“Waiting for the Unicorn”
Hung Sheng (Fang-ssu; PAI-CH’I), a native of Ch’ien-t’ang, Chekiang province, is best known today, as he was during his lifetime, for his long dramatic work Ch’ang-sheng tien (The Palace of Everlasting Life). Written in the ch’uan-ch’i form and so containing a wealth of musical verse, the play recounts the famous ill-fated love affair of the T’ang emperor Hsüan-tsung and his paramour, the Precious Consort Yang. In many ways the culmination of a number of earlier treatments of the tale in poetry and music drama, Hung’s play (completed around 1684) attained an immediate and widespread popularity.
Hung had first come to Peking as a student in the Imperial Academy and soon gained the friendship of some of the most important poets of the day. He accepted the patronage of Wang Shih-chen (q.v.), becoming a disciple of that influential critic, although his own ideas about poetry were to develop rather differently from the theories advocated by Wang. He was also on familiar terms with Chu Yi-tsun, Chao Chih-hsin, and Shih Jun-chang (qq.v.). But in 1689 he was dismissed from the academy, after a special performance of Ch’ang-sheng tien was staged in his honor during a period of imperial mourning. He returned home and lived thereafter the life of a retired scholar, taking special pleasure in the solace of nature.
Hung’s dramatic works (he wrote several other plays besides his most famous one) attest to his skill as a writer of lyric verse. Contemporaries felt that his shih poetry (all the poems translated here are of this kind) had a lofty and untrammeled air that set it apart from the conventional verse being written at the time. But, as is true of many Ch’ing poets, there is also a heavy undercurrent of melancholy in his works. Hung’s death by drowning (it is reported that he fell overboard while drunk) recalls the apocryphal story of the similar end of the great T’ang poet Li Po.
(Paul W. Kroll)
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1. Tai Jen, ECCP, 1:375.
In the thatched cottage I have settled, lingering long;
With springtime’s coming, the air turns gradually milder.
Scattered flowers open frozen buds,
As the hidden stream grows a new scar.
Wild birds content to bid the valley farewell,
And mountain clouds lazily enter at the gate.
Except for two or three shepherds and woodsmen,
No one comes anymore to the deserted village.
(PCHC, p. 163)
(Tr. Paul W. Kroll)
An old sophora tree, utterly withered and bare,
Its sparse shadows carelessly shudder now and sway.
Leaves stripped, it lets down the scantiest shade;
In the emptiness of the courtyard it receives most of the moonlight.
Autumn crickets raise their clamor in vain;
The sunset birds come past here no longer.
– –If a planted tree has now come to this,
What recourse can there be for our floating life?
(PCHC, p. 44)
(Tr. Paul W. Kroll)
Passing the Night at the Monastery of Eternal Peace
In darkness I sought lodging at a mountain monastery,
Where the vapors of the rocks brushed my garments cold.
In the faintness of a breeze, crickets intone autumn;
With the chill of dew, cranes take warning.
As the bell’s tolling fades, monks chat together;
As the night grows long, my heart is more at peace.
And just when one would glimpse the glow of the luminous moon,
The deep-set pines spill out their scattered shadows.
(PCHC, p. 20)
(Tr. Paul W. Kroll)
On Rising at Dawn and Seeing the Mountains
Lying abed I heard the din of magpies in the grove,
And by the feel of the air knew the day would be fair.
I flung on a cloak, went out the courtyard door,
As the fading moon lay athwart the southwest.
The wind-gap mist already breaking up gradually, | 5 |
The halcyon blue of the void seemed to welcome me.
Stickle-backed as fish scales, auroral clouds of pink rose up;
Sharp-honed as sword blade, a cooling breeze was born.
In the solitary stillness, my ears and eyes were opened;
By the broad expanse, heart and spirit were purified. | 10 |
What is one now to make of men of court and marketplace,
Who, roiling and riling, contend for fame and profit?
As the cocks of morn are heard they bridle their steeds,
And take uneven bumpy paths to call on dukes and lords.
– –But for just a moment’s glimpse of happiness such as this, | 15 |
I decide to live out my years farming beneath the cliffs.
(PCHC, p. 21)
(Tr. Paul W. Kroll)
Leaning on the oars, I watch the fire of the fireflies,
Flitting and fluttering, airily at their will.
Along with the breeze, carrying a remote light;
Crossing the water, sporting their faint gleam.
Over shoreside trees the clouds are wholly black;
In the river sky the moon is not yet born.
—How long can your glimmering last,
In the darkling night, to assert your wish?
(PCHC, p. 185)
(Tr. Paul W. Kroll)
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