Read The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry Online
Authors: Tony Barnstone
THE QIN DYNASTY THAT FOLLOWED THE ZHOU DYNASTY DID NOT
last long. The expansionist First Emperor was known for his ruthless repression of dissent in his attempt to unite China, and, seeing the Confucianist nobles as his enemy, famously ordered a burning of the books, and of the Confucian classics in particular. Much ancient literature and wisdom was lost. The Qin was overthrown by a peasant revolt, and the succeeding dynasty, the Han, reformed the tax structure and the treatment of the peasants, leading to an expansion of agriculture.
The Han dynasty is divided into the Western Han, with its capital in Changan, and the Eastern Han, with its capital in Luoyang; these bookended a brief, intermediate dynasty, the Xin, which lasted only from from 8–25 ce. During the prosperous Han dynasty, China expanded to a population of 50 million, and an aggressive foreign policy helped expand its borders east into Korea, south into northern Vietnam, and west into Chinese Turkistan. The expansion of trade led to the creation of the Silk Road, which stretched all the way from China to Europe, and the Great Wall was built as a security measure against the depredations of barbarians. The majority population in China, the Han Chinese, took their name from this dynasty. Though the Han dynasty began as a Legalist state with Daoist elements, under Emperor Wu (157–87 bce) it became an officially Confucianist state. Emperor Wu also instituted the examination system (125 bce), in which administrators would have to demonstrate proficiency in the Confucian classics in order to serve. The system lasted until the modern era and insured continuity and a commonality of reference in Chinese culture. It established the basis for a meritocracy and helped to assure that government officials
would be literate and learned. During this time the Confucian classics became the base upon which Chinese education was built, and upon which prospective civil servants were tested in the civil service examinations.
The Han saw a flowering in works of history and literature and in the arts, surpassed in China's history only by the Tang and the Song dynasties. In poetry the Han was known for its rhyme prose (
fu)
poems, which developed from the
Verses of Chu
, and for its Music Bureau (
yuefu)
poetry. The elaborate, ornate, elegant, and erudite rhyme prose poems were the poetry of the court. “The Owl,” by Jia Yi (200–168 bce) is an example of the form at its height, as is a later poem, “The Art of Writing” by Lu Ji (261–303), from the Six Dynasties Period. In 193 bce a Directory of Music was founded, followed under Emperor Wu by a Music Bureau whose job was to collect and copy popular folk songs as well as the music written by scholars. Some of the songs were influenced by Central Asian melodies, and new songs were written under the direction of a musician. Later poems in the Music Bureau style, separated from their musical roots, were not sung and were not accompanied by instrumentation. During the Han, the dominance of the four-word line was shaken in Chinese poetry, and a new five-word line imitating the Music Bureau poems became popular, notably in the “Nineteen Ancient Poems” and in
Southeast the Peacock Flies
, a long anonymous poem written at the end of the Han or in the immediate post-Han period. Imitation of the Music Bureau poems by literati led to the creation of a new poetic form called Ancient Style Poetry (
gushi).
The Han dynasty was weakened by a peasant revolt led by a secret society known as the Yellow Turbans. It started in 184 ce and continued to plague the empire for decades, until, like the Zhou dynasty, the Han degenerated and fragmented. It was succeeded by a tumultuous period of warring kingdoms, known as the Three Kingdoms Period, and by the long Six Dynasties Period, during which the empire remained in pieces. It was not to be reunited for four hundred years, until the short-lived Sui dynasty (581–618), which paved the way for the golden age of China, the Tang.
The anonymous “Nineteen Ancient Poems” were written in the five-character meter, the longest-lasting and most influential form of versification in Chinese literature. They are the earliest poems that we have in this meter, and they helped shape the themes and forms of Chinese poetry for the next two thousand years. They probably represent a now-vanished tradition of first- or second-century poems, of which they are the sole remaining texts. They show aspects of folk song, but have been reworked into literary poems. Melancholy, lovelorn, accessible, and concerned with universal themes of the brevity of life and separation from the loved one, these poems shine out of the deep past of China with an intense and intimate beauty.
Traveling traveling and still traveling traveling,
you're separated from me for life,
ten thousand miles apart,
gone to the other end of the sky.
With your road so long and difficult,
how can we know if we'll meet again?
A northern horse leans against northern wind;
a southern bird nests on southern branches.
This separation lengthens day by day,
and day by day my gown and belt grow slack.
Floating clouds obscure a white sun
and wanderer, you do not return.
Missing you makes age come fast.
Years and months spin past.
No need to mention you abandoned me.
Just take care of yourself and eat enough.
Green so green is the river grass,
thick so thick are the garden willow's leaves.
Beautiful so beautiful is the lady upstairs,
shining as she stands by the window, shining.
Pretty in her powdered rouge, so pretty
with her slender, slender white hands.
Once she was a singing girl,
but now is the wife of a womanizer.
He travels and rarely comes home.
So hard to sleep in an empty bed.
Green so green are the cypress over the burial mounds.
Boulders upon boulders in the rushing ravine.
Born between heaven and earth,
a man is a long-distance traveler.
Let's take joy from this pitcher of wine
and drink with heart, not thin pleasure.
Whipping slow horses pulling our wagon,
we'll play at Wan and Luo.
It is so noisy and crowded in Luoyang,
officials with caps and belts visit each other,
there are main streets and tributary lanes,
and mansions owned by kings and princes.
The two palaces gaze at each other from afar,
yet their watchtowers seem just a hundred feet apart.
Let's exhaust ourselves in banquets to entertain our hearts!
Sorrows and melancholy—who needs such pressure?
At today's great banquet
it's too hard to list all our joys.
The zither vibrates with escaping notes,
a new melody so fine it entrances us.
The talented sing high words,
and we who know music understand.
Our hearts share such wishes,
but they've never poured out like this.
Our being is only one life,
up and gone like floating dust.
Why not whip your horse
ahead of others at the ferry landing?
Staying poor is worth nothing.
It just means long suffering on a rutted road.
A tall tower in the northwest,
tall as floating clouds,
with patterned lattice windows
and a pavilion up three flights of steps
where strings and voices are heard,
a sound so plaintive and bitter.
Who could play and sing a song like this
except the wife of Jiliang?
1
Clear autumn sounds blow through the prelude,
then the main melody shifts and varies,
one strike then repeated phrases
with the lingering force of grief.
I don't regret the singer's sorrow,
but mourn how few truly understand her.
If only we were a pair of singing cranes
beating our wings and soaring high!
I cross the river to pick lotus flowers
where fragrant grasses grow in the orchid lake.
But to whom can I send these flowers?
My love is far away on the road.
I turn my head and look home
down the road so long and wide.
We share one heart yet live apart
in sorrow and grief till age takes us.
Clear moon pours bright light at night
and crickets sing in the eastern wall.
The Big Dipper's jade handle points to midwinter,
all the stars incredibly clear.
White dewdrops hang to wild grass,
as seasons flow by fast and change.
Autumn cicadas rub their wings in trees.
Where have black swallows migrated to?
Once we studied together,
but you have soared on powerful wings,
forgetting we once held hands.
You abandoned me like old footprints.
The South Basket and North Dipper can't be used
and the Pulling Ox won't bear a yoke.
1
Indeed, nothing is solid as rock.
What's the use of empty names?
Soft and frail is a solitary bamboo
though rooted in the foothills of Mount Tai.
I married you just recently,
a creeper climbing up its host.
There is a time for creepers to spread,
but husband and wife should stay as one.
Three hundred miles away from marriage,
you're past the mountain range.
Missing you makes me old.
Why does your carriage return so late?
Orchid flowers grieve me,
unfolding themselves in bright colors.
If you don't pick them before they are past season,
they'll wither with autumn weeds,
but since you are so faithful to our marriage,
what can I say, humble as I am?
There is a wonderful tree in the courtyard,
rich flowers among its green leaves.
Breaking a twig, I pick its blossoms
to send them to the man I love.
The fragrance fills my blouse and sleeves.
You are too far off for me to send them.
Not that these flowers are some great gift;
they give me grief of long separation.
Far and far is the Cowherd Star,
bright so bright is the Weaver Girl.
Slender and white, her hands are moving
click-cluck
shuttling over the loom.
She doesn't finish one piece in a day
and her tears spin down as rain.
The Celestial River is clear and shallow;
there is no great distance between the two.
Across the brimming water
the Weaver gazes with silent love.
I turn my carriage around to return,
slowly, slowly, on a long journey.
I look around and see nothing but uncertainties,
and a hundred plants shaking in east wind.
All that I meet on the road looks unfamiliar.
How can I not age fast?
To rising and falling there is a season,
but I can't stand still being a failure.
A man's life is not made of gold or stones,
so how can he reach longevity?
Suddenly life goes through final transformation.
A great name is a great treasure.
The east wall is tall and long,
extending and connecting with itself.
Swirling winds rush up from the earth
and autumn grass is melancholy and yellow;
the four seasons keep changing
and soon it is year's end again!
“Morning Wind” refreshes my longing;
“Crickets” makes me sad about confinement.
1
I should go wild and let my passions free.
Why should I bind myself so tightly?
In Yan and Zhao beauties abound,
2
pretty as jade,
and I see a girl wearing a silk dress
and practicing a
Qingshang
tune in a doorway.
3
Your music is so sad
the notes so fast and high strung!
My heart flies to you as I tie my robe
pacing back and forth and fantasizing
I am with you, a pair of swallows flying
with mud in beaks to build a nest under your roof.
I drive my wagon to the east gate
and gaze at distant tombs north of the city
where poplars sigh and sigh in wind
and pines and cypress line the road.
Underneath are the ancient dead.
Endless, endless is their long evening
in deep sleep under the Yellow Springs.
Through thousands of years they never wake.
Powerfully yin and yang cycle past
and years alive are like morning dew,
human existence just a short trip,
not solid like gold or stone.
Ten thousand generations have seen each other off
and no sage or saint is an exception.
Trying pills and lotions for immortality,
many people poisoned their lives.
Much better to drink great wine
and wear silk and satin clothes.
Day by day the dead are receding
and the living coming closer.
Looking straight through the city gate,
I see nothing but burial mounds and tombs,
ancient tombs plowed into fields
Qingshang
tunes are three tunes based on
yuefu
(Music Bureau) songs.
and ancient cypress trees cut down as firewood.
Poplar trees catch sad wind
and rustling, rustling this sorrow kills.
I'd like to return to my home village,
but there is no road to take me there.
Man dies within a hundred years
but is filled with a thousand years of grief.
Since day is short and night seems long
why not wander with a candle
seeking joy while you are in time?
Don't wait for your time to come.
The fools who care just for cash
will be sneered at in the future.
So hard to come across a man
like Wang Ziqiao, immortal.
Chilly, chilly, the year-end clouds darken.
Mole crickets sing sadly in the evening.
Cold winds are getting sharper,
but traveling man you have no winter clothes.
You left your embroidered quilt at Luopu,
and don't share a gown with me anymore.
I sleep alone through a long night,
and see your face in my dream,
good man who cherishes me, his old joy.
Your carriage came and you gave me marriage ribbons,
saying, “I wish I could smile more often
and come back with you in the same carriage.”
You leave my dream so quickly,
do not stay in my chamber.
Since you have no wings to glide on morning wind,
how does the wind carry you back?
I look around to let my heart unfold,
stretch my neck, looking into distance for your gaze.
I stand here seized by grief and wet my door with tears.