126 chapter three
«Clasps a White Tiger and Crosses the Ocean» ᢅⴔⱑ㰢䍄䖛⍋⋟
Mother leaning toward magnificence ؒѢᅣӳⱘ↡҆
clasps a white tiger and crosses the ocean ᢅⴔⱑ㰢䍄䖛⍋⋟
On the land are five chambers 䰚ഄϞ᳝ූሟѨ䯈
a sickbed lies down in her hometown ϔা⮙ᑞऻѢᬙе
Mother leaning toward her hometown ؒѢᬙеⱘ↡҆
clasps a white tiger and crosses the ocean ᢅⴔⱑ㰢䍄䖛⍋⋟
The sons coming out in spite of their sickness ᡊ⮙㗠ߎⱘܓᄤӀ
open the door and gaze at the sun of blood ᓔ䮼ᳯ㾕њ㸔䰇
Mother leaning toward the sun ؒѢ䰇ⱘ↡҆
clasps a white tiger and crosses the ocean ᢅⴔⱑ㰢䍄䖛⍋⋟
The maidservant on the left is life Ꮊ䖍ⱘաཇᰃ⫳ੑ
the maidservant on the right is death ে䖍ⱘաཇᰃ⅏ѵ
Mother leaning toward death ؒѢ⅏ѵⱘ↡҆
clasps a white tiger and crosses the ocean ᢅⴔⱑ㰢䍄䖛⍋⋟I include the Chinese original to show that all its lines are visually and
aurally of the exact same length: eight characters = syllables, without
any punctuation. The final syllables of each stanza rhyme. The poem’s
semantics, too, are tightly and indeed formally controlled. The poem’s
first line takes its cues from the second, fourth and sixth stanzas for me-
chanical rewritings in the third, fifth and seventh by the replacement
of one word, followed each time by a repetition of the first stanza’s
second line, which is also the poem’s title. The central scene, of mother
clasping a white tiger and crossing the ocean, is mystifying. The word
translated as clasps is ᢅ ‘hold,’ ‘embrace,’ meaning that mother is sit-
ting on the tiger’s back, with her arms around its neck. While crosses
(䍄䖛) doesn’t specify the means or mode of transportation, an im-
age of the tiger walking or running across the water comes to mind.
The scene’s mythical qualities are enhanced by the maidservants that
represent life and death, and by the vision of mother as a powerful
presence interacting with the formidable entities of “magnificence,”
the hometown (ᬙе ‘place of origin,’ an important constituent of
Chinese identities), the sun and death, all of which recur throughout
Haizi’s oeuvre. The sick sons vis-à-vis the sun are familiar, too—we
will encounter them again below—but the dynamics of their relation