Hsi-wei Tales

by Wexelblatt, Robert;

  Yan-lu met with the other officers and they resolved to ignore these orders. Instead, with Yan-lu at its head, the army swept across the plains of Zhou to the capital. When the troops reached the palace, they found it empty. Yan-lu drew up a proclamation to the effect that Shun and Zhou would henceforth be united for the benefit of both. The bulk of the army remained to pacify Zhou while Yan-lu, at the head of half the cavalry, wheeled around and made for the capital of Shun. News of his approach preceded his arrival. The Second Minister, who had gone into hiding, managed to organize loyalists among the guard who could foresee what would await them on the return of Yan-lu. And so, before Yan-lu and his horsemen arrived, the usurper had been arrested and beheaded. The late Duke of Shun had neither children nor brothers and so, instead of the desperate battle he expected, Yan-lu was asked by the remaining ministers to become Duke of the united Shun and Zhou.

  From a position that had been precarious and divided, Yan-lu now unified his two countries in his own person. According to the most popular accounts his reign was progressive, prosperous, peaceful, and long. He was even-handed with all, favoring neither Shun nor Zhou. After his death many legends were told of his wisdom and the people gave him a new title. Putting their children to sleep mothers would whisper to them, “May the Duke of Good Dreams visit you tonight.”

  ***

  Four years after leaving the capital and taking up his vagabond life, fashioning straw sandals and poems, Chen Hsi-wei arrived in the city of Yun. He was recognized in the market as the young poet-peasant of whom people were talking and word was sent to the governor who invited him to a banquet that very night.

  The feast was in honor of a far more celebrated visitor to Yun, the Court chronicler Fung Chu-li. At the reception before the meal, the Governor introduced the two, formally praising both. The older man looked Hsi-wei up and down, taking in his youth and the borrowed robe made of woven linen rather than silk. When he spoke he did so as rudely as he had scrutinized Hsi-wei.

  “Forgive me, but I cannot share in our host’s high opinion of you, young man. If I cannot think well of you, it is not only because you are a peasant,” he went on, “it is still more because you are a poet. What irritates me about you poets is just what you brag of most—I mean your so-called imagination. While claiming to see the profound insides of things you ignore the exterior facts which, while they may appear too plain for you, are nonetheless true. History is solid rock; a poem is merely a mirage.”

  Hsi-wei did not respond to these insults. He simply smiled at the chronicler’s using two metaphors, gave a bow, and moved to the other side of the room. However, over dinner, he did reply in his own way. One of the guests had raised the subject of loyalty and the chronicler spoke of Chang Yan-lu.

  After clearing his throat, he spoke pompously. “When loyalties are divided they must always be resolved, for good or ill. I am reminded of the famous Duke of Shun. Though he died almost a thousand years ago his life remains the best account we have of such a dilemma being resolved in a happy fashion.”

  Hsi-wei, one of the few at the table who knew the story, spoke up. “Perhaps I am too ignorant and that is why I am uncertain about the Duke of Shun. But I have heard that people do not all see the story in the same way. Even where they agree on the facts—or that the facts are facts—they do not agree on their meaning.”

  The chronicler was not pleased by this turn in the conversation and decided to bully Hsi-wei.

  “That is ridiculous. There is nothing to argue over, once the facts are known.”

  Hsi-wei replied, “Pardon my using a comparison that might be thought poetic, but it seems to me that facts, like peonies and lilies, can be arranged in various ways. Where one makes a bouquet meant for a young lady, another will weave a funeral wreath.”

  “Nonsense,” said the chronicler at the same moment that the Governor said, “Go on.”

  “Well,” said Hsi-wei, “when I was living in the capital, my tutor entertained several scholars. As it happens, they fell into arguing over the story of the Duke of Shun. One said the popular ending cannot be believed, as it is too neatly happy. The bad are punished, the good rewarded, and the two dukedoms are married like a prince and a princess at the end of a fairy tale. His view was that, having won the war, Shun oppressed Zhou, and the story was exactly the kind victors always like to give out. Another insisted the story was not about divided loyalties but betrayal. He pointed out that Yan-lu had sworn allegiance to the Duke of Zhou, legitimate ruler of his homeland. He shirked his duty and was the cause not only of his country’s defeat but its disappearance. Nothing more damnable, he said, and added that he had more sympathy for the banished Duke of Zhou than the poisoned Duke of Shun. Another observed that both dukes came to disastrous ends. He said the story is actually about the evils of war which so often harms victors as well as vanquished. In his opinion, if Yan-lu was a hero at all, it was not because he won the war of Shun against Zhou but because he foreclosed the possibility of all future wars between them.”

  “Ah,” said the Governor, “that’s quite a range. And what was your master’s opinion?”

  “Well, Excellency, my master was not the most optimistic of men. He saw the story as one about high politics carried out by the all too customary methods of murder and treason. He argued that the character of Yan-lu may have had some historical source but was obviously an imaginary figure, invented to trick the people into believing that what is ugly and selfish is pretty and magnanimous.”

  The banquet came to an end shortly thereafter. As they were departing, Hsi-wei went up to the chronicler to say that it had been a great honor to meet him. Though Hsi-wei was sincere, Fung felt provoked. So he gave the poet yet another and still more passionate lecture on the supremacy of his profession.

  And that is how Hsi-wei came to write the following:

  Hsi-wei’s Letter-Poem to Ko Qing-zhao

  Just yesterday I encountered Fung Chuan-li, the renowned chronicler.

  Pointing to a coffered ceiling he declared, “The present is fleeting,

  not to be caught, and the future unknowable; but the past—the past is

  as firmly set in place as iron spikes have made this roof beam.”

  I bowed courteously, a peasant thankful for this lesson on the

  objectivity of truth. I did not wish to offend and so refrained

  from remarking, “Beams burn. Surely you know some future

  emperor is going to make a bonfire of your elegant chronicles.

  The past, rewritten in a moving present, only appears still.”

  What is beyond dispute in the tale of Chang Yan-lu?

  As it recedes, the past softens into poems up for interpreting.

  Did Yan-lu make a good choice or a treacherous one?

  Was he a hero to Shun, a villain to Zhou, the savior of both, or a

  usurper loyal only to himself? The tale is so ancient one may ask

  if there ever was a Yan-lu, or even a hostile Shun and Zhou.

  Like snowstorms and heat waves, so many dynasties have blown

  over Zhong guo, that it scarcely matters now. What counts

  is that people like the story—and what they make of it.

  The Sadness of Emperor Wen

  In his fortieth year, Chen Hsi-wei’s wanderings brought him to the town of Yemanrem Damen in the western province of Yangzhou. It was here that, almost miraculously, a letter from his old friend Ha Chan-jui reached him.

  Yemanrem Damen was once little more than a rough outpost of the northern empire. As suggested by its name, Barbarians’ Gate, it had endured frequent incursions and been the scene of many battles. Now, thanks to the peace imposed by Emperor Wen, it prospered; indeed, it had grown so large that it had its own governor.

  When this official was informed that Chen Hsi-wei had arrived in his town, he ordered the poet be found and invited to his villa,
courteously but firmly. The governor personally greeted Hsi-wei and insisted that he remain as a guest at the villa for as long as he chose. Knowing of the poet’s eccentric mode of living, he added that, if he wished, Hsi-wei could go to the marketplace and solicit orders for straw sandals from the peasants. However, he could not tolerate the poet putting up in any rude accommodation in some mean inn or, worse yet, a stable. It would, he argued, be a blot on his honor, that of Yemanrem Damen and all Yangzhou.

  Hsi-wei, no longer young, gave in with a good grace. Such honor had been offered to him increasingly in recent years. In the larger provincial towns, his name was more often known than not and he was received with a kind of deference, especially by the high-born. He was aware that the gentry esteemed poetry not so much because they really loved it as because they had been taught to do so by their Confucian tutors. Hsi-wei was uncomfortable with these welcomes. He was himself a peasant and understood very well the peasants’ impatience with artistic refinements. Like them, he believed the wealthy overvalued things like poetry. Though writing was Hsi-wei’s chief reason for living he felt it was a private compulsion and hardly meritorious. He did not make too much of his art because his reasons for writing were not altogether edifying. He wrote because when he did so he was never bored. He wrote to relieve his feelings. Some poems are like the inclined planks at the edges of ponds to drain the excess water. Hsi-wei often wrote because he couldn’t help it. Then too he wrote because he admired the poets who had come before him. Writing was a way of paying them tribute and entering their company, albeit humbly, at the very back of the hall. Finally, he wrote because his old teacher, the strict Shen Kuo, had bragged about his early verses—just as a trainer will show off the tricks he has taught his dog.

  Early on the morning after his arrival, Hsi-wei made his way to the town’s marketplace, posted his sign, took orders for sandals, and bought straw. Then he returned to the governor’s villa to set to work. A servant met him at the gate. She said, “Sir, His Honor wishes to see you at once.”

  The governor was waiting in the lobby.

  “Hsi-wei, a courier from the capital arrived today with a packet of official dispatches. There were also a number of private letters. One of these is addressed to you.”

  Hsi-wei was astonished. “To me?”

  “I’ve been told that you don’t plan your travels, but did someone know you’d be here?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then it really is quite remarkable. But I’ve been thinking about the matter and it occurred to me that copies of this letter may have been given to many couriers in the hope that one might reach you—much as, if the story’s true, several messengers with shaved heads were once sent to General Fu in the south.”

  “My Lord, do you know who sent me this letter?”

  The Governor smiled and handed Hsi-wei a scroll tightly wrapped with red silk ribbon. “The letter is from the Emperor’s palace and it is under seal. Here, see for yourself.”

  Hsi-wei took the scroll and, excusing himself, took it to his bedchamber.

  The letter was from Ha Chan-jui. More than twenty years before, he and Hsi-wei had both been students of Shen Kuo. Chan-jui was from an old aristocratic family but had nonetheless befriended the peasant boy who had made the famous trek to the south and then astonished the court by turning down all material rewards, begging instead to be educated. Now Chan-jui had risen to the rank of Third Minister.

  The letter explained that for some time copies of Hsi-wei’s verses had been arriving in the capital and had been received with general approval. “In fact,” Chan-jui wrote, “you’ve become famous all over again, old friend.” Chan-jui went on to tell Hsi-wei about his two wives, his seven children, and the sort of work he did. But most of the missive was an account of conditions in the capital and especially in the palace. “On the one hand, conditions here are excellent. You would not recognize the place; it has more than doubled in size. Charming new villas have been built, also gardens, pavilions, public parks, two new bridges. Our storehouses hold enough food to last fifty years. The government runs with an efficiency and honesty not seen for three hundred years.”

  And yet, despite all this, Chan-jui confided to his friend that he was uneasy. “The Emperor is not happy. The gossip is that he is beset by guilt and some nameless fear. People say that the Emperor is henpecked by his wife and that he is on bad terms with his sons. Death has claimed almost all his old companions and the rest have been driven off by his wife’s jealousy and the machinations of his sons.”

  Chan-jui also explained something Hsi-wei had observed in his travels.

  “The Emperor has turned away from the teachings of Confucius. In your travels you must have observed the new monasteries and Buddhist temples. These were erected at the Emperor’s command and with his support. Out of faith, but also, I suspect, fear, he has now ordered something unprecedented. A series of religious observances are to be held throughout the Empire to mark his next birthday. With his own hands the Emperor has sealed holy relics in a hundred jars. These are to be carried into every province by the most distinguished monks. On the day, they are to be enshrined in the new temples according to a ceremony devised by the Emperor himself. What people say is that, by this extraordinary act of public piety, he hopes to relieve his apprehensions and guilt, and to lay up a vast store of karma to see him through the lives he has yet to endure. Let us pray for that fortunate consequence.”

  Chan-jui’s letter affected Hsi-wei deeply.

  The Governor sent for him. “So, Hsi-wei, what was in the letter?”

  Remembering his friend’s seal, and understanding that discretion was called for, the poet gave his host the most cursory account of its contents. Pleading indisposition, he politely declined the governor’s invitation to share the family’s meal, withdrew to his room, and lay down. When a serving girl looked in, he begged her not to light the lamps. The letter had taken away his appetite for both food and work. He lay in the gathering dusk recalling his adventures in the south, the humiliations of his education, his strange life in the capital, the good and bad people had known there, and finally, with a sorrow that pierced no less deeply for all the years that had passed, he thought of the Lady Tian Miao.

  It was lucky, the poet reflected, that Chan-jui did not know that story or he might have written of her marriage to Hu Zhi-peng, the number of children she had borne him, whether her beauty had faded. But mostly he thought of the Emperor Wen, his impatient, scheming sons and jealous wife, and of the desperation that had led him to this fantastic birthday plan.

  Whether the melancholy that stole over him was his own or the Emperor’s Hsi-wei couldn’t say; however, his sadness grew darker by the moment, just like his bedchamber. In the end it was this sadness that belonged both to him and the Emperor that impelled Hsi-wei to compose the poem that has become known as “The Emperor’s Sadness.”

  How rarely do we care to feel the cares others, discern

  the precise shade of darkness that overshadows the exalted.

  It is a mean thing to suck sweetness from one’s bitter soul.

  The homeless suppose anybody with a roof must be in

  heaven; the hungry are sure the laborer gobbling up

  his small bowl of noodles leads a life of incessant joy.

  But the Emperor, surely he must be the happiest of all.

  How exasperating when folk tick off the reasons why

  we ought to be happy. O, Divine One, happiness

  is not the guzheng’s accompaniment to the melody

  of your attainments, nor the sum of your riches.

  Can it be that only the unhappy are worthy of happiness?

  In this borrowed room the pain of heaven’s mandate

  is beyond my imagining, the guilt of its getting and keeping.

  Yet your Empire may be as happy as it shall ever be.

  How it w
ould have delighted me to receive a letter telling

  of your gladness. How I would rejoice to read that, reclining

  on his raised couch in the innermost room of his high

  palace at the center of a capital with paved streets,

  silk-robed merchants, comfortable villas, graceful

  pavilions, gardens of grass and lilies, that at the heart

  of a city that has stored food to last fifty years, at dusk,

  surrounded by his family, the Emperor stretches

  and smiles at the prattling of his children’s children.

  Hsi-wei and the Hermit

  One of the remarkable things about the Sui period poet Chen Hsi-wei is the way fame caught up with him. He began life in a poor village near the capital, was selected as a courier to the south during the wars, returned alive, turned down the money, land, and women he was offered, asking instead to be educated. A hard master was ordered to take the boy on. To improve his pupil’s weak calligraphy, Shen Kuo put Hsi-wei to copying the ancient masters. Almost without willing it, the boy began to emulate these poets, composing new verses of his own. Seeking to promote himself, Shen Kuo circulated his pupil’s poems at court as curiosities. Never before had China seen a peasant-poet. Then Hsi-wei fell in love with the young widow, Tien Miao, who returned his love but was being courted by a rich friend of her late husband. To spare Miao from being attached to a penniless poet of no family and with no prospects, Hsi-wei took to the road, supporting himself by making straw sandals and leaving behind him a trail of verses. These poems proved popular; they were copied and spread across the country. So the time came when Hsi-wei’s name was known to people in many of the towns into which he wandered and even some of the small villages. If they got wind of Hsi-wei’s arrival the leading gentry were quick to offer him hospitality. He was no longer a novelty but a figure whose presence conferred a measure of prestige on his hosts. Yet he continued his vagabond life just the same as when he was unknown, fashioning his straw sandals and poems.