The Selected Poems of Li Po
Page 6
58 Another kind of yüeh-fu, the traditional form for poems of social protest, which allows rather extreme metrical irregularities. As is often the case with T’ang Dynasty yüeh-fu, it is set in the Han Dynasty—a convention used when the poem was likely to offend those in power (here the protest would be against the expansionist militarism of the government). The speaker here is a soldier.
HSIUNG-NU: war-like nomadic peoples occupying vast regions from Mongolia to Central Asia during the Han Dynasty. They were a constant menace on China’s northern frontier.
60 CH’IN: see note for p. 28.
61 SILKWORMS… SLEPT THREE TIMES: Silkworms, which feed on mulberry leaves, go through three or four cycles of feeding and sleeping each spring and summer before spinning their cocoons.
68 HSIEH T’IAO: 5th-century poet remembered for his landscape poems.
74 CHAO: A native Japanese, Chao went to China as a young man to complete his education. He remained there and rose to high office. In A.D. 753, he tried to return to Japan, but his ship was blown off course and wrecked. Chao survived, but when Li Po wrote this poem, it was apparently thought that he had perished.
91 PHOENIX: The mythic phoenix appears only in times of peace and sagacious rule, which was certainly not the case during the An Lu-shan rebellion when this poem was written.
WU… CHIN: The ancient kingdom of Wu and the Chin Dynasty both had their capitals at Chin-ling.
93 HSIEH AN: One of Li Po’s favorite historical figures, Hsieh An (A.D. 320-385) lived as a scholar-recluse until the country’s difficulties required that he enter government service. North China had already fallen to invading “barbarians.” When their armies advanced on the south, Hsieh led an outnumbered Chinese army that repelled them, thereby saving China from being completely overrun.
94 NORTHERN DIPPER… SOUTHERN WINNOW: constellations.
95 KINSMAN: Li Yung, who was executed on trumped-up charges by Li Lin-fu, the notorious prime minister who was currently doing such damage to the country.
97 9/9: the 9th day of the 9th month, a holiday celebrated by climbing to a mountaintop and drinking chrysanthemum wine, which was believed to enhance longevity.
99 GEESE: traditionally associated with letters from loved ones far away.
100 THREE GORGES: a set of three spectacular gorges formed where the Yangtze River cut its way through the formidable Wu Mountains, forming a two-hundred-mile stretch of very narrow canyons. Famous in Chinese poetry for the river’s violence and the towering cliffs alive with shrieking gibbons, travel through them was very dangerous. The three gorges are: Ch’ü-t’ang Gorge, which begins at Kuei-chou; Wu Gorge; and furthest downsteam, Huang-niu Gorge, the first Li Po would encounter on his journey upstream.
101 SHUN: last emperor of China’s legendary Golden Age (regnant 2255-2208 B.C.). After his death, the world began to decline.
109 BLACK OX … WHITE CRANE: animals the immortals typically rode in their celestial journeys.
110 MOON-RABBIT: According to popular myth, there is a rabbit on the moon under a cinnamon tree. There it pounds a balm of immortality using, among other things, sap and bark from the tree.
TIMELESS FU-SANG TREE: The sun is, also according to popular myth, ten crows— one for each day of the week. Each day, one sun-crow rises from the vast fu-sang (mulberry) tree in the far east. After setting, it waits in the tree’s branches until its turn to rise comes again, ten days later.
123 SOUTH MOUNTAIN: see note for p. 52.
FINDING LIST
TEXTS:
Li T’ai-po shih chi. Wang Chi, ed. 1759. SPPY (Chüan and page number).
Li Po chi chiao chu. Ch’ü Shui-yüan, ed. 1980. (Page number; and for poems with multiple sections, section number in parenthesis).
PAGE 1. Li T’ai-po
shih chi 2. Li Po chi
chiao chu
3 23.10a 1355
4 8.12a 566
5 15.18a 941
6 21.11a 1238
8 20.12a 1180
9 23.8a 1349
10 3.28b 267
11 30.11a 1715
12 4.19a 326
14 30.7b 1708
15 15.15b 935
16 25.11a 1465(11)
17 5.12a 374(1,3)
18 23.8a 1348
19 25.1b 1438
20 25.1la 1465(7,9)
22 23.la 1325
23 20.1a 1149
24 20.1a 1150
25 6.13a 455
26 4.1a 279
27 23.7b 1347
28 23.7a 1345
29 6.11a 448
30 2.7b 110
31 23.5a 1340
32 19.2b 1095
33 22.11a 1291
34 22.11b 1292
35 15.12b 928
36 20.3a 1154(1)
41 30.5b 1727(3)
42 5.12a 374
43 23.2b 1331(1-3)
46 23.12b 1361
47 25.11a 1465(5)
48 3.19b 244
49 20.9a 1170
50 21.5a 1222
51 24.21a 1422(1)
52 22.11b 1293
53 25.14b 1476
54 30.4b 1700
55 13.5b 836
56 16.19a 988
57 23.l0a 1354
58 3.12a 222
60 23.7b 1348
61 13.13a 858
63 23.1a 1326
64 15.12b 928
65 30.8b 1711
66 17.19b 1042(3)
67 23.10a 1354
68 21.16b 1254
69 22.21a 1316(3)
70 22.21a 1316(10)
71 18.13b 1077
72 25.26b 1507
73 24.19b 1416
74 25.25a 1503
75 20.19a 1198
76 20.14b 1186
78 8.1a 533 (1,5,6,8,9,
10,11,12,
13,14,15,
17)
85 20.14a 1183
86 8.16b 579
87 20.20b 1203
91 21.9b 1234
92 22.14b 1299(3)
93 22.20b 1314
94 24.2b 1373(6)
5 25.5a 1447
96 23.9a 1351
97 20.22b 1207
98 20.22b 1208
99 25.23a 1497
100 22.7a 1278
101 22.7a 1278
103 23.14b 1367
104 22.8a 1280
105 20.17b 1194(2,5)
106 21.15a 1250
107 21.15b 1251
108 23.9b 1353
109 23.9a 1350
110 24.2b 1373(9)
111 21.17a 1256
112 23.9a 1352
113 23.5b 1341
115 23.5b 1341
116 22.8b 1283
117 18.1a 1047
118 23.5a 1340
119 24.23a 1427
120 6.9b 443
121 25.10b 1464
122 24.19b 1416
123 24.19a 1414
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alley, Rewi. Li Pai: 200 Selected Poems. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1980.
Billeter, Jean Franois. The Chinese Art of Writing. New York: Rizzoli, 1990.
Pages 192-195 of this book contain a color reproduction of the only surviving piece of calligraphy that can be attributed to Li Po, as well as a splendid stroke-by-stroke description of how Li Po’s character is revealed in his calligraphic art.
Birch, Cyril. Anthology of Chinese Literature: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century. New York: Grove Press, 1965.
Cheng, Franois. Chinenese Poetic Writing: With an Anthology of T’ang Poetry. Chinese trans. J. P. Seaton. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1982.
Cooper, Arthur. Li Po and Tu Fu. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973.
Eide, Elling. “On Li Po.” In Perspectives on the T’ang. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1973.
————. Poems by Li Po. Lexington: Anvil Press, 1984.
Hamill, Sam. Banished Immortal: Visions of Li T’ai-po. Fredonia: White Pine Press, 1987.
Liu Wu-chi, and Irving Yucheng Lo. Su
nflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1975.
Nienhauser, William. The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1986.
Owen, Stephen. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High Tang. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1981.
————. Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
Pound, Ezra. “Cathay.” In Person: The Shorter Poems. Revised edition. New York: New Directions, 1990.
Seaton, J. P. and James Cryer. Bright Moon, Perching Bird: Poems by Li Po and Tu Fu. Middletown: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1987.
Shigenyoshi, Obata. The Works of Li Po the Chinese Poet. New York: Dutton, 1922.
T’ao Ch’ien. The Selected Poems of T’ao Ch’ien. Trans. David Hinton. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 1993.
Tu Fu. The Selected Poems of Tu Fu. Trans. David Hinton. New York: New Directions, 1989.
Waley, Arthur. The Poetry and Career of Li Po 701-762 A.D. London: Allen & Unwin, 1950.
Watson, Burton. Chinese Lyricism. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1971.
—————. The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1984.
OTHER TRANSLATIONS BY
DAVID HINTON
The Mountain Poems of Hsieh Ling-yün (New Directions)
Tao Te Ching (Counterpoint)
The Selected Poems of Po Chü-1 (New Directions)
The Analects (Counterpoint)
Mencius (Counterpoint)
Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters (Counterpoint)
The Late Poems of Meng Chiao (Princeton)
Forms of Distance [poems by Bei Dao] (New Directions)
Landscape Over Zero [poems by Bei Dao] (New Directions)
The Selected Poems of Tao Chien (Copper Canyon)
The Selected Poems of Tu Fu (New Directions)
Copyright © 1996 by David Hinton
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The translation of this book was supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Witter Bynner Foundation.
Some of these poems first appeared in The American Poetry Review.
First published as New Directions Paperbook 823 in 1996
Book design and map by Sylvia Frezzolini Severance
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Li Po, d701-762
[Poems. English. Selections)
The selected poems of Li Po translated by David Hinton.
p. cm.
“A New directions book.”
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8112-2362-1 (e-book)
1. Li, Po, d701-762—Translations into English. I. Hinton,
David, 1954 - . II. Title.
PL2671.A25 1996
895.1’ 13—dc20
96-5139
CIP
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
By New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10011