“Waiting for the Unicorn”
(24 DECEMBER 1673–6 OCTOBER 1769)1
Shen Te-ch’ien (Ch’üeh-shih; KUEI-YÜ), a native of Ch’ang-chou, Kiangsu province, came from a poor but scholarly background. He led an undistinguished official life until his late sixties, when he passed the chin-shih examination and won the admiration of the Ch’ien-lung emperor. Thereafter, until his death in 1769 at the age of ninety-seven, he served in a variety of educational posts and received numerous honors. In 1742, as a compiler in the Hanlin Academy, he edited the Chiu T’ang Shih and the Hsin T’ang Shih [Old and New Histories of the T’ang dynasty], and he participated in the compilation of the Mirror of History for the Ming dynasty. Among the posts that he held were those of expositor in the Hanlin Academy (1743), imperial diarist, examiner of the Hupeh provincial examination (1745), vice-chancellor of the Grand Secretariat (1746), tutor to the imperial princes and second vice-president of the Board of Ceremonies (1747), and assistant director of the metropolitan examination (1748). He was honored with two imperial prefaces to his own works, and was made honorary president of the Board of Ceremonies (1747) and Grand Tutor of the Heir Apparent (1765). All these titles, however, were stripped from him posthumously in 1778 when he was denounced for having written a biographical sketch of Hsü Shu-k’uei (chü-jen, 1738), in whose works were discovered seditious sentiments.
Shen Te-ch’ien is now chiefly remembered as an anthologist and editor. Many of his works are still used as standard texts. These include the following titles: Ku-shih yüan (1725), T’ang-shih pieh-ts’ai chi (compiled in collaboration with Ch’en Shu-tzu in 1717 and revised in 1763), Ming-shih pieh-ts’ai chi (compiled with the aid of Chou Chun in 1739), Kou-ch’ao shih pieh-ts’ai chi (1759), T’ang Sung pa-chia wen-hsüan (1752), and Tu-shih ou-p’ing (1753). In these works, Shen Te-ch’ien attempted to promote a revival of classicism in both form and content. Poetry, he claimed, should serve a didactic and moral function. On this point he opposed his contemporary, Yüan Mei (q.v.), who emphasized individual genius (hsing-ling shuo) by stressing, in its stead, the primacy of the poetic form (ke-tiao shuo).
His poetic works, collected into the Kuei-yü shih-wen ch’ao (1752 and 1766) and Shih-yin (1753), are marked by a similar concern with recapturing the restraint and economy of the poetry of the Han, Wei, and T’ang dynasties.
(Marie Chan)
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1.Man-kuei Li, ECCP, 2:645- 646.
I
Urgent the cry of the wild geese, wailing amidst the void;
The wind whirls the Dragon Sand1 as it forms a dune.
The kumiss all drunk, the sky turns to dusk.
Under a bright moon alone I climb Li Ling’s tower.2
II
The troops are moved to a distant region, they leave Yi and Kan;3
White geese, gold-edged pipes, they cannot bear to hear.
Twenty thousand men turn back to gaze afar.
The source of the Yellow River lies south of the great wasteland.
(Wu, p. 51)
(Tr. Marie Chan)
Clear are the Huai currents, I see the river’s depth;
Loving this, I rest my oars at evening.
The marketplace abustle, I know winter is over;
A monk at leisure, I sigh at a traveler’s toils.
On the embankment, a lad makes offerings to the kitchen god;5
In the village shop a dame presides over her stove.
Tomorrow I’ll ride upon my mule and leave,
As the spring wind brushes my hemp robe.
Wu, p. 105)
(Tr. Marie Chan)
Song on a Pine on Yellow Mountain6
All at once I see a coiled dragon forming the base of an ancient bronze plate:
Its scales severely scuffed, blotched with dark green moss,
Its body half submerged in barely three feet of dirt.
Might it not be the same lone-standing pine atop Mount Omei7
Whose visage has suffered no change for ten thousand years? | 5 |
I ask the pine: from where do your roots receive their nurture?
It comes from Yellow Mountain’s thirty-six majestic peaks.
So high is Yellow Mountain that its summit abuts on heaven:
This ancient pine, writhing and curling, hangs from a cliffside.
Boulders angrily split asunder, robbing it of earth’s moisture: | 10 |
Its trunk and branches are steeped in the light of sun and moon.
What craftsmen skilled with pike and chisel—
Their bodies dangling by long lines—
Lowered themselves down, peering into the abyss,
Suspended ten thousand fathoms in the void, | 15 |
And from the mountain’s miraculous anatomy,
Cut and fashioned this curious boulder for a linked-root tree?
As if transported from a distant magic kingdom’s deepest recesses,
It provides, a thousand leagues away, lodging for a recluse,
Where, in its empty hall, mist and fair clouds constantly arise, | 20 |
And the watery vapor of Heavenly Peak8 seems to gather in a corner of its courtyard!
As I face the pine on Yellow Mountain,
My spirit roams Yellow Mountain’s peaks,
Where the immortals Fu-ch’iu and Jung-ch’eng9
Keep me company on the edge of the clouds. | 25 |
Of, if only I could ride a white deer, lose myself in these dark green cliffs,
Then, after feasting on pine nuts, lightly rise
To join hands with the crowded pinnacles in greeting the immortal company!
(HHSC, p. 166)
(Tr. Irving Lo)
2. The pine of Huang-shan: a photograph. Courtesy of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China.
NOTES
1. I.e., the border desert areas of northwestern China.
2. Li Ling (d. 74 B.C.), a Han general who led a major expedition against the Hsiung-nu tribe, was compelled to surrender when his forces were greatly outnumbered, and died in captivity twenty-five years after his defeat.
3. I.e., Ili in Sinkiang province and Kansu province.
4. The sluice gate at Huai-an, modern-day Huai-yin, Kiangsu province, on the historic Huai river.
5. Offerings to the kitchen god were traditionally made on the twentyfourth day of the twelfth lunar month.
6. Yellow Mountain (Huang-shan), located in the southern part of Anhwei province, is probably the most celebrated of all scenic areas in China. It derives its name, since the T’ang dynasty, from the legend that the mythical Yellow Emperor once prepared the elixir of immortality on this mountain, in the company of the Taoist immortals Fu-ch’iu and Jung-ch’eng (line 24). The mountain is famous for its thirty-six peaks, the tallest of which are over 1,800 meters; and the area is also known for the so-called Four (Scenic) Wonders; namely, seas of clouds, warm springs, marvelous pines, and fanciful rocks.
7. A famous mountain in Szechwan province.
8. T’ien-tu (Heavenly Capital) Peak, the highest of the thirty-six peaks of Huang-shan.
9. Both legendary immortals, companions of the Yellow Emperor. Duke Jung-ch’eng was said to have been the latter’s teacher and to have also written a book on sexual practices which enabled a follower of his to live past the age of 160 years.
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