VI

A HUNDRED AND SEVENTY

Τ

CHINESE POEMS

O read Mr Arthur Waley's translation of ancient Chinese poetry after seeing some such ridiculous presentation of the East as we get in Mr Wu and The Chinese Puzzle is to escape from inept, ludicrous falsities into the clear light of day.

"Those who wish to assure themselves that they will lose nothing by ignoring Chinese literature, often ask the question: Have the Chinese a Homer, an Eschylus, a Shakespeare or Tolstoy?' The answer must be that China has no epic and no dramatic literature of importance. The novel exists and has merits, but never became the instrument of great writers. . . . In mind, as in body, the Chinese were for the most part torpid mainlanders. Their thoughts set out on no strange quests and adventures, just as their ships discovered no new continents. To most Europeans the momentary flash of Athenian questioning will seem worth more than all the centuries of Chinese assent. Yet we must recognise that for thousands of years the Chinese maintained a level of rationality and tolerance that the West might well envy. . . . In the poems of Po Chü-i no close reasoning or philosophic subtlety will be discovered; but a power of candid reflection and self-analysis which has not been rivalled in the West.

"Turning from thought to emotion, the most conspicuous feature of European poetry is its preoccupa

tion with love. . . . The Chinese poet has a tendency different, but analogous. He recommends himself not as a lover, but as a friend. He poses as a person of infinite leisure and free from worldly ambitions. He would have us think of him as a boon companion, a great drinker of wine, who will not disgrace a social gathering by quitting it sober. To the European poet the relation between man and woman is a thing of supreme importance and mystery. To the Chinese it is something commonplace, obvious-a need of the body, not a satisfaction of the emotions. . . . We idealise love at the expense of friendship, and so place too heavy a burden on the relation of man and woman. The Chinese erred in the opposite direction, regarding their wives and concubines simply as instruments of procreation. For sympathy and intellectual companionship they looked only to their friends . . . half the poems in the Chinese language are poems of parting or separation. . . . The poet usually passed through three stages of existence. In the first we find him with his friends at the capital, drinking, writing, and discussing : next, having failed to curry favour with the Court, he is exiled: . . . finally, having scraped together enough money to buy husbands for his daughters, he retires to a small estate. . . .

"In the first four centuries of our era the poetess flourished her theme varies little she is almost always a 'rejected wife' . . . there was no place for unmarried women in the Chinese social system: SO the moment which produced such poems was one of supreme tragedy in a woman's life."

Thus far Mr Waley in a preface which is a most masterly précis of the salient features of a literature which has hitherto been a sealed book to most of us. To turn for a moment to technique. The expedients

used by the Chinese before the sixth century were rhyme and length of line. A third element was "tone." The rhyme was a vowel assonance: words in different consonants rhymed so long as the vowelsound was exactly the same. Mr Waley aims at literal translation, which is bound to be to some extent rhythmical, for the rhythm of the original always obtrudes itself. On the other hand, he does not attempt rhyme because of the impossibility of rendering adequately any notion of Chinese rhyming : nor does he employ "blank verse" because that would demand variation of pause, whereas in Chinese the stop always comes at the end of the couplet.

We English might well desire to take a leaf out of their book if the following is typical of Chinese prose : "The girl next door would be too tall if an inch were added to her height, and too short if an inch were taken away. Another grain of powder would make her too pale; another touch of rouge would make her too red. Her eyebrows are like the plumage of the kingfisher, her flesh is like snow. Her waist is like a roll of new silk, her teeth are like little shells. A single one of her smiles would perturb the whole city of Yang and derange the suburb of Hsia-ts'ai."

That was written in the third century before Christ. General Su Wu's poem To his Wife might have been written during the Great War instead of two thousand years:

Since our hair was plaited and we became man and wife
The love between us was never broken by doubt.
So let us be merry this night together,
Feasting and playing while the good time lasts.

I suddenly remember the distance that I must travel
I spring from bed and look out to see the time.

The stars and planets are all grown dim in the sky ;
Long, long is the road; I cannot stay.

I am going on service, away to the battle-ground,
And I do not know when I shall come back.

I hold your hand with only a deep sigh;
Afterwards, tears-in the days when we are parted.
With all your might enjoy the spring flowers,
But do not forget the time of our love and pride.
Know that if I live, I will come back again,
And if I die, we will go on thinking of each other.

The perfect simplicity both of the diction and the emotion here is a delicious change from the euphuistic epigrams that we are led to believe from The Chinese Puzzle are the staple diet of the Chinese in their most ordinary conversation.

The wife's reply is on the same high level :

The good time will never come back again :

In a moment, our parting will be over.

Anxiously-we halt at the roadside,
Hesitating-we embrace where the fields begin.
From now onwards-long must be our parting,
So let us stop again for a little while.

I wish I could ride on the wings of the morning wind
And go with you right to your journey's end.

Another husband, Ch'in Chia, writes to his absent wife in these terms:

When I think of all the things you have done for me, How ashamed I am to have done so little for you! Although I know that it is a poor return,

All I can give you is this description of my feelings.

It is obvious that lucidity of this sort is a happy medium for satire. In the year A.D. 250 we find Ch'eng Hsiao writing on the horror of paying calls in August:

The conversation does not end quickly :
Prattling and babbling, what a lot he says!
Only when one is almost dead with fatigue
He asks at last if one isn't finding him tiring.
(One's arm is almost in half with continual fanning :
The sweat is pouring down one's neck in streams.)
Do not say that this is a small matter:

I consider the practice a blot on our social life.

I therefore caution all wise men

That August visitors should not be admitted.

Occasionally there is an attempt to formulate some ethical point as in T'ao Ch'ien's :

That when the body decays Fame should also go

Is a thought unendurable, burning the heart.

Let us strive and labour while yet we may
To do some deed that men will praise.
Wine may in truth dispel our sorrow,
But how compare it with lasting Fame?

Or again :

God can only set in motion :

He cannot control the things he has made.
You had better go where Fate leads—
Drift on the stream of Infinite Flux,

Without joy, without fear :

When you must go-then go,

And make as little fuss as you can.

As an example of how the Chinese spend their time T'ao Ch'ien may again be quoted:

In the month of June the grass grows high

And round my cottage thick-leaved branches sway.

There is not a bird but delights in the place where it rests: And I too-love my thatched cottage.

I have done my ploughing:

I have sown my seed.