“Waiting for the Unicorn”
Chiang Ch’un-lin (Lu-t’an), a native of Chiang-yin, Kiangsu, led a rather undistinguished life, but won recognition as a leading lyric poet of his time.
Son of a minor government official who died early, Chiang grew up in destitute circumstances and early gave up hope for a career through the civil service examination, despite promises of poetic talent which he showed as a boy. In 1852, however, he was given an appointment in the Salt Administration of Fu-an District of Kiangsu, but he resigned his post five years later on account of the death of his mother. His last ten years were spent in retirement in Yangchow, where he witnessed much of the devastation caused by the Taiping Rebellion. His later life was also dogged by unhappiness and tragedy. According to one contemporary account, he had married a young wife named Chang Wan-chün, who did not return his affection. He sought out the company of Hsiao-fang (Little Boat), a singsong girl, in Soochow. Later, apparently because of a misunderstanding, he took poison and died in a boat leaving a suicide note. Upon hearing the news, his wife Chang also committed suicide.
Early in his career, Chiang wrote some realistic poems (in the traditional shih form) about the life of salt farmers. But he soon recognized his forte lay in the composition of tz’u and gave up the writing of shih. He regarded tz’u, however, as more akin to the yüeh-fu (Music Bureau) poetry, though sharing the same origin as shih— both attempting to express ideas through a blending of emotion (ch’ing) and tone (yün).
Modern critics and scholars from T’an Hsien (q.v.) to T’ang Kuei-chang (b. 1899) generally regard Chiang, along with Singde and Hsiang Hung-cho (qq.v.), as the three most accomplished lyric poets of the Ch’ing dynasty. It is, therefore, perhaps more than accidental that he chose to entitle his slim collection of 106 lyrics (he had deliberately removed a larger number which he did not want preserved) Shui-yün-lou tz’u (Lyrics from the Water-and-Cloud Pavilion): Singde’s lyrics had been published under the title Yin-shui tz’u (Drinking Water Lyrics), and Hsiang’s, that of Yi-Yün tz’u (Remembering Cloud Lyrics). Chiang, however, has never been considered a follower of any school. Rather, his style is highly eclectic, has many moods, and excels in both description (fu) and the use of metaphors (pi). He often evokes the best of the Southern Sung lyric tradition, and the poet to whom he is most often compared is Chang Yen (1248–ca. 1320).
(Irving Lo)
Tune: T’a so hsing
Title: A Descriptive Piece for April, 1853
On jagged steps moss grows deep;
Shading the windows, dense pines—
A courtyard empty of people and the tiniest trace of dust.
In the setting sun a pair of swallows wish to come home;
Rolling up the curtain, I let in the willow catkins by mistake.
Butterflies mourn the weak scent of flowers;
Orioles chafe at their own insipid chatter.
Aging red petals blown clean, spring has grown powerless.
The east wind in one night whirls up from the level knoll.
What a pity, grief overspreads the northern and southern reaches of the river!
(SYLT, p. 9)
(Tr. Irving Lo)
Tune: Yü mei-jen
Title: The [New] Moon on the Night of
the Third of the Month
An icy scar in the afterglow sends off the setting sun;
A hook so tiny as to startle fishes from their dreams.
Passionate souls would still say it’s perfect and round;
Just the barest hint of a woman’s brow
And suddenly it’s the Goddess of the Moon!
Enveloping the steps, the night air as thin as mist;
Flowers’ shadows lightly traced on the curtain.
I lean against the railing, no need to sleep late.
Just gazing into the yellow dusk—
One glimpse of her overwhelms me with longing.
(SYLT, p. 13)
(Tr. Irving Lo)
Crystal curtains rolled-up have cleared the dense mist;
In the still night, coolness oozes out from trees.
Since my illness, my body is like the lean paulownia:
I feel my every limb,
Every leaf, is dreading the autumn wind.
From the Milky Way when will this warlike aura subside?
And swords point at wintry stars causing them to shatter?
From afar, I follow the Southern Dipper to look at the capital;
Oblivious that I was
Dew-covered, at the edge of the world.
(SYLT, pp. 20–21)
(Tr. Irving Lo)
Crows nesting in abandoned tents,
Magpies jabbering on flagpoles,1
Broken notes of reed pipes from the watchtower—
One moment gone by in a vast sea change;2
Again the leveled towns of yesteryear! | 5 |
I fear the paired swallows
Will lament their returning late.
A tumbledown pavilion in the setting sun:
I can’t bear climbing up again.
Only a red-railed bridge in wind and rain, | 10 |
And plum trees past blooming in an empty camp!
Where the ashes remain from the kalpa fire,
A familiar sight to many,
Even they are struck with terror.
Ask for a long fan3 to ward off the dust, | 15 |
Or a game of chess with castles for the stake;
But what avails the common folk?
Under a dark moon, fireflies are drifting aimlessly;
The west wind sobs
Amidst ghost fires4 here and there. | 20 |
But it hurts even more as I look toward the south:
Across the river, innumerable green-peaked hills!
(SYLT, p. 13)
(Tr. Irving Lo)
NOTES
1. Popular superstition in China holds that hearing magpies singing fore-tells good news, such as the return of an absent lover.
2. A free translation of ts’ang-sang. See Cha Shen-hsing, note 1.
3. As a gesture of a heroic temperament, following an association that can be dated to Han times.
4. Will-o’-the-wisps.
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