A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems/Technique
TECHNIQUE
Certain elements are found, but in varying degree, in all human speech. It is difficult to conceive of a language in which rhyme, stress-accent, and tone-accent would not to some extent occur. In all languages some vowel-sounds are shorter than others and, in certain cases, two consecutive words begin with the same sound. Other such characteristics could be enumerated, but for the purposes of poetry it is these elements which man has principally exploited.
English poetry has used chiefly rhyme, stress, and alliteration. It is doubtful if tone has ever played a part; a conscious use has sporadically been made of quantity. Poetry naturally utilizes the most marked and definite characteristics of the language in which it is written. Such characteristics are used consciously by the poet; but less important elements also play their part, often only in a negative way. Thus the Japanese actually avoid rhyme; the Greeks did not exploit it, but seem to have tolerated it when it occurred accidentally.
The expedients consciously used by the Chinese before the sixth century were rhyme and length of line. A third element, inherent in the language, was not exploited before that date, but must always have been a factor in instinctive considerations of euphony. This element was "tone."
Chinese prosody distinguishes between two tones, a "flat" and a "deflected." In the first the syllable is enunciated in a level manner: the voice neither rises nor sinks. In the second, it [1] rises, [2] sinks, [3] is abruptly arrested. These varieties make up the Four Tones of Classical Chinese.[1]
The "deflected" tones are distinctly more emphatic, and so have a faint analogy to our stressed syllables. They are also, in an even more remote way, analogous to the long vowels of Latin prosody. A line ending with a "level" has consequently to some extent the effect of a "feminine ending." Certain causes, which I need not specify here, led to an increasing importance of "tone" in the Chinese language from the fifth century onwards. It was natural that this change should be reflected in Chinese prosody. A certain Shēn Yo [A. D. 441–513] first propounded the laws of tone-succession in poetry. From that time till the eighth century the Lü-shih or "strictly regulated poem" gradually evolved. But poets continued [and continue till to-day], side by side with their lü-shih, to write in the old metre which disregards tone, calling such poems Ku shih, "old poems." Previous European statements about Chinese prosody should be accepted with great caution. Writers have attempted to define the lü-shih with far too great precision.
The Chinese themselves are apt to forget that T'ang poets seldom obeyed the laws designed in later school-books as essential to classical poetry; or, if they notice that a verse by Li Po does not conform, they stigmatize it as "irregular and not to be imitated."
The reader will infer that the distinction between "old poems" and irregular lü-shih is often arbitrary. This is certainly the case; I have found the same poem classified differently in different native books. But it is possible to enumerate certain characteristics which distinguish the two kinds of verse. I will attempt to do so; but not till I have discussed rhyme, the other main element in Chinese prosody. It would be equally difficult to define accurately the difference between the couplets of Pope and those of William Morris. But it would not be impossible, by pointing out certain qualities of each, to enable a reader to distinguish between the two styles.
Rhyme.— Most Chinese syllables ended with a vowel or nasal sound. The Chinese rhyme was in reality a vowel assonance. Words in different consonants rhymed so long as the vowel-sound was exactly the same. Thus ywet, "moon," rhymed with sek, "beauty." During the classical period these consonant endings were gradually weakening, and to-day, except in the south, they are wholly lost. It is possible that from very early times final consonants were lightly pronounced.
The rhymes used in lü-shih were standardized in the eighth century, and some of them were no longer rhymes to the ear in the Mandarin dialect. To be counted as a rhyme, two words must have exactly the same vowel-sound. Some of the distinctions then made are no longer audible to-day; the sub-divisions therefore seem arbitrary. Absolute homophony is also counted as rhyme, as in French. It is as though we should make made rhyme with maid.
I will now attempt to distinguish between Ku-shih [old style] and Lü-shih [new style].
Ku-shih [Old Style].
[a] According to the investigations of Chu Hua, an eighteenth century critic, only thirty-four rhymes were used. They were, indeed, assonances of the roughest kind.
[b] "Deflected" words are used for rhyming as freely as "flat" words.
[c] Tone-arrangement. The tones were disregarded. [Lines can be found in pre-T'ang poems in which five deflected tones occur in succession, an arrangement which would have been painful to the ear of a T'ang writer and would probably have been avoided by classical poets even when using the old style.]
Lü-shih [New Style].
[a] The rhymes used are the "106" of modern dictionaries [not those of the Odes, as Giles states]. Rhymes in the flat tone are preferred. In a quatrain the lines which do not rhyme must end on the opposite tone to that of the rhyme. This law is absolute in Lü-shih and a tendency in this direction is found even in Ku-shih.
[b] There is a tendency to antithetical arrangement of tones in the two lines of a couplet, especially in the last part of the lines.
[c] A tendency for the tones to go in pairs, e.g. [A=flat, B=deflected]: AA BBA or ABB AA, rather than in threes. Three like tones only come together when divided by a "cesura," e.g., the line BB/AAA would be avoided, but not the line BBAA/ABB.
[d] Verbal parallelism in the couplet, e.g.:
After long illness one first realizes that seeking medicines is a mistake;
In one's decaying years one begins to repent that one’s study of books was deferred.
This device, used with some discretion in T'ang, becomes an irritating trick in the hands of the Sung poets.
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF CHINESE POETRY
The Odes.— From the songs current in his day Confucius [551–479 B. C.] chose about three hundred which he regarded as suitable texts for his ethical and social teaching. Many of them are eulogies of good rulers or criticisms of bad ones. Out of the three hundred and five still extant only about thirty are likely to interest the modern reader. Of these half deal with war and half with love. Many translations exist, the best being those of Legge in English and of Couvreur in French. There is still room for an English translation displaying more sensitively to word-rhythm than that of Legge. It should not, I think, include more than fifty poems. But the Odes are essentially lyric poetry, and their beauty lies in effects which cannot be reproduced in English. For that reason I have excluded them from this book; nor shall I discuss them further here, for full information will be found in the works of Legge or Couvreur.
Elegies of the land of Ch'u.— We come next to Ch'ü Yüan [third century B. C.] whose famous poem "Li Sao," or "Falling into Trouble," has also been translated by Legge. It deals, under a love-allegory, with the relation between the writer and his king. In this poem, sex and politics are curiously interwoven, as we need not doubt they were in Chü Yüan's own mind. He affords a striking example of the way in which abnormal mentality imposes itself. We find his followers unsuccessfully attempting to use the same imagery and rhapsodical verbiage, not realizing that these were, as De Goncourt would say, the product of their master's propre névrosté.
"The Battle," his one thoroughly intelligible poem, has hitherto been only very imperfectly translated. A literal version will be found on page 39.
His nephew Sung Yü was no servile imitator. In addition to "elegies" in the style of the Li Sao, he was the author of many "Fu". or descriptive prose-poems, unrhymed but more or less metrical.
The Han Dynasty.— Most of the Han poems in this book were intended to be sung. Many of them are from the official song-book of the dynasty and are known as Yo Fu or Music Bureau poems, as distinct from shih which were recited. Ch'in Chia's poem and his wife's reply [pages 76 and 77] are both shih; but all the rest might, I think, be counted as songs.
The Han dynasty is rich in Fu [descriptions], but none of them could be adequately translated. They are written in an elaborate and florid style which recalls Apuleius or Lyly.
The Chin Dynasty.
[1] Popular Songs [Songs of Wu]. The popular songs referred to the Wu [Soochow] district and attributed to the fourth century may many of them have been current at a much earlier date. They are slight in content and deal with only one topic. They may, in fact, be called "Love-epigrams." They find a close parallel in the coplas of Spain, cf.:
El candil se està apagando.
La alcuza no tiene aceite —
No te digo que te vayas, . . .
No te digo que te quedes.
The brazier is going out.
The lamp has no more oil —
I do not tell you to go, . . .
I do not tell you to stay.
A Han song, which I will translate quite literally, seems to be the forerunner of the Wu songs.
On two sides of river, wedding made:
Time comes; no boat.
Lusting heart loses hope
Not seeing what-it-desires.
[2] The Taoists.— Confucius inculcated the duty of public service. Those to whom this duty was repulsive found support in Taoism, a system which denied this obligation. The third and fourth centuries A. D. witnessed a great reaction against state service. It occurred to the intellectuals of China that they would be happier growing vegetables in their gardens than place-hunting at Nanking. They embraced the theory that "by bringing himself into harmony with Nature" man can escape every evil. Thus Tao [Nature's Way] corresponds to the Nirvana of Buddhism, and the God of Christian mysticism.
They reduced to the simplest standard their houses, apparel, and food; and discarded the load of book-learning which Confucianism imposed on its adherents.
The greatest of these recluses was T'ao Ch'ien [A. D. 365–427], twelve of whose poems will be found on page 103, seq. Something of his philosophy may be gathered from the poem "Substance, Shadow, and Spirit" [page 106], his own views being voiced by the last speaker. He was not an original thinker, but a great poet who reflects in an interesting way the outlook of his time.
Liang and Minor Dynasties.— This period is known as that of the "Northern and Southern Courts." The north of China was in the hands of the Tungusie Tartars, who founded the Northern Wei dynasty — a name particularly familiar, since it is the habit of European collectors to attribute to this dynasty any sculpture which they believe to be earlier than T'ang. Little poetry was produced in the conquered provinces; the Tartar emperors, though they patronized Buddhist art, were incapable of promoting literature. But at Nanking a series of emperors ruled, most of whom distinguished themselves either in painting or poetry. The Chinese have always [and rightly] despised the literature of this period, which is "all flowers and moonlight." A few individual writers, such as Pao Chao, stand out as exceptions. The Emperor Yüan-ti — who hacked his way to the throne by murdering all other claimants, including his own brother — is typical of the period both as a man and as a poet. A specimen of his sentimental poetry will be found on page 135. When at last forced to abdicate, he heaped together 200,000 books and pictures; and, setting fire to them, exclaimed: "The culture of the Liang dynasty perishes with me."
Tang.— I have already described the technical developments of poetry during this dynasty. Form was at this time valued far above content. "Poetry," says a critic, "should draw its materials from the Han and Wei dynasties." With the exception of a few reformers, writers contented themselves with clothing old themes in new forms. The extent to which this is true can of course only be realized by one thoroughly familiar with the earlier poetry.
In the main, T'ang confines itself to a narrow range of stock subjects. The mise-en-scène is borrowed from earlier times. If a battle-poem be written, it deals with the campaigns of the Han dynasty, not with contemporary events. The "deserted concubines" of conventional love-poetry are those of the Han Court. Innumerable poems record "Reflections on Visiting a Ruin," or on "The Site of an Old City," etc. The details are ingeniously varied, but the sentiments are in each case identical. Another feature is the excessive use of historical allusions. This is usually not apparent in rhymed translations, which evade such references by the substitution of generalities. Poetry became the medium not for the expression of a poet's emotions, but for the display of his classical attainments. The great Li Po is no exception to this rule. Often where his translators would make us suppose he is expressing a fancy of his own, he is in reality skilfully utilizing some poem by T'ao Ch'ien or Hsieh Ti'ao. It is for his versification that he is admired, and with justice. He represents a reaction against the formal prosody of his immediate predecessors. It was in the irregular song-metres of his ku-shih that he excelled. In such poems as the "Ssech'uan Road," with its wild profusion of long and short lines, its cataract of exotic verbiage, he aimed at something nearer akin to music than to poetry. Tu Fu, his contemporary, occasionally abandoned the cult of "abstract form." Both poets lived through the most tragic period of Chinese history. In 755 the Emperor's Turkic favourite, An Lu-shan, revolted against his master. A civil war followed, in which China lost thirty million men. The dynasty was permanently enfeebled and the Empire greatly curtailed by foreign incursions. So ended the "Golden Age" of Ming Huang. Tu Fu, stirred by the horror of massacres and conscriptions, wrote a series of poems in the old style, which Po Chü-i singles out for praise. One of them, "The Press-gang," is familiar in Giles's translations. Li Po, meanwhile, was writing complimentary poems on the Emperor's "Tour in the West" — a journey which was in reality a precipitate flight from his enemies.
Sung.— In regard to content the Sung poets show even less originality than their predecessors. Their whole energy was devoted towards inventing formal restrictions. The "tz'ǔ" developed, a species of song in lines of irregular length, written in strophes, each of which must conform to a strict pattern of tones and rhymes. The content of the "tz'ǔ" is generally wholly conventional. Very few have been translated; and it is obvious that they are unsuitable for translation, since their whole merit lies in metrical dexterity. Examples by the poetess Li I-an will be found in the second edition of Judith Gautier's "Livre de Jade." The poetry of Su Tung-p'o, the foremost writer of the period, is in its matter almost wholly a patchwork of earlier poems. It is for the musical qualities of his verse that he is valued by his countrymen. He hardly wrote a poem which does not contain a phrase [sometimes a whole line] borrowed from Po Chü-i, for whom in his critical writings he expresses boundless admiration.
A word must be said of the Fu [descriptive prose-poems] of this time. They resemble the vers libres of modern France, using rhyme occasionally [like Georges Duhamel] as a means of "sonner, rouler, quand il faut faire donner les cuivres et la batterie." Of this nature is the magnificent "Autumn Dirge" [Giles, "Chinese Lit.," p. 215] by Ou-yang Hsiu, whose lyric poetry is of small interest. The subsequent periods need not much concern us. In the eighteenth century the garrulous Yüan Mei wrote his "Anecdotes of Poetry-making" — a book which, while one of the most charming in the language, probably contains more bad poetry [chiefly that of his friends] than any in the world. His own poems are modelled on Po Chü-i and Su Tung-p'o.
This introduction is intended for the general reader. I have therefore stated my views simply and categorically, and without entering into controversies which are of interest only to a few specialists.
As an account of the development of Chinese poetry these notes are necessarily incomplete, but it is hoped that they answer some of those question which a reader would be most likely to ask.
- ↑ Not to be confused with the Four Tones of the Mandarin dialect, in which the old names are used to describe quite different enunciations.