by Li He
1. Dragon Gate (Long-men shan) was one of the two mountains that formed the Yi Pass, a few miles south of Luo-yang.
2. During He’s time, officials of the sixth and seventh grades wore green robes.
A Cold Gorge at Twilight
1-character: 1 rhyme
1. Foxes had supernatural powers. Shrines to white foxes are common even today in Japan.
2. The Eastern Bean Goose.
3. The bitter bamboo is generally used for making flutes.
The Official Has Not Come A Poem Written in the Office of My Senior, Huang-Fu Shi
Irregular: 1 rhyme
1. All commentators agree that this poem was probably written when Huang-fu Shi was Chief of Staff in Lü-hun.
Song of an Arrowhead from Chang-ping
7-character: 3 rhymes
Chang-ping, seven miles west of Gao-ping county, was the site of an ancient battle field. Here, in 260 B.C., the forces of Qin were said to have captured and then buried alive 400,000 men of Zhao. Farmers were still turning up relics of the massacre in He’s day, over a thousand years later. He may have written this poem in 814, when he was on his way to Lu-chou, which is not far from Chang-ping.
1. “Three spines”: the triangular arrow-head.
2. The dead were crying out with hunger, since they had not been buried with proper rites nor offered libations.
3. Curds and mutton are the food of the northern nomads, not of the Chinese.
4. “Ghost fires”: will-o’-the-wisps.
5. The money from the sale of the relic was to be used for buying a basket in which to offer sacrifices to appease the spirits of the fallen. Older commentators understood this line as meaning: “Urged me to take my money and buy bamboo to make a new arrow-stem.” This is erroneous.
Song: The Mansion by the River
7-character: 4 rhymes
1.A wife is thinking of her husband who has gone off to Jiang-ling, in Hubei, a busy commercial centre.
2. “Carp-wind”: the wind of late autumn.
3. The crocodile’s cry presaged rain. “Plum-rain” fell in summer, when the plums were ripe. Her husband has been gone for several months already.
4. Taverns flew linen flags which were changed when the rainy season began.
5. “Little Jade”: a name used for serving-girls during Tang. The mountains on the screen make the wife recall her absent husband.
Song: Beyond the Frontiers
5-character: 3 rhymes
1. “Thistle Gate”: another name for Su county, Hebei, near present Beijing. The moonlit desert is dazzling white.
2. “Green Sea”: the Kokonor.
3. Sentries beat metal drums to mark the night-watches.
4. Green Grave is the name of the place in Central Asia where Wang Zhao-jun, the Chinese princess who married a Han chieftain, is buried. The horses of the nomads who have massed for the attack have eaten all the grass round the spot and stripped it white as the desert sands.
5. “Banner Head”: the constellation Mao, which roughly corresponds to the Pleiades. The flickering of these stars was said to augur trouble on the northern frontiers.
6. The Yellow River.
Dyed Silk on the Loom in Spring
7-character: 4 rhymes
Peach-Leaves (Tao-ye) was the name of a beautiful concubine of Wang Xian-zhi.
Song of the Young Five-Grain Pine
7-character: 2 rhymes
Several interpretations of this poem are proposed by the commentators. My translation is eclectic. The fruit of the five-grain pine was said to be life. In this poem the pine laments that its owners are too busy and their associates too uncouth for them to appreciate its rare qualities.
1. A Fairy mentioned in the Shen-xian zhuan. See poem above.
2. This may mean that the pine was a dwarf-tree (bonsai). It is more likely that the leaves were cut for eating.
3. The maps indicate that the owners were busy local officials: the scholars were presumably their subordinates and their colleagues. The implications that Xie and Du were unable to appreciate the pine are just a pleasantry among friends.
4. “Pointed stones” (shi-sun)—needle-like pieces of granite used for decorating gardens, but here metonymy for He’s home in Chang-gu.
Song: By the Pool
5-character: 1 rhyme
A poem of this title was written by one of the wives of Emperor Wen of Wei before her execution. This quatrain of He’s is perhaps a lament for a concubine of the Crown Prince, who was put to death in the eighth month of 809.
1. “Duck” is the only reading that fits the above interpretation. There is no drake in the pool.
Song: General Lü
Irregular: 7 rhymes
Lü Bu (d. A.D. 198), the great warrior of the Later Han, here stands for some Tang general whom He admired, left idle at home while eunuchs mismanaged the imperial armies. This general probably bore the surname Lü.
1. Lü Bu’s famous steed.
2. Chang-an.
3. The tomb of the Tang Emperor Xuan (regnet 712–56), ten miles northeast of Pu-cheng. The general, who may have been Commander of the Guards of the Imperial Mausoleum, is weeping over the fallen glories of the dynasty.
4. Eunuchs and women prevent the General from explaining the gravity of the situation to the emperor.
5. During Tang, the handles of official seals were shaped like fish. During Han times the seals had tortoise-shaped handles. Only high officials could wear silver seals.
6. The commander is a eunuch, probably the hated Tu-tu Cheng-cui.
7. Mount Heng, in Hebei, was in territory controlled by the rebel general Wang Cheng-zong.
8. He is once again using his favourite horse metaphor. Good men are left to starve while parasites prey on the court.
9. At Scarlet Hill (Chi-jin shan) in Guei-ji, Zhejiang, Ou-ye Zi once forged swords with copper from the He-ye stream and tin from the mountains.
10. The “green-eyed general” was certainly not a Chinese.
Don’t Wash Red Cloth!
Irregular: 1 rhyme
A wife laments her husband’s absence at the wars. Her beauty will fade as quickly as red cloth which has been washed too often.
1. Place unidentifiable.
Song in the Wilds
7-character: 2 rhymes
1. The finest bows were made from mountain mulberry.
2. Geese were said to carry reeds in their beaks to defend themselves against arrows when they flew back north in spring, since they were too fat to be able to fly at a safe height.
3. Earlier commentators understood these lines as referring to the goose or the hunter. But second-degree graduates (e.g. Li He) during Tang had to wear linen clothes.
4. A man’s lot in life may not be easy: but if he is talented enough he may yet bring good fortune for himself, as surely as a skillful hunter can shoot a goose. The winter of his poverty may yet turn to spring.
Let Wine Be Bought In!
Irregular: 2 rhymes
1. “Amber” is metonymy for wine.
2. “Perfumed airs”: the singing-girls and dancers.
3. The line refers to the shortness of the season, not to the time of day.
4. Liu Ling (221?–300?), a noted toper, was so fond of drink that he had flasks of wine buried with him. Yet his grave is now untended and no wine is ever poured on it as a libation.
Song: A Lovely Girl Combing Her Hair
7-character: 6 rhymes
1. Xi-shi who came from Yue (Zhejiang) during the Warring States period was the most renowned of all Chinese beauties. Her name stands for any beautiful woman.
2. The girl is wearing her hair in a “falling-from-your-horse chignon,” a chignon set on one side of the forehead, like a rider slipping from the saddle. This style, which originated during Han times, persisted well into the nineteenth century. Half the perfume of her hair is aloes and sandalwood, the rest, her natural fragrance.
3. The back of the mirror was deco
rated with simurghs.
A Shining Wet Moon
Irregular: 3 rhymes
1. Palace ladies, out in boats on a moonlit night, are picking water chestnuts.
2. Geese are flying low, just above the autumn mist.
3. Stone Sail is a mountain in Guei-chi, Zhejiang. Mirror Lake lies south of Shan-yin, Zhejiang.
4. “New reds”: probably lotus flowers.
5. “Slime-silver”: a glistening material, colour of a snail’s track.
The Capital
5-character: 1 rhyme
Drums in the Street of the Officials
7-character: 1 rhyme
During Tang, drums sounded throughout Chang-an to announce the closing of the city gates at dusk and opening at dawn.
1. “City of Han”: the palace in Chang-an. “New blinds” refers to the empress’s apartments.
2. Flying Swallow: Zhao Fei-yan, the notorious and beautiful consort of Emperor Cheng of the Former Han (regnet 33–37 B.C.).
3. Emperor Wu of the Former Han and the First Emperor of Qin were both known for their frenzied pursuit of immortality. Our poem is clearly another attack on Xian-zong’s unavailing search for the elixir of life.
A Song for Xu’s Lady, Zheng (She Having Asked Me to Write This When I Was in Her Garden)
7-character: 6 rhymes
Zheng was a singing-girl who had come to Luo-yang, found fame and fortune there, and succeeded in establishing herself as the favourite of one of the scions of the Hsü family, maternal relatives of the Han emperors.
1. Zheng Xiu was the favourite of King Huai of Chu (Warring States period).
2. The southeast gate of Luo-yang.
3. Peonies were used to arrange assignations during Tang.
4. Never Sorrow, the famous courtesan from Shi-cheng, here stands for Miss Zheng.
5. The pillow was made of “Night-shining Jade,” probably chloro-phane, a luminescent variety of fluorite.
6. Wang Zhao-jun (later known as Ming-jun to avoid the taboo name of Emperor Wen of Jin, 211–65) was the concubine of Emperor Yuan of the Former Han (regnet 48–33 B.C.). He gave her to the ruler of the Xiongnu as a bride. This line could also mean: “A long piece of Shu paper with a portrait of Wang Zhao-jun on it is rolled up into a scroll.”
7. Since Si-ma Xiang-ru is dead, Li He is the only great poet of love remaining. Cao Zhi (192–232) was one of the finest poets of the pre-Tang period. Like He, he was a scion of a royal house.
Song: A New Summer
7-character: 4 rhymes
1. The silkworm-thorn resembles the mulberry, its leaves being used to feed early silkworms.
On the Theme of “Dreaming I Was Back at Home”
5-character: 1 rhyme
1. A fish sleeps with its eyes open. He is studying so hard he has no time to sleep.
Passing through Sandy Park
5-character: 1 rhyme
Sandy Park was a large imperial preserve of some 800 square miles in Shanxi. It was used for rearing horses and other domestic animals needed for the palace. Yao believes that this poem refers to the floods which devastated the district around the capital in the spring of 812.
1. A reference to the floods which have ruined the official residence of the Superintendent of the Park; or a reference to the ruins of the Xing-de palace, which stood to the south of the park.
2. The park is almost completely deserted, only a few animals having survived the floods.
3. Like a goose which wants to return north in spring, He is unable to go home.
On Leaving the City and Parting from Chang You-xin I Pledge Li Han with Wine
5-character: 5 rhymes
Zhang You-xin won his doctorate in 814. Li Han was a descendant of Li Dao-ming, Prince of Huai-yang, of the Tang royal house. He was a pupil of Han Yu, whose daughter he married. This poem was written in 814, when He was leaving Chang-an to return to Chang-gu.
1. The drums that announced the closing of the city gates at nightfall.
2. Zhao Yi, of the Later Han dynasty, was a talented man whose over bearing manner frequently got him into serious trouble. He was obviously aware of the trouble his own haughtiness had brought on him.
3. Ma-ching: Si-ma Xiang-ru, a poet to whom He frequently compares himself.
4. Because the land was uncultivated.
5. Su Qin, a character mentioned in the Zhan-guo ce, once remarked that in Chu food was dearer than jade, and firewood more costly than cassia. He is complaining of the cost of living in Chang-an.
6. Halberds were set before the gates of noblemen and high officials, the number varying according to rank.
7. Literally: “pour out the water-beetle’s mother.” An allusion to the belief that if the blood of the mother-beetle is smeared on one string of eighty-one cash and the blood of its offspring on another string the two lots of money will always seek each other out. Hence the expression means “to have an inexhaustible supply of money.”
8. Meng Zong of Wu studied under a certain Li Su. His mother made him a quilt twelve times as wide as normal so he could share it with other scholars who stayed overnight while visiting his master.
9. During Han, official seals had knobs in the shape of tortoises. During Tang, these knobs were shaped like fish. Once again He is using a Han symbol to refer to Tang. The line means that the officials of the time were not doing their jobs properly.
10. An allusion to the Confucian belief that name and thing must be in perfect accord if a state was to be properly governed.
11. The six commanderies of Long-xi, Tian-shui, An-ding, Bei-di, Shang-jun, and Xi-he were noted for their brave men during Han times.
12. For Song Yang (Bo Lo) see above, Twenty-three Poems about Horses. You Wu-zheng was another famous judge of horses.
13. Zhejiang (Yue) had long been famous for its kerchiefs.
My Southern Garden
7-character: 1 rhyme
A description of late spring in Chang-gu.
1. He is wearing Confucian dress as he walks in his garden. Guo Tai (128–69) set the fashion for wearing hats with one corner bent, after his own got caught in the rain.
2. Mount South in Chang-gu.
3. Zheng Xuan (127–200) was one of the greatest commentators on the Confucian classics. He is complimenting the people of Chang-gu by implying that they are as observant of the Confucian precepts as if they came from Zheng’s own village in Shandong.
4. The Summons of the Soul (Zhao Hun) is one of the poems in the Chu Ci, pp. 101–9.
Song: Imitating the Singing of Dragons
Irregular (4- and 7- character): 3 rhymes
As a young man, Fang Guan (697–763), who later became Prime Minister, was studying in a valley of Mount Zhung-nan when he heard strange cries coming from the mountain. An old man told him that this was the singing of dragons, a sound always followed by rain. Later he came across a Buddhist monk who had succeeded in imitating a dragon’s cry perfectly by striking a copper bowl in a certain way. Jiao-ran then wrote a poem called Striking the Copper Bowl to Imitate a Singing Dragon. He is modelling himself on this. Our poem, however, is undoubtedly satirical. Men are frightened of real dragons (geniuses) and chase them away, but like to try to imitate their song nevertheless. This otherwise fine poem is marred by its rather precious diction.
1. Han Wu Nei-zhuan lists the lungs of a white phoenix and the blood of a blue simurgh as exotic drugs. The cry of the true dragon, here contrasted with the faint sound of the bowl, is as terrifying as the shriek of these slaughtered birds. So the cry of the true poet—that rarest of creatures—is one of agony.
2. The dragon brought wind and rain, which made the cassia seeds fall.
3. Like the Western Mother, the dragon has gained immortality.
4. For the River Ladies, see above, The Royal Ladies of the Xiang. The Ladies are weeping over the dragons’ departure.
5. A reference to the Blue (or White) Lotus-flower Dragon-king.
6. Iron—a metal of which dragons w
ere terrified—had been dropped into the water to drive them away.
Song: A Modest Maiden in the Spring Sunshine
7-character: 1 rhyme
This poem and the next one were not found in the earliest edition of He’s work, but are attributed to him in the Song anthology, the Yue-fu shi-ji of Guo Mao-qian. On this account, the commentators have been wary about assigning authorship of these works to He. I can see no reason why these should not be from his own hand.
7. “Clouds of dawn”: her hair.
8. “Hills of brocade”: the quilts.
9. “Icy cave”: the girl’s room.
Joys of Youth
7-character: 1 rhyme
10. Wang Ji (Sui dynasty) wrote the Record of the Land of Drunkenness.
11. “The girl from Wu”: a conventional expression for a beautiful woman.
12. “Master Lu”: see above poem.
Six Satires
5-character: 1 rhyme
1. Another variant on the “bird in a gilded cage.” A singing-girl, though patronized by princes, is desperately unhappy because her true love—who is presumably poor—is far away.
2. The second poem is perhaps a satire on the marriage of a Chinese princess of the imperial house to the Uighur Khan. Wang Zhao-jun came from Shu.
3. There are at least three places of this name. The one referred to here is probably in Mongolia.
4. A deadly attack on a eunuch general—probably Tu-tu Cheng-cui himself—who was conducting the campaign against the rebel governor Wang Cheng-zong. The appointment of a “lady-general” aroused such a storm of criticism that the emperor was compelled to dismiss him. He’s verses must have played their part in this. The whole poem rings with a savage indignation rarely found in Chinese verse.
5. A satire on a rich, young man, son of some general or other, who has risen to wealth and eminence through his father’s influence. “Green Gate”: the eastern gates of Chang-an.
6. Ban Jie-yu (floruit 48–6 B.C.) was for many years the favourite of Han Cheng-di (regnet 33–7 B.C.). Towards the end of her life, seeing herself ousted by a younger favourite, she withdrew to the Palace of Eternal Trust, where she lived out the rest of her days. She is best known for a poem supposed to have been written on a round fan which she sent to the Emperor after her loss of favour.