A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems. Anonymous

A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems

Alarm at first entering the Yang-tze Gorges 150 On being removed from Hsün-yang and sent to Chung-chou 151 Planting Flowers on the Eastern Embankment 152 Children 153 Pruning Trees 154 Being visited by a Friend during Illness 155 On the way to Hangchow: Anchored on the River at Night 155 Stopping the Night at Jung-yang 156 The Silver Spoon 156 The Hat given to the Poet by Li Chien 157 The Big Rug 157 After getting Drunk, becoming Sober in the Night 158 Realizing the Futility of Life 158 Rising Late and Playing with A-ts’ui, aged Two 159 On a Box containing his own Works 160 On being Sixty 161 Climbing the Terrace of Kuan-yin and looking at the City 162 Climbing the Ling Ying Terrace and looking North 162 Going to the Mountains with a little Dancing Girl, aged Fifteen 163 Dreaming of Yüan Chēn 163 A Dream of Mountaineering 164 Ease 165 On hearing someone sing a Poem by Yüan Chēn 165 The Philosophers 166 Taoism and Buddhism 167 Last Poem 168

PART I

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Table of Contents

Principal Chinese Dynasties

Han, 206 B.C.—A.D. 220.

Wei, 220–264.

Chin, 265–419.

(Northern Wei, ruled over the North of China, 386–532.)

Liang, 502–556.

Sui, 589–618.

T’ang, 618–905.

Sung, 960–1278.

Yüan (Mongols), 1260–1341.

Ming, 1368–1640.

Ch’ing (Manchus), 1644–1912.

THE LIMITATIONS OF CHINESE LITERATURE

Those who wish to assure themselves that they will lose nothing by ignoring Chinese literature, often ask the question: “Have the Chinese a Homer, an Aeschylus, a Shakespeare or Tolstoy?” The answer must be that China has no epic and no dramatic literature of importance. The novel exists and has merits, but never became the instrument of great writers.

Her philosophic literature knows no mean between the traditionalism of Confucius and the nihilism of Chuang-tzŭ. In mind, as in body, the Chinese were for the most part torpid mainlanders. Their thoughts set out on no strange quests and adventures, just as their ships discovered no new continents. To most Europeans the momentary flash of Athenian questioning will seem worth more than all the centuries of Chinese assent.

Yet we must recognize that for thousands of years the Chinese maintained a level of rationality and tolerance that the West might well envy. They had no Index, no Inquisition, no Holy Wars. Superstition has indeed played its part among them; but it has never, as in Europe, been perpetually dominant. It follows from the limitations of Chinese thought that the literature of the country should excel in reflection rather than in speculation. That this is particularly true of its poetry will be gauged from the present volume. In the poems of Po Chü-i no close reasoning or philosophic subtlety will be discovered; but a power of candid reflection and self-analysis which has not been rivalled in the West.

Turning from thought to emotion, the most conspicuous feature of European poetry is its pre-occupation with love. This is apparent not only in actual “love-poems,”

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