How to Read Chinese Poetry A Guided Anthology

202 t He tang Dy na s t y

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Ziye Song

Whence have you come my love

That you wear such a melancholy look?

Three times I call, but not a single response—

Why can’t men be constant as pine and cypress?

[XQHWJNBCS 2:1042]

子夜歌^ (zĭyè gē)

love (you) from what place come 歡從何處來   (huān cóng hé chù lái)

truly — have pensive look 端然有憂色 (duān rán yŏu yōu sè)

three call no one answer 三喚不一應  (sān huàn bù yí yìng)

have how compare pine cypress 有何比松柏 (yŏu hé bĭ sōng bó)

In the space of a four-line speech act, the mood of the singer changes completely,

from concerned solicitude for her lover to resignation or even anger at his (appar-

ent) betrayal.

Six Dynasties literati shi poets also adopted the pentasyllabic quatrain form and

explored its potential. Yet, stylistically, their written quatrain-length shi are almost

the opposite of the yuefu quatrain songs. Like longer contemporary shi poetry,

these quatrains are in a descriptive mode, aiming toward what the critic Zhong

Rong (fl. 502–509) called “artful structure and descriptive similitude” (qiaogou

xingsi).7 Such poems create a vibrant verbal texture (often through parallelism) but

maintain a somewhat neutral or distanced emotional stance. This effect is in part

due to the fact that the writers tended to avoid the use of grammatical function

words, which were considered “empty words” (xuzi), in favor of “content words”

(shizi)—nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on. The goal was to encompass objective

reality through written patterning. Declarative statements dominate, and images

are chosen primarily to appeal to the visual sense—in aggregate, to paint mental

pictures with words. Yet, what such language may lack in personal tone, it more

than makes up for in philosophical/cosmological resonance, for it developed in

the context of nature poetry by poets such as Xie Lingyun (385–433 [chap. 6]). The

poem “In Praise of Pear Blossoms on the Pond,” by Wang Rong (468–494), typi-

fies the literary quatrain style:

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In Praise of Pear Blossoms on the Pond

On ruined steps they cover the fine grass

In pooled water they scatter among the duckweed

Fragrant spring shines on flowing snow

Deep night reflects myriad stars

[XQHWJNBCS 2:1403]