by Li He
7. “Yellow River”—a river of gold from the imperial treasury.
8. Jin-shu, XII, records that in A.D. 292, 303, and 361 “the sky split open, due to a deficiency of the Yang element.” This meant that women were playing too great a role in the government.
9. A reference to Qin’s intimacy with his master’s wife, Sun Shou—whose comb he takes as a love-token.
“Ballad on the Boys by the Walls of Ancient Yeh” An Imitation of Wang Can’s Satire on Cao Cao
3-character: 4 rhymes
Ye (in Henan) was the capital set up by Cao Cao.
1. Han-shu, XCV, Biography of Yin Shang: “In Chang-an…gangs of young men from the villages killed officials. They were bribed to avenge grievances and held meetings at which they drew lots with pellets. Those who drew red pellets killed military officials, those who drew black pellets killed civil officials, those who drew white pellets looked after the funeral ceremonies (for those of their number who were slain). Within the walls dust rose at evening. People surged about, robbing and looting. Dead and wounded lay around the streets.” In 815 rebellious generals sent assassins to Chang-an who had murdered the Chief Minister, Wu Yuan-heng. This poem probably refers to the murder.
2. Lie-zi, V, mentions a sword which could cut jade as if it were mud, which the Western Rong presented to King Mu of Zhou. Huai-nan-zi, VIII, tells of the bow with which the legendary archer Yi shot down nine suns.
3. Just as the Chief Minister Cao Cao gained power at the expense of the Emperor, so men like Huang-fu Bo gained power at the expense of Xian-zong.
Singing of Yang’s Purple Inkstone with a Green Pattern
7-character: 2 rhymes
The mountains of Duan-zhou, in Guangdong, produced a famous purplish stone, veined with green, used for making fine inkstones. We do not know who Yang was.
1. The green stains on the stone remind the poet of Chang-hong’s blood, which turned to emerald jade.
2. Ink was often made with pine-soot mixed with musk.
3. Chinese ink is in block form and has to be rubbed on the stone, which must therefore be firm enough to cope with all types of ink.
4. An inkstone, said to have belonged to Confucius, was preserved in the sage’s tomb-temple in Shandong.
Thoughts in Her Chamber
5-character: 2 rhymes
Ostensibly the poem deals with a lady, lying awake in her room alone and neglected, as her husband sets out on a long journey. These verses may be comment on Li He’s own unhappy position.
1. Literally: “New cassia like moth-eyebrows.” The line also means: “The lady’s moth-eyebrows are like new cassia.”
2. Bells in the form of the mythical simurgh were attached to horses’ bridles.
3. “Crickets”: holochlora brevifissa.
Dawn in Shih-cheng
Irregular: 3 rhymes
The whole atmosphere of this poem suggests a ci. Mo-chou, heroine of many a southern folksong, lived in Shi-cheng, Hubei.
1. Perhaps the Great Dike mentioned above.
2. “Crimson spheres”: flowers.
3. At dawn on the seventh night of the seventh lunar month, the Weaving Lady and the Herd-boy must part again, after their brief tryst.
4. Older commentators believed this referred to the story of a guest of King Zhuang of Chu, who was imprudent enough to dally with one of the King’s ladies when the candles blew out during a banquet and had his cap-strings torn off. The King then ordered all his other guests to tear off their capstrings before the candles were lighted again, so as not to disgrace the man. But this story surely has nothing to do with the poem. The girl’s lover, leaving her at dawn, has given the girl his scent-sachet as a keepsake.
5. “Spring curtains”: curtains aglow with spring sunlight.
Lament That the Days Are So Short
Irregular: 3 rhymes
1. Sun and moon.
2. Bears’ paws were a rich man’s delicacy; frogs were eaten by the poor.
3. The Spirit Lady was worshipped by Han Wu-ti. The Great Unity was the supreme deity of the Taoist pantheon.
4. The Ruo tree is a mythical tree in the far west (not the east), the foliage of which gives off a red glow at sunset.
5. Chu-ci, The Heavenly Questions, p. 49: “What land does the sun not reach to? How does the Torch Dragon light it?”
6. Perhaps the feet of the dragon that drew the chariot of the sun?
7. Elixirs of life.
8. Not the Ren Kung-tzu of Zhuang-zi XXVI, but some other unidentifiable Immortal.
9. Emperor Wu of Han, an assiduous seeker after immortality, was buried in Mao-ling tomb. Liu was his family name, Che his personal name.
10. Ying Zheng, another ardent searcher for immortal life, was the notorious First Emperor of Qin. He died while on a journey, so his attendants, anxious to conceal his death until they returned to the capital, filled the carriages with abalone to hide the smell of the corpse.
Second Year of Chang-ho
Irregular: 4 rhymes
The title of the poem is from the title of an old ballad. The second year of the Zhang-he period (A.D. 88) was an unusually prosperous one. This poem is an idyllic picture of peasant life, so far removed from the brutal realities of He’s own time that I suspect his intent was satirical.
1. “Coiled clouds”: auspicious five-coloured clouds.
2. The seeds on the panicled millet (shu) are as numerous as those one finds on ordinary millet (su).
3. A characteristically disturbing image which one would have difficulty in finding in any other Chinese poet. The Seven Stars (the Plough) and the Moon Goddess (here called Heng-e) will perish in their turn. He’s cosmology is markedly Buddhist.
Returning to Chang-gu in Spring
5-character: 3 rhymes
This poem, written when He had returned to Chang-gu after his examination failure, falls into three sections. The first deals with his life in Chang-an; the second with his journey home; the third with his sojourn in Chang-gu. Stylistically, the poem is very close to some of Han Yu’s verses.
1. Literally: “…when my hair was bound up.”
2. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Former Han, Zhang Jun became an official at the early age of eighteen—just the age when He failed to enter the bureaucracy. Yan Hui, a disciple of Confucius, found his hair had turned white when he was still young. Hence the couplet means: “Before I had a chance to become an official at eighteen, my hair had turned prematurely white.”
3. “Net of Heaven”: the examination system.
4. He must have lingered on in the capital till the spring of 810, probably recovering from his sickness. Then a spell of unseasonably hot weather drove him to seek the shelter of his home, in the cool of the countryside.
5. Mount Li lay east of Chang-an.
6. The terraces of the Qing-hua palace, on the slopes of Mount Li.
7. Wealthy travellers hasten down the road, their perfume scenting the breeze.
8. Mount Tai-hua was famous for its cypresses, stretching in a row for eleven li.
9. “Hides” and “wings”: the bark and leaves of the cypress trees.
10. Or: “…shrouded the distant borders.”
11. A reference to the story of a black panther which stayed up among the rain and clouds of Mount South for seven days without coming down for food, in order to soak its fur and pattern it. He is no tiger fighting his way savagely through an official career, but a literary panther, willing to suffer solitude and privation on his Mount South (the hill near his family estate) for the sake of his verse.
12. Officials have to go north (like the bird of Han), or south (like the dace in the Xiang) during the course of their career. All of them are caught in the snares of the world, from which He has escaped.
Chang-gu
(A Poem Written on the Twenty-Seventh Day of the Fifth Month)
5-character: 1 rhyme
This poem was written two months after the previous poem, sometime in late June
. He is describing the country around his home, where the Chang-gu river flows past the foot of Mount Nü-ji (Maiden’s Table).
1. A reference to Mount Nü-ji.
2. An obscure line. Another translation reads: “Caves in the coign of the mountain rise up in stories around me.”
3. “Yellow arrowroot”: so called because it yields a yellow dye.
4. A much-disputed line. The shadows of the horses on the waters resemble the ancient Chinese character for “horse.”
5. Most commentators think this means the road to the Temple of the Divine Maiden of Orchid Fragrance, the tutelary deity of Mount Nü-ji. One disagrees, believing that the road led to a shrine dedicated to Chi-ying, Princess of Yu-zhen (Jade Purity), daughter of Emperor Rui-zong (regnet 662–90 and 710–12), who was a well-known Taoist deity. In that case “Spirit Maiden” would refer to Yu-zhen, not to the tutelary deity of the mountain.
6. Min is the old name for Fujian province, where the speech of the aborigines was thought to sound like the song of birds.
7. A description of the Fu-chang palace, originally built by the Sui (589–618) and rebuilt in 657, the ruins of which lay to the east of the valleys. As was customary, its inner rooms had once been painted with a paint containing oil of pepper.
8. The hair of young children was braided into horns.
9. Bamboo-slips were an ancient writing material.
10. The poet Tao Qian (365–427) was a renowned toper.
11. The favourite concubine of the great statesman Xie An (320–85).
12. “Pale-moths”: the reflections of the peaks. Some commentators gloss as “the moon.”
13. During the reign of Emperor He of the Later Han (regnet 88–106) two imperial envoys, travelling in disguise to Sichuan, stopped for the night at the house of a certain Li He (not to be confused with our poet) and were astonished to discover that he knew who they were. He explained that two “envoy-stars” (shooting-stars) had just appeared over Sichuan, hence he was expecting them. Cheng-du, Sichuan, is called “City of Brocade” because of the beauty of its surroundings. Our line means simply:
“The fire-flies are like the envoys in the story and Chang-gu is as beautiful as Cheng-du.”
14. The Li family came from Cheng-ji county, Gansu.
15. “Master Wine-sack skin” (Chi-yi Zi-pi) was the name taken by the great statesman Fan Li (floruit 5th century B.C.) when he retired to Qi after helping Yue defeat Wu. He means he should like to retire to Chang-gu—but only after achieving high office.
Lament of the Brazen Camels
5-character: 3 rhymes
Brazen Camel Street in Luo-yang derived its name from two small bronze camels placed on either side of the street. Since these animals are mentioned in a late third-century work, they must have been standing there for several hundred years by He’s time. The point of this poem, I think, is that while men generally lament the shortness of life, conventionally symbolized by spring blossoms, immortal beings like the camels find life intolerable because it repeats itself endlessly. This is yet another of He’s anti-Taoist poems. Another layer of meaning may perhaps be uncovered beneath this. The Jin-shu relates that Suo Jing (239–303), realizing that rebellion was about to overthrow the dynasty at any moment, pointed to these camels and prophesied that they would soon be overgrown with thorn-thickets. He may well be hinting that unless the power of the eunuchs is checked, the same fate will befall the camels once more. This would be another reason for weeping.
1. For “eastern neighbour” see above.
2. The Tian-jin bridge. A fashionable quarter.
3. Actually Bei-mang, a hill north of Luo-yang, which was used as a burial ground.
4. In Chinese temples today one sees candles set in bowls to protect them from draughts.
I Journey from Chang-gu and Arrive at Luo-yang through Rear Gate
5-character: 1 rhyme
He must have written this poem in 811, while on his way to take up his post in Chang-an. On his way there, he stopped for a while at his house in Luoyang and consulted a fortune-teller.
1. The frost and ice on the bamboos look like congealed venom, drawn from the snakes by the cold.
2. Xian Liao was an officer of the state of Jin during the Spring and Autumn period, who prophesized good fortune for a man threatened with disaster.
3. An allusion to Ruan Xiu (270–311), an eccentric character whose biography states that he always carried a hundred cash tied to his staff when he went out, so that he could go and get drunk in any wine-shop.
4. Both King Xiang of Chu and Emperor Wu of Han were noted for their love of literature.
5. “Since literary merit no longer counts for much, what sort of menial position will I be given in Chang-an?” “To carry firewood” also means “to suffer poverty.”
On the First Day of the Seventh Month at Dawn I Enter the Tai-Hang Mountains
5-character: 1 rhyme
This poem was probably written in 814, when He was on his way to Lu-zhou. Autumn began on the first day of the seventh lunar month.
1. A much-disputed line. It may also mean: “The reeds are suddenly wet with fragrant dew.”
2. “Bridges”: actually plank roads laid up the side of a mountain.
3. Chang-gu lay southwest of Luo-yang.
4. “Rock’s breath”: mist and clouds, believed to emanate from mountains.
Autumn Cold:
A Poem Sent to My Twelfth Elder Cousin, the Collator
5-character: 1 rhyme
See the poem, On the First Day of the Seventh Month at Dawn I Enter the Tai-Hang Mountains, above.
1. Officials below the ninth grade wore blue robes.
Moving Grass and Setting Our Nets
Irregular: 4 rhymes
This was the title of one of the eighteen Drum, Flute, and Bell Songs of Han.
1. Qi was famous for its silk.
2. The nets were camouflaged with leaves.
Music Rising to the Clouds
Irregular: 2 rhymes
This poem deals with a celebration in the palace on the first day of the eighth month.
1. Presumably the smoke of incense rising to the clouds.
2. The se had fifty strings.
3. Ying was the clan name of the Qin royal house. The girls are likened to the Weaving Lady from the Milky Way (the Heavenly River).
Mo To Lou Tzu
5-character: 3 rhymes
The title is untranslatable. This was originally a non-Chinese ballad.
1. From Jade Gate, Gansu, to the territory around Karanor, where in 120 B.C. the Han general He Qu-bing (145–177 B.C.) captured the Golden Man, an image worshipped by a local tribe.
2. The Liao river in Liao-dong.
3. The Long-tou river is in Shaanxi, nowhere near Liao-dong. The reference here is to the old ballad Long-tou Song, which begins:
“The flowing waters of Long-tuo,
Come pouring down from the mountains,
I brood upon my loneliness,
Blown by the wind through this wilderness.”
Ballad of the Savage Tiger
4-character: 1 rhyme
A satire on oppressive government, of which the tiger was the symbol. Caught between the Central Government and the warlords, the people are harassed as though by tigers.
1. Huang, of Dong-hai, had magical powers which enabled him to control snakes and tigers. Unfortunately for him, he lost these powers through drinking to excess and was eventually killed by a tiger.
2. The zhou-yu was a white tiger with black markings which appeared only when a state was perfectly governed. It would not tread on grain nor eat living things. Niu Ai was a duke turned were-tiger, who ate his own elder brother. He is pointing out that some tigers are worse than others.
3. Confucius found a woman weeping at the foot of Mount Tai. Though her whole family had been killed by tigers she refused to leave the district, because there was no oppressive government there. This caused Confucius to remark that an oppre
ssive government was more savage than any tiger.
Ballad of the Rising Sun
Irregular: 3 rhymes
1. A mythical mountain in the extreme west of China, said to be the gateway to heaven.
2. The sunflower, which follows the sun (a symbol for the emperor) in its course, is an emblem of loyalty.
3. The valley where the sun rises.
4. A mythical tree in the far west, whose branches give out a red glow in the evening.
5. When the ten suns of the Fu-sang tree, which the sun climbs as it rises, came out together during the reign of Yao, Yi, the Archer, shot down nine of them, so saving the earth from conflagration.
6. Adopting the version found in Wen-yüan ying-hua (Taipei, 1965), III, p.1194.
Bitter Bamboos: A Diao-xiao Ballad
Irregular: 2 rhymes
This poem does not have the form of a Tang ballad so the title may be a misnomer. The bitter bamboo (phyllostachys bambusoides) was used for making flutes.
1. Xuan-yuan—the personal name of Gong-sun Xuan-yuan, the legendary Yellow Emperor, supposed to have ascended the throne in 2697 B.C. and to have reigned for a century.
2. Legend says the Yellow Emperor sent his minister Ling Lun to a valley north of the Kun-lun mountains. Here he cut the bamboos from which the twelve pitchpipes were made, thus creating music and regulating the cosmos.
3. During the reign of Emperor Zhang of the Later Han (regnet 75–88), a scholar named Ji Jing found a white jade pipe under the shrine of the legendary Emperor Shun in Leng-dao (east of Ning-yuan county, Hunan).
Lyric for the Duster Dance
Irregular: 5 rhymes
The duster-dance, which originated in Wu during the period of the Three Kingdoms (220–80), was performed with a feather-duster or a fly-whisk. He’s lyric is another satire on Emperor Xian-zong’s quest for immortality.
1. A famous wine from Wu-xing county, Zhejiang.
2. The Shen-ming tower where the Brazen Immortal stood.
3. The text is corrupt here.
4. The shell of the turtle was supposed to have been the original source of the eight trigrams of The Classic of Changes.