The Songs of Chu

by Gopal Sukhu

For by neglecting to flatter I had turned my back on the crowd,

  Expecting a wise lord to understand.

  Where my words walk my deeds follow.

  My face is the image of my heart.

  Who better to judge me than my lord,

  With me, my own proof, always at his side?

  Lord first, self last—what I thought only right

  Was the very thing the crowd loathed.

  A mind on my lord’s welfare and nothing else

  Made me everyone’s enemy.

  He of the unwavering heart

  Finds no protection.

  He who has no family other than his lord

  Is on the road to ruin.

  To think that I am disloyal in your eyes—

  I who forgot my own poverty

  To serve you with so undivided a mind

  That I lost my way to the gates of your favor.

  What crime is loyalty that I should be punished for it?

  That possibility never crossed my mind,

  Nor that I would stumble and fall to the crowd’s laughter

  As I walked the road they would not travel.

  I was caught in a tangle of blame and slander

  I could not unravel,

  My true feelings lying so low they could not surface,

  Blocked from view, I was helpless to clear my name.

  My melancholy heart despaired,

  For no one cared to see what was really within me.

  Surely there is too much to say to wrap in a parcel and send you—

  I would lay my heart before you, but have no way.

  No one will understand if I retreat into silence.

  No one will listen if I step up and shout,

  Ever thwarted in a maze,

  My heart sinks, confused and stunned.

  I once dreamt I was a spirit waiting for a ferryboat

  In midair, stalled on my skyward rise,

  So I had the God of Whetstones interpret the dream, and he said,4

  “It means your goals are lofty, but you have no allies.

  You will end up in peril, alone, at odds with everyone.”

  And he advised, “Though you long for him, you cannot depend on your lord.

  Hot air from so many mouths will melt even metal.5

  The danger was there from the start.

  “‘If the soup burns your tongue, you blow on the cold cuts too—

  Why not change your goals

  Rather than try to climb skyward without a ladder,

  As you are doing now—and always have?

  “You so shock the crowd they turn against you.

  How can you think them your friends?

  You serve the same lord as they, but for different reasons.

  How can you count on their support?

  “Never forget the filial son, Shensheng of Jin,6

  Whose father believed slander and thought ill of him.

  And Gun7 who walked the unswerving path of the stubborn,

  And so never achieved his goal.”

  When he said my devotion would bring only resentment,

  I ignored what seemed an excessive view,

  But, “Nine broken arms will make you a doctor”—

  Only now do I know his words are true.

  Crossbows cocked overhead,

  Nets spread underfoot—

  Traps they’ve set to amuse my lord.

  I would run for cover, but there is no cover.

  Should I linger waiting for my luck to change,

  Risking more trouble and worse accusations?

  Or should I fly high for a perch far away—

  Would my lord even ask where I’m going?

  Should I run wild down the wrong path?

  Perhaps I could bear it with a will less strong.

  But, given who I am, a writhing agony would knot my heart

  And tear the rib cage from my spine.

  Pound magnolia, knead basil,

  Grind the Shen pepper for food on the road.

  Broadcast lovage8 seeds, and plant chrysanthemum—

  I want them to fragrance my grains in spring.

  Fearing you do not trust the sincerity of these sentiments,

  I say it over and over to make myself clear—

  As I go into hiding, I gather these beauties,

  Wishing, though distant, to never forget you.

  2

  “CROSSING THE YANGTZE”

  涉江

  “SHE JIANG”

  Many scholars in China think that this poem is by Qu Yuan and that the place-names in it are reliable information about the itinerary of his exile in the south. On the basis of that assumption they proceed to speculate about at what point in his life the poem was written. There is little agreement, however, either about the course of the journey or the date of the poem. There are also scholars who think that Qu Yuan could not have written it. The main argument for that view is the presence of a number of typically Han elements in the poem. The wish to live forever in the third stanza is redolent of the very Han cult of the immortals (仙 xian); and referring to the south as “savage” seems to reflect Han, or at least not Chu, attitudes.

  The poem alludes to the “Li sao,” especially in the first stanza, as well as to the Nine Songs. The poetic persona seems to be Qu Yuan. Perhaps it was sung in a drama by someone playing that role. I agree with Hawkes that it is at least partially made up of fragments from other works.

  Crossing the Yangtze

  In my youth I loved these strange clothes,9

  And the love has not faded although I am old—

  A sword’s long glimmer drags from my waist,

  On my head a cloud-piercing headdress towers,

  And from my neck hang the moonlight gem and the precious lu jade.10

  But when mud flowed into the waters of these times,

  the world forgot my value,

  So I’m galloping high and not looking back.

  Dragons, both green and white, pull my chariot,

  And when I roam with Lord Chonghua11 in the yao-stone12 gardens,

  And climb the Kunlun Mountains13 to eat the flower of jade,14

  I will live as long as Heaven and Earth,

  And glow as bright as the sun and the moon.

  Though I lament that no one knows me in the savage south,

  I will cross the Yangtze and Xiang15 Rivers at dawn,

  Look back as I mount the banks of the River Islet of E,16

  And sigh in the last breezes before autumn turns to winter,

  As I walk my horses on the hillsides,

  and halt my chariot in the Square Forest.17

  Boarding a small boat on the Yuan18 I float upstream.

  Long oars of Wu strike the waves in unison,

  But the lingering boat will not go forward,

  and sits caught still in a whirlpool.

  At dawn I set forth from Wangzhu

  to spend the night at Chenyang.19

  As long as I keep an upright heart,

  What wound is exile in far wilds?

  Yet entering the Xu River20 I hesitate,

  Lost, not knowing where I’m going,

  As I go deep into darker and darker forest,

  discovering the places where gibbons live.

  Below the sun-blocking height of the mountains,

  lost valleys of rain-filled gloom.

  And above the high borderless realm of hail and snow,

  no sky roof other than cloud swell.

  Lamentable my joyless life here,

  Living alone in the remotest part of the mountains—

  Lacking the heart to change and herd with the vulgar,

  Assuring me misery till the end of my days.

  Jieyu21 shaved his head.

  Sanghu22 went naked.

  The loyal will be employed—

  not necessarily.

  The worthy will be put to use—

  not necessarily.

  Master Wu23 m
et calamity,

  Bi Gan’s24 flesh was minced and brined.

  If such men suffered even under the ancient kings,

  What do I expect my complaints will accomplish today?

  Yet I hold to the Way and will not waver,

  Certain to pass my days in the dark of the dark.

  Luan:

  As the simurghs and phoenixes

  Distance themselves day by day,

  Swallows, sparrows, wrens, and crows

  Make their nests in the palace halls.

  Winter daphne and magnolia

  Die in the forest thickets.

  The stench advances,

  The fragrant cannot abide.

  Yin and yang exchange places—

  The times are out of joint.

  Despairing, the loyal heart stands alone—

  I’m getting out without a second thought.

  3

  “MOURNING YING”

  哀郢

  “AI YING”

  “Ying” in the title of this poem is the Chu royal city, which was located northwest of Jiangling county in modern Hubei province. In 278 B.C.E. it was conquered and destroyed by the Qin army under the generalship of Bai Qi, and the Chu court fled east and established a new capital at Chen, which was located in Huaiyang county in modern Henan. The reigning king of Chu at that time was Qing Xiang. Most scholars assume that these events form the background of the poem and that its author is Qu Yuan. Controversies arise when they attempt to square the historical background with the author’s biography. According to it, King Qing Xiang banished Qu Yuan, and Qu Yuan committed suicide before Chu went into decline with the defeat of 278 B.C.E. That means that the Qu Yuan of the biography could not have known about the fall of Ying. Indeed, the fall of Ying is never mentioned in the biography.

  The poem is one of two poems in the series that do not imitate the “Li sao,” although it is written in sao meter.

  Those who insist that Qu Yuan wrote the poem revise the biography by having Qu Yuan in exile and still alive when Ying is sacked; the news about it is too much to bear, and he therefore commits suicide. The speaker of the poem tells us that he has not been back to Ying in nine years. Some scholars therefore conclude that the poem’s beginning describes how the poet imagines the fall of Ying, and that the rest of the poem is for the most part a recollection of how he first left the city to go into exile years before. The problem with this approach is that there are no clear markers dividing imaginary parts from recollected parts. Added to these difficulties is the fact that parts of the poem appear to come from elsewhere or at least share parts with other poems. Of course many of these problems evaporate if we simply exclude the Qu Yuan biography from consideration and admit the possibility that the poem was written by someone else.

  Mourning Ying

  August Heaven,

  Your Mandate mixes blessing and curse.

  Why make the high families endure

  These shocking hardships,

  And the common people separate and scatter,

  Losing each other,

  Fleeing east,

  Right in the middle of spring?

  We left the ancestral land for the long journey

  as refugees on the Long and Summer Rivers,25

  through the gates of the royal city, with aching hearts.

  On a jia day26 at dawn we set forth,

  away from Ying and our old neighbors,

  despairing to know where it would end.

  And I lifted both oars from the water to linger,

  grieving I would never see my lord again,

  and watched the tall catalpa trees27 pass sighing

  in a hailstorm of tears.

  Drifting west past Summerhead,28

  I looked back, but saw no Dragon’s Gate,29

  and my heart, bewildered, tore in my breast

  wondering where on the vast land to set foot,

  as wind and waves tossed me downriver,

  a stranger thenceforth on wide water.

  I ride Yanghou’s30 swelling waves

  suddenly soaring I know not where,

  my heart tied in knots too tight to unravel,

  helplessly trammeled and tangled in longing.

  I turn the boat to float downstream,

  stern to Lake Dongting,31 prow to Long River,

  leaving behind our home since unremembered time,

  to arrive in the east this aimless day.

  Yes, the soul’s wish to return—

  how stop it for even an instant?

  My back to Summershore,32 my heart longing west,

  mourning the old city daily more distant.

  I climb a high mound to see how far away it lies,

  small ease for my melancholy,

  and look back, grieving, to tranquil joys in a lost country,

  missing the ancient river-land ways.

  Time to face Lingyang33 (where am I going?),

  to cross the broad southern waters (where am I going?).

  How can it be that our mansions are reduced to hills,

  How can it be that the eastern gates are overgrown with weeds?

  So long has my heart been cheerless.

  Worry gives way only to sadness,

  thoughts go the long distance back to Ying,

  across the Yangtze and Xia I may not cross.

  Hard to believe what time has passed,

  nine years ago I left and never went back,

  and melancholy builds with no way out,

  locked in despair, a bitter taste in my mouth.

  Parading their skin-deep charms they won your favor,

  But they were weak inside—on them you could not lean.

  Yet when I approached to give you my all,

  They blocked my way with anything they could find.

  The lofty ways of Yao and Shun34

  Approached the glory of the skies.

  Why do the slanderers in their envy

  falsely label them unkind?

  You’ve come to hate the quiet beauty of the unflauntingly loyal,

  and delight in the high martial spirits of the others,

  The crowd, sprinting into your presence day after day,

  while the beautiful drift farther and farther away.

  Luan:

  I let my gaze wander the vast unpeopled land.

  When will I have one chance to return?

  Birds fly back to their old country,

  The fox dies facing his natal hills.

  Exiled indeed for no crime,

  Could I night or day ever forget home?

  4

  “EXPRESSING MY LONGING”

  抽思

  “CHOU SI”

  Wang Yi claimed that the Nine Cantos were written during the reign of King Qing Xiang—that is, after the death of Qu Yuan’s first king, King Huai. Scholars have therefore looked to these poems for about two thousand years for certain details about Qu Yuan’s life. The chief problem with this poem in that regard is that it tells us that the speaker of the poem is in exile north of the Han River, whereas most of the tradition, including that subscribed to by Wang Yi, claims that King Qing Xiang exiled Qu Yuan to the south. Qing scholars noticing this decided that this poem, and possibly others in the series, must have been written during the time of King Huai. The place of Qu Yuan’s banishment, and even whether Qu Yuan was banished at all at that time, are left unclear in the Shiji biography. Later scholars fill in those lacunae with this poem, saying that Qu Yuan was banished to the north by King Huai. I agree with Hawkes that certain features of the poem, especially its division into “song” sections, argue against authorship by Qu Yuan and for later composition by someone who intended it to be performed, perhaps in a kind of drama. The “Li sao”–style lover’s complaint conceit is especially apparent in the first part of the poem.

  Expressing My Longing

  A thicket of grief entangles my heart.

  My every lonely sigh sharpens the pain.

>   This intricate binding of longing will not loosen,

  And so I endure the endless night.

  I grieve when the autumn wind changes the shape of things.

  Why is everything blowing away as far as the eye can see,35

  Bringing to mind time after time Lure Leaf’s wrath

  That wounded my heart with sorrow on sorrow?

  I want to stagger to my feet and run away wild,

  But seeing your subjects suffering I compose myself,

  And gather my trifling thoughts to set forth,

  And lift them up as offering to you, Beautiful One:

  Once, My Lord, you gave me your word

  That you would meet me at dusk,

  But midway you took another road.

  How could I have known you desired someone else?

  You flaunted your goodness and beauty before me,

  Revealing your splendors to my eyes alone,

  Yet not one thing you promised you ever delivered—

  Why, then, seek reasons to rage against me?

  I hoped to explain myself when the opening came,

  But my heart pounded so, I did not dare.

  Sad and hesitant I hoped to face you,

  But my heart hurt so, I held my tongue.

  One by one I lay these facts before you,

  But, Lure Leaf, you pretend you cannot hear

  The sincere man who never flatters,

  Always a threat in the eyes of the crowd.

  Could it be that what I warned about

  From the beginning you have forgotten now?

  Why do I take such joy in frankness?

  I hope to bring back the beauty of Lure Leaf.

  If you look to the Three and the Five36 as models,

  And take Peng and Xian37 as your ideals,

  Then what goal will you fail to reach?

  And your fame, known far and wide, will not fade.

  Goodness is no mere matter of surface.

  Reputation is not to be built on air.

  What return is there for those who do nothing?

  What harvest for those who grow no fruit?

  The little song says:

  I have emptied my heart before the Beautiful One,

  Night and day, with no one there to judge my case.

  She paraded her beauty before me,

  Belittling my words, ignoring my advice.

  The lead singer’s song:

  A bird from the south

  Flew north of the Han River and perched on a tree.

  Though fine feathered and beautiful,

  A solitary life it leads in a strange land.

  A single bird apart from the flock,