Qu P oe t ry : s ong P oe m s o F tHe y uan Dy na s t y 339press gourd — talk heaven say earth drunk dim blurred
按胡蘆談天說地醉模糊 △
(àn hú lú tán tiān shuō dì zuì mó hú)
enter river mountain painting picture 入江山畫圖 △
(rù jiāng shān huà tú)
The two images at the beginning of the song, the fisherman’s fresh catch from
the river and the wine that the woodcutter purchased with the worth of a day’s
labor, conjure up a bright picture of the callings of the two men. Their lives are
spontaneous, free, and self-sufficient. However, had the poet not skillfully sug-
gested the pleasant freshness of the fish and the “newness” of the wine, which
appeal to both the reader’s palate and mind, the images could well have projected
a very different view: of two poor fellows barely able to eke out their existence by
living from hand to mouth. Throughout the song, in fact, it is the poet’s selective
candidness and light tone that make readers see the ease and satisfaction in an
otherwise hard and scanty life. So even when the hardship that the two men have
to endure is presented (line 5) side by side with the leisure they enjoy (lines 6–7),
readers nonetheless feel that the physical hardship is more than compensated for
by the richness of their spiritual enjoyment.
As mentioned, Qiao Ji was a conscious stylist who concerned himself with the
art of writing. He is said to have set certain rules for the composition of song
poems. A good song, according to him, should have “the head of a phoenix, the
belly of a pig, and the tail of a leopard”8—that is, a beautiful beginning, a substan-
tive middle section, and a powerful ending. Judging from what we have seen so far,
“Idle Chats of the Woodcutter and the Fisherman” seems to have an eye-catching
beginning and a healthy body. How about its ending?
The poet brings his description to a sudden stop with the authorial comment
that the idyllic life he has presented would fit perfectly in a landscape painting. The
scene he has depicted instantly becomes an object within a frame to be admired.
This unexpected move concluding the song is, indeed, as powerful as a leopard. It
forces readers—now the viewers of a painting—to step back and look at the wood-
cutter and the fisherman in perspective and to realize that they are no ordinary
woodcutter and fisherman, but symbols of certain values that deserve to be trea-
sured dearly.
The woodcutter and the fisherman had long been used as stock images of the re-
cluse and were a favorite topic of Yuan sanqu writers.9 It is interesting to note that
actual woodcutters and fishermen could not read and write and did not know the
beauty of being in a “painting of mountains and rivers.” It was the educated elite
who narcissistically saw themselves in the idealized recluse images they created.
Hu Zhiyu (1227–1293) must have had this in mind when he wrote two songs
on the subject. The first is about an educated fisherman; the second, a pair of illit-
erate woodcutter-fishermen recluses.10 Hu Zhiyu took pains to show the differ-
ences between the two types of recluse. The first piece uses elegant language and
is replete with allusions to literary and classical texts, giving a learned appearance;