How to Read Chinese Poetry A Guided Anthology

P e n ta s y l l a biC Sh i P oe t ry : ne w t o P i C s 143

flowers off the branches, and it is most likely the human presence—the approach
of the poet and his friend—that has startled the birds. The flowers are mere rem-
nants of their former splendor (and as such, fall easily): as summer begins and
lotus grows, spring is coming to an end, and tree blossoms are fading away. Even
as the fish are mating and the lotuses are sprouting new leaves, there are withering
and death. Or, if we turn the argument around, nature is ever renewing itself, and
there is always new life (the tree will blossom again next year)—not so, however,
for human beings.
Moved by the cycle of nature he observes, the poet thinks of drinking spring
ale, a gesture reminiscent of “Duan ge xing” (Short Song) by the Jian’an poet Cao
Cao (155–220): “Facing the ale, one should sing, / How long does human life last?”
Thoughts of mortality and the impermanence of things may have initially driven
the poet out to make merry on a fine late-spring day, but nature turns out to be
not so much a consolation as a reminder of the brevity of human life. While it is
the poet’s vision that connects all the things in nature and makes them into self-
contained scenes in well-crafted couplets, there is an irreconcilable difference be-
tween man and nature that marks the human presence in the landscape as essen-
tially alien. All that is left for the poet to do is to “gaze” (wang) from a distance,
to be an onlooker able to appreciate but unable to participate in nature’s cycle of
renewal.
The fourth couplet in Xie Tiao’s “An Outing to the Eastern Field” is a well-known
parallel couplet in Chinese literary history. Its force comes from an intricacy that
goes well beyond prosodic or formal perfection. It says much in a limited space,
and what it says depends very much on how it is said.

C 7. 2

Jade Stairs Resentment 玉階怨   (yù jiē yuàn)

In the evening hall, the bead curtain is lowered; 夕殿下珠簾  (xī diàn xià zhū lián)

Drifting glowworms fly, then rest. 流萤飛復息     (liú yíng fēi fùxī)

Through the long night, sewing a gossamer dress: 長夜縫羅衣   (cháng yè féng luó yī)

This longing for you—when will it ever cease? 思君此何極  (sī jūn cĭ hé jí)

[XQHWJNBCS 2:1420]

“Jade Stairs Resentment” (also translated as “Lament of the Jade Stairs” [C10.10])
is a quatrain (jueju), a verse form that had grown increasingly popular in the fifth
to sixth centuries. Quatrains could be written in either five- or seven-syllable lines,
although the full development of the seven-syllable quatrain occurred only in the
Tang. There are several theories regarding the origin of jueju, one of which is based
on the literal meaning of jue: “cut-off.” According to this theory, poets used to
compose quatrains in response to one another, but when a quatrain received no
response, it became “cut-off lines,” or jueju. During the Southern Dynasties, poets
were fascinated with quatrain songs performed at court; these songs, although
commonly regarded as folk songs, were often composed by court musicians as
well as by aristocrats—sometimes the emperor himself. Xie Tiao’s quatrain, writ-