Yüan Tsung-tao (1560–1600)
The three Yüan brothers were natives of Kung-an County in Hu-kuang Province (which later, in the Ch’ing dynasty, was divided into Hunan and Hupei Provinces) who put their hometown on the map of Chinese literary history by founding the Kung-an school. Tsung-tao, the eldest brother, an admirer of Po Chü-i (the T’ang poet) and Su Shih, named his studio after them. The collection of his literary works is titled Works from the Po-Su Studio. Unlike his idols, who lived long lives, Tsung-tao was only forty when he died. After having barely survived an unknown disease at the age of twenty, he devoted much of his time to reading Taoist scriptures and to the Taoist practice of deep breathing and meditation, and turned his attention to preparing for the civil service examinations only after his father’s repeated demands. He won his Metropolitan Graduate degree with high honors in 1586. After various appointments in the imperial court he was appointed in 1597 as a private secretary of the heir apparent.
Taking advantage of the relative leisure of a courtier’s life, Tsung-tao spent much of his time reading, gardening, and making trips to places with scenic views around the capital. At his premature death Tsung-tao was in such straitened circumstances that even the cost of his coffin and funeral had to be provided by his followers, and his wife and children had to sell his collection of calligraphy and paintings, desk, and inksticks to pay for their journey home.
Tsung-tao was also known as a calligrapher and painter and tried his hand at drama. Unfortunately, the manuscripts of the two plays he wrote are said to have been destroyed by mice. In terms of fame and influence he was eclipsed by his brother Hung-tao, but it was Tsung-tao who first stood up against the theory of the neoclassicist camp in his essay on prose writing and, as observed by Ch’ien Ch’ien-i, laid the foundation for the Kung-an school. His prose is graceful, poised, and pleasing in its search for new ways of expression and original figures of speech.
Little Western Paradise
As we turned west at Lu-kou Bridge,1 all of a sudden the carriage bells and sooty dust were out of view. Along the road the indigos were in bloom, and the entire valley was a purplish blue. I felt like a bird just let out of a cage that, upon sudden sight of the grass and trees in the open field after days of confinement, imagines itself to be back at its old nest.
We stayed for the night at a rural temple. The halls were dilapidated and the beds shaky. Only the murals were somewhat worth seeing. We got up in the morning and moved on for some twenty to thirty miles. In front of us, lofty mountain peaks towered above the heads of our horses. We ascended along the crevice of a cliff. When we came atop the cliff all the peaks again loomed in front. Facing us, two pointed peaks soared like a pair of female breasts. One of the mountains stood upright, majestic and virile—that was the so-called Little Western Paradise.2
After this point, the road was not as rough. We rode along the foot of the mountain where [the vista] was wide above and narrow below, so it looked like we were moving in an arcade. It was getting dark by then, and we heard distant thunder. When we reached halfway up the mountain, we looked at one another and, worrying about a possible rainstorm approaching, dashed ahead until we reached the Eastern Valley Temple.
Outside the gate of the temple there was a grove of white poplar trees. The wind howled and wailed. Sleepless at night, I invited everyone to join me for a drink at an open expanse of land to the right side of the temple gate, where the ground was clean and smooth, like a place set apart for wheat-threshing. I proposed a game of wager. Each one of us took a turn telling a story about a ghost or a tiger, and it had to be an event within the last year or two, not anything already noted in books of the past. The one who couldn’t do it would be penalized by having to drink up a huge kung.3 A friend started telling a story about a tiger, but quickly gave up when he had barely begun. Everyone present rocked with laughter.
A Trip to Sukhāvat Temple
The water under High Beam Bridge, which has its origin in the deep ravine of the Western Hills, now runs into the Jade River—a thousand bolts of white cloth. A breeze moves across its surface, making it look like ribbed tissue paper. The embankment stands in the water, tapped by ripples on both sides. There are four columns of green willows: the trees are old and the leaves lush. The shade of each tree is big enough to accommodate seats for several persons. The hanging threads are about twelve feet in length.
On the northern bank there are a multitude of Buddhist and Taoist temples, the crimson gates and sky-blue halls of which extend for tens of miles. The distant trees on the other side, varying in height, gather closely together, and paddy fields lie between them. The Western Hills, in the shape of conch shells like a woman’s hair-buns, loom among the woods and the water.
Sukhāvatī Temple is about a mile away from the bridge.1 The road leading up there is also spectacular. Our horses trot in the green shade as if under a huge umbrella. In front of the main hall there are a few pine trees, the trunks of which are mottled bright green and yellow like large fish scales. Their size is about seven or eight arm-spans around.
I once made a trip there on vacation, in the company of Huang Ssu-li and others. My younger brother Hung-tao said, “This place is not unlike the Su Embankment in Ch’ien-t’ang.”2 Ssu-li agreed. I sighed. The great view of West Lake had long been in my dreams. When would I be able to hang up my official cap, become a tourist under the Six Bridges, and settle my sentimental account with the hills and waters there? On that day, we each composed a poem on a different rhyme scheme before we disbanded.
A Trip to Yüeh-yang
Along the way from Stonehead to Yüeh-yang, the water was clear as a mirror and the hills were like conch shells.1 I couldn’t see enough of it from behind the awninged window on my boat. The most sensational view was at Inkstick Mountain. It had a circumference of only ten miles, and yet the boat traveled for two days, having covered some sixty to seventy miles, and we were still going round and round at the foot of the mountain. At dawn the sun rose from behind, and at dusk it set behind the same spot. Both the morning sunshine and the evening glow flooded the same area. That was because the river was winding through Inkstick Mountain, so the boat was also making its twists and turns inside the mountain. Although the boat was actually going rather fast, we somehow felt that it was extremely slow.
When we passed by Yüeh-yang we wanted to make a trip to Lake Tung-t’ing, but a stormwind kept us from going there. My youngest brother, Chung-tao, a Cultivated Talent,2 composed a piece of prose, “A Curse on Liu the Cultivated Talent,” which contained many gibes.3 By early dusk the wind had turned ferocious, blowing up thundering waves. Near the shore the water was ruffled into a bed of white foam; the boat almost capsized. My youngest brother said, “Could it be Liu the Cultivated Talent seeking his revenge?” I said, smiling, “It is quite common for good friends to tease each other.” We both laughed. The wind did not calm down until the next day.
Selections from Miscellanea
1
Sitting close to the stove, I suddenly heard a sound like “Tut! Tut!” Listening more carefully, I found it to be coming from the kettle. My servant-boy asked me, “What is that?” I said, “Such sound comes from the movement of earth, water, fire, and wind.” The boy said, “When a man sighs, uttering ‘Tut! Tut!’ What makes him do that?” I said, “It is also from earth, water, fire, and wind. I, you, and the kettle—all three are the same!”
2
If you have not yet reached a comprehensive and thorough understanding of things in learning, then you are likely to say yes to those who agree with you, and say no to those who don’t. It is like a southerner in a boat sneering at a northerner in a carriage,1 or the long-legged crane spurning the short-legged duck.2 Not to reprove yourself for holding a prejudice, but to reprove others for holding a different opinion—isn’t that preposterous?
3
For farmers and artisans, merchants and peddlers, grooms and cooks, attendants and servants, what they are called upon to perform varies from day to day and month to month, and the way they speak also varies from day to day and month to month, because these are always new. Only in pursuing vulgar learning does one spend all one’s life sucking the saliva of others, and not have a single new word to say. How despicable!
4
Someone asked me, “Now such and such two guys are of the same kind, so why is it that one of them is always happy and the other extremely miserable?” I said, “What is there in happiness that makes it superior to misery?” He said again, “What one receives and enjoys in happiness is entirely different from what another receives and enjoys in misery. How can they be the same?” I said, smiling, “What is there in receiving and enjoying that makes it superior to not receiving and not enjoying?” The man said angrily, “You are really dumb!” I said, “What is there in not being dumb that makes it superior to being dumb?” The man laughed and desisted.
5
Indeed there have been many men of letters who achieved great prestige and reputation, but none has ever surpassed Po Chü-i in that.1 There is no need to talk about the high price [for his poems] in the Rooster Woods,2 or the rise in status of singing girls [for being able to sing his poems]. Now in the streets of Ching-chou there is a certain Ko Tzu-ch’ing. A vulgar middleman, that’s all! He has Po Chü-i’s poems tattooed all over his body below the neck, and under every poem a picture is tattooed. There are more than thirty of these altogether. People call him “the walking picture of Secretary Po’s poetry.” How weird!