The Poetry ofHe Zhu (1052-1125)Sinica LeidensiaEdited byBarend J. ter HaarIn co-operation withP.K. Bol, W.L. Idema, D.R. Knechtges, E.S.Rawski, E. Zrcher, H.T. ZurndorferVOLUME LXXIVThe Poetry ofHe Zhu (1052-1125)Genres, Contexts, and CreativityByStuart H. SargentLEIDEN BOSTON2007This book is printed on acid-free paper.Detailed Library ofCongress Cataloging-in Publication dataDetailed Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication data are available on the Internet at http://catalog.loc.govISSN: 0169-9563ISBN:978 90 04 15711 8Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints BRILL, Hotei Publishing,IDC Publishers, Martinus NijhoffPublishers and VSP.All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced, translated, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NVprovided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center,222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA.Fees are subject to change.printed in the netherlandsCONTENTS Acknowledgements List of Tables Abbreviations Brief Chronology of the Life of He Zhu INTRODUCTION The Approach: Genre, Contexts, and Individual Voice Conventions and Texts Used in this Study The Name of the Poet Other Transcriptions Meter Poem Numbers and TextsChapter OneTHE ANCIENT-STYLE VERSE OF HE ZHU, 107898 107880: Fuyang 1078: The Contingency of Historical Judgment 1079: Reportage 1080: Time 1080: Animals and the Question of Allegory 1080: Variations on the Poetic Heritage 1081: A Transitional Year 108285: Xuzhou1082: Tang Echoes, Su Shi 1083: More Celebration of Su Shi 1084: ~Zai, Tang Predecessors1085: The Ironic Traveler1086: In the Capital Word Games Imitations1088: Fanghuis Version of the Zhang Liang Saga1088-89: The South Gardens and TemplesTen Historical Sites in Liyang 109193: Jinshan and the Capital Teasing Mi Fu at Jinshan1091: Wit in the Su Shi Mode 1093: The Past Recovered1094: No-Mind in Hailing1096: HanyangThe Inscription For Zhou Dunyis Thatched HallThe Reinterpretation of Tao YuanmingObfuscation 109698: Jiangxiaix xi xii xiii 1 2 6 7 7 8 10 12 13 13 15 21 27 33 36 38 38 45 47 50 54 54 56 64 74 74 84 86 86 89 90 96 100 100 105 110 115 CONTENTSvi 1096: The Connoisseur1096 and 1097: History1098: Watchful Eyes Further Thoughts on Imitation, Inscriptions, and Rhyme Chapter TwoTHE SONGS OF HE ZHU, 108098108085: Handan and Xuzhou1080: An Ancient Site in Handan108485: Sites and Poetry Sessions in Xuzhou 108892: Sending Songs from Liyang and Jinling 1088: A Suite ExperimentLiyang Experiments in 1089 and 1090109092: Innovative Songs from JinlingA Gift Enhanced by Rhyme (I) 1094: HailingLaments First Farewell Songs 109698: Jiangxia Tao Yuanming Outdone Leftover Elder of Mirror Lake Tao Yuanming Out of Reach HistoryA Gift Enhanced by Rhyme (II)East Slope Innovations in Songs: A Brief ReviewChapter ThreeTHE PENTAMETRICAL REGULATED VERSE OF HE ZHU, 107698 Poems Written before Xuzhou Xuzhou 1084: Imitation of an Extended Regulated Verse1084: Twin Views from the Delightful! Pavilion Rhymed Opening Couplets 1087: In the Capital 108890: The Liyang and Jinling AreaThe Capital1091: Civil Classification 1092: Stretching Form 109394: Leaving the Capital Mi Fu 109698: On to JiangxiaGoing Upriver: Diction from the PastHanyang: Responses to Assaults on History 109697: This is not Li Shangyin 1098: Farewell to a Buddhist Magistrate Pleasures and Precedents in Regulated VerseChapter FourTHE HEPTAMETRICAL REGULATED VERSE OF HE ZHU, 107598 Issues of Form Situations in Which the Heptametrical Regulated Verse was Used Heptametrical Regulated Verse in the North, before Xuzhou 115 117 120 121 125 126 126 130 141 141 146 153 157 160 160 164 168 168 171 173 178 179 182 186 188 188 194 194 202 207 223 225 238 239 243 248 251 256 256 258 262 265 267 269 269 272 273 CONTENTSvii 1075: First-line Rhyme1077, 1079: Order in Landscape, Order in Couplets 108286: XuzhouCelebration of Place and ComplexityPrecedents to be Overturned or Celebrated Anomalous Form 1086: YongchengPlaying with the Rhythm of the LineThe Capital Zhao Lingzhi, Zhao Lingshuai108891: Through Jinling to Liyang and BackWang AnshiFirst PoemsABAB Sequences 109091: Absence in Jinling 1091: Two Clever Social Poems in the Capital109394: Hailing Ambiguities 109596: From the Capital to Jiangxia Another Exile 1096: Up the Yangzi 109698: Hanyang and JiangxiaAn Extended Regulated VerseEquanimity in Jiangxia Qin Guan, L Dafang, Su Shi, Huang Tingjian A Summary Chapter FiveTHE PENTAMETRICAL QUATRAINS OF HE ZHU, 108598 1085: XuzhouThe Capital1086: Relationships with Past Poetry1087: Ten Songs on Autumn Days108890: Liyang and Quatrains for Monks109192: Outspoken in the Capital 1095: Quirky in the Capital 109798: Mining the Past in JiangxiaAddendum: Hexametrical Quatrains in the Capital, 1086 and 1092 New Life for the Pentametrical QuatrainChapter SixTHE HEPTAMETRICAL QUATRAINS OF HE ZHU, 107795 Early Start in the North 1077: Quiet Scenes in Zhaozhou1080: Restraint in Fuyang1081: Making It Fresh 1081: Disingenuous Quatrains in the Daming Area 1081 and 1082: In and Out of the Capital 1083 and 1085: Xuzhou 108687 The Capital Liyang108889: Southern Scenes 273 276 280 280 285 289 296 296 300 300 304 304 306 311 319 327 331 341 341 344 351 352 355 358 366 368 371 375 375 380 386 391 395 397 400 404 406 409 409 413 418 420 423 425 428 435 435 CONTENTSviii 108991: The Society of Others The Capital and Hailing 1091 and 1092: Spring Wind in the Capital1094: Farewells in Hailing1096: Up the River to Jiangxia 109698: Hanyang and Jiangxia Closing thoughts on This Genre and the Lyric CONCLUSION Chronology of Poems Translated or Mentioned Bibliography Four-Corner Index of Poems Translated Index of Poems by Poem Number Index 437 441 441 444 446 448 452 453 457 465 479 483 487 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It was at one of our regular Friday afternoon departmental wine parties at Stan-ford University approximately thirty years ago that James J.Y. Liu suggested the lyrics of He Zhu as a possible dissertation topic. I am grateful for the suggestion and for his guidance through the ensuing work which, though very different in characterfromthepresentbook,formedthestartingpointformyexploration ofafascinatingpoet.Sincethen,numerousindividualsandinstitutionshave sustainedmeandsupportednotonlymyresearchonHeZhubutalsoother projects whose results are reflected in the present book. The contributions of a few individuals are acknowledged at appropriate places in the body of the text; I shouldalsonotethatsomeofthemostvaluablepublicationscitedwouldnot have been available or known to me had not their authors generously given me a copy. McKeldin Library at the University of Maryland, the Library of Congress, and theDietLibraryinTokyoweresignificantresourcesformypost-dissertation researchonHeZhu.Inrecentyears,NorlinLibraryattheUniversityofColo-radoandthelibrariesatStanfordUniversitywerecriticallyimportant.Special mention must be made of Colorado State University and its Morgan Library, not only for the recognized excellence of the librarys interlibrary loan services, but also for the ways in which they kept this project from being derailed completely when storm runoff destroyed my office, my computer, and most of my personal library in 1997. The University provided funds to replace my ruined books and servicestophotocopythosepapersthatcouldberecoveredfromwaterlogged filecabinets;theLibraryfreeze-driedandrestoredimportantbooksinmycol-lection that could not be replaced and appropriated funds to start its own Chi-nese-language collection. The time to use libraries for something besides class preparation is generally bought with grants. My chronological reading of He Zhu and three of his con-temporarieswassupportedin198283byaMellonFellowshipforChinese Studies awarded through the American Council of Learned Societies. What you seebeforeyounowcontainsbitsandpiecesofthelengthymanuscriptthatre-sulted from that project but the present book is more directly the product of a sabbaticalleavegrantedbyColoradoStateUniversityin2003-2004.Fortwo quartersduringthatacademicyear,IhadtheprivilegeofteachingintheDe-partment of Asian Languages back at Stanford, where I was provided with space ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSx towork,computersupport,andofcourseaccesstoafinelibrary.Thiswasa fulfilling period, indeed, and I am grateful to all parties. There are more personal debts to be acknowledged. My interest in China was sparkedbyawomannamedElsieAnderson:youngestofmymothersaunts, sheembarkedforChinain1918toworkforgirlseducation;someyearsafter her death it was her copy of Lin Yutangs Wisdom of China and India that set me, asayoungteenager,onthetrajectorythatwouldeventuallyleadtothisbook. Mentionmustalsobemadeoftheunclewhopassedherbooksontome, Wilbur J. Granberg, a well-traveled writer and journalist who found his material ineverythingfromthelifeofJosephPulitzertotheseagoingcanoesofthe QuileuteNationontheOlympicPeninsula.Alongsidetheseformativeinflu-ences one must acknowledge my father and my two mothers, deceased and liv-ing, for their love and support. Thoseindividualsandotherfriends,relatives,andteacherstoonumerousto mentionherehavebeenabidingsourcesofinspirationandguidance.None, however, deserves more direct credit for the completion of this work than Do-minique Groslier Sargent (known in the U.S. primarily as Dominique Bachmann Sargent),mywife.AscholarofmodernFrenchpoetrywhotraveledthelong roadtoherdoctoratewhileraisingadynamic,high-achievingdaughter,Domi-nique understands the goals, pressures, and sacrifices entailed in our profession. Thefactthattheperiodduringwhichthepresentstudywassuccessfullycon-solidatedandcompletedcoincideswithourmarriagetodatebespeaksherim-pactonmylifeandmywork.Hercounselonwhatworkedandwhatdidnt work in the manuscript was crucial in shaping the final product. It is to her that this book is dedicated with loving gratitude. LIST OF TABLES 1Form of Songs of Three Birds14344 2Words in Poem 166 Typical of Wen Tingyun198 3Anomalous Regulated Verses27071 4Pentametrical Quatrains in the Works of Selected Poets368 5He Zhus Pentametrical Quatrains by Year370 6Su Shis Pentametrical Quatrains by Year37071 7Heptametrical Quatrains in the Works of Selected Poets4067 8He Zhus Heptametrical Quatrains by Year407 ABBREVIATIONS ChangbianXu Zizhitongjian changbian CSJCCongshu jicheng HJASHarvard Journal of Asiatic Studies JAOSJournal of the American Oriental Society QSCQuan Song ci QSSQuan Song shi QTSQuan Tang shi SBBYSibu beiyao SBCKSibu congkan SSSJSu Shi shiji SSWJSu Shi wenji BRIEF CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF HE ZHU Huangyou 4 (1052)Born; 1 sui. Xining 1 or 2 (1068/69) to 8 (1075) CapitalLeaves Weizhou for capital (Kaifeng) at 17 or 18 sui; marries. Xining 810 (107577) Lincheng, in Zhaozhou First appointment outside capital.Collects wine taxes; acting magistrate at some point. Yuanfeng 13 (107880)Fuyang, in Cizhou Arms factory. Yuanfeng 4 (1081)Fuyang to Capital Leaves Fuyang post 2nd month, travels in vicinity of Daming, returns to capital 10th month.30 sui. Yuanfeng 58 (108285)XuzhouThird appointment outside capital.Baofeng mint.Active in local poetry society. Yuanyou 1 (1086)CapitalReturns to capital via Yongcheng early in year. Yuanyou 2 (1087)CapitalFourth appointment outside capital.Starts for He-zhou late in year, delayed at Chenliu. Yuanyou 35 (108890)HezhouVisits Jinling in 3rd month, reaches post at Liyang in Hezhou.Supervises militia.Leaves for capital, 12th month of Yuanyou 5. Yuanyou 6 (1091)CapitalReaches capital by 4th month.On recommendation of Su Shi and others, given civil status after twenty years in military classifications. 40 sui. Yuanyou 8Shaosheng 1 (109394) HailingStays with relatives. Shaosheng 2 (1095)CapitalReturns to capital by 6th month, leaves for Baoquan mint in Jiangxia after 9th month. Shaosheng 3 (1096)Hanyang, Jiangxia Goes up Yangzi, reaching Hanyang in 5th month; crosses to Jiangxia in 8th month.Edits poetry collection to date. Yuanfu 1 (1098)Jianzhong jingguo 1 (1101) SuzhouLeaves Jiangxia after 6th month of 1098 to mourn mother, travels in lower Yangzi region.Leaves for capital in autumn 1101. Chongning 13 (11014)SizhouVice prefect; acting prefect at some point. Chongning 45 (11056)Taiping zhouPrefect. Daguan 2Xuanhe 7 (110125) SuzhouRetired and moving about in region with various short-term or titular posts; dies at 74 sui in second month of 1125 in Changzhou. INTRODUCTION One day, well into the writing of this book, I suddenly realized that He Zhu _(10521125)hadinsertedamissingpoemintohiscollection.Therewasa headnote describing what the poem was supposed to be about, but there was no poem.WhenIreadtheheadnotemorecarefullyasecondtime,Iunderstood there never had been a poem. In all editions of He Zhus poems known to me a spaceisleftwhereapoemshouldhavebeen.Yetthemissingpoemneverex-isted. Surely a few readers in the last nine centuries had gotten the joke before me, but it was a delicious moment of discovery nevertheless. A poet Id known for two and a half decades could still surprise and delight me with his humor! Missing words, missing lines, missing poems, missing titlesthese things are commonenoughinoldtexts.Infact,HeZhusentirepoetrycollectiondisap-pearedwhentheJurchenarmiessweptsouthacrosstheYangziRivershortly after his death in 1125. Later, a copy of the first half of the collection (covering theyears1075through1098)wasdiscoveredinatrunk,butmostofwhatHe Zhuhadwrittenfromaround1099tohisdeathwasneverrecovered.1Those poems are truly missing.Thesurvivingfirsthalfofthecollection,withfivehundredseventy-twopo-ems(countingthepoemthatwasneverwritten),doesnotconstituteanywhere near all the poems He Zhu wrote in his first forty-six years of life. A preface to these poems that the poet wrote in 1096 informs us that down to 1088 he had written over five or six thousand poems, not counting the ones hed burned in thestoveperiodicallybecausetheywererecklessworks.In1088,hehad started to think his poetry was not necessarily going to get better as he got older, so hed better take better care of what he had; it was the rejection of old drafts thathadbeenreckless,nottheworksthemselves.2Hesetaboutorganizing 1 Thirty-one of the later poems have been recovered from various sources. They form juan 11 in the Quan Song shi. (Five of these are attributed also to another writer.) I have not used those few poems in the present study because they lack the headnotes and dates that are so valuable in con-textualizing the rest of the collection. For a convenient account of the textual history of the collec-tion,seeZhuShangshu,Song ren bieji xulu,1:57985.Thepoemswerefirstprintedin1193bya man who had been waiting in vain for the second half of the collection to reappear but was finally forced to publish what he had hurriedly before moving to another official post. 2 Zhong Zhenzhen, who has done the most extensive and important scholarship on He Zhu in China,reproducesandpunctuatesaversionoftheprefaceinhisDongshan ci,51921.Aslightly differenttextisgiveninZhuShangshu,Song ren bieji xulu,1:57980.Togetdowntothepresent number of poems, it would seem He Zhu had once again thrown out well over ninety percent of hisdrafts.Isurmise,however,thatsomeofthesedraftswerealternativeversionsofthesame poems. INTRODUCTION2 andrevisinghispoems,wrotethepreface,andaddedafewpoemsinthenext two years. The resulting body of work is the object of the present study. THE APPROACH: GENRE, CONTEXTS, AND INDIVIDUAL VOICE A critical issue facing all Song poets was how they were to handle the shi _ gen-res that were available to them.3 Each came with centuries of precedents, some relevant to eleventh-century practice, some not. The effect of a given genre on thetoneofaspecificpoemisseldommentionedinmostscholarshiponChi-nesepoets,thoughcertainpoetsaredeclaredtoexcelinonegenreoranother. My hope is that, by experiencing significant numbers of He Zhus poems in the groupingsthatheestablishes,thereaderwillbegintodevelopafeelforthe rhythmsandrangesofthematicoptionsthatareassociatedwiththevarious formal properties of the genres. This should help us develop an appreciation for He Zhus creative responses to the givens of the forms and make us better read-ers of Chinese poetry in general.4Theastutereadermaynoticethatwehaveslippedquietlypastthevexing question of just what constitutes a genre. The genres wehave listed are nor-mallydefinedinformalterms:thenumberofsyllablesperline,permissible and/or dominant rhyme schemes, dominant metrical patterns, and so forth. The issue of genre seems simple when limited to such definite parameters. He Zhu himself,however,hintsatsomethingmorecomplexwhenhetellsus(inthe prefacereferredtoabove)howheclassifiedhispoems,especiallythenon-regulatedones.Songshedefinesas|_j_]thosethathave mixed line-length [or] that change rhymes, regardless of whether [the meters of individuallinesare]ancientorregulated.Thesecondpartofthatstatement showshisrecognitionthatmetricallyregulatedlinesaboundoutsideofRegu-lated Verse. (See below for a description of the four types of metrically regulated lines.) Even more interesting is his definition of Ancient-Style Verses: _____thosewhosesoundandsenseareclosetotheancientand whose lines are composed of five characters. Sound we can interpret as me-ter;here,HeZhuindicatesthathewillavoidthesmooth-flowingrhythmsof regulated lines in favor of the ancient. Sense might be themes and feelings that are somehow more suited to the unregulated meters; it could also designate 3 The term shi broadly covers all forms of poetry, especially those not sung to specific tunes, as lyrics were. He Zhu was a major lyricist, but this study is confined to shi, specifically the genres we are about to list. 4 Likemostofhiscontemporaries,HeZhuorganizedhiscollectionbygenre.Itstartswith Songs,butourstudyexaminesAncientStyleVersesfirst.Spanningaslightlylargernumberof years, the Ancient Style Verses offer a better framework for introducing the poets life. INTRODUCTION3 a progression from line to line and couplet to couplet that rejects the semantic balancecharacteristicofRegulatedVerse.Eitherway,moreisatstakethan counting syllables and identifying awkward strings of tones.Some theorists propose treating genres as speech acts.5 Insofar as Chinese poemsroutinelyaresituatedinspecifiedsituationsofcomposition,thisap-proachhasmuchtorecommendit.Thereareexamplesofpoetrycollections organizedbysituationalorelocutionarypropertiesratherthanchronologyor formalgenre.Anotableexampleofsuchanattemptisthetopicallyarranged collectionofSuShispoetryattributedtoWangShipeng_(111271).6 Theclassificationsinthiscollectionhavelongbeencriticizedasarbitrary,and perhaps that is inevitable: one problem with constructing a neat system of topi-cal classification is that poems commonly perform more than one function.Despite those difficulties, it is often fruitful to identify typical situational con-texts and functions for He Zhus poems. In the following chapters, we shall take specialnoticeofformsthatseemfavoredforimitationsofTangpredecessors, forinitiatingliteraryexchanges,forinscriptions,forcorrespondence,andso forth. We shall find that, within a given genre, trends in the defined functions of the poems will shift with the passage of time, and of course that more than one genre may be used for a given purpose. Nevertheless, there are tendencies in the uses of poems that will help us appreciate the formal properties that make them variously suitable for those uses.Each chapter of this study, then, is devoted to one genre, and genre is one of thecontextsinwhichapoetmustwrite.Thatis,topics,situations,andthe formally defined genres (as well as any predecessors we can identify in the use of these)arebroadlydefinedmaterialsorgivensagainstwhichandthrough whichtheartistworks.Othercontextsincludecontemporaryliteraryandintel-lectualpractice,aswellasextra-literaryevents.Oftenwerelatetheappearance ofabitofdictionoraliteraryorculturalconceptinHeZhutoitsuseinan-other writer at about the same time, especially when we can show the possibility of direct or indirect contact between He Zhu and the other writer. Because the worksandthelivesofSuShip|(10371101)andHuangTingjian__ (10451105) are relatively well-documented and these two men were of unques-tioned importance in He Zhus life, they figure prominently in this aspect of my research.ManyotherimportantfiguresinNorthernSongpoliticsandartwill appear in these pages as well, giving the interested reader a more complete pic-ture of how they were regarded in the context of the times.5 Foranilluminatinganalysisofthisandotheranalogiesingenretheory,seeDavidFishelov, Metaphors of Genre. 6 For an excellent short account in English of this text and its vicissitudes, see Kathleen Tom-lonovic, The Poetry of Su Shi, 114. INTRODUCTION4 Theextra-literarycontextsthatilluminateHeZhuspoetryincludeagricul-tural conditions, national politics, water management, and local flora and fauna. Let us illustrate with two examples from the following chapters. Only when we placecertainheptametricalQuatrainsfrom1081inthecontextofboththe floodstakingplacealongtheYellowRiverandthepersecutionofSuShifor writing poems critical of the New Policies do we understand that the Quatrains areironic.Similarly,whenweareawareofcampaignstodestroyseditious writings and to censor official historiographers in the 1090s, we can fully appre-ciateHeZhusinterestatthetimeinpreservingtexts,inthescholarshiphis friendsaredoingonancientworksofhistory,andinthewritingofunofficial records of current events. This kind of research is facilitated to an unusual degree in the case of He Zhu because he dated his poems and provided headnotes to tell us where and under whatcircumstanceshewrotethem.(Mostofhiscontemporariesprovidethis kindofinformationonlyoccasionally;extensivescholarshipisrequiredtodate the rest of their poems, and even for those poets on whom such effort has been expended, not all poems in the end can be dated, securely or otherwise.)Therefore,thecontentsofeachchapterareorganizedchronologically.7The readerwillbeledthroughthepoetslifesixtimes,discoveringnewdetailsas theyarerelevanttothepoemsathand.Extensivecross-referencesanda chronological table of poems translated or mentioned will help the reader follow synchronic or diachronic relationships. Chronology enables us to be attentive to thefactthatHeZhusoutputineachgenrevariedmarkedlyacrosstime,with peaksandvalleysthatarenotatallsynchronized.Moreover,thethemesex-plored in a given genre and the uses to which the poems in that genre were put willchangewiththeyears.(Acaveatmustbedeclaredhereandrepeatedperi-odically:ourviewisalwaysdependentonwhatthepoetdidnt loseandonwhat he decided to keep when he edited his collection.) Finally, we come to the individual poets voice. Perhaps it is best to speak of the voice of the poet and the voice of the man who was the poet. The voice of the poet is the intellect we feel reshaping and reveling in his mediumthe gen-res, the topics, the situations that demanded poetry. We are fortunate to be able to use the electronic tools of modern literary study to sharpen our perception of 7 My interest in chronology was stimulated by a chance meeting with Professor Tseng Yu _| oftheNationalPalaceMuseuminTaiwaninthelate1970s.Atthetime,hewasworkingona series of charts that would align datable artifacts with datable texts on aesthetics or on perception oftheobject.ThispromptedmetoorganizethestudyoffourNorthernSongpoetsIwasthen beginning into a strict chronological framework. The present study and many of my publications over the past twenty years have been derived from that project, which eventually became too large for practical publication as a monograph. Professor Tsengs charts might have been published as a Chronological Table of Chinese Culture around 1982, but in the National Central Library online catalog I can find only a __ (Chronological Table of Chinese Art) that was published under his name in 1998.INTRODUCTION5 thesegivens.8Whenwecangetagoodpictureofthechoicesavailabletothe poet,weareabletoshowhowheinnovates,howheusesthetoolsofdiction, allusion,orrhythmtomaketheoldnewandnametheheretoforeunnamed. (Someofhisfavoriteideasandphrasesbecomepersonalclichsafterawhile, and we shall duly note this.)Feelingthepowerofthiscreativityandmullingoverthesituationsrepre-sented in the poems, one forms at least a tentative image of the real-life He Zhu. The man who was the poet we read must have been intellectually aggressive and self-assured. These excerpts from a biography written by a younger admirer, Ye Mengde __j(10771148), confirm that image: [He Zhu] was seven feet [over two meters] in height, his eyebrows bristled, and he had a face the color of iron. He enjoyed conversing unreservedly about the affairs oftheage;whenitcametowhatwasrightandwrong,hemadenoallowances. Evenifitwereanimportantpersonwhosepowercouldoverturnthetimes,if somethingwasslightlyoff,[HeZhu]wouldscoldhimfiercely,notmincinghis words. Because of this, people considered him almost a knight-errant. Yet he was broadlylearned,stronginmemory,masterfulinlanguage.Hiswordsweredeep, subtle, and dense, as if [he were] making a piece of embroidery. Important peo-ple often extended invitations to him: there were some he accepted, some he did not. Those he did not want to see did not hold it against him in the end. Early on, whenhewasinspectorofworksinTaiyuan,therewasaninfluentialmansson who happened to be a colleague. He was proud and did not humble himself. [He Zhu]secretlycheckedanddiscoveredhehadstolenaconsiderableamountof construction materials. One day, he dismissed the attendants and locked the man in a secret room. He upbraided him with a rod, saying Come here! At such-and-such a time, you stole such-and-such materials for such-and-such use; at such-and-such a time, you stole such-and-such a thing and put it in your house. This is true? Theinfluentialmanssonwasflusteredandadmittedthatithadhappened.[He Zhu] said, If you can accept the treatment I will give you, we can avoid an expo-sure. Then he made him rise and bare his skin and gave him ten strokes with the rod.Theinfluentialmanssonkowtowedandbeggedforpity.Then[HeZhu] gave a big laugh and released him. After that, all those who had been arrogant, re-lyingontheirpower,avertedtheireyesanddarednotraisetheireyestolookat him. In those times Mi Fu (10511107)was known for his imposing stature andforbeingextraordinaryandunpredictable.[HeZhu]happenedtobeabout the same in boldness and derring-do. Every time the two met, they glared at each otherandpoundedtheirfists.Theirargumentsswarmed[likehornets].Neither was able to submit, even after an entire day! 8 The following resources have been particularly important for this study.1)ThedatabaseofTangandSongpoetry,includingci,atYuanzhiUniversityinTaiwan, http://cls.admin.yzu.edu.tw/QTS/HOME.HTM. Note that a few of He Zhus poems are missing (the nine poems on pp. 2.1251213 and Poem 307, whose date is erroneously transferred to Poem 308) or garbled, and that the Song poetry database as a whole is not complete. 2) The Academia Sinica databases at http://www.sinica.edu.tw/~tdbproj/handy1/.3) My own concordance to the poetry of Su Shi, available from cmcdaniel@envisic.com. INTRODUCTION6 He had over ten thousand juan9 of books in his house. He collated them him-self; not a single word was dropped or mistaken. His family was very poor. His income was the interest on money he lent out, but if someone defaulted, he tore off the [promissory] coupon and gave it to him. He did not in the least pester oth-ers for money.10Quantitativelyspeaking,HeZhuisfarmorelikelyinhispoetrytovoicehis longingsandfrustrationsthantodiscoursedirectlyonwhatisrightand wrong.Yethecanalsobeboldlysatiricand,withMiFuandotherfriends, mocking.Ofcourse,hisbroadlearning,strongmemory,andmasteryoflan-guageisevidentalmosteverywhereinthepoemsweshallstudy.Someofthe poemsrequirealltheresourcesatourcommandbeforetheywilldivulgetheir meaning, and even then some points must remain tentative. Besides his library, HeZhualsodrewondocumentskeptinprefecturalorcountyoffices.These mayhaveincludedbothprintedlocalgazetteers(whichbegintoappearinthe Song) and the maps, biographies, and other records that local offices would col-lectinmanuscriptform,oftentoaccompanyreportstothecentralgovern-ment.11 HeZhuwasdeeplyengagedintellectually,emotionally,andartisticallywith the people and places around him, as well as with the history of his culture and his literature. We shall turn in a moment to his deep, subtle, and dense words, the poetry in which his voice still lives. CONVENTIONS AND TEXTS USED IN THIS STUDY Beforegettingintothepoemsthemselves,Iwouldliketoforestallpotential confusion over what names I use for the poet, how I transcribe modern Chinese and the Chinese of (roughly) He Zhus day, and how meter will be represented. For the specialist, brief remarks on texts cited and exceptions in citation format are also appended. 9 Juan originally referred to scrolls, but by this time designated sections of books written or printed on pages bound at the spine. He Zhus library may have included books in both forms, so we cannot say how many physical volumes/scrolls five thousand juan represented, only that it is a large number. Unlike the English chapter, the juan does not imply a division of content. Divi-sions in content may be coincidentally coterminous with juan, but juan tend to be of roughly equal lengthwhiledivisionsincontentvaryaccordingtothematerialitself.Thus,thereisnoregular correspondence. It seems best to leave the term untranslated. 10 Quoted in Zhong Zhenzhen, Dongshan ci, 52324. 11 Interestingly, in later gazetteers He Zhus poems are often the only documentation cited as evidence for the existence of certain landmarks. INTRODUCTION7 THE NAME OF THE POET The name of our poet has been transcribed above in pinyin: He Zhu. The chief problemattendantonthatspellinginanEnglishlanguagecontextisthatthe surnameHeisahomographofacapitalizedEnglishpronoun.Aslightbitof mental energy is required on every encounter with the name to choose: is He a god? At the beginning of a sentence, is He a pronoun or a name? Many scholars, myself included, still use the older Wade-Giles romanization, in which the name would be written Ho Chu. That doesnt make the name any easier to pronounce. ForthosewhodontknowChinese,letusnotethatHe/Hoispronouncedto rhyme with duh in a falling intonation; Zhu/Chu, whose initial is similar to the j in judge and whose final rhymes with the coup of coup detat, also has a falling intonation.In any case, for various reasons, this book uses pinyin Romanization, and we are stuck with He Zhu.12 To minimize the effort required to disambiguate the sign,weshalluseHeZhuonlyinpossessive,accusative,anddative contexts. When our poets name is the subject of a sentence, he will be called by hiscognomen,Fanghui(rhymeswithstrongwhey).(Cognomenisone translation of zi _, the by-name used to avoid the personal name, which would generally appear only in bureaucratic contexts.)13 OTHER TRANSCRIPTIONS Whentalkingaboutanindividualwordorphrasefromapoem,weshalloften simply transcribe it in Italics, in pinyin. The reading is thus modern Mandarin, a languageFanghuiwouldhaveunderstoodonlywiththegreatestdifficulty,ifat all. When the sound patterns Fanghui would have recognized are important, we shallusethetranscriptionsderivedfrommedievalChinesebyDavidPrager Branner.14ThesewillbeinRomanlettersratherthanItalics.Ordinarily,we 12 My decision to use pinyin stems from the fact the post office spellings that were customar-ily used alongside Wade-Giles are now out of date. Thus, it becomes awkward to write Chin-ling (themodernNanking)whennooneusesNankinganymore,althoughitisjustasgoodan English word as Munich or Greece. Using Wade-Giles consistently would not solve the prob-lem:Chin-ling(themodernNan-ching)ispeculiar-lookingbecausealmost nooneusedNan-ching in the past. Much simpler is the consistent Jinling (the modern Nanjing). 13 When the cognomen comes up in Poem 462, we shall offer educated guesses about the ra-tionale behind the name. Incidentally, let us note that there is also a homograph problem in Chi-nese! Fanghui in Chinese is indistinguishable from the name Fang Hui, which belongs to a well-known literary critic, dates 12271306. Fortunately, Fang Huis name will not come up again in this study. 14 Professor Branner kindly shared his 2002 draft edition of Cyn: a handbook of Chinese character readings with me. His transcriptions recommend themselves for our purposes because they use our INTRODUCTION8 shallomitdetailsofthetranscriptionthatarenotdirectlyrelevanttoourcon-cerns. Let us take our poets name, GheH1 TsyuoH3c in Branners transcription, to illustrate. If we ever had need to give his name in medieval Chinese, the sub-script numbers and letters could be omitted if we were not interested in the clas-sification of the rhymes: GheH TsyuoH. The final capital letters, which indicate thetone,wouldbedroppedifwewerenotinterestedinthetone:GheTsyuo. (The capitalization of G and T here has no significance in the transcription system and occurs only because our example is a proper name. I offer no expla-nation for the fact that He Zhus name sounds like a sneeze in the language of his day, as well as in Japanese: Ga Ch.) METER Studies produced in China on the forms of Chinese poetry are often extremely useful,andweshallmakeextensivereferencetotheminthisbook.However, explications of individual poems in China, Japan, and the West seldom mention meterandalmostneverexplicitlydiagramthemeterforthereader.Thisbook seeks to remedy that, at least in part. The meter of Regulated Verses and Quat-rains, where tonal patterns are generally required to stay within certain parame-ters,willroutinelybeincludedwiththeoriginaltext.Occasionally,meterwill also be shown in the discussion of poems in other genres when it is obvious that the poet is manipulating the sound to create a special effect.MeterinChinesepoetryisdefinedbythetonesofthesyllables.Thefour tones we are concerned with when we talk about classical Chinese poetry are the level tone and the three tones classified as deflected: shang (indicated by Q at the end of the rhyme in Branners system), qu (indicated by H), and ru (ending in ~p, ~t, or ~k).Some characters have more than one reading, usually related to differences in meaning.ItiscommoninChinesepoetryforthedifferencesinmeaningtobe ignored if a certain tone is required to meet metrical requirements; therefore, we generallychoose,withoutcomment,thetonethatfitsthecanonicalpattern when we transcribe the meter. WedonotneedtogointothedevelopmentofRegulatedVersehere; Fanghui was working within a system that had been worked out three or more centuries earlier, in the Tang Dynastyif fact, in his preface he speaks of regu-latedlinesorpoemsasthosethatfollowTangrules(]).Letusnote standard alphabet. It must be stressed that the system is not a reconstruction but an attempt to transcribethemaincategoriesofmedievalphonologyinawaythatismnemonicallyclear,pro-nounceable,andneutralwithrespecttohistoricalrealism.SeealsohisAneutraltranscription system for teaching medieval Chinese. INTRODUCTION9 simply that regulated lines avoid awkward sequences of tones or too many sylla-blesstrungtogetherwiththesametone;regulatedpoemsfollowrulesbywhich linesarepleasinglybalancedagainsteachotherbyrelationshipsofcontrast within couplets; couplets adhere to each other by relationships of identity be-tween the adjoining lines. A sense of change or progression through the poem is createdbythefactthatregulatedpoemstypicallyrequireafixedsequenceof four basic line types.Thefollowingchartshowsallthepossibleconfigurationsofregulatedlines. Weshallusethesymbols_andQtorepresentevenanddeflectedtones,re-spectively._designatessyllablesthatcanchangewithoutmakingthelineun-regulated.Thelighterbracketsenclosepentasyllabiclinetypes;theheavier brackets mark heptasyllabic line types. A____Q__Q} B__Q__QQ_} C__Q___QQ} D____QQ__} The tonal opposition between corresponding positions in the A and B lines and the C and D lines is obvious. Usually termed tonal parallelism, this creates the balancewithinthecouplet.Itwillalsobeobservedthatthetonesoftheeven-numbered syllables in lines B and C are the same. This is the critical principle in establishing adhesion between the couplets. Looking at the changeable (_) positions in the chart above, we can see that each pentasyllabic line has two permissible forms, except the B type, which has onlyone,andeachheptasyllabiclinehasfourtypes,excepttheBtype,which hasonlytwo.Ordinarily,itisverycumbersometolabelthesepermutations withoutlosingtrackofthebasicstructureofthepoem.Thisisonereasonfor the relative neglect of metrical considerations in scholarship on Chinese poetry. Luckily, a system of notation worked out by Qi Gong _ (b. 1912) solves the problem.InQissystem,eachlinetypeisdesignatedeitherA,B,C,orD,de-pendingonthetoneofthesecondandlastsyllables.Thechartabovefollows this system. Numbers are added to designate the variants. The regulated variants are designated A1, A2, etc. If non-changeable syllables are in the wrong tone, the lineceasestoberegulated.QiGongdesignatesunregulatedlinesasA]1,A ]2, etc. We shall mark such lines as (A1), (A2), etc. One may generally ignore the numbers and note only whether a line is A, B, C, or D and whether or not it is regulated.Oursymbolswillshowwhereviolationsoccurbychangingfromroundto square.Thus,intheheptasyllabiclineQQ__Q__,thepenultimatesylla-ble should be deflected Q, but it is level _. In the pentasyllabic line QQ_@Q, the penultimate syllable should be level _, but it is deflected @. There is no INTRODUCTION10 need to show changeable syllables with the symbol _, as we did above; the syl-lable is simply shown as it is. Q__QQ is a regulated C1 line; ___QQ is a regulated C2 line; the fact that the first syllable in either line could have been intheoppositetonewithoutviolatingthemeterisofnosignificanceforour analysis.It is important to emphasize that unregulated lines are common in Regulated Verse;moreover,therearevariousmeansofcompensatingforviolations. Sometimesviolationshaveapurelyformal,structuraleffect(especiallyinsup-port of poetic closure); the more interesting cases are those in which violations emphasize certain words or create emotional overtones. Meter thus opens paths of interpretation that might not otherwise be obvious. These points will be dis-cussed in detail in the relevant chapters.With Qi Gongs system of notation, one can see at a glance whether the pro-gression from couplet to couplet is within the rules. The prescribed sequence of linetypesA,B,C,andDisthesameastheABCDsequenceofouralphabet. The sequence does not have to start with A. Thus, ABCDABCD is a canonical sequence,andsoisCDABCDAB.Asweshallsee,heptametricalRegulated Verse introduces a slight complication because it normally starts with two rhym-ing lines, BD or DB. (In Regulated Verse, only level-tone rhymes are permitted, soallrhyminglineswillbeBorD.)Aslongasthethirdlinetakesupthese-quencefromthesecondline,however,thepoemremainsregulated:BDAB-CDAB or DBCDABCD. After a D line the sequence begins with A again; a B line must be followed by a C line. Linescanbeindividuallyunregulatedtothepointwheretonalopposition within the couplet is in shambles, but as long as the second syllables follow the pat-ternsofidentityandoppositiondictatedbytheABCDorder(andtherhymes fallonlyineven-numberedlines,withtheoptionalfirst-linerhyme),thepoem remains regulated. Again, Qi Gongs notation makes it clear that a sequence of, say, (A23) (B4) C (D14) is still an ABCD sequence. POEM NUMBERS AND TEXTS EachofHeZhuspoemshasbeenassignedanumber(eventhemissing poem, Poem 418). These numbers appear next to the upper left hand corner of poems that are quoted set off from the text; they are also incorporated into ref-erences to lines: line 273-3 refers to line 3 of Poem 273. There is an index by poem number, but these numbers do not correspond to any index or text out-side of this book and are useful only for cross-references within this book. Nev-ertheless, the reader may find that they foster a sense of progression through the poems as well as a sense of cohesion in the discussion. Whether reading sequen-INTRODUCTION11 tially or dipping into the text from the index or cross-references, it is helpful to beabletoseeataglancethatPoem403isstillunderdiscussion,thatonehas moved on to Poem 404, or that a reference to Poem 307 has been inserted. SourcecitationsforFanghuispoemsaretotwotexts.Thefirstcitationis alwaystothe1995Quan Song shi(CompleteSongPoems;hereafterQSS),vol-umenineteen.HeZhuspoemsareonpp.12497613ofvolumenineteen;in the continuous juan series that runs from volume one through volume seventy-two, his poems are in juan 1102 through most of juan 1112. However, our cita-tions are to the subordinated numbering of the eleven juan of He Zhus poems. Thus,thecitationforPoem1(injuan1ofhispoems)willbeto1.12497,not 1102.12497. ThesecondtextcitedisaneditionofFanghuispoetrycollectionthatwas editedbyaLiZhiding__andpublishedin1916aspartofaseriescom-piled by Li as the Songren ji (Song Poets Collected Works), second series __.ThenameofthisandallunabridgededitionsofFanghuispoemsis Qinghuyilaoshiji____(PoetryCollectionoftheLeftoverElderof LakeQing).ThejuandivisionscorrespondtothoseoftheQSSedition,except that the supplementary juan in the Qinghu yilao shiji have names instead of num-bers;theoneweshallcitemostoftenisrecoveredworks(shiyi__)inLi Zhidingsedition,whichisjuan10intheQSS.Thus,Poem559iscitedas 10.12606; Shiyi.18b. Sourcecitationstoallothertextsfollowstandardpractice.Pleasenotethe following,however.CitationstotheShishuo xinyuaretojuananditemnumber, not to juan and page. In this way, a single reference such as 16.2 can be used for both Richard Mathers translation and the standard Chinese editions. (I cite Mathers translation explicitly when the translation itself or some supplementary information supplied is significant.) Citations to the Wen Xuan are simply by juan. There is no way of anticipating what edition the readers of this book will have at hand.Theeditionofthissixth-centuryanthologythatIownanduseisoneof manydescendantsofthe1809edition,butdifferentversionsofthatsameedi-tion have different paginations.1515 The 1997 Zhonghua shuju photoreprint of the original 1809 edition shows ten columns per page; my version has sixteen. My edition was printed by the Wenruilou and Hongzhang shuju in Shanghai. It is undated, but might have been printed in 1900 or 1928, when these two publishing houses worked together on other books. (Source: Harvard Universitys Hollis Catalog.) CHAPTER ONE THE ANCIENT-STYLE VERSE OF HE ZHU, 107898 Fanghuiwroteonehundredtwenty-oneAncient-StyleVerse(gu ti shi, hereafter simply Ancient Verse); this form comprises over 20% of his extant shi poetry. As noted in the Introduction, Fanghui defined his Ancient Verse as poems whose sound and sense are close to the ancient and whose lines are composed of five characters. Ancient Verse, whether the pentametrical form covered in this chapter, or the heptametrical Songs we shall study in the next chapter, is an-cient in contrast to the Recent-Style Verse, or Regulated Verse, that matured in the Tang Dynasty. Ancient Verse is not restricted in length; rhymes do not have to beintheeventones;rhymesmaychangewithinapoem;andtonalsequences within lines and between lines are not determined by any rigid rules of balance or aesthetic patterning, although some patterns sound awkward to the ear and are generally avoided. Often, Ancient Verse is characterized by the noticeable rejec-tion of rules rather than indifference to rules. Once Regulated Verse had estab-lishedprosodicproscriptionsandthepatternsofsubtlecorrelationswecall parallelism,poetscouldmaketheirpoemsancientbyemployingdiction, syntax, and metrical patterns that were prose-like and clumsy. Less conspicu-ously, one could employ to some degree the semantic parallelism that had become habitual with Regulated Verse but still be unconcerned about following the tonal rules. For example, one mark of clumsiness is a line whose last three syllables are three level tones or three deflected tones. Fanghuis Ancient Verses almost always containsuchlines,whichisatypicalcharacteristicofthegenre.(InRegulated Verse,onlytwoofthelastthreesyllablesshouldbethesametone;moreover, thesetwosyllablesshouldbecontiguous:aleveldeflectedlevelorde-flectedleveldeflectedsequence,whichsoundsjerkyevenintheabstract,isa violation of the metrical pattern and brings the poem closer to Ancient Verse.) The freedom to change rhymes in the course of an Ancient Verse can be ex-ploited by poets to signal shifts in topic within a long composition. However, this freedomisactuallyonlytheoreticalinpentametricalverse;rhymechangesare muchmorecommoninheptametricalAncientVerse,orSongs.Fanghuire-spects this difference. In his preface he mentions rhyme change as one criterion for classifying a poem as a Song but makes no mention of rhyme in connection with Ancient Verse. In only three out of one hundred twenty-one Ancient Verses does he change rhyme within the poem. As one might expect, each of these three ANCIENT VERSE13 cases is a relatively long composition, but he writes many other long poems that do not change rhymes.1 In fourteen poems He Zhu does something more unusual: he rhymes the first line, which is seldom done in pentametrical poetry, whether Ancient or Regulated. Thefactthattwelveofthesepoemswerewrittenin108086suggeststhathis experimentationintheformwasespeciallyvigorousintheearlierpartofthe period for which his works are available to us. Indeed, a high proportion of He Zhus surviving early poetry was Ancient Verse. From 1078 to 1080, his Ancient Verses far outnumber his Regulated Verses and heptametrical Quatrains. It is only from1092onthatthereisamarkeddeclineinthequantityofhisAncient Versethough a set of ten poems under one title and seven other Ancient Verses create a noticeable spike in the record in 1096. When there are no strict metrical rules, we cannot look for unusual metrical patterns to guide our readings of the poemsto signal the presence of sub-texts, linguistic bravado, or agitationas we shall with Regulated Verse. Our emphasis in this chapter will therefore be on themes, ideas, and precedents. Once we have become familiar with the poems themselves we shall try to suggest why Ancient Verse was chosen for certain purposes. 10781080: FUYANG 1078: THE CONTINGENCY OF HISTORICAL JUDGEMENT The Ancient Verses begin with a poem titled The Former City of Ye .2 This was composed on horseback one evening in the ninth month of Yuanfeng 1 (1078) nearFuyang,theseatofCiPrefecture,orCizhou,inHebeiWest Circuit.(FuyangismodernCixian,justinsideHebeiProvinceontherailline north from Anyang to Shijiazhuang and Beijing). Fanghui was assigned in Fuyang to a Chief Manufactory (), where arms were made.3 Ye (less than a days ride south of Fuyang) had been an important city from the third century until the lastquarterofthesixthcentury,whenwarfaresentitintodecline.Therewere many such sites in this part of the North China Plain, and Fanghuis long sojourns 1The changes take place in Poems 052 (1080, in Fuyang), 082 (1085, in Xuzhou), and 136 (1093, in Xuyi). 22.12510; 2.1a. 3Hucker,Dictionary,placestheChiefManufactoryunderthe DirectoryforArmaments(Junqi jian),andthatDirectorydoesseemtohaveexercisedsupervisedarmsproductionboth inside and outside the capital in a concrete way after 1073, but Gong Yanmings Song dai guanzhi cidian makes the Manufactory subordinate to the Circuit Judicial Supervisorate (Lu tidian xing si ).SeeGong,364and559.InviewofthefactthatFanghuilaterbecameaCoinsOfficerin Xuzhou, it may be relevant to note that a mint for iron coins was established in Cizhou in the middle of 1077. Li Tao, Xu Zizhitongjian changbian 9:283.6ab (3007a). CHAPTER ONE14 heremayaccountinpartforhisinterestinthiskindofhistoricalpoem.Con-temporariessuchasHuangTingjian,SuShi,andChenShidao (10531102) seldom treated such topics in their poetry. Becauseofitslength,weshallnottranslatetheentirepoem,buttherearea coupleofpointsworthmentioning.The Former City of Yeassertsthathistory,as recorded on stone relics, is indecipherable. The steles alongside the roads that led into tombs have fallen; if not simply smashed, they have been recycled for prac-tical new uses: 039 I Viatical steles lie this way and that, 28 their inscriptions long damaged and missing. Fulling blocks for cloth, plinths for columns, dragons and their heads are separated, split. I point at this, which I can cup in one hand: 32 Wise and foolishwhat difference between the two? The bits of stone that one can hold in ones palm contain only a few characters. Either because no useful text can be reconstructed from these fragments or be-causeeventhecharactersthemselvescannotbemadeoutclearly,onecanno longerdistinguishtheworthy(xian)fromthefoolish(yu).Thatmeansthatthe wholepurposeofhistorytojudgethepastasguidanceforthepresenthas been lost. Su Shi raises the dichotomy of worthy and foolish nine times in his poems. An interestingexamplethatcontrastswiththedestructionofinscriptionsin Fanghuis The Former City of Ye is these lines from 1060, in which Su assumes that the character of people in the present, though their lives pass so quickly, will be available to the historical judgment of people in the future: _ How remarkable, the travelers before the mountain; / gone in an instant: stars passing over a fish-trap! / No time to divide the worthy and the foolish; / future generations will make the distinction.4 In the ruins of Ye, however, time erases history, and with it these distinctions are lost. If 4, Su Shi shiji, 1:2.75, final four lines. See the important textual note by the editors regarding thewordwetranslatefishtrap:theyrejectthereceivedversionoftheline,whichusedthe character , and substitute _. Su Shis expression is based on a line in Ode 233 of the Classic of Poetry that is itself opaque: The three stars are in the fish trap. One traditional interpretation of this line is that stars (leaders) reflected in a fish trap (that holds no thrashing fish and therefore repre-sents the hunger of the people) will not be seen for long. Karlgren assumes that _, fish trap, is a borrowing for , central roof hole, and translates accordingly. (See his Book of Odes and Grammata Serica Recensa, 286.) This also gives us an appropriate image for brevity: stars passing across a rela-tivelysmallopening,aprocessthattakesasurprisinglyshorttime.Regardlessofthemeritsof Karlgrens assumption as it applies to the Odes, however, the editors of Su Shi shiji reject this as a possibility for Su Shis poem because it is in the wrong rhyme category for Sus poem. They also point to the fact that a Song edition of the Classic of Poetry uses _, fish trap. It is possible that Su Shi thought this was a borrowing for the other character and ignored or was unaware of the dif-ference in tone, but we shall never know, and I follow their emendation here. ANCIENT VERSE15 the future is dependent on inscriptions on stone, Su Shis faith in 1060 that those who look back on us from the future will be able to judge who was wise and who was foolish is misplaced.Fanghuis next four lines indicate that the past is not entirely effaced, for the water in the nearby river and the moon over the terrace built by Cao Cao (155220) remain to complement the heroic spirit of the place. Nevertheless, the poem concludes with a fruitless quest for a philosophy of history, an explication that the poet thinks he might find in the peasants. 039 In field and paddy I visit the remaining elders; _ it is said they have a theory of the rise and fall. All I hear is the Shuli piece, 40 and they curse the oxen, plowing without pause. Note: 039-39/ Shu liisthenameofOde65in the Classic of Poetry.Itistraditionallytakento betheex-pression of the sorrow and frustration an officer of the Zhou Dynasty feels upon seeing the ruins of some Zhou ancestral temples. Although Fanghui imagines he hears the farmers singing an ancient song to la-ment the ruin of Ye, he gets no discourse on the rise and fall of ancient cities from them. The oral tradition is as indecipherable as the texts on fragments of steles. Fanghuispredicamentisnotwithoutprecedent;see,forexample,thisTang couplet: Fragrant plants already sprout on the site of palaces and halls; / what herdboy would discern the walls of thearchs andprinces?5 EvenifFanghuisruminationsintheformercityofYearein-formed by such precursors, however, his feelings about history will evolve during the period covered by this study to the point where he has an almost desperate hope in Su Shis future generations making the distinction. 1079: REPORTAGE He Zhus three Yuanfeng 2 (107980) Ancient Verses are engaged with life in the present. The first, written in the fourth month, is called Joy over Rain. In his title note, Fanghui tells us that in the spring of this year there was hot weather and drought; it wasnt until the fourth month that rain began to soak the ground. By that time, the wheat and barley had already dried up and died. Fanghui ends his note with this statement: I gathered the words of an old farmer and composed this poem.6 This leads us to expect a poem in the style of certain works by Du Fu 5LiuCang(ninthcentury),,QTS,18:586.6788.Notonlyisthesentiment reminiscent of Fanghuis early poems, the location is, too: the old city of Ye. 62.12510; 2.2a. The drought afflicted most of north China. See Changbian, v. 9, juan 296, 297, et CHAPTER ONE16 or Mei Yaochen (100260), in which the poet reports what common folk sufferingfromcorvelaborormilitarydrafthavetosayabouttheirplight. Fanghuis poem, however, is more dedicated to imagistic and linguistic invention, at least overtly. 040 All spring, endless drought and adustion; cross into summer: suddenly humid and sweltry. Dust and grime befouled the clothes and lappet; 4 moisture of plums steamed from column and plinth. Yellow sandstorms shut out the Red Phosphor; reckon the time, and youd confound early morn and noon. Sand-martins pursue wind-kites,8 flip and fly upstream the oncoming rain. In a flurry, white-feathered arrows are fired at once from enormous bows and fall on roof-tiles, and ring on steps 12 in a floating foam that seems to boil. By full morning the deluge is everywhere and the parched are given clean succor. Farmers happily visit and mingle, 16 welcoming at their gates with pleasant talk. Silkworm mulberries are scant but enough; theres pig and brew, pipes and drums: Picking a lucky day, they give thanks at the bosquet shrine: 20 shaman Mother gives up her frenzied dance. Morning meals fill the able-bodied young; _ shaded by straw hats, they plow the hardscrabble ground. Let up a little on the deadline to pay wheat taxes; 24 we should be able to make it up with the autumn crop. If its taken away and goes into the Great Granaries, all the richness will go to brown rats. Notes: 040-4/ThislinereflectsabeliefthatsouthoftheYangziinthefourthandfifthmonths,when plums are about to turn yellow and fall, the bases of columns produce a sweat that evaporates and becomes rain.7 passim. 7This is reported in a nearly contemporary source, Lu Dians Piya, CSJC, 1172:13.323. The rain that falls at this time is called plum rain, according to Lu. (Surely this supports the theory that the term for the spring rainy season in Japan, baiu, means plum rain rather than mold rain.) Oddly, though,Lustatesthatnosuchrelationshipbetweenplumsandrainwasseenintheareawhere ANCIENT VERSE17 040-20/ The shamanka had been dancing to bring rain. Thefirsthalfofthepoemistrulyimpressiveforitsfreshimageryandprecise evocation of both drought and deluge. Cross into summer is an unusual phrase in poetry, though it is found in Wang Wei (d. 761) and Yuan Zhen (779831).EvenrarerisRedPhosphor(theSun),atermderivedfromtheold belief that a Red Crow lives in the sun (which with the moon constitutes the Two Phosphors).8 Thephrasetranslatedenormousbowsisliterallybows[that would take] ten thousand oxen [to pull]; the epithet ten thousand oxen is not unusual for great trees and by extension it can be applied to the mighty brush of an esteemed writer; but Fanghui may be unique in describing bows this way. The second half of the poem captures the energy of village life released, as it were, by the rain. We might wonder, however: were there really enough resources afterthedroughtinFuyangtomakeofferingsattheshrine(line040-18);was there enough food for hearty breakfasts (040-21)? When the peasants argue that anygraintheypayintothestorehousesnowwillbeeatenbyratsareasonable argument, to be surearent they really worrying that they wont have enough to live on between now and autumn without that grain? We dont know enough about the local situation to know how desperate the Fuyang peasants would have been. The drought was widespread enough to come up for discussion at court more than once. Hebei West Circuit, where Fuyang is located, had the highest percentage of irrigated land in north China, but such a widespreaddroughtcouldmeantherewasnowaterforthecanalstodeliver. Although there was a navigable river east of Fuyang that might have had a reliable flow for irrigation, only 11.16% of the land in Hebei West Circuit was irrigated, accordingtofiguresfor107076,andwecannotassumethatirrigationwas availabletoorhadamelioratedtheeffectsofthedroughtonthepeasantsob-served by He Zhu.9 In any case, when Fanghuis headnote tells us that the wheat and barley crops have failed and that he is collecting reports from old peasants, it gives us both the background knowledge and the generic expectations that lead us to look for an indictment of indifferent officials in the tradition of Du Fu, Mei Yaochen, Su Shi,andmanyotherpoets.Instead,wegethappy,well-fedpeasants.Ithink Fanghui has found a fresh approach to social criticism: telling good news while hintingatdisaster.(Acamouflagedmessagewasalsosafer,inviewofthecase building against Su Shi, whose reportage in poems that were widely circulated in print would lead to his arrest three months later.) ThesecondofFanghuis1079AncientVerses,writtenfourmonthslater,is Fanghui wrote the poem. 8See Edward Shafer, Pacing the Void, 16367. 9Liang Fangzhong, Zhongguo lidai huko, tiandi, tianfu tongji, 142, 289, and 291. CHAPTER ONE18 titled Old Scholartree.10 This time, there is no sympathyforthepeasantsor theirculture.ThesubjectisalargedeadtreeinHandanCommanderythathas become the object of assiduous worship because humming and sighing were once heard to come from it at night. Fanghui is sure that what the locals supposed to be spiritsisreallyowlsandfoxeslivinginthetree.Inhispoem,hereviewsthis situation as described in the preface, then refutes the superstition: the real reason the tree reached a ripe old age is because it was unsuitable for timber, not because any god of the soil protected it.041 An old tree, long withered and bare, leans over the dust of the unsullied road. Theres never been shade to lay a mat on the ground 4 where shelter from heatstroke might extend to the People. _ Owl nests and burrows for foxes malevolent fiends attach themselves here. Their howling attends the dim blackness; 8 with frenzied tremble, they close in from the side. Round about, a stepped altar is built, a shrine set up for prayer in autumn and spring. Since the tree enjoys the longevity of the useless, 12 it is outrageously supposed to house a local god. Do not be confused by the words of the shaman-woman; please brandish the ax of the woodcutter. If you hesitate, in the end it will be pilfered 16 and be firewood for those who come next. Notes: 041-2/Dustoftheunsulliedroadseemscontradictory,butunsulliedhereappearstobean old-fashionedepithet.ThephrasedustoftheunsulliedroadappearsinsixteentimesinTang poetry,usuallywithoutreferencetoitsoriginalmetaphoricaluseinapoembyCaoZhi (192232).11 Most likely, Fanghui is reaching for the flavor of antiquity as he sets the scene. 041-11/ If a tree is useless for timber, it is not harvested. This is an old notion from the Zhuangzi.12 Fanghui clearly does not value little tradition religious practices. His true mo-tivation for writing the poem probably extends beyond a desire to impose some sort of orthodoxy on the superstitious masses, however. He wants to impress us withhiswit.NotethatthelasttwocoupletsundercuttheDaoistlessonofthe utility of uselessness that he evoked in line 041-11 to explain the real reason for 10 2.12511, 2.2b. 11Exception:HanYuspoem(890).HanYuquanjijiaozhu, 2:83335. 12A. C. Graham, 7273; Watson, 6365. The tree in that story shades a village shrine to the local god. ANCIENT VERSE19 the preservation of the tree. That hoary clich fails to recognize that what cannot beusedfortimberstillcanbeburntforfuel!AsFanghuigleefullypointsout, there is no point in leaving the tree around for somebody else to exploit in the future.The third of these old-style poems written in 1079 also gives unexpected twists to old lore. It is titled Calling on Administrator Chao Duanzhi ,13 and it is basically a complaint about being a poor official. 042 The West Wind blows an evening rain; starving magpies make a racket in the chilly thicket. Wenju faces the chatting guests; 4 so chagrined that the goblets and tripods are empty! Alas for us wanderers-in-office: poverty and illness more or less the same. A peck of salary: by bending waist obtained;8 cash to get tipsy on: usually not issued. Look you, sir, at the lads of the North Ward: lofty halls with songs from Yan, and bells. Although they boast the cost of their brew is to be ignored, 12 filled with your bountieswhence comes such richness? Could I ever be one who begs by the tombs?! I dont put on a pleasing face for my wife and concubine. Always I cherish the integrity of ice and cork, 16 unabashed before heroes among the butchers and brewers. Notes: 042-3/ Wenju is the cognomen of Kong Rong (153208), a learned man who attracted many admirers. He is said to have sighed, The seats are always filled with guests; the goblets are never empty of brewI have no worries!14 042-7/ Tao Yuanming (365427) refused to crimp his waist for a salary of five pecks of rice.15 042-9/ North Ward: Another name for Pingkang Ward of the Tang capital, Changan; but see also discussion below. By extension refers to the entertainment district in any capital metropolis where courtesans were to be found. 042-10/ The ancient state of Yan, in the area of modern Beijing, was known for its fine singers. 042-12/ Filled with your bounties: a phrase taken from a feasting song in the Classic of Poetry.16

132.12511, 2.3a. There are two branches of the Chao family that produced men in the eleventh century whose given name started with the syllable Duan; Chao Duanzhi may be a brother or cousin of one of these more famous scions. His formal title would have been , unofficially called fa cao or fa yuan , according to Gong Yanming; Fanghui calls him facaoyuan in his title note. His office probably handled punishments or sentencing. 14Hou Han shu, 8:70.2277. 15A. R.. Davis, Tao Yan-ming, 2:165. 16The song is , Ode 247. Legge (She King, 475) translates de as kindness. My translation CHAPTER ONE20 042-13/ Begs by the tombs: Mencius tells of a man who tried to impress his wife and concubine by coming home having partaken heartily of brew and flesh, supposedly in the company of the rich and famous. In fact, he had been begging for the leftover sacrifices among the tombs.17 042-15/Iceandcork:drinkingiceandeatingthe bitterbarkoftheamurcorktree(Phellodendron amurense, now an invasive plant in the northeastern U.S.) symbolize a life of hardship. An official who is drinking ice and eating bark is probably not accepting bribes. In 824 Bo Juyi wrote a six-line pentametrical poem that begins, For three years Ive been a prefect, / drinking ice and also eating cork.18

042-16/ Butchers and brewers: a common term for the common lot of men, though it frequently designates the pool from which someone rises to greatness. The arrayed allusions following the vivid images of the first couplet obscure the dynamicstructureofthepoematfirst.Inthesecondandfourthcouplets,the allusions are not used straight; rather, figures of the past are invoked only to showhowfarFanghuiandChaoDuanzhiarefromlivinguptothem.The comparison of Chao to Kong Rong shows that he is much esteemed of course, butmoreimportantlyhighlightsthefactthat,incontrasttoKong,hecannot afford to keep his guests cups full (042-34). The poet alludes to Tao Yuanmings famous refusal to crimp his waist to people for a salary of five pecks of rice only to stress that he needs his salaryone fifth of Taos!and will bow and scrape to secure it (042-7). Chao probably shares this sad condition.19 The train of sighs and regrets is brought to a halt in line 042-9 with the apos-tropheLookyou,sir,whichrecallsearlierballadtraditions.Thoughthelines that follow are even more allusive, now the allusions are used more convention-ally.ThereferencetoNorthWardinline042-9constitutesabitofconscious archaizing.Reachingbacktopre-Tangtimes,wefindNorthWardalreadyasa generaltermforthedistrictsinwhichyoungnoblesentertainthemselves.The third in a series of eight Recitations on History (Wen xuan 21) by Zuo Si (ca.250-ca.305)containsthiscouplet:IntheSouthernNeighborhoodthey strikebellsandlithophones;intheNorthWardtheyblowonmouthorgans. Fanghui is phrasing his resentment in the terms of a bygone age, an age of aris-tocratic dandies. Fanghui and Chao (provisionally assuming he is talking about both himself and reflects Karlgrens (Book of Odes) rendition; an emphasis on the material side of the hosts generosity fits better in the context of Fanghuis use of feng, which often implies rich year. The only other use of this phrase in poetry that I know of is in a 1073 heptametric Ancient Verse by Su Shi, , SSSJ, 2:11.527 17Legge, Mencius, 34041. This specific phrase does not occur in Tang poetry and is rare before theSouthernSong.Tomyknowledge,itisusedonlybySuShiandHeZhu,onceeach,inthe Northern Song. 18, second of two poems. QTS, 13:431.4763. Bo was prefect in Hangzhou at the time. 19One would like to identify a corresponding allusion in 042-8, but so far as I can determine, cash to get tipsy on is a phrase coined by He Zhu. It is vaguely reminiscent of Tao Yuanmings use of land attached to his post to grow rice for brew. ANCIENT VERSE21 his host) are poor and do not pretend to be otherwise. In fact, far from begging by the tombs, they take pride in the integrity of hardship. Fanghuis reference to heroes among the butchers and brewers (or to the heroism of these common men, touseanotherplausibletranslation)hasresonanceswithhisassertions,seenin otherpoemsaswellashislyrics,thathisyouthwasspentasarighteous knight-errant.20 We have moved beyond the sighs and chagrin of the first half of the poem. As he drops his witty twisting of allusions and defines his integrity in the last eight lines through more direct refutations of past examples, Fanghuis language becomes more direct and forceful. We are told to look at the lads of the North Ward;andtheconjunctionalthoughgoverninglines042-1112addsprosy clarity. There is a rhetorical question in line 042-13 (Could I ever be one who begs?)andadenialinline14(Idontputonapleasingface).Inline 042-15, Fanghui eternally (yong, always in our translation) holds integrity in his bosom and, in line 16, he has never been (wei) abashed before the heroes. The two halves of the poem complement each other: the witty indirection and self-pity of thefirsteightlinesprovideagroundagainstwhichtheassertionsofheroicin-tegrityandprideinthelasthalfstandout,expressedinthemodalitiesofthe absolute. 1080: TIME Wehavejustexaminedapoemthat,byimplicationatleast,dealswiththegap between youthful ideals and adult careers and responsibilities; we have also noted theproblemofanunbridgeablechasmbetweenthepresentandthepastem-bodiedintheremainsofagreatcityofthepast.InYuanfeng3(108081), Fanghui repeatedly returns in his Ancient Verse to the issue of time. On the last day of the third month, in Facing Brew ,21 Fanghui begins by evoking the old adages that life passes as quickly as a galloping white colt glimpsed through a crack and an inch of time is more precious than a jade disk a whole foot in diameter.044 The white colt cannot be halted; the foot-wide jade disk is not to be prized. Alone I ladle out a cup of brew, 4 with melancholy song send off the departing springtime. My song fades and the brew runs out with a turn of the head the traces are already old. 20See especially his lyric to the tune Liuzhou getou , which Zhong Zhenzhen ascribes to 1088. See Dongshan ci, 4.420, 42738.212.12511; 2.3b. CHAPTER ONE22 I laugh at myself: ten years of service 8 and still I cant find the fording places in the world. Of course there is water to wash ones hatstrings, but what to do about the long roads dust? It is fate: what more is there to say? 12 the people of today are like those of yore. There are three significant motifs in this poem. First, we note that spring is de-parting, moving away from the self (line 044-4). This notion of time as some-thing that abandons the poet will be repeated. Second,thoughmanyreaderswillrecognizethatnotbeingabletofindthe ford is a common expression denoting an inability to find ones way in life, line 044-8 should remind us also of Fanghuis inability to obtain any guidance from the peasants two years earlier, in The Former City of Ye (039). There is a passage in the Analects in which Confucius is rebuffed by a pair of recluses when he stops and sendsadiscipletoaskthemwherethefordingplaceis.Oneofthemsaysthe world (tian xia, all under heaven, the same phrase used by He Zhu in line 044-8) is surging and swelling and that it would be best to follow those who withdraw from the world. He goes on covering his seeds without pausethe phrase and the situationarethesameasin1078, wherethepeasantscursetheoxen,plowing withoutpause(seeline039-40above,p.15).22 Line044-8,then,impliesHe Zhuspredicamentofnotfindinganyonewhocantellhimthemeaningofthe present moment of history or direct him to the right path of conduct. Third,line044-9evokestheancientCanglangSong:WhenCanglang Stream limpid sings, / It serves to wash my hats strings; / When Canglang Stream turbid flows, / It serves to wash mud off my soles. The Song is quoted in the Mencius(Legge,299),whereConfuciusdrawsalessonfromthestreambeing treated differently by people according to whether it is clear or turbid. It is also the song a fisherman sings to Qu Yuan (ca. fourth cent. BCE) after advising the earnest but unheeded minister to the state of Chu that he should be content to withdraw when the times are unfavorable and serve only when the times permit him to be effective.23 In most allusions to the song, the washing of the capstrings istakentosymbolizearesolutiontoliveapurelifeapartfromtheworld;that appears to be its meaning here, though we shall see that the significance of the story varies in the context of other poems. Note that in the story behind He Zhus allusion, we find again the situation of an uncommunicative wise man ignoring the plight of the confused person who cannot bring himself give up his commitment 22For the Analects passage, see Legge, 33334. In one version of He Zhus poem, world is replaced by the names of the recluses. 23For the Mencius passage, see Legge, 299. For the encounter between Qu Yuan and the fish-erman, see David Hawkes, The Songs of the South, 2067. ANCIENT VERSE23 to society: the fisherman sings the Canglang Song as he punts his skiff away from Qu Yuan, leaving him standing forlornly by the shorejust as the peasants in the field at Ye turned their backs on He Zhu. This time, our poet does have an answer of sorts. In line 044-10, he realistically observes that a long, dusty roadhis ca-reerlies between him and clean water of reclusion, or (to propose a different reading of the line) he questions whether the water will be enough to wash off the defilement of his career! TheprecisemeaningofthelastcoupletofFacing Brewisuncleartome.As translated, it would apply that judgment to humans in general. It could also mean This person I am today is still the person I was in the past.24 In the context of line 044-11, It is fate: what more is there to say, either reading may be taken pessimistically: there is no progress. The notion that nothing really changes is repeated in the conclusion of Inscribed on a Painting of Shamanka Mountain, composed in the following month.25 047 Shamanka Mountainthat lovely goddess: uncommon beauty beaming from morning clouds. Her dazzling charm cannot be drawn close to you; 4 lightly gliding in the air, she leaves without a trace. A Chu dreamand after that one night, a grey-green mountain where autumns turn to springs. The view breaks off, and my insides are broken, too 8 they go and they come, the people of now and then. Note: 047-5/ Most versions of the legend about this goddess have her appearing from the clouds to have sexual intercourse with a king of the ancient southern state of Chu.26 Like spring (line 044-4 of Facing Brew), the goddess of Shamanka Mountain leaves, goes away from the observing self. After the dream is finished, the cycle of the seasons and human history only perpetuate this eternal losing. In an inscription Fanghui wrote on a sixth-century stele in the Fuyang area in the ninth month of 1080, Inscribed on the Back of the Stele of the Prince of Lanling,27 this familiar cycle of change is not seasonal but geological: 24Wang Anshi (102186) has a poem that may shed light on this, Praise on my Own Portrait: I and the painting are both illusory selves; / as we circulate in the world we shall turn to dust. / I only know that this object is no other object; / dont ask if the present person is like the person of yore. Linchun xiansheng wenji, 29.326. 252.12512; 2.4a. Written the fourth month of 1080 on a painting owned by a man in Fuyang. Fanghuis headnote surmises that it was done by a Tang artist. 26SeeDavidKnechtges,Wen Xuan,3:32539.Seealso,especiallyfortheimportanceofthe goddess in Hes lyrics, my Experiential Patterns in the Lyrics of Ho Chu, 7595. 272.12514; 2.7a. Written on the tenth day of the ninth month. The Prince of Lanling, a military hero, is known to history as Gao Changgong , but Fanghui, presumably on the basis of the CHAPTER ONE24 056 Ten dynastiessix hundred years; 12 in the human world, ridges and valleys change places. TheChinesespeakofgeologicalreversalsofmountainsandvalleysevendry land and oceanover eons of time, but in the human world such alternations would be a metaphor for social and political change. In another poem from the ninth month, we return to the adjective departing thatdescribedspringinthethirdmonth(line044-4ofFacing Brew).Nowitis lightthe word used connotes timethat departs.28 057 The notes of the late season drive on the departing light; 8 with a travelers yearnings, I ponder the burdens on my life. I left my homeland long ago indeed: a ji year now has reverted to a geng. Notes: 057-7/ I translate late notes/pitches as notes of the late season in view of the belief that each of the twelve pitches corresponds to a month; the phrase could also refer simply to notes heard late in the day from a flute or garrison horn. The phrase is unique to He Zhu, as far as I can ascertain. 057-10/ThebinaryenumeratorsforYuanfeng2(1079)werejiwei;thoseforthepresentyear (Yuanfeng 3) are gengshen. However, this poem was written in the ninth month, so the change of year is very old news. I think that in the context of the previous lines reference to leaving home, we have to go back to the previous ji year, jiyou (Xining 2, 106970), which, it turns out, is probably when Fanghui and his mother moved to the capital.29 To paraphrase and expand: Since the ji year when I left home (which was followed by a geng year, gengxu , Xining 3) we have gone through a ten-year cycle to another ji year, after which we have reverted to another geng year, gengshen. Finally, let us first record another juxtaposition of the personal experience of time leaving me and historical time, also from the ninth month of 1080.30 058 A lofty wind swashes the Starry River; white dew blankets the chilly chrysanthemums. " Below them, the katydid 4 lonely, bitter, hurried in its style. The flowery years of youth wait not; they go from me so swiftly flowing. stele inscription by Lu Sidao (53586), tells us in the preface to the poem that his name is actually Su : At that time he went under his cognomen and the historians overlooked the detail. 28 Evening Prospect from the Tower of Handan Commandery, 2.12515; 2.8a. 29Zhong Zhenzhen, Bei Song ciren He Zhu yanjiu, 46. Zhong appears to be estimating the time of the move (he gives 1068 and 1069 as likely dates); he does not cite any evidence. We must keep in mind that Fanghui does not have to tell the correct date if a slight adjustment will produce a better line.Readersunfamiliarwithbinaryenumeratorsinthesexagenarycycleareencouragedtosee Cohen, Introduction, 42224, or similar guides. 30Replying to Du Zhongguans ClimbingtheClusteredEstrade, Which He Sent to Me, 2.12515; 2.8b.ANCIENT VERSE25 Handan, the ancient metropolis: 14 a trace of the past, Wuling built it. Note: 058-14/ King Wuling of the state of Zhao ruled in the fourth century B.C.E. The trace of the past isprobablytheClusteredEstradeonwhichHeZhuscorrespondenthadwrittenhispoem.Its remains are in Handan, the capital of Zhao. We note that (in the original) the verb go in line 058-6 is the one that described the Goddess of Shamanka Mountain leaving without a trace (line 047-4). Trace of the past in line 058-14, though it concerns historical time, is a transform of the traces are already old, which indicates a sort of alienation from ones own past, in Facing Brew (line 044-6). This cluster of Ancient Verses from 1080, then, presents a consistent concern with estrangement from both the personal and the historical past. Youth and spring, like the ancient goddess, leave the poet behind. Anexperiencebecomesatrace,atrackthatmarkstheabsenceoftheex-perience because it is chen, old, left-over. Fishermen, peasants, and recluses turn their backs on the man who seeks to find some meaning in the human world, the world of politics and careers. The past is not completely mute to He Zhu, of course, for he is steeped in the sea of texts it has left, if not on stones, then in books. Thus, in some ways he has access to the ancients, and he can be like the people of the past. In the tenth month of the same year, his On Night Duty in Winter 31 begins with an archetypal situation in Chinese poetry: the sleepless traveler who gets up and goes 312.12515;2.9a.TheversionIquotehereisfromtheCaoAnthology,asreflectedinthe variantscitedbyLiZhiding.AsgiveninLiZhiding'seditionandtheQuan Song shi,thefirstline rhymes, using window instead of room. First-line rhyme is rare in pentametrical Ancient Verse (butseethediscussionattheendofthischapter).Line12referstorushingaboutinaudience regalia, which might seem odd for a military official who served outside the court, but we shall see Fanghui wearing a formal hat and carrying a tabula when he visits a shrine privately while traveling in late 1087 (Poem 099) so this is not a problematic variant. Our line 14 is replaced by three lines, each of which rhymes: Muscle and skeleton cannot force themselves; / Robust hair now shows an inch of frost; / Heroic gall worn down by an inch of steel. It is my theory that these were three can-didates for line 14; a reworked version of the second candidate, referring to frost in the hair, finally won out. A version that tames a poem and makes it follow the rules is not by those virtues the correct version, and may well be the work of a later editor. Nevertheless, I have chosen to present the better text, especially since the apparent draft text is readily available in the Quan Song shi. The Cao Anthology cited by Li Zhiding is the selection of He Zhus poetry that is part of the Song shi xuan (Anthology of Song poetry) by Cao Xuequan (15741647); I inspected this anthology in 1978 in the Sonky bunko in Tokyo, and it does indeed include this poem. (CaosprefacetotheAncientVersesectionintheanthologyisdated1631.)AnotherCao,Cao Tingdong (16991784), is responsible for an anthology called Song baijia shicun (Surviving poems by a hundred Song poets, published 174041). One might think Li was citing this work (which, having been reprinted in the Siku quanshu, is more accessible to us today, though not to him in 1916), but Cao Tingdong's anthology does not include this poem. CHAPTER ONE26 outside to look at the sky. Well- known precedents would include the first poem in Ruan Jis (210263) eighty-two poem collection, Singing My Feelings.32 To be sure, Fanghui is not here directly imitating or quoting Ruan, as he will in 1086 (seep.58)andasMeiYaochenhaddone.33 Thispoemisrathermorespecific about the cares that weigh on the speakers mind. 059 A dropping moon half invades the room; Crickets voices, chilly, reach the bed. A traveler cannot endure this; 4 after his dream the night is still so long. , Tying my clothes, I go out the courtyard door: the Sky River just now is so distant and chill. Floating darkness obscures the land on all sides;8 approaching geese do not know their ranks. Leftover nature mourns the closing season; j fearful of the road, I think on my old homeland. Ten years as humble as mud and muck, 12 I gallop about, sick of the roadsides. Have I no will to accomplish something? the hair at my temples upgathers morning frost. Purity and loftiness, what are they, after all? 16 walking and singing, I follow after the Madman of Chu. Notes: 059-9/ Chen wu means to lay out things on display, things left out, or even leftover food. The expression is rare if not otherwise unknown in poetry. In the first of Three Autumn Musings at Jiangxia, Fanghui uses chen wu again, apparently referring to the things of the season that are arrayed before him. (Poem 534; we translate the second and third poems in our chapter on heptametrical Regulated Verse.) 059-12/ The roadside may be where the poet has to sleep, where farewells are said, or where bandits and other hazards lurk; cf. line 080-11, p. 51. One way to overcome alienation from the past is by following after an ancient personage. This is what Fanghui does in the last line of Night Duty. The Madman of Chu is originally the recluse who confronted Confucius with a little song that warned him against the perils of remaining involved in politics. In the Wen xuan, each of three times the phrase walking and singing is used, it is in connection with the Madman of Chu. It is true that by He Zhus time both the Madman and waking and singing were associated also with drinking. In a youthful poem, Han Yu (768824) had written Who is 32Donald Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 229. 33Chaves, Mei Yao-chen and the Development of Early Sung Poetry, 1024. ANCIENT VERSE27 that singing, fallen over drunk, in front of the flowers? / a young disciple [of?] the Madman of Chu, Han Tuizhi. Su Shi most often uses the phrase walking and singing to refer to just thatwalking and singing; however, in late 1082 and again in1085hespecificallylinksthisphrasewithbeingdrunk.34 Nevertheless,this association with drink is not so strong as to limit He Zhus meaning, and we can take this conclusion as a declaration of intention to follow in the recluse tradition. 1080: ANIMALS AND THE QUESTION OF ALLEGORY While in Fuyang, Fanghui takes up a theme that had been pioneered in the Tang by several poets and revived in the Song period by Mei Yaochen and Ouyang Xiu (100272): creatures that are unpoetic and often odious. Somepoets,suchasHanYuandBoJuyi(772846),gavethese creaturesanexplicitsymbolicvalue.Forexample,HanYu,inthefirstoffour Miscellaneous Poems , speaks of how flies and mosquitoes are everywhere and impossibletogetridof,buteventuallytheautumnwindwillblowthemaway. From this we are clearly to understand and take comfort in the fact that petty and vexatious people in society will eventually come to a natural end.35 Bo Juyi writes of a mosquito-like diurnal insect whose bite leaves a long-lasting welt: the key to combating it, he says, is to get it when it sprouts. Bo explicitly states that the pointofwritingapoemontheinsectistotellussomethingabouthumanna-ture.36 Mei Yaochens Swarming Mosquitoes (1034) resembles Han Yus poem insofar as it seems to present an allegory with a full cast: the ineffective spider, mantis, and bat, the scorpion who presents his own kind of threat, and the cicada, who seems to be an indifferent bystander.37 OuyangXiuharmonizedwiththispoem,buthisemphasisisondescribing Meis misery, cataloging six other insects and the environments that spawn them, 34FortheMadmanofChu,seeLegge,Analects,p.33233.FortheWen Xuan referencesto walking and singing, see Yoshikawa Kjir, To Ho, 1:13, notes to line eighteen of Du Fus .InHanYuspoem,thepoetcallshimselfbyhiscognomen,Tuizhi.The authenticity of this poem () has long been in question; those who think it may be by Han see in it marks of youthful weakness. See Han Yu quanji jiaozhu, 5:3027. Su Shis 1082 poem is from his Huangzhou exile period: , SSSJ, 8:48.2643. For the date, see Kong Fanli, Su Shi nianpu, 2:21.555. The 1085 poem is , SSSJ, 5:26.1409. In this case, it is Du Fu, not Su himself, who is portrayed as drunk with brew, walking and singing. 35Thepoemset(QTS,10:342.3834)isvariouslyascribedto805or816,thoughnotonany concrete evidence. See Kan Taishi shi sh 2:7.132-33, and Han Yu quanji jiaozhu, 1:184-85. Von Zach, VII.16. 36, QTS, 13:434, 4805. Similarly explicit is Bos , QTS, 14:460.5245, a series of pentametric quatrains prefaced by remarks linking the series to Zhuangzis parables and with ex-planatory notes at the end of most. 37Mei Yaochen ji biannian jiaozhu,1:4.61;translationinChaves,Mei Yao-chen,188.Chavesdis-cusses Meis moralizing poems on living creatures on pp. 178-99. CHAPTER ONE28 and reminding Mei that he is about to leave for the south, where his poetic feel-ings will be stirred by the autumn landscape. AsRonald Eganhaspointed out, Ouyang Xiu seems to simply enjoy writing poems on the mundane and unwanted creaturestoshowhisgeniusfordescription,narrative,anddramatization.38 Another poem by Ouyang has fun with the topic. His 1046 Hating Mosquitoes bothcontemplatesthelargerissuesentailedwiththeexistenceoftheseand other hateful little creatures (in a world the sages had supposedly made safe for human habitation) and describes his own efforts to deal with them in Chuzhou , where he was in exile from the court. By sustaining a single staccato enter-ing-tone rhyme (~k) throughout the poem (thirty-seven rhymes) and juxtaposing earlymythologieswithdetailsofdailycoping,thepoetmakeshispoemanen-tertaining tour de force. Somepoets,suchasMengJiao(751814)andPiRixiu (834?883?),usedtheirpoemsaboutinsectpeststolamentthefactthatpoor peoplehavenowaytoshieldthemselvesfromtheseanimals.39 MeiYaochens Swarming Mosquitoesmentionsthispoint.However,FanghuisCursing Mos-quitoes, written in the fifth month of 1080, distinguishes itself from Meis poem of a quarter-century before by focusing narrowly on the discomfort of himself and his family when attacked by mosquitoes in their government-provided residence. Thatis,ratherthanbemoaningtheplightofallpoorpeoplewholackgauzy mosquito nets, he speaks only of his own inability to afford this protection. Mei Yaochen had gone so far as to wish the insects would assault the high and mighty and leave the poor alone. Though Fanghui does note that these hungry-hearted beasts depend on factions or coalitions and sheer number to win, that is as close as he comes to implying a parallel with human society. Against this background, we present Fanghuis poem.40 048 Our quarters crouch in a shady ditch, and lo, the mosquitoes have found their place! In the pre-dawn, they cover their tracks; 4 in the twilight, they make ready to rendezvous. U They prevail by coalition and sheer number, surely not by virtue of each bodys strength! Insatiable, surpassing wolves in avarice, 8 with poison beaks more terrible than bee or scorpion. By bluff and betrayal they skillfully hit their mark; 38The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu (10071072), 112. Ouyangs 1034 poem to Mei is in Ouyang Xiu quanji, Jushi waiji, 2.35455, and its title is _. 39Pis is in QTS, 9.18:608.7022. For Mengs poem, see references given in connection with our discussion below. 402.12512; 2.4a ANCIENT VERSE29 The bravest and fierce can do nothing about it. Poor, weve no bed curtain of fine silk or kudzu. 12 so as a clumsy measure I burn southernwort and mugwort. We merely smoke and steam ourselves: the household is all sneezes and coughs. The haze melts away; Im still beating the air with a fan, 16 and as night deepens resistance flags. I lie with belly exposed, letting them attack, tormented by itching, like scratching scabies. Spirit worn, Im then jumpy in my dreams; 20 freshful comfort is utterly denied. How is it that the Craftsman Who Created the World has sown this bane of the people? Where can we find a long-blowing wind 24 to cast them beyond the surrounding wilderness? I condemn them to execution by frost severe: theyll give up their lives, no par