A History of Chinese Literature

CHU HSI

The name of Chu Hsi (1130-1200) is a household word throughout the length and breadth of literary China. He graduated at nineteen, and entered upon a highly successful official career. He apparently had a strong leaning towards Buddhism – some say that he actually became a Buddhist priest; at any rate, he soon saw the error of his ways, and gave himself up completely to a study of the orthodox doctrine. He was a most voluminous writer. In addition to his revision of the history of Ssŭ-ma Kuang, which, under the title of T’ung Chien Kang Mu, is still regarded as the standard history of China, he placed himself first in the first rank of all commentators on the Confucian Canon. He introduced interpretations either wholly or partly at variance with those which had been put forth by the scholars of the Han dynasty and hitherto received as infallible, thus modifying to a certain extent the prevailing standard of political and social morality. His principle was simply one of consistency. He refused to interpret words in a given passage in one sense, and the same words occurring elsewhere in another sense. The result, as a whole, was undoubtedly to quicken with intelligibility many paragraphs the meaning of which had been obscured rather than elucidated by the earlier scholars of the Han dynasty. Occasionally, however, the great commentator o’erleapt himself. Here are two versions of one passage in the Analects, as interpreted by the rival schools, of which the older seems unquestionably to be preferred: —

Han.

Mêng Wu asked Confucius concerning filial piety. The Master said, “It consists in giving your parents no cause for anxiety save from your natural ailments.”

Chu Hsi.

Mêng Wu asked Confucius concerning filial piety. The Master said, “Parents have the sorrow of thinking anxiously about their children’s ailments.”

The latter of these interpretations being obviously incomplete, Chu Hsi adds a gloss to the effect that children are therefore in duty bound to take great care of themselves.

In the preface to his work on the Four Books as explained by Chu Hsi, published in 1745, Wang Pu-ch’ing (born 1671) has the following passage: – “Shao Yung tried to explain the Canon of Changes by numbers, and Ch’êng I by the eternal fitness of things; but Chu Hsi alone was able to pierce through the meaning, and appropriate the thought of the prophets who composed it.” The other best known works of Chu Hsi are a metaphysical treatise containing the essence of his later speculations, and the Little Learning, a handbook for the young. It has been contended by some that the word “little” in the last title refers not to youthful learners, but to the lower plane on which the book is written, as compared with the Great Learning. The following extract, however, seems to point more towards Learning for the Young as the correct rendering of the title: —

“When mounting the wall of a city, do not point with the finger; when on the top, do not call out.

“When at a friend’s house, do not persist in asking for anything you may wish to have. When going upstairs, utter a loud ‘Ahem!’ If you see two pairs of shoes outside and hear voices, you may go in; but if you hear nothing, remain outside. Do not trample on the shoes of other guests, nor step on the mat spread for food; but pick up your skirts and pass quickly to your allotted place. Do not be in a hurry to arrive, nor in haste to get away.

“Do not bother the gods with too many prayers. Do not make allowances for your own shortcomings. Do not seek to know what has not yet come to pass.”

Chu Hsi was lucky enough to fall in with a clever portrait painter, a rara avis in China at the present day according to Mr. J. B. Coughtrie, late of Hongkong, who declares that “the style and taste peculiar to the Chinese combine to render a lifelike resemblance impossible, and the completed picture unattractive. The artist lays upon his paper a flat wash of colour to match the complexion of his sitter, and upon this draws a mere map of the features, making no attempt to obtain roundness or relief by depicting light and shadows, and never by any chance conveying the slightest suggestion of animation or expression.” Chu Hsi gave the artist a glowing testimonial, in which he states that the latter not merely portrays the features, but “catches the very expression, and reproduces, as it were, the inmost mind of his model.” He then adds the following personal tit-bit: —

“I myself sat for two portraits, one large and the other small; and it was quite a joke to see how accurately he reproduced my coarse ugly face and my vulgar rustic turn of mind, so that even those who had only heard of, but had never seen me, knew at once for whom the portraits were intended.” It would be interesting to know if either of these pictures still survives among the Chu family heirlooms.

At the death of Chu Hsi, his coffin is said to have taken up a position, suspended in the air, about three feet from the ground. Whereupon his son-in-law, falling on his knees beside the bier, reminded the departed spirit of the great principles of which he had been such a brilliant exponent in life, – and the coffin descended gently to the ground.

CHAPTER III

POETRY

The poetry of the Sungs has not attracted so much attention as that of the T’angs. This is chiefly due to the fact that although all the literary men of the Sung dynasty may roughly be said to have contributed their quota of verse, still there were few, if any, who could be ranked as professional poets, that is, as writers of verse and of nothing else, like Li Po, Tu Fu, and many others under the T’ang dynasty. Poetry now began to be, what it has remained in a marked degree until the present day, a department of polite education, irrespective of the particle of the divine gale. More regard was paid to form, and the license which had been accorded to earlier masters was sacrificed to conventionality. The Odes collected by Confucius are, as we have seen, rude ballads of love, and war, and tilth, borne by their very simplicity direct to the human heart. The poetry of the T’ang dynasty shows a masterly combination, in which art, unseen, is employed to enhance, not to fetter and degrade, thoughts drawn from a veritable communion with nature. With the fall of the T’ang dynasty the poetic art suffered a lapse from which it has never recovered; and now, in modern times, although every student “can turn a verse” because he has been “duly taught,” the poems produced disclose a naked artificiality which leaves the reader disappointed and cold.

CH’ÊN T’UAN

The poet Ch’ên T’uan (d. A.D. 989) began life under favourable auspices. He was suckled by a mysterious lady in a green robe, who found him playing as a tiny child on the bank of a river. He became, in consequence of this supernatural nourishment, exceedingly clever and possessed of a prodigious memory, with a happy knack for verse. Yet he failed to get a degree, and gave himself up “to the joys of hill and stream.” While on the mountains some spiritual beings are said to have taught him the art of hibernating like an animal, so that he would go off to sleep for a hundred days at a time. He wrote a treatise on the elixir of life, and was generally inclined to Taoist notions. At death his body remained warm for seven days, and for a whole month a “glory” played around his tomb. He was summoned several times to Court, but to judge by the following poem, officialdom seems to have had few charms for him: —

“For ten long years I plodded throughthe vale of lust and strife,Then through my dreams there flashed a rayof the old sweet peaceful life…No scarlet-tasselled hat of statecan vie with soft repose;Grand mansions do not taste the joysthat the poor man’s cabin knows.I hate the threatening clash of armswhen fierce retainers throng,I loathe the drunkard’s revels andthe sound of fife and song;But I love to seek a quiet nook, andsome old volume bringWhere I can see the wild flowers bloomand hear the birds in spring.”

Another poet, Yang I (974-1030), was unable to speak as a child, until one day, being taken to the top of a pagoda, he suddenly burst out with the following lines: —

“Upon this tall pagoda’s peakMy hand can nigh the stars enclose;I dare not raise my voice to speak,For fear of startling God’s repose.”

Mention has already been made of Shao Yung (1011-1077) in connection with Chu Hsi and classical scholarship. He was a great traveller, and an enthusiast in the cause of learning. He denied himself a stove in winter and a fan in summer. For thirty years he did not use a pillow, nor had he even a mat to sleep on. The following specimen of his verse seems, however, to belie his character as an ascetic: —

“Fair flowers from above in my goblet are shining,And add by reflection an infinite zest;Through two generations I’ve lived unrepining,While four mighty rulers have sunk to their rest.“My body in health has done nothing to spite me,And sweet are the moments which pass o’er my head;But now, with this wine and these flowers to delight me,How shall I keep sober and get home to bed?”

Shao Yung was a great authority on natural phenomena, the explanation of which he deduced from principles found in the Book of Changes. On one occasion he was strolling about with some friends when he heard the goatsucker’s cry. He immediately became depressed, and said, “When good government is about to prevail, the magnetic current flows from north to south; when bad government is about to prevail, it flows from south to north, and birds feel its influence first of all things. Now hitherto this bird has not been seen at Lo-yang; from which I infer that the magnetic current is flowing from south to north, and that some southerner is coming into power, with manifold consequences to the State.” The subsequent appearance of Wang An-shih was regarded as a verification of his skill.

WANG AN-SHIH

The great reformer here mentioned found time, amid the cares of his economic revolution, to indulge in poetical composition. Here is his account of a nuit blanche, an excellent example of the difficult “stop-short:” —

“The incense-stick is burnt to ash,the water-clock is stilled.The midnight breeze blows sharply by,and all around is chilled.“Yet I am kept from slumberby the beauty of the spring…Sweet shapes of flowers across the blindthe quivering moonbeams fling!”

Here, too, is a short poem by the classical scholar, Huang T’ing-chien, written on the annual visit for worship at the tombs of ancestors, in full view of the hillside cemetery: —

“The peach and plum trees smile with flowersthis famous day of spring,And country graveyards round aboutwith lamentations ring.Thunder has startled insect lifeand roused the gnats and bees,A gentle rain has urged the cropsand soothed the flowers and trees…Perhaps on this side lie the bonesof a wretch whom no one knows;On that, the sacred ashesof a patriot repose.But who across the centuriescan hope to mark each spotWhere fool and hero, joined in death,beneath the brambles rot?”

The grave student Ch’êng Hao wrote verses like the rest. Sometimes he even condescended to jest: —

“I wander north, I wander south,I rest me where I please…See how the river-banks are nippedbeneath the autumn breeze!Yet what care I if autumn blaststhe river-banks lay bare?The loss of hue to river-banksis the river-banks’ affair.”

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Hung Chüeh-fan made a name for himself as a poet and calligraphist, but he finally yielded to the fascination of Buddhism and took orders as a priest. This is no trifling ordeal. From three to nine pastilles are placed upon the shaven scalp of the candidate, and are allowed to burn down into the flesh, leaving an indelible scar. Here is a poem by him, written probably before monasticism had damped his natural ardour: —

“Two green silk ropes, with painted stand,from heights aërial swing,And there outside the house a maiddisports herself in spring.Along the ground her blood-red skirtsall swiftly swishing fly,As though to bear her off to bean angel in the sky.Strewed thick with fluttering almond-bloomsthe painted stand is seen;The embroidered ropes flit to and froamid the willow green.Then when she stops and out she springsto stand with downcast eyes,You think she is some angeljust now banished from the skies.”

YEH SHIH – KAO CHÜ-NIEN

Better known as a statesman than as a poet is Yeh Shih (1150-1223). The following “stop-short,” however, referring to the entrance-gate to a beautiful park, is ranked among the best of its kind: —

“’Tis closed! – lest trampling footsteps marthe glory of the green.Time after time we knock and knock;no janitor is seen.Yet bolts and bars can’t quite shut inthe spring-time’s beauteous pall:A pink-flowered almond-spray peeps outathwart the envious wall!”

Of Kao Chü-nien nothing seems to be known. His poem on the annual spring worship at the tombs of ancestors is to be found in all collections: —

“The northern and the southern hillsare one large burying-ground,And all is life and bustle therewhen the sacred day comes round.Burnt paper cash, like butterflies,fly fluttering far and wide,While mourners’ robes with tears of blooda crimson hue are dyed.The sun sets, and the red fox crouchesdown beside the tomb;Night comes, and youths and maidens laughwhere lamps light up the gloom.Let him whose fortune brings him wine,get tipsy while he may,For no man, when the long night comes,can take one drop away!”

CHAPTER IV

DICTIONARIES – ENCYCLOPÆDIAS – MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE

Several dictionaries of importance were issued by various scholars during the Sung dynasty, not to mention many philological works of more or less value. The Chinese have always been students of their own language, partly, no doubt, because they have so far never condescended to look at any other. They delight in going back to days when correspondence was carried on by pictures pure and simple; and the fact that there is little evidence forthcoming that such a system ever prevailed has only resulted in stimulating invention and forgery.

A clever courtier, popularly known as “the nine-tailed fox,” was Ch’ên P’êng-nien (A.D. 961 – 1017), who rose to be a Minister of State. He was employed to revise the Kuang Yün, a phonetic dictionary by some unknown author, which contained over 26,000 separate characters. This work was to a great extent superseded by the Chi Yün, on a similar plan, but containing over 53,000 characters. The latter was produced by Sung Ch’i, mentioned in chap. iii., in conjunction with several eminent scholars.

Tai T’ung graduated in 1237 and rose to be Governor of T’ai-chou in Chehkiang. Then the Mongols prevailed, and Tai T’ung, unwilling to serve them, pleaded ill-health, and in 1275 retired into private life. There he occupied himself with the composition of the Liu Shu Ku or Six Scripts, an examination into the origin and development of writing, which, according to some, was published about A.D. 1250, but according to others, not until so late as the year 1319.

WU SHU – LI FANG

From the rise of the Sung dynasty may be dated the first appearance of the encyclopædia, destined to occupy later so much space in Chinese literature. Wu Shu (A.D. 947 – 1002), whose life was a good instance of “worth by poverty depressed,” may fairly be credited with the production of the earliest work of the kind. His Shih Lei Fu dealt with celestial and terrestrial phenomena, mineralogy, botany, and natural history, arranged, for want of an alphabet, under categories. It is curiously written in the poetical-prose style, and forms the foundation of a similar book of reference in use at the present day. Wu Shu was placed upon the commission which produced a much more extensive work known as the T’ai P’ing Yü Lan. At the head of that commission was Li Fang (A.D. 924 – 995), a Minister of State and a great favourite with the Emperor. In the last year of his life he was invited to witness the Feast of Lanterns from the palace. On that occasion the Emperor placed Li beside him, and after pouring out for him a goblet of wine and supplying him with various delicacies, he turned to his courtiers and said, “Li Fang has twice served us as Minister of State, yet has he never in any way injured a single fellow-creature. Truly this must be a virtuous man.” The T’ai P’ing Yü Lan was reprinted in 1812, and is bound up in thirty-two large volumes. It was so named because the Emperor himself went through all the manuscript, a task which occupied him nearly a year. A list of about eight hundred authorities is given, and the Index fills four hundred pages.

As a pendant to this work Li Fang designed the T’ai P’ing Kuang Chi, an encyclopædia of biographical and other information drawn from general literature. A list of about three hundred and sixty authorities is given, and the Index fills two hundred and eighty pages. The edition of 1566 – a rare work – bound up in twelve thick volumes, stands upon the shelves of the Cambridge University Library.

Another encyclopædist was Ma Tuan-lin, the son of a high official, in whose steps he prepared to follow. The dates of his birth and death are not known, but he flourished in the thirteenth century. Upon the collapse of the Sung dynasty he disappeared from public life, and taking refuge in his native place, he gave himself up to teaching, attracting many disciples from far and near, and fascinating all by his untiring dialectic skill. He left behind him the Wên Hsien T’ung K’ao, a large encyclopædia based upon the T’ung Tien of Tu Yu, but much enlarged and supplemented by five additional sections, namely, Bibliography, Imperial Lineage, Appointments, Uranography, and Natural Phenomena. This work, which cost its author twenty years of unremitting labour, has long been known to Europeans, who have drawn largely upon its ample stores of antiquarian research.

THE HSI YÜAN LU

At the close of the Sung dynasty there was published a curious book on Medical Jurisprudence, which is interesting, in spite of its manifold absurdities, as being the recognised handbook for official use at the present day. No magistrate ever thinks of proceeding to discharge the duties of coroner without taking a copy of these instructions along with him. The present work was compiled by a judge named Sung Tz’ŭ, from pre-existing works of a similar kind, and we are told in the preface of a fine edition, dated 1842, that “being subjected for many generations to practical tests by the officers of the Board of Punishments, it became daily more and more exact.” A few extracts will be sufficient to determine its real value: —

(1.) “Man has three hundred and sixty-five bones, corresponding to the number of days it takes the heavens to revolve.

“The skull of a male, from the nape of the neck to the top of the head, consists of eight pieces – of a Ts’ai-chou man, nine. There is a horizontal suture across the back of the skull, and a perpendicular one down the middle. Female skulls are of six pieces, and have the horizontal but not the perpendicular suture.

“Teeth are twenty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-two, or thirty-six in number. There are three long-shaped breast-bones.

“There is one bone belonging to the heart of the shape and size of a cash.

“There is one ‘shoulder-well’ bone and one ‘rice-spoon’ bone on each side.

“Males have twelve ribs on each side, eight long and four short. Females have fourteen on each side.”

(2.) “Wounds inflicted on the bone leave a red mark and a slight appearance of saturation, and where the bone is broken there will be at each end a halo-like trace of blood. Take a bone on which there are marks of a wound, and hold it up to the light; if these are of a fresh-looking red, the wound was inflicted before death and penetrated to the bone; but if there is no trace of saturation from blood, although there is a wound, it was inflicted after death.”

(3.) “The bones of parents may be identified by their children in the following manner. Let the experimenter cut himself or herself with a knife, and cause the blood to drip on to the bones; then if the relationship is an actual fact, the blood will sink into the bone, otherwise it will not. N.B.– Should the bones have been washed with salt water, even though the relationship exists, yet the blood will not soak in. This is a trick to be guarded against beforehand.

“It is also said that if parent and child, or husband and wife, each cut themselves and let the blood drip into a basin of water, the two bloods will mix, whereas that of two people not thus related will not mix.

“Where two brothers, who may have been separated since childhood, are desirous of establishing their identity as such, but are unable to do so by ordinary means, bid each one cut himself and let the blood drip into a basin. If they are really brothers, the two bloods will coagulate into one; otherwise not. But because fresh blood will always coagulate with the aid of a little salt or vinegar, people often smear the basin over with these to attain their own ends and deceive others; therefore always wash out the basin you are going to use, or buy a new one from a shop. Thus the trick will be defeated.”

(4.) “There are some atrocious villains who, when they have murdered any one, burn the body and throw the ashes away, so that there are no bones to examine. In such cases you must carefully find out at what time the murder was committed, and where the body was burnt. Then, when you know the place, all witnesses agreeing on this point, you may proceed without further delay to examine the wounds. The mode of procedure is this. Put up your shed near where the body was burnt, and make the accused and witnesses point out themselves the exact spot. Then cut down the grass and weeds growing on this spot, and burn large quantities of fuel till the place is extremely hot, throwing on several pecks of hemp-seed. By and by brush the place clean; then, if the body was actually burnt on this spot, the oil from the seed will be found to have sunk into the ground in the form of a human figure, and wherever there were wounds on the dead man, there on this figure the oil will be found to have collected together, large or small, square, round, long, short, oblique, or straight, exactly as they were inflicted. The parts where there were no wounds will be free from any such appearances.”

BOOK THE SIXTH

THE MONGOL DYNASTY (A.D. 1200-1368)

CHAPTER I

MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE – POETRY

The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries witnessed a remarkable political revolution. China was conquered by the Mongols, and for the first time in history the empire passed under the rule of an alien sovereign. No exact date can be assigned for the transference of the Imperial power. In 1264 Kublai Khan fixed his capital at Peking, and in 1271 he adopted Yüan as his dynastic style. It was not, however, until 1279 that the patriot statesman, Chao Ping, had his retreat cut off, and despairing of his country, took upon his back the boy-Emperor, the last of the Sungs, and jumped from his doomed vessel into the river, thus bringing the great fire-led dynasty to an end.

WÊN T’IEN-HSIANG

Kublai Khan, who was a confirmed Buddhist, paid great honour to Confucius, and was a steady patron of literature. In 1269 he caused Bashpa, a Tibetan priest, to construct an alphabet for the Mongol language; in 1280 the calendar was revised; and in 1287 the Imperial Academy was opened. But he could not forgive Wên T’ien-hsiang (1236-1283), the renowned patriot and scholar, who had fought so bravely but unsuccessfully against him. In 1279 the latter was conveyed to Peking, on which journey he passed eight days without eating. Every effort was made to induce him to own allegiance to the Mongol Emperor, but without success. He was kept in prison for three years. At length he was summoned into the presence of Kublai Khan, who said to him, “What is it you want?” “By the grace of the Sung Emperor,” Wên T’ien-hsiang replied, “I became his Majesty’s Minister. I cannot serve two masters. I only ask to die.” Accordingly he was executed, meeting his death with composure, and making a final obeisance southwards, as though his own sovereign was still reigning in his own capital. The following poem was written by Wên T’ien-hsiang while in captivity: —