Interestingly, one sees the same thing occur in classical Japanese poetry and in the poems of The Greek Anthology. One also notices that the classical Chinese, Japanese, and Greek lyric forms share a common feature: brevity. The two predominant Chinese lyric forms are the chüeh-chü (four lines) and the lü-shih (eight lines). The two basic Japanese lyric forms are the waka (five lines and 31 syllables) and the haiku (three lines and 17 syllables). The poems in The Greek Anthology generally range between two, four, six, or eight lines. In addition, all of these short forms are governed by strict prosodic requirements. Does this concision and craft encourage pensive reflection?
My thoughts are prompted by revisiting three poems by Shao Yung (1011-1077). In his day, he was perhaps best known as a Confucian scholar and philosopher. Yet he was also a fine poet.
Arriving in Lo-yang Again
Those years, I was a green-youthed wanderer;
today I come again, a white-haired old man.
From those years to today makes one whole lifetime,
and in between, how many things have had their day and gone!
Shao Yung (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson (editor), The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century (Columbia University Press 1984), page 335.
This poem, and the two poems by Shao Yung which appear below, are all in the chüeh-chü quatrain form. This form requires rhyming of the second and fourth lines, as well as compliance with the complex rules of tonal parallelism that are an essential element of traditional Chinese lyric poetry. Ibid, pages 8-11, 373.
Richard Wyndham (1896-1948), "Summer Landscape" (c. 1932)
But, putting aside matters of form and prosody, it is the affecting and redolent character of these poetic reflections that is so beguiling. Although classical Chinese poetry is, of course, the product of a unique ancient culture and of three interacting philosophies (Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism), lines such as "Life passes swiftly, hedged by sorrow;/how long before you've lost it -- a scene like this?" and "From those years to today makes one whole lifetime,/and in between, how many things have had their day and gone!" do not move us because of their cultural origins or because they may arise out of a certain philosophical system. Rather, they move us because they are True and Beautiful articulations of what it means to be a human being, and to live in, and to be fated to depart from, a wondrous and mysterious World -- at any time and in any place.
Thoughts on T'ien-chin Bridge
The countless great lords and statesmen of past regimes --
later ages know them merely as a list of names.
Only the water under T'ien-chin Bridge
goes on year after year, making the same sound.
Shao Yung (translated by Burton Watson), Ibid, page 336.
Richard Wyndham, "Tickerage Mill" (c. 1939)
This past week Spring began to emerge, in a place where I have become accustomed to see it first arrive: in a group of small bushes beside a pathway that passes through a grove of tall pines. The bushes are sheltered within the dark, quiet, and windless grove, although sunlight and rain do filter through the deep canopy of pine boughs. One day this week, in the late afternoon yellow light that angled down through the boughs, I noticed bright green leaf buds shining at the tips of the branches of the bushes.
Song of the Water Willow in Front of Comfortable Den
In front of Comfortable Den, by a little crooked stream,
New rushes, a delicate willow, turn green year by year.
Before my eyes a procession of good sights pass --
Who says that life is so full of wants?
Shao Yung (translated by Burton Watson), in Kōjirō Yoshikawa, An Introduction to Sung Poetry (translated and edited by Burton Watson) (Harvard University Press 1967), page 83. Shao Yung, who "lived all his life in semi-seclusion," gave his house the name "An-lo-wo," which may be translated as "Comfortable Den." Ibid.
Richard Wyndham, "The Medway near Tonbridge" (1936)
4 comments:
I loved your phrase “…to be fated to depart from….” One opens a fashion magazine; there is no hint of the fated departure. No one even “dies” anymore, they only “pass.” I lost someone dear last month. One day you are sitting in your easy chair, happily watching sumo on the telly; the next day people are saying how good it is you just fit into the longest coffin. One of the charms of the ancient poetry you write about is perhaps an acceptance of this brevity of our place in the pageantry of the world. Instead of embalming, we stand and watch the mortal remains being slid into the furnace. We go upstairs and drink tea for an hour until we are called back down to ceremonially fill the urn with what resembles cream-colored seashells on white sand. Buddhist or Christian, this is the accepted custom. “Dust thou art, to dust returneth, was not spoken of the soul,” go the lines of a poem by Longfellow. The West has traditionally emphasized the “was not spoken of the soul” part, and the East does the “to dust returneth” part very well.
I just realized you're posting again. I was subscribed and received the posts in my e-mail, but something appears to be preventing that. Thank you for the wonderful posts!
Esther: Thank you very much for those wonderful thoughts. I agree with everything you say. And your description of the Japanese cremation ceremony is lovely and perfect. I have attended only one funeral ceremony in Japan, from the wake/viewing/memorial service (at which I was asked to say a few words due to my connection with the deceased; I was not competent enough to speak in Japanese, so someone translated as I spoke), to the cremation on the following day, through the eventual internment some time later.
It was the cremation which had the greatest impact on me: it took my breath away, and your fine description immediately brought everything back to me. Riding to the crematorium in a private bus with family members and friends, entering the large furnace room to be in company with the deceased, being ushered to another room to drink tea, and then being brought back to the furnace room. And the culminating moment: the family taking turns using special chopsticks to carefully place pieces of bone into an urn. Enough to break your heart, of course. Your "cream-colored seashells on white sand" is perfect.
As you say at the end of your comment: "the East does the 'to dust returneth' part very well." (For me, this ties in with something else you say: "One of the charms of the ancient poetry you write about is perhaps an acceptance of this brevity of our place in the pageantry of the world.") Yes, exactly. It is one thing to recite, or to hear recited: "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." It is something else entirely to see the bones of someone dear to you being placed into an urn by his or her family. Which is not to say the Japanese way is the "best" way or the only way. But the experience moved me deeply.
I apologize for my long-windedness. I shouldn't take attention away from your lovely thoughts. Thank you again. And, as ever, thank you for your presence here.
Tyrell: Thank you very much for your kind words about the blog.
As for not receiving email notice of new posts: last summer, Blogger discontinued the email subscription service that it had been using, without replacing it. However, it is possible for me to install a new email subscription service to replace the former service. I intend to find a replacement email subscription service, and will soon add it to the home page. Given my technological incompetence, we'll see how that goes!
Thank you for visiting here in the past, and for returning.
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