Delphi Collected Works of Li Bai (Illustrated)

By Li Bai and Delphi Classics

An eighth century Tang dynasty poet, Li Bai was acclaimed from his own lifetime to the present day, composing short poems celebrating the pleasures of friendship, the beauty of nature, the importance of solitude and the joys of drinking. The compelling magic of his elegant and yet short verses have won for Li Bai an enduring admiration over the centuries, fortifying his status as a romantic legend, who took traditional poetic forms to new heights, while always conscious of the great and timeless tradition behind him. The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature’s finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents Li Bai’s collected works, with rare translations, illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)

* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Li Bai’s life and works
* Concise introduction to Li Bai’s life and poetry
* Excellent formatting of the poems
* Multiple translations of Li Bai’s verses
* Includes Herbert A. Giles’ translations, the first to be published in the West, digitised here for the first time
* Easily locate the poems you want to read
* Features a special Contextual Pieces section — learn about the development of classic Chinese literature
* Includes Arthur Waley’s biography

Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to see our wide range of poet titles

CONTENTS:

The Life and Poetry of Li Bai
Brief Introduction: Li Bai
Translations by Herbert A. Giles (1898)
Translations by Arthur Waley (1919)
Translations by Amy Lowell (1921)
Anonymous Translations

The Contextual Pieces
A History of Chinese Literature (1901) by Herbert A. Giles
Introduction to Chinese Poetry (1918) by Arthur Waley
Life of Li Po by Arthur Waley (1919)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delphi Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jul 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781801701303

Book preview

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Li Bai

(701-762)

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Contents

The Life and Poetry of Li Bai

Brief Introduction: Li Bai

Translations by Herbert A. Giles (1898)

Translations by Arthur Waley (1919)

Translations by Amy Lowell (1921)

Anonymous Translations

The Contextual Pieces

A History of Chinese Literature (1901) by Herbert A. Giles

Introduction to Chinese Poetry (1918) by Arthur Waley

Life of Li Po by Arthur Waley (1919)

The Delphi Classics Catalogue

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© Delphi Classics 2023

Version 1

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Li Bai

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By Delphi Classics, 2023

COPYRIGHT

Li Bai - Delphi Poets Series

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First published in the United Kingdom in 2023 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2023.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 80170 130 3

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

Contact: [e-mail]

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www.delphiclassics.com

NOTE

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When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size and landscape mode, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

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Explore Eastern magic at Delphi Classics…

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The Life and Poetry of Li Bai

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The site of Suyab, an ancient Silk Road city located 30 miles east from Bishkek, present-day Kyrgyzstan — the traditional birthplace of Li Bai, where his family had prospered in business at the frontier.

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Chengdu, a sub-provincial city that serves as the capital of the province of Sichuan, south-west China. Li spent his early years living in Sichuan, near Chengdu.

Brief Introduction: Li Bai

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THE EIGHTH CENTURY Tang dynasty Chinese poet Li Bai was acclaimed from his own lifetime to the present day, producing a corpus of around 1,000 short poems. These verses became models for celebrating the pleasures of friendship, the depth of nature, solitude and the joys of drinking. His life has taken on a legendary aspect, including tales of drunkenness and chivalry. Much of Li’s life is reflected in his poems, which concern the places he visited; the friends he saw off on journeys to distant locations, perhaps never to meet again; his own dream-like imaginings, embroidered with shamanic overtones; current events of which he had news; descriptions of nature, perceived as if in a timeless moment; and many more. However, of particular importance are the changes he records taking place in China. His early poems were written in what is now regarded as a golden age of internal peace and prosperity for the nation, living under a benevolent emperor that actively promoted and participated in the arts. This ended with the beginning of the rebellion of general An Lushan, which eventually left most of Northern China devastated by war and famine.

The Old Book of Tang and The New Book of Tang are the primary sources of bibliographical information on Li Bai. He is generally considered to have been born in 701 in Suyab of ancient Chinese Central Asia (present-day Kyrgyzstan), where his family had prospered in business at the frontier. Afterwards, the family under the leadership of his father, Li Ke, moved to Jiangyou, near modern Chengdu, in Sichuan, when the poet was about five years old. There is some uncertainty about the circumstances of the family’s relocations, due to a lack of legal authorisation, which would have generally been required to move out of the border regions, especially if a family had been assigned or exiled there.

Two accounts from contemporary sources, one of which was a family member, state that Li’s family was originally from what is now south-western Jingning County, Gansu. His ancestry is traditionally traced back to Li Gao, the noble founder of the state of Western Liang. This adds support to Li’s own claim of connection to the Li dynastic royal family of the Tang dynasty: the Tang emperors also claimed descent from the Li rulers of West Liang. Evidence suggests that during the Sui dynasty, Li’s own ancestors were forced into exile from their original home to a location further west. During their exile, the Li family lived in the city of Suiye and perhaps also in Tiaozhi, a state near modern Ghazni, Afghanistan. These areas were on the ancient Silk Road, and the Li family were likely merchants, conducting a prosperous business.

One account of his life tells how his mother had a dream of a great white star falling from heaven, at the time she was pregnant with him. This seems to have contributed to the idea of his being a banished immortal (one of his nicknames). That the Great White Star was synonymous with Venus helps to explain his courtesy name: Tai Bai or Venus. In 705, when Li Bai was four years old, his father secretly moved his family to Sichuan, near Chengdu, where he spent his childhood. The young Li spent most of his adolescent years in Qinglian, a town in Chang-ming County, Sichuan. He read extensively, including Confucian classics such as The Classic of Poetry and the Classic of History, as well as various astrological and metaphysical materials that Confucians tended to avoid, though he disdained to take the literacy exam. Reading the Hundred Authors was part of the family literary tradition, and he was able to compose poetry before he was ten. Li also engaged in other activities, such as taming wild birds, fencing, riding, hunting and aiding the poor or oppressed by means of both money and arms. Eventually, he seems to have become skilled in swordsmanship; as an autobiographical quote testifies his practice with the weapon. Before he was twenty, Li had fought and killed several men, apparently for reasons of chivalry, in accordance with the knight-errant tradition. In 720, he was interviewed by Governor Su Ting, who considered him a genius. Though he expressed a wish to become an official, he never took the civil service examination.

In his mid-twenties, about 725, Li Bai left Sichuan, sailing down the Yangzi River through Dongting Lake to Nanjing, commencing his days of wandering. Next he travelled back up-river to Yunmeng, in what is now Hubei, where his marriage to the granddaughter of a retired prime minister, Xu Yushi, seems to have formed a brief interlude. During the first year of his trip, he met several celebrities and gave away much of his wealth to needy friends. In 730 the poet stayed at Zhongnan Mountain, near the capital Chang’an, where he failed to secure a position. In 735, Li was in Shanxi, where he intervened in a court martial against Guo Ziyi, who was later, after becoming one of the top Tang generals, to repay the favour during the An Shi disturbances. By 740, he had moved to Shandong, where he became one of the group known as the Six Idlers of the Bamboo Brook, an informal group dedicated to literature and wine. He wandered about the area of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, eventually making friends with a famous Daoist priest, Wu Yun. In 742, Wu Yun was summoned by the emperor to attend the imperial court, where he announced to the court his praise for Li Bai’s poetry.

This in turn led Emperor Xuanzong to summon Li to the court in Chang’an. His personality fascinated the aristocrats and common people alike, including another Taoist poet, He Zhizhang, who gave him the nickname the Immortal Exiled from Heaven. After an initial audience, where Li was questioned about his political views, the emperor was so impressed that he held a grand banquet in his honour. It is said that the emperor even went so far to show his favor by personally seasoning Li’s soup. The emperor employed him as a translator, as Li Bai knew at least one non-Chinese language. Ming Huang eventually gave him a post at the Hanlin Academy, in which role he provided scholarly expertise and poetry composition for the Emperor. When the emperor ordered Li to the palace, the poet was often drunk, but still able to perform extempore. One of his most famous verses is ‘Rising Drunk on a Spring Day, Telling My Intent’, concerning the pleasures of escaping the world’s troubles by drinking wine:

We are lodged in this world as in a great dream;

Then why cause our lives so much stress?

This is my reason to spend the day drunk

And collapse, sprawled against the front pillar.

When I wake, I peer out in the yard

Where a bird is singing among the flowers.

Now tell me, what season is this?—

The spring breeze speaks with orioles warbling.

I am so touched that I almost sigh,

I turn to the wine, pour myself more,

Then sing wildly, waiting for the moon,

When the tune is done, I no longer care.

Li Bai wrote several poems about the emperor’s beautiful and beloved Yang Guifei, the favorite royal consort. A story, most likely invented, circulates about Li during this period. Once, while drunk, he had made his boots muddy and Gao Lishi, the most politically powerful eunuch in the palace, was asked to assist in the removal of them, in front of the Emperor. Gao took offense at being asked to perform this menial service and later managed to persuade Yang Guifei to complain of Li’s poems about her. At the persuasion of Yang Guifei and Gao Lishi, Xuanzong reluctantly, but politely, and with large gifts of gold and silver, sent Li away from the royal court. After leaving, Li formally became a Taoist, making a home in Shandong, but wandering far and wide for the next ten or so years, composing poems.

On his travels, he met the celebrated poet Du Fu in the autumn of 744, when they shared a single room and various activities together, including traveling, hunting, wine and poetry, establishing a close and lasting friendship. They met again the following year. These were the only occasions on which they met, in person, although they continued to maintain a relationship through their poetry. This is shown in the dozen or so poems by Du Fu to or about Li Bai that survive, as well as the extant verse by Li directed toward his friend.

During the An Shi disturbances of 755, Li Bai became a staff adviser to Prince Yong, one of Emperor Xuanzong’s sons, who was far from the top of the primogeniture list, yet named to share the imperial power as a general after Xuanzong had abdicated, in 756. However, even before the empire’s external enemies were defeated, the two brothers fell to fighting each other with their armies. Upon the defeat of the Prince’s forces by his brother, Li Bai escaped, but was later captured, imprisoned in Jiujiang, and sentenced to death. The famous and powerful army general Guo Ziyi and others intervened, as Guo Ziyi was the very person that Li Bai had saved from court martial twenty years before. His wife, the lady Zong, and several other prominent figures wrote petitions for clemency. Upon General Guo Ziyi’s offer to exchange his official rank for Li Bai’s life, the death sentence was commuted to exile: he was consigned to Yelang, a remote extreme south-western part of the empire, considered to be outside the main sphere of Chinese civilisation and culture.

Li headed toward Yelang with little sign of hurry, stopping for prolonged social visits, sometimes for months, always writing poetry along the way, leaving detailed descriptions of his journey for posterity. Notice of an imperial pardon recalling the poet reached him before he even got near to Yelang. He had only gotten as far as Wushan, when news of his pardon had caught up with him in 759. So he returned down the river to Jiangxi, passing on the way through Baidicheng, in Kuizhou Prefecture, still engaging in the pleasures of food, wine, good company and writing verses. His famous poem Departing from Baidi in the Morning records this stage of his travels, as well as poetically mocking his enemies and detractors, as conveyed in the monkey imagery.

White mist flees the Yangzte’s speed

Rows of layered hills flash by

Monkeys screech joy to the sky

As my boat flies me homeward, free!

Although Li did not cease his wandering lifestyle, he generally confined his travels to Nanjing and the two Anhui cities of Xuancheng and Li Yang (modern day Zhao County). The verses written at this period include nature poems and verses of socio-political protest. Eventually, in 762, Li’s relative Li Yangbing became magistrate of Dangtu and he went to stay with him. In the meantime, Suzong and Xuanzong both died within a short period of time and China now had a new emperor. The nation was now involved in efforts to suppress military disorders stemming from the Anshi rebellions and Li volunteered to serve on the general staff of the commander Li Guangbi. However, at the age of sixty-one, Li became critically ill and he was unable to fulfil his plans. The new Emperor Daizong named the poet the Registrar of the Left Commandant’s office in 762. However, by the time that the imperial edict arrived, Li Bai was already dead. The magistrate buried him at the eastern foot of Dragon Mountain. In 817, Fan Chuanzheng, the son of Li’s friend, alongside Zhuge Zong, then magistrate of Dangtu County, reburied the poet at the western foot of Green Mountain, 12 miles southeast of Ma’anshan city, where a tomb houses his remains today. In 2006, it was declared a Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Anhui by the State Council of China.

There is a long and romantic tradition regarding Li’s death, claiming that he drowned after falling from his boat one day while drunk, as he tried to embrace the reflection of the moon in the Yangtze River. However, the actual cause appears to have been natural enough, although he was well known for his hard-living lifestyle. Nevertheless, the legend has secured an enduring place in Chinese culture.

Over the centuries, critics have focused on Li Bai’s strong sense of the continuity of poetic tradition, his glorification of alcoholic beverages (even frank celebration of drunkenness), his use of persona, the fantastic extremes of his imagery, his mastery of formal poetic rules and his ability to combine all of these with a seemingly effortless virtuosity to produce inimitable poetry. Other themes in his work, noted especially in the twentieth century, are sympathy for the common folk and antipathy towards needless wars, even if conducted by the emperor himself. Li Bai also had a strong sense of himself as being part of a poetic tradition. The genius of this eighth century poet is exemplified by his complete command of the literary tradition before him and his ingenuity in adapting it to produce a uniquely personal idiom. Unlike the verses of his great contemporary Du Fu, Li’s romantic poetry is essentially backward-looking, representing a revival and fulfilment of past promises and glory, rather than a foray into the future.

An important trait of Li’s poetry is the fantasy tone and note of childlike wonder and playfulness that permeate much of his work. There is a strong element of Taoism, both in the sentiments that his poems express and in their spontaneous tone. Many of his poems deal with mountains, often descriptions of ascents that midway modulate into journeys of the imagination, passing from actual mountain scenery to visions of nature deities, immortals, and ‘jade maidens’ of Taoist lore.

A prominent example is Li’s famous poem ‘A Quiet Night Thought’, still learned by schoolchildren in China today. In a mere twenty words, the poem employs the vivid moonlight and frost imagery to aptly convey the experience of homesickness:

Beside my bed a pool of light—

Is it hoarfrost on the ground?

I lift my eyes and see the moon,

I lower my face and think of home.

It is the compelling magic of such elegant and yet short verses as these that have won for Li Bai the enduring admiration of his fellow men and women, from his own day to the present, fortifying his status as a romantic legend, who took traditional poetic forms to new heights, while always conscious of the great and timeless tradition behind him.

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‘Li Bai Strolling’ by Liang Kai, c. 1200

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Li’s first noted patron, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (685-762) was the seventh emperor of the Tang dynasty, reigning from 712 to 756. His reign of 44 years was the longest during the dynasty. Through two palace coups, he seized the throne and inherited an empire still in its golden age.

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The Emperor’s favourite consort Yang Guifei, by Uemura Shoen, Shohaku Art Museum, Nara, Nara, Japan

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Emperor Minghuang, seated on a terrace, observes Li Bai writing poetry while having his boots taken off, Qing dynasty illustration, c. 1650

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Qing Palace portrait of the poet Du Fu. Along with his elder contemporary and friend Li Bai, Du is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets.

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A drunken Li Bai, as depicted in the Nanling Wushuang Pu by Jin Guliang, Ming dynasty

Translations by Herbert A. Giles (1898)

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Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935) was a British diplomat and sinologist, who served as the professor of Chinese at Cambridge for thirty-five years. Giles was educated at Charterhouse School before becoming a British diplomat in China. He modified a Mandarin Chinese romanization system established by Thomas Wade, resulting in the widely known Wade–Giles Chinese romanization system. Among his many works were translations of the Analects of Confucius, the Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching), the Chuang Tzu, and, in 1892, the widely published A Chinese-English Dictionary. Giles included translations of Li Bai in his 1898 publication Chinese Poetry in English Verse, and again in the seminal work History of Chinese Literature (1901). These were the first English translations of Li Po to appear in the West.

CONTENTS

From Chinese Poetry in English Verse (1898)

TO A FIREFLY

AT PARTING

NIGHT THOUGHTS

COMPANIONS

FROM A BELVIDERE

FOR HER HUSBAND

THE BEST OF LIFE IS BUT...

FAREWELL BY THE RIVER

GONE

NO INSPIRATION

GENERAL HSIEH AN

A SNAP-SHOT

A FAREWELL

BOYHOOD FANCIES

FROM THE PALACE

THE POET

TEARS

A FAVOURITE

IN EXILE

IN A MIRROR

LAST WORDS

From A History of Chinese Literature (1901)

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Herbert Giles, c. 1920

From Chinese Poetry in English Verse (1898)

TO A FIREFLY

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[AN IMPROMPTU POEM, completed at the age of ten.]

Rain cannot quench thy lantern’s light,

Wind makes it shine more brightly bright

Oh why not fly to heaven afar,

And twinkle near the moon — a star?

AT PARTING

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The river rolls crystal as clear as the sky,

To blend far away with the blue waves of ocean;

Man alone, when the hour of departure is nigh,

With the wine cup can soothe his emotion.

The birds of the valley sing loud in the sun,

Where the gibbons their vigils will shortly be keeping;

I thought that with tears I had long ago done,

But now I shall never cease weeping.

NIGHT THOUGHTS

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I wake, and moonbeams play around my bed,

Glittering like hoar-frost to my wondering eyes;

Up towards the glorious moon I raise my head,

Then lay me down, — and thoughts of home arise.

COMPANIONS

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The birds have all flown to their roost in the tree,

The last cloud has just floated lazily by;

But we never tire of each other, not we,

As we sit there together, — the mountains and I.

FROM A BELVIDERE

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With yellow leaves the hill is strown,

  A young wife gazes o’er the scene,

The sky with grey clouds overthrown,

  While autumn swoops upon the green

See, Tartar troops mass on the plains

  Homeward our envoy hurries on;

When will her lord come back again?...

  To find her youth and beauty gone!

FOR HER HUSBAND

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Homeward, at dusk, the clanging rookery

wings its eager flight;

Then, chattering on the branches, all

are pairing for the night.

Plying her busy loom, a high-born dame is sitting near,

And through the silken window-screen

their voices strike her ear.

She stops, and thinks of the absent spouse

she may never see again;

And late in the lonely hours of night

her tears flow down like rain.

THE BEST OF LIFE IS BUT...

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What is life after all but a dream?

  And why should such pother be made?

Better far to be tipsy, I deem,

  And doze all day long in the shade.

When I wake and look out on the lawn,

  I hear midst the flowers a bird sing;

I ask, Is it evening or dawn?

  The mango-bird whistles, ’Tis spring.

Overpower’d with the beautiful sight,

  Another full goblet I pour,

And would sing till the moon rises bright —

  But soon I’m as drunk as before.

FAREWELL BY THE RIVER

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The breeze blows the willow-scent in from the dell,

While Phyllis with bumpers would fain cheer us up;

Dear friends press around me to bid me farewell:

Goodbye! and goodbye! — and yet just one more cup....

I whisper, Thou’lt see this great stream flow away

Ere I cease to love as I love thee today!

GONE

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At the Yellow-Crane pagoda, where we stopped to bid adieu,

The mists and flowers of April seemed

to wish good speed to you.

At the Emerald Isle, your lessening sail had vanished from my eye,

And left me with the River, rolling onward to the sky.

NO INSPIRATION

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The autumn breeze is blowing,

The autumn moon is glowing,

The falling leaves collect but to disperse.

The parson-crow flies here and there

with ever restless feet;

I think of you and wonder much

when you and I shall meet.........

Alas tonight I cannot pour my feelings forth in verse!

GENERAL HSIEH AN

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[THIS GENERAL LIVED from A.D. 320-385. On one occasion, when roaming in disguise at the spot mentioned in the text, he fell in with the poet Yuan Hung, and became thereafter his attached friend and patron.]

    I anchor at the Newchew hill,

    The autumn sky serene and still,

    And watch the moon her crescent fill,

And vainly think on him by whom

    this shore was made renowned.

    Though mine is no ungraceful lay,

    He cannot hear the words I say,

    And I must sail at break of day......

And all this while the maple leaves are fluttering to the ground.

A SNAP-SHOT

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A tortoise I see on a lotus-flower resting:

A bird ‘mid the reeds and the rushes is nesting;

A light skiff propelled by some boatman’s fair daughter,

Whose song dies away o’er the fast-flowing water.

A FAREWELL

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Where blue hills cross the northern sky,

  Beyond the moat which girds the town,

’Twas there we stopped to say Goodbye!

  And one white sail alone dropped down.

Your heart was full of wandering thought;

  For me, — my sun had set indeed;

To wave a last adieu we sought,

  Voiced for us by each whinnying steed!

BOYHOOD FANCIES

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[CHINESE FABLE SAYS that the moon is inhabited by a huge toad which occasionally swallows it; hence eclipses. Also that there are groves of cassias in the moon, and a hare visible to the naked eye, engaged in preparing the drug of immortality. The allusion to the suns refers to a story of the legendary archer, Hou I, who when a number of false suns appeared in the sky, to the great detriment of the crops, shot at and destroyed them with his arrows.]

In days gone by the moon appeared

to my still boyish eyes

Some bright jade plate or mirror from

the palace of the skies.

I used to see the Old Man’s legs

and Cassias fair as gods can make them,

I saw the White Hare pounding drugs,

and wondered who was there to take them.

Ah, how I watched the eclipsing Toad,

and marked the ravages it made,

And longed for him who slew the suns

and all the angels’ fears allayed.

Then when the days of waning came,

and scarce a silver streak remained,

I wept to lose my favourite thus,

and cruel grief my eyelids stained.

FROM THE PALACE

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Cold dews of night the terrace crown,

And soak my stockings and my gown;

      I’ll step behind

      The crystal blind,

And watch the autumn moon sink down.

THE POET

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You ask what my soul does away in the sky,

I inwardly smile but I cannot reply;

Like the peach-blossom carried away by the stream,

I soar to a world of which you cannot dream.

TEARS

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A fair girl draws the blind aside

  And sadly sits with drooping head;

I see her burning tear-drops glide

  But know not why those tears are shed.

A FAVOURITE

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[ONE FINE EVENING, the Emperor Ming Huang who was enjoying himself with his favourite lady in the palace grounds, called for Li Po to commemorate the scene in verse. After some delay the poet arrived, supported between two eunuchs. Please your Majesty, he said, I have been drinking with the Prince and he has made me drunk, but I will do my best. Thereupon two of the ladies of the harem held up in front of him a pink silk screen, and in a very short time he had thrown off no less than ten eight-line stanzas, of which the one in the text is a specimen.]

Oh the joy of youth spent in a gold-fretted hall,

In the Crape-flower Pavilion, the fairest of all.

My tresses for headdress with gay garlands girt,

Carnations arranged o’er my jacket and skirt!

Then to wander away in the soft-scented air,

And return by the side of his Majesty’s chair...

But the dance and the song will be o’er by and by,

And we shall dislimn like the rack in the sky.

IN EXILE

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[THE POET, HAVING incurred the displeasure of the famous favourite, Yang Kuei-fei, was forced to go into exile.]

I drink deep draughts of Lan-ling wine fragrant with borage made,

The liquid amber mantling up in cups of costly jade.

My host insists on making me as drunk as any sot,

Until I’m quite oblivious of the exile’s wretched lot.

IN A MIRROR

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My whitening hair would make a long long rope,

Yet could not fathom all my depth of woe,

Though how it comes within a mirror’s scope

To sprinkle autumn frosts, I do not know.

LAST WORDS

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[AFTER PENNING THESE lines on board a pleasure-boat at night, the poet is said to have been drowned by falling over the side in a drunken effort to embrace the reflection of the moon.]

An arbour of flowers

                                and a kettle of wine:

Alas! in the bowers

                                no companion is mine.

Then the moon sheds her rays

                                on my goblet and me,

And my shadow betrays

                                we’re a party of three!

Though the moon cannot swallow

                                her share of the grog,

And my shadow must follow

                                wherever I jog, —

Yet their friendship I’ll borrow

                                and gaily carouse,

And laugh away sorrow

                                while spring-time allows.

See the moon, — how she glances

                                response to my song;

See my shadow, — it dances

                                so lightly along!

While sober I feel,

                                you are both my good friends;

When drunken I reel,

                                our companionship ends,

But we’ll soon have a greeting

                                without a goodbye,

At our next merry meeting

                                away in the sky.

From A History of Chinese Literature (1901)

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BY GENERAL CONSENT LI PO himself (A.D. 705-762) would probably be named as China’s greatest poet. His wild Bohemian life, his gay and dissipated career at Court, his exile, and his tragic end, all combine to form a most effective setting for the splendid flow of verse which he never ceased to pour forth. At the early age of ten he wrote a stop-short to a firefly: —

  "Rain cannot quench thy lantern’s light,

  Wind makes it shine more brightly bright;

  Oh why not fly to heaven afar,

  And twinkle near the moon — a star?"

Li Po began by wandering about the country, until at length, with five other tippling poets, he retired to the mountains. For some time these Six Idlers of the Bamboo Grove drank and wrote verses to their hearts’ content. By and by Li Po reached the capital, and on the strength of his poetry was introduced to the Emperor as a banished angel. He was received with open arms, and soon became the spoilt child of the palace. On one occasion, when the Emperor sent for him, he was found lying drunk in the street; and it was only after having his face well mopped with cold water that he was fit for the Imperial presence. His talents, however, did not fail him. With a lady of the seraglio to hold his ink-slab, he dashed off some of his most impassioned lines; at which the Emperor was so overcome that he made the powerful eunuch Kao Li-shih go down on his knees and pull off the poet’s boots.

On another occasion, the Emperor, who was enjoying himself with his favourite lady in the palace grounds, called for Li Po to commemorate the scene in verse. After some delay the poet arrived, supported between two eunuchs. Please your Majesty, he said, I have been drinking with the Prince and he has made me drunk, but I will do my best. Thereupon two of the ladies of the harem held up in front of him a pink silk screen, and in a very short time he had thrown off no less than ten eight-line stanzas, of which the following, describing the life of a palace favourite, is one: —

  "Oh, the joy of youth spent

                  in a gold-fretted hall,

  In the Crape-flower Pavilion,

                  the fairest of all,

  My tresses for head-dress

                  with gay garlands girt,

  Carnations arranged

                  o’er my jacket and skirt!

  Then to wander away

                  in the soft-scented air,

  And return by the side

                  of his Majesty’s chair ...

  But the dance and the song

                  will be o’er by and by,

  And we shall dislimn

                  like the rack in the sky."

As time went on, Li Po fell a victim to intrigue, and left the Court in disgrace. It was then that he wrote —

  "My whitening hair would make a long, long rope,

    Yet would not fathom all my depth of woe."

After more wanderings and much adventure, he was drowned on a journey, from leaning one night too far over the edge of a boat in a drunken effort to embrace the reflection of the moon. Just previously he had indited the following lines: —

  "An arbour of flowers

            and a kettle of wine:

  Alas! in the bowers

            no companion is mine.

  Then the moon sheds her rays

            on my goblet and me,

  And my shadow betrays

            we’re a party of three.

  "Though the moon cannot swallow

            her share of the grog,

  And my shadow must follow

            wherever I jog, —

  Yet their friendship I’ll borrow

            and gaily carouse,

  And laugh away sorrow

            while spring-time allows.

  "See the moon, — how she glances

            response to my song;

  See my shadow, — it dances

            so lightly along!

  While sober I feel

            you are both my good friends;

  When drunken I reel,

            our companionship ends.

  But we’ll soon have a greeting

            without a good-bye,

  At our next merry meeting

            away in the sky."

His control of the stop-short is considered to be perfect: —

  (1.) "The birds have all flown to their roost in the tree,

    The last cloud has just floated lazily by;

  But we never tire of each other, not we,

    As we sit there together, — the mountains and I."

  (2.) "I wake, and moonbeams play around my bed,

    Glittering like hoar-frost to my wondering eyes;

  Up towards the glorious moon I raise my head,

    Then lay me down, — and thoughts of home arise."

The following are general extracts:

A PARTING.

  (1.) "The river rolls crystal as clear as the sky,

  To blend far away with the blue waves of ocean;

  Man alone, when the hour of departure is nigh,

  With the wine-cup can soothe his emotion.

  "The birds of the valley sing loud in the sun,

  Where the gibbons their vigils will shortly be keeping:

  I thought that with tears I had long ago done,

  But now I shall never cease weeping."

  (2.) "Homeward at dusk the clanging rookery wings its eager flight;

  Then, chattering on the branches, all are pairing for the night.

  Plying her busy loom, a high-born dame is sitting near,

  And through the silken window-screen their voices strike her ear.

  She stops, and thinks of the absent spouse she may never see again;

  And late in the lonely hours of night her tears flow down like rain."

  (3.) "What is life after all but a dream?

    And why should such pother be made?

  Better far to be tipsy, I deem,

    And doze all day long in the shade.

  "When I wake and look out on the lawn,

    I hear midst the flowers a bird sing;

  I ask, ‘Is it evening or dawn?’

    The mango-bird whistles, ‘’Tis spring.’

  "Overpower’d with the beautiful sight,

    Another full goblet I pour,

  And would sing till the moon rises bright —

    But soon I’m as drunk as before."

  (4.) "You ask what my soul does away in the sky,

  I inwardly smile but I cannot reply;

  Like the peach-blossoms carried away by the stream,

  I soar to a world of which you cannot dream."

One more extract may be given, chiefly to exhibit what is held by the Chinese to be of the very essence of real poetry, — suggestion. A poet should not dot his i’s. The Chinese reader likes to do that for himself, each according to his own fancy. Hence such a poem as the following, often quoted as a model in its own particular line: —

  "A tortoise I see on a lotus-flower resting:

  A bird ‘mid the reeds and the rushes is nesting;

  A light skiff propelled by some boatman’s fair daughter,

  Whose song dies away o’er the fast-flowing water."

Translations by Arthur Waley (1919)

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From ‘The Poet Li Po’

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.

THE TEXT OF THE POEMS.

TRANSLATIONS

II. 7. Ku Fēng, No. 6

III. 1. The Distant Parting

III. 4. The Szechwan Road

III. 15. Fighting

III. 16. Drinking Song

III. 26. The Sun

IV. 19. On the Banks of Jo-yeh

IV. 24. Ch’ang-kan

VII. 4. River Song

XIII. 11. Sent to the Commissary Yüan of Ch’iao City, in Memory of Former Excursions

XV. 2. A Dream of T’ien-mu Mountain

XV. 16. Parting with Friends at a Wineshop in Nanking

XV. 28. At Chiang-hsia, parting from Sung Chih-t’i

XX. 1. The White River at Nan-yang

XX. 1. The Clear Cold Spring

XX. 8. Going down Chung-nan Mountain and spending the Night drinking with the Hermit Tou-ssŭ

XXIII. 3. Drinking alone by Moonlight

XXIII. 9. In the Mountains on a Summer Day

XXIII. 10. Drinking together in the Mountains⁵¹

XXIII. 10. Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day

XXIII. 13. Self-Abandonment

XXV. 1. To Tan Ch’iu

XXX. 8. Clearing up at Dawn

DISCUSSION ON THE FOREGOING PAPER

ENDNOTES.

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A portrait of Arthur Waley by Ray Strachey, c. 1930. Waley was an English Orientalist and sinologist, who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were the CBE in 1952, the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1953 and he was invested as a Companion of Honour in 1956.

INTRODUCTION.

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SINCE THE MIDDLE Ages the Chinese have been almost unanimous in regarding Li Po as their greatest poet, and the few who have given the first place to his contemporary Tu Fu have usually accorded the second to Li.

One is reluctant to disregard the verdict of a people upon its own poets. We are sometimes told by Frenchmen or Russians that Oscar Wilde is greater than Shakespeare. We are tempted to reply that no foreigner can be qualified to decide such a point.

Yet we do not in practice accept the judgment of other nations upon their own literature. To most Germans Schiller is still a great poet; but to the rest of Europe hardly one at all.

It is consoling to discover that on some Germans (Lilienkron, for example) Schiller makes precisely the same impression as he does on us. And similarly, if we cannot accept the current estimate of Li Po, we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that some of China’s most celebrated writers are on our side. About A.D. 816 the poet Po Chü-i wrote as follows (he is discussing Tu Fu as well as Li Po): "The world acclaims Li Po as its master poet. I grant that his works show unparalleled talent and originality, but not one in ten contains any moral reflection or deeper meaning.

"Tu Fu’s poems are very numerous; perhaps about 1,000 of them are worth preserving. In the art of stringing together allusions ancient and modern and in the skill of his versification in the regular metres he even excels Li Po. But such poems as the ‘Pressgang,’¹ and such lines as

"‘At the Palace Gate, the smell of wine and meat;

Out in the road, one who has frozen to death’

form only a small proportion of his whole work."

The poet Yüan Chēn (779-831) wrote a famous essay comparing Li Po with Tu Fu.

At this time, he says (i.e., at the time of Tu Fu), Li Po from Shantung was also celebrated for his remarkable writings, and the names of these two were often coupled together. In my judgment, as regards impassioned vigour of style, freedom from conventional restraint, and skill in the mere description of exterior things, his ballads and songs are certainly worthy to rub shoulders with Fu. But in disposition of the several parts of a poem, in carrying the balance of rhyme and tone through a composition of several hundred or even in some cases of a thousand words, in grandeur of inspiration combined with harmonious rhythm and deep feeling, in emphasis of parallel clauses, in exclusion of the vulgar or modern — in all these qualities Li is not worthy to approach Fu’s front hedge, let alone his inner chamber!

Subsequent writers, adds the T’ang History (the work in which this essay is preserved), have agreed with Yüan Chēn.

Wang An-shih (1021-1086), the great reformer of the eleventh century, observes: Li Po’s style is swift, yet never careless; lively, yet never informal. But his intellectual outlook was low and sordid. In nine poems out of ten he deals with nothing but wine or women.

In the Yü Yin Ts’ung Hua, Hu Tzŭ (circa 1120) says: Wang An-shih, in enumerating China’s four greatest poets, put Li Po fourth on the list. Many vulgar people expressed surprise, but Wang replied: ‘The reason why vulgar people find Li Po’s poetry congenial is that it is easy to enjoy. His intellectual outlook was mean and sordid, and out of ten poems nine deal with wine or women; nevertheless, the abundance of his talent makes it impossible to leave him out of account.’

Finally Huang T’ing-chien (A.D. 1050-1110), accepted by the Chinese as one of their greatest writers, says with reference to Li’s poetry: "The quest for unusual expressions is in itself a literary disease. It was, indeed, this fashion which caused the decay which set in after the Chien-an period (i.e., at the beginning of the third century A.D.)."

To these native strictures very little need be added. No one who reads much of Li’s poetry in the original can fail to notice the two defects which are emphasized by the Sung critics. The long poems are often ill-constructed. Where, for example, he wishes to convey an impression of horror he is apt to exhaust himself in the first quatrain, and the rest of the poem is a network of straggling repetitions. Very few of these longer poems have been translated. The second defect, his lack of variety, is one which would only strike those who have read a large number of his poems. Translators have naturally made their selections as varied as possible, so that many of those who know the poet only in translation might feel inclined to defend him on this score. According to Wang An-shih, his two subjects are wine and women. The second does not, of course, imply love-poetry, but sentiments put into the mouths of deserted wives and concubines. Such themes are always felt by the Chinese to be in part allegorical, the deserted lady symbolizing the minister whose counsels a wicked monarch will not heed.

Such poems form the dullest section of Chinese poetry, and are certainly frequent in Li’s works. But his most monotonous feature is the mechanical recurrence of certain reflections about the impermanence of human things, as opposed to the immutability of Nature. Probably about half the poems contain some reference to the fact that rivers do not return to their sources, while man changes hour by hour.

The obsession of impermanence has often been sublimated into great mystic poetry. In Li Po it results only in endless restatement of obvious facts.

It has, I think, been generally realized that his strength lies not in the content, but in the form of his poetry. Above all, he was a song-writer. Most of the pieces translated previously and most of those I am going to read to-day are songs, not poems. It is noteworthy that his tombstone bore the inscription, His skill lay in the writing of archaic songs. His immediate predecessors had carried to the highest refinement the art of writing in elaborate patterns of tone. In Li’s whole works there are said to be only nine poems in the strict seven-character metre. Most of his familiar short poems are in the old style, which neglects the formal arrangement of tones. The value of his poetry lay in beauty of words, not in beauty of thought. Unfortunately no one either here or in China can appreciate the music of his verse, for we do not know how Chinese was pronounced in the eighth century. Even to the modern Chinese, his poetry exists more for the eye than for the ear.

The last point to which I shall refer is the extreme allusiveness of his poems. This characteristic, common to most Chinese poetry, is carried to an extreme point in the fifty-nine Old Style poems with which the works begin. Not only do they bristle with the names of historical personages, but almost every phrase is borrowed from some classic. One is tempted to quarrel with Wang An-shih’s statement that people liked the poems because they were easy to enjoy. No modern could understand them without pages of commentary to each poem. But Chinese poetry, with a few exceptions, has been written on this principle since the Han dynasty; one poet alone, Po Chü-i, broke through the restraints of pedantry, erasing every expression that his charwoman could not understand.

Translators have naturally avoided the most allusive poems and have omitted or generalized such allusions as occurred. They have frequently failed to recognize allusions as such, and have mistranslated them accordingly, often turning proper names into romantic sentiments.

Li’s reputation, like all success, is due partly to accident. After suffering a temporary eclipse during the Sung dynasty, he came back into favour in the sixteenth century, when most of the popular anthologies were made. These compilations devote an inordinate space to his works, and he has been held in corresponding esteem by a public whose knowledge of poetry is chiefly confined to anthologies.

Serious literary criticism has been dead in China since that time, and the valuations then made are still accepted.

Like Miss Havisham’s clock, which stopped at twenty to nine on her wedding-day, the clock of Chinese esteem stopped at Li Po centuries ago, and has stuck there ever since.

But I venture to surmise that if a dozen representative English poets could read Chinese poetry in the original, they would none of them give either the first or second place to Li Po.

THE TEXT OF THE POEMS.

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THE FIRST EDITION of the poems was in ten chüan, and was published by Li Yang-ping in the year of the poet’s death. The preface tells us that Li Po had lost his own MSS. of almost all the poems written during the eight years of his wanderings — that is, from about 753 to 761. A few copies had been procured from friends. About 770 Wei Hao produced an edition of twenty chüan, many additional poems having come to light in the interval.

In 998 Yo Shih added the prose works, consisting of five letters and various prefaces, petitions, monumental inscriptions, etc.

In 1080 Sung Min-ch’iu published the works in thirty chüan, the form in which they still exist. There are just under 1,000 poems and about sixty prose pieces.

In 1759 an annotated edition was published by Wang Ch’i, with six chüan of critical and biographical matter added to the thirty chüan of the works.

It is this edition which has been chiefly used by European readers and to which references are made in the present paper. It was reprinted by the Sao Yeh Co. of Shanghai in 1908.

The text of the poems is remarkable for the number of variant readings, which in some cases affect crucial words in quite short poems, in others extend to a whole line or couplet. A printed text of the thirteenth century containing the annotations of Yang Tzŭ-chien is generally followed in current editions. This is known as the Hsiao text; a Ming reprint of it is sometimes met with.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, a Sung printed edition came into the hands of a Mr. Miu at Soochow; he reprinted it in facsimile. This is known as the Miu text. As there is no means of deciding which of these two has the better authority, my choice of readings has been guided by personal preference.

TRANSLATIONS

II. 7. Ku Fēng, No. 6

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The T’ai horse cannot think of Yüeh;

The birds of Yüeh have no love for Yen.

Feeling and character grow out of habit;

A people’s customs cannot be changed.

Once we marched from the Wild Goose Gate;

Now we are fighting in front of the Dragon Pen.

Startled sands blur the desert sun;

Flying snows bewilder the Tartar sky.

Lice swarm in our plumed caps and tiger coats;

Our spirits tremble like the flags we raise to the wind.

Hard fighting gets no reward or praise;

Steadfastness and truth cannot be rightly known.

Who was sorry for Li, the Swift of Wing,¹⁶

When his white head vanished from the Three Fronts?¹⁷

III. 1. The Distant Parting

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LONG AGO THERE were two queens¹⁸ called Huang and Ying. And they stood on the shores of the Hsiao-hsiang, to the south of Lake Tung-t’ing. Their sorrow was deep as the waters of the Lake that go straight down a thousand miles. Dark clouds blackened the sun. Shōjō¹⁹ howled in the mist and ghosts whistled in the rain. The queens said, "Though we speak of it we cannot mend it. High Heaven is secretly afraid to shine on our loyalty. But the thunder crashes and bellows its anger, that while Yao and Shun are here they should also be crowning Yü. When a prince loses his servants, the dragon turns into a minnow. When power goes to slaves, mice change to tigers.

"Some say that Yao is shackled and hidden away, and that Shun has died in the fields.

But the Nine Hills of Deceit stand there in a row, each like each; and which of them covers the lonely bones of the Double-eyed One, our Master?

So the royal ladies wept, standing amid yellow clouds. Their tears followed the winds and waves, that never return. And while they wept, they looked out into the distance and saw the deep mountain of Tsang-wu.

The mountain of Tsang-wu shall fall and the waters of the Hsiang shall cease, sooner than the marks of our tears shall fade from these bamboo-leaves.

[Of this poem and the Szechwan Road a critic has said: You could recite them all day without growing tired of them.]

III. 4. The Szechwan Road

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EHEU! HOW DANGEROUS, how high! It would be easier to climb to Heaven than to walk the Szechwan Road.

Since Ts’an Ts’ung and Yü Fu ruled the land, forty-eight thousand years had gone by; and still no human foot had passed from Shu to the frontiers of Ch’in. To the west across T’ai-po Shan there was a bird-track, by which one could cross to the ridge of O-mi. But the earth of the hill crumbled and heroes²⁰ perished.

So afterwards they made sky ladders and hanging bridges. Above, high beacons of rock that turn back the chariot of the sun. Below, whirling eddies that meet the waves of the current and drive them away. Even the wings of the yellow cranes cannot carry them across, and the monkeys grow weary of such climbing.

How the road curls in the pass of Green Mud!

With nine turns in a hundred steps it twists up the hills.

Clutching at Orion, passing the Well Star, I look up and gasp. Then beating my breast sit and groan aloud.

I fear I shall never return from my westward wandering; the way is steep and the rocks cannot be climbed.

Sometimes the voice of a bird calls among the ancient trees — a male calling to its wife, up and down through the woods. Sometimes a nightingale sings to the moon, weary of empty hills.

It would be easier to climb to Heaven than to walk