by Ha Jin
采石江邊李白墳 繞田無限草連雲
可憐荒壟窮泉骨 曾有驚天動地文
但是詩人多薄命 就中淪落不過君
《李白墓》
On the bank of Caishi River is Li Bai’s grave
Surrounded by wild grass that stretches to clouds.
How sad that the bones buried deep in here
Used to have writings that startled heaven and moved earth.
Of course, poets are born unlucky souls,
But no one has been as desolate as you.
“AT LI BAI’S GRAVE”
Others were also seeking traces of Li Bai. More than fifty years after his death, Fan Chuan Zheng, a royal inspector, came to Xuan Prefecture, in which Dangtu County lay. Fan had been searching for Li Bai’s grave and descendants: he was an admirer of Bai’s work and, through the correspondence left behind, had discovered that his father had been friends with the great poet. With the help of Dangtu County’s magistrate, Fan located the grave, which was almost invisible among wild grass.
It took three more years for them to find Li Bai’s descendants—his granddaughters. One day, two women in their thirties reported to the county’s administration. Their clothes were made of coarse fabric, patched but clean and neat. Fan could tell that they were peasant women. They seemed slightly nervous in front of the officials but remained composed. As the magistrate questioned them, they confirmed that Li Bai had been their grandfather and Boqin their father. So the officials invited the women to sit down. Fan explained to them that his own father had been a friend of their grandfather’s and that he, Fan, had studied Li Bai’s poems and essays since his childhood. Needless to say, he loved their grandfather’s writings, and he wished to converse with them.
The two women looked bewildered. They seemed to be illiterate and to have no knowledge of poetry. All they could do was give brief answers to Fan’s questions. Their father had died twenty years earlier, and before that he had worked at a salt station. They also had a brother, who had left home to seek his fortune elsewhere long ago. They hadn’t heard from him for twelve years.
But how did they make their living now? Fan asked. Then he realized they were both married, and went on to ask about their husbands.
They answered that they had both married peasants and that their families grew crops to support themselves. One of the husbands was named Chen Yuan and the other Liu Quan.
But how did their families manage? the county magistrate put in.
They replied that they just had enough to eat.
The officials all sighed. Fan then asked the two women whether he could do anything to assist them.
They said they hoped that Fan could have their grandfather’s grave moved to Green Hill in the south of the county. That was where Li Bai had hoped to be buried; Green Hill was also called Master Xie’s Hill, because Xie Tiao, Bai’s literary hero, had once lived there.
Fan agreed to have a new grave built for Li Bai. When he asked if they had any other requests, they demurred.
The county magistrate whispered to the royal inspector for a moment. Then Fan turned to the women and said he could find them each a more suitable husband, since they had married so humbly.
The women were taken aback but regained their composure. They told Fan that their poor marriages had been their lot and were now also their duties, so they could not remarry. If they left their husbands for a more comfortable life, when the time came they would feel too ashamed to face their grandfather underground.
Fan Chuan Zheng complied with their wish. The local government granted their families exemptions from taxes and corvées. Later Fan wrote the text for the stone erected at Li Bai’s new grave. In the essay, which is another major source of information on Li Bai, he recorded his meeting with Bai’s two granddaughters and stated that although they both were married to poor men and led a hard life, their dignified manner still revealed traces of Li Bai.
NOTES
PRELUDE
1. Li Changzhi, A Biography of Li Bai, 199.
2. An Qi, Li Bai Zongheng Tan (Xi’an: Shanxi People’s Press, 1981), 77. In fact, there is a history of this version of Li Bai’s death in which he rode a whale returning to the moon. For instance, Guo Xiangnian of the Song dynasty says about Li Bai in his poem “Caishi Ferry,” “He rides the whale away and will never return, / Leaving behind his tomb covered by green grass.” Li Junmin of the Jin dynasty writes in his “Portrait of Li Taibai,” “Bai was banished to the world for some years / Where he became an immortal of wine. / If not because of the moon on Caishi River, / he wouldn’t have ridden a whale back to heaven.” The contemporary romanticization has continued this conventional legend.
1: ORIGINS
1. Wei Hao, “Preface to Collected Works of Academician Li.”
2. Gao Shi, “Farewell to Gentlemen Zhou, Liang, and Li in the Central Song Land.”
3. The Tang dynasty’s administrative divisions fell into this tri-tier order: circuits—prefectures—counties.
4. Li Bai, “On an Autumn Day, at Jingting Pavilion, Seeing My Nephew Off for Lushan.”
5. Li Changzhi, A Biography of Li Bai, 144.
6. Zhou Xunchu, A Critical Biography of Li Bai, 29.
7. Zhou Xunchu, The Mystery of the Poet Immortal Li Bai (Taipei: Commerce Press, 1996), 116
8. The Tang Law: Clause 306. Li Bai’s wife’s grandfather Xu Yushi (?–679) was a chancellor at court, but his eldest son killed a man by accident while hunting. Xu Yushi covered up for his son, and as a result he was imprisoned for three months and then banished to a remote prefecture. Evidently, the Tang dynasty took manslaughter very seriously.
9. Li Changzhi, The Daoist Poet Li Bai and His Suffering (Tianjin: Tianjin People’s Press, 2018), 18–19.
2: AWAY FROM HOME
1. In Li Bai’s essay “To Deputy Prefect Pei of Anzhou.”
2. Some people believe that Li Bai was a short man. I agree with those who hold that he was quite tall, because his essay “To Han Jingzhou” says about himself, “Although I’m not seven feet tall / My ambition surpasses ten thousand men’s.” A foot in his time was a bit shorter than ours, so his “seven feet” should be close to our six feet.
3: BACK IN HIS HOMETOWN
1. Quoted by Jiang Zhi, Li Bai and the Regional Culture (Chengdu: Bashu Book House, 2011), 100.
2. Jiang Zhi devoted a whole chapter to Li Bai as a petty bureaucrat in his book Li Bai and Geographic Places (Chengdu: Bushu Book House, 2011), 98–106.
3. Ibid., 85.
4: LEAVING SICHUAN
1. Liang Shufeng, “Exploring Li Bai’s Reason for Leaving Shu for Wu,” China’s Li Bai Studies (2014): 27–39.
2. Yang Xueshi, “An Inquiry into Li Bai’s Burying His Friend,” China’s Li Bai Studies (2009): 128–41.
5: DISSIPATION
1. Stephen Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry, 62.
2. Yan Yu (1192?–1245) says in his Canglang Poetry Talk, “Among Tang poets’ works, Cui Hao’s ‘Yellow Crane Tower’ should be the number one poem in the regulated verse with seven-character lines.” Item 46.
6: MARRIAGE
1. Stephen Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry, 85.
2. Li Bai, “Letter to Deputy Prefect Pei of Anzhou.”
3. I agree with Zhu Chuanzhong’s interpretation of this poem. See his The True Li Bai in the Tang Dynasty (Zhen tang Li Bai) (Beijing: Tongxin Press, 2015), 49–52.
7: MARRIED LIFE
1. Li Bai, “An Official Reply to Magistrate Meng on Behalf of Shou Mountain.”
2. This episode is recorded in An Qi, Li Bai: A Biography, 55–57.
3. Guangling was another name for Yangzhou.
8: IN THE CAPITAL
1. Zhou Xunchu, A Critical
Biography of Li Bai, 165.
9: AWAY FROM THE CAPITAL
1. See Li Bai, “Letter to Han Jingzhou.”
11: IN THE SOUTH
1. Quoted in Shiren Yu Xie, vol. xii, “Ancient Comments on Various Poets.”
2. “Seventeen” here means Wu E is the seventeenth male of his generation in his clan, similar to Li Bai, who was often called “Li Twelve.”
3. I adopted the years of Li Bai’s children’s births as they are indicated by Zhan Ying in his Chronicle of Li Bai’s Writings (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1984), which makes good sense to me. See The Immortal Traces of Tai Bai (Hefei: Huang Shan Book House, 2010), 146.
13: WOMEN
1. Fan Zhenwei, Li Bai’s Background, Marriages, and Family, 343.
2. Ibid., 353–54.
3. Fan Zhenwei also believes that Li Bai joined the woman of Lu before he left for Chang’an in 742. Ibid., 354.
14: IN THE CAPITAL AGAIN
1. Guo Moruo, Du Fu and Li Bai, 42.
2. Du Fu, “Song of the Eight Divine Drinkers.”
3. This episode has many versions and has been disputed among Li Bai scholars. The earliest record states that the emperor deflected Bai’s request and Gao Lishi did not actually take off Bai’s boots. But all the other later records indicate that Gao actually took off the boots, and Li Bai biographers have treated this episode as an actual incident. Either way, Bai, rash and arrogant, insulted one of the most powerful men for no reason or cause except for his contempt for him. See Yang Yingying, “The Case of Gao Lishi Taking Off Li Bai’s Boots,” China’s Li Bai Studies (2014): 154–68.
4. Stephen Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry, 116.
15: POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT
1. The historical records of this episode are brief, but over the centuries it has evolved into a full legend with various versions. Lately a young scholar, Wang Song-lin, published a study of the case, which points out that the foreign emissary was from Balhae, a young country northeast of China, but his answer to how Li Bai learned the primitive language (through his intercourse with scholars and students from Balhae) is not convincing to me, so I have followed a conventional version of the episode here. Wang Song-li’s paper “Decoding the Perpetual Mystery of the Fan Script” appears in Song Liao Academic Journal: Social Sciences 5 (2001): 28–33.
2. An Qi, Li Bai: A Biography, 150.
3. Ibid., 151.
16: THE MEETING OF TWO STARS
1. Quoted by Zhou Xunchu, A Critical Biography of Li Bai, 112.
2. See chapter 1, note 2.
17: LIFE IN TRANSITION
1. Wang Huiqin, A Biography of Li Bai (Beijing: Jinghua Press, 2002), 227.
2. Du Fu, “Together with Li Twelve, Seeking the Hermitage of Fan Ten.”
3. See the very informative article by Tang Dexin, “On Li Bai’s Daoist Life and the Cause of His Death,” www.guoxue.com/wk/000621.htm.
4. Li Changzhi, Daoist Poet Li Bai and His Suffering (Tianjin: Tianjin People’s Press, 2008), 37.
19: NEW MARRIAGE
1. Shen Yue, “Biography of Prince Liangsi,” in Song Shu.
2. Fan Zhenwei, Li Bai’s Background, Marriages, and Family, 346–47.
3. Ibid., 348.
4. Zhou Xunchu, A Critical Biography of Li Bai, 122–23.
20: ON THE NORTHEASTERN FRONTIER
1. An Qi, Li Bai: A Biography, 185.
22: AN UNEXPECTED GUEST
1. See chapter 1, note 1.
2. Arthur Waley, The Poetry and Career of Li Po, 60.
24: IMPRISONMENT
1. An Qi, Li Bai: A Biography, 219.
2. Li Changzhi, A Biography of Li Bai, 195, 239.
3. Du Fu, “Unable to See Him.”
25: DISILLUSION AND THE END
1. Guo Moruo, Du Fu and Li Bai, 89.
26: AFTERWORD
1. Arthur Waley, The Poetry and Career of Li Po, 97–98.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
An Qi. Li Bai: A Biography. Beijing: Culture and Arts Press, 1984.
China’s Li Bai Studies. Maanshan: Institute of Li Bai Studies.
Fan Zhenwei. Li Bai’s Background, Marriages, and Family. Harbin: Heilongjiang People’s Press, 2002.
Guo Moruo. Du Fu and Li Bai. Beijing: China’s Chang’an Press, 2010.
Li Changzhi. A Biography of Li Bai. Beijing: East Press, 2010.
Owen, Stephen. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High Tang. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981.
Waley, Arthur. The Poetry and Career of Li Po. New York: Macmillan, 1950.
Zhou Xunchu. A Critical Biography of Li Bai. Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2005.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My heartfelt thanks to LuAnn Walther, Catherine Tung, and Lane Zachary for their support and suggestions and patience; to Pei Yongjun and Jin Yu, who bought the books I needed and brought them out of China for me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ha Jin left his native China in 1985 to attend Brandeis University. He is the author of eight novels, four story collections, four volumes of poetry, and a book of essays. He has received the National Book Award, two PEN/Faulkner Awards, the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, the Asian American Literary Award, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. In 2014 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in the Boston area and is a professor of English and creative writing at Boston University.
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