The Collected Poems of Li He

by Li He

Preface

  Since the first edition of this work appeared some years ago under the title The Poems of Li Ho (Oxford, 1970) there have been considerable advances in scholarship which made it imperative to augment and revise the original. After years of comparative neglect, Li He suddenly became the focus of critical attention in the late sixties. Since then several new editions of his work have been published, among them the splendid Tang Li He Xie Lü Gou Yuan (Hong Kong, 1973) and the invaluable photolithographic reproduction of a fine Northern Sung edition, Li He Ge Shi Bian (Taibei, 1971). Recent events in China have even permitted a new edition of selections from He’s poems to appear there, though this work, the Li He Shi Xuan (Shanghai, 1978), cannot be regarded as a serious contribution to studies of our poet.

  In Japan, a great deal of critical attention has recently been devoted to Li He, notably by Kusamori Shinichi, whose lengthy and definitive biography of the poet has been appearing serially since 1965, and by Harada Kenyu, whose journal devoted to studies of Li He first came out in 1971. Chinese scholars from Hong Kong and Taiwan have also added to our knowledge of Li He, among them Zhou Cheng-zhen, whose Li He Luan (Hong Kong, 1972) typifies much current research in this area, and Ye Qing-ping.

  In addition, we have benefited from four excellent dissertations on Li He by Maureen Robertson (1970); Yang Zhong-ji (1970); Michael Fish (1973); and Du Guo-jing (1974), all of whom have made further valuable contributions to our understanding of this difficult poet.

  This edition has therefore incorporated many augmentations and revisions to both the poems and the introduction which have been suggested by such recent scholarship, full details of which appear in the bibliography. Though annotation of the poems has been cut to a minimum, it may still appear excessive to some readers. I can only plead that Li He is such a recondite poet that the Chinese assert that “his work cannot be read without a commentary.” If even Chinese readers need explanatory notes, then Western readers can hardly be expected to understand this poet without some assistance.

  Finally, since pin-yin romanization has now been generally adopted in Western publications, I have used this system throughout.

  J. D. Frodsham

  Murdoch University,

  Perth, Western Australia

  Du Mu’s Preface to the Songs and Poems of Li Chang-ji

  In the tenth month of the fifth year of the Tai-he period (A.D. 831) there came a sudden shout outside my house at midnight from someone bearing me a letter. “This must be something out of the ordinary,” I exclaimed, as I hurriedly took a torch and went outside. When I opened it, it turned out to be a letter from the Scholar of the Hall of Assembled Sages, Shen Zi-ming, which read:

  During the Yüan-he period my dead friend Li He and I were very loyal and affectionate to each other. Day and night we rose and rested, ate and drank together. When He was dying, he gave me all the songs and poems he had written during his lifetime. These were divided into four sections, numbering 233 pieces altogether. For several years now I have been wandering all over the place, till I had begun to think these poems were already lost. Tonight as the wine wore off me, I found I could not get to sleep again, so I decided to go through my trunks and set things in order. Suddenly I came across the poems which He had given me and my thoughts turned to days gone by. I recollected all my conversations and pleasant outings with him. Every place, every season, every day, every night, every goblet, every meal came back to me with such clarity, no detail forgotten, that I found myself shedding tears.

  Since He no longer has a family or children that I can support or sympathize with, I regret that all I have done up to now has been to think of him and enjoy his words as I recited them. You have always been very good to me. Would you now somewhat solace my thoughts by writing a preface to He’s works for me, explaining their worth?

  I was unable that night to send him a letter saying I could not do this, but went to see him next day to excuse myself from this task, remarking that people considered that He’s genius surpassed those of his predecessors.

  For several days after this refusal I pondered this matter, reflecting that Shen had a profoundly subtle and extraordinarily comprehensive knowledge of poetry as well as a thorough understanding of both He’s poetic abilities and his shortcomings. Hence if I did not definitely decline to write this preface I would certainly leave him dissatisfied. What could I do then but go and make my excuses to him once more, explaining to him in detail why I did not dare write a preface to He’s works? However, he insisted that I must write it or he would feel humiliated, so that I did not dare refuse again. I have tried my best to write this preface but am still very much ashamed of it.

  He was a descendant of the Tang imperial house. He was styled Chang-ji. During the Yüan-he period, Han Yü, the President of the Ministry of Civil Office, praised his songs and poems. Clouds and mist gently intermingling cannot describe his manner; limitless waters cannot describe his feelings; the verdure of spring cannot describe his warmth; the clarity of autumn cannot describe his style; a mast in the wind, a horse in the battle-line cannot describe his courage; earthenware coffins and tripods with seal-characters cannot describe his antiquity; seasonal blossoms and lovely girls cannot describe his ardour; fallen kingdoms and ruined palaces, thorny thickets and gravemounds cannot describe his resentment and sorrow; whales yawning, turtles spurting, ox-ghosts, and serpent-spirits cannot describe his wildness and extravagance.

  He is in the tradition of the Li Sao. Even though he does not come up to it in high seriousness he sometimes surpasses it in expression. The Li Sao is full of resentment and criticism of the rule and misrule of princes and ministers. Often it goads men into thought; though this quality is sometimes lacking in He’s work. He has the ability to delve into the past. Heaving deep sighs, he would grieve over things which nobody had ever recounted either now or in days gone by. We may instance his Song of the Brazen Immortal Bidding Farewell to Han, or the songs in which he supplemented the Palace Poetry of Yü Chian-wu of Liang. In hunting out facts and collecting material he broke with tradition and went far into the distance along paths of the brush and ink. We cannot really claim to understand him.

  He died when he was twenty-seven. We, his contemporaries, all believe that if he had added a little more high seriousness to his work and had not died when he did, he could have treated the Li Sao itself as his servant.

  I, Du Mu of Jing-zhao, write this preface some fifteen years after He’s death.

  Introduction

  Li He, styled Chang-ji, a native of Fu-chang country, Henan, was born in A.D. 790, the year of the Horse, to a minor branch of the imperial house of Tang. There has been some dispute about the precise year of his birth, some scholars arguing that it took place in A.D. 791. But the weight of the evidence suggests that he was born in a Horse year, since he wrote no less than twenty-three poems in which the horse stands as a symbol for himself. Though his connection with the imperial family is well established, we have no precise details about his relationship to them, for his name is missing from the Genealogical Tables of the Imperial House as set out in the New Tang History. Several sources assert that he was a descendant of a certain Prince Zheng: but since there were no less than three princes of that name in the Tang royal house we cannot be sure with which one he was connected, though it is likely that the prince in question was the thirteenth son of the founder of the dynasty.

  Though several of He’s relatives held offices of great distinction in the mid-Tang period, his immediate family gained very little besides respect from his kinship with royalty, for neither wealth nor honors accrued to it from this connection. He’s father, Li Jin-su, never rose high in the official hierarchy, attaining only the magistrateship of a county, a post of the fifth rank. His sole claim to fame lies in his friendship with the great poet Du Fu (712–70), to whom he was distantly related as a twenty-ninth younger cousin, and who once wrote a farewell poem to him. Jinsu died before He was eighteen, leaving the boy to make his own way in the wo
rld with nothing but his admittedly extraordinary talents to recommend him. The family’s lack of status and consequent neglect by the official historians and local gazetteers involves the historian in considerable difficulties when it comes to finding out something about He himself, since very little information can be obtained from any reliable sources. What we do know is all too often fragmentary and tantalizingly vague. We are aware, for example, that He’s mother, née Zheng, came in all probability from the Zhengs of Henan, who were one of the most distinguished families of the period. We know also that he had an elder sister who married into the Wang clan, as well as a younger brother, whom he mentions several times in his poems. But apart from these, he and his widowed mother, to whom he was devoted, would appear to have had no other immediate family.

  Several commentators have maintained however that He had several elder brothers and a wife. The first assertion is based merely on a misunderstanding of the term Xiung, which is often used in the sense of “elder kinsman of the same generation” and does not necessarily mean “elder brother.” If He had really had fourteen elder brothers, as some critics would have us believe, it is likely that some of them at least would have survived him. But in fact, his friend, Shen Zi-ming, writing only fifteen years after He’s death, says explicitly that He had no brothers, sisters, or children left alive.

  The question of whether he had a wife or not is more difficult to resolve. It seems highly unlikely that he would have been married, since during this period it was unusual for any scholar to take a wife until after he had gained his doctorate and been given an official post. Moreover marriage was an expensive business since the bridegroom had both to provide a dowry and pay for the wedding. He could hardly have afforded to do this since he was supporting both his widowed mother and his younger brother. Furthermore, the case for his having had a wife rests on nothing more substantial than his use of the term qing-qing (“my dear one”) in one of his poems. This is very flimsy evidence indeed. We should note, also, that Li Shang-yin (812–58), one of his earliest biographers, makes no mention of any wife of He’s being present at his death bed and has to rely on the testimony of his elder sister. The scholars—most of them Chinese—who naively insist that He must have been married, simply because he wrote numerous love poems, would seem to be merely over-anxious to assure us that he was a respectable citizen who did not squander his substance on singing girls. It seems to me that the Qing commentator, Yao Wen-xie, who asserted that He’s death was brought about by “sexual dissipation,” as with the protagonists of so many Chinese novels, was possibly nearer the truth of the matter, in the light of evidence provided by the poems, than those who would make our poet into a pillar of domestic sobriety. Perhaps the main obstacle encountered by the historian is the fact that He’s collected works, which might have been a valuable source of information about the writer’s life, consist only of poems, songs, and ballads—some 242 in all—while prose works, invariably a much richer digging-ground for the biographer, are totally lacking. (Two of the poems are held to be forgeries, thus reducing the number to 240.) Since Du Fu has some 1,500 poems extant, Bo Ju-yi 2,900, Li Bo 1,400, and Han Yu 400, this is a very small number indeed. The Tang writer, Zhang Gu, has a story which explains this. He alleges that Li Pan, a Vice-President of the Ministry of Rites, was a great admirer of He’s work. After He’s death Li Pan handed over all his songs and poems to an elder cousin of He’s and asked him to correct them. This cousin, who had often been slighted by He, took revenge by throwing the lot down the privy. This dearth of biographical material means that He is all poet; the man himself has become almost as shadowy a figure as Qu Yuan, reputed author of the Li Sao from which He drew so much of his own inspiration. The faded picture can at best only be restored a little through a perusal of his poems; the lineaments of that vanished face conjured up again through such brief biographies and anecdotes as have come down to us. Consider for a moment He’s official biography as recorded in the New Tang History (Xin Tang-shu), written some 250 years after his death:

  Li He, styled Chang-ji, was a descendant of Prince Zheng. When only seven years old he could write verse. When Han Yu and Huang-fu Shi first heard of this, they could not believe it, so they called at his house and asked him to write a poem. He picked up his writing brush and dashed one off as though he were merely copying it out, giving it the title: The Tall Official Carriage Comes on a Visit. Both men were flabbergasted. From this time on he was famous. Li He was frail and thin, with eyebrows that met together and long fingernails. He wrote at great speed. Every day at dawn he would leave the house riding a colt, followed by a servant-lad with an antique tapestry bag on his back. When inspiration struck him, he would write the verses down and drop them in the bag. He never wrote poems on a given topic, forcing his verses to conform to the theme, as others do. At nightfall he would go home and work these verses into a finished poem. If he was not blind drunk or in mourning, every day was spent like this. Once he had written a poem he did not greatly care what became of it. His mother used to have her maid rummage through the bag and when she saw that he had written so much she would exclaim angrily: “This boy of mine won’t be content until he has vomited out his heart.” Because his father’s name was Jin-su, he was not allowed to sit for the Doctoral examination. Han Yu wrote his Essay on Taboo Names on his behalf; but he was never accepted as a candidate. His verse delights in the extraordinary. Everything he wrote was startlingly outstanding, breaking with accepted literary tradition. None of his contemporaries could follow him in this. He wrote dozens of ballads which the Yun-shao musicians set to music. He became a Harmoniser of Pitch-pipes, dying when he was twenty-seven sui.

  His friends Quan Qu, Yang Jing-zhi and Wang Gong-yuan frequently made off with what he wrote. This fact, coupled with his premature death, has resulted in very few of his poems and songs coming down to us.

  This account, which is largely based on the short biographies which the poets Du Mu (803–52) and Li Shang-yin wrote for He’s collected poems, tells us very little indeed. The lack of a solidly based biography means that He has been romanticised more than most Chinese poets of his stature. The Li He of literary legend is the demon-talented (guei-cai) poet, tall and cadaverous, his hair white as snow round his haggard face, who on his deathbed is summoned to heaven by a spirit-messenger riding a red dragon. Such legends have their uses, for they direct us to an important truth about the poet; namely, that his verse and his personality alike were considered odd both by his contemporaries and by later critics. He is, in fact, close to the Western idea of the poète maudit—and this is not a stock type of literary man at all in China. Chinese poets were almost invariably members of the bureaucracy, cultivated officials who yet secreted poetry as naturally as oysters produce pearls. For the Chinese, the poetic vocation and the official career have never been at variance. To attain a post at all one had of necessity to be something of a poet, since the passing of the government examinations demanded considerable poetic proficiency of all aspirants to office. This was true of most periods of Chinese history, but never more so than during the Tang dynasty, when poetic talent alone could steer one through the examinations, though the poet Meng Jiao (751–814) once wrote sardonically: “Bad poetry makes you an official. Good poetry leaves you on a lonely hill.” In short, Flaubert’s dictum: “Les honneurs déshonorent, le titre dégrade, la fonction abrutit” (“Honours dishonour, titles degrade, office brutalises”), would have been quite incomprehensible in China to anyone but a Taoist hermit. The Chinese gentleman sought office, first and foremost: everything else—fame, riches, literary renown—was subordinate to this great aim, could hardly indeed be won without the fulfillment of it.

  It was Li He’s great misfortune never to have attained high office. His failure to do so was all the more humiliating since he was not only renowned for his literary talents but had for his patron one of the most eminent literary men of the time, the great Confucian scholar, Han Yu (768–824). To understand the importance o
f this, one must realize that to be sure of success in the examination system of the time, it was not enough to be merely talented. One had in addition to secure the support of a powerful patron who would act as a guarantor and later on further one’s official career. To be sure, Han Yu was not as highly esteemed by his contemporaries as he was by later generations, but he was nevertheless a most eminent, if controversial, writer. One story of He’s first encounter with Han Yu has already been mentioned in the brief biography given above. Another and rather more likely version, given by the Tang writer, Zhang Gu, has He visiting Yu, not at seven years of age but on the eve of his sitting for the examinations, when he was nineteen or so: “Li He went to visit Han Yu, taking with him his songs and poems. Han Yu at that time held the post of Doctoral Professor at the Luo-yang branch of the University of Sons of State. He had just returned home exhausted after seeing off some guests when his gatekeeper presented the scrolls to him. He loosened his girdle and began to read the first poem: Ballad of the Grand Warden of Goose Gate, which begins:

  Black clouds whelm on the city,

  Till it seems the city must yield.

  Our chain-mail glitters under the sun,

  Metal scales agape.

  Having read these lines, he immediately fastened his girdle again and gave orders to invite He in.

  Whatever the truth of such stories, there can be no doubt that He did succeed at an early age in attracting the attention of two influential patrons, Han Yu and Huang-fu Shi, the latter being one of the brighter stars of Han Yu’s literary coterie. He seems to have been on especially intimate terms with Huang-fu Shi—a surprising fact, in view of the latter’s notorious irascibility—and wrote at least four poems in his honour. However, since Shi had become involved in an examination scandal in 808, He found himself solely dependent on the good offices of Han Yu, whose support was especially valuable since practically every candidate who had enlisted his backing had succeeded brilliantly.