The Songs of Chu
Page 23
4. The Chinese for this title is San Lü Dafu 三閭大夫. It is generally thought to mean an officer who is in charge of the various affairs of the three branches (屈 Qu, 景 Jing, and 昭 Zhao) of the Chu royal family. The three branches presumably resided in three different districts. The title is applied to Qu Yuan nowhere other than in this story.
5. This song, sung by a boy and interpreted by Confucius, appears in slightly different form in Mengzi, “Lilou A”; see James Legge, The Chinese Classics, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893–1894; repr., Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), 2:299.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nine Variations
九辯
Jiubian
Nine Variations, like Nine Songs, is a title borrowed from myth. It refers to music said to have been brought back to earth by Qi, the son of the founder of the Xia dynasty, after one of his visits to heaven. These poems are traditionally attributed to Song Yu 宋玉, believed to be a student of Qu Yuan’s. Little is known about him. The Historical Records by Sima Qian lists him among the great poets of Chu who lived after Qu Yuan, the others being Jing Cuo 景差 and Tang Le 唐勒. Jing Cuo’s poems are believed to be lost, but there are some people who think “The Great Summoning” (大招 “Da zhao”) is his work. Four poems are attributed to Tang Le, but these are not included in the Chuci. Besides the Nine Variations, some sixteen works in the fu form are attributed to Song Yu, including “Fu on the Wind” (風賦 “Feng fu”) and “Gaotang fu” (高唐賦). Song Yu, like Qu Yuan, served the Chu court. Indeed, Nine Variations are variations on themes that belong very much to court life: falling out of favor with one’s sovereign and the concomitant demotion and exile.1 In most of these poems the exile’s landscape is the wilderness and his season is autumn. Sadness that is peculiar to autumn is associated with Song Yu’s work, these poems in particular.
1
How sad the weather autumn brings—
bleak, wind-beaten grass and trees wither,
pitiful as wayfarers climbing a hill
to see off a friend going home
on the water.
Vast hollow clarity—
sky higher, air cleaner,
mute and lucid,
rain floods recede, rivers clear.
Melancholy and many sighs
as the cold comes near to strike.
Thwarted and hopeless,
I leave the old to face the new,
in straits,
a poor scholar out of work,
with no tranquil thought,
an outcast
finding lodging, but no friend,
heartsick,
in secret misery.
The swallow flutters good-bye.
The cicada silenced loses its voice.
Honking geese migrate south,
where the jungle fowl twitters sorrow.
Alone, I lie awake until dawn,
lamenting the crickets’ midnight campaigns.
Relentless time, more than half gone,
Stuck in a bog with nothing to show.
2
Alone in the boundless wilds,
with no way out of sorrow,
lives a beautiful woman
whose heart was not glad
to leave her family in a distant land
to come here, a stranger,
and now, a vagabond,
where will she go?
She longs for you only, Lord.
You cannot change her.
If this you refuse to know,
what can she do?
Her resentment builds,
Her longing deepens—
Her heart so vexed by dread,
she neglects her food.
I desire but one meeting
to speak this thing on my mind,
but they are so at odds,
my heart and yours,
that when I left in the carriage you readied,
only to return,
you would not see me.
It cut me inside,
as I leaned on the carriage wall,
and sighed through its lattice window,
and so many tears crossed down my face,
they wet the carriage rail.
I rage that I cannot
stop it.
I am delirious,
lost!
How do I end
this hidden misery?
My frenzied heart pounds,
but always for you.
3
August Heaven granted each season its share,
But sadness comes in cold autumn only.
White dew already falls on all the grasses,
Wutong and catalpa suddenly cast down their leaves.
Sunlight dims,
As we enter the endless night.
Gone is vigor’s fragrant luxury.
Sad dejection arrives
in ill health, with scant means.
To autumn’s warning of white dew
Winter adds rigor of pitiless frost,
Damping the broad cheer of early summer.
Now beasts hide in burrows, where food is buried deep.
Brittle leaves colorless
On the tangled uproar of branches,
And the brightest leaves soon to fade
On the dull and lifeless boughs.
And the bare-branched trees dolefully tower
Their bodies worn and scarred.
Think how they burgeoned only to shed,
How much sadder, though, had they died before that.
I’ll grasp the reins but lay down the whip,
And wander this time for the pleasure.
The fleeting year is soon to close,
Not much of life, I fear, is left.
I mourn my birth in the wrong world,
My stumble into appalling times.
Standing alone, I look for peace
In this westward room
while the cricket sings.
But my heart quakes in dread—
Why does it dwell on so many things?
I will look to the moon with a long sigh,
and walk with the stars until dawn.
4
I mourn the basil with its many-tiered flowers,
Whose fluttering flags once crowded the royal greenhouse,
Why did storm winds carry away
its fruitless clustered petals?
I thought, My Lord, you would wear this basil2 only,
But you cannot distinguish its fragrance from others.
Hurt that its uncommon thoughts do not reach you,
It will soar even higher and leave you.
My heart in wretched misery
Harbors but a single wish—a meeting with you to clear my name.
Guiltless estrangement is too much to bear,
Pain redoubling stuns me to the core.
Do I not long for you with my every thought?
Yet you hide behind nine layers of doors
Where fierce dogs yapping wait to greet me.
Even gates and bridges are locked against me.
August Heaven sends too much autumn rain.
Queen Earth, when again will you manage to dry?
Alone I live in this overgrown swamp,
Constantly sighing as clouds go by.
5
What skill the vulgar wainwrights3 display!
Ignoring ink string, misusing their tools,
Accepting no thoroughbred to pull their wagons,
Going their way whipping nags instead.
Have the times produced no horse to call Qi or Ji?4
The fact is, a thoroughbred needs a skillful driver.
The horse seeing no such man holding the reins,
Shies and bolts over the horizon.
Wild ducks and geese gorge on grain and water plants,
While the phoenix5 soars high above them.
Make mortise round and tenon square—
Hard put you’ll
be to fit them together.
The other birds have nests in high places,
Yet comfortless lone phoenix finds nary a perch.
How could I bite the bit and never speak,
Having once enjoyed your flowing bounty?
Jiang Taigong6 revealed no splendor before his ninetieth year,
For only then did he meet a fitting lord.
Where have the Qis and Jis gone?
Where do the phoenixes perch?
The world trades ancient for vulgar, and so begins decline.
Today when horses are judged, the fat ones always win.
So Qis and Jis hide themselves never to reappear,
And phoenixes fly high—never down to perch.
If even beasts know virtue and yearn for it,
Why wonder that the best will not stay here?
A thoroughbred is never so eager that it will pull any wagon,
A phoenix, never so hungry that it will eat anything.
Not knowing the truth you push me away, Lord,
I would give you my all, but how can I now?
Would that I could cut our hearts’ ties in silence,
But I cannot forget what kindness you showed me.
Grieving in solitude will break me,
How far will my misery go?
6
When dew and frost, cold and cruel descended together,7
My heart still hoped it would not come to pass,
But when the blizzard came with hail and snow,
I knew my fate was sealed.
(Though I still await a fluke that might save me)
I will die in the vast plains with the wild grass.
I would have gone directly to him to plead my own case,
But the roads were blocked; I could not get through.
I would have galloped the length of a highway,
But never found the one to take,
So I lost my bearings midroute.
I force myself to study the art of chanting the Songs,8
But I am doltish and unschooled.
Surely I’ll never master them,
I admire the spirit of Shen Baoxu,9
But I’m afraid his time and ours are not the same.
What skill these vulgar craftsmen display,
Compass and try square they destroy and chisel as they please.
I alone, staunch in my craft pride, do not follow them,
For I wish to honor teachings the departed sages bequeathed.
To be glorified while living in a dirty world
Would never bring my heart joy.
Instead of renown among those who have no principles,
Give me poverty, if only to keep me high and apart.
Feed me only food that has not been stolen,
Keep me warm only in clothes honestly come by.
I admire an air handed down by a singer of the Songs,
For it describes my enemies, who do “nothing but eat.”10
Yes, I’ll wear a threadbare robe with no border,
And wander grasslands that never end,
Without a cloak to keep me warm,
And perhaps drop dead and miss sunny spring.
7
Late fall, long silent nights,
My heart grieves, outrage hobbles me,
So many years I’ve lived, so many days,
Only for despair and secret sorrow.
The season turns, harvest ends,
Light and dark exclude me from their circle.
Sun dims on the downslope,
Moon, for wear, loses shape,
Another year runs its short course,
As old age slackens the bowstring.
My heart rocked happy in days full of hope,
But now, hopeless frustration
Brings desolation and woe by the heartful,
And sigh upon heavy sigh.
Endless time goes by with the sun.
I am old and find no shelter in this vast space,
Longing to speed my lord’s relentless progress,
Through the dust of a dead end I pace and pace.
8
How they flood the skies, the floating clouds,
Running in packs that block the light of this moon.
She would show you her shining devotion,
But overcast skies she cannot shine through.
I wish the gleaming sun would light the path,
But darkening clouds stand in the way.
I have no self-interest doing my all for you,
Yet some have smeared such filth on me.
The lofty deeds of Yao and Shun11
Approach the glory of the skies.
Why do the treacherous in their envy
falsely label them unkind?
If dark spots mar the brightness
Of even the moon and sun,
What to expect of one ruling a state,
With its intricate vexations?
9
You drape yourself in a magnificent tunic of lotus leaves,12
But it is too wide to close with a sash.
Proud of your beauty now you vaunt your warriors’ skills,
Turning your back on the upright advisers at your side,
Whose beauty in your eye, as they stammer foreboding, fades,13
But you delight in the high martial spirits of those others,
The crowd that sprints into your presence day after day,
While the beautiful drift farther and farther away.
The peasants have left their plows for lazy pleasures,
The farmlands may soon be overgrown with weeds,
Trammeled by private interests the work of the realm drags.
I fear the looming calamity.
The whole world dazzled by your radiance thunders its support,
Ever blind as to who really merits praise or blame.
As you don your adornment today, look in the mirror—
Later you may need it as a hideaway.
I would send you a message by one of the shooting stars,
But moving so fast they are hard to find.
And floating clouds always block them in the end—
It is gloomy down here without their light.
10
Because they elevated the worthy,
Even the lowly and obscure ones,
Yao and Shun14 could rest easy on high pillows.
If indeed no one in the realm had cause to resent you,
Where would your heart have come by such terror?
When Qi and Ji15 are in the harness and the chariot flows like water,
Why would the driver ever use the heavy whip?
If indeed a city’s inner and outer walls are unstable,
Even with two layers of armor, how will you survive?
I have nothing to show for my care and caution,
Save rancor and sadness and poverty.
I was born, it seems, just to pass between earth and sky.
My projects have failed, I’ll leave no mark.
I would willingly have withdrawn never to appear again,
Were it not for my wish to spread my name all over the world.
I wandered far and wide, yet never met one who understood me—
To put my self through so much pain was simple stupidity.
Over the boundless grasslands,
Where will my restless soaring end?
The state has a good horse, but you don’t know how to drive him.
Why do you so feverishly search elsewhere?
Ning Qi16 sang near the oxcarts.
When Duke Xuan heard, he understood.
If none can now judge a horse as did Bo Le,17
Who would they send to appraise me?
Stop weeping and think.
Only by applying your mind will you succeed.
If you devote your will to proving your loyalty,
The chaotic and envious will only stand in your way.
11
I wish y
ou would let me take my unworthy carcass away from here,
Set me free to let my mind play among the clouds,
To fly where the primal essence congeals into the solar and lunar spheres,
While I pursue the spirit crowds.
Pale rainbows on light wings would draw my chariot across the sky,
Leaving even the myriad spirits behind,
While the Vermilion Bird18 fluttered on my left,
And the green dragon19 leapt on my right.
The thunder god would be there booming in my train,
And Feilian20 would clear the way before me.
In front would be the jingling of light carriages,
Behind would be the rumble of heavy covered wagons,
And undulating cloud banners would fly
Over the cavalry of my airborne retinue.
But my plan would remain fixed and unchangeable,
I would wish to do good by carrying it out,
And relying on the help of August Heaven,
I would return to serve while my lord enjoys health.
NOTES
1. The word 辯 bian, “debate,” aside from being interchangeable with 變 bian, “variation,” is also interchangeable with 貶 bian, “demotion.” The title Jiu bian could also mean Nine Demotions.
2. Hui 蕙 (Ocimum basilicum), or “basil,” appears to stand for the valuable but less assertive, more scholarly advisers among the king’s ministers, in this case the poetic persona himself.
3. Craft imagery such as this was commonly used in the rhetoric of ancient Chinese political theorists in essays and speeches meant to persuade rulers to adopt their systems and policies.
4. These are mythical wonder horses that can run a thousand Chinese miles in a day—stock symbols of capable and loyal ministers
5. This is a not very accurate but almost universal translation of 鳳凰 fenghuang, a mythical bird that presages the advent of a sage-king. It is often used for those whose moral integrity keeps them so aloof from their contemporaries that they are continually out of step—and unemployed. The symbol was applied to Confucius in the Analects by Jieyu 接輿, the madman of Chu. The bird is auspicious but does not rise again from its own ashes.
6. According to legend, Jiang Taigong 姜太公 only revealed his talents as a military strategist at the age of ninety, when he met King Wen of the Zhou dynasty.
7. This poem appears to be about someone who is being sent into exile.
8. This appears to refer to the Book of Songs (詩經 Shijing), which every educated person was supposed to be familiar with, especially those involved in literature or politics and diplomacy. One wonders if such a great poet as Song Yu could have written these lines to describe himself.