The Selected Poems of Tu Fu

by Tu Fu

  A GUEST

  2 Ch’i-sited: The site for a new house would be chosen with the help of a diviner who used a divining rod and a special type of astrological compass. It was thought that the different features of a landscape determine the movement of ch’i, the universal breath or life-giving principle. A site would be chosen by determining how a family’s particular characteristics (in this case, a leading consideration was Tu’s health problems) harmonized with these movements. The Chinese word for asthma (huan-ch’i) literally means “afflicted ch’i.”

  A FARMER

  7 Ko-hung: p. 134.

  8 Cinnabar: the principle ingredient in the legendary elixir of immortality. This red, naturally occurring substance is rich in mercury, which explains the often lethal effects of such elixirs.

  THE FARMHOUSE

  8 Cormorants: Unlike most waterbirds, cormorants have no oil glands, so they spread their wings to dry them in the sun. As the people of this region used trained cormorants for fishing, their presence is perhaps a comfort for Tu—an image of the tenuous security his impoverished family has found. But at the same time, these large black birds cannot help but recall the frightening crows which keep reappearing in Tu’s poems (one Chinese name for the cormorant is “shui-lao-ya,” “old water crow”).

  A MADMAN

  2 Angler of Ts’ang-lang: a sagely, reclusive fisherman who drifts calmly with the process of change. See “The Fisherman” (“Yü Fu”) in the Ch’u Tz’u (p. 143).

  OUR SOUTHERN NEIGHBOR

  1 Chin-li: Brocade District, the area around Ch’eng-tu.

  THROUGH CENSOR TS’UI I SEND A QUATRAIN TO KAO SHIH

  T Kao Shih: the eminent poet whom Tu Fu met with Li Po in 744. Also exiled with the Fang Kuan circle, Kao was serving as prefect nearby.

  MORNING RAIN

  5–6 Huang and Ch’i… Ch’ao and Yu: unregenerate recluses who wouldn’t trade away their solitude even when offered the nation. The former date from the second/ third centuries B.C. For the latter two, see p. 138.

  SPRING NIGHT, DELIGHTED BY RAIN

  8 City of Brocade Officers: The brocades made at Ch’eng-tu were once soprized by China’s emperors that they appointed brocade officers in the city to preside over the work.

  TWO IMPROMPTUS

  1.6 Master of cap-strained wine: T’ao Yüan-ming (p. 137), who was famous for his love of wine. Being poor, he strained homemade wine through his cap.

  2.7 Tu Fu’s note: “He is a recluse in the Eastern Mountains.” O-mel, one of those mountains, is southwest of Ch’eng-tu.

  FOUR RHYMES AT FENG-CHI POST-STATION:

  A SECOND FAREWELL TO YEN WU

  T Yen Wu:pp.126–27.

  WAYHOUSE

  5 This line is a highly condensed variation on Tao Te Ching, 27: “The enlightened one, ever masterful at saving people, abandons no one, and ever masterful at saving things, abandons nothing.”

  9/9, ON TZU-CHOU CITY WALL

  T 9/9:p.137.

  FAREWELL AT FANG KUAN’S GRAVE

  T Fang Kuan: Tu Fu’s friend and political patron, and one of the preeminent statesmen of the age. The previous November, returning from exile (p. 123), he died while staying at a monastery near Tzu-chou.

  T Hsieh An: a highly cultivated recluse (320–385) who reluctantly entered government service. His armies fought a decisive battle which would determine the fate of China. The outcome was anxiously awaited by everyone, but Hsieh was playing go when news of a sweeping Chinese victory arrived, and it is said that he continued playing without any sign of emotion.

  6 Hsü: On a diplomatic mission, Chi Cha (6th c. B.C.) visited the king of Hsü. When the king admired his sword, Chi Cha decided to give it to him after completing his mission. When he returned, however, he found that the king had died, so he hung the sword beside the king’s grave as an offering.

  SIX QUATRAINS

  T In addition to being highly integrated thematically and imagistically, this sequence is unified by following the course of a single day from morning until night, a day punctuated in section 4 by a violent thunderstorm.

  K’UEI-CHOU

  CH’U SOUTHLANDS

  T Ch’u: The region Tu Fu is now entering was once controlled by Ch’u, the ancient state Ch’ü Yüan served.

  IMPROMPTU

  2 Second watch: There were five watches inthe night, two hours each, beginning at 7 p.m. and ending at 5 am.

  K’UEI-CHOU’S HIGHEST TOWER

  5 Great Mulberry: The sun is, according to myth, ten crows —one for each day of the week. Each day, one sun-crow rises from the Great Mulberry (fu-sang) in the far east. After setting, it waits in the branches of this tree until its turn to rise comes again, ten days later.

  6 Jo River: a mythic river of ether-like liquid where the sun goes down in the far west.

  7 Goosefoot: a shrub with leaves that resemble goose feet.

  BALLAD OF THE FIREWOOD HAULERS

  16 Chao-chün: Wang Chao-chun (Wang Ch’iang) was a legendary beauty of the Han Dynasty.

  8-PART BATTLE FORMATION

  T 8-Part Battle Formation: a group of large megaliths standing in the Yangtze near K’uei-chou. Although they probably date from very ancient times, legend had it that Chu-ko Liang (181–234) built them during a military expedition against the state of Wu which ended disastrously for his forces. Chu-ko Liang was a paradigmatic scholar-recluse turned state minister.

  BALLAD OF THE ANCIENT CYPRESS

  1 It was believed that Chu-ko Liang had planted this cypress himself, so a temple was built beside it in his honor.

  8 Snow Mountains: a range in western Szechwan.

  9 Brocade Pavilion: the pavilion Tu Fu built at his hermitage in Ch’eng-tu.

  10 Near Ch’eng-tu there was a temple devoted to both Chu-ko Liang and the king he served so well, which apparently had two large and ancient cypresses on its grounds.

  16 Creation: p. 133.

  SKIES CLEAR AT DUSK

  1 Failing flare: literally “return shine” (fan-chao), that time shortly after the sun sets, when the colors return for a last few minutes with their greatest intensity.

  OVERNIGHT AT THE RIVERSIDE TOWER

  8 Heaven and Earth: p. 141.

  NIGHT

  4 Fulling-stick: pp. 143–44.

  5 This is Tu Fu’s second autumn in the south.

  5 Geese: p. 143.

  7 Cowherd: Altair (p. 155).

  Northern Dipper: our Big Dipper.

  8 Silver River: the Milky Way.

  Phoenix city: an honorific name for China’s capital, implying that a benevolent and wise ruler is on the throne there (the mythic phoenix appears only in times of peace and sagacious rule).

  BRIDAL CHAMBER

  4 Dragon Lake: part of the Hsing-ch’ing Palace complex in eastern Ch’ang-an.

  REFLECTIONS IN AUTUMN

  “Reflections in Autumn” is frequently nominated as the greatest poem in Chinese literature. Leaving aside concerns of content, the poem’s achievement lies in its symbolist poetics; its calculated use of syntactic ambiguity (it contains the first instance of this in the Chinese tradition); its profound and sustained complexity; and its innovative form: the lyric sequence.

  The poem’s meditation moves between two halves of a dichotomy, each of which includes many closely interrelated elements. On the one hand is K’uei-chou. The elements included here are: present; reality; immediate perception; fact; mortality; insecurity; poverty; war; disorder; absence of civilization; the deteriorated contemporary T’ang Dynasty (as opposed to the splendid prerebellion T’ang of Tu Fu’s earlier life at the capital); the T’ang Dynasty (as opposed to the Han which was, in Tu Fu’s mind, the pinnacle of Chinese civilization).

  Occupying the other half of this dichotomy is Ch’ang-an, the capital. The elements included here are: past; dream/imagination/reminiscence; desire; myth; immortality; home; security (court appointment); prosperity; peace; order; civilization; the pre-rebellion T’ang Dynasty (as opposed to the deterior
ated contemporary T’ang); the Han Dynasty, which also had Ch’ang-an as its capital, especially Emperor Wu’s reign (as opposed to the T’ang).

  Although at least some attention is directed toward each half of the dichotomy in every poem, in the first three poems it is centered in K’uei-chou (these poems form a progression from evening to the following morning). Poem 4 is transitional. And in poems 5–8, it is centered in Ch’ang-an, although it is always heavily weighted with irony, and the imaginative energy which carries it there inevitably collapses in the final couplet.

  For a close reading of this difficult poem (and the Chinese poetic language itself), see Mei Tzu-lin in the bibliography.

  1.2 Wu Gorge: the second of the three awesome gorges which begin at K’uei-chou. Here, as is often the case with Tu Fu, the term refers to Three Gorges as a whole.

  1.5 This is Tu’s second autumn in the south.

  2.3 Gibbon’s voice…: from an old fisherman’s song:

  Three gorges east of Pa—Wu Gorge the longest.

  After a gibbon’s third cry, tears stain my clothes.

  2.4 September raft: After flowing out to sea in the east, the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers ascend and rarify, becoming the Celestial River (Milky Way). The Celestial River crosses the sky, then descends in the west to form the headwaters of the Yangtze and Yellow. The September raft refers to an empty raft that floated past the home of a Yangtze fisherman every September. The fisherman, thinking this strange, boarded the raft one year. He drifted downstream and out to sea. For the first ten days, the sun, moon and stars appeared normal. Then they grew indistinct, as did night and day. After another ten days, he came to a city where he saw a girl weaving cloth in a palace and, across the river he realized he was on, he saw a young cowherd watering his cows. When he asked the girl where they were, she gave him the shuttle from her loom and told him to show it to Yen Chün-p’ing who would answer his questions. The fisherman left and, some time later, arrived in Szechwan (hence he is returning to China from the west). There he found Yen Chün-p’ing, a famous astrologer. Yen identified the shuttle and told the fisherman that he had seen a wandering star come between Weaving Maid and Cowherd (Vega and Altair, on opposite sides of the Celestial River—p. 155) for one night. The date which he gave for this celestial event coincided exactly with the fisherman’s discovery of the weaving girl and the cowherd. The same legend is told of Chang Ch’ien (p. 142), who was sent by the Han emperor Wu to find the source of the Yellow River. After sailing far upstream, he also found himself on the Celestial River, encountering a nearly identical sequence of experiences, although he returned back down the Yellow River to Ch’ang-an. In one version of this story, Chang Ch’ien sail as far as the palace gardens of Hsi Wang Mu (p. 154). This double allusion mirrors the poem’s interest divided between K’uei-chou (Yangtze River) and Ch’ang-an (Yellow River).

  Stray journey: Tu Fu calls his journey “stray” because he has gone nowhere and, unlike the mythic travelers, he will never return.

  2.5 Incense and ministerial portraits: Incense was burned to scent the robes of officials serving in the Department of State Affairs (shang-shu sheng) at the capital, where portraits of eminent statesmen hung. When he served as a military advisor in Ch’eng-tu, Tu Fu was connected to a branch of this department.

  3.56 K’uang Heng… Liu Hsiang: K’uang’s admonitions and Liu’s devotion to scholarship were highly valued by their Han emperor. Quite the opposite was true for Tu Fu. In sum, the Confucian order had collapsed.

  3.8 Five Tombs: built in Ch’ang-an during the Han Dynasty to honor five valiant heroes.

  4.1 Chessboard: Ch’ang-an is compared to a chessboard because of the many armies that had recently fought back and forth across the checkerboard grid of its streets (and perhaps also because little besides that grid remained of the city). Very similar to western chess, Chinese chess represents a battle between two armies (the king’s Chinese counterpart is a general).

  4.5 Gongs and drums: Gongs were used by the military to sound retreat, drums signaled attack.

  4.6 Feathered messages: Urgent messages were marked with a feather.

  5.14 The first three couplets of this section are a nostalgic recreation of dynastic fortune at its height (in the Confucian order, a rich and peaceful court would be synonymous with a rich and prosperous country). But at the same time, the first two couplets are a kind of dreamscape (leading into the dream-like memory of Tu’s life at court in the third) filled with supernatural scenes associated with the unsavory Taoist pursuit of immortality. Emperor Hsüan-tsung became obsessed with this pursuit, and his obsession is usually given as one of the principle reasons for the T’ang’s collapse. Commentators see in Hsi Wang Mu an allusion to the other reason: Hsüan-tsung’s favorite concubine, Yang Kuei-fei.

  P’eng-lai: P’eng-lai Palace, part of the emperor’s palace complex in Ch’ang-an, which was named after the island of the immortals in the Eastern Sea (p. 134).

  South Mountain: in terms of esoteric Taoism, a symbol of longevity (cf. p. 136).

  Gold stalks: statues of immortals holding pans to collect dew. They were built in Ch’ang-an by Emperor Wu. Dew is one of the principle ingredients in the elixir of immortality, which is central to the Taoist endeavor.

  Hsi Wang Mu: queen of the immortals and a central figure in Taoist mythology. She lived in a palace on Jasper Lake (p. 20) among the peaks of the mythic K’un-lun Mountains in the far west. She controlled the constellations, and the fabulous gardens of her palace produced the magic peaches of immortality.

  Purple mist: According to Taoist mythology, purple mist accompanied Lao Tzu on his journey west out of China. In the tradition of the esoteric school of Taoism, Lao Tzu was on his way to Hsi Wang Mu’s palace. However, Lao Tzu’s journey introduces a complicating counterpoint here: according to the folklore of philosophic Taoism, the Taoist tradition which Tu Fu took seriously, Lao Tzu left China in despair at the ways of men, a sentiment very much present in “Reflections in Autumn.”

  6.1 Ch’u-t’ang Gorge: the first of the Three Gorges, beginning at K’uei-chou.

  Meandering River: p. 136.

  6.3 Calyx Tower: part of Hsing-ch’ing Palace, on the eastern edge of Ch’ang-an, which was connected to Meandering River Park by a private arcade. Quite enthralled with Yang Kuei-fei and the Taoist pursuit of immortality, the emperor withdrew into this complex and began neglecting state affairs, a self-indulgence which soon led to disaster for China.

  Frontier grief: the grief caused by the wars which were being fought at the time.

  6.4 Hibiscus Park: Meandering River Park, where the emperor conducted lavish entertainment on land and afloat.

  6.7 Land of song and dance: borrowed from the concluding lines of “Chant for White Hair,” a long lament on the fleeting nature of life by Sung Chih-wen (d. 712):

  And of ancient, enduring lands of song and dance, nothing Beyond brown twilight in sight, and twittering sparrow sorrows.

  6.8 Ch’in: the Ch’ang-an region (p. 135).

  7.1 K’un-ming: lake built near Ch’ang-an as a training site for Emperor Wu’s naval forces.

  7.3 Weaving Maid: For the Chinese, the story of Weaving Maid (Chih Nü) and her husband, Cowherd (Ch’ien Niu), is one of the most familiar myths. They are identified as stars facing one another across the Celestial River—Vega and Altair, respectively (with two small stars beside Vega as their twin children). In one version of the myth, Weaving Maid lived beside the Celestial River, where she wove the cloth of sky with its pattern of clouds. Her father arranged her marriage to Cowherd, who lived on the opposite bank of the river. Once they were married, however, the lovers were so entranced with one another that the girl neglected her weaving. Consequently, she was sent back to her loom. Since then, the two have been allowed to meet only one night each year, on the 7th day of the 7th month, when magpies form a bridge across the river. When forced to part at the end of the night, they weep bitterly, which is why there are heavy rains in autumn. Another ver
sion of this legend has it that Weaving Maid is the granddaughter of Hsi Wang Mu, and that Hsi Wang Mu created the Celestial River to separate the two lovers. Statues of Weaving Maid and Cowherd stood on opposite sides of K’un-ming Lake, thus making it a kind of man-made Celestial River.

  7.4 Stone whale: There was a stone whale in the lake which was thought to embody the spirit controlling storms and winds. When the scales of this “whale” shook, it was supposed to augur disaster. In the poem, this statue has ominously usurped the place of Weaving Maid’s husband.

  7.5 Zizania: ku-mi, a close relative of North American wild rice.

  8.1–2 In his years at Ch’ang-an, Tu Fu frequented these famous places.

  8.3–4 These two lines are equally contorted in the original.

  8.7 Florid brush: When he was young, Chiang Yen (443–504) had a dream in which he was given a pen that produced flowers. From then on, his writing was far more elegant than it had been before. Ten years later, in another dream, the pen was reclaimed and Chiang Yen’s writing began to fail. Chiang Yen literally means “river” + “tarry” or “drown.”

  DAWN AT WEST TOWER, FOR YÜAN

  4 Jade String: constellation (p. 139).

  NIGHT AT THE TOWER

  4 River of stars: one more appellation for the Milky Way.

  7 Chu-ko Liang: p. 149.

  Pai-ti: first-century founder of K’uei-chou. In stark contrast to the impeccable Chu-ko Liang, Pai-ti was an infamous minister turned rebel and warlord.

  RIVER PLUMS

  1 La Festival: The earliest celebration for the New Year, the La Festival falls about two weeks before the lunar New Year.