150 t He siX Dy na s t i e s
6 Their slender waists are one and the same. 一種細腰身 (yì zhŏng xì yāo shēn)
How do we separate the two? 所可持為異 (suŏ kĕ chí wéi yì)
8 One is always in good spirits. 長有好精神 (cháng yŏu hăo jīng shén)
[XQHWJNBCS 3:1953]In a rather humorous tone, Xiao Gang points out that both women—the one
in the painting and the one viewing it—are “painted,” no doubt alluding to the
court lady’s heavy makeup. The last couplet, as Kang-i Sun Chang has observed,
underlines the “permanent value of art”: only the painted woman is always in good
spirits.3 The modern reader may find it distasteful that Xiao Gang should treat the
real woman as an object of art by comparing her to a painting; and yet, the con-
trast effectively brings out the vital energy and fragility of the human condition:
unlike the painted beauty, the real woman may become sick, grow old, get angry
or become sad, and easily lose her “good spirits,” which only a painted beauty is
privileged to possess “always.” Indeed, for those who were saturated in Buddhist
teachings and frequently attended Buddhist lectures, like the Liang royal family
and members of the nobility, the very statement “One is always in good spirits”
is tongue-in-cheek: painting is one of the best-known metaphors in the Buddhist
scriptures for the illusive nature of the phenomenal world, and so the “perma-
nence” of a painting is itself an illusion because it is relative, measured against the
brevity of human life.
Buddhist doctrine teaches that when a child sees the moon in the water, he tries
to grab it, while the wise adult laughs at the child for doing so. The wiser adult
understands that the impulse to grab the moon in the water is owing to the child’s
adhering too much to the sense of “I” and that of “what I see” as reality. In fact,
“I” is constituted of the Five Skandhas (wuyin or wuyun)—form, feeling, percep-
tion, impulse, and consciousness—all essentially illusory and transitory. Consid-
ered in this light, the following yongwu poem by Xiao Gang, “On a Lone Duck,”
seems to take on a more complicated meaning, as the lonely duck, enamored of its
own reflection, is sadly deluded in its attachment to something insubstantial and
unreal:C 7. 7
On a Lone Duck 詠單凫 (yŏng dān fú)It dives in shallows for beakfuls of moss, 銜苔入淺水 (xián tái rù qiăn shuĭ)
Heads to sandy isles to preen its feathers. 刷羽向沙洲 (shuā yŭ xiàng shā zhōu)
Ready to fly off all by itself, 孤飛本欲去 (gū fēi bĕn yù qù)
It finds its reflection and lingers. 得影更淹留 (dé yĭng gèng yān liú)
[XQHWJNBCS 3:1973]The last line contains an unsolvable paradox: the poet suggests that the dis-
covery of its own reflection prompts the duck to stay, and yet, its staying conditions
the existence of the reflection. The illusion of having a companion (that is, its own
reflection in the water) gives rise to fond attachment, but the attachment itself