230 t He tang Dy na s t y
as the key positions of five-character verses, is powerful; and it is rendered all the
more so by the fact that line 3 is composed of four rising tones in a row. This slows
the reader down, as rising tones are musically interpreted as longer than falling
ones. The overall effect is one of spontaneity and idiosyncrasy, an effect that helps
convey the poet’s sense of solitude in a world in decline.
Like Qu Yuan (340?–278 b.C.e.), and like Chen Zi’ang’s more direct model,
Ruan Ji (210–263), Chen Zi’ang’s sense of solitude was endemic. It may not be too
simplistic to attribute his rebellious stance to his exile and to the many disappoint-
ments he encountered in pursuing his lifelong goal to serve the court. But his
loneliness was far-reaching indeed, encompassing his sense of his place in time
as well as in space. Chen Zi’ang was a man who felt himself to be of the ancients,
but not among them. Perhaps nowhere did he express this with more vigor and
directness than in the justifiably famous quatrain “A Song on Ascending Youzhou
Terrace”:C 1 1. 2
A Song on Ascending Youzhou Terrace 登幽州臺歌 (dēng yōu zhōu tái gē)I do not see the ancients before me, 前不見古人 (qián bú jiàn gŭrén)
Behind, I do not see those yet to come. 後不見來者 (hòu bú jiàn lái zhĕ)
I think of the mournful breadth of
heaven and earth,6 念天地之悠悠 (niàn tiān dì zhī yōu yōu)
Alone, grieving—tears fall. 獨愴然而涕下 (dú chuāng rán ér tì xià)
[QTS 2:83.899]This poem leaves no doubt about the kind of language that Chen Zi’ang as-
sociates with the value of ancient authenticity. Plain and pellucid, it appears to
adhere to no poetic rule but that dictating the spontaneous, untrammeled expres-
sion of spontaneous, untrammeled feeling. This is not to say that it lacks pattern
or poetry. Chen Zi’ang takes full advantage of the ancient style in three impor-
tant areas: (1) simple syntactic parallelism in the opening couplet, (2) varied line
length (including the presence of two six-character lines), and (3) falling tone in
the end rhymes (which contributes to the feeling of an uncompromising, “metal-
and-stone” musicality). Combined, these three features frame his simple language
in the prosody of ancient poetry.
The presentation of emotion, too, is handled with the ancient aesthetic in mind.
Until the last line, feelings are conveyed only indirectly, through the evocation of
his absolute solitude. But the effectiveness of this short piece derives primarily
from its ability to make the invisible visible—much as we saw in “Moved by Events
I Encounter, No. 6.” Once again, seeing, which is given such prominence in the
first couplet, reveals itself as an impotent act, because what he is seeking is not
visible to the eye. This “blindness” is especially powerful when we consider the
title, “Ascending Youzhou Terrace,” which places this poem within a thematic cate-
gory that usually develops the lyric from an initial viewing of a landscape.7