anC i e n t-s t y l e Sh i P oe t ry : C on t i nuat ion anD C Hang e s 233
The great river boundless flows on, never to
return. 大江茫茫去不還 (dà jiāng máng máng qù bù huán)
18 Yellow clouds for ten thousand miles, stirring
the color of wind, 黃雲萬里動風色 (huáng yún wàn lĭ dòng fēng sè)
White waves along the Nine Rivers, flowing
snowcapped mountains. 白波九道流雪山 (bái bō jiŭ dào liú xuĕ shān)
20 I love singing about Lu Mountain, 好為廬山謠 (hào wéi lú shān yáo)
My inspiration stirs because of Lu Mountain. 興因廬山發 (xìng yīn lú shān fā)
22 I lazily peer at Stone Mirror, it cleanses my heart, 閑窺石鏡清我心 (xián kuī shí jìng qīng wŏxīn)
The place where Master Xie used to walk is
now submerged in moss.11 謝公行處蒼苔沒 (xiè gōng xíng chù cāng tài mò)
24 In the morning I take “reverted cinnabar”: no
more worldly cares,12 早服還丹無世情 (zăo fú huán dān wú shì qíng)
My “lute-heart plays all three chords”: the
Dao just now complete.13 琴心三疊道初成 (qín xīn sān dié dào chū chéng)
26 Far off I glimpse transcendents among the
colored clouds, 遙見仙人彩雲裡 (yáo jiàn xiān rén căi yún lĭ)
Holding a lotus blossom, I will pay court at
the Jade Capital. 手把芙蓉朝玉京 (shŏu bă fú róng cháo yù jīng)
28 But first, a rendezvous with Han Man above
the Nine Regions— 先期汗漫九垓上 (xiān qī hàn màn jiŭ gāi shàng)
I would like to meet Lu Ao and roam the
Great Purity.1 4 願接盧敖遊太清 (yuàn jiē lú áo yóu tài qīng)
[LBJJZ 1:863–867]
There is, from the outset, something outrageous about this poem. With its wild,
unpredictable blend of role-playing, celestial voyage, vivid nature imagery, Daoist
fantasy, and direct speech, it mocks the very idea of form and genre; “Lu Mountain
Tune,” like the mountain that inspired it,15 seems to hail from a time beyond the
strictures and periodization of literary history and defies the distinctions com-
monly drawn among the Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian traditions. Elements of
yuefu, recent-style regulated poems, fu (rhapsody), and sao all make their appear-
ance here, and it would be easy to simply echo what so many critics have said: that
Li Bai is too spontaneous and natural (or, too coarse and undisciplined, depending
on their particular viewpoint) to adhere to the rules and regulations of accepted
poetic practice. But to take the easy way would be to deprive ourselves of the ability
to appreciate the particular way in which Li Bai pursued that ancient authenticity
that was also the goal of Chen Zi’ang. More fruitful would be to notice how the idea
of alchemical metamorphosis, explicitly alluded to toward the end of the poem
(lines 24–25), provides the aesthetic and structural foundation of the whole.
To begin, who is the “madman of Chu,” and what does Li Bai mean by opening
his poem by claiming to be—or to have been—him? As recorded in both the Ana-
lects (18.5) and the Zhuangzi, one day the madman was passing by Confucius and
began wildly singing what has come to be known as the “Phoenix Song”: