle up a whole sandbarful of gulls and herons." 96) fails as well to reproduce anything resembling a "flash of perception." Finally, one would want to consider Eugene Eoyang's translation (the most current) 97), for although it lacks the exegetical context of some presented above, his interpretation is nevertheless clear: The mood passed away, returning late by boat we'd stray off into a spot thick with lotus, and thrashing through and thrashing through startle a shoreful of herons by the lake. Although Mr. Eoyangs's ending is quite inventive without deviating too far from the literal meaning, the iterative sense he lends the action (the original suggests remembrance of an event which occurred only once), the plethoric third line, the enjambment between lines three and four, and the translation of "we'd stray off" for ui-rui &A are less gratifying. Though there is a continuity in this version, it is not easy to sense from this, or any of the previous renditions, the excellence traditionally accorded this poem. It is apparent from the accretive nature of these translations that these translators, too, sensed an ellipsis. Let us return, therefore, from previous discussions of the poem to the one at hand. A commentary to support an erotic interpretation could be built about the meager,but provocative, biographicalfacts concerningLi Ch'ingchao. As a poetess, she was already something of a maverick 98).
95) JAS, 33.I(November 1973), pp. 105-I06; cf. also Ling Chung's reply, "Notes from the Translator of OrchidBoat: Women Poets of China," Jouynal of the Chinese LanguiageTeachers Association, X.3(October 1975), pp. I66-I67. 96) Ibid., p. I05. 97) In Irving Yucheng Lo and Wu-chi Liu, eds., Sunflower Splendor, Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday,
See Hu, Li Ch'ing-chao, p. 97: "Li Ch'ing-chao was above all a sensualist in the extreme sense of the word. She loved to drink, and she wrote
prolifically about wine . . . ," and again p. 63: "Her favorite and almost
1975), 98)
p. 369.
unique theme is love, esthetic or sensual, and she sometimes expresses herself with less moderation and discretion than the great Master would have recommended. That is why a certain critic [Hu gives no further reference

8I
Her most famous predecessorswere courtesans. After the death of her husband, Chao Ming-ch'eng eSS (A.D. I o8I-II29), there are indications that she remarrieda certain Chang Ju-chou W&X 99). But such circumstantial evidence at best can only show that I,i was capableof writing erotic lyrics, and has little applicatory value with regard to a specific poem. Much more important would be I) a determination through reference works and selected wider reading (guided to a great extent by these works) that Li's text contains terms which elsewhere suggest or connote eroticism, and 2) to demonstrate that these elements are so structured in this poem that they should also be viewed as erotic. Let us begin with the tune title, J"-meng ling, "As if in a Dream." Although such titles often have no connection with the texts they introduce, occasionally they do correspond precisely to the mood evoked by the poem 100)At least one other example can be found in Li Ch'ing-chao'scorpus. Her "Ts'ai-sang-tzu" >*ffi+ 1Ol) is also erotic in tone as a verse entitled "Gathering Mulberry Leaves" should be, since this tree had become the traditional rendezvous of lovers 102). Again, however, this little concernsour text. Fortunately a relevant and irrefutable example illustrating the literal and erotic understandingof "As if in a Dream" has been provided by Robert
here!] is the The verses (out The is of has most said in this regard ...." of in Yu, Li's corpus of tz' the supports lexic these claims. In the sixty times times. corpus that, of all the woman writers, Li Ch'ing-chao shameless
vocabulary collected a total
Ng tz'z6t jen,
of
number of
35I8
for than
frequency thus significantly
occurrence higher
chiv 1? (wine) appears lexics) an(l tsgi F (drunkor high) chig (I:207) and tsgi (I:32O) in
in the poetry of Li Po (r :367
I7 II
Li's and
I :659,
respectively).
99) Hu, Li Ch'ing-chao, p. 4o, Yu, Ng tz' jen, chcro chi, pp. 238-252.
l00) See Glen William "The text Baxter, of air verse van of Gulik a given with "Metrical tz' which may it
pp. I 35-I 36,

of not the have
and
Li Ch'ing-
Origins or is may
Tz'u," HJAS,
some Aside relation from illustrated can be i-tuan and respectively. Li seen yun" Hsun in the
I6(I953),
to later in the the title
p. I I I:
of the in cited tz'g, by
musical erotic by cf. the
associated.'J title this and tendency "Wu-shan
tradition verses early -1Q@-
associating (see written note to EtlM
tune
content
I33),
the
many 9;
poems
pattern (A.D. and
Ou-yang
Ch'iung
896-97I) IOI2I,
ift (fl. ca. A.D. 896) in Shih, ch. 895, 101) Li Ch'iog-chao chi, pp. 43-44; Yu,
102)
liang-tse" Chinese cf. Chan @ 1g t Myths), Ping-leung tt " ffi *
p. IOI25
Nmtz'?>6jen, p. 47.
ku-tai Interpretation shen-hua of Two hsin-shih Ancient New
i
*
JS *
M, WIJ (A
Chung-kuo
CHHP, 7
(I969),
pp. 207-208.
6
82
WILLIAMH. NIENHAUSER JR.
van Gulik. The verse-caption, written by the unknown "Master of the Peach Spring" (T'ao-yuan chu-jen, blliig t ,<) 103), to the very first of his "erotic prints" is entitled "As if in a Dream." It describes an obviously erotic situation (to those doubting the erotic nature of the text, one can recommend the print itself). The text reads: i
a
yeh
^
yfu
T
k'gang
t
yun
2
hung
7
nung
g
hsing
iX
pu
e
chih
e
hsiao
,\
yung
lu
1
ti
g
mg
iS
tan
X
hsin
X
kg ch'ing
., H
chieh chgng
,
su
j?ng
nan
i]
tqwng
ch'ing
chqsng
toqw hsiang Hgahsg i meng All night the rain was wild and the clouds in clamor, Heady joy cannot know a night unending. Dew drips from the heart of the peony, Borles and joints reduced to putty can hardly move. Desire is heavy! Desire is heavy! All like a dream of Shangri-la104) !
103) Van Gulik, EroticColour Ptints of the Ming Period, withAn Essay ox Chinese Ses Life from the Han to the Ch'ing Dynasty, B.C. 206-A.D. I644 (3vols.; Tokyo: Limited Edition, I95I), vol. I, p. 2I0, notes that '. . . the originalname of the metrical pattern J>-meng-ling was Yen-t'ao-yHan ^g. 'Feasting at the Peach Spring' . . .". Hence the fanciful name with which the poem is signe]. Elsewhere van Gulik shows the poems to have been the workof the novelist Lu T'ien-ch'engg i 1t (A.D. ca. I s80-ca. I620) and his coterie (p. I 29) . 104) The original text appears Ibid., vol. 2, p. I53. The transcriptionis in modern Mandarin(note the rllymes).The readeris referredto Todo Akiyasu's "Development of Mandarin from I4C. to I9C.," Acta Asiatica, 6(I964), pp. 3I40,for details concerningpronunciation at this time. T he final line refers to the Taoist paradise Hua-hsu S , which the Yellow Emperor visited in a dream, see Lieh-tzgchi-shih yIJ f t, Yang Po-chun gtdt, ed. (Shanghai: Lung-men lien-ho shu-chu, I958), ch. 2, pp.25-26. Cf. also van Gulik's translation and notes, Esotic ColourPrints, pp.209-2 I0.
106) See Yao Ling-hsi
,g,
P'ing-wai chih-yen %,
>
(Nagoya:
83
Here then one has what is safely to be considered an erotic verse (more explicit examples are also to be found in van Gulik and elsewhere 105), but they are denotatively sexual or pornographic and thus of little use in a discussion of erotic connotation), a key to a portion of "culture"long locked away. Although the syntax is clear enough to reveal the erotic significance in the foreground (rather than, for example, merely suggesting it), the vocabulary of this text can be divided into terms with an inherent erotic connotation, such as yu-k'gang yixn-hung i!E@M "the rain was wild and the clouds in clamor," and those which are lent such connotation by their context, lu-ti gsgfi,"dew drips," for example. There are also expressions which may have been used often enough in erotic contexts to have begun to acquire such connotation (m?s-tan 4d: e "peony" seems to be such a term, although hua-hsinA, was a standard sexual euphemism 106) This bifurcation is typical of all such eroticallysuggestive poetry. "She being Brand" 107),E. E. Cummings' allegoricalportrayal of a sexual experience in a poem which ostensibly describes a test ride in a new automobile, contains words which have permanent sexual connotations (joint, felt, give her the juice) as well as those which acquire this connotation in the context of the poem (my gas, my lever, the accelerator,internal expanding and external contracting brakes). The Silesian poets of the German High Baroque period 108), although they often worked with more established symbolism, producedcomparablesexual allegories (comparing a woman's body to an idyllic garden or a landscape, for example). Yet the vocabulary of these verses, too, exhibits the division between established erotic symbols and terms which contextually derived such significance. Christian Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau's (A.D. I6I7-I679) "Florida," professedly a description of a voyage to that fabled peninsula, is equally as engaging when read as a depiction of a woman named Florida 109). "Klippen"
105)
See, for example, "Yeh-ch'uan hsing"
&
h[ 4, van Gulik, EroticCologr
Prints, p. 2IO.
Saika shorin, I962), p. I74, 107) e.e. cummings, Poems I923-I954
pp. I78-I79108)
(New York: Harcourt, Brace,
I954),
On this tradition see Robert M. Browning, GermaxBaroquePoetry (University Park and London: Penn State University Press, I97I), and Joachin Schoberl, "liljen = mtlch und rosen-purpur (Frankfurt: Thesen Verlag, I972). l09) See Schoberl, lilden, pp. 76-78.
I6I8-I723
84
(cliffs, a standard metaphor for breasts 110), "tempel" (temple, part of the oft attempted ceremony of an offeringto the altar woman's lap), the name Florida, and the figure of Venus are intrinsically erotic. "Den steiffen ancker sencken" (to sink the stiff anchor), to speak of Florida as his "wohnhauss" (dwelling-house), and the "blosser erde" (naked earth) the poet desires to lie upon, are all lent their connotation by the structure and syntax of the poem. To return to Li Ch'ing-chao's version of "As if in a Dream," however, the first line establishes time and place and suggests an outing, a memorable occasion. That some sort of merrymaking has taken place is evident from the following line. Moreover, a tension begins to build between then and now, happiness and nostalgia, reality and a dream. What is "long to remember" was then almost unconscious (puiq-tsrii, 4;'). The third line opens again with this antithesis: Jiiiy g "aroused, happy, exhilarated": tsiin & "exhausted." The boat, although its crew no longer know the way, is returning. To this point most interpretations and translations differ but slightly. With line four begins the disjointed, at times almost paradoxical (entering a deep place and trying to get across it), construction. Ui A may, of course, refer to the boat (personified)or its helmsman mistakenly entering the lotus, but it may also be read intransitively as "to be confused, be indistinguishable from" 111)as in Wang Ch'ang-ling'sXEa * (A.D. 698-ca. 755) line from "Ts'ai-lien ch'ii" RX a (Song of Gathering Lotus):
Lotus leaves, silken skirts, cut from the same color; Hibiscus flowers, white faces, on both sides open. Indistinguishable they enter the pond not to be seen; When you hear her song you first realize that a human has
come
112) !
Bayoque, p. 17I. 111) This reading is based upon the comments of Sheng Ching-hsia and
110) Browning,
Chiang Li-hung (see note 38), pp. I30-13I, where luan ALis glossed (in Wang Ch'ang-ling's line) as hun i?. The book under review by Sheng and Chiang is Ma Mou-yiian A, a 3i, T'ang shih hsuian :y , which I have been unable to indentify further. 112) Shih, ch. 143, p. I444.
yu" on a M1 T'ang zrc silver t t g box t lid. 1MXCf. Sf also (With Hsueh HoT'ao's Yuan-li (A.D. Admiring 768-83I) Lotus verse
85
The connotationof s-hs60lATE"lotusblossoms'7 (linefour)can be determined to some extent by reference works113). The Daikanwa, voI. 9, p. Io337,item 32298.7,provides little helphere;Chgng-ze)en's glossesand quotationsare virtuallyidentical.In the P'ien-tzg,ch. I85, fol. 43a-44a,one finds, however,severalpassagesof interest: I) Li Ho's line "Lotus blossoms,the chilling dew, are moist," from his "T'ang-shang hsing" ;EE which reads in its entirety:
At 'iS' 2'tS>\
t7kNim?? 114 Lotusblossoms,the chillingdew, are moist, Blossomstattered,the rootsbitter. In downward flight, a femalemandarin duck115), The pool watersto soundin a suddensplash. J. D. Frodsham points out 116) that the poemis traditionally read as a lamentfor a concubine of the crownprincewho was executed in A.D. 809. Althoughone might perhapsnot readilyaccept this topical reference,commentators are in generalagreementthat a womanwhohas grownold andlost favoris metaphorically depicted here117). The lotus blossomis the vehicle of this aging courtesan, wet with dew fromawaitinghernegligentloverdeepinto the night, growntatteredand embittered with the lonelyyears. 2) A secondcoupletgivenin P'ien-tzg is fromLu Yu's , (A.D. II25-I209) T ung Ho Yuan-lishang ho-huahuai Ching-hu chiuFlowersI ThoughtBack to the Old Outingsat Mirror Lake):
113) Secondarysourcesare also of use here. James J. Y. Liu discussessome mildly erotic connotations of the lotus in his "Literary Qualities of the Lyric (Tz'q)",in St?dies in ChineseLitevaryGenves(Berkeley:Universityof California Press, I974), ed. by Cyril Birch, p. I40-I44, and van Gulik, Sexq,lal Life, p. 340, n. 3, maintainsthat the lotus flowersymbolizesthe vulva. 114) Yeh, Li Ho shih-chi,pp. 298-299. 115) A pair of mandarinducks are symbols of conjugal love. This image, therefore,stresses the isolation of the woman. Bo Gyllensvard,"A Botanical Excursionin the KempeCollection," BMFEA, 37(I965), plate I96 and p. I8I providesa T'ang representation of two mandarinducksinside a lotus blossom
"Ch'ih-shang shuang-niaoyuan-ying ts'ao" Ajt,l%Rgi:, p. 9036 and p. 57 (above note I84). 116) Frodsham,Li Ho,p. 234, n. X ("Song: By the Pool"). 117) Yeh, Li Hoshih-chi, p. 298, n. I.
Shih, ch.803,
86
At the third watch in painted boats we wound among the flowers, Flowers our four walls, boats for our home 118). In this poem the author thinks back upon the lusty days of his youth. The lotus blossoms join the painted boats, in which courtesans were wont to sail, as part of this topoi. 3) The third relevant couplet given by P'ien-tzu is from a chiiehchii E 'j entitled "Chuin-chung k'u-le yao, chiu shou," I * A 3& (Nine Song of the Sorrows and Joys of Military Life [#7]) by the Yuan poet Chou T'ing-chen J (A.D. I292-I379) [first two lines are those cited by P'ien-tzu]:
Ht T IIEI to,ft1t% WE T+kalv"RM Z H . Se
119
The gentleman in the government boat, a guitar in his lap, Smiling he points to the courtesan boat-white lotus flowers. Tonight at river bank the breeze and moon will be just right). Fish bought, wine in hand, but where to spend the night? In this playful little verse the lotus blossoms refer to the pale faces of the girls. The P'ei-wen section on the character iu g cites various other passages of interest 120), but only one is needed to indicate another erotic aspect of this plant. From "Tu ch'ui ko" - h , #3 121) comes the couplet:
Don't love the single-stemmed lotus, Just pity the shared-heart roots.
The translation is that of Burton Watson, The Old Man, p. I3. Shih ch'u chi F gJVV, fol. I4b, in Yiian-shih hsiian T (Taipei: Shih-chieh shu-chii, I962). 120) Cf. vol. 3, p. 220I-top, especially under hung-ou igL and ping-hen ou
118) 119)
121) The P'ei-wen cites these lines from a "Ku yiieh-fu" t o _f. The original poem was located in Kuo Mou-ch'ien * ! {fp, Yiieh-fu shih-chi # T3: 14 X, ch. 46, fol. 5a (SPTK). Li Ch'ing-chao's assertion that tz'u was a form evolved from yiieh-fu see Huang Mo-ku j M, , "Tui Li Ch'ing-chao 'Tz'u<(FfAj ij J- *# j P 3MP, in Wenpieh-shih-i-chia' shuo te li-chieh" X - M,/ hsiieh i-ch'an tseng-k'an, vol. 12 (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii, I963), pp. 125126, may imply that she felt certain yiieh-fu conventions, like the use of paronomasia, were proper to both genres.
87
These lines describe the lotus plant and the many blossoms which are attached by their long stems to one root 122). Iu 1, however, also functions paronomastically here representingiu ffi "a couple, mates"-"a couple who share one another'sheart." That these lexics were still associated with one another is suggested by their affinity in the Kuang-yiin / 3 123). Aside from dictionary references, innumerable passages from countless poets could be presented to support the traditional comparison of the lotus to various parts of a woman's body: her face has often been compared to the blossoms 124) (see above and Daiher fingers to the buds kanwa, vol. 9, p. I02I2, item 3I722.43), her (ou-ya, 1T, see Daikanwa, vol. 9, p. 10337, item 32298.I), arms to the stalks (lien-pang-erh,X 2 125)), her torso to the leaves (lien-yehnii, X* , see Daikanwa, vol. 9, p. I02II, item 3I722.10), and, of course, her bound feet to a "golden lotus" (chin-lien, i!), to "lorus hooks" (lien-kou, lp), to "lotus boats" (lien-ch'uan, XF, see Daikanwa, vol. 9, p. I02I4, item 3I722.IO3c), and even to lotus flowers (lien-hua, 1t, see Daikanwa, vol. 9, p. I02II, item If the lotus blossoms of Li Ch'ing-chao'spoem do sug3I722.266).
122) Although artistic depictions of the lotus are perhaps more relevant to this discussion (see note I58), the reader is also referred to the standard E portrayal of the plant in Ku-chin t'u-shu chi-ch'eng te Z R., "Po-wu "Ts'ao-mu tien" X hui-pien" lt*;W, ch. 93. 123) Ch. 3, fol. 54b (SPTK). They are, moreover, still used as phonetic guides for one anothei in modern works; cf. Tz'u-hai t X (Shanghai: Chunglhua shu-chii, 1941), vol. 2, chia-chi EP %, p. "17. 124) See also Schafer, Golden Peaches of Samarkand (Berkeley: University of California Press, I963), pp. 127 f., and P'i Jih-hsiu's "Pai-lien" b (White Lotus):
Half-drooping, golden-powdered-I know what it is like: A quiet and docile girl leaning over a torrent which reflects the yellow of her forehead. [translation Schafer, p. 129; original in Shih, ch. 6I5, pp. 7095-7096]. lhe dried yellow stamens of the lotus were used as a cosmetic, cf. C. A. S. Williams Encyclopedia of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives (New York: Julian Press,
I960),
125)
p. 254.
Lin Yutang, Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, I972), p. 273. Wolfram Eberhard, The Local Cultures of South and East China (Leiden: E. J. Brill, I968), p. 153, argues that "the symbolic meaning of both kinds of lotus (ho and lien) are still rather unclear, however lotos in general is a symbol of purity, chastity, [and the] female sex organ."
88
gest a woman's feet, then entering the deep place between them is clearly a euphemistic, but aesthetic, description of sexual intercourse. This connotation is reflected in the use of lotus fragrances as aphrodisical perfumes 126) and lotus root as a drug (an aphrodisiac?) 127). The overall effect of these associations has made the lotus a potent symbol of feminine sensuality, as Yuin Shou-p'ing pj T (A.D. I633-I690) testifies in a couplet written on his own painting of a lotus flower:
128
Clouds return, the girl of Wu Mountain's makeup seems refreshed, A Yang Kuei-fei emerging from the bath, still half asleep. The imagery of the first line draws upon the "Kao-t'ang fu" A. jf JR and its preface 129). In this prose-poem a cloud-woman from Wu Mountain seduces the King of Ch'u. Yiin Shou-p'ing sees the lotus as the girl incarnate, freshly adorned and ready for further favors. The second line depicts the blossom through the vehicle of Yang Kuei-fei, the famous T'ang courtesan, whom Hsuian-tsung first saw as she languidly emerged from the baths at Hua-ch'ing Palace In view of these metaphoric ties, one can safely allow the lotus an erotic connotation and turn to the "deep place" sriim-tsrhiui ,; &. Though the reference works are of no help here, the wellknown chian 27 of the Chin p'ing mei #i provides the following comparison between the "deep place" in a woman's vagina and the structure of a flower:
Schafer, Peaches, p. 157. 2000 Jahre Ibid., p. i8o, and Paul Ulrich Unschuld, Pen-ts'ao* *, Tradition alle Pharmazeutische Literatur Chinas (Miinchen: Heinz Moos Ver126) 127)
lag, I973),
p. i8i.
Schafer proffers a list of drugs which includes aphrodisiacs
but I have found no reference to the use of lotus as an aphrodisiac. 128) Laurence Sickman and Alex Soper, The Art and Architectuye of China (3rd edition; Baltimore: Penguin, 1958), plate I44B. 129) See Lois Fusek's translation and study, "The Kao-t'ang fu" iwj 19," pp. 393-425. MS, 30(1972-1973),
'g
m @'g
133
" . . . thus at an extremely deep place in the vagina of a woman there is a chamberlike the encasement of a flowerpistil . . .'X130).
75Mt@g@E4gAnt&tE
A poetic passage which is relevant can be located in the first two lines of the second stanza of Yen Hsuan's Fg> (fl. A.D. 940-950) "Yu mei-jen" ayA (The Beauty Yu) 131): Secretly awaiting someone in the depth of lotus flowers where waves are like brocade, I dream of clouds and rain . . .
M ZMy'R> ^@X
The first line may describe the natural scene, but it also sxggestsa bed coverlet. From line four which sets the erotic scene one moves to the reduplicatedlines five and six which describethe action. The expression tsti-tui $iS "struggling to get through" [tsrig according to Todo belongs to a word family [I27, p. 485] with the fundamental meaning of "thrustingin a ragged manner" 131)]can be traced in the P'ei-wenl32) to Yu Hsin's "Ch'unfu" WS; (Prose-poemon Spring):
.Bffl h4MER.
When Shang-lin Park opens, one vies to get in, Crowdingthe river bridge, one strtlggles to get across. In the other examples cited in P'ei-wen (all T'ang poems) two elements are further assoc.ated with this term. First, the poetic persona is usually located in a boat, and secondly, there is the clamor made by people returning from an outing at the end of the day. The couplet from Ts'en Ts'an's WS (A.D. 7X5-770)"Pa-nan chou-chung yeh shu-shih" EXE @at$: (In a Boat in the South of Pa Describing the Nocturnal Scene) will serve as represerltative:
,
XA@iMp.
130)
134
In Chin-p'ingmei, ch. 27, fol. I4a, (edition commentated and printed by Chang Chu-p'o g31t, I695). Original text corrected according to Ono Shinobu /J'W,> and Chida Kuichi +E tL, Kimpeib?si+iig (3 vols.; Tokyo: Heibonsha, I959-I960), vol. I, p. >67, n. 8; cf. also Clement Egerton, The GoldenLotus (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., I939), vol. I, p. 386: ". . . nam intra portam femineam arx, stamini floreo similis . . .". 131) Shih. ch. 897, p. IOI32. 132) Vol. 4, p. 26o8-bottom. 133) yX Txq-sha chi . + , ch. I, fol. 2Ia-22a (SPTK). The couplet cited is found on fol. 2za. 134) Ts'en Chia-chog shih tffi S ch. 3, fol. 6b (SPTK).
90
At the river ford, imminent dusk, The clamor of those heading home, struggling to cross. None of these passages indicate that tui A can mean to cross over a patch of lotus; they all suggest rather crossing a stream through a ford or over a bridge. Struggle is, moreover, a common metaphor for the sexual act (see the Master of the Peach Spring's verse above, or the description of Chung Lien's {rp ; lovemaking in Ch'un-meng 135), or van Gulik's comments on the "flowery so-yen W battle" hua-chen, t ) 136), and not typical of boats which travel among lotus (see the lines from Lu Yu above and Daikanwa, vol. 9, p. I02I3, item 3I722.79). The final line describes the result of the struggle of the preceding two. The gulls and herons, an entire shoal of them, are startled and rise in flight. "Seagulls soar" hai-ou hsiang Kt , is interestingly the title of position number seventeen in the sexual handbook Tung-hsiian-tzu t3: "Seventeen. Sea gulls soar. The man leans over the edge of the bed and lifts up the woman's feet to cause them to be raised. The man takes his jade stalk and inserts it into the 1 child palace." + -,i j Pt Ja S.M lWV Pi2 W. 93PI At2
t 137).
Among the thirty similar instructions provided there are several more which bear epithetic labels describing birds in flight. Yet another passage in the same text (fol. ib) likens "a quick thrust" to 138). A the "flight of a flock of birds against the wind" , Yet these descriptions, the obvious sexual connotations of the lotus 139), and the possibility of erotic suggestion in the tune title, do not demonstrate that this poem should be read erotically (although perhaps they have shown that it could be so understood). Other verses have combined many of the same ingredients without revealing erotic overtones. Tu Fu's line "Embroidered cables and
135) With an introduction by van Gulik, (Tokyo: Gingetsu-anshu, 1950), p. I4. There is a translation by Jordan D. Paper, Trifling Tales of a Spring Dream (Bloomington: The Institute for Sex Research, I964; the passage referred to is on p. I4). 136) The title of van Gulik's album of erotic prints is Hua-ying chin-chen. 137) Tung-hsiuan-tzu, fol. 3b, as reconstructed in Yeh Te-hui's % , * (A.D. r M::, 19I4. I864-I927), Shuang-mei ching-an ts'ung-shu t 138) Ibid., fol. ib; cf. van Gulik's translation, Sexual Life, p. I36. 139) See also pp. 55-56.
g t t
1k 7k ,%M ",% a
tJx X ue 2 (Having Dreamt that I Went to a
THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CIIINESE POETRY
9I
may A, ivory masts startledthe white sea gulls"]-40) t5Zof the emperorand ]liS court, but that is indicate the merriment 141) the all. The P'ei-wenlists undertv-1vt ;t "gullsand herons" followinglines from a lyric written to the tune "Nien-nuchiao" by Ts'aiShenffi 4@(f1, A.D. II25-II50): is Graceful) ffi (Nien-nu it
,
'15 XZ g. 142
flute, At the first soundof the transverse startledinto flig,ht. Half a shoalof gulls and herolas The poem, however,depicts the separationof lovers, and not an eroticconfrontation. anotherscenesimilarto that herselfhas described Li Ch'ing-chao ,a,y (In Spiteof MyLord): in "YuanVVang-sun" underdiscussion
, g . 'S g 't g E '1T
'iWZWEX,
/X2tN"g 143)
Lotusseedsjust ripe,lotus leaves are old, on the baIlk. andgrasses A puredewwashesduckveedblossoms in the sandthe gullsandheronsdon'teventurnabout, Sleeping early. As if they, too, regretsomeonereturning Here is obviously nothing more erotically suggestive than thc ripeningof the lotus seeds144). One beginsto sense that therewas floating in a boat,lotusblossoms of a persona a Sungtopos consisting nearby,and acquaticbirdshoveringabout. ChangLei's WX (A.D. poem entitled "Mengchih i yuan-ch'ihou-huashengI054-III4) 1R11l!1 k'ai shui-niaofei-mingwei-tsoerh hsiao-shihchi-chih"siGardenPool in which Lotus BlossomsBloomedin Splendorand I WroteTwoLittle Poemsto ComaboutCrying, WaterBirds:Flew It, +2) 145), seemsto confirmthis hypothesis. memorate
See Mei and Kao, "L)iction,' p. 7(3. Vol. 4, p. 2sgs-top. Here again the referenceis only to a "lyric of Ts'ai Shen." tSJ (30 vols.; Taipei: Futz'( tJ>-tt 142) In Sgng li-shih 1xing-chia T963), vol. 23, fol. sb. hua sllu-c]lii, chi, pp. 13-14; Yu, Nii Tz'1sjen,pp. 60-6r. 43) Li Ch'ing-chao 144) Cf. William McNaughton and Lenor Mahew, translators, 1 he (Fold and Liu, S1nflowe1, Orchid(Rutlancl,Vt.: Tuttle, I972), p. 37, note, anclIJO P 76, note. ch. 32, fol. I Ih (SP1 K). 145) ChangY-shih wen-chiffi t 9 ; ,
40) 141)
92
WILLIAM
H. NIENHAUSER
JR.
Again if one turns to texts or authors who are more explicitly erotic (and thus not included in corpora drawn upon by reference works), one can find verses which help in our explication. Huang E AA (A.D. I498-I569) 146), the wife of the literatus Yang Shen ag,f (A.D. I488-I559), is notorious for her frank depictions of sex as (The Halted the following ch'ii , entitled "Chu-yiin fei" g@ Clouds Fly), illustrates: hsi i chi
a
jui tien t'u

4?$-J
han ling hua
lien hsi kuan

Wf
yeh yent
0f
piu
mien
~t
huxa
0,*
feng 30 yii shen chih yeh
pao
a
juan shui hsil yeh
~X
yu hua shen tsai
hsil W hsiang ch'ih hsien p'ei
chan f kan
ch'a
chan huo li lien

147)
Toy with the pistil, mouth the lotus, A bit of magic horn and you won't sleep all night. The cock spits out its flowerlike comb so voluptuous, The bee embraces the flowery beard all a-tremble. Ah! A jade pliable and fragrant sweet. The divine waters of the florid pool, May only be occupied by my divine immortal; Night after night let him husband the lotus in the fire 148)!
On Huang E see T'an Cheng-pi X jE E, Chung-huo nii-hsing te wen146) (Shanghai: Kuang-ming shu-chii, hsiieh sheng-huo t 1 a t b 193I), pp. 328-336. 147) Yang Fu-jen yiieh-fu t5 A)\,, lfT in Yang Chia-lo, ed., Yin-hung-i so 3 k'o ch'ii Ufi (Taipei: Shih-chieh shu-chii, I 961 ), ch. 2, fol. ga. The first characters of lines two and four have been virtually quoted from verses by Li Shang-yin and Han Wo 0 f (fl. ca. A.D. 90I), respectively (although neither of the original poems are erotic), see Dathanwa, vol. 12, p. I2686, and vol. 9, p. 9897, item 30734.260, respectively. item 42532.128 148) Cf. the translation of Rexroth and Ling, The OrchidBoat, p. 6o. Native speakers consider the depiction here "frankly and obviously" sexual.
93
[Note: the first line seems to be a description of cunnilingus, the magic horn in line two is an aphrodisiac, a cock's comb refers to the vulva, the bee to the penis, and the flowery beard to the woman's pubic hair] 149). Indeed, one finds both the "lotus pond" and its topical companions used in referringto the female sexual partner and/or parts in the "T'ien-ti yin-yang chiao-huan ta-le fu" X t- W .t * (Prose-poem on the Great Joy of Intimate Pleasures of Heaven and Earth, Yin and Yang) found at Tun-huang and attributed to Po Hsing-chien [3 ijf (A.D. 776-826) 150). In this text one also sees the term lien-ken g fl (connected roots) 151) used as a metaphor for sexual intercourse. This may provide a homophonous-semantic link for lien-ken jfA "lotus root" a ou "lotus root." Here one undoubtedly finds a Buddhist (Tantric) influence, for, as Joseph Needham has pointed out, the lotus (padma; lien 1) was equated in Tantric symbolism with female sexual organs 152). For the most explicit and consistent application of this topos in an erotic verse, however, one must again turn to van Gulik's Erotic ColoredPrints 153). The final print is captioned by a tz'u entitled "I-p'eng lien"- f$ (The Double Lotus). The text itself, of course, supports our reading of Li Ch'ing-chao'spoem, but it is the print itself which sums up this erotic topos so well: A pavilion in the middle of a lotus pond. The curtains are drawn aside to admit the cool breeze. The couple sits on a round cushion in front of a single panel screen depicting a landscape. At left, a pair of Mandarinducks lay in the water154).
Yao Ling-hsi, 149) Cf. van Gulik, Sexual Life, p. I63, note and p. 303; P'ing-wai, p. 174. Po Chii-i 1 Jg A (A.D. 772-842) has already listed a classical comparison of the coxcomb to the lotus flower in his Po-shih liut'ieh shih-lei chi bA (Taipei: Hsin-hsing Shu-chti, I969), vol. 2, p. I046. On the "magic horn" as an aphrodisiac see Schuyler Cammann, "The Development of the Mandarin Square," HJAS, 8(I944-I945), pp. 109II0 and figure ia (where the horn is shown to be an excellent phallic representation) and James J. Y. Liu, Li Shang-yin, p. 86, n. 4. The line which Liu notes was believed to have run through this horn undoubtedly led to the belief in its aphrodisiacal potency, although the shape and consistency also must have played an important role. 150) See van Gulik's summary of the contents of this work in Erotic Colour Prints, vol. i, pp. 88-94. The original text appears Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 75-88. 151) Ibid., p. 78. 152) Science and Civilization, vol. 2, p. 426. and translated 153) Vol. 3, p. 24. The poem is found in vol. 2, pp. I59-I60 vol. 2, pp. 226-227.
154)
Vol.
I, p. 2 26.
94
Thus it would seem that Li Ch'ing-chaomay have been to some extent describing what was required to meet the stipulations of a topical setting, which seems already in the twelfth century to have acquireda distinctly erotic patina 155). Yet there is one final allusion (referencein Daikanwa, vol. I2, p. I3466, item 47268.2I) which provides a key to the understanding of the poem. It is an allusion, which like Fontane's line from Macbethallows the reader to infer a in tone and structure. In chapter two of Lieh-tzu156) one coherenice finds the anecdote about a young man who was fond of gulls and amused himself with them until, after his father suggested that he catch one, they refused to alight near him again. As the Daikanwa states, the relationship of gull to man came to symbolize a spiritual bond. Thus, although the birds don't even turn their heads when confronted by the persona of Li's poem in "YuianWang-sun," in the final line of "Ju meng ling" they are frightened away both by the noise and the very secular bond between the lovers. By her actions Li's persona has proven herself human, secular, and (at least in this instance) incapable of any purely spiritual relationship 157). This reading is supported by the tension of the discontinuous structure which results from reading the poem as merely a description of an outing, and is reinforcedby textual relationshipssuch as
155) Aside from the Tun-huang "Ta-lo tu" passages which show that already in the T'ang the lotus pond had an erotic connotation, it would seem that sexual arts and their language were extremely conservative and changed little in the last millennium-see K. M. Schipper, "Sexualleben," in China Handbuch, Wolfgang Franke and Brunhild Staiger, editors (Dusseldorf: Bertelsmann IJniversitatsverlag, 1974), p. 1200 and Yeh Te-hui's collophon to the "Ta-lo fiu" in van Gulik Erotic Colour Prints, vol. 2, p. 86. Van Gulik also notes, vol. i, p. 91, that alrea(ly in the "Ta-lo fu" can one find quotations from the Tung-hsiian.tzu. Onithe nature of allusion in classical Chinese 156) Yang, Lieh-tzu, pp. 41-42. poetry cf. Lattimore, "Allusion," pp. 4I6-418. 157) As Hu, Li Ch'ing-chao, p. IOO, has pointed out, Li's "love poems are now serious, now lighthearted, now tender, now voluptuous, but never platoInic." The use of the lotus as a symbol of purity corrupted by the secular William Edward world is noted in Daikanwa, vol. 9, p. 10213, item 3I722.48; Soothill, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms (London: Kegan Paul, Trenchi,Trubner, and Co., 1937), p. 443; and Howard S. Levy, "T'ang Women of Pleasure," Sinologica, 8(I963), p. 97. Levy cites a poem by Yang Hsiin-po WK-{n (fl. ca. A.D. 8oo) extolling a prostitute who renounced the world to enter a nunnery. Thie final line reads: "Then the lotus blossom will not be (original in Ch'iian T'ang shih-hua, ch. 2, fol. tainted;" 1 2:tE I 3a-I 3b [Chin-tai mi-shui ed.].
95
tsyhiay-kii t 2 / puiq-tsriih7jn / ui , hiiy x / tsiin a, tsriy-tui @ / sriim-tsriu i ' E, and kiiy V. This tension is shaded by various miNA, hiizy X, and gt, terms with sexual connotations-iu-hua k loose syntax of the comparatively by the enhanced iu W-and poem and the growing obscurity of the narrative in the final four lines. It is reflected in the tense repetition of tsyiy-tui, a phrase which changes the rhythm and calls (somewhat cacophonically) upon the senses of touch (struggle) and hearing (clamor), and finally resolved in the climactic final line 158). All of this functions within the topos of an outing in a boat, perhaps somewhat in intersection with the motiv of a persona returning home by water and hearing the hubbub of people at a crossing. That Li Ch'ing-chao varies these standard topoi (the noise here comes from the boat itself, for example), is yet another clue pointing to an erotic connotation. Reference works have shown that Li's vocabulary consists of words which have constant erotic connotation (iu, A) and those which are given such significance by their context (tsriy-tui, Ti.). The exegesis above then demonstrated that their arrangement was such that several levels of meaning, one erotic which lent a coherent substructure to the entire lyric, were thereby produced. James J. Y. Liu is perhaps commenting upon this phenomenon when he speaks of "Li Ch'ing-chao's modification of the significance and emotional associations of a conventional symbol (a flower) in particular contexts" 159). Even though the argument above is based in part upon syntactical or structural figures and thus not totally concerned with lexics, a compendium of sexual terms and those with erotic connotation would have greatly facilitated the discussion. One might go on to point out the textural similarities between line four of "Ju meng ling" and other passages in Tung-hsiian-tzn or attempt a more detailed deep-structure reading of the individual lines (line four again would be the most provocative in this regard with the iu a / iu {# relationship supplementing an already suggestive description), but the discussion of this lyric and its translation
'
158) A colleague has noted here that perhaps even the meter of this tz'uechoing the rhythmic thrustpattern is erotically suggestive-possibly patterns advocated by sexual handbooks. Indeed, with the tonal alternation and the verb in the second position of each line, a tightly patterned meter is produced. 159) The Art of Chinese Poetry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, I962), pp. 129-130.
96
is already too lengthy and further explication would only tend to vulgarize what is an extremely fragile texture in the original. It has not been the intention of this section, however, to demand that this poem be read solely as erotic. In fact, although we have concerned ourselves already with anticipated objections in the text above, there remainseveral strong argumentsto be made against an erotic interpretation (to some readers this will seem the height of hyperbole). One such contention might point to the time sequence within the poem itself, for only after the exhilaration has passed away do the possible sexual elements enter the poem. Moreover, the graph ui A suggests something done in confusion and unintenitionally, which does not fit the erotic situation we have attempted to depict (although, of course, confused or unintentional sexual encounters are often poetic themes). To argue further the sexual nature of the poem, despite the obvious erotic possibilities of many of its components, would be "defense-attorney scholarship" and cause the obfuscation of too many facts which have little relevance to or even contradict such a reading (the discussion above, for j &, whereasthe translation parsed example, considerssriim-tsrhilui the line so that syiim should have been read together with hua TE). What may be said-indeed, after leading the reader on so long an erotic excursion must be repeated-is that this poem contains numerous erotic elements which the present standard reference works are of but little assistance in identifying. The degree to which Li Ch'ing-chaoplays on these associations and their exact function in the poem remain debatable. Yet her capability to express such emotions so adroitly that no sensibilities are offended marks the apex of this type of poetry 160), and delineates her work clearly from that of Huang E, for example.
POSTFACE
It seems here more appropriate to append an afterword, for no real conclusion is implicit from the above, containing further comments on the use of reference aids, wherever possible based upon the findings of the translation and exegesis of these three poems, and summarizingsuggestions for the compilation of new ones.
160) In a society such as many of us live, with an old tradition of freedom of expression and a recent tendency toward explicit sexuality, such poetry may be particularly difficult to comprehend or appreciate. Only when authoi s work under social or political censorship, such as Li certainly did in twelftlcentury China, can such works evolve.
97
Poets in general are careful and inventive with words, certainly much more so than most lexicographers. Yet they are not all geniuses. Many are craftsmen, especially those who ply well established genres (here the similarities between eras in Chineseliterary history and the German High Baroque, when poetic handbooks (A.D. were in general use, might again be noted). Wen I-to 3 I899-I946) has pointed out the importance of reference works in the composition of poetry 161), here we have tried to stress their significancein the translation, interpretation, and appreciationof it. Thus it may not be a completely artificial situation to read classical Chinese poetry with dictionaries at hand (so long as the structure and context of the poem do not become hidden behind a stack of reference volumes upon our desks). Aside from ascertaining meanings (denotative and connotative), dictionaries and concordances are important in determining the "key" to a poem, often a particular allusion or set of allusions which direct the interpretation (and thus translation) as in Ch'en Tzu-ang's "Kan-yio" (referenceworks were not needed, of course, by the traditional readershipwho knew the works alluded to by rote); they provide the basis for realizing the elements of topoi as we have seen in Liu Yii-hsi's consolatory welcome and in Li Ch'ing-chao'slyric (neither poet was necessarily present in their respective settings-they understood the required complements for their landscapes and filled them in in accordance with their personal desires or the preferences of their public). The lexicons have also revealed Ch'en Tzu-ang's diction: one discovers, for example, in consulting the concordance to the Wen hsilan 162), that 4000 of Ch'en's poetic vocabulary is derived from this T'ang source book. In comparison, only 3200 of Tou Ch'ang'slii-shih can be found in the Wen hsiian corpus. Yet the high percentage of traditional vocabulary makes usages such as the hapax legomenon qiauian-to describe an equally unique political situation-all the more conspicuous. Tou's poem, however, contains another 32% grammatical particles, citations, and proper names and is thereby much less "original".Finally, in virtually all the examples cited, reference works have suggested a corpus for wider reading which proved remarkably relevant to further understandingand appreciationof the
-
in Wen I-to ch'iian-chi X, 161) See his "Lei-shu yii shih" Xi :h4 (Hong Kong: Yuan-tung t'u-shu kung-ssu, I968), vol. 3, pp. 3-IO. (Kyoto; Kyoto Monzen sakuhin -C ,, 182) Shiba Rokuro Ji ly A P43, daigaku jimbun kagaku kenkyusho, I957).
7
98
poems 163). Many of these texts were alluded to directly, others merely illustrate a concept or means of expression shared by our poems. But a poet's use of an image or phrase common to an earlier work does not always require that he had read or learned the base text. The names of the thirty basic sexual positions, for example, were much more widely known than a single locus classicus can advise 164). In fact, the non-recorded generally accepted aspects of a literary tradition may far exceed those in print 165), but the textual references are the only clues which are handed down and must be the chief guide for the translator. Though broader reading of Chinese poetry is also a requisite to better translation (or perhaps more accurately to better understanding), reference works can also play an important role in effectively directing such reading and in preparing an occasional trouvaille. Present reference works must, indeed, provide the base for our future endeavors and various minor emendations such as the inclusion of romanized archaic and ancient Chinese pronunciation or arrangement of examples under the appropriate gloss (at present both Chung-wen and Daikanwa list all variant meanings under the head gloss following each graph, but then muster together all the examples according to Japanese pronunciation [Daikanwa] or number of strokes [Chung-wen] without differentiating them semantically) would improve them immensely. With regard to the preparation of new dictionaries one should, perhaps, return to Edward H. Schafer's suggested format, expressed in his article "Thoughts about a Students' Dictionary of Classical Chinese" 166). Mr. Schafer called for a corpus of material from a single period selected from texts covering a wide variety of subjects and styles, the differentiation of archaizing usages, essential
163) Not to mention the literary studies (topos, literary historical, literary influence etc.) they infer. 164) See Baxter's comments on a similar situation during the T'ang, "Metrical Origins," p. 139, n. 78: "A courtesan would not have to be highly educated to allude to the 'Kao-t'ang fu,' which she might never have read; the images in the Preface to the 'Kao-t'ang fu' lhad long since become standard euphemisms which appear over and over in T'ang song or poetry." 165) Thus the simple mention of a cherry tree brings to mind the story of the integrity of George Washington, without calling any particular text to mind. 166)
MS, 25(T966), pp. 197-2o6.
99
phonetic information, a key translation representing the core denotation of the word, actual examples of usage, citing of Chinese cognates and authoritative etymologies 167). To these comments one might want to add the following desiderata. First, the expansion of what Mr. Schafer terms "archaizing usages" to help determine clich6 and innovative usage as well 168).
167) More recently Mr. Schafer has, in fact, published a First Supplement to Mathews (Berkeley: Mimeographed, 1973), in which, unfortunately, as the author himself forewarns (p. ii), he has "not by any means tried to
attain this ideal [i.e., the criteria set forth in "Thoughts"]
. . .". In addition
to Schafer's guidelines, see P. Kratochvil, et. al., "Some Problems of a CzechChinese Dictionary," AO, 30(1962), pp. 259-313, which, although it is concerned with modern Chinese, espouses numerous principles which would also apply to a dictionary of classical Chinese (p. 269, for example, "The task of a bilingual dictionary, if it were to be a perfect one, should be to indicate the ... semantic equavilants of all semantic shades of all ... words [plus the indication of the stylistic levels]"). Other models for future dictionaries can be found in Ladislav Zgusta, et. al., Manual of Lexicography (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, I97i), F. W. Householder and S. Saporta, eds., Problems in Lexicography (Bloomington: Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics, I962) and the journals Lexis and Computers and the Humanities. 168) When A. C. Graham, for example, in his review of J. D. Frodsham, The Poems of Li Ho (79I-817) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970) entitled "A New Translation of a Chinese Poet: Li Ho 4 A," in BSOAS, I972, pp. 560570, claims that in Li Ho's line, pieh-chien wu yii-hua JI] 0I AE.It (Swords received at parting are [now] without jade-like splendor [present author's translation]), yii-hua is "a rather precious clichb for a mirror" here used to describe a sword blade, one is puzzled at how precisely this conclusion was reached. One standard definition of a clich6 (in Western literary terms)
states that it is ". . . A phrase or figure which from overuse, like a dulled
knife has lost its cutting edge. Cliches in verse result when the poet's inspiration arises from other poems iather than from a fresh response to experience" (Laurence Perrine, "Clich6," in Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics [Princeton: Princeton University Press, I965], p. 141). Such a concept is certain to engender numerous problems in the study of a literature such as that of China, where inspiration and diction were often intentionally based upon earlier poems. In this regard the comments of a contemporary poet N Vt, are of interest. who still writes in classical Chinese, Chow Tse-tsung 1 Professor Chow, in a discussion of why classical-style poetry written by Westerners was often unnatural and even unintelligible to native speakers, stated that this was probably caused by the failure to "use traditional compounds," presumably compounds such as are found in P'ei-wen and P'ien-tzu. See also Li Chi's remarks on the Sung dynasty shmh-hua M I author's and advocation of composition based upon clich6s in his "Yin-yiu [6"] p. 352; CHHP, 2(I96I), Chiao-jan's 14, (A.D. ca. 734Tai-yii [{t]," ca. 8oo) reaction against "poet-lexicographers" who write poetry with words
IOO
If the present reference tools fail to identify even cliches, one must begin the preparation of works which will, for one can scarcely hope to evaluate the Chinesecorpus in the light of recent studies of
rather than inspiration (cited in Thomas P. Nielson, The T'ang Poet-Monk Chiao-jan [Tempe: Center for Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1972], p. 22); and finally Tsutsumi Tomokichi it r:, "Shi ni okeru moho keisho no shoso: Haku Rakuten no shi ni taisuru shoka no hihyo o chfi-shin to r- t Z A * CO) shi te" 0 {Z I : t S ZD CD M V ( EtA ,-i. A M 1` * CD tk Y ;t_
r
U C,
Toy5 bungaku kenkhyt, II(I963),
pp. 85-I05,
on various types
of "imitation" or influence in Chinese classical poetry. It would seem, therefore, that the precise term used by Li Ho played a less important role in his diction, as long as it fell within the semantic categorization required, in this case "bright" (see Kao and Mei, "Syntax," pp. 6I-62 and especially pp. I03-104). Moreover, it is difficult to ascertain whether yii-hua would have been considered "overused" by a T'ang readership. Mr. Graham refers the reader to Daikanwa (vol. 7, p. 7696, item 29821.T60), but in the five meanings for the compound found there, there is no explicit statement that the third gloss, "mirror," is a cliche. The term is not foun(d in the corpora of Li Po or Tu Fu (Although the compound yii-hua is found in Tu Fu's works, it refers there to Hsiian-tsung's prize horse, Jade Flower [see A Concordance to the Poems of Tu Fu (Peking: Harvard-Yencliing Institute Sinological Index Series, 1940), p. I21]. Tu Fu, however, cleverly uses the term so that it functions almost as a mirror:
Then suddenly the Jade Flower Piebald ascended the throneExact duplicates on the throne and before the hall steps. [The translation is William Hung's, see Tu Fu, China's Greatest Poet (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), p. 2I2]), nor in the Wen hshan. Daikanwa (and the other three large dictionaries, cf. P'ien-tzu, ch. 68, fol. P'ei wen, vol. 2, p. 9II-middle; and Chung-wen, vol. 21, p. 9264, i9a-i9b; cite it as having been used in Yu Hsin's eg {> (A.D. 5I3-58I) item 2I296.858) "Ching-fu" X A (Prose-poem on a Mirror), in a poem by Yii Shih-nan A t (d. A.D. 7I4), and Pk (ca. A.D. 550-630), in another by Hsii Yen-po 1,i!{ finally in one of the kung-tz'u 'g 31 (palace tunes) of Wang Chien ITE (ca. A.D. 765-830). Yeh Tsung-ch'i's % Afi ` note on the term (see Li Ho shih-chi e E E ff [Peking: Jen-min wen-hsiieh ch'u-pan-she, I959], p. 256, n. 2) does not indicate that he feels it to be a cliche. Helmut Martin's Index to the Ho Collection of Twenty-Eight Shih-hua, vol. 2, pp. 734-735 cites nearly twohundred and fifty lines containing the graph yii (jade), but none contains this compound. Chang Hsiang does not include the term in his Shih-tz'u-ch'ii yii-tz'u hui shih. Thus after consulting many of the presently available reference works the question of yii-hua's status remains, for us at least, unanswered. Perhaps a perusal of the language of the Wen-yiian ying-hua I 7 A subsection on mirrors (under fu JR in ch. 105, where several works, incidentally, take swords or knives being used as mirrors as a theme-these swords
IOI
western literature, when one cannot yet determine the diction of a Chinese phrase. How, for example, would Michael Riffaterre's studies of cliche 169), Harold Bloom's work on literary influence 170), or any of the linguistic based theories of literary history, be applied to Chineseliterature? A second supplementaryproposal towards better translation aids would be the classification of words in dictionaries by frequency
and mirrors all belong to Taoist appurtenances used especially to control beings, see Hsi-ching tsa-chi N3i,9SAIE, ch. 3, fol. ia and fol. 3a-3b [SPTK], respectively; see also Fukunaga Mitsuji V0 PI "D6kyo ni okeru kagami to tsurugi, sono shiso no genryu," M-f {r b Dr AIl,e 0 , 0 , X, 'E Toho gakuhho, 45[Sept. '973], pp. 59-120 and especially pp. 72-75, and Robert H. van Gulik, "Lute and Sword," in The Lore of the Chinese Lute [Tokyo: Sophia UJniversity, 1940], pp. I46-148) would lhelp to determine the nature of this binome. Or a concordance to the Japanese collection of Chinese poems written by Japanese, the Kai-fii so fi% (preface A.D. 751), which seems to be (albeit unintentionally) a storehouse of late Six Dynasty and early T'ang hackneyed expressions. Or should one turn to poetic handbooks (Kuo Shao yii Mg t lists numerous such works in his Chung-kuo wen-hsuiehp'ip'ing shih rfl Hp St [Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934], pp. 272~Tht,, 280. Since these works seem to have been designed for poetasters-what true poet needs a handbook ?-they should prove useful in determining cliches; cf. also E. G. Pulleyblank's comments on Po Chii-i's handbook being used as a guide for those members of the Niu Seng-ju t4.{n'W [A.D. 779-848] faction who sought to reduce the emphasis on belles lettres in the examinations in hiis "Liu K'o 11JR, A Forgotten Rival of Han Yii," AM, 7[I959], pp. 157-558, n. 63) such as Po Chii-i's Po-shik liu- t'ieh (which does not list yii-hua in its section on mirrors-, vol. I, pp. 185-187) ? Or read works like
Ssu-k'ung T'u's X3t RN (A.D. 837-908) "Jung-clh'eng-hou chuan" V t | X
(Biography of the Marquis of Jung-ch'eng-a pseudobiography of a mirror; cf. Ssu-k'ung Piao-sheng wen-chi Rdt& .X 9;, ch. I, fol. 4b-6a [SPTK]: also no occurrence of yii-hua) ? Until such questions can be answered, one is forced back to the broad acquaintance with Chinese diction of a reader like Mr. Graham. In a modern discipline such as sinology professes to be, however, this should not be tolerated. 169) "Fonction du cliche dans la prose litteraire," in Essais de stylistique structurale (Paris: Flammarion, 197I), Daniel Delas, translator, pp. i6i-i8i. One wonders if some of the problems encountered in automatic translation of Chinese is not related to this paucity of linguistic knowledge. It would seem that text grammars, determination of the discourse level of a passage, and other concepts of text-generationalists await a more careful exposition of classical Chinese morphology and syntax. See also note 192. 170) See his The Anxiety of Influence (New York: Oxford University Press, I973) and Poetry and Repression (New Haven: Yale University Press, I975).
I02
groups (much as in C. H. Fenn's The Five ThousandDictionary 171) and E. S. Liu's Frequency Dictionary of Chinese Words172). There are a number of bases for this work already at hand: the interest in vocabulary shown by Yale Far Eastern Publications 173), the nearly eight thousand characters of Mathews'Chinese-EnglishDictionary 174), etc., but such works have traditionally not taken their material from organized sources or a particular time period, and would have assisted but little in determiningthe diction of any of the poems discussed above. Some of the statistical work recently undertaken in this regard (MaureenRobertson's study of Li Ho's poetry comes first to mind 175)) is needed on a larger scale 176). Thirdly, our dictionaries must include as many connotative meanings and associations as possible (Taoist, Buddhist, erotic, topical, taboo, paronomastic, synonymic, symbolic, etc). under each entry. It is fruitless to bring arguments forth in individual studies concerning, to use an example at hand, the erotic connota171)
Revised American Edition; Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
I963. Fenn's count is based upon "occurrences in the textbooks of I926" [p. viii].
The Hague: Mouton, 1973. Cf. especially the works of George A. Kennedy such as his Minimum Vocabularies of Written Chinese (Yale: Department of Oriental Studies, 1954). 174) As Olov Bertel Anderson's study of Mathew's points out, the dictionary actually contains 9,1OI characters (only 59% of which are glossed with a pronunciation still valid today!): cf. A Companion Volume to R. H. Mathew's Chinese-English Dictionary (Lund: Studentlitteratur, I972), p. 177. 175) Robertson, "Poetic D)iction," chapter three, "The Poetic Vocabulary,"
172) 173)
pp. 69-I I4.

176i) Ibid., p. 74. As Ms. Robertson suggests, word counts, or more accurately character counts, may be deceptive. Since yii 3i (jade) may be used to describe a beautiful woman's skin, the moon, etc., a simple figure of how many times this lexic occurs in a corpus may be of little value in determining a poetic vocabulary. Not only word counts, but also concordances, would be of greater value if they would take note of such principles. Associations or pairings of words, which would become apparent in a concordance, might also effect the diction of a translation. Elling Eide similarly questions Kuo Mo-jo's argument that since more of Tu Fu's poems refer to drinking, Li Po's reputation for intemperance may be unwarranted. Mr. Eide notes that Li Po actually uses the word "wine" more often than Tu Fu (210 times to 176) and suggests quite rightly that this is perhaps an equally important statistic. An even stronger case for Li Po's bibulousness could be constructed from the occurrences of the graph tsui R (drunk, perhaps closer to German blau) in their works: Li Po uses it 117 times, Tu Fu but 8o.
I03
tions of a particular graph, binome, or topos, when such glosses will not be collected or compiled in some manner for future reference 177). Studies dealing with colors and their connotations have been particularlynumerous178) and might thereforeserve as models for similar semantic work on a broaderrange of words. Mr. Schafer's comments on the psychological effects of colors and the derivation of many of these terms from textile dyes (in his "MineralImagery in the Paradise Poems of Kuan Hsiu," Asia Major, New Series, X [I962], pp. 73-I02, especially pp. 88-go), Peter A. Boodberg's differentiation between synonyms such as ch'ing , ts'ui V, and 14i * (in "Cedules from a Berkeley Workshop," Tsing-hua hsiiehpao, 7 [I969], pp. 6-7 and I9-20), and Ms. Robertson's discussion of the symbolism of colors in Li Ho's poetry 179) may prove exempla. If such studies, along with existing translations and their commen177) This is not to suggest that such compilations do not exist. Cf., for example, Howard S. Levy and Akira Ishihara, "Index of Sex Terms," in The Tao of Sex, An Annotated Translation of the Twenty-eight Sections of the Essence of Medical Prescription (Ishimpo) (Yokohama: Shibund6, 1968), pp. I6I-I63; van Gulik, "Appendix, Chinese Terminology of Sex," in Erotic Colour Prints, vol. I, pp. 229-234; Levy, Chinese Sex Jokes in Traditional Times (Washington, D.C.: Warm Soft Village Press, 1974), pp. 236-247 (tlhe usage of lines from Li Po in sexual jokes on p. 17 and p. 21I are of especial interest); Phyllis Ackerman, "Chinese Notes," (n.p.: Unpublished monograph in the library of the Institute for Sex Research, Bloomington, Indiana, Ackerman's comments on water birds as phalli (p. 33), the flower I948)-Ms. as a vagina (p. 12A), and the lotus (pp. io4B and 12I) are most relevant; and Yao Ling-hsi, P'ing-wai, which contains a glossary to terms used in the Chin-p'ing mei. But they are often neither of high scholarly quality nor generally available. 178) Aside from those studies mentioned below, two Japanese works on Li Ho's use of colors have been published: Arai Ken AE4t, "Ri Ga no ni sono shikisai ni tsuite" 0 4 - t shi-toku e 0 1h, I{: O ' , T-: "Ri Chfigokhu bungaku h, 3(1955), pp. 6I-90; and Ishikawa Issei i5J11-J, Chokichi no shikisai kankaku-'k6' to 'ryoku' to ni hyosho sareru mono" ' iEiX t ? YoD. Chfigoku bunka henJ CD C) 1, tg g-() t1 ( kyuskai kaiho, 4(1955), pp. I8-22. More recently Mr. Eide's comments, "On Li Po," p. 390, concerning the role of symbolic Turkish colors in the life of Li Po are of interest. The general approach followed by Ladislav Zgusta, Manual, pp. 96-98, in dealing with nearly synonymous color-terms (in modern Chinese) which apply to the intensity, brightness, space, and feeling of softness, fear or vividness of a color could easily be adapted to classical Clhinese terms. n. 23. 179) Op. cit., pp. 85-90, IO9-IIO,
Io4
taries180) (a new list of translattonsavailableis also requisiteoutdated), workis nowhopelessly oncestandard Davidson's Martha literarystudies181), andspecialwordstudies182) mightbe employed, glosseswouldbe at dictionary the basisfor countlesssupplementary hand. Fourthly,one must pay attentionto the questionof wordclasses Althoughthere and concordances. or functionsin both dictionaries 183), Kao are several classicalarticles on word classes in Chinese
180)The extensive notes ot a study such as James J. Y. Liu's The Poetvy of Li Shang-yirl(Chicagoand London: University of Chicago Press, I969) would prove invaluable material for a new dictionary of T'angpoetic vocabulary. Even more useful would seem to be works such as P. Kratochvil's University Press, I970) which Stovies,(London:Cambridge Lg Hsgn: ThFee provides carefully written annotations and grammaticalcominentary. The only work of this kind dealing with classical Chinese literature (known to ne, (vol. 2 za ilosti, g .% the author) is I. T. Zograf'sBia"'vex' o vozdajarlii vol. I of 2 vols.; Moscow: Glavnaja redaktsija vostocnoi literatury, I972 contains a reproductionof the originaltext, and a translationand introduction to pien-wenby L. N. Men'sikov),which not only translatedthe Shqxangen chi, but affords as well a grammarand glossaryfor the text. 181) Such as Kao Yu-kung and Mei Tsu-lin's "Diction" or James J. Y. Liu's Sfajov Lyricists of the NorthernS?ng (Princeton:Princeton University Press, I974). einige fur das Verstandnischinesischer 182) Alfred Hoffman's "Verzeichnis Dichtung wichtigen Begriffein den Liederndes Li Yu," in Die Liederdes Li Yi) 937-938 (Koln: GrevenVerlag, I950), pp. 237-251, discussesconnotation , "To-shi and symbolic significance of various terms; Toyoda Jo " Ed (Kyoto: Yotokusha, in To-shi kenkyg Wt, zokugo ko" u{@9, iS an examinationof T'ang colloquialexpressions;Sheng pp. I85-256, I948)9 hsicanchu-chieh Ching-hsiaS @ia and ChiangLi-hung g gS , "T'axg-shih i-ch'an tseng-k'ant t R ffi Mi ;1t,Wen-hs1,ieh te shang-chueh": ffi ffit g b? and finally (Peking: Chung-huashu-chu, I962), vol. II, pp. I30-I38; l] J. W. Chiao, "ZumWortfeld 'Tod,' 'Sterben,'und 'Tot' in der chinesischen an interesting study of a wordpp. 338-39I, Sprache", MS, 30(I972-I973), family which unfortunately once again ignores the phonetically relevant material to concentrateupon the graphicaspects. Althoughpersonalsymbols are probablymost logically discoveredthrough readinga poet and thus not to be singledout as such in referenceworks,there are studies such as Takagi Masakazu's r%7E "To Ho no uma, taka no ho, I 7(I962), pp. bgngakqx t X X {E s b ' X, Chggokqx shi ni tsuite" 0;tg X ,1t; which might be acknowledgedin glosses on s?gt,% and ying t in a 45-70, T'ang lexicon. All these examples, however, are intended only to demonstratethe types of material available and are in no way meant to suggest the quantity of such studies. B"lletin de 183) See Henri Maspero,"ZumProblemder Wort-Kategorien," G. Kennedy, pp. 209-2I3; de Pclvis, 39(I938), la SociFtdde Linggistiqqxe
I05
Yu-kung and Mei Tsu-lin's discussion of the problem vis-a-vis poetry (their example of Wang An-shih's IE1 ; [A.D. I02i-io86] use of lii % [green] as a transitive verb is fascinating) and translation in their "Syntax, Diction and Imagery in T'ang Poetry" 184), is most relevant. Their attention to the English equivalants also demonstrates a proper sense of the importance of diction in conveying the poetic effect. Finally, some furtherattention should be given the set of materials which are to be selected as the base corporafor our referenceworks. Is it enough to limit our dictionaries by time periods? (And if so, which periods? Do present divisions of literary history reflect actual literary entities 185) ? Must not our concordances and dictionaries be further restricted to genres or styles 186) ? Kao and Mei have
"Word-classes in Classical Chinese," in Selected WVorks of GeorgeA. Kennedy, T. Y. Li, ed. (New Haven: Far East. Publications, I964), pp. 323-433; John S. Cikoski, "Classical Chinese Word-Classes," (Unpub. Ph. D. dissertation, Yale Univ., I970); and Kao Kung-yi, "The Classification of Chinese Words," (Unpub. Ph. D. dissertation, Stanford Univ., 1970). One might also consult William F. McNaughton's "Word-Class," in his Shih Ching Rhetoric: Schemes of Words," (Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Yale Univ., I965), pp. 175-195. 184) Kao and Mei, "Diction," p. 55. Their argument follows closely that of Hung Mai A see Ch'ien Chung-shu a :, ed. and (A.D. 1123-1202),
comm., Sung-shih hsiian-chu pan-she, 1958), p. 56 n. 2. 5 - 3t (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsiiele ch'u-
185) Here one begins to tread the vicious circle for it may well be that one of the functions of concordances is to suggest literary periods. Thus studies such as Josephine Miles, "Adjectives in English Poetry from Wyatt to Auden," University of California Publications in English, vol. I2, no. 3(1946), pp. 305-426, which argues the transition from a verb-dominated vocabulary (in English poetic language) to one strongly determined by the sensory epithet and the qualified noun, can be used in reverse to determine logical segments/divisions of literary history; cf. Ms. Robertson, "Poetic Diction," p. 14. 186) Thus complaints such as Eide's regarding the exclusion of fu R from the corpus upon which the Japanese concordance to Li Po's poetry (Hanabusa Hideki It -A , Ri Haku kashi sokuhin a b 1 = *f I [Kyoto: Kyoto Daigaku Jimbun-kagaku-kenkyfisho, 1957]) was based, may require rethinking. In fact, in the light of the contrasting general tones of old- and recentstyle verse (pointed out repeatedly by Kao and Mei), one ponders whether such a division should not be kept in mind in compiling dictionaries and concordances. In some preliminary studies ot P'i Jih-hsiu's Jt E {t (A.D. ca. 838-ca. 883) use of color words, one finds that in his regulated poetry i of every 605 characters is tzu A (purple), whereas it appears only once every 1405 characters in the old-style verse. Hung iiiE (red) is similar: it occurs once every I873 characters in old-style, I: 397 in recent-style lines. Moreover,
io6
indirectly suggested this in their claim that " . . . The poetry of a given period, genre or style is characterized by recurrent features" 187). Indeed, in the present study the dearth of tz'u p concordances has severely hampered the understanding of and sensitivity to the diction of this genre. The only alternative for the moment would seem to be wide reading in an attempt to gain something of the familiarity with a particular genre or era that the traditional Chinese reader enjoyed. Yet the overall problem is perhaps not so complex or hopeless as it seems at first. Although Mr. Schafer has proposed a new classical Chinese-English dictionary, he has not produced it, and has even ignored his own proposals in his Supplement to Mathews 188). Nevertheless, his translations of classical prose and poetry are exemplary. This contradiction may be explained readily, for while he sought to exact a student dictionary in his article, Mr. Schafer himself was able to employ the raw material presently obtainable from concordances, indexes, and traditional reference works, and to determine solely thereby the diction of his target passage. His translations then draw upon his own previous readings and his considerable knowledge of English and other Western languages. Such has been to some extent (sans the "considerable knowledge") our experienlce, too, in reading the poems above. Thus it would seem that more concordances to carefully selected corpora 189) should be the most
P'i's predilection for combining these two colors in parallel lines is found once every 3747 lexics in old-style, but more than twice as often (I: I572) in the recent-style. Altlhough these figures are given completely out of context, they (1o suggest a different standard for the diction of the recent- and oldstyle verses of P'i, and perhaps for all of T'ang poetry. See also Iritani Sensuke A 64R frI. "Kenkon to tenchi: To Ho no sekeikan no tegakari to I L i. I (k O tt f u C ), Chutgoku shite" 4z-, X e bungaku ho, i 17(I962), pp. 9-23, especially pp. io-ii, on the more abstract and philosophical nature of pentameter verse. 187) Kao and Mei, "Diction," p. 63. 188) See note 167. / Houa-kien tsi sa189) Two recent publications, Aoyama Hiroshi 4U`, kuin tJ ref% I (Tokyo: University of Tokyo, I974) and the index series begun by the Mei-Sei Bungaku Gengo Kenkyukai O ji( JfE (Association for the Study of the Language of Ming and Ch'ing Literature [Nagoya]), which includes concordances for five novels and numerous dramatic works to date, have somewhat improved the situation. Concordances based upon a particular motiv (using the images listed by Mau-tsai Liu in his "Das Bild in der Dichtung der T'ang Zeit (6I8-906)," OE, i6, I969, pp. 181-208, for instance) or a particular type of poetry (a concordance to the series of poems on erotic topics such as that of the T'ang cour-
THE TRANSLATION
OF CLASSICAL
CHINESE
POETRY
I07
important goal for the immediate future. Polished lexicons, if in fact necessary at all (perhaps addenda to current works would prove a more efficient solution) 190),can be built out from this base of concordances. Such is in fact the sequence being followed by the Mei-Sei bungaku gengo kenkyuikai W it * (Association for the Study of the Language of Ming and Ch'ing Literature) 191). Concordances would have as well served the major concerns of a translator in the poems examined above: the allegory and influence of the Wen-hsilan in Ch'en Tzu-ang's verse, the topoi of the exchange between Liu and Tou, and the erotic connotation and topos of Li Ch'ing-chao's lyric. If the interests of scholars in the field of Chinese literature and the knowledge of those who have applied computers to the compilation of concordances or Chinese linguistics (Wolfgang Bauer and Arthur Kunst, for example 192)) might be combined, indeed, if there were some means to better coordinate such lexicographic work 193), the results would certainly and rapidly allow each
tesan, Chao Luan-luan's X ' ' sequence cataloguing the beauties of a woman's hair, eyebrows, mouth, fingers, and breasts, Shih, ch. 802, pp. 90329033) would also be valuable; cf. also Schafer, Review of Sexual Life in p. 454, Rexroth and Ling, The Orchid Boat, Ancient China, JAOS, 8I(I96I), pp. 26-30), and note 193. On the importance of the concordance to historical grammatical and semantical studies, see W. A. C. H. Dobson, A Dictionary of the Chinese Particles (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto, I974), pp. 7-8. 190) Give the anisomorphism between classical Chinese and contemporary English, a perfect bilingual dictionary may be a naive goal. Despite all lexicographic aids, therefore, a great deal of ingenuity will always be demanded of every translator. See also note 2. 191) See note I89. I Sg(A 192) See W. Bauer's "Introduction" to his Kuo-yii yin-te gl Concordance to the Kuo-yii) (Taipei: Chinese Materials and Research Service Center, I973), A. E. Kunst's, "Trends in Contemporary Linguistics, Textgrammars, Semantic Theory and a New Chance for Automatic TIranslation," in The Art and Profession, pp. 9-21. On a discussion between Fritz Mote and Herbert Franke concerning computers and concordancing, see H. Franke, "A Note on Concordancing," Unicorn, 5, pp. 54-58. See also A. J. Aitken, et al., eds., The Computer and Literary Studies (Edinburgh: University Press, 1973). 193) Abbreviated or incomplete dictionary projects, which include the Harvard-Yenching Institute Chinese-English Dictionary Project of a generation ago, Yang Chia-lo's jt * M work on an "Encyclopedia Sinica" in the late 1950's, and Schafer's T'ang dictionary proposal, give adequate proof thereof. At present while Karlgren has been compiling his "Gleanings for a Lexicon of Classical Chinese," BMFEA, 44-46(I972-I974), pp. 1-73, I-62 and I-27, respectively, Danish sinologists have begun a dictionary based upon Karlgren's Grammatica Serica (see Annual News7_ r of the Scandina-
io8
of us more time to read widely, to criticize more incisively, to translate more faithfully, and to acquire a new sort of "cultural background." This will also bring Chinese studies at long last into the dialogue of contemporary literary criticism. Otherwise new dictionaries of classical Chinese, no matter how exhaustive, will contribute little towards translation as long as they continue to be based on the principles common to those reference works currently available. Aside from the literal translations of compounds, there are, of course, other phonetic and orthographic "games" which may often engage a translator 194). The pseudo-biography of boots (in which the graph hsiigeh" is divided into its components ko $ and hua V. and personified 195)) or the flexibility and sense of humor with which even the classics were read 196) (as van Gulik notes, the preface of
vian Institute of Asian Stuidies[Copenhagen], 7[1973], pp. 31-32). Finally, one hears rumors repeated of a mammotlh classical Chinese dictionary being prepared in Peking. Among the three standard series of concordances, Harvard-Yencliillg Institute, Kyoto's T'ang Civilization Reference Series, and that of the Centre d'etudes sinologiques de Peking (Universit6 de Paris) [cf. Endymion Wilkinson, The History of Imperial China, A Research Guide (Cambridge: Harvard East Asian Monographs, 1974), p. 30], there are comparatively few volumes devoted to poetic works. Recent interest in Japan (where concordances of the poetic corpora of Han Yii and Tu Mu have appeared), Taiwan (undei tlhe auspices of the Chinese Materials and Research Service Center see WV. Bauer's "Introduction," Kuo-yii), and the Federal REepublicof Germany where computers have been employed (see note 192), is, however, an encouraging sign. David McMullen's Concoedancesand Indexes to Chinese Texts
(San Francisco: Chiinese Materials Centre, Inc.,
1975),
althoughi not comi-
prehensive, does indicate more clearly what is available now and what is needed for the future. See also Helmut Martin's call for organization and orientation in future projects, in "Political Terminology and Translation Work from the Clhinese in Non-English Speaking Nations," also presented at the Asia Foundation Chinese-English Translation Conference, to be published in a collection of conference papers during 1976. 194) Cf. Eide's ("On Li Po," p. 384, n. 14) appeal for a typology of plays on words in Chinese. 195) This piece has been attributed to Han Yu, see Herbert Franke, "Literary Parody in Traditional Chinese Literature: Descriptive Pseudopp. 24-25. Biographies," OE, 21(1974), 196) The understanding or interpretation of texts among scholars even in traditional times was certainly often at variance. Yang Shen, for example, presents a number of lines which do not ostensibly describe women in hiis discussion of yellow-forehead makeup; see his Tz'u-p'in PP (Peking: Jenmin wen-hsiieh ch'u-pan-she, I960), ch. 2, p. 7I. Similar is the comical discussion between literati concerning the erotic possibilities of a poem from the Shih ching described in Ju-lin wai-shih
into the term mu-tan(see his "Problems of Translation," in The Poetry
CHINESE POETRY OF CLASSICAL THE TRANSLATION
Io9
album of erotic prints was comttS, the Hxa-yixg chxn-chen posed by assembling quotations from the Confucian classics 197)) suggests some of the possibilities which were not alien to the culture of China during traditional times. The incorporation of new material into reference works must therefore be accompanied by a readiness to reconsider some of the established methods of reading classical Chinese poetry and a willingness to be as conscientious and careful about language as the classical Chinese poets themselves were (which will hopefully aid the reader or critic who knows no Chinesein distinguishing Tu Fu's work from that of mere poetasters-something which current translations, because they often express rather more of the translator than the original poet 198) oftell fail to accomplish), thereby at long last acknowledging the complaint of Michael Boym (A.D. that not only understanding,but also "interest in Sinical I6I2-I659) studies has been impeded by the lack of a Chincsevocabulary" 199) University of Wisconsin
X
(The Scholars) (Peking: Tso-chia ch'u-pan-she,
I959),
ch. 34, pp.
337-338
Today, however, James J. Y. Liu warns againstreading a literal meaning
of Li Shang-yin,p. 35), yet the term itself is ideal for sexual word-play: mg "male" ol "bolt" and tan "cinnabar", a common epithet tor female genitalia (cf. tan-nen F, for example). Indeed, the association of peony and beautiful
women may date from the famous composition of Li Po on the first peonies planted in the imperial palace, see Goran Malmqvist, "Six Poems on a The pp. 75-9s, especially pp. 77-79. Painting of Peonies," BMFEA, 44(I972), binome occurs quite obviously in an erotic sense in the verse-caption by the "Master of the Peach Spring" in the discussion of Li Ch'ing-chao's verse above. n. I. 197) Sexgal Life, p. 27I, 198) This tradition, a hegemony of "translators" of Chinese poetry such as Ezra Pound or Bertolt Brecht among the general readership of the West, remains even today much unchanged. Hopefully, works such as Wu-chi Liu of and Irving Yu-cheng Lo, eds., SunflowesSplendot,ThreeThoxsandYeaqts ChinesePoetry (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, I975) have begun a trend which may serve to make the general reader somewhat more aware, as svell as such is possible through translations, of the levels of diction in Chinese poetry. Nevestheless, there is always the danger in such catholic vvorks, that attention given a minor poet by a "major" translator, such as C. H. Wang's versions of Ts'en Shen, may lead to unfounded and unfortunate conclusions (to be seen alreadv to a certain extent in David Lattimore's leview of this an2I, I975J) . [December thology in the New YorkTimesBookReview,LXXX.5I 199) See B. B. Szczesniak, "Tlae First Chinese Dictionary Published in Branch Semicentennial T*'est Europe," in Ametican OrientalSociety MiddVe Volume (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, I969)s p. 227.

Dictions Dictionaries and The Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry

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Dictions Dictionaries and The Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry

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Diction, Dictionaries, and the Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry Author(s): William H. Nienhauser Jr.

Toung Pao, Vol. LXIV, I-3

DICTION, DICTIONARIES, AND THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY')

HJAS JAOS JA S MS OE PMLA SPPY SPTK TP

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

CHINESE POETRY OF CLASSICAL THE TRANSLATION

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

in A Demonstrationof the Role of Dictionaries and Concordances Translationand Exegesis

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

miai qiau njuen 9qiim thai sam tsiii sam

yiuaet iay kuay bA phaek khiak yiuaen tsiey nui

tshiuit sia tsiey ED

sei thai tiy a tiet then jpiaei sie nai

hai 15) sidy man im YiaY thisi hiagy tshdi

shaey kiiy liay shiuii

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

first week of the lunar month

Ch'en's line echoes closely Fu

pp. 54-55. I would like to thank Ms. Sharon Shih-chuan

pointing out this passage. 25) Author's italics.

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

WILLIAMH. NIENHAUSER JR.

8 * R t h4X 4& t H t- EI J\ I>. }\ fFt S . MA t S t X ,@

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

- i leiL (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii,

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

;L-. 1 4P1 0fi

tIt . Z PAt lifiJ-7 N

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

kay tshii khan suan hey tshai

khje qien tset nen sia phien 56)

hiiu thiuiy qiuay thian

kua key sen hiuaey

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

hiay thui siak mIan

han hiim lien

sidk piiz hiuen

kiit tiui niin AN

hua tshai khii a tshid

shid khia tini itiia thid

Cf. Lun-yii chi-chiek " ~, Lun-yPi hsin-chieh Affi

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

tsiui tshe?y 4W piai siuii

lihun shiiu X shie tshau

shiay tshii AR Phian ha

khiuagn piai kui Xl sid sin

huen tsa JA ffi khiiu shiey tshia ii

WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER JR.

THE TRANSLATION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY

the "left-lookingtortoise", alluding to a reptile freed by K'ung Yui