Gems of Chinese Literature/Su Tung-P‘o-Châlet of Cranes

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The Tower of Contentment
Gems of Chinese Literature (1922)
translated by Herbert Allen Giles
Châlet of Cranes by Su Tung-P‘o
Inaccuracy
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SU TUNG-P‘O.

a.d. 1036-1101

[An almost universal genius, like Ou-yang Hsiu, this writer is even a greater favourite with the Chinese literary public. Under his hands, the language of which China is so proud may be said to have reached perfection of finish, of art concealed. In subtlety of reasoning, in the lucid expression of abstractions, such as in English too often elude the faculty of the tongue, Su Tung-P‘o is an unrivalled master. On behalf of his honoured manes I desire to note my protest against the words of Mr. Baber, recently spoken at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, and stating that “the Chinese language is incompetent to express the subtleties of theological reasoning, just as it is inadequate to represent the nomenclature of European science.” I am not aware that the nomenclature of European science can be adequately represented even in the English language; at any rate, there can be no comparison between the expression of terms and of ideas, and I take it the doctrine of the Trinity itself is not more difficult of comprehension than the theory of “self abstraction beyond the limits of an external world,” so closely reasoned out by Chuang Tzŭ. If Mr. Baber merely means that the gentlemen entrusted with the task have proved themselves so far quite incompetent to express in Chinese the subtleties of theological reasoning, then I am with him to the death.

There is one more point in regard to which I should be glad to cleanse the stuffed bosoms of some from a certain perilous stuff―the belief that Chinese sentences are frequently open to two and even more interpretations. No theory could well be more mischievous than this. It tends to make a student readily satisfied with anything he can get out of an obscure paragraph rather than push on laboriously through the dark passages of thought until the real sense begins to glimmer ahead, and finally to shine brightly upon him. I wish to place it on record, as my opinion, after the arduous task of translation now lying completed before me, that the written language of China is hardly more ambiguous than English; and that an ordinary Chinese sentence, written without malice aforethought, can have but one meaning, though it may often appear at the first blush to have several. There are exceptions, of course; but the rule remains unchanged. I have frequently been trapped myself, and may be again; trapped into satisfaction with a given rendering which I subsequently discovered to be wrong, and which I could then feel to be grammatically wrong though I had previously accepted it as right. The fault in such cases, I venture to suggest, should be sought for outside the text. (I leave this to stand as it stood in 1884, merely suggesting that it is the extreme difficulty of the book-language which is mistaken for ambiguity.)

To revert to the subject of this note, Su Tung-P‘o shared the fate of most Chinese statesmen of the T'ang and Sung dynasties. He was banished to a distant post. In 1235 he was honoured with a niche in the Confucian temple, but his tablet was removed in 1845. After six hundred years he might well have been left there in peace.]

Su Tung-P‘o1524142Gems of Chinese Literature — Châlet of Cranes1922Herbert Allen Giles
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During the autumn of 1078, there was a great flood over a certain district, which nearly submerged the rude dwelling of a recluse named Chang. However, by the following spring the water had fallen, and he was able to occupy a site near his former residence, on a range of hills, in the midst of charming scenery, where he built himself a mountain hut. It was a perfect cordon of peaks, except on the west where the line broke; and there, right in the gap, the hermit’s cottage stood. Thence, in spring and summer, the eye wandered over a broad expanse of verdure and vegetation: in autumn and winter, over moonlit miles of gleaming snow; while every change of wind and rain, every alternation of darkness and light, brought ever-varying beauties into view.

Chang kept a couple of cranes, which he had carefully trained; and every morning he would release them westwards through the gap, to fly away and alight in the marsh below or soar aloft among the clouds as the birds’ own fancy might direct. At nightfall, they would return with the utmost regularity. And so he named his abode the Châlet of Cranes.

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When I was Governor in those parts, I went with some friends to call upon Chang, and spent a merry time with him over a stoup of wine. And as I pledged my host, I said, “Are you aware, sir, how perfect is the happiness you enjoy? happiness that I would not exchange even for the diadem of a prince. Does not the Book of Changes speak of the crane’s voice sounding in solitude, and the harmony which prevails among its young? Does not the Book of Poetry tell us that the crane’s note rings through the marsh, and is heard far away in the sky? For the crane is a bird of purity and retirement, taking its pleasure beyond the limits of this dusty world of ours. Therefore it has been made an emblem of the virtuous man and of the lettered recluse; and to cherish such pets in one’s home should entail rather profit than harm. Yet the love of cranes once lost a kingdom.[1]

“Then we have had Edicts prohibiting the use of wine, the greatest curse, as ’twas said, of the curses which afflict mankind. Yet there have been those who attained immortality thereby, and made themselves heroes for ever.

“Ah! ’tis but the prince, who, though pure as the crane itself, dares not indulge a passion for wine. An he do so, it may cost him his throne. But for the lettered recluse of the hill-side, what odds if he perish in his cups? And what harm can his cranes bring to him? Thus, sir, it is that the joys of the prince and the hermit may not be mentioned together.”

“True enough!” cried Chang, smiling, as he proceeded to sing the Song of the Cranes:―

"Away! away! my birds, fly westwards now,
To wheel on high and gaze on all below;
To swoop together, pinions closed, to earth;
To soar aloft once more among the clouds;
To wander all day long in sedgy vale;
To gather duckweed in the stony marsh.
Come back! come back! beneath the lengthening shades,
Your serge-clad master stands, guitar in hand.
’Tis he that feeds you from his slender store:
Come back! come back! nor linger in the west.”

  1. ↑ Alluding to a certain feudal prince who lavished his revenues upon cranes.
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