{"id":384,"date":"2014-03-03T16:49:57","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T21:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/?p=384"},"modified":"2015-01-01T10:44:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-01T15:44:00","slug":"immortal-of-the-wine-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/?p=384","title":{"rendered":"Wine-Cup Immortal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_pdf\"<\/a>\"image_print\"<\/a><\/div>

\"li<\/a>Li Bai (701-762 CE), also known as Li Po, was one of the famous Tang dynasty poets who called themselves the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup<\/i> (an irreverent allusion to the Eight Immortals of Taoism). Li Bai wrote prolifically, and over 1000 of his poems survive. Much of his life is mythical, the stuff of novels rather than of history (Elegant, 1997). He was a devotee of Taoism, a fine swordsman, and a great lover of wine. In his youth he served the emperor. After becoming involved in one of the rebellions, however, he was exiled from the court. He then spent much of his later life wandering \u201cbeyond the gorges\u201d in the hinterland of Imperial China. Legend has it that he died drunkenly trying to embrace the moon\u2019s reflection in the Yangtze River, but his death was perhaps a suicide. The illustrated portrait (from the Tokyo National Museum) was painted by Liang Kai in the early 13th<\/sup> century. The seal in the upper right corner signals that the painting was owned by Anigo, an important official in the Imperial court of the Yuan dynasty.<\/p>\n

Appreciating Chinese poetry requires seeing as well as hearing. The beauty of the calligraphy is as important to the poetry as the music of the words. The poems are therefore difficult to assess without some feeling for the characters in which they are written, since these allude to meanings beyond those directly expressed by the spoken words. This post therefore begins with a few notes on Chinese characters.<\/p>\n


\nSome Chinese characters derive from pictograms (simplified images):<\/p>\n

\"pictograms\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Other characters derive from ideograms (graphic representations of an idea):<\/p>\n

\"ideograms\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Most characters are formed by combining other characters. Some of the combinations are based on the meaning of the components; others are based on their sound:<\/p>\n

\"combinations\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"li<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Li Bai\u2019s name, the character Li means \u201cPlum\u201d \u2013 a tree on top with many children (blossoms) below. The character Bai means \u201cwhite\u201d \u2013 it originally comes from a pictogram of an acorn (which is white inside).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chinese poetry has a long history. The Book of Poetry<\/i> was compiled around 600 BCE. Confucius (551-479 BCE) made it an essential part of the education of a scholar or statesman. By the time of Li Bai court poetry had become quite regular \u2013 common forms were an octet or a quatrain of five-syllable lines, with every second line rhyming. The following quatrain is one of Li Bai\u2019s most famous poems. The English translation is by Arthur Cooper and the Chinese calligraphy is by Shui Chien-Tung (Cooper 1973):<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"quiet<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Quiet Night Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before my bed there is bright moonlight<\/p>\n

So that it seems like frost on the ground;<\/p>\n

Lifting my head I watch the bright moon,<\/p>\n

Lowering my head I dream that I\u2019m home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chinese poetry is generally written from top to bottom and from right to left. For simplicity, the following representation of the poem together with the word for word translation presents the characters from left to right to facilitate listening to the sound and following the translations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"quiet<\/a><\/p>\n

The original Chinese for Quiet Night Thoughts is from Zong-Qi Cai\u2019s anthology (2008). The reading of the poem in Chinese (by an unknown reader) is from the sound files <\/a>associated with the anthology:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/lipo_quiet-night-thoughts.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

The following is an octet of Li Bai that celebrates the joys of drinking by moonlight:<\/p>\n

\"drinking<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0A translation of the poem by Arthur Waley (1919) reads<\/p>\n

Drinking Alone by Moonlight<\/strong><\/p>\n

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
\nRaising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
\nFor he, with my shadow, will make three men.
\nThe moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
\nListless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
\nYet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave<
\nI must make merry before the Spring is spent.
\nTo the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
\nIn the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
\nWhile we were sober, three shared the fun;
\nNow we are drunk, each goes their way.
\nMay we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
\nAnd meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.<\/p>\n

Chinese poetry has both rhyme and\u00a0rhythm (Liu, 1962; Cai, 2008). The rhymes often come at the end of every second line (e.g. in Drinking Alone by Moonlight). Rhymes are mainly determined by\u00a0the vowels, and less related to the attendant consonants. \u00a0However, many of the rhymes depend on \u00a0pronunciation that was current in the time that the poem was written, and may not always be apparent in the way the poem sounds nowadays. Chinese is a tonal language with the vowels showing unchanging, descending, descending-ascending, and ascending pitches. These changes are represented in the accents above the pinyin transliterations. The first type of vowel has a longer duration than the others. The rhythm of the poetry depends on both the duration of the vowel and the different changes in pitch.<\/p>\n

Recitations\u00a0of the poem Drinking Alone by Moonlight<\/em> are available in both English and Chinese at Librivox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Li Bai also invented new poetic forms. The following poem has lines of three, five and seven words (translation and calligraphy in Cooper, 1973).<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \"357words\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three five seven words<\/strong><\/p>\n

The autumn wind is light,
\nThe autumn moon is bright;<\/p>\n

Fallen leaves gather but then disperse,
\nA cold crow roosts but again he stirs.<\/p>\n

I think of you, and wonder when I\u2019ll see you again?
\nAt such an hour, on such a night, cruel is love\u2019s pain!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The translation of Chinese poetry is difficult. The first translations of Chinese poetry into a European language were in French by Judith Gautier and the Marquis d\u2019Hervey Saint-Denis in the middle of the 19th<\/sup> Century. These were further translated from French into German by Hans Bethge, who published Die Chinese Fl<\/i>\u00f6<\/i>te<\/i> (Chinese Flute) in 1907.<\/p>\n

Gustav Mahler adapted seven of the Bethge poems for his 1911 song cycle Das Lied von der Erde<\/i>. The following are excerpts from the beginning of two of the songs, translated from the German to English. The tenor is Fritz Wunderlich; Otto Klemperer conducts the New Philharmonia Orchestra; the recording is by EMI in 1967.<\/p>\n

Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde<\/strong> (Drinking Song of the Earth\u2019s Sorrow)<\/p>\n

The wine already beckons from the golden goblet,
\nbut don\u2019t drink just yet \u2013 first, I\u2019ll sing you a song!
\nThe song of sorrow shall sound out
\nin laughter in your soul. When sorrow draws near,
\nthe gardens of the soul lie wasted,>
\nboth joy and song wilt and die.>
\nDark is life, dark is death.<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/mahler_wunderlich_trinklied_beginning.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Von der Jugend <\/strong>(Of Youth)<\/p>\n

In the middle of the little lake
\nstands a pavilion made of green
\nand white porcelain.
\nLike a tiger\u2019s back
\nthe bridge of jade arches
\nacross to the pavilion.
\nFriends sit in the little house,
\nbeautifully dressed, drinking, chatting;
\nsome are writing down verses.<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/mahler_wunderlich_jugend-beginning.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

The \u201ctranslations\u201d are full of mistakes. The line \u201cDark is Life, dark is Death\u201d (Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod) is an interpolation that fits with the idea of Li Bai\u2019s poem but is not so directly stated in the original Chinese. The porcelain pavilion is actually the pavilion owned by someone named Tao (which can also mean \u201cporcelain\u201d). Bethge called his poems Nachdictungen <\/i>(recreations). The Mahler Archives<\/a> has a wonderful website that describes the changes in the translations leading to Das Lied von der Erde.<\/i><\/p>\n

The first major translations of Chinese poetry into English were by Ezra Pound (1885-1972) in his 1915 book Cathay<\/i>. At the time, Pound knew no Chinese, and his translations were based on the notes that Ernest Fenellosa, an American art historian working in Tokyo, had made from discussions with two Japanese professors (Mori and Ariga). These notes were given posthumously to Pound by Fenellosa\u2019s widow. Despite his lack of any understanding of the originals, Pound\u2019s translations are true and forceful (Yip, 1969). Most of the poems in Cathay<\/i> are by Rihaku \u2013 the way that the characters of Li Bai\u2019s name are pronounced in Japanese. As well as the hiragana<\/i> and katakana<\/i> symbols (hiragana<\/i> and katakana<\/i>), Japanese writing also uses many Chinese characters (kanji<\/i>), but these are pronounced differently from the Chinese.<\/p>\n

The following is one of Li Bai\u2019s poems that became famous with the Pound translation. Pound combined the poem with a summary of Fenellosa\u2019s notes that has its own cryptic beauty<\/p>\n

The Jewelled Stair Grievance<\/strong><\/p>\n

The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,
\nIt is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,
\nAnd I let down the crystal curtain
\nAnd watch the moon through the clear autumn.<\/p>\n

NOTE: Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore a court lady, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore he has no excuse on account of the weather. Also she has come early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.<\/p>\n

More recent translations are by David Hinton (1996):<\/p>\n

Night long on the jade staircase, white
\ndew appears, soaks through gauze stockings.
\nShe lets down crystalline blinds, gazes out
\nthrough jewel lacework at the autumn moon.<\/p>\n

and by Charles Egan (in Z-Q Cai, 2008);<\/p>\n

On jade stairs, the rising white dew
\nThrough the long night pierces silken hose
\nRetreating inside, she lowers crystal shades
\nAnd stares at the glimmering autumn moon.<\/p>\n

The story behind the poem is only hinted at. A lady at the palace in love with the emperor finds herself no longer in his fancy. The autumn moon suggests the cooling of their summer passion. The crystal curtains suggest that the scene is viewed through tears. Pound puts the poem into the first person. Though not indicated in the original, this personal point of view accentuates the longing and the regret. Another translation that follows Pound’s use of the first person is available on Mark Alexander’s webpage\u00a0<\/a>which provides translations for\u00a0many different Chinese\u00a0poems.<\/p>\n

Discerning the true meaning of a poem through different translations is a little like looking for the numinous through different scriptures.<\/p>\n

Another of Pound\u2019s translations records the story of a young woman, married in youth and innocence, learning to love her husband and finding out that love can bring sorrow as well as happiness.<\/p>\n

The River Merchant\u2019s Wife<\/b><\/p>\n

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
\nI played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
\nYou came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse;
\nYou walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
\nAnd we went on living in the village of Chokan:
\nTwo small people, without dislike or suspicion.<\/p>\n

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
\nI never laughed, being bashful.
\nLowering my head, I looked at the wall.
\nCalled to, a thousand times, I never looked back.<\/p>\n

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
\nI desired my dust to be mingled with yours
\nForever and forever and forever.
\nWhy should I climb the lookout?<\/p>\n

At sixteen you departed,
\nYou went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
\nAnd you have been gone five months.
\nThe monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.<\/p>\n

You dragged your feet when you went out.
\nBy the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
\nToo deep to clear them away!
\nThe leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
\nThe paired butterflies are already yellow with August
\nOver the grass in the West garden \u2013
\nThey hurt me. I grow older.
\nIf you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
\nPlease let me know beforehand,
\nAnd I will come out to meet you
\nAs far as Cho-fo-Sa.<\/p>\n

Li Bai was very musical and many of his poems deal with the sounds of the lyre or the flute. Harry Partch composed 17 lyrics of Li Po<\/i> in the early 1930s using the translations of Shigeyoshi Obata (1928). He tried to remove the music from the tonality conventions of the Western traditions. The following is one of the lyrics. It is intoned by Stephan Kalm (who provides the flute sounds as well as the words) with accompaniment on tenor violin by Ted Mook. The recording is by Tzadik, 1995.<\/p>\n

Whence comes this voice of sweet bamboo?
\nFlying in the dark?
\nIt flies with the spring wind,
\nHovering over the city of Lo.
\nHow memories of home come back tonight!
\nHark! the plaintive tune of \u201cWillow Breaking\u201d,p><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/partch_lipo_flute.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

(\u201cWillow-Breaking\u201d is the name of a sad folk song.)<\/p>\n

Li Bai spent some time in the monasteries that were scattered through the hills of China, and became adept at meditation, or zazen<\/i>. One of his poems (translated by Sam Hamill,<\/a> 2000) gives the essence of this process. Jing Ting mountain is near Xuancheng city in the Anhui province of China. Further notes on the poem\u00a0and\u00a0a version\u00a0of the poem in song are available on the webpage of Shirley Yiping Zhang<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain<\/strong><\/p>\n

The birds have vanished down the sky.
\nNow the last cloud drains away.
\nWe sit together, the mountain and me,
\nuntil only the mountain remains.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"jing<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bynner, W., & Kiang, K. (1957). The jade mountain: a Chinese anthology, being three hundred poems of the T’ang Dynasty<\/i>, 618-908. New York: Knopf.<\/p>\n

Cai, Z-Q. (2008). How to read Chinese poetry: a guided anthology.<\/i> New York: Columbia University Press.<\/p>\n

Cooper, A. R. V. (1973). Li Po and Tu Fu<\/i>. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books.<\/p>\n

Elegant, S. (1997). A floating life: the adventures of Li Po: an historical novel<\/i>. Hopewell,NJ: Ecco Press.<\/p>\n

Hamill, S. (2000). Crossing the Yellow River: Three hundred poems from the Chinese<\/i>. Rochester, NY: BOA Editions.<\/p>\n

Hefling, S. E. (2000). Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde<\/i>. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Pres<\/p>\n

Hinton, D. (1996). The selected poems of Li Po<\/i>. New York: New Directions<\/p>\n

Obata, S. (1922). The works of Li Po, the Chinese poet<\/i>. New York: E. P. Dutton.<\/p>\n

Pound, E., (1915). Cathay.<\/i> London: E. Mathews.<\/p>\n

Waley, A., (1919). The poet Li Po, A.D. 701-762<\/i>. London: East and West.<\/p>\n

Weinberger, E., (2003). The New Directions anthology of classical Chinese poetry<\/i>. New York, NY: New Directions<\/p>\n

Yip, W., (1969). Ezra Pound’s Cathay<\/i>. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n

Liu, J. J. Y. (1962). The art of Chinese poetry<\/i>. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Li Bai (701-762 CE), also known as Li Po, was one of the famous Tang dynasty poets who called themselves the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup (an irreverent allusion to the Eight Immortals of Taoism). Li Bai wrote prolifically, and over 1000 of his<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":171,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6,5,9],"tags":[69,67,25,68,50],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-music","category-painting","category-poetry","category-religion","tag-ezra-pound","tag-li-bai","tag-li-po","tag-mahler","tag-meditation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions\/462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}