“Waiting for the Unicorn” | Open Indiana

Chang Wen-t’ao (Chung-yeh; CH’UAN-SHAN), a native of Suining, Szechuan province, was born in Kuan-t’ao, Shantung, where his father was then serving as district magistrate. After winning the chin-shih degree in 1790, he held both local and national office. His outspoken manner eventually led to his resignation and retirement to Wu-hsien, Kiangsu.

Chang Wen-t’ao was acclaimed in his own times as an accomplished painter and calligrapher, and his contemporaries, such as the poet Yüan Mei and the scholar Hung Liang-chi (qq.v), spoke highly of his talents as a poet. In 1797, while employed in the Hanlin Academy, he requested leave to visit his family home in Szechuan, probably out of concern for the safety of his parents and family, for the White Lotus Rebellion had by then spread into that region. On his return trip, he recorded some of his thoughts on that massive uprising in a cycle of eighteen poems, which, according to the poet-scholar Chang Wei-p’ing (1780–1859), were widely praised. Somewhat obscure to the modern reader because of their topicality, these poems nonetheless reveal one dimension of the poet’s mind—an interest in the problems of statecraft which were then coming under renewed scrutiny by the scholar-official class. Chang Wen-t’ao was a man of wide-ranging intellectual and artistic interests, and his poetic corpus, while not large by traditional standards, is many faceted. There are, of course, the usual occasional poems and set pieces; but there are also poems of a serious and thoughtful nature, those which are lighthearted and joyful in spirit, and still others which are movning and compassionate in tone.

As a poet concerned with the larger problems of his art and craft, Chang Wen-t’ao manifested a desire, not altogether uncommon at the time, to free himself of the oppressive weight of traditional literary theories and practices. While acknowledging the valuable lessons to be learned from earlier masters and theorists, he nevertheless forthrightly declared, “I will employ my own methods,/Stand alone, reject all labels.” In this respect, he added his voice to others of his time who were searching for a new poetics.

(William Schultz)

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1. J. C. Yang, ECCP, 1:59–60.

On Literature

To condone rotten rubbish is to deny the miraculous;

To seek a source for each and every word is bitterly tedious.

Can only sages fabricate lines like Master Tu?¹

How I admire Pao Hsi² for that first stroke fashioned out of the blue!

A poem without a self is fit only to be excised;

Ten thousand volumes piled on a bed are of little worth.

Never imitate contemporaries who cover the wall with paintings,

And, when finished, talk of having copied the pictures of Ching and Kuan.³

(Nos. 1 and 7 from a series of 8; CCSTH; pp. 7b-8a)

(Tr. Irving Lo)

Moving to the Cottage of Pines and Bamboo on the
Third Day, Ninth Month of the Keng-hsü Year
[10 October 1790], Two Poems.

Pure is the sandalwood incense-a good place to live,

But will the family furniture fill an entire cart?

I’ll keep some material possessions, though a burden after I’m gone:

One shoulder basket of luggage, another of books.

This floating life—a grain of millet on a boundless sea!

And in the end, another village unlike my native place.

The chrysanthemums and me, together we wither and fall;

In divining a place to live, most suitable is the day of the Double Ninth.

(Nos. 1 and 2 from a series of 4; CSPCTP, 4:22b-23a)

(Tr. William Schultz)

A Poem on Returning Home
[9 November 1792]

Five or six years ago I took a wife,

Planned to return home, but it could not be.

A boy was born, but suddenly he died;

A girl was born—now higher than my knee.

When I was granted temporary leave this winter,

Wife and daughter whooped as if crazy.

Hastily, carriage and horse were sought;

In an evening our luggage was packed.

In an evening our luggage was packed;

In five days’ time we reached home.

Entering the gate, we saw the bamboo close by,

The bamboo close by made me rejoice.

Father and Mother, hearing their daughter-in-law had come,

Rejoiced as if their son had just taken a bride.

They comforted my wife and one another:

Next year they’d certainly have a grandson!⁴

Sister-in-law, hearing that her niece had come,

Tied ribbons around pears and dates;

Took her niece to see Wan-jo;

Wan-jo was a beautiful child.

Younger brother, hearing that my wife had come,

Brought his wife to offer greetings:

“She can read Admonitions for Women,

And surely Elder Sister will be her teacher.”

Elder brother’s daughter, hearing her cousin had come,

Babbled on and on as if exchanging greetings:

Like an old scholar chatting about the Golden Mean,

But knowing nothing at all about the subject.

Female and male servants peeped in the door;

Chickens and dogs leapt upon the fence.

Guests beyond number, filling the gateway,

Honored me as if I had just been ennobled.

Honored me as if I had just been ennobled;

Drunk, I suddenly uttered a wild shout:

“I have an elder brother in the South Seas;

Should he return, wouldn’t that be wonderful!”

The next day a letter arrived:

Elder brother had already passed Yü-chou.

The day after, a carriage arrived,

Wonderfully quick like a posted letter.

Flute and song filled the courtyard;

Elder brother had returned—the family was now complete!

The whole family, suddenly brought together.

Long ago parted, who knows how many years?

(CCSSH, 1:3b-4b)

(Tr. William Schultz)

[On Calligraphy]

My script soars up, flies away, but I’m too drunk to know;

Dripping ink, the large graphs leap from the Heavenly Pool.⁵

Never mind the sun now rising from the eastern sea;

For eons and eons, divine light will illumine this verse.

(See illustration 6)

(Tr. William Schultz)

NOTES

1. The common expression tu chuan meaning “fabrication” (still current today) refers to a legend about a poet named Tu Mo (though other versions of the story give the name of the poet as Tu T’ien or Tu Yüan) who wrote verses violating the strict rules of prosody.

2. Fu Hsi, the legendary inventor of the Chinese writing system.

3. “Ching” and “Kuan” refer to two famous painters, Ching Hao and his disciple Kuan T’ung, both of the Later Liang dynasty.

4. Author’s note: “At this time they knew that my son had died only twenty-two days before.”

5. Heavenly Pool (T’ien-ch’ih) alludes to a passage in the “Hsiao-yao yu” (Free and Easy Wandering) chapter in the Chuang-tzu, where it is mentioned as the habitat of the mythical fish called K’un. Compare Burton Watson’s translation: “In the bald and barren north, there is a dark sea, the Lake of Heaven. In it is a fish which is several thousand li across, and no one knows how long. His name is K’un. . . ,” in his The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 31.

6. “On Calligraphy,” by Chang Wen-t’ao. Courtesy of the Shanghai Museum, People’s Republic of China.

Waiting for the Unicorn