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Tang Poetry – Du Fu
Du Fu (c.712-770 CE) was born in China and raised as a Confucian, but failed to gain the government post he sought. He subsequently traveled throughout
China, observing the conditions of the people and commenting on his impressions in poems. He was a friend of Li Po, and the Confucianism in his poetry
sometimes complements the Taoism in Li Po’s. His conviviality also complemented that of Li Po.
Du Fu was an outspoken critic of the bloodshed in border wars and in the rebellions that often followed them. The poem below on the pressing of peasantry
into military service, and the one that follows it, illustrate his opposition to war. The poem on fireflies shows him reflecting on his own mortality, while the
poem on the parrot can be seen as a protest against the way beauty is trapped and imprisoned.
1. The Chariots Go Forth to War
The chariots go forth to war,
Rumbling, roaring as they go;
The horses neigh and whinny loud,
Tugging at the bit.
The dust swirls up in great dense clouds,
And hides the Han Yang bridge.
In serried ranks the archers march,
A bow and quiver at each waist;
Fathers, mothers, children, wives
All crowd around to say farewell.
Pulling at clothes and stamping feet,
They force the soldiers' ranks apart,
And all the while their sobs and cries
Reach to the skies above.
"Where do you go to-day ?" a passer-by
Calls to the marching men.
A grizzled old veteran answers him,
Halting his swinging stride:
"At fifteen I was sent to the north
To guard the river against the Hun;
At forty I was sent to camp,
To farm in the west, far, far from home.
When I left, my hair was long and black;
When I came home, it was white and thin.
Today they send me again to the wars,
Back to the north frontier,
By whose gray towers our blood has
flowed
In a red tide, like the sea-And will flow again, for Wu Huang Ti
Is resolved to rule the world.
"Have you not heard how in far Shantung
Two hundred districts lie
With a thousand towns and ten thousand
homes
Deserted, neglected, weed-grown?
Husbands fighting or dead, wives drag the
plow,
And the grain grows wild in the fields.
The soldiers recruited in Shansi towns
Still fight; but, with spirit gone,
Like chickens and dogs they are driven
about,
And have not the heart to complain."
"I am greatly honored by your speech with
me.
Dare I speak of my hatreds and grief ?
All this long winter, conscription goes on
Through the whole country, from the east
to the west,
And taxes grow heavy. But how can we
pay,
Who have nothing to give from our land ?
A son is a curse at a time like this,
And daughters more welcome far;
For, when daughters grow up, they can
marry, at least,
And go to live on a neighbor's land.
But our sons? We bury them after the
fight,
And they rot where the grass grows long.
"Have you not seen at far Ching Hai,
By the waters of Kokonor,
How the heaped skulls and bones of
slaughtered men
Lie bleaching in the sun?
Their ancient ghosts hear our own ghosts
weep,
And cry and lament in turn;
The heavens grow dark with great stormclouds,
And the specters wail in the rain."
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2. War
3. The Fireflies
4. The Parrot
Out of the northeast
A white horse galloped,
Aquiver with fear,
And pierced was his empty saddle
By two long, deadly arrows.
What of his rider now,
And where the vain courage
That spurred him to combat—
And to death?
At midnight
Came the command
To give battle to the foe;
But for him it was a command to die!
Ah, many a home this day
In vain
Mourns for its fallen son,
And a wailing that rises to Heaven
Goes forth,
And bitter tears flow
Like the icy rains
Of winter!
At Wu Shan, of an autumn night,
The fireflies come flitting
Through the curtains
Into my room,
And flutter on my garments.
So warm they seem
That my lute and book
Are chill to my touch
In the dark.
They settle on the walls and eaves,
And my room is agleam as if with stars.
They circle round the courtyard,
And, in clusters,
Cling to the old stone well-curb.
They enter the flowers
And make of each a tiny, glowing jewel.
I stand, an old, white-haired man,
By the broad Yang Tze,
And watch you, little fireflies,
And wonder if, when next year comes,
I shall be here to greet you.
The parrot sits
Upon his perch,
Wrapped in gloomy thought,
And dreams
Of his distant home.
His wings of brightest blue
Are clipped;
From his red beak
Come words of wisdom.
Will they never, never
Unlatch his cage,
And set him free once more?
Impatient, in anger,
He claws and tears at his perch,
To which he has clung
So long.
Will the world of men
Not pity him,
And the freedom he has lost?
Of what use to him in prison
Is his coat of wondrous hue?
Source. Adapted from The Hundred Names: A
Short Introduction to the Study of Chinese Poetry
with Illustrative Translations by Henry H. Hart.
University of California Press, Berkeley, California,
1933. Copyright © 1933 The Regents of the
University of California.
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Tang Poetry-Li Po
Li Po (c. 701-762 CE) was a native of Sezchaun, China. While still in his teens, he retired to mountains in the north of the province to live with a religious recluse by the
name of Tunyen-tzu. The two of them were said to keep strange birds as pets. Li Po later traveled down the Yangtze to Yun-meng, a town north of the river and Tung-ting
Lake, where he married.
Li Po entered the capital, Chang-an, in about 742 and his poetry found great favor at the imperial court. However, court plotters found a way of demonstrating that one of
his poems was a malicious satire. Li Po found it prudent to retire to the mountains again, and then wandered around China for about ten years, becoming involved in a
major revolt. He was imprisoned under sentence of death, which was commuted to perpetual banishment to the southwest region of the empire.
He had a strong imagination that was easily set off by music and wine, both of which received praise in his poetry. He became a Taoist and some of his poetry, such as
Chuang Tzu And The Butterfly, reflects this. At the same time, he remained a poet who caught the nuances of the human experience of nature and of human friendship. He
was a close friend of the poet Du Fu.
In the poems presented here, the picture screen was owned by a Buddhist friend; the Wu-shan peaks are along the Yangtze gorges; the elfin maid is transformed by day into
a cloud. The rabbit in the moon mentioned in a later poem is part of Chinese folklore—it is said to be pounding out the elixir of life.
1. Three—With the Moon and His
Shadow
With a jar of wine I sit by the flowering
trees.
I drink alone, and where are my friends?
Ah, the moon above looks down on me;
I call and lift my cup to his brightness.
And see, there goes my shadow before
me.
Ho! We're a party of three, I say,—
Though the poor moon can't drink,
And my shadow but dances around me,
We're all friends to-night,
The drinker, the moon and the shadow.
Let our revelry be suited to the spring!
I sing, the wild moon wanders the sky.
I dance, my shadow goes tumbling about.
While we're awake, let us join in carousal;
Only sweet drunkenness shall ever part
us.
Let us pledge a friendship no mortals
know,
And often hail each other at evening
Far across the vast and vaporous space!
2. Taking Leave of a Friend
3. Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly
Blue mountains lie beyond the north wall;
Round the city's eastern side flows the
white water.
Here we part, friend, once and forever.
You go ten thousand miles, drifting away
Like an unrooted water-grass.
Oh, the floating clouds and the thoughts
of a wanderer!
Oh, the sunset and the longing of an old
friend!
We ride away from each other, waving our
hands,
While our horses neigh softly, softly . . . .
Chuang Tzu in dream became a butterfly,
And the butterfly became Chuang Tzu at
waking.
Which was the real—the butterfly or the
man ?
Who can tell the end of the endless
changes of things?
The water that flows into the depth of the
distant sea
Returns in time to the shallows of a
transparent stream.
The man, raising melons outside the
green gate of the city,
Was once the Prince of the East Hill.
So must rank and riches vanish.
You know it, still you toil and toil—what
for?
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4. On a Picture Screen
5. Nefarious War
6. Before the Cask of Wine
Whence these twelve peaks of Wu-shan!
Have they flown into the gorgeous screen
From heaven's one corner?
Ah, those lonely pines murmuring in the
wind!
Those palaces of Yang-tai, hovering over
there—
Oh, the melancholy of it!—
Where the jeweled couch of the king
With brocade covers is desolate,—
His elfin maid voluptuously fair
Still haunting them in vain!
Here a few feet
Seem a thousand miles.
The craggy walls glisten blue and red,
A piece of dazzling embroidery.
How green those distant trees are
Round the river strait of Ching-men!
And those ships—they go on,
Floating on the waters of Pa.
The water sings over the rocks
Between countless hills
Of shining mist and lustrous grass.
How many years since these valley
flowers bloomed
To smile in the sun?
And that man traveling on the river,
Does he not for ages hear the monkeys
screaming?
Whoever looks on this,
Loses himself in eternity;
And entering the sacred mountains of
Sung,
He will dream among the resplendent
clouds.
Last year we fought by the head-stream
of the Sang-kan,
This year we are fighting on the Tsung-ho
road.
We have washed our armor in the waves
of Chiao-chi lake,
We have pastured our horses on Tienshan's snowy slopes.
The long, long war goes on ten thousand
miles from home,
Our three armies are worn and grown old.
The spring wind comes from the east and
quickly passes,
Leaving faint ripples in the wine of the
golden bowl.
The flowers fall, flake after flake, myriads
together.
The barbarian does man-slaughter, not
plowing;
On this yellow sand-plains nothing has
been seen but
blanched skulls and bones.
Where the Chin emperor built the walls
against the Tartars,
There the defenders of Han are burning
beacon fires.
The beacon fires burn and never go out,
There is no end to war!—
In the battlefield men grapple each other
and die;
The horses of the vanquished utter
lamentable cries to heaven,
While ravens and kites peck at human
entrails,
Carry them up in their flight, and hang
them on the branches of dead trees.
So, men are scattered and smeared over
the desert grass,
And the generals have accomplished
nothing.
Oh, nefarious war! I see why arms
Were so seldom used by the benign
sovereigns.
You, pretty girl, wine-flushed,
Your rosy face is rosier still.
How long may the peach and plum trees
flower
By the green-painted house?
The fleeting light deceives a man,
Brings too soon stumbling age.
Rise and dance
In the westering sun
While the urge of youthful years is yet
unsubdued!
What avails to lament after one's hair has
turned white like silken threads?
Source. Adapted from The Works of Li Po, the
Chinese Poet, done into English verse by
Shigeyoshi Obata. E. P. Dutton & Co, New York,
1922. This book contains translations of 124 of Li
Po’s poems, an extensive introduction to his work
and the Tang period in which he lived, poems by
other poets concerning Li Po, and biographical
notes on Li Po by Chinese authors.