Hsi-wei and the Exile
The Tang minister Fang Xuan-ling devotes a lengthy section of his memoirs to a visit he paid the poet Chen Hsi-wei. This was near the end of Hsi-wei’s life, after he had given up his vagabond existence and settled in the tiny cottage given him by the Governor of Chiangling, two rooms with a mean patio and a small vegetable garden. The place was in the middle of farmland three li outside the city gates.
In the following excerpt, Fang gives an account of how Chen Hsi-wei came to write the poem popularly known as “Exile.”
***
The heat of the day was letting up at last. As we sat drinking tea on the wretched patio that Hsi-wei called his courtyard, I commented that he must sometimes miss the capital. He agreed this was so. It was then that I asked him why poets so often write about exile and reminded him that he also had done so.
“You’re right, my lord. It does seem that sooner or later all poets write about exile. As you’ve pointed out, even I’ve done so, though I can’t claim to be an exile. No one banished me from the capital all those years ago; I left of my own accord and for my own reasons. That poem of mine you mention didn’t originate in my own experience.”
“Whose then?”
“Master Liu Deyu.”
“You knew Liu Deyu?”
“I met him, yes. It was a piece of great good fortune to run into the author of that sublime collection on the seasons. Do you know The Four Jade Pillars?”
“Certainly.”
“Of course you would. Well, since I left the capital, I had met no poets at all, let alone one as eminent as Master Liu. We had a single night of conversation, and I consider it one of the great experiences of my life. I remember it well.”
“How did you meet?”
“I was making my way through Ch’ienchung and stayed briefly at an inn in the town of Zhuhai. It is on the highway leading to Chiangnun Tung, which is where Master Liu was headed. We had to put up in the same inn, as Zhuhai had only the one. When I discovered the identity of my fellow guest, I was quite speechless, but he was patient with me.”
I asked Hsi-wei if he had heard the stories about Liu Deyu’s eccentricities. He said he had known nothing of the Master except for his poems until Liu himself told him about his life.
“So, he talked to you about himself?”
“When I met him, Master Liu was a humble and unusually candid man. I can’t say if he’d been different before his misfortune, but I know that he was completely open with me and that he treated me with more respect than I deserved, graciously overlooking my background. I wonder if you can imagine, my lord, how I felt when I found he had heard my name and knew the story of my mission to the South during the wars, that he had actually read some of my verses. It was a year since I had slipped out of the capital, and I believed myself unknown to the world. Master Liu was the first to tell me that my poems were circulating everywhere, adding that he was pleased to meet the famous peasant-poet. As you can imagine, I was quite overcome with amazement and gratitude.”
“He called you a peasant-poet?”
“That is what I am, my lord, and in that order.”
“So you spent one night together with him?”
“Yes, only the one night, but we stayed up almost the whole of it talking. Perhaps it was our shared love of poetry and the awareness that we would most likely never see one another again that made Master Liu speak so frankly. Maybe, having been on the road, he was just as hungry for someone to talk to as I. We were like two men cast adrift who find one another in the open ocean. Whatever the reason, Master Liu was even more eager to talk than I was.”
According to what I was told, the Duke of Shan had for years considered Liu Deyu to be the chief ornament of his court and treated him well, appointing him to the dignified and undemanding post of Marshall of the Horse Gate. Liu was also said to have carried out diplomatic missions for the Duke and to have offered useful advice about the building of a new canal. But Liu’s reputation was rather complicated. He was described to me as prideful, absentminded, and remarkably ugly. There was also a story that he was given to somewhat ambiguous acts of charity. Apparently he had his servants look out for women in distress—widows, orphans, and abandoned concubines. When he heard of such a woman, he would send her money, always anonymously but in such a way that she would discover the name of her benefactor. When a woman came to thank him for his generosity, Liu would protest ignorance. Something about this scenario pleased him, and he was said to have played it over and over again.
I asked Hsi-wei if he were familiar with this activity of Liu.
“Yes, he told me about it. He blamed it on lust and vanity and the particular pleasure he felt in the gratitude of women. He declared that he didn’t always take advantage of them—only the young ones and, he said, only if they insisted. My impression is that even before his exile Master Liu was a man critical if not of his own nature, then of his actions.”
I told Hsi-wei that I had heard of another of Liu’s oddities, that he dressed as a poor peasant once a week.
“Master Liu told me about that was well. It was a ritual he carried out every Friday. He would dress as you said for the whole day, even if he had to attend the Duke. In the evening, he would order the lowest of his servants—a girl from the kitchens—to whip him with a willow stick. He said it was his penance for all the things he had done wrong since the previous Friday. Master Liu admitted these whippings never amounted to much, as the girl was weak and terrified of him; it was more like brushing than lashing. He also confessed that his disguise enabled him to enjoy mingling with the common people, especially in low taverns, where he would go after the penance was completed.”
“Yes. Liu had a reputation as a drinker. It’s said a servant followed him everywhere with a flask of wine at the ready.”
Hsi-wei excused himself to go inside his hovel and refill our teacups. When he returned, he went on speaking about Liu.
“Master Liu told me he had been changed by exile, but I like to think his misfortune only purified inclinations that seemed equivocal when he was riding high in Shan— impulses toward decency, generosity, concern for the poor. Like you, he spoke about the theme of exile as a preoccupation of poets and accounted for it through his own experience. He said exile is a punishment more merciful than most, one reserved for the privileged; poor people who offend their lords are simply executed. Poets who have achieved any worthy position are frequently exiled, because they have trouble avoiding the truth and write words that don’t evaporate. Court poets in particular find it hard to pass up a good epigram, he said, no matter how impolitic it may be. He explained that, to remain popular, a court poet must sometimes play the part of jester. Because they are surrounded by material for satire, it isn’t surprising that at some point a poet will overstep a boundary and give more offense than mirth. Then, too, poets tend to be independent-minded and terribly vain. Against their own interests, they will suddenly refuse to knuckle under even over trifles. Then their affronted lords think they have forgotten their place, whereas the truth is that they had never entirely accepted it.”
I told Hsi-wei that all I knew of Liu’s fate was that he was banished by the Duke, gave up writing poems, and disappeared, but I had never heard the reason.
“If you’re interested, I can tell you.”
I said I would very much like to hear.
Hsi-wei stretched himself and began the tale in a reflective tone. “Very well, my lord. To be exiled makes some people more selfish. They believe nobody’s troubles are as bad as their own; they become resentful, grumble of injustice, and fall into the worst kind of nostalgia. Others, however, are made more compassionate by exile; their travels broaden their experience, and because of their own misfortune, they feel more keenly the misfortunes of others. Master Liu was of this latter sort. After his banishment, having no place else to go, he took refuge with his siste
r and brother-in-law, a wealthy landlord. ‘I became their useless dependent,’ he said. Master Liu admitted that his brother-in-law treated his tenants neither better nor worse than others of his class. Nevertheless, Liu found it impossible to refrain from speaking up whenever he saw the man acting cruelly, and he often chided him for a lack of charity. Not surprisingly, this rankled his brother-in-law. Caught between the two men, the Master’s poor sister begged her brother to keep his mouth shut for her sake. When she was compelled to take a side, she tried to argue that both were right to a certain extent. Her equivocation hardly pleased her brother, and it infuriated her husband, so she ended by refusing to say anything at all. What she really wanted, the Master observed with regret, was both reasonable and impossible, which was simply that there be an end to their disputes or at least that she be left out of them. The crisis was reached when news came that one of the tenants had died with his rent unpaid. Over dinner that evening, the brother-in-law announced his intention to confiscate the harvest, evict the dead man’s widow, mother, and children, and install a new tenant who could pay up. This was too much for Master Liu, and he began a terrible argument with his brother-in-law. Their voices rose higher and higher until the Master’s sister ran from the room in tears with her hands over her ears. They went on shouting at each other until the Master bellowed, ‘I pay no rent either, so I suppose you’d like to kick me out as well!’ The brother-in-law didn’t let this opportunity pass. He thundered his enthusiastic agreement with the proposition, and so, saying farewell to his weeping sister, Master Liu went on the road the following morning. It was two weeks later that I met him.”
“Where was he going?”
“He had heard that one of his former subordinates, a young man he’d helped back in Shan, had secured a good post in Ch’uanchow. The Master hoped he would take him in.”
“Poor man.”
“But a fine poet.”
I asked Hsi-wei the cause of Liu Deyu’s banishment from Shan.
“Master Liu was eager to tell me the whole story. You remember what he said about court poets and their satires? Well, his misfortune came about because of a few silly verses he impetuously composed to entertain a lady friend. The lady promised to keep the poem to herself, but trusting her discretion proved a capital error. I’m sure you’ve noticed how often people give in to the perverse desire to do the very thing they know they shouldn’t? Well, Master Liu knew he shouldn’t have written those verses, and, I suppose, the lady knew that she shouldn’t have shared them with anybody else. But they both did.”
“What were the verses about?”
“The Duke of Shan had just taken a new wife, a girl who was beautiful but spoiled and terribly vain. She doted on her looks so much that when her new apartment was being fitted out, she begged the Duke to have the reception room covered with mirrors—all four walls, the ceiling, and even the floor. Unhappy though he was, Master Liu couldn’t help laughing as he told me about it. He said five of the six mirrors might be tolerable, but the sixth was one too many. He wrote me out a copy of his fateful poem about the young wife and her hall of mirrors, swearing it was the last he would ever write. Wait just a moment; I’ll show it to you.”
Hsi-wei went inside and came back with a small scroll tied with red string. He permitted me to make a copy for myself.
From the north, hair smooth and bright as a lacquered lamp;
From the east, a profile lovelier than the proudest filly’s;
From the west, a back straighter than the Imperial Highway;
But O, from the south, the reflection of something altogether common.
Once shared, these verses quickly made the rounds, and when word of them reached the new wife, she was beside herself with vindictive fury. Neither Liu’s Four Jade Pillars nor his many poems in praise of his lord mattered now, neither his successful embassies nor his engineering, for the Duke was still infatuated with the girl, and she would give him neither peace nor pleasure until the Master had been sent away.
“There’s more dignity in being exiled for politics,” Hsi-wei mused. “I mean, to be banished for preserving one’s integrity like Qu Huan or Xie Lingyun. Perhaps it was owing to the silliness of his case that Master Liu was so ashamed that he renounced writing altogether. In any event, I’m sure exile was no less bitter to him than to Qu Huan, and that his sorrow was no less painful than Xie Lingyun’s.”
The poem inspired by Hsi-wei’s encounter with Liu Deyu is neither frivolous nor limited to the fate of poets. It is typical of him to have made out of Liu’s sorrows something that might touch anyone, a poem both speculative and humane—in short, something in his own style.
An exile is broken in half, a man living in two places at once.
He is the bereft wanderer before you, and also
one who was never banished at all but still smells
the polish on his worn teak desk, feels the faded cover
of his favorite cushion, and tastes the crisp skin of
the roasted duck, hot from the Duke’s kitchens.
Could it be we are all exiles? Our lives in this world half a life?
Perhaps in the other world another self is strolling through
the heavenly gardens, his felicity marred by incompleteness
as he awaits the moment when the I who is here
surrenders all desire and is at last united with him.
Hsi-wei and The Magistrate
Note: In the course of their conversations, Minister Fang Xuan-ling told Chen Hsi-wei that his poem, popularly known as “Good to Protect the Good,” was presumed to have been written for children, to inculcate virtue. Hsi-wei replied that he was pleased children liked his verses, even though they were not written for children. Fang then asked Hsi-wei to explain the origin of the poem and its puzzling title.
The village of Heping Linguy lay in Hebei province. During Hsi-wei’s time about fifty families lived there, on good soil watered by the River Huang. This land was adjacent to the Shan family estate which extended over the ten thousand mu to which the great families were restricted by the Equal Field System. Emperor Xiaowen had introduced this popular and effective plan more than two centuries earlier and subsequent rulers wisely retained it. They had to do so against continuous efforts by the aristocracy who employed bribery, influence, legal actions and illegal seizures to destroy it. The System allotted land under a fixed formula: so many mu for able-bodied men, so many for women, so many per ox. Though the land was held and worked by the peasants it belonged to the Emperor. After death or advanced age made land available, the government would reassign it. There were exceptions for some mu to be retained within a family, especially those requiring development and tending, such as fruit orchards and mulberry plantations. The peasants paid their taxes in kind directly to the central government, ensuring the state a reliable source of income collected on a wide base. While great families owned their land and it was exempt from taxes, the size of their holdings was limited and therefore their power. This system fortified the peasants’ loyalty to the Emperor; for they understood that, if he did not maintain this system, they would quickly be reduced to the condition of tenant farmers, serfs under the heels of landlords.
Hsi-wei’s travels brought him to Heping Linguy village at the height of summer. He took note of the well-tended cottages and admirable fields, green with many sorts of crops. Here he found a ready market for his straw sandals and people eager to talk. Had he arrived a year earlier, the people of Heping Linguy would have been more gratified by his praise for their village and their work; like peasants everywhere, they were proud of their village and of their success. However, the people of Heping Linguy were in a foul temper. The young were angry, the middle-aged indignant, and the old fearful.
Injustice makes the timid fall silent, the proud protest.
“Your village is thriving,” said Hsi-wei after taking orders from his firs
t two customers, both strong young men. “It’s one of the finest I’ve seen in Hebei.”
“Yet it’s growing smaller,” said one bitterly.
“And may be swallowed up altogether,” added the other.
“Why is that?” asked Hsi-wei.
“Six months ago, Chu was killed when some roof tiles, loosened by a storm, fell on his head. The same week a wasting disease took old Fung. As it happens, their eighty mu abut the Shans’ land.”
“The Shans?”
On hearing this name, a crowd began to gather. They wanted to vent their feelings and make sure the story was related correctly.
“A haughty family, wealthy and powerful. One of them got himself appointed a third minister in Daxing.” The young man pointed east. “Their land lies over there, right up to the horizon.”
The crowd couldn’t hold themselves back.
“A greedy bunch.”
“Arrogant.”
“And devious.”
“Devils!”
“They’ve been casting a jealous eye on our land for generations.”
“And they’ll stop at nothing.”
A woman of about thirty, heavy and dignified, quieted everyone by holding up her hand and grunting loudly. “Don’t all speak at once. I’ll tell the stranger what happened. Who knows? Perhaps he can do something.”
“What? A sandal-maker?”
She ignored this scoffing.
“Please,” said Hsi-wei, who was feeling overwhelmed and bewildered. “I would like to hear the story.”
“Well then, here’s the truth of it,” declared the woman. “You’ve heard about Chu and Fung dying the same week. Well, their land had to be reassigned. But before that could happen the Shans seized it and claimed it as their own. When we objected, they posted armed men.”
“Those bloody-minded retainers of theirs.”
Hsi-wei Tales Page 11