4 The hanwu gushi (Story of Emperor Wu in the Han Dynasty) tells how Han emperor Wu said to his aunt, “If I can marry Ah Jiao, I will build a gold chamber to keep her.”
5 This refers to Li Bai's two lines “Playing a jade flute in the Yellow Crane Tower,/while plum petals fall in May in a river city,” from his poem “Listening to a Flute in Yellow Crane Tower.”
YAN RUI
(fl. c. 1160)
Yan Rui, also known as You Fang, was registered as an official courtesan at Tiantai. She was known for her calligraphy, singing, dancing, painting, and her skill at playing Go. Attracted by her beauty and talent, gentlemen would travel a thousand miles to meet her. Well versed in literature and history, she wrote good lyric songs; three poems are attributed to her. When Tang Zhongyou was the governor at Tiantai, he once asked her to improvise a poem about white and pink peach flowers. She did it without hesitation, and they became lovers. The poem below was said to have been written after Yan Rui had been jailed and repeatedly beaten for refusing to inform on her lover. An inspector, wanting to frame Tang Zhongyou, accused him of favoring Yan Rui. He had her thrown into prison and tortured for two months, and yet she still refused to say a word about Tang Zhongyou. The poem below, in which she states her case, won her release from prison and from registration as an official courtesan. She later got married as a concubine to someone close to her clan. Her poetry is considered to be natural and free of affectation.
To the Tune of “Song of Divination”
I don't love the dust storm of love play,
but my past life karma has made me a courtesan.
Flowers fall, flowers bloom, and the time
is chosen for them by the god of the East.
I must leave in the end,
there is no way for me to stay.
If only my hair were filled with mountain flowers!
Don't ask me where I'd like to go.
YUAN HAOWEN
(1190–12.57)
Yuan Haowen is considered one of the finest poets China has produced, and certainly the finest poet of the Jin dynasty. He was born in Xinzhou, near Taiyuan in Northern China, and raised by his uncle, a provincial official. The straightforward nature of some of his poetry may have something to do with his Northern Chinese origin. He is a profound poet, and a poet of polished and considered expression. His work details with great insight and empathy the hardships of the Jin dynasty, as the Mongols under Genghis Khan swept through Northern China. His brother was killed during the Mongol invasion of his homeland in 1214, and Yuan Haowen fled with his family to Henan the following year. He passed the imperial exam in 1221 and was deeply influenced by the trend of his time, which was to imitate the poetry of Li Shangyin, though he also deeply respected other models—Su Shi and especially Tao Qian and Du Fu. His career as an official included several governorships in Henan and a posting at the capital in 1231, at a time when the Jin dynasty was undergoing further attacks by the Mongols. The capital fell in 1233, and Yuan Haowen was forced to undergo house arrest for two years in Liaocheng in Shandong. During this time he began to compile an anthology of Jin dynasty poetry, feeling a deep desire to make a record of his culture for posterity. He spent the rest of his life traveling through Northern China, gathering materials for his excellent history of the Jin dynasty, which served as a kind of tombstone for the civilization that nourished him. Although he received patronage from Yuan dynasty officials, he did not serve the new dynasty. More than thirteen hundred of his poems survive.
Living in the Mountains
Slant vines hang on thin bamboo.
Chaotic grass grows around a flower bush.
Wind is visible in a tall wood.
Water remains silent over slippery moss.
Maple trees scatter when the river turns.
A bamboo stream is serene when mountains are deep.
In thin mist leaving birds sink,
while the setting sun walks an ox home.
Dreaming of Home
A withered Chu prisoner with a southern hat,1
my homesick mind flows east each day.
Green mountains glow when my dream nears home
and yellow leaves rustle in autumn wind and rain.
In poverty, my poems become uncannily refined.
In turbulence, I have no tears left for grief.
Just let me see my brothers in the years I have left,
and I won't worry about the world, happy with chopped pickles.
from In May of 1233, I Ferried Across to the North
1
Countless captives are lying stiff by the roadside
as Mongol wagons pass and pass like flowing water.
You rouged women walking weeping behind Mongolian horses,
for whom are you still looking back at each step?
2
White bones lie in a tangled mess like hemp fiber.
In a few years mulberry trees have withered to a dragon's desert.
It seems to me life in Heshu has utterly ceased.
But look! Smoke rises from those broken houses.
1 In 1232 Mongols besieged Bianjing twice while Yuan Haowen worked as an official in the city. The next spring the defending general Cui Li surrendered to the Mongols, and Yuan Haowen was detained. In the first line of this poem he compares himself with Zhong Yi, a man seen wearing a southern hat who turns out to be a prisoner from Chu. The passage comes from the famous Chinese history zuozhuan, a commentary on The Spring and Autumn Annals, one of the Confucian classics.
WU WENYING
(c. I200-c. I26o)
Wu Wenying came from Siming (today's Yinxian, Zhejiang province) but lived mainly in the cities of Suzhou and Hangzhou, in each of which he kept a concubine. He worked in the Grain Transport Office as a private secretary and received royal patronage from Prince Rong. He was a prolific poet; 350 of his ci form lyric poems survive. His poetry was very personal, and he wrote extensively about his two concubines.
Departure, to the Tune of “The Song of Tangduo”
What is sorrow composed of?
Autumn on the heart1 of a traveling man.
Even without rain, the rustle of banana leaves sounds sad.
They all say it is a nice cool evening,
there is a bright moon,
but I don't want to climb up the tower.
Love's season ends in dreams.
The flowers are gone, rivers flow off,
even swallows have migrated,
yet I'm still away from home.
O weeping willow, why didn't you tether her skirt
instead of for so long
tying my returning boat up here?
To the Tune of “Washing Creek Sands”**
In my dream I revisit your door behind deep flowers.
The setting sun is speechless, returning swallows sad.
Small jade fingers, spreading a fragrance, once touched this curtain hook.
The falling catkins are mute as spring dribbles tears.
Shifting clouds cast shadows and in shyness the moon hides.
It is a spring night but I feel colder than in autumn.
To the Tune of “Prelude to Oriole Song” ††
A leftover coldness tortures me when I have a hangover.
I close my carved sandalwood window.
The swallows are late,
flying into the west city,
murmuring about the end of spring.
A painted boat carries me
after the Clear Brightness Day,
and a sunny mist rises slowly out of the Wu Palace trees.
My feelings as a traveler,
roaming with wind,
transform into light catkins.
For ten years by the West Lake
I tied my horse to a willow,
and chased your delicate dust and soft mist.
I traced up a valley lined with red trees,
and entered a fairy stream.
Your maid, Jiner, helped us exchan
ge secret notes.
Leaning against a silver screen,
you felt spring was broad and dream narrow,
interrupted, with red tears,
and you sang a song of gold-thread garments.
The evening bank was empty,
so the slanting sun was easily
handed over to the gulls and egrets.
Orchids age fast
and then grass returns again.
I travel in this country of waters,
asking for you again by the six bridges, but no one knows you.
The past is past, flowers faded, buried with jade and fragrance
after a few attacks of wind and rain.
Long river waves should be jealous of your watery glances,
and silhouetted distant mountains can't match your eyebrows' arcs.
Fishing lights divided our reflection when we slept on the river
that spring.
I remember
with short oars we came to the Peach Roots ferry.
It seemed in a green tower
on a shabby wall
I wrote a poem at departure,
with tears mixed in the ink,
sorrow in the dust.
On a high pavilion I stretch my vision
to where grass and sky meet.
I sigh that my temples have half turned to white
and look for your things in secret.
I find tearstains and lip marks
still there in the silk handkerchief.
You're a phoenix with wings hanging low, and lost.
Facing a broken mirror, I feel too lazy to dance.
I should eagerly write you
a long letter of regret,
but the blue clouds and ocean are so broad
that wild geese will sink in them,
so I pour all my feelings
into the sad strings of my zither.
It hurts me to look at the one thousand miles of the Yangtze
River's south bank. I play my complaining tune to summon you again. Is your lost soul still there?
1 The character cbou (sorrow) consists of two radicals: “autumn” on top of “heart.”
* This is a lyric song Wu Wenying wrote in memory of his dead concubine.
† This tune, a total of 240 characters, is the longest of the lyric songs. The form was created by Wu Wenying himself. It is a poem in memory of his concubine who lived at the West Lake.
LIU YIN
(1249–1293)
Liu Yin was also called Meng Ji; his personal name was Jingxiu. He came from Hebei. In 1282 he accepted a position from the Yuan court but soon resigned to take care of his sick mother.
Reading History
Records are manifold and confused, already losing reality.
Light or weighty, what they mean depends on imperial record keepers.
If every word were scrutinized for the author's
intention, countless people would be persecuted.
Mountain Cottage
In the water, horse hooves trample the evening
glow as my drunken sleeves catch wind and falling flowers.
River kids peek out their door. How did they know?
I guess the magpies' song reached the mountain cottage before me.
YUAN DYNASTY
(1280–1367)
DURING THE YUAN DYNASTY, CHINA WAS INVADED BY THE Mongols, a nomadic set of tribes from central Asia who had become unified under Genghis Khan (his name was an epithet meaning “universal leader”). They were fearsome warriors who fought on horseback with powerful bows. As rulers they were known for their brutal repression of dissent. Although the Mongols decimated their enemies in open combat, to conquer China they needed to develop techniques for assaulting fortified cities. It took decades of warfare and the leadership of Genghis Khan's grandson, Qubilai Khan, before they could decisively conquer the remnants of the Song dynasty in 1279. As emperor, Qubilai took on the dynastic title of Zhiyuan (meaning “the greatest of the Yuan”). The capital was moved to Dadu (the name means “great capital”), also called Khanbalik (present-day Beijing). It was here that the great Venetian traveler Marco Polo visited the court of the Yuan emperor.
The Mongols adopted Chinese ways, including the Chinese tax and administration systems, and they adopted Confucianism and other Chinese traditions. In the Tang and Song dynasties, the ability to compose poetry was an essential part of the examination system, but the Mongols abolished the examination system for scholars, breaking the continuity of teaching that had lent Chinese literature such a commonality of reference over the centuries. This was disastrous for the production of traditional poetry, but it fostered a stylistic break in the production of literature, especially noticeable in the infusion of vernacular in literary works. The Yuan was a great period for vernacular Chinese drama, though less so for poetry, but there were some fine poems written for and included in plays, known as qu poems. These lyric songs, or arias, were related to the ci form of lyric songs but often included vernacular diction, which lent the form spontaneity and naturalness. The qu songs developed from popular roots—tavern, theater, marketplace, and teahouse songs—and were developed to a high form by the literati. The poems were performed and set according to some 350 song patterns and were a blend of Northern Chinese and barbarian music. The most important qu poet was the playwright Ma Zhiyuan (c. 1260–1334).
The Yuan dynasty fell into disarray after the death of Qubilai and was weakened by rebellions and infighting among the Mongol nobles. The dynasty was overthrown by a popular uprising in the fourteenth century. The rebellion started in 1352 and grew powerful under the leadership of a former monk, Zhu Yuanzhang, who joined the Red Turban rebel group and became a general. By 1368 Zhu had conquered all of Southern China. He had been fighting for over thirty years, and he continued to fight until 1387, when he finally succeeded in driving the Mongols out of China. He established his own dynasty, the Ming, taking on the dynastic name Hong Wu.
ZHENG YUNNIANG
(uncertain dates)
Zheng Yunniang's poems were directed to Zhang Sheng, the main character in the play The Story of the West Wing. Like Zhu Xizhen, Zheng Yunniang is classified in the Complete Song Lyric Songs (quan songci) under the category of figures who appeared in Vernacular Fiction of the Song Dynasty. Such figures might have been actual people or they might have been fictional—it is difficult to say, as the stories often spoke of real events and real people. It is thus uncertain whether she ever existed; she might have been a persona created by a male poet. The poem below, “The Song of Shoes,” is also attributed to Lian Jingnu of Nanping, Fujian, who was married to the Confucian scholar Chen Yanchen.
The Song of Shoes
(To Zhang Sheng)
Vague shadows from the moon,
light shade among the flowers;
I've stood here waiting so long!
Enemy of mine! Will you not keep your word?
Everyone will see me waiting for you.
My mind fills with a thousand ideas,
ten thousand scenarios,
all kinds of doubts and guesses,
then all at once I see you!
My voice shakes in wind, though I speak very low.
Gently I move my lotus steps,
secretly slip from my silk robe.
Hand in hand we walk past the West Wing.
It is midnight and everyone is quiet.
At first I hold myself back,
then burst with you in clouds and rain.
So much joy and love,
but now we have to part.
I say, “Hold, my sweet,
just let me put on my shoes.”
To the Tune of “West River Moon”
(To Zhang Sheng)
O crystal clear ice wheel,
dancing soul of the osmanthus,
why not make things easier for me?
Chang Er1 must be jealous of me!
Though moonlight is lovely,
it
makes our tryst difficult.
Who can pass me a cloud
I can use to eclipse the moon?
1 The first stanza refers to the moon, where the goddess Chang Er lives in exile and where a man is seen chopping down an osmanthus tree.
ZHAO MENGFU
(1254–1322)
Zhao Mengfu came from Wuxing in Zhejiang. Unlike many Chinese officials, he infamously accepted Qubilai Khan's invitation to serve in the Mongol government. He was fiercely criticized for this, and his reputation has never recovered. He was a master cal-ligrapher, and as a poet he believed that poetry should imitate the heights of Tang dynasty poetry.
Guilt at Leaving the Hermit's Life
To stay in the mountains is called great ambition;
leaving the mountains you become a small weed.1
It was already stated in ancient times.
Why didn't I foresee all this happening?
All my life I longed to go my own way
and to give my ambition to hills and valleys.
I paint and write for my own entertainment,
hoping to keep my nature wild.
Unfortunately I am trapped in a net of dust,2
I turn and get tangled up.
I was a gull over the waters,
now a bird in cage.
Who cares about my sad singing?
Day by day my feathers turn to dry ruin.
Without relatives and friends' help,
The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry Page 31