How to Read Chinese Poetry A Guided Anthology

Qu P oe t ry : s ong P oe m s o F tHe y uan Dy na s t y 333

however, that a sanqu composer could disregard the difference between the level
and the oblique tones. On the contrary, some tune patterns strictly stipulated that
certain rhymed words could be in only certain tones. For instance, in “The Un-
breakable String,” the rhymed word in the last line had to be in the fourth tone; in
“The Song of Shouyang,” the rhymed words in lines 3 and 5 had to be in the fourth
tone, and the rhymed word in line 4 could be in only the third tone. A possible
reason for this is that rhymed words with carefully chosen tones better matched
the music underlying the tune patterns.
The italicized syllables in the two preceding poems, which we ignored in order
to see the basic tune patterns, should not be overlooked. They are the “padding
words,” or extrametrical syllables (chenzi). It is in them that we see the most im-
portant difference between the meters of ci lines and sanqu lines. A sanqu com-
poser could add to any verse line—almost at will, although not at the end of the
line—extrametrical syllables and thus further vary the shape of the verse. There
was no limit to the number of syllables that could be added. For example, there is
the following line from “Not Giving In to Old Age” (Bufu lao), by Guan Hanqing
(ca. 1220–ca. 1307):

I am a jingling tingling bronze bean that remains hard after being steamed, raw

after being stewed, that bounces under a big hammer and will not pop when

being baked.

我是個蒸不爛煮不熟錘不匾炒不爆響璫璫一粒銅豌豆

wŏ shì gè zhēng bú làn zhŭ bù shóu chuí bù biăn chăo bú bào xiăng dāng dāng yí

lì tóng wăn dòu

[QYSQ 1:173]

Only the first two and the last five syllables—“I am a bronze bean”—are required
by the tune pattern; the other sixteen are all padding syllables! With the help of
the extrametrical syllables, composers of song poems could alter the pace and
rhythm of the verses in imitation of the natural flow of everyday speech. This may
partly explain why, compared with ci verses, song poem verses are more complete
in their syntactic structure and read more like sentences from spoken language.
Where one finds poetic ellipsis in a shi or a ci poem, one often finds padding words
in a song poem.
Besides the colloquial nature of the language of song poems, the musical origin
of the genre can also shed some light on its abundant use of the extrametrical syl-
lables. Inasmuch as the tune patterns are the vestiges of the original music, it is
only natural that, even after the tunes themselves were lost, the intrinsic musical
quality of the tune patterns would prompt the later song poem composers to fill in
the gaps left by the silence of the lost melodies.

P o e m s o n n a t u r a l s Ce n e r y a nD h u m a n s e n t i m e n t

A favorite theme of song poems is natural scenery and the poet’s reflection on it.
The following example happens to be the single best-known sanqu work by argu-