CHAPTER III

By Wei Wēn-ti (A.D.188-227)

My charioteer hastens to yoke my carriage,For I must go on a journey far away.“Where are you going on your journey far away?”To the land of Wu where my enemies are.But I must ride many thousand miles,Beyond the Eastern Road that leads to Wu.Between the rivers bitter winds blow,Swiftly flow the waters of Huai and Ssŭ.I want to take a skiff and cross these rivers,But alas for me, where shall I find a boat?To sit idle is not my desire:Gladly enough would I go to my country’s aid.

(He abandons the campaign)

In the North-west there is a floating cloudStretched on high, like a chariot’s canvas-awning.Alas that I was born in these times,To be blown along like a cloud puffed by the wind!It has blown me away far to the South-east,On and on till I came to Wu-hui.Wu-hui is not my country:Why should I go on staying and staying here?I will give it up and never speak of it again,—This being abroad and always living in dread.

By Ts’ao Chih (A.D.192-233), third son of Ts’ao Ts’ao. He was a great favourite with his father till he made a mistake in a campaign. In this poem he returns to look at the ruins of Lo-yang, where he used to live. It had been sacked by Tung Cho.

I climb to the ridge of Pei Mang MountainAnd look down on the city of Lo-yang.In Lo-yang how still it is!Palaces and houses all burnt to ashes.Walls and fences all broken and gaping,Thorns and brambles shooting up to the sky.I do not see the old old-men:I only see the new young men.I turn aside, for the straight road is lost:The fields are overgrown and will never be ploughed again.I have been away such a long timeThat I do not know which street is which.How sad and ugly the empty moors are!A thousand miles without the smoke of a chimney.I think of the house I lived in all those years:I am heart-tied and cannot speak.

The above poem vaguely recalls a famous Anglo-Saxon fragment which I will make intelligible by semi-translation:“Wondrous was the wall-stone,Weirdly[19]broken;Burgh-steads bursten,Giants’ work tumbleth,Roofs are wrenched,Towers totter,Bereft of rune-gates.Smoke is on the plaster,Scarred the shower-burghs,Shorn and shattered,By eld under-eaten.Earth’s grip havethWealders[20]and workmen.”

The above poem vaguely recalls a famous Anglo-Saxon fragment which I will make intelligible by semi-translation:

“Wondrous was the wall-stone,Weirdly[19]broken;Burgh-steads bursten,Giants’ work tumbleth,Roofs are wrenched,Towers totter,Bereft of rune-gates.Smoke is on the plaster,Scarred the shower-burghs,Shorn and shattered,By eld under-eaten.Earth’s grip havethWealders[20]and workmen.”

[19]By Fate.

[20]Rulers.

By Ts’ao Chih

Our wandering eyes are sated with the dancer’s skill.Our ears are weary with the sound of “kung” and “shang.”[21]Our host is silent and sits doing nothing:All the guests go on to places of amusement.On long benches the sportsmen sit rangedRound a cleared room, watching the fighting-cocks.The gallant birds are all in battle-trim:They raise their tails and flap defiantly.Their beating wings stir the calm air:Their angry eyes gleam with a red light.Where their beaks have struck, the fine feathers are scattered:With their strong talons they wound again and again.Their long cries enter the blue clouds;Their flapping wings tirelessly beat and throb.“Pray God the lamp-oil lasts a little longer,Then I shall not leave without winning the match!”

On long benches the sportsmen sit rangedRound a cleared room, watching the fighting-cocks.The gallant birds are all in battle-trim:They raise their tails and flap defiantly.Their beating wings stir the calm air:Their angry eyes gleam with a red light.Where their beaks have struck, the fine feathers are scattered:With their strong talons they wound again and again.Their long cries enter the blue clouds;Their flapping wings tirelessly beat and throb.“Pray God the lamp-oil lasts a little longer,Then I shall not leave without winning the match!”

[21]Notes of the scale.

By Ts’ao Chih

In the Nine Provinces there is not room enough:I want to soar high among the clouds,And, far beyond the Eight Limits of the compass,Cast my gaze across the unmeasured void.I will wear as my gown the red mists of sunrise,And as my skirt the white fringes of the clouds:My canopy—the dim lustre of Space:My chariot—six dragons mounting heavenward:And before the light of Time has shifted a paceSuddenly stand upon the World’s blue rim.The doors of Heaven swing open,The double gates shine with a red light.I roam and linger in the palace of Wēn-ch’ang,[22]I climb up to the hall of T’ai-wei.[22]The Lord God lies at his western lattice:And the lesser Spirits are together in the eastern gallery.They wash me in a bath of rainbow-sprayAnd gird me with a belt of jasper and rubies.I wander at my ease gathering divine herbs:I bend down and touch the scented flowers.Wang-tzŭ[23]gives me drugs of long-lifeAnd Hsien-mēn[23]hands me strange potions.By the partaking of food I evade the rites of Death:My span is extended to the enjoyment of life everlasting.

[22]Stars.

[23]Immortals.

By Liu Hsün’s wife (third centuryA.D.).After she had been married to him for a long while, General Liu Hsün sent his wife back to her home, because he had fallen in love with a girl of the Ssu-ma family.

By Liu Hsün’s wife (third centuryA.D.).

After she had been married to him for a long while, General Liu Hsün sent his wife back to her home, because he had fallen in love with a girl of the Ssu-ma family.

Flap, flap, you curtain in front of our bed!I hung you there to screen us from the light of day.I brought you with me when I left my father’s house;Now I am taking you back with me again.I will fold you up and lay you flat in your box.Curtain—shall I ever take you out again?

By Yüan Chi (A.D.210-263)

When I was young I learnt fencingAnd was better at it than Crooked Castle.[24]My spirit was high as the rolling cloudsAnd my fame resounded beyond the World.I took my sword to the desert sands,I drank my horse at the Nine Moors.My flags and banners flapped in the wind,And nothing was heard but the song of my drums.War and its travels have made me sad,And a fierce anger burns within me:It’s thinking of how I’ve wasted my timeThat makes this fury tear my heart.

War and its travels have made me sad,And a fierce anger burns within me:It’s thinking of how I’ve wasted my timeThat makes this fury tear my heart.

[24]A famous general.

By Chi K’ang (A.D.223-262)

I will cast out Wisdom and reject Learning.My thoughts shall wander in the Great Void (bis).Always repenting of wrongs doneWill never bring my heart to rest.I cast my hook in a single stream;But my joy is as though I possessed a Kingdom.I loose my hair and go singing;To the four frontiers men join in my refrain.This is the purport of my song:“My thoughts shall wander in the Great Void.”

By Fu Hsüan (diedA.D.278)

A gentle wind fans the calm night:A bright moon shines on the high tower.A voice whispers, but no one answers when I call:A shadow stirs, but no one comes when I beckon.The kitchen-man brings in a dish of lentils:Wine is there, but I do not fill my cup.Contentment with poverty is Fortune’s best gift:Riches and Honour are the handmaids of Disaster.Though gold and gems by the world are sought and prized,To me they seem no more than weeds or chaff.

By Fu Hsüan

How sad it is to be a woman!Nothing on earth is held so cheap.Boys stand leaning at the doorLike Gods fallen out of Heaven.Their hearts brave the Four Oceans,The wind and dust of a thousand miles.No one is glad when a girl is born:Byherthe family sets no store.When she grows up, she hides in her roomAfraid to look a man in the face.No one cries when she leaves her home—Sudden as clouds when the rain stops.She bows her head and composes her face,Her teeth are pressed on her red lips:She bows and kneels countless times.She must humble herself even to the servants.Hislove is distant as the stars in Heaven,Yet the sunflower bends toward the sun.Their hearts more sundered than water and fire—A hundred evils are heaped upon her.Her face will follow the years’ changes:Her lord will find new pleasures.They that were once like substance and shadowAre now as far as Hu from Ch’in.[25]Yet Hu and Ch’in shall sooner meetThan they whose parting is like Ts’an and Ch’ēn.[26]

[25]Two lands.

[26]Two stars.

By Tso Ssŭ (third centuryA.D.)

When I was young I played with a soft brushAnd was passionately devoted to reading all sorts of books.In prose I made Chia I my standard:In verse I imitated Ssŭ-ma Hsiang-ju.But then the arrows began singing at the frontier.And a winged summons came flying to the City.Although arms were not my profession,I had once read Jang-Chū’s war-book.I shouted aloud and my cries rent the air:I felt as though Tung Wu were already annihilated.The scholar’s knife cuts best at its first useAnd my dreams hurried on to the completion of my plan.I wanted at a stroke to clear the Yang-tze and Hsiang,And at a glance to quell the Tibetans and Hu.When my task was done, I should not accept a barony,But refusing with a bow, retire to a cottage in the country.

By Tso Ssŭ

Flap, flap, the captive bird in the cageBeating its wings against the four corners.Depressed, depressed the scholar in the narrow street:Clasping a shadow, he dwells in an empty house.When he goes out, there is nowhere for him to go:Bunches and brambles block up his path.He composes a memorial, but it is rejected and unread,He is left stranded, like a fish in a dry pond.Without—he has not a single farthing of salary:Within—there is not a peck of grain in his larder.His relations upbraid him for his lack of success:His friends and callers daily decrease in number.Su Ch’in used to go preaching in the NorthAnd Li Ssŭ sent a memorandum to the West.I once hoped to pluck the fruits of life:But now alas, they are all withered and dry.Though one drinks at a river, one cannot drink more than a bellyful;Enough is good, but there is no use in satiety.The bird in a forest can perch but on one bough,And this should be the wise man’s pattern.

By Chang Tsai (third centuryA.D.)

At Pei-mang how they rise to Heaven,Those high mounds, four or five in the fields!What men lie buried under these tombs?All of them were Lords of the Han world.“Kung” and “Wēn”[27]gaze across at each other:The Yüan mound is all grown over with weeds.When the dynasty was falling, tumult and disorder arose,Thieves and robbers roamed like wild beasts.Of earth[28]they have carried away more than one handful,They have gone into vaults and opened the secret doors.Jewelled scabbards lie twisted and defaced:The stones that were set in them, thieves have carried away,The ancestral temples are hummocks in the ground:The walls that went round them are all levelled flat.Over everything the tangled thorns are growing:A herd-boy pushes through them up the path.Down in the thorns rabbits have made their burrows:The weeds and thistles will never be cleared away.Over the tombs the ploughshare will be drivenAnd peasants will have their fields and orchards there.They that were once lords of a thousand hostsAre now become the dust of the hills and ridges.I think of what Yün-mēn[29]saidAnd am sorely grieved at the thought of “then” and “now.”

[27]Names of two tombs.

[28]In the early days of the dynasty a man stole a handful of earth from the imperial tombs, and was executed by the police. The emperor was furious at the lightness of the punishment.

[29]Yün-mēn said to Mēng Ch’ang-chün (died 279B.C.), “Does it not grieve you to think that after a hundred years this terrace will be cast down and this pond cleared away?” Mēng Ch’ang-chün wept.

By Miu Hsi (diedA.D.245).Cf.the “Han Burial Songs,” p.38.

When I was alive, I wandered in the streets of the Capital:Now that I am dead, I am left to lie in the fields.In the morning I drove out from the High Hall:In the evening I lodged beneath the Yellow Springs.[30]When the white sun had sunk in the Western ChasmI hung up my chariot and rested my four horses.Now, even the mighty Maker of AllCould not bring the life back to my limbs.Shape and substance day by day will vanish:Hair and teeth will gradually fall away.Forever from of old men have been so:And none born can escape this thing.

[30]Hades.

By Lu Yün (fourth centuryA.D.)

Living in retirement beyond the World,Silently enjoying isolation,I pull the rope of my door tighterAnd stuff my window with roots and ferns.My spirit is tuned to the Spring-season:At the fall of the year there is autumn in my heart.Thus imitating cosmic changesMy cottage becomes a Universe.

Shady, shady the wood in front of the Hall:At midsummer full of calm shadows.The south wind follows summer’s train:With its eddying-puffs it blows open my coat.I am free from ties and can live a life of retirement.When I rise from sleep, I play with books and harp.The lettuce in the garden still grows moist:Of last year’s grain there is always plenty left.Self-support should maintain strict limits:More than enough is not what I want.I grind millet and make good wine:When the wine is heated, I pour it out for myself.My little children are playing at my side,Learning to talk, they babble unformed sounds.These things have made me happy againAnd I forget my lost cap of office.Distant, distant I gaze at the white clouds:With a deep yearning I think of the Sages of Antiquity.

In the quiet of the morning I heard a knock at my door:I threw on my clothes and opened it myself.I asked who it was who had come so early to see me:He said he was a peasant, coming with good intent.He brought a present of wine and rice-soup,Believing that I had fallen on evil days.“You live in rags under a thatched roofAnd seem to have no desire for a better lot.The rest of mankind have all the same ambitions:You, too, must learn to wallow in their mire.”“Old man, I am impressed by what you say,But my soul is not fashioned like other men’s.To drive in their rut I might perhaps learn:To be untrue to myself could only lead to muddle.Let us drink and enjoy together the wine you have brought:For my course is set and cannot now be altered.”

A long time agoI went on a journey,Right to the cornerOf the Eastern Ocean.The road thereWas long and winding,And stormy wavesBarred my path.What made meGo this way?Hunger drove meInto the World.I tried hardTo fill my belly:And even a littleSeemed a lot.But this was clearlyA bad bargain,So I went homeAnd lived in idleness.

High and low, wise and simple, all busily hoard up the moments of life. How greatly they err!Therefore I have to the uttermost exposed the bitterness both of Substance and Shadow, and have made Spirit show how, by following Nature, we may dissolve this bitterness.Substance speaks to Shadow:Heaven and Earth exist for ever:Mountains and rivers never change.But herbs and trees in perpetual rotationAre renovated and withered by the dews and frosts:And Man the wise, Man the divine—Shall he alone escape this law?Fortuitously appearing for a moment in the WorldHe suddenly departs, never to return.How can he know that the friends he has leftAre missing him and thinking of him?Only the things that he used remain;They look upon them and their tears flow.Me no magical arts can save,Though you may hope for a wizard’s aid.I beg you listen to this advice—When you can get wine, be sure to drink it.Shadow replies:There is no way to preserve life.Drugs of Immortality are instruments of folly.I would gladly wander in Paradise,But it is far away and there is no road.Since the day that I was joined to youWe have shared all our joys and pains.While you rested in the shade, I left you a while:But till the end we shall be together.Our joint existence is impermanent:Sadly together we shall slip away.That when the body decays Fame should also goIs a thought unendurable, burning the heart.Let us strive and labour while yet we mayTo do some deed that men will praise.Wine may in truth dispel our sorrow,But how compare it with lasting Fame?Spirit expounds:God can only set in motion:He cannot control the things he has made.Man, the second of the Three Orders,Owes his precedence to Me.Though I am different from you,We were born involved in one another:Nor by any means can we escapeThe intimate sharing of good and ill.The Three Emperors were saintly men,Yet to-day—where are they?P’ēng[31]lived to a great age,Yet he went at last, when he longed to stay.And late or soon, all go:Wise and simple have no reprieve.Wine may bring forgetfulness,But does it not hasten old-age?If you set your heart on noble deeds,How do you know that any will praise you?By all this thinking you do Me injury:You had better go where Fate leads—Drift on the Stream of Infinite Flux,Without joy, without fear:When you must go—then go,And make as little fuss as you can.

High and low, wise and simple, all busily hoard up the moments of life. How greatly they err!

Therefore I have to the uttermost exposed the bitterness both of Substance and Shadow, and have made Spirit show how, by following Nature, we may dissolve this bitterness.

Substance speaks to Shadow:

Heaven and Earth exist for ever:Mountains and rivers never change.But herbs and trees in perpetual rotationAre renovated and withered by the dews and frosts:And Man the wise, Man the divine—Shall he alone escape this law?Fortuitously appearing for a moment in the WorldHe suddenly departs, never to return.How can he know that the friends he has leftAre missing him and thinking of him?Only the things that he used remain;They look upon them and their tears flow.Me no magical arts can save,Though you may hope for a wizard’s aid.I beg you listen to this advice—When you can get wine, be sure to drink it.

Shadow replies:

There is no way to preserve life.Drugs of Immortality are instruments of folly.I would gladly wander in Paradise,But it is far away and there is no road.Since the day that I was joined to youWe have shared all our joys and pains.While you rested in the shade, I left you a while:But till the end we shall be together.Our joint existence is impermanent:Sadly together we shall slip away.That when the body decays Fame should also goIs a thought unendurable, burning the heart.Let us strive and labour while yet we mayTo do some deed that men will praise.Wine may in truth dispel our sorrow,But how compare it with lasting Fame?

Spirit expounds:

God can only set in motion:He cannot control the things he has made.Man, the second of the Three Orders,Owes his precedence to Me.Though I am different from you,We were born involved in one another:Nor by any means can we escapeThe intimate sharing of good and ill.The Three Emperors were saintly men,Yet to-day—where are they?P’ēng[31]lived to a great age,Yet he went at last, when he longed to stay.And late or soon, all go:Wise and simple have no reprieve.Wine may bring forgetfulness,But does it not hasten old-age?If you set your heart on noble deeds,How do you know that any will praise you?By all this thinking you do Me injury:You had better go where Fate leads—Drift on the Stream of Infinite Flux,Without joy, without fear:When you must go—then go,And make as little fuss as you can.

[31]The Chinese Methuselah.

Chill and harsh the year draws to its close:In my cotton dress I seek sunlight on the porch.In the southern orchard all the leaves are gone:In the north garden rotting boughs lie heaped.I empty my cup and drink it down to the dregs:I look towards the kitchen, but no smoke rises.Poems and books lie piled beside my chair:But the light is going and I shall not have time to read them.My life here is not like the Agony in Ch’ēn,[32]But often I have to bear bitter reproaches.Let me then remember, to calm my heart’s distress,That the Sages of old were often in like case.

[32]Confucius was maltreated in Ch’ēn.

White hair covers my temples,I am wrinkled and seared beyond repair,And though I have got five sons,They all hate paper and brush.A-shu is eighteen:For laziness there is none like him.A-hsüan does his best,But really loathes the Fine Arts.Yung-tuan is thirteen.But does not know “six” from “seven.”[33]T’ung-tzŭ in his ninth yearIs only concerned with things to eat.If Heaven treats me like this,What can I do but fill my cup?

[33]Written in Chinese with two characters very easy to distinguish.

I built my hut in a zone of human habitation,Yet near me there sounds no noise of horse or coach.Would you know how that is possible?A heart that is distant creates a wilderness round it.I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,Then gaze long at the distant summer hills.The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day:The flying birds two by two return.In these things there lies a deep meaning;Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us.

My old desire to live in the Southern VillageWas not because I had taken a fancy to the house.But I heard it was a place of simple-minded menWith whom it were a joy to spend the mornings and evenings.Many years I had longed to settle here:Now at last I have managed to move house.I do not mind if my cottage is rather smallSo long as there’s room enough for bed and mat.Often and often the neighbours come to see meAnd with brave words discuss the things of old.Rare writings we read together and praise:Doubtful meanings we examine together and settle.

When I was young, I was out of tune with the herd:My only love was for the hills and mountains.Unwitting I fell into the Web of the World’s dustAnd was not free until my thirtieth year.The migrant bird longs for the old wood:The fish in the tank thinks of its native pool.I had rescued from wildness a patch of the Southern MoorAnd, still rustic, I returned to field and garden.My ground covers no more than ten acres:My thatched cottage has eight or nine rooms.Elms and willows cluster by the eaves:Peach trees and plum trees grow before the Hall.Hazy, hazy the distant hamlets of men.Steady the smoke of the half-deserted village,A dog barks somewhere in the deep lanes,A cock crows at the top of the mulberry tree.At gate and courtyard—no murmur of the World’s dust:In the empty rooms—leisure and deep stillness.Long I lived checked by the bars of a cage:Now I have turned again to Nature and Freedom.

In the month of June the grass grows highAnd round my cottage thick-leaved branches sway.There is not a bird but delights in the place where it rests:And I too—love my thatched cottage.I have done my ploughing:I have sown my seed.Again I have time to sit and read my books.In the narrow lane there are no deep ruts:Often my friends’ carriages turn back.In high spirits I pour out my spring wineAnd pluck the lettuce growing in my garden.A gentle rain comes stealing up from the eastAnd a sweet wind bears it company.My thoughts float idly over the story of King ChouMy eyes wander over the pictures of Hills and Seas.At a single glance I survey the whole Universe.He will never be happy, whom such pleasures fail to please!

The lingering clouds, rolling, rolling,And the settled rain, dripping, dripping,In the Eight Directions—the same dusk.The level lands—one great river.Wine I have, wine I have:Idly I drink at the eastern window.Longingly—I think of my friends,But neither boat nor carriage comes.

Swiftly the years, beyond recall.Solemn the stillness of this fair morning.I will clothe myself in spring-clothingAnd visit the slopes of the Eastern Hill.By the mountain-stream a mist hovers,Hovers a moment, then scatters.There comes a wind blowing from the southThat brushes the fields of new corn.

By Ch’ēng-kung Sui (diedA.D.273)

I sent out invitationsTo summon guests.I collected togetherAll my friends.Loud talkAnd simple feasting:Discussion of philosophy,Investigation of subtleties.Tongues loosenedAnd minds at one.Hearts refreshedBy discharge of emotion!

By Tao-yün (circaA.D.400), wife of General Wang Ning-chih. The general was so stupid that she finally deserted him.

High rises the Eastern PeakSoaring up to the blue sky.Among the rocks—an empty hollow,Secret, still, mysterious!Uncarved and unhewn,Screened by nature with a roof of clouds.Times and Seasons, what things are youBringing to my life ceaseless change?I will lodge for ever in this hollowWhere Springs and Autumns unheeded pass.

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