Critics later labeled what he developed as the ancient, or ku-wen 古文, style and contrasted it with the p’ien-wen 駢文, or parallel, style that had dominated literary genres from 200 BC until the T’ang. Liu cast aside the formal elements that often overshadowed a work’s content in favor of communicating ideas and feelings directly; he also had fun with the language in which he did so. I can only hope my translations give some sense of the ease with which he wrote.
In the pages that follow, I’ve included 140 of the 146 regular shih-style poems Liu left behind. I’ve omitted six that have a combined length of over 500 lines and would have required a small book of notes as well as more enthusiasm than I was likely to muster. I haven’t bothered with Liu’s ten fu-style 賦 prose poems or his nine sao-style 騷 laments, as they were written in a manner that the rest of his literary output argues against: dense as mud and weighed down by endless historical references. I’ve also ordered the poems in a chronological sequence, as near as can be ascertained or guessed at. Naturally there are differences of opinion about the dates of certain poems, but such differences are almost always limited to one or two years. I’ve also interspersed the poems with twenty of the prose pieces Liu wrote about his places of exile along with a few of his more popular allegories and fables and one letter. I’ve numbered these with uppercase roman numerals.
The texts I’ve used for the poems and the prose and have reproduced in this book are those in the four-volume Collected works of Liu Tsungyuan 柳宗元集 published by the China Publishing Company in 1979 as part of its Chinese Ancient Literature Text Collection 中國古典文學基本叢書. Where I’ve chosen variants of any significance, I’ve indicated that in my notes. Also, at the end of each note, I’ve indicated in parentheses the page number where readers can find the original text in the above edition.
Lastly, in preparing this book, I’ve had the good fortune to visit the places where Liu wrote these poems and prose pieces and to spend time with local scholars who have devoted themselves to his work. I am indebted to them for much of the information in this book. I’m not a scholar, and they saved me from having to become one. For readers interested in learning more, at the back of this book I’ve listed some of these scholars’ works along with the few English-language sources available. My thanks, too, to my traveling companions, Yin Yun 殷雲 and Li Xin 李昕, who helped arrange my visits to Liu’s places of exile and who joined me on my excursions. After coming up empty searching for Liu’s grave south of Sian, I never would have guessed I would find him still alive.
Red Pine
Summer 2018
Port Townsend
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1. ON SEEING THE PAINTING FESTIVE CLOUDS AT THE EXAMINATION 省試觀慶雲圖詩
Before colors were added shapes were drawn
through diaphanous clouds the capital appeared
celestial blessings bestowed from on high
assembled officials offering felicitations
on his robe a dragon embraced the sun
untouched by the royal censer’s smoke
His Eminence surveyed the horizon
his gaze extended into space
while his radiance shone forth from the scroll
the splendors of the auspicious scene were unrolled
a lasting example of Emperor Yao’s virtue
instead of riverine art a celebration
設色初成象，卿雲示國都。九天開秘祉，百辟贊嘉謨。
抱日依龍衮，非煙近御爐。高標連汗漫，向望接虛無。
裂素榮光發，舒華瑞色敷。恆將配堯德，垂慶代河圖。
NOTE: Written in Ch’ang-an in 790. This is Liu’s earliest extant poem. He was only eighteen, but it already shows his admiration for the ways of China’s early sage kings—an admiration that endured throughout his career as an offical and his subsequent exiles. The painting of the imperial court he describes was used as the subject of the civil service exam that year. The emperor was considered the Son of Heaven, and the image of a dragon playing with the sun was a common motif on royal robes. Among the sage rulers the Chinese revered were Emperor Yao 堯 (ca. 2350 BC) and Fu Hsi 伏羲 (ca. 2850 BC). Fu Hsi was once given by the Dragon King of the Yellow River a set of diagrams on the basis of which he composed the trigrams that made up the earliest version of the Book of Changes 易經. As a result of the enmity borne Liu’s father by the prime minister, Tou Shen, Liu failed the examination the previous year, and he failed this year too, and the next year, and the next. Finally, on his fifth attempt, when the prime minister himself was exiled, he passed in 793 at the age of twenty-one. His friend Liu Yu-hsi also passed that year. (1261)
2. THE TURTLE SHELL GAME 龜背戲
The game first appeared in Ch’ang-an in the palace
the sound soon filled the homes of nobles
gold coins falling on jade plates
turtle shells polished like an autumn sky
sacred symbols marking the eight directions
up and down and six different ways
someone spins a magical device
stars fly and clouds break apart
then
