A Lute of Jade.

by L. Cranmer-Byng.

Introduction

The Ancient Ballads

A little under three hundred years, from A.D. 618 to 906, the period of the T'ang dynasty, and the great age of Chinese poetry had come and gone. Far back in the twilight of history, at least 1,700 years before Christ, the Chinese people sang their songs of kings and feudal princes good or bad, of husbandry, or now and then songs with the more personal note of simple joys and sorrows.

All things in these Odes collected by Confucius belong to the surface of life; they are the work of those who easily plough light furrows, knowing nothing of hidden gold. Only at rare moments of exaltation or despair do we hear the lyrical cry rising above the monotone of dreamlike content.

Even the magnificent outburst at the beginning of this book, in which the unhappy woman compares her heart to a dying moon, is prefaced by vague complaint:

My brothers, although they support me not, Are angry if I speak of my sadness.

My sadness is so great, Nearly all are jealous of me; Many calumnies attack me, And scorning spares me not.

Yet what harm have I done?

I can show a clear conscience.

Yes, the conscience is clear and the song is clear, and so these little streams flow on, s.h.i.+ning in the clear dawn of a golden past to which all poets and philosophers to come will turn with wistful eyes.

These early ballads of the Chinese differ in feeling from almost all the ballad literature of the world. They are ballads of peace, while those of other nations are so often war-songs and the remembrances of brave deeds. Many of them are sung to a refrain.

More especially is this the case with those whose lines breathe sadness, where the refrain comes like a sigh at the end of a regret:

Cold from the spring the waters pa.s.s Over the waving pampas gra.s.s, All night long in dream I lie, Ah me! ah me! to awake and sigh -- Sigh for the City of Chow.

Cold from its source the stream meanders Darkly down through the oleanders, All night long in dream I lie, Ah me! ah me! to awake and sigh -- Sigh for the City of Chow.

In another place the refrain urges and importunes; it is time for flight:

Cold and keen the north wind blows, Silent falls the shroud of snows.

You who gave me your heart, Let us join hands and depart!

Is this a time for delay?

Now, while we may, Let us away.

Only the lonely fox is red, Black but the crow-flight overhead.

You who gave me your heart -- The chariot creaks to depart.

Is this a time for delay?

Now, while we may, Let us away.

Perhaps these Odes may best be compared with the little craftless figures in an early age of pottery, when the fragrance of the soil yet lingered about the rough clay. The maker of the song was a poet, and knew it not. The maker of the bowl was an artist, and knew it not.

You will get no finish from either -- the lines are often blurred, the design but half fulfilled; and yet the effect is not inartistic.

It has been well said that greatness is but another name for interpretation; and in so far as these nameless workmen of old interpreted themselves and the times in which they lived, they have attained enduring greatness.

Poetry before the T'angs

Following on the Odes, we have much written in the same style, more often than not by women, or songs possibly written to be sung by them, always in a minor key, fraught with sadness, yet full of quiet resignation and pathos.

It is necessary to mention in pa.s.sing the celebrated Ch'u Yuan (fourth cent. B.C.), minister and kinsman of a petty kinglet under the Chou dynasty, whose 'Li Sao', literally translated 'Falling into Trouble', is partly autobiography and partly imagination. His death by drowning gave rise to the great Dragon-boat Festival, which was originally a solemn annual search for the body of the poet.

Soon a great national dynasty arrives whose Emperors are often patrons of literature and occasionally poets as well. The House of Han (200 B.C.-A.D. 200) has left its mark upon the Empire of China, whose people of to-day still call themselves "Sons of Han".

There were Emperors beloved of literary men, Emperors beloved of the people, builders of long waterways and glittering palaces, and one great conqueror, the Emperor Wu Ti, of almost legendary fame. This was an age of preparation and development of new forces. Under the Hans, Buddhism first began to flourish. The effect is seen in the poetry of the time, especially towards the closing years of this dynasty. The minds of poets sought refuge in the ideal world from the illusions of the senses.

The third century A.D. saw the birth of what was probably the first literary club ever known, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove.

This little coterie of friends was composed of seven famous men, who possessed many talents in common, being poets and musicians, alchemists, philosophers, and mostly hard drinkers as well.

Their poetry, however, is scarcely memorable. Only one great name stands between them and the poets of the T'ang dynasty -- the name of T'ao Ch'ien (A.D. 365-427), whose exquisite allegory "The Peach Blossom Fountain" is quoted by Professor Giles in his 'Chinese Literature'. The philosophy of this ancient poet appears to have been that of Horace. 'Carpe diem!'

"Ah, how short a time it is that we are here! Why then not set our hearts at rest, ceasing to trouble whether we remain or go? What boots it to wear out the soul with anxious thoughts? I want not wealth; I want not power: heaven is beyond my hopes. Then let me stroll through the bright hours as they pa.s.s, in my garden among my flowers, or I will mount the hill and sing my song, or weave my verse beside the limpid brook. Thus will I work out my allotted span, content with the appointments of Fate, my spirit free from care."*

For him enjoyment and scarcely happiness is the thing.

And although many of his word-pictures are not lacking in charm or colour, they have but little significance beyond them. They are essentially the art works of an older school than that of the Seven Sages. But we must have due regard for them, for they only miss greatness by a little, and remind us of the faint threnodies that stir in the throats of bird musicians upon the dawn.

-- * Giles, 'Chinese Literature', p. 130.

The Poets of the T'ang Dynasty

At last the golden age of Chinese poetry is at hand.

Call the roll of these three hundred eventful years, and all the great masters of song will answer you. This is an age of professional poets, whom emperors and statesmen delight to honour.

With the Chinese, verse-making has always been a second nature.

It is one of the accomplishments which no man of education would be found lacking. Colonel Cheng-Ki-Tong, in his delightful book 'The Chinese Painted by Themselves', says: "Poetry has been in China, as in Greece, the language of the G.o.ds. It was poetry that inculcated laws and maxims; it was by the harmony of its lines that traditions were handed down at a time when memory had to supply the place of writing; and it was the first language of wisdom and of inspiration."

It has been above all the recreation of statesmen and great officials, a means of escape from the weariness of public life and the burden of ruling.

A study of the interminable biographies of Chinese poets and men of letters would reveal but a few professional poets, men whose lives were wholly devoted to their art; and of these few the T'ang dynasty can claim nearly all. Yet strange as it may seem, this matters but little when the quality of Chinese poetry is considered. The great men of the age were at once servants of duty and the lords of life. To them official routine and the responsibilities of the state were burdens to be borne along the highway, with periods of rest and intimate re-union with nature to cheer the travellers. When the heavy load was laid aside, song rose naturally from the lips. Subtly connecting the arts, they were at once painters and poets, musicians and singers.

And because they were philosophers and seekers after the beauty that underlies the form of things, they made the picture express its own significance, and every song find echo in the souls of those that heard.

You will find no tedium of repet.i.tion in all their poetry, no thin vein of thought beaten out over endless pages. The following extract from an ancient treatise on the art of poetry called 'Ming-Chung'

sets forth most clearly certain ideals to be pursued:

"To make a good poem, the subject must be interesting, and treated in an attractive manner; genius must s.h.i.+ne throughout the whole, and be supported by a graceful, brilliant, and sublime style. The poet ought to traverse, with a rapid flight, the lofty regions of philosophy, without deviating from the narrow way of truth. . . .

Good taste will only pardon such digressions as bring him towards his end, and show it from a more striking point of view.

"Disappointment must attend him, if he speaks without speaking to the purpose, or without describing things with that fire, with that force, and with that energy which present them to the mind as a painting does to the eyes. Bold thought, untiring imagination, softness and harmony, make a true poem.

"One must begin with grandeur, paint everything expressed, soften the shades of those which are of least importance, collect all into one point of view, and carry the reader thither with a rapid flight."

Yet when due respect has been paid to this critic of old time, the fact still remains that concentration and suggestion are the two essentials of Chinese poetry. There is neither Iliad nor Odyssey to be found in the libraries of the Chinese; indeed, a favourite feature of their verse is the "stop short", a poem containing only four lines, concerning which another critic has explained that only the words stop, while the sense goes on. But what a world of meaning is to be found between four short lines! Often a door is opened, a curtain drawn aside, in the halls of romance, where the reader may roam at will.

With this nation of artists in emotion, the taste of the tea is a thing of lesser importance; it is the aroma which remains and delights.

The poems of the T'angs are full of this subtle aroma, this suggestive compelling fragrance which lingers when the songs have pa.s.sed away.

It is as though the Aeolian harps had caught some strayed wind from an unknown world, and brought strange messages from peopled stars.

A deep simplicity touching many hidden springs, a profound regard for the n.o.ble uses of leisure, things which modern critics of life have taught us to despise -- these are the technique and the composition and colour of all their work.