“Waiting for the Unicorn”
(15 JULY 1613–15 FEBRUARY 1682)1
Ku Yen-wu (Ning-jen; T’ING-LIN, CHIANG-SHAN-YUNG), a native of K’un-shan, Kiangsu province, was a leading intellectual as well as an accomplished poet of the early Ch’ing. He was adopted by an uncle who soon died, and raised by his uncle’s intended wife. She was devoted to Ku’s upbringing and education, and he later celebrated her life in a well-known essay.
Though most of Ku Yen-wu’s adult life was lived under Manchu rule, and though his philosophical and scholarly works were among the most influential of the dynasty, Ku remained a Ming loyalist, refusing to serve in the government in any capacity. He was officially celebrated in the late Ch’ing as an exemplar of Confucian loyalty.
Ku served briefly in minor positions at two Ming princely courts after the fall of Peking. Deeply devoted to his foster mother, née Wang, Ku honored her deathbed wish that he refuse service to the Ch’ing court. The exercise of this filial duty must have given considerable support to his devotion to the virtue of loyalty—one honored in the breach by the majority of his contemporaries.
Ku spent the years following the fall of the Ming in travel and study, settling first in Shantung province as a farm manager, and then in Shansi, where he promoted the improvement of the banking system, agricultural technology, and mining operations. There is some conjecture that his travels and his practical improvements were centered in the vain hope of organizing popular rebellion against the Manchus. He was accused of consorting with Cheng Ch’eng-kung and of helping in the publication of seditious works, but he escaped with minimal punishment.
Ku Yen-wu is not merely, or even primarily, famous for his exemplary loyalty or his practical patriotism. He was one of the foremost scholars of his time, and the originator of the major Ch’ing branch of Confucianism, the “School of Han Learning.” In addition, he was a major geographer, a historical phonetician, and an important commentator on his times. In the course of his reaction against the Neo-Confucianism of the late Ming, which he held to be responsible for the fall of the dynasty, Ku delineated disciplined methods of historical scholarship. His investigations of the language of the Shih-ching and of the Yi-ching led him to a clear definition of internal and external evidence, and the insistence on the formation and testing of hypotheses as the essential elements of true scholarship.
Ku Yen-wu’s poetry might be regarded as the least of his myriad accomplishments. Nonetheless, it reflects the power of a multifaceted personality, always erudite, and at times surprisingly original through a controlled use of allusions. The emphatic role of allusion in his poems may be accounted for as much by his vulnerable position as by his personal commitment to the literary tradition.
(J.P. Seaton)
____________________
1. Chao-ying Fang, ECCP, 1:421–426.
The world is full of iniquities,
Why do you struggle so in vain,
Always urging on that tiny body,
Forever carrying sticks and stones?
“I will fill up the Eastern Sea.
My body may fail; my aim won’t change.
Until the great sea’s filled
My heart can’t know surcease.”
Alas, don’t you see
The many birds with sticks and stones among the Western Hills?
Magpies come, swallows go, all building their own nests.
(TLSWC, 1:14a)
(Tr. J.P. Seaton)
Eight feet tall, the lonely sail on one leaflet skiff,
Together with wind and water, has carried me to this autumn.
We’ve been to White Emperor city to search for our late ruler,3
Thence east of the river to ask about Chung-mou.4
In the sea the fish and dragons should know our anguish;
Among the hills the trees and plants pour forth their grief.
I trust you’ll speak no more of “rise and fall”;
The boatman of another year is white-haired now.
(TLSWC, 1:20b-21a)
(Tr. J.P. Seaton)
I mock myself: another year and I’m still unable to return;
A goblet of wine, a book of poems—to whom could I turn?
I call the boy at dawn to saddle up the horse;
I must find an old woman before winter comes to mend my gown.
No “Yellow Ear”5 has come with letters from home;
White-haired, I’ve come to ponder the mountain ferns of old.6
Without cause I’ve become a goose that follows the sun;
Riding the west wind, I fly to Reed Marsh.7
(TLSWC, 3:6a)
(Tr. J.P. Seaton)
Fallen leaves, driven by the wind, invade Po-hsia;
Again I’ve come to this place, climbed up for a view.
A reed pipe clear, the moon bright—autumn lingers on the ramparts;
The wilds ablaze, cold stars emerge from the forest at night.
These ancient hills and streams must have a master,
But for years, with spears and armor, we’ve searched hard and long.
Let each of us fill our hands with New Pavilion tears9
And make the river rise at once ten fathoms full.
(TLSWC, 3:15b)
(Tr. J.P. Seaton)
NOTES
1. Ch’ing-wei, a mythical bird, believed to be an incarnation of the daughter of Shen Nung (the god of agriculture), who died while travelling the Eastern Sea. The bird supposedly carries sticks and stones to fill in the sea. The poem is unusual in its use of the myth and the extended development of the metaphor, implying perhaps the lack of rebellious spirit among the people.
2. This poem is unusual not only in its title but also in the fact that the first three words of the first line pa-ch’ih ku (“eight-foot long”) contain a curious figure because the word ku also means “orphan.” In a chronological biography of the poet by Chang Mu (1805–1849), printed in 1843, the author rejects the possibility that this Pa-ch’ih could be a place name on the Wu River. The three words, therefore, can also be taken as a paraphrase of the term “six-foot orphan” (liu-ch’ih ku) from Lun-yü, referring to a “six-foot-tall fatherless one,” usually meaning a boy under fifteen years of age and also a young ruler who has not yet attained his majority (a Chinese foot is about 20 percent shorter than a foot in the English system). This phrase gains added poignancy from the famous “Proclamation Remonstrating Against Empress Wu” penned by the poet Lo Pin-wang (fl. 680) on behalf of Prime Minister Hsü Ching-yeh (?-691), the leader of the court faction opposing the usurpation of the throne by Empress Wu Tse-t’ien (624–705). It is said that when she read the passage, “Before even one cup of earth on the grave mound (of the deceased emperor) is dry, how can one forget the six-foot orphan (i.e., the heir-apparent),” she was so moved by the elegance of Lo’s language that she ordered his life be spared.
3. Pai-ti ch’eng (White Emperor City), situated along the gorge of the Yangtze River, in Szechwan, is where Liu Pei (162–233), the ruler of the Shu Kingdom, died and entrusted the care and guidance of his son to the wise and devoted councillor Chu-ko Liang (181–234).
4. Chung-mou is the courtesy name of Sun Ch’üan (182–252) of the Three Kingdoms period, the Ruler of Wu and rival of Liu Pei; it is also the courtesy name of P’eng Sun-yi (1615–1673), son of the Ming martyr P’eng Ch’i-sheng (1584–1646). The young P’eng, a poet and historian, was the author of the well-known work P’ing-k’ou chih (Record of the Pacification of Bandits), which records the rise and fall of various rebel groups during the years 1628–1661. Hence, the “rise and fall” of line 7.
5. The messenger dog of Lu Chi (261–303), a poet of the Tsin dynasty.
6. An allusion to the story about the legendary brothers Po-yi and Shu-ch’i of Shang times who fled to the mountains, refusing to eat the grains of the new Chou dynasty, and determined to eat only mountain ferns (they eventually perished).
7. Li-tse (Reed Marsh), located in Kiangsu province, is the site of a battle between the ancient states of Wu and Yüeh.
8. An important garrison town near the ancient Chien-k’ang, modern-day Nanking.
9. I.e., Hsin-t’ing, located in a suburb of Chien-k’ang, where the literati often gathered in the Six Dynasties period to lament the loss of North China to non-Chinese tribal peoples.
We use cookies to analyze our traffic. Please decide if you are willing to accept cookies from our website. You can change this setting anytime in Privacy Settings.