A conversation in poems: Xie Lingyun, Xie Huilian, and Jiang Yan.
Author | Williams, Nicholas Morrow |
The substantial body of poems addressed by one distinguished poet to another is one of the glories of the Chinese poetic tradition. These pose a special challenge to the literary scholar. The study of old poems must proceed from the assumption that works of literature can be interpreted and appreciated by an audience not circumscribed by time or place, as if all literature were written for our own amusement and instruction, and so it is daunting to inspect a poem addressed explicitly to a historical individual. In this paper we examine a series of poems exchanged by two cousins, first in their biographical context and then with regard to formal patterning. We find that our own concern with the possibility of interpretation is shared by the poets themselves; the struggle to convey a message to one's friend across physical distance is echoed in our own pursuit of meaning across cultural and temporal removes. An imitation of this exchange by a later poet further shows how it is possible for readers to engage with these private poems, and even to extend the conversation they began.
Xie Hulian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (407-33), a notable author in his own right, was a younger cousin and close friend of the great poet Xie Lingyun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (385-433). (1) The record of their friendship begins in the year 423, when Lingyun resigned his post as governor of Yongjia [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (modern Wenzhou [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Zhejiang) to return to his family estate in Shining [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (modern Shangyu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], Zhejiang). The Song shu biography of Lingyun has the following account:
Huilian possessed rare talent from youth, but he acted frivolous and carefree, so his father Fangming did not recognize it. (2) When Lingyun left Yongjia to return to Shining, Fangming was in charge of Guiji commandery. Lingyun once went from Shining to Guiji to visit Fangming. While visiting he saw Huilian, and greatly admired him. At that time Changyu was teaching Huilian to read, so he was also in the commandery, and Lingyun judged him to be another extraordinary talent. (3) He told Fangming: "Huilian is so brilliant, and yet you treat him just like an ordinary child. He Changyu is like a modern-day Wang Can, (4) but you serve him the meals of a lowly retainer. Since you do not know how to give worthy men their due, you should return Changyu to me." So Lingyun rode away with him.(5)
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After several years living in retirement at Shining, Lingyun went to the capital in 426, where he served as director of the imperial library. (6) In 428, he returned to Shining, and in this period Huilian, Changyu, and some other friends accompanied him. They led a pleasant existence, composing poetry and celebrating together:
Once Lingyun had returned east from the capital, he and his younger cousin Huilian, He Changyu of Donghai, Xun Yong of Yingchuan, and Yang Xuanzhi of Taishan met together to discuss poetry, and roamed together over mountains and lakes, so people of the time called them the Four Friends. (7) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
We have a poem by Lingyun that appears to date approximately to this period (8) Lingyun names three of the "Four Friends" in its title. At the time of writing, Lingyun is traveling in the mountains alone, but he does not seem to have been divided from the group for long, since the title mentions that Yang and He composed matching poems. The poem itself leaves us uncertain why Lingyun is separated from his friends, whether he will rejoin them soon, and even whether he would like to. It is characteristic of Lingyun to discover loneliness among his friends, and to approach most closely his ideal of companionship in solitary dreaming. This poem can be divided into four stanzas, according to changes in rhyme.
Climbing Peaks at Linhai After Setting Out from Qiangzhong, I Gave My Cousin Huilian This Poem, and Showed It to Yang Xuanzhi and He Changyu so They Would Compose Poems to Match It (9)
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Lingyun's poem is full of direct and vivid impressions of nature, as in the striking couplet: "Autumnal springs burble over northern streams, / And mournful gibbons shriek on the southern ridge." The ending of the poem, in which Lingyun imagines he might encounter the Lord of the Floating Hills and ascend with him into the realm of the immortals, ought to be compared with the ending of an earlier Lingyun poem, "Stone Hall Mountain" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], in which the poet imagines joining Wangzi Qiao (disciple of the Lord of the Floating Hills, according to legend): (23)
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These lines contain two ambiguities not evident in the translation: the "divine realm" might mean either the Stone Hall Mountain or the Daoist heaven where Wangzi Qiao goes, and the "appreciative mind" might be either a friend, Wangzi Qiao, or the mountain itself. (27) So in "Stone Hall Mountain," as in "Climbing Peaks at Linhai ... " there is a curious ambivalence about Lingyun's attitude towards actual human friends. The ambivalence is almost unfriendly in "Climbing Peaks at Linhai ... " where Lingyun is tempted to abandon his cousin for the immortal sage. It is as if Lingyun cannot focus on his friend through an entire poem (as the conventions of such poetry require) without slipping back into a more characteristic solipsism. The tension between these contradictory states of mind adds complexity to what might otherwise seems a conventional poem of parting.
A poem from Xie Huilian, written when the two were separated for the final time, feels more sincere in its appeals to friendship. Huilian had hitherto been in disgrace for love poems he wrote to a young man named Du Deling [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], (28) but in 430 he received an appointment as judicial aide to Liu Yikang [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (409-51), prince of Pengcheng [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (29) On the way to take up the post, he stopped at Xiling [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Lake (near modern Xiaoshan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], Zhejiang) where he composed this poem, in five stanzas:
Upon Encountering a Gale at Xiling, Presented to Kangle (30) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (31)
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Huilian's poem is a straightforward depiction of his sadness at separation from his friend Lingyun. The poem is divided into five stanzas of four couplets each, with each stanza rhyming separately. Huilian displays his poetic talent especially in his adept manipulation of two distinct themes through the course of the long poem: the adversity of his physical journey, and his psychological pain. The two are linked by the analogy of distance, which can be simultaneously physical and psychological. Huilian is constantly trying to gaze past various obstacles back towards Lingyun: lines 7, 8, 16, 37, and 38 all include verbs of looking. The metaphor of distance is contrasted with a second trope in the fourth stanza, which consists entirely of impersonal description, relating a series of natural blockages: clouds, wind, rain, and snow all combine to prevent Huilian from progressing in his journey. This landscape description wonderfully evokes the feelings of frustration and impotence that affect the parting relatives, without any explicit mention of emotions.
There is a tinge of irony in the juxtaposition of these two tropes, since Huilian is complaining about the natural obstacles that prevent him from traveling farther away from his cousin. But this is a natural human contradiction, expressed movingly in lines 13-14: "Sorrowful are the words of you who remain, / As pain tears the heart of this wanderer!" Rather than claiming that his unhappiness is unique to his own situation, or isolating its cause to a single source, Huilian presents the situation whole. The scale of the poem allows him to construct several different dramas intact--the parting from Lingyun, longing for his friend, the length of the journey, the present impasse--turning smoothly from one to another and not allowing any single facet of his condition to predominate. The parallelism of the penultimate couplet examplifies Huilian's confused situation: "Gazing west elicits a traveler's sigh, / Peering east inspires a song of lament." It is not just looking back towards his friend, but looking in any direction at all that is painful.
Xie Lingyun wrote a poem in response, presumably in the same year:
Reply to My Younger Cousin Huilian (44) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TABLE OMITTED]
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Lingyun's poem is written in the same form as Huilian's, but there is an additional structural element of anadiplosis: the first line of each stanza (after the first) repeats a phrase from the last line of the previous one. (58) This device, which Lingyun also uses in "Climbing Peaks at Linhai ..., " clarifies the overall structure of the poem since it emphasizes the break between stanzas. For instance, the fourth stanza refers to Huilian's poem, comparing their relationship through correspondence to actual companionship, with the final couplet declaring Lingyun's preference for the latter. The fifth and final stanza opens by repeating the words "late spring," but the main theme of this stanza is Lingyun's solitary enjoyment of the season. The repeated phrase acts as a pivot, by means of which Lingyun accomplishes a major transition in content without disturbing the smooth progression of the poem. Compared to Lingyun's reply, Huilian's poem seems structurally loose and unfocused.
Lingyun's poem distinguishes itself from Huilian's also by Lingyun's characteristically striking and original use of language, as in the couplet "The mountain peach-trees grow red calices, / The wild ferns sprout in purple clusters"...
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