“Waiting for the Unicorn” | Open Indiana

Hsü Ts’an (Ming-shen, HSIANG-P’ING and MAO-YÜAN), a native of Soochow, Kiangsu, married Ch’en Chih-lin (1605–1666, Yen-sheng, SU-AN) of Hai-ning, Chekiang province. Ch’en obtained the chin-shih degree in 1637 and received official appointment. After the collapse of the Ming dynasty, he served the Ch’ing dynasty, twice reaching the position of Grand Secretary. He was also named Junior Guardian of the Heir-Apparent. Entangled in factional struggles at court, he was banished to Liao-yang in Manchuria for a time, but was later summoned back to Peking. Soon he was accused of attempting to bribe a eunuch and sent into exile from which he was never allowed to return. Hsü Ts’an accompanied her husband to Peking and twice followed him into exile. She therefore led a colorful and eventful life, at one moment the wife of a senior official, and the next that of a criminal. Banishment took her beyond the frontiers and to a life in the wilderness. After the death of her husband, she was pardoned and allowed to return home. There she devoted her remaining years to copying Buddhist sutras.

Hsü Ts’an was skilled in calligraphy, painting, and poetry. Her tz’u (lyric) poems are in the Northern Sung style; they are lucid in expression and tinged with melancholy. Her poetry was highly rated by her contemporaries and later critics, such as Ch’en Wei-sung (q.v.).

(Pao Chia-lin)

Headwaters of the Lung River¹

Westward, the gloom of the remote wilds;

Eastward, the grief of my native land.

One heart tugged at by two places,

Two rows of tears fall separately.

Autumn’s military summons allow for no delay,

War chariots roll all night without rest.

Brave soldiers make light of crossing the frontier

Before they reach the top of the Lung Mountains.²

(CCYSC, 1:16b)

(Tr. Pao Chia-lin)

Moon over the Mountain Pass

In the dead of winter, crossing the mountain pass—

The short jacket feels as cold as iron.

Two or three sounds of the Tartar flute

Blow down the moon from the winter sky.

(CCYSC, 2:3a)

(Tr. Pao Chia-lin)

Tune: Hsi-chiang yüeh (West River Moon)
Title: Rain on the Night of the Full Moon

It isn’t that we are deprived of a bright moon:

The moon has done wrong to a pleasant evening.

Otherwise why must it drizzle, drizzle on the fifteenth?

It only helps the dense grass and grief to multiply.

Clouds roll in a gentle chill at the approaching dusk;

By a single lamp, a gaunt shadow, an agitated heart—

For my dream to reach home, the night is short, the road long;

So tonight I must begin early my dream of going home.

(CCYSY, 1:2b-3a)

(Tr. Irving Lo)

Tune: Lin-chiang hsien (Immortal at the River)
Title: Boudoir Feeling

I hardly recognize that autumn has entered my mirror;

How often tears stain my makeup.

Clear dew over the green wave is distressing to pink fragrance.

The shy heart of the lotus has formed,

But in most the pods are empty.

Hanging willows by the low pavilion are done with dancing;

Returning geese in the formation peep into my room.

My soul is wafted to the home of water and clouds;

Here soft wind and rain,

And a night by the chilling creek.

(CCYSY, 2:1a-2b)

(Tr. Irving Lo)

NOTES

1. A major river in Kansu province.

2. Located northwest of Lung county in Shensi province, a strategic mountain west of the pass which extends into Kansu province.

Waiting for the Unicorn