142 t He siX Dy na s t i e s
his senior and had a more visible impact on the development of the regulated verse
of the Tang.C 7. 1
An Outing to the Eastern Field 遊東田詩 (yóu dōng tián shī)Despondent, suffering from lack of cheer, 戚戚苦無悰 (qī qī kŭ wú cōng)
2 We go out for pleasure, hand in hand. 攜手共行樂 (xié shŏu gòng xíng lè)
Seeking clouds, we ascend a tiered kiosk; 尋雲陟累榭 (xún yún zhì lĕi xiè)
4 Following the hills, we gaze at the mushroom-
like pavilions. 隨山望菌閣 (suí shān wàng jūn gé)
Distant trees are hazy in their luxuriance; 遠樹曖仟仟 (yuăn shù ài qiān qiān)
6 A mist rises, spreading in billows. 生煙紛漠漠 (shēng yān fēn mò mò)
Where fish sport, new lotuses stir; 魚戲新荷動 (yú xì xīn hé dòng)
8 As birds scatter, remaining flowers fall. 鳥散餘花落 (niăo sàn yú huā luò)
If not facing the fragrant spring ale, 不對芳春酒 (bú duì fāng chūn jiŭ)
10 We shall gaze at villages in the blue hills
instead. 還望青山郭 (huán wàng qīng shān guō)
[XQHWJNBCS 2:1425]Less dense in diction than the works of his Liu Song predecessors, Xie Tiao’s
poems often flow with an easy grace. Although still far from Tang regulated verse,
“An Outing to the Eastern Field” comes close in terms of its brevity (ten lines as
opposed to the sixteen or twenty lines of an average Xie Lingyun poem) and its
attention to tonal euphony. The third couplet, for instance, is a perfect example of
tonal patterning, with deflected and level tones alternating in the key positions in
the first line of the couplet (second and fourth characters) and then level and de-
flected tones used in the corresponding positions in the following line.
The pleasurable outing is set against a background of mysterious melancholy—
the poet never tells us what it is that makes him despondent. The Eastern Field
was at the foot of Zhong Mountain, where Crown Prince Wenhui (458–493) of the
Qi had constructed a luxury villa. Xie Tiao himself was said to have owned a villa
in the same area. The poet claims that he and his friend ascend the lofty terrace to
seek clouds, but once they climb to the top, a mist rises and spreads everywhere;
along with the lushly growing trees, it blocks the poet’s view of the distant vista.
Perhaps because of the obstruction of his view, the poet, in the fourth couplet,
turns his eyes to a scene close at hand. The new growth of the lotus leaves indi-
cates the season: it is early summer. The stirring of the new lotus leaves leads the
poet to notice the playing fish; the “sport” of the fish, a symbol of marital happi-
ness and fertility, is imbued with sexual undertones. The liveliness and vitality of
nature are, however, soon offset by a scene of dispersal and destruction. Following
the principle of the parallel couplet, which demands that the reader understand
the second line of a couplet in the same way as the first line, we are able to con-
struct the causal relationship between the scattering of the birds and the falling of
the blossoms from the tree; that is, it is the movement of the birds that shakes the