186 t He tang Dy na s t y
in public life are not to be fulfilled. The “Autumn Meditations” reflect on the end
of a year, of a life, and of an age—and the idea of autumn becomes a hall of mirrors
within which all those endings are jumbled and superimposed. Following is the
final poem of the series:C 9. 3
Autumn Meditations, No. 8Kunwu park and Yusu lodge are out there in the remote distances;
2 the shadow of Purple Tower peak enters Meipi lake.
Fragrant rice: leftovers from pecking, parrots’ grains;
4 emerald wutong trees: till old age perched, phoenixes’ branches.
Lovely ones gathered kingfisher feathers to give as springtime gifts;
6 transcendent companions shared a boat, moving off again toward evening.
My many-colored writing brush once strove with the climate;
8 now my white head, chanting and gazing, in despondency droops.
[QTS 7:230.2510]秋興 其八 (qiū xīng qí bā)
Kunwu — Yusu — self far off/remote — 昆吾御宿自逶迤 (kūn wú yù sù zì wēi yí)
Zige — peak shadow enter Meipi — 紫閣峰陰入渼陂 (zĭ gé fēng yīn rù mĕi pí)
fragrant rice peck (-leftover) parrot — grain 香稻啄餘鸚鵡粒 (xiāng dào zhuó yú yīng wŭ lì)
emerald wutong tree perch (-old) phoenix — branch 碧梧棲老鳳凰枝 (bì wú qī lăo fèng huáng zhī)
lovely person gather kingfisher spring each other ask/visit 佳人拾翠春相問 (jiā rén shí cuì chūn xiāng wèn)
transcendent companion share boat evening again move 仙侶同舟晚更移 (xiān lǚ tóng zhōu wăn gèng yí)
colored brush in the past once disturb vapor image 彩筆昔曾干氣象 (căi bĭ xī céng gān qì xiàng)
white head chant gaze bitter low hang 白頭吟望苦低垂 (bái tóu yín wàng kŭ dī chuí)
[Tonal pattern I, see p. 171]
Kunwu Park, Yusu Lodge, Purple Tower Peak, and Lake Meipi were excursion
sites nestled in the Zhongnan mountain range, south of Chang’an. Du Fu had
frequented this area on outings during stints at the capital early in his career and
had composed occasional poems on those visits. Line 2 of this poem seems to be
a deliberate echo of a striking image from one of these earlier poems, “Song of
Lake Meipi” (Meipi xing), in which the poet, on a boating excursion on the lake as
evening falls, sees the black masses of the surrounding mountains inverted on the
water’s surface.
Thus as the Du Fu of the “Autumn Meditations,” in his southern exile at Kui-
zhou on the banks of the Yangtze River, gazes out into the imagined distance far
into the north to the capital, he gazes back as well into his own past as a minister of
the empire and as a poet. This personal retrospective is, in turn, interwoven with a
more general meditation on the fortunes of the Tang, which seemed already to Du
Fu—as for many writers throughout the remaining century and a half or so of the
dynasty—to have permanently lost something magical with the fall of the capital