“Waiting for the Unicorn”
Wu Chia-chi (Pin-hsien; YEH-JEN)—native of An-feng-ch’ang, T’ai-chou prefecture of Yangchow, Kiangsu—was a commoner. He lived a secluded life in the salt-producing region of the lower Yangtze, exchanging visits and poems with a few friends, and eventually died of consumption. He may have on occasion supported himself as a merchant or fortune-teller. In 1663 his works came to the attention of the famous poet Wang Shih-chen (q.v.) who, along with another prominent scholar-official Chou Liang-kung (1612–1672), lauded Wu as an extraordinary genius. Both Chou and Wang contributed prefaces to his collected works, in which the “simplicity” (tan) and “loftiness” (kao) of Wu’s verse were singled out for praise as reminiscent of the T’ang poets Meng Chiao and Chia Tao (779–849). The majority of his poems mirror some common experience of his generation in the dislocation of the Ming-Ch’ing transition, moving from a more or less active Ming loyalist resistance to an ambivalent acceptance of the new order. They describe survival in poetry and express sympathy for the poor and the downtrodden. Collected under the title of Lou-hsüan shih-chi (Poems from a Dilapidated Studio), his works were printed frequently in his own lifetime and down to 1902. A modern annotated edition, by Yang Chi-ch’ing, was issued in Shanghai in 1980. It contains over one thousand poems, including those that had appeared in the supplement (hsü-chi) and the addendum (shih-pu) volumes published after the poet’s death.
(John E. Wills, Jr.)
I
Beside the road the wu-t’ung tree,
Bent, crippled, and ghastly pale.
Together we exist between earth and sky;
Yet alone it’s tortured by dust storm and gale.
Coming and going are many “overturned carts”1
All around, nothing grows but thorns and brambles.
When the roots can find no proper place,
Trunk and branches stretch out in vain.
Beneath the frigid sky, the vermillion phoenix is far away;
Common birds swirl and fight for a place to rest.
II
I have beaten my sword into an axe,
And must get along as a woodcutter.
Who says my zeal has been smoothed away?
I still have a sharp tool in my hands.
Going into the mountains, I weep among pines and cypresses;
To catch a tiger, I want to be the first among peers.
At sunset we would return home singing,
Our voices echoing back and forth.
Yellowing war clouds hang over the city;
Face flushed, again and again I glance back.
(Nos. 1 and 2 from a series of 8; WCCSCC, pp. 2–3)
(Tr. John E. Wills, Jr.)
On the Ninth Day of the Month, Thinking of
Ch’eng Yi-shih at Soochow
Itinerant trade is the business of petty men,
Laboring their minds and bodies over carats and ounces,
Intimate with the grubby and the unkempt,
Consorting with the stinking foul.
Alas, in the midst of wild grasses,
A proud wild swan among skinhead cranes!
Companions in thirst and hunger,
The young and strong make light of the road;
While the many are glad you share their interests,
But who would know that your heart keeps its distance?
The Soochow moon rises amid pines and junipers;
The startled deer call out to each other.
Thoughts of home may make you sad;
Deep, deep is your longing there beside Lake T’ai.2
(No. 2 from a series of 2; WCCSCC, p. 165)
(Tr. John E. Wills, Jr.).
Ten Miscellaneous Poems on Tung-t’ao:3
At the Ch’ang Family Well
A salt worker always eats salty food.
A milder taste, he would think it strange!
I sigh that this cold and pure spring
Is found amid these briny wastes.
Even the marshes aren’t dry in a drought;
On a moonlit night, the water’s fit for tea.
Desolate here among the rambling grasses,
I draw the water but who’d come to join me from afar?
(No. 8 from a series of 10; WCCSCC, p. 198)
(Tr. John E. Wills, Jr.)
Passing the Retreat of Hsü Ching-po4
A grassy road with few passersby,
A bramble door, a wild unkempt view.
You chant poems to while away the long blank day,
You escape from the world to keep the ruddy look of youth.
Few books on your shelves—Fu Hsi’s5 earnest thoughts;
The old wine lees—an amber’s deep glow.
Everything invites me to get drunk with you
And take a nap in the bamboo shade.
(No. 1 from a series of 2; WCCSCC, p. 131)
(Tr. John E. Wills, Jr.)
On Virtuous Government—For His Excellency Wang
Fu-ssu,6 Salt Subcontroller of T’ai-chou
Flowering plums from the southern passes, fresh and pure,
Their fragrance can move the mind of man.
The black-haired masses, though dull witted,
Long for virtuous government, in their heart.
Desolate are these ocean shores!
Harried, the saltern workers!
All year they work to pay their taxes,
Their bodies deformed by salt-village life.
Starving children lie in the grasses;
Crickets join in their woeful cries.
If no good shepherd had come along,
How could the people find consolation?
He daily toils at nurturing and comforting them;
He daily soothes the wearied and the sick.
Their prayers will turn the salt marsh sweet,
As the sounds of singing rise across the fields.
(No. 1 from a series of 5; WCCSCC, p. 185)
(Tr. John E. Wills, Jr.)
How many days do they live on the branch
Before death comes one night in autumn?
They, too, conform to the mind of heaven and earth
To fall helter-skelter on the courtyard below—
Creating tumult where the moon slants,
Calculated to startle a white-headed old man.
Who needs to complain of quavering and faltering?
The busybody culprit is the spring wind.
(WCCSCC, p. 11)
(Tr. Irving Lo)
NOTES
1. See Huang Tsung-hsi, note 2.
2. The text gives “Chü-chü,” which was called Cheng-tse in ancient times, alluding to the story about Fan Li, a trader-turned-statesman of the Warring States period who spurned a king’s reward and sailed off on a boat on Lake T’ai.
3. Tung-t’ao, another name of An-feng-ch’ang, is the poet’s native place. Wu claimed spiritual kinship with a fellow villager, the Ming Neo-Confucianist philosopher Wang Ken (1483–1541) who advocated the self-cultivation of common men and women and was later regarded as the leader of the “leftist” wing of the Wang Yang-ming School of Neo-Confucianism.
4. Not identified.
5. Reputed author of the Yi-ching.
6. Courtesy name of Wang Chao-chang (fl. 1667), an official known for his integrity.
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