A History of Chinese Literature

A precocious and short-lived poet was Li Ho, of the ninth century. He began to write verses at the age of seven. Twenty years later he met a strange man riding on a hornless dragon, who said to him, “God Almighty has finished his Jade Pavilion, and has sent for you to be his secretary.” Shortly after this he died. The following is a specimen of his poetry: —

“With flowers on the ground like embroidery spread,At twenty, the soft glow of wine in my head,My white courser’s bit-tassels motionless gleamWhile the gold-threaded willow scent sweeps o’er the stream.Yet until she has smiled, all these flowers yield no ray;When her tresses fall down the whole landscape is gay;My hand on her sleeve as I gaze in her eyes,A kingfisher hairpin will soon be my prize.”

Chang Chi, who also flourished in the ninth century, was eighty years old when he died. He was on terms of close friendship with Han Yü, and like him, too, a vigorous opponent of both Buddhism and Taoism. The following is his most famous poem, the beauty of which, says a commentator, lies beyond the words: —

“Knowing, fair sir, my matrimonial thrall,Two pearls thou sentest me, costly withal.And I, seeing that Love thy heart possessed,I wrapped them coldly in my silken vest.“For mine is a household of high degree,My husband captain in the King’s army;And one with wit like thine should say,‘The troth of wives is for ever and ay.’“With thy two pearls I send thee back two tears:Tears – that we did not meet in earlier years.”

Many more poets of varying shades of excellence must here be set aside, their efforts often brightened by those quaint conceits which are so dear to the Chinese reader, but which approach so perilously near to bathos when they appear in foreign garb. A few specimens, torn from their setting, may perhaps have an interest of their own. Here is a lady complaining of the leaden-footed flight of time as marked by the water-clock: —

“It seems that the clepsydrahas been filled up with the sea,To make the long, long night appearan endless night to me!”

The second line in the next example is peculiarly characteristic: —

“Dusk comes, the east wind blows, and birdspipe forth a mournful sound;Petals, like nymphs from balconies,come tumbling to the ground.”

The next refers to candles burning in a room where two friends are having a last talk on the night before parting for a long period: —

“The very wax sheds sympathetic tears,And gutters sadly down till dawn appears.”

This last is from a friend to a friend at a distance: —

“Ah, when shall we ever snuff candles again,And recall the glad hours of that evening of rain?”

LI SHÊ

A popular poet of the ninth century was Li Shê, especially well known for the story of his capture by highwaymen. The chief knew him by name and called for a sample of his art, eliciting the following lines, which immediately secured his release: —

“The rainy mist sweeps gently o’er the village by the stream,When from the leafy forest glades the brigand daggers gleam…And yet there is no need to fear, nor step from out their way,For more than half the world consists of bigger rogues than they!”

A popular physician in great request, as well as a poet, was Ma Tzŭ-Jan (d. A.D. 880). He studied Taoism in a hostile sense, as would appear from the following poem by him; nevertheless, according to tradition, he was ultimately taken up to heaven alive: —

“In youth I went to study Tao at its living fountain-head,And then lay tipsy half the day upon a gilded bed.‘What oaf is this,’ the Master cried, ‘content with human lot?’And bade me to the world get back and call myself a sot.But wherefore seek immortal life by means of wondrous pills?Noise is not in the market-place, nor quiet on the hills.The secret of perpetual youth is already known to me:Accept with philosophic calm whatever fate may be.”

Hsü An-chên, of the ninth century, is entitled to a place among the T’ang poets, if only for the following piece: —

“When the Bear athwart was lying,And the night was just on dying,And the moon was all but gone,How my thoughts did ramble on!“Then a sound of music breaksFrom a lute that some one wakes,And I know that it is she,The sweet maid next door to me.“And as the strains steal o’er meHer moth-eyebrows rise before me,And I feel a gentle thrillThat her fingers must be chill.“But doors and locks between usSo effectually screen usThat I hasten from the streetAnd in dreamland pray to meet.”

The following lines by Tu Ch’in-niang, a poetess of the ninth century, are included in a collection of 300 gems of the T’ang dynasty: —

“I would not have thee grudge those robeswhich gleam in rich array,But I would have thee grudge the hoursof youth which glide away.Go, pluck the blooming flower betimes,lest when thou com’st againAlas! upon the withered stemno blooming flowers remain!”

SSŬ-K’UNG T’U

It is time perhaps to bring to a close the long list, which might be almost indefinitely lengthened. Ssŭ-k’ung T’u (A.D. 834-908) was a secretary in the Board of Rites, but he threw up his post and became a hermit. Returning to Court in 905, he accidentally dropped part of his official insignia at an audience, – an unpardonable breach of Court etiquette, – and was allowed to retire once more to the hills, where he ultimately starved himself to death through grief at the murder of the youthful Emperor. He is commonly known as the Last of the T’angs; his poetry, which is excessively difficult to understand, ranking correspondingly high in the estimation of Chinese critics. The following philosophical poem, consisting of twenty-four apparently unconnected stanzas, is admirably adapted to exhibit the form under which pure Taoism commends itself to the mind of a cultivated scholar: —

i. – Energy – Absolute.

“Expenditure of force leads to outward decay,Spiritual existence means inward fulness.Let us revert to Nothing and enter the Absolute,Hoarding up strength for Energy.Freighted with eternal principles,Athwart the mighty void,Where cloud-masses darken,And the wind blows ceaseless around,Beyond the range of conceptions,Let us gain the Centre,And there hold fast without violence,Fed from an inexhaustible supply.”

ii. – Tranquil Repose.

“It dwells in quietude, speechless,Imperceptible in the cosmos,Watered by the eternal harmonies,Soaring with the lonely crane.It is like a gentle breeze in spring,Softly bellying the flowing robe;It is like the note of the bamboo flute,Whose sweetness we would fain make our own.Meeting by chance, it seems easy of access,Seeking, we find it hard to secure.Ever shifting in semblance,It shifts from the grasp and is gone.”

iii. – Slim – Stout.

“Gathering the water-plantsFrom the wild luxuriance of spring,Away in the depth of a wild valleyAnon I see a lovely girl.With green leaves the peach-trees are loaded,The breeze blows gently along the stream,Willows shade the winding path,Darting orioles collect in groups.Eagerly I press forwardAs the reality grows upon me…’Tis the eternal themeWhich, though old, is ever new.”

iv. – Concentration.

“Green pines and a rustic hut,The sun sinking through pure air,I take off my cap and stroll alone,Listening to the song of birds.No wild geese fly hither,And she is far away;But my thoughts make her presentAs in the days gone by.Across the water dark clouds are whirled,Beneath the moonbeams the eyots stand revealed,And sweet words are exchangedThough the great River rolls between.”

v. – Height – Antiquity.

“Lo the Immortal, borne by spirituality,His hand grasping a lotus flower,Away to Time everlasting,Trackless through the regions of Space!With the moon he issues from the Ladle, 21Speeding upon a favourable gale;Below, Mount Hua looms dark,And from it sounds a clear-toned bell.Vacantly I gaze after his vanished image,Now passed beyond the bounds of mortality…Ah, the Yellow Emperor and Yao,They, peerless, are his models.”

vi. – Refinement.

“A jade kettle with a purchase of spring, 22A shower on the thatched hutWherein sits a gentle scholar,With tall bamboos growing right and left,And white clouds in the newly-clear sky,And birds flitting in the depths of trees.Then pillowed on his lute in the green shade,A waterfall tumbling overhead,Leaves dropping, not a word spoken,The man placid, like a chrysanthemum,Noting down the flower-glory of the season, —A book well worthy to be read.”

vii. – Wash – Smelt.

“As iron from the mines,As silver from lead,So purify thy heart,Loving the limpid and clean.Like a clear pool in spring,With its wondrous mirrored shapes,So make for the spotless and true,And, riding the moonbeam, revert to the Spiritual.Let your gaze be upon the stars of heaven, 23Let your song be of the hiding hermit; [23] Like flowing water is our to-day,Our yesterday, the bright moon.” 24

viii. – Strength.

“The mind as though in the void,The vitality as though of the rainbow,Among the thousand-ell peaks of Wu,Flying with the clouds, racing with the wind;Drink of the spiritual, feed on force,Store them for daily use, guard them in your heart,Be like Him in His might, 25For this is to preserve your energy;Be a peer of Heaven and Earth,A co-worker in Divine transformation…Seek to be full of these,And hold fast to them alway.”

ix. – Embroideries.

“If the mind has wealth and rank,One may make light of yellow gold.Rich pleasures pall ere long,Simple joys deepen ever.A mist-cloud hanging on the river bank,Pink almond-flowers along the bough,A flower-girt cottage beneath the moon,A painted bridge half seen in shadow,A golden goblet brimming with wine,A friend with his hand on the lute…Take these and be content;They will swell thy heart beneath thy robe.”

x. – The Natural.

“Stoop, and there it is;Seek it not right and left.All roads lead thither, —One touch and you have spring! 26As though coming upon opening flowers,As though gazing upon the new year,Verily I will not snatch it,Forced, it will dwindle away.I will be like the hermit on the hill,Like duckweed gathered on the stream, 27And when emotions crowd upon me,I will leave them to the harmonies of heaven.”

xi. – Set Free.

“Joying in flowers without let,Breathing the empyrean,Through Tao reverting to ether,And there to be wildly free,Wide-spreading as the wind of heaven,Lofty as the peaks of ocean,Filled with a spiritual strength,All creation by my side,Before me the sun, moon, and stars,The phœnix following behind.In the morning I whip up my leviathansAnd wash my feet in Fusang.” 28

xii. – Conservation.

“Without a word writ down,All wit may be attained.If words do not affect the speaker,They seem inadequate to sorrow. 29Herein is the First Cause,With which we sink or rise,As wine in the strainer mounts high,As cold turns back the season of flowers.The wide-spreading dust-motes in the air,The sudden spray-bubbles of ocean,Shallow, deep, collected, scattered, —You grasp ten thousand, and secure one.”

xiii. – Animal Spirits.

“That they might come back unceasingly,That they might be ever with us! —The bright river, unfathomable,The rare flower just opening,The parrot of the verdant spring,The willow-trees, the terrace,The stranger from the dark hills,The cup overflowing with clear wine…Oh, for life to be extended,With no dead ashes of writing,Amid the charms of the Natural, —Ah, who can compass it?”

xiv. – Close Woven.

“In all things there are veritable atoms,Though the senses cannot perceive them,Struggling to emerge into shapeFrom the wondrous workmanship of God.Water flowing, flowers budding,The limpid dew evaporating,An important road, stretching far,A dark path where progress is slow…So words should not shock,Nor thought be inept.But be like the green of spring,Like snow beneath the moon.” 30

xv. – Seclusion.

“Following our own bent,Enjoying the Natural, free from curb,Rich with what comes to hand,Hoping some day to be with God.To build a hut beneath the pines,With uncovered head to pore over poetry,Knowing only morning and eve,But not what season it may be…Then, if happiness is ours,Why must there be action?If of our own selves we can reach this point,Can we not be said to have attained?”

xvi. – Fascination.

“Lovely is the pine-grove,With the stream eddying below,A clear sky and a snow-clad bank,Fishing-boats in the reach beyond.And she, like unto jade,Slowly sauntering, as I follow through the dark wood,Now moving on, now stopping short,Far away to the deep valley…My mind quits its tenement, and is in the past,Vague, and not to be recalled,As though before the glow of the rising moon,As though before the glory of autumn.”

xvii. – In Tortuous Ways.

“I climbed the Tai-hsing mountainBy the green winding path,Vegetation like a sea of jade,Flower-scent borne far and wide.Struggling with effort to advance,A sound escaped my lips,Which seemed to be back ere ’twas gone,As though hidden but not concealed. 31The eddying waters rush to and fro,Overhead the great rukh soars and sails;Tao does not limit itself to a shape,But is round and square by turns.”

xviii. – Actualities.

“Choosing plain wordsTo express simple thoughts,Suddenly I happened upon a recluse,And seemed to see the heart of Tao.Beside the winding brook,Beneath dark pine-trees’ shade,There was one stranger bearing a faggot,Another listening to the lute.And so, where my fancy led me,Better than if I had sought it,I heard the music of heaven,Astounded by its rare strains.”

xix. – Despondent

“A gale ruffles the streamAnd trees in the forest crack;My thoughts are bitter as death,For she whom I asked will not come.A hundred years slip by like water,Riches and rank are but cold ashes,Tao is daily passing away,To whom shall we turn for salvation?The brave soldier draws his sword,And tears flow with endless lamentation;The wind whistles, leaves fall,And rain trickles through the old thatch.”

xx. – Form and Feature.

“After gazing fixedly upon expression and substanceThe mind returns with a spiritual image,As when seeking the outlines of waves,As when painting the glory of spring.The changing shapes of wind-swept clouds,The energies of flowers and plants,The rolling breakers of ocean,The crags and cliffs of mountains,All these are like mighty Tao,Skilfully woven into earthly surroundings…To obtain likeness without form,Is not that to possess the man?”

xxi. – The Transcendental.

“Not of the spirituality of the mind,Nor yet of the atoms of the cosmos,But as though reached upon white clouds,Borne thither by pellucid breezes.Afar, it seems at hand,Approach, ’tis no longer there;Sharing the nature of Tao,It shuns the limits of mortality.It is in the piled-up hills, in tall trees,In dark mosses, in sunlight rays…Croon over it, think upon it;Its faint sound eludes the ear.”

xxii. – Abstraction.

“Without friends, longing to be there,Alone, away from the common herd,Like the crane on Mount Hou,Like the cloud at the peak of Mount Hua.In the portrait of the heroThe old fire still lingers;The leaf carried by the windFloats on the boundless sea.It would seem as though not to be grasped,But always on the point of being disclosed.Those who recognise this have already attained;Those who hope, drift daily farther away.”

xxiii. – Illumined.

“Life stretches to one hundred years,And yet how brief a span;Its joys so fleeting,Its griefs so many!What has it like a goblet of wine,And daily visits to the wistaria arbour,Where flowers cluster around the eaves,And light showers pass overhead?Then when the wine-cup is drained,To stroll about with staff of thorn;For who of us but will some day be an ancient?..Ah, there is the South Mountain in its grandeur!” 32

xxiv. – Motion.

“Like a whirling water-wheel,Like rolling pearls, —Yet how are these worthy to be named?They are but illustrations for fools.There is the mighty axis of Earth,The never-resting pole of Heaven;Let us grasp their clue,And with them be blended in One,Beyond the bounds of thought,Circling for ever in the great Void,An orbit of a thousand years, —Yes, this is the key to my theme.”

CHAPTER II

CLASSICAL AND GENERAL LITERATURE

The classical scholarship of the Tang dynasty was neither very original nor very profound. It is true that the second Emperor founded a College of Learning, but its members were content to continue the traditions of the Hans, and comparatively little was achieved in the line of independent research. Foremost among the names in the above College stands that of Lu Yüan-lang (550-625). He had been Imperial Librarian under the preceding dynasty, and later on distinguished himself by his defence of Confucianism against both Buddhist and Taoist attacks. He published a valuable work on the explanations of terms and phrases in the Classics and in Taoist writers.

Scarcely less eminent as a scholar was Wei Chêng (581-643), who also gained great reputation as a military commander. He was appointed President of the Commission for drawing up the history of the previous dynasty, and he was, in addition, a poet of no mean order. At his death the Emperor said, “You may use copper as a mirror for the person; you may use the past as a mirror for politics; and you may use man as a mirror to guide one’s judgment in ordinary affairs. These three mirrors I have always carefully cherished; but now that Wei Chêng is gone, I have lost one of them.”

Another well-known scholar is Yen Shih-ku (579-645). He was employed upon a recension of the Classics, and also upon a new and annotated edition of the history of the Han dynasty; but his exegesis in the former case caused dissatisfaction, and he was ordered to a provincial post. Although nominally reinstated before this degradation took effect, his ambition was so far wounded that he ceased to be the same man. He lived henceforth a retired and simple life.

Li Po-yao (565-648) was so sickly a child, and swallowed so much medicine, that his grandmother insisted on naming him Po-yao = Pharmacopœia, while his precocious cleverness earned for him the sobriquet of the Prodigy. Entering upon a public career, he neglected his work for gaming and drink, and after a short spell of office he retired. Later on he rose once more, and completed the History of the Northern Ch’i Dynasty.

A descendant of Confucius in the thirty-second degree, and a distinguished scholar and public functionary, was K’ung Ying-ta (574-648). He wrote a commentary on the Book of Odes, and is credited with certain portions of the History of the Sui Dynasty. Besides this, he is responsible for comments and glosses on the Great Learning and on the Doctrine of the Mean.

Lexicography was perhaps the department of pure scholarship in which the greatest advances were made. Dictionaries on the phonetic system, based upon the work of Lu Fa-yen of the sixth century, came very much into vogue, as opposed to those on the radical system initiated by Hsü Shên. Not that the splendid work of the latter was allowed to suffer from neglect. Li Yang-ping, of the eighth century, devoted much time and labour to improving and adding to its pages. The latter was a Government official, and when filling a post as magistrate in 763, he is said to have obtained rain during a drought by threatening the City God with the destruction of his temple unless his prayers were answered within three days.

CHANG CHIH-HO

Chang Chih-ho (eighth century), author of a work on the conservation of vitality, was of a romantic turn of mind and especially fond of Taoist speculations. He took office under the Emperor Su Tsung of the T’ang dynasty, but got into some trouble and was banished. Soon after this he shared in a general pardon; whereupon he fled to the woods and mountains and became a wandering recluse, calling himself the Old Fisherman of the Mists and Waters. He spent his time in angling, but used no bait, his object not being to catch fish. When asked why he roamed about, Chang answered and said, “With the empyrean as my home, the bright moon my constant companion, and the four seas my inseparable friends, – what mean you by roaming?” And when a friend offered him a comfortable home instead of his poor boat, he replied, “I prefer to follow the gulls into cloudland, rather than to bury my eternal self beneath the dust of the world.”

The author of the T’ung Tien, an elaborate treatise on the constitution, still extant, was Tu Yu (d. 812). It is divided into eight sections under Political Economy, Examinations and Degrees, Government Offices, Rites, Music, Military Discipline, Geography, and National Defences.

LIU TSUNG-YÜAN

Among writers of general prose literature, Liu Tsung-yüan (773-819) has left behind him much that for purity of style and felicity of expression has rarely been surpassed. Besides being poet, essayist, and calligraphist, he was a Secretary in the Board of Rites. There he became involved in a conspiracy, and was banished to a distant spot, where he died. His views were deeply tinged with Buddhist thought, for which he was often severely censured, once in a letter by his friend and master, Han Yü. These few lines are part of his reply on the latter occasion: —

“The features I admire in Buddhism are those which are coincident with the principles enunciated in our own sacred books. And I do not think that, even were the holy sages of old to revisit the earth, they would fairly be able to denounce these. Now, Han Yü objects to the Buddhist commandments. He objects to the bald pates of the priests, their dark robes, their renunciation of domestic ties, their idleness, and life generally at the expense of others. So do I. But Han Yü misses the kernel while railing at the husk. He sees the lode, but not the ore. I see both; hence my partiality for this faith.

“Again, intercourse with men of this religion does not necessarily imply conversion. Even if it did, Buddhism admits no envious rivalry for place or power. The majority of its adherents love only to lead a simple life of contemplation amid the charms of hill and stream. And when I turn my gaze towards the hurry-scurry of the age, in its daily race for the seals and tassels of office, I ask myself if I am to reject those in order to take my place among the ranks of these.

“The Buddhist priest, Hao-ch’u, is a man of placid temperament and of passions subdued. He is a fine scholar. His only joy is to muse o’er flood and fell, with occasional indulgence in the delights of composition. His family follow in the same path. He is independent of all men, and no more to be compared with those heterodox sages of whom we make so much than with the vulgar herd of the greedy, grasping world around us.”

On this the commentator remarks, that one must have the genius of Han Yü to condemn Buddhism, the genius of Liu Tsung-yüan to indulge in it.

Here is a short study on a great question: —

“Over the western hills the road trends away towards the north, and on the farther side of the pass separates into two. The westerly branch leads to nowhere in particular; but if you follow the other, which takes a north-easterly turn, for about a quarter of a mile, you will find that the path ends abruptly, while the stream forks to enclose a steep pile of boulders. On the summit of this pile there is what appears to be an elegantly built look-out tower; below, as it were a battlemented wall, pierced by a city gate, through which one gazes into darkness. A stone thrown in here falls with a splash suggestive of water, and the reverberations of this sound are audible for some time. There is a way round from behind up to the top, whence nothing is seen far and wide except groves of fine straight trees, which, strange to say, are grouped symmetrically, as if by an artist’s hand.