A History of Chinese Literature

“Fu I loved the green hills and the white clouds…Alas! he died of drink.”

WANG CHI

Wang Chi of the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., was a wild and unconventional spirit, with a fatal fondness for wine, which caused his dismissal from office. His capacity for liquor was boundless, and he was known as the Five-bottle Scholar. In his lucid intervals he wrote much beautiful prose and verse, which may still be read with pleasure. The following is from an account of his visit to Drunk-Land, the story of which is told with all due gravity and in a style modelled upon that which is found in ordinary accounts of strange outlandish nations: —

“This country is many thousand miles from the Middle Kingdom. It is a vast, boundless plain, without mountains or undulations of any kind. The climate is equable, there being neither night, nor day, nor cold, nor heat. The manners and customs are everywhere the same.

“There are no villages nor congregations of persons. The inhabitants are ethereal in disposition, and know neither love, hate, joy, nor anger. They inhale the breeze and sip the dew, eating none of the five cereals. Calm in repose, slow of gait, they mingle with birds, beasts, fishes, and scaly creatures, ignorant of boats, chariots, weapons, or implements in general.

“The Yellow Emperor went on a visit to the capital of Drunk-Land, and when he came back, he was quite out of conceit with the empire, the government of which seemed to him but paltry trifling with knotted cords.

“Yüan Chi, T’ao Ch’ien,11 and some others, about ten in all, made a trip together to Drunk-Land, and sank, never to rise again. They were buried where they fell, and now in the Middle Kingdom they are dubbed Spirits of Wine.

“Alas, I could not bear that the pure and peaceful domain of Drunk-Land should come to be regarded as a preserve of the ancients. So I went there myself.”

The period closes with the name of the Emperor known as Yang Ti, already mentioned in connection with the poet Hsieh Tao-hêng. The murderer, first of his elder brother and then of his father, he mounted the throne in A.D. 605, and gave himself up to extravagance and debauchery. The trees in his park were supplied in winter with silken leaves and flowers, and birds were almost exterminated to provide a sufficient supply of down for his cushions. After reigning for thirteen years this unlikely patron of literature fell a victim to assassination. Yet in spite of his otherwise disreputable character, Yang Ti prided himself upon his literary attainments. He set one hundred scholars to work editing a collection of classical, medical, and other treatises; and it was under his reign, in A.D. 606, that the examination for the second or “master of arts” degree was instituted.

CHAPTER II

CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP

In the domains of classical and general literature Huang-fu Mi (A.D. 215-282) occupies an honourable place. Beginning life at the ploughtail, by perseverance he became a fine scholar, and adopted literature as a profession. In spite of severe rheumatism he was never without a book in his hand, and became so absorbed in his work that he would forget all about meals and bedtime. He was called the Book-Debauchee, and once when he wished to borrow works from the Emperor Wu Ti of the Chin dynasty, whose proffers of office he had refused, his Majesty sent him back a cart-load to go on with. He produced essays, poetry, and several important biographical works. His work on the Spring and Autumn Annals had also considerable vogue.

Sun Shu-Jan, of about the same date, distinguished himself by his works on the Confucian Canon, and wrote on the Erh Ya.

Hsün Hsü (d. A.D. 289) aided in drawing up a Penal Code for the newly-established Chin dynasty, took a leading part in editing the Bamboo Annals, which had just been discovered in Honan, provided a preface to the Mu T’ien Tzŭ Chuan, and also wrote on music.

Kuo Hsiang (d. A.D. 312) occupied himself chiefly with the philosophy of Lao Tzŭ and with the writings of Chuang Tzŭ. It was said of him that his conversation was like the continuous downflow of a rapid, or the rush of water from a sluice.

Kuo P’o (d. A.D. 324) was a scholar of great repute. Besides editing various important classical works, he was a brilliant exponent of the doctrines of Taoism and the reputed founder of the art of geomancy as applied to graves, universally practised in China at the present day. He was also learned in astronomy, divination, and natural philosophy.

Fan Yeh, executed for treason in A.D. 445, is chiefly famous for his history of the Han dynasty from about the date of the Christian era, when the dynasty was interrupted, as has been stated, by a usurper, down to the final collapse two hundred years later.

Shên Yo (A.D. 441-513), another famous scholar, was the son of a Governor of Huai-nan, whose execution in A.D. 453 caused him to go for a time into hiding. Poor and studious, he is said to have spent the night in repeating what he had learnt by day, as his mother, anxious on account of his health, limited his supply of oil and fuel. Entering official life, he rose to high office, from which he retired in ill-health, loaded with honours. Personally, he was remarkable for having two pupils to his left eye. He was a strict teetotaller, and lived most austerely. He had a library of twenty thousand volumes. He was the author of the histories of the Chin, Liu Sung, and Ch’i dynasties. He is said to have been the first to classify the four tones. In his autobiography he writes, “The poets of old, during the past thousand years, never hit upon this plan. I alone discovered its advantages.” The Emperor Wu Ti of the Liang dynasty one day said to him, “Come, tell me, what are these famous four tones?” “They are whatever your Majesty pleases to make them,” replied Shên Yo, skilfully selecting for his answer four characters which illustrated, and in the usual order, the four tones in question.

HSIAO T’UNG

Hsiao T’ung (A.D. 501-531) was the eldest son of Hsiao Yen, the founder of the Liang dynasty, whom he predeceased. Before he was five years old he was reported to have learned the Classics by heart, and his later years were marked by great literary ability, notably in verse-making. Handsome and of charming manners, mild and forbearing, he was universally loved. In 527 he nursed his mother through her last illness, and his grief for her death impaired his naturally fine constitution, for it was only at the earnest solicitation of his father that he consented either to eat or drink during the period of mourning. Learned men were sure of his patronage, and his palace contained a large library. A lover of nature, he delighted to ramble with scholars about his beautiful park, to which he declined to add the attraction of singing-girls. When the price of grain rose in consequence of the war with Wei in 526, he lived on the most frugal fare; and throughout his life his charities were very large and kept secret, being distributed by trusty attendants who sought out all cases of distress. He even emptied his own wardrobe for the benefit of the poor, and spent large sums in burying the outcast dead. Against forced labour on public works he vehemently protested. To his father he was most respectful, and wrote to him when he himself was almost at the last gasp, in the hope of concealing his danger. But he is remembered now not so much for his virtues as for his initiation of a new department in literature. A year before his death he completed the Wên Hsüan, the first published collection of choice works, whole or in part, of a large number of authors. These were classified under such heads as poetry of various kinds, essays, inscriptions, memorials, funeral orations, epitaphs, and prefaces.

The idea thus started was rapidly developed, and has been continued down to modern times. Huge collections of works have from time to time been reprinted in uniform editions, and many books which might otherwise have perished have been preserved for grateful posterity. The Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms by Fa Hsien may be quoted as an example.

BOOK THE FOURTH

THE T’ANG DYNASTY (A.D. 600-900)

CHAPTER I

POETRY

POETRY

The T’ang dynasty is usually associated in Chinese minds with much romance of love and war, with wealth, culture, and refinement, with frivolity, extravagance, and dissipation, but most of all with poetry. China’s best efforts in this direction were chiefly produced within the limits of its three hundred years’ duration, and they have been carefully preserved as finished models for future poets of all generations.

“Poetry,” says a modern Chinese critic, “came into being with the Odes, developed with the Li Sao, burst forth and reached perfection under the T’angs. Some good work was indeed done under the Han and Wei dynasties; the writers of those days seemed to have material in abundance, but language inadequate to its expression.”

The “Complete Collection of the Poetry of the T’ang Dynasty,” published in 1707, contains 48,900 poems of all kinds, arranged in 900 books, and filling thirty good-sized volumes. Some Chinese writers divide the dynasty into three poetical periods, called Early, Glorious, and Late; and they profess to detect in the works assigned to each the corresponding characteristics of growth, fulness, and decay. Others insert a Middle period between the last two, making four periods in all. For general purposes, however, it is only necessary to state, that since the age of the Hans the meanings of words had gradually come to be more definitely fixed, and the structural arrangement more uniform and more polished. Imagination began to come more freely into play, and the language to flow more easily and more musically, as though responsive to the demands of art. A Chinese poem is at best a hard nut to crack, expressed as it usually is in lines of five or seven monosyllabic root-ideas, without inflection, agglutination, or grammatical indication of any kind, the connection between which has to be inferred by the reader from the logic, from the context, and least perhaps of all from the syntactical arrangement of the words. Then, again, the poet is hampered not only by rhyme but also by tone. For purposes of poetry the characters in the Chinese language are all ranged under two tones, as flats and sharps, and these occupy fixed positions just as dactyls, spondees, trochees, and anapæsts in the construction of Latin verse. As a consequence, the natural order of words is often entirely sacrificed to the exigencies of tone, thus making it more difficult than ever for the reader to grasp the sense. In a stanza of the ordinary five-character length the following tonal arrangement would appear: —

Sharp sharp flat flat sharpFlat flat sharp sharp flatFlat flat flat sharp sharpSharp sharp sharp flat flat.

The effect produced by these tones is very marked and pleasing to the ear, and often makes up for the faultiness of the rhymes, which are simply the rhymes of the Odes as heard 2500 years ago, many of them of course being no longer rhymes at all. Thus, there is as much artificiality about a stanza of Chinese verse as there is about an Alcaic stanza in Latin. But in the hands of the most gifted this artificiality is altogether concealed by art, and the very trammels of tone and rhyme become transfigured, and seem to be necessary aids and adjuncts to success. Many works have been published to guide the student in his admittedly difficult task. The first rule in one of these seems so comprehensive as to make further perusal quite unnecessary. It runs thus: – “Discard commonplace form; discard commonplace ideas; discard commonplace phrasing; discard commonplace words; discard commonplace rhymes.”

A long poem does not appeal to the Chinese mind. There is no such thing as an epic in the language, though, of course, there are many pieces extending to several hundred lines. Brevity is indeed the soul of a Chinese poem, which is valued not so much for what it says as for what it suggests. As in painting, so in poetry suggestion is the end and aim of the artist, who in each case may be styled an impressionist. The ideal length is twelve lines, and this is the limit set to candidates at the great public examinations at the present day, the Chinese holding that if a poet cannot say within such compass what he has to say it may very well be left unsaid. The eight-line poem is also a favourite, and so, but for its extreme difficulty, is the four-line epigram, or “stop-short,” so called because of its abruptness, though, as the critics explain, “it is only the words which stop, the sense goes on,” some train of thought having been suggested to the reader. The latter form of verse was in use so far back as the Han dynasty, but only reached perfection under the Tangs. Although consisting of only twenty or twenty-eight words, according to the measure employed, it is just long enough for the poet to introduce, to develop, to embellish, and to conclude his theme in accordance with certain established laws of composition. The third line is considered the most troublesome to produce, some poets even writing it first; the last line should contain a “surprise” or dénouement. We are, in fact, reminded of the old formula, “Omne epigramma sit instar apis,” &c., better known in its English dress: —

“The qualities rare in a bee that we meetIn an epigram never should fail;The body should always be little and sweet,And a sting should be left in the tail.”

The following is an early specimen, by an anonymous writer, of the four-line poem: —

“The bright moon shining overhead,The stream beneath the breeze’s touch,Are pure and perfect joys indeed, —But few are they who think them such.”

Turning now to the almost endless list of poets from which but a scanty selection can be made, we may begin with Wang Po (A.D. 648-676), a precocious boy who wrote verses when he was six. He took his degree at sixteen, and was employed in the Historical Department, but was dismissed for satirising the cock-fighting propensities of the Imperial princes. He filled up his leisure by composing many beautiful poems. He never meditated on these beforehand, but after having prepared a quantity of ink ready for use, he would drink himself tipsy and lie down with his face covered up. On waking he would seize his pen and write off verses, not a word in which needed to be changed; whence he acquired the sobriquet of Belly-Draft, meaning that his drafts, or rough copies, were all prepared inside. And he received so many presents of valuable silks for writing these odes, that it was said “he spun with his mind.” These lines are from his pen: —

“Near these islands a palacewas built by a prince,But its music and songhave departed long since;The hill-mists of morningsweep down on the halls,At night the red curtainslie furled on the walls.The clouds o’er the watertheir shadows still cast,Things change like the stars:how few autumns have passedAnd yet where is that prince?where is he? – No reply,Save the plash of the streamrolling ceaselessly by.”

CH’ÊN TZŬ-ANG

A still more famous contemporary of his was Ch’ên Tzŭ-ang (A.D. 656-698), who adopted somewhat sensational means of bringing himself to the notice of the public. He purchased a very expensive guitar which had been for a long time on sale, and then let it be known that on the following day he would perform upon it in public. This attracted a large crowd; but when Ch’ên arrived he informed his auditors that he had something in his pocket worth much more than the guitar. Thereupon he dashed the instrument into a thousand pieces, and forthwith began handing round copies of his own writings. Here is a sample, directed against the Buddhist worship of idols, the “Prophet” representing any divinely-inspired teacher of the Confucian school: —

“On Self the Prophet never rests his eye,His to relieve the doom of humankind;No fairy palaces beyond the sky,Rewards to come, are present to his mind.And I have heard the faith by Buddha taughtLauded as pure and free from earthly taint;Why then these carved and graven idols, fraughtWith gold and silver, gems, and jade, and paint?The heavens that roof this earth, mountain and dale,All that is great and grand, shall pass away;And if the art of gods may not prevail,Shall man’s poor handiwork escape decay?Fools that ye are! In this ignoble lightThe true faith fades and passes out of sight.”

As an official, Ch’ên Tzŭ-ang once gained great kudos by a truly Solomonic decision. A man, having slain the murderer of his father, was himself indicted for murder. Ch’ên Tzŭ-ang caused him to be put to death, but at the same time conferred an honorific distinction upon his village for having produced so filial a son.

Not much is known of Sung Chih-wên (d. A.D. 710), at any rate to his good. On one occasion the Emperor was so delighted with some of his verses that he took off the Imperial robe and placed it on the poet’s shoulders. This is one of his poems: —

“The dust of the mornhad been laid by a shower,And the trees by the bridgewere all covered with flower,When a white palfrey passedwith a saddle of gold,And a damsel as fairas the fairest of old.But she veiled so discreetlyher charms from my eyesThat the boy who was with herquite felt for my sighs;And although not a light-o’-lovereckoned, I deem,It was hard that this visionshould pass like a dream.”

MÊNG HAO-JAN

Mêng Hao-jan (A.D. 689-740) gave no sign in his youth of the genius that was latent within him. He failed at the public examinations, and retired to the mountains as a recluse. He then became a poet of the first rank, and his writings were eagerly sought after. At the age of forty he went up to the capital, and was one day conversing with his famous contemporary, Wang Wei, when suddenly the Emperor was announced. He hid under a couch, but Wang Wei betrayed him, the result being a pleasant interview with his Majesty. The following is a specimen of his verse: —

“The sun has set behind the western slope,The eastern moon lies mirrored in the pool;With streaming hair my balcony I ope,And stretch my limbs out to enjoy the cool.Loaded with lotus-scent the breeze sweeps by,Clear dripping drops from tall bamboos I hear,I gaze upon my idle lute and sigh;Alas, no sympathetic soul is near.And so I doze, the while before mine eyesDear friends of other days in dream-clad forms arise.”

Equally famous as poet and physician was Wang Wei (A.D. 699-759). After a short spell of official life, he too retired into seclusion and occupied himself with poetry and with the consolations of Buddhism, in which he was a firm believer. His lines on bidding adieu to Mêng Hao-jan, when the latter was seeking refuge on the mountains, are as follows: —

“Dismounted, o’er winewe had said our last say;Then I whisper, ‘Dear friend,tell me, whither away?’‘Alas!’ he replied,‘I am sick of life’s ills,And I long for reposeon the slumbering hills.But oh seek not to piercewhere my footsteps may stray:The white clouds will soothe mefor ever and ay.’”

The accompanying “stop-short” by the same writer is generally thought to contain an effective surprise in the last line: —

“Beneath the bamboo grove, alone,I seize my lute and sit and croon;No ear to hear me, save mine own:No eye to see me – save the moon.”

Wang Wei has been accused of loose writing and incongruous pictures. A friendly critic defends him as follows: – “For instance, there is Wang Wei, who introduces bananas into a snow-storm. When, however, we come to examine such points by the light of scholarship, we see that his mind had merely passed into subjective relationship with the things described. Fools say he did not know heat from cold.”

TS’UI HAO

A skilled poet, and a wine-bibber and gambler to boot, was Ts’ui Hao, who graduated about A.D. 730.

He wrote a poem on the Yellow-Crane pagoda which until quite recently stood on the bank of the Yang-tsze near Hankow, and was put up to mark the spot where Wang Tzŭ-ch’iao, who had attained immortality, went up to heaven in broad daylight six centuries before the Christian era. The great Li Po once thought of writing on the theme, but he gave up the idea so soon as he had read these lines by Ts’ui Hao: —

“Here a mortal once sailedup to heaven on a crane,And the Yellow-Crane Kiosque,will for ever remain;But the bird flew awayand will come back no more,Though the white clouds are thereas the white clouds of yore.Away to the eastlie fair forests of trees,From the flowers on the westcomes a scent-laden breeze,Yet my eyes daily turnto their far-away home,Beyond the broad River,its waves, and its foam.”

LI PO

By general consent Li Po himself (A.D. 705-762) would probably be named as China’s greatest poet. His wild Bohemian life, his gay and dissipated career at Court, his exile, and his tragic end, all combine to form a most effective setting for the splendid flow of verse which he never ceased to pour forth. At the early age of ten he wrote a “stop-short” to a firefly: —

“Rain cannot quench thy lantern’s light,Wind makes it shine more brightly bright;Oh why not fly to heaven afar,And twinkle near the moon – a star?”

Li Po began by wandering about the country, until at length, with five other tippling poets, he retired to the mountains. For some time these Six Idlers of the Bamboo Grove drank and wrote verses to their hearts’ content. By and by Li Po reached the capital, and on the strength of his poetry was introduced to the Emperor as a “banished angel.” He was received with open arms, and soon became the spoilt child of the palace. On one occasion, when the Emperor sent for him, he was found lying drunk in the street; and it was only after having his face well mopped with cold water that he was fit for the Imperial presence. His talents, however, did not fail him. With a lady of the seraglio to hold his ink-slab, he dashed off some of his most impassioned lines; at which the Emperor was so overcome that he made the powerful eunuch Kao Li-shih go down on his knees and pull off the poet’s boots. On another occasion, the Emperor, who was enjoying himself with his favourite lady in the palace grounds, called for Li Po to commemorate the scene in verse. After some delay the poet arrived, supported between two eunuchs. “Please your Majesty,” he said, “I have been drinking with the Prince and he has made me drunk, but I will do my best.” Thereupon two of the ladies of the harem held up in front of him a pink silk screen, and in a very short time he had thrown off no less than ten eight-line stanzas, of which the following, describing the life of a palace favourite, is one: —

“Oh, the joy of youth spentin a gold-fretted hall,In the Crape-flower Pavilion,the fairest of all,My tresses for head-dresswith gay garlands girt,Carnations arrangedo’er my jacket and skirt!Then to wander awayin the soft-scented air,And return by the sideof his Majesty’s chair …But the dance and the songwill be o’er by and by,And we shall dislimnlike the rack in the sky.”

As time went on, Li Po fell a victim to intrigue, and left the Court in disgrace. It was then that he wrote —

“My whitening hair would make a long, long rope,Yet would not fathom all my depth of woe.”

After more wanderings and much adventure, he was drowned on a journey, from leaning one night too far over the edge of a boat in a drunken effort to embrace the reflection of the moon. Just previously he had indited the following lines: —

“An arbour of flowersand a kettle of wine:Alas! in the bowersno companion is mine.Then the moon sheds her rayson my goblet and me,And my shadow betrayswe’re a party of three.“Though the moon cannot swallowher share of the grog,And my shadow must followwherever I jog, —Yet their friendship I’ll borrowand gaily carouse,And laugh away sorrowwhile spring-time allows.“See the moon, – how she glancesresponse to my song;See my shadow, – it dancesso lightly along!While sober I feelyou are both my good friends;When drunken I reel,our companionship ends.But we’ll soon have a greetingwithout a good-bye,At our next merry meetingaway in the sky.”

His control of the “stop-short” is considered to be perfect: —

(1.) “The birds have all flown to their roost in the tree,The last cloud has just floated lazily by;But we never tire of each other, not we,As we sit there together, – the mountains and I.”(2.) “I wake, and moonbeams play around my bed,Glittering like hoar-frost to my wondering eyes;Up towards the glorious moon I raise my head,Then lay me down, – and thoughts of home arise.”

The following are general extracts: —