Ruuya Often Longed to Travel Beyond the Desert Again

6

A Critical Exercise

I N THE PRECEDING chapters I have translated and discussed various Chinese poems and lines to illustrate points raised concerning theoretical and methodological issues. In the present chapter I wish to focus attention on interrelations between time, space, and self in Chinese poetry. Since even an imaginary world created by a poet must exist in imaginary time and space, an examination of the ways in which the speaker of a poem orients himself to time and space will help us better orient ourselves to the world of that poem, and since such an examination will inevitably involve analysis of various aspects of language, it will also help us understand better how the world of the poem emerges from its linguistic structure. This in turn will help us gauge the extent to which the poet has succeeded in realizing the potentialities of language and thus satisfying his own creative impulse and ours. A study of time-space-self interrelations is therefore relevant to both the interpretation of Chinese poetry and its evaluation. However, a comprehensive and thorough study would require a separate volume: what follows is merely a critical exercise intended to demonstrate the kind of approach that can be derived from the conception of poetry described in the first chapter. I have deliberately chosen as examples poems familiar to all students of Chinese literature so as to show how this approach can throw new light on extremely well-known poems. All examples are in the shi genre, but similar examples can be found in other poetic genres.

TIME, SELF, AND DIRECTIONALITY

As already pointed out in chapter 3, although there are no tense inflections in Chinese, "tense" understood as the semantactic category that establishes the relationship between what is spoken of and the time of speaking does exist in Chinese poetry. Some linguists have introduced the concepts of "moving ego" and "moving time" into discussions of tense. Both of these concepts are frequently encountered in Chinese poetry. On the one hand, human life is often compared to a journey; on the other, time is often compared to a flowing river, an arrow, or some other moving object. An investigation into such common expressions properly belongs to linguistics rather than poetics. However, it is interesting to consider the concepts of moving ego and moving time, as they appear in poetry, in conjunction with directionality (which is, of course, one aspect of space). Generally speaking, no matter whether one thinks of oneself as moving, or time as moving, or both, there are only two alternatives in directionality: one is either facing time or facing the same direction as time. This is due to the simple fact that we have eyes in front only; had we eyes, as birds and fish do, on the left and right sides, our whole orientation to space would presumably be quite different. As things are, we are primarily oriented to the space in front, which is therefore called by some linguists "canonical space." ¹ And since temporal relations are expressed in spatial terms, apparently in all languages, we normally speak of time as if it were in front of us. However, in Chinese poetry, sometimes the speaker seems to perceive time as being behind, or as moving in the same direction as the speaker. I propose to designate the situation "Confrontation" when the speaker is imagined as facing time, whether he is conceived as static or moving, and whether time is conceived as static or moving; and to designate it "Concurrence" when the speaker is imagined as facing the same direction as time, whether he is conceived as static or moving. It makes no difference whether time is conceived as a straight line (either horizontal or vertical) or as a circle, for in any case one has to face either direction, front or back. (I assume that in the case of circular time one would be on the circumference; if one were at the center, one would no longer be in time.)

We shall first look at examples of Confrontation.

1. Ego static, time moving toward ego:

qi wo qu zhe zuori zhi ri bu ke liu

abandon me depart that-which yesterday's day not can detain

luan wo xin zhe jinri zhi ri duo fan you

disturb my heart that-which today's day much worry grief. ²

What has abandoned me and departed: the day of yesterday which could not be detained;

What disturbs my heart: the day of today which is full of worry and grief.

(From Li Bo, "At the Farewell
Party for Collator Uncle Yun at
Xie Tiao's Pavilion in Xuanzhou")

These two lines open an otherwise heptasyllabic poem in Ancient Style ( guti ). Their unusual length, together with the repetition of the word ri ("day"), suggests an endless succession of days marching past the speaker. The repetition is effected by the unusual structures of zuori zhi ri ("yesterday's day") and jinri zhi ri ("today's day"), so that instead of saying simply, "What has abandoned me and departed is yesterday; what disturbs my heart is today," the poet says in effect, "What has abandoned me and departed is the day that I now call yesterday; what disturbs my heart is the day that I now call today [but will become yesterday tomorrow]." In this way, emphasis is placed on the idea of "day," with the implication that the words "yesterday" and "today" have shifting referents. Although there is nothing unusual about saying that yesterday has departed, the use of qu ("depart") as a full verb instead of a modifier (such as in qunian, "last year" or "the year gone by"), together with the personification of "yesterday" suggested by the word qi ("abandon"), dramatizes the movement of time and the speaker's inability to stop it. This in itself is sufficient cause for grief, apart from any other causes that "today" may bring. These lines remind one of

To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, ³

except that whereas Li Bo, though full of grief, still regrets the fast passage of time, the world-weary Macbeth feels it slowly creeping by. We may also compare Li Bo's lines with Apollinaire's

Vienne la nuit, sonne l'heure,

Les jours s'en vont, je demeure. ⁴

Here, too, time is moving toward the speaker, and passing him by, while he stays where he is, motionless and helpless.

2. Ego moving forward, time static:

jun wen gui qi wei you qi

you ask return date not-yet have date

Bashan ye yu zhang qiu chi

Ba-mountain night rain swell autumn pond

he dang gong jian xi chuang zhu

when should together cut west window candle

que hua Bashan ye yu shi

still talk Ba-mountain night rain time ⁵

You ask the date of my return: no date has been set.

The night rain over the Ba Mountains swells the autumn pond.

When should we together trim the candle by the west window,

And then talk about the time when the night rain fell on the Ba Mountains?

(Li Shangyin, "Written On a
Rainy Night, to be Sent North") ⁶

In this poem, time is static, or at least not depicted as moving, while the speaker mentally moves forward into the future and imagines how he may feel on looking back to the present as the past. The awareness that the happy reunion envisaged for the future may in fact never take place adds to the poignancy of the present situation. Yet the poet tries to console himself and the addressee (who may or may not have been his wife) by pretending to anticipate the future with confidence, an attitude that contrasts with Christina Rossetti's gloomy skepticism in a poem that also involves the ego's moving forward into the future:

I shall not see the shadows,

I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on, as if in pain;

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget. ⁷

3. Ego moving forward, time moving in opposite direction:

Xihe qu ri yue

Xihe drive sun moon

ji ji bu ke shi

fast fleet not can rely

fu sheng sui duo tu

floating life though many path

qu si wei yi gui

rush death only one track ⁸

Xihe drives the sun and moon,

Fast, fleet, not to be relied on.

Though this floating life has many paths,

In rushing toward death there's only one track.

(Han Yu, "Autumn Meditations, No. 1")

I think that Xihe, the mythological charioteer of the sun (who seems to have temporarily taken over the duties of Wangshu, the charioteer of the moon, as well) is imagined as driving in the opposite direction from the speaker, rather than in the same direction, as Stephen Owen implies when he remarks on "this race with time," ⁹ for why should anyone wish to win the race with time to reach death? If we think of the speaker as involuntarily rushing toward death while time is driving by in the opposite direction, this will reinforce the idea of speed. These lines are full of pessimism, which may be contrasted with Shakespeare's defiance of time and death:

hear this, thou age unbred,

Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead. ¹⁰

Although in this sonnet the poet also sees time as moving past him, he moves forward into the future and even beyond death to proclaim his friend's supreme beauty. Paradoxically, by admitting his friend's mortality, the poet assures the latter immortality, in a subtler way than in

Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest. ¹¹

4. Ego moving backward (i.e., turning around and moving toward the past that was behind one), time static:

qian bu jian gu ren

front not see ancient people

hou bu jian lai zhe

behind not see coming ones

nian tian di zhi youyou

think heaven earth's long-long

du chuangran er ti xia

alone sadly and tear fall ¹²

In front, I do not see the ancients;

Behind, I do not see those to come.

Thinking of the vastness and long-lastingness of

heaven and earth,

Alone I sadly let fall my tears.

(Chen Zi'ang, "Song of Ascending
the Tower at Youzhou")

Although the use of such spatial terms as qian ("front" or "before") and hou ("behind" or "after") in relation to time is by no means simple, there are some expressions like qiantu ("road before," i.e., "future prospects"), qiancheng ("journey in front," i.e., "future career"), qianzhan ("look in front," i.e., "look ahead to the future"), huigu ("look back"), huiyi ("turn round and recall"), and huixiang ("turn back and think"), all of which suggest that the future is in front of us and the past is behind us. But in this poem Chen Zi'ang says just the opposite. I think this can be explained by saying that he is turning around and moving toward the past, so that the ancients should be in front of him and those yet to come should be behind him. His failure to see either induces a cosmic loneliness against the background of infinite time and infinite space, for the reduplicate compound youyou implies both spatial and temporal "length." We may compare this song with the following lines from Henry Vaughan's "The Retreat":

O how I long to travel back,

And tread again that ancient track!

That I might once more reach that plain

Where first I left my glorious train;

From whence th'enlightened spirit sees

That shady City of Palm-trees.

But ah! my soul with too much stay

Is drunk, and staggers in the way!

Some men forward motion love,

But I by backward steps would move;

And when this dust falls to the urn,

In that state I came, return. ¹³

Although both poets are moving backward in time, each is typical of his own tradition: Chen Zi'ang, the good Confucian, looks nostalgically back to an idealized historical past, whereas Vaughan, the good Christian, looks nostalgically back to a presumed Heaven, as Wordsworth did later.

We can now turn to examples of Concurrence.

1. Ego static, time moving forward from behind:

gu ren shi qian li

old friend go thousand li

lin bie shang chichi

face parting still delay-delay

ren xing you ke fu

man travel still can return

sui xing na ke zhui

year travel how can chase

wen sui an suo zhi

ask year where that-which go

yuan zai tian yi ya

far at sky one shore

yi zhu dong liu shui

already follow east flow water

fu hai gui wu shi

go sea no return time ¹⁴

When an old friend goes on a thousand- li journey,

At parting, he still lingers and delays.

A man travelling may yet return;

A year travelling: how can it be chased?

If you ask, Where is the year going?

As far as the other shore of the sky.

Already it is following the east-flowing water,

That goes to the sea, never to return.

(From Su Shi, "Farewell to the Old Year")

These lines, which form the first half of one of three poems written at the end of the year corresponding to 1062, suggest a conception of time as moving forward past the speaker. For one thing, when we say farewell to a departing friend, we see him disappear before us, not the other way. For another, the word zhui ("chase") also suggests that the old year is moving forward past the speaker, who is unable to chase it. This is further corroborated by the following lines from the last of the three poems:

yu zhi chui jin sui

wish know about-to end year

you si fu he she

resemble go gulley snake

xiu lin ban yi mo

long scale half already submerge

qu yi shui neng zhe

depart intent who can stop

kuang yu xi qi wei

moreover wish tie its tail

sui qin zhi naihe

though diligent know what-do ¹⁵

You wish to know what the year about to end is like?

It's like a snake rushing into a gulley:

With half its long scaly body already submerged,

Who can stop its intention to depart,

Let alone try to tie up its tail?

No matter how hard you try, you know there's nothing you can do.

(From Su Shi, "Keeping Vigil on New Year's Eve") ¹⁶

In order to visualize this image, I think we would have to imagine the old year as a snake moving forward past the speaker and disappearing before him, rather than in the opposite direction. Su Shi's perception of time in these poems seems similar to that of Andrew Marvell:

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingéd chariot hurrying near;

but of course, not being a Christian, Su does not share Marvell's vision of eternity:

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity. ¹⁷

2. Ego and time both moving forward:

he zhou wu xuyu

gulley boat not-have moment

yin wo bu de zhu

lead me not can dwell

qian tu dang jixu

front path should how-much

wei zhi zhi bo chu

not-yet know stop moor place ¹⁸

The boat in the gulley does not stay for a moment,

Leading me on, unable to dwell.

The path in front: how much more?

I do not yet know where I'll stop and moor.

(From Tao Qian, "Miscellaneous Poems, No. 5")

The expression "boat in the gulley" ( he zhou ), as has been pointed out, ¹⁹ is derived from the Zhuangzi : "Now someone who hides a boat in a gulley. . . says that it is secure, but in the middle of the night a strong man may carry it away." However, it is used here in a different way, as an image of time. The lines just quoted are remarkably similar to Emily Dickinson's

Down Time's quaint stream

Without an oar

We are enforced to sail. ²⁰

Nonetheless, Tao is able to adopt a more positive attitude: instead of complaining that we are forced to move forward with time, he willingly follows the flow of time:

yan lei fan dong shi

stop tear float east depart

shun liu sui shi qian

follow flow chase time change ²¹

Holding back tears, I float on that which departs eastwards;

Following its flow, I chase Time's change.

(From Tao Qian, "Miscellaneous Poems, No. 9")

It is possible that the first line refers to an actual journey east by water, ²² but we can also take it metaphorically as a reference to time. It is this attitude that enables Tao to overcome his fear of death and his sadness over human mortality:

zong lang dahua zhong

release let-go great-change midst

bu xi yi bu ju

not rejoice also not fear

ying jin bian xu jin

should end then must end

wu fu du duo lü

not again alone much care ²³

Let yourself go on the waves of Great Change,

Without joy and without fear.

When you should cease, then you must cease,

Don't be full of care alone any more.

(From Tao Qian, "Form, Shadow, and Spirit")

In the first line, the word lang primarily means "let go," as part of the compound zong lang, but I think it is reasonable to remember its original meaning of "waves," as J. R. Hightower has done in his translation of the poem, ²⁴ and I have in the translation above. By drifting with the flow of the Great Change, which is Time, one no longer feels either joy or sorrow, but simply "transforms with things," which is what I think Zhuangzi meant by wuhua, rather than "transformation of things."

The examples given above illustrate how the way one perceives time and space in relation to the self can affect one's emotional attitude to life, but, of course, no simple correlation can be established.

TEMPORAL PERSPECTIVES AND
SPATIAL IMAGES

As I have suggested elsewhere, we can discern three perspectives of time in Chinese poetry: personal, historical, and cosmic. ²⁵ Each may be present by itself, or in combination with another, or with both the other two. Of course, as soon as we speak of a "perspective" of time, we are already employing a spatial metaphor. Furthermore, each temporal perspective tends to be correlated to certain types of spatial imagery. For instance, the personal perspective tends to be correlated to such images as houses, gardens, and roads; the historical perspective, to images like cities, palaces, and ruins; and the cosmic perspective, to images like mountains, rivers, and stars. We shall now see examples of different temporal perspectives, singly or in combination, together with their correlative spatial images, in various poems.

1. Personal perspective:

shaoxiao li jia laoda hui

young-little leave home old-big return

xiang yin wu gai bin mao cui

native sound no change temple hair decay

ertong xiang jian bu xiang shi

children (one) see not (one) know

xiao wen ke cong he chu lai

smile ask traveller from what place come ²⁶

A youth, I left home; an old man, return.

My native accent unchanged, my hair over the temples decaying.

The children see me but do not know me;

Smiling, they ask the visitor whence he has come.

(He Zhizhang, "Written Casually On
Coming Home")

The speaker of this poem is adopting a purely personal perspective of time, contrasting his youth with his age. The pathos of the situation is brought out by a series of contrasts: between shaoxiao ("young-little") and laoda ("old-big"), between wu gai ("no change") and cui ("decay"), between xiang jian ("see me"; xiang here does not mean "mutual" but indicates that the verb jian has an object, understood to be "me" in this case) and bu xiang shi ("not know me"), and between jia ("home") and xiang ("native") on the one hand, and ke ("visitor" or "traveller") on the other. Ironically, now that the speaker has come home, the children in the village do not know him, and, despite his accent, which has not changed, treat him as a stranger. Such is the trick that time has played on him. We do not find any striking spatial images, but the contrast between li jia ("leave home") and hui ("return") implies distance in space, as does the question cong he chu ("from what place"). And although the word xiang is used in the sense of "native," as a modifier of yin ("sound"), we may recall its primary meaning of "village" and consider it a spatial image, albeit a submerged one.

2. Historical perspective:

Innumerable poems dubbed "poems on history" ( yongshi shi ) naturally adopt the historical perspective of time. Tao Qian, in his poem on the knight Jing Ke (sometimes called a patriot, which is somewhat inappropriate, since he was not a native of Yan but acted out of gratitude to the Prince of Yan as a zhiji, one who appreciated him), briefly recounts Jing's well-known attempt to assassinate the king of Qin, and then attributes historical consciousness to the hero:

xin zhi qu bu gui

heart know depart not return

qie you hou shi ming

still have after age name

He knew in his heart he would never return,

But would leave his name behind forever.

As if to prove that Jing's prophecy came true, the poet concludes:

qi ren sui yi mo

this man although already dead

qian zai you yu qing

thousand year have surplus feeling ²⁷

Although this man is dead and gone,

A thousand years later endless feelings remain.

(From Tao Qian, "On Jing Ke")

The last line can be taken to mean, "A thousand years later, he still arouses endless feelings," or, "A thousand years later, his feelings still remain endless." ²⁸ However that may be, the action is seen in a historical perspective and not as an isolated event.

3. Cosmic perspective:

nan feng chui shan zuo ping di

south wind blow mountain be flat ground

di qian Tianwu yi hai shui

god send monster shift sea water

Wangmu tao hua qian bian hong

Queen-mother peach blossom thousand times red

Pengzu Wuxian ji hui si

Pengzu Wuxian how-many times die ²⁹

The south wind blows on the mountains, turning them to level ground.

God sends the monster Tianwu to shift the seas.

The Queen Mother's peach flowers have reddened a thousand times;

How often have Pengzu and Wuxian died?

(From Li He, "Loud Song") ³⁰

These lines are truly striking for their use of cosmic spatial images and mythological figures to convey a cosmic perspective of time. It boggles the mind to imagine how long it would take the wind to reduce the mountains to level ground, the seas to shift positions, and the peach flowers of the goddess, Queen Mother of the West, supposed to blossom once every three thousand years, to do so a thousand times. Against such a colossal temporal perspective, how much would several human lifetimes amount to, even the longest ones such as those enjoyed by the legendary Pengzu and Wuxian?

4. Personal and historical perspectives combined:

yaoluo shen zhi Song Yu bei

shake-fall deeply know Song Yu grief

fengliu ruya yi wu shi

wind-flow scholar-elegant also my teacher

chang wang qian qiu yi sa lei

sadly gaze thousand autumn once shed tear

xiaotiao yi dai bu tong shi

lonely-desolate different age not share time ³¹

"Shaking and falling": I deeply understand Song Yu's grief.

Free-spirited and elegant, he too is my mentor.

Sadly gazing toward a thousand autumns, I shed tears once;

Each lonely in a different age, we do not share the same times.

(From Du Fu, "Thoughts on Ancient Sites, No. 2") ³²

In these lines, Du Fu first establishes a link between the personal perspective of time and the historical one by quoting partially from the Jiubian ("Nine Arguments") attributed to Song Yu, thus identifying with the earlier poet in spirit. Then he explicitly states that he regards Song Yu as one of his mentors. In the third line, by saying that he is "sadly gazing toward a thousand autumns" he spatializes time (a point to which we shall return later), and he seems to be calling attention to this by using a rhyming binome followed by an alliterative one ( chang wang followed by qian qiu ). In this way, Du Fu comes face to face with Song Yu, said to have lived about a thousand years earlier. However, in the next line they become separate again, when Du Fu painfully realizes that after all they do not live in the same age, a fact emphasized by the use of yi dai ("different age") and bu tong shi ("not share time"). It may be noted that the last three syllables should be taken as verb + verb + object, not as modifier + noun.

5. Personal and cosmic perspective combined:

xi cao wei feng an

fine grass slight wind bank

wei qiang du ye zhou

tall mast solitary night boat

xing chui ping ye kuo

star droop flat wild wide

yue yong da jiang liu

moon rush great river flow

ming qi wenzhang zhu

fame how literary-composition manifest

guan ying lao bing xiu

office should old sick retire

piaopiao he suo si

float-float what that-which resemble

tian di yi sha'ou

sky earth one sand-gull ³³

A fine-grassy, light-breezy bank,

A tall-masted solitary night boat.

Stars drooping, the flat wilds widen;

The moon bobbing, the Great River flows.

Fame: is it to be won by writings?

Office: old and sick, I should give up.

Floating, floating: what do I resemble?

Between sky and earth, a gull alone.

(Du Fu, "Writing Down My Thoughts while Travelling at Night") ³⁴

The opening couplet juxtaposes the cosmic perspective of time with the personal, but a link between the two is established by the strategic position of the word du ("solitary"): logically, it should modify the last word of the line, zhou ("boat"), but syntactically, it appears to modify the word that follows immediately, ye ("night"). In this way, the solitary boat, without losing its effect as an image of the speaker's solitude, at the same time becomes a spatial image correlated to the night, which is a segment of time and is imagined to be as solitary as the speaker. The second couplet adopts the cosmic perspective alone: nature is seen as it presumably always is, not from any personal angle. Incidentally, we may note how in each line of this couplet the poet first presents a phenomenon and then reveals the cause: the stars appear to droop because the flat wilds are so wide, and the moon seems to bob because it is reflected in the flowing river. This inversion of cause and effect produces an element of surprise, and the use of four verbs in two lines lends a dynamic quality to the imagery. In the third couplet, the poet shifts to the personal perspective and laments his failure to achieve fame as an official. Yet, because he views his personal life against the cosmic background, he is able, in the final couplet, to release himself from his disappointments and feel as free as a sea gull floating between sky and earth, a spatial image that wonderfully combines the personal perspective with the cosmic. Some critics see nothing but despair in the last couplet, ³⁵ but I think that the ending expresses relief rather than despair, and that the gull should be regarded as a symbol of freedom rather than solitude, for Du Fu had used the same image many years previously as a young man full of self-confidence:

bo ou mo haodang

white gull disappear vast-shake

wan li shui neng xun

myriad li who can tame ³⁶

The white gull disappears into vast waves,

For ten thousand miles: who can tame it?

(From Du Fu, "Presented to My Elder,
The Senior Secretary Wei") ³⁷

Here, surely, the image suggests a free spirit rather than a lonely wanderer, not to mention the fact that the gull is traditionally associated with the life of the yinyi (literally, "hiding and free," usually translated as "recluse," although the Chinese terms does not imply unsociable behavior but withdrawal from worldly strife and the pursuit of fame and fortune). ³⁸

6. Historical and cosmic perspectives combined:

ci di bie Yan Dan

this place part Yan Dan

zhuang shi fa chong guan

brave knight hair push hat

xishi ren yi mo

former-time man already disappear

jinri shui you han

today water still cold ³⁹

Here he parted from Prince Dan of Yan;

The brave knight's hair pushed up his hat.

The man of that time is dead and gone;

Today, the water of the river is still cold.

(Luo Binwang, "Crossing River Yi to
See Someone Off") ⁴⁰

Unlike Tao Qian, who sees the knight Jing Ke in a purely historical perspective, Luo Binwang introduces the cosmic perspective in the last line, thereby contrasting the transiency of human history with the permanency of nature.

7. Personal, historical, and cosmic perspectives combined:

Niuzhu xi jiang ye

Ox-isle west river night

qing tian wu pian yun

blue sky no piece cloud

deng zhou wang qiu yue

climb boat gaze autumn moon

kong yi Xie jiangjun

vainly recall Xie general

yu yi neng gao yong

I too can high chant

si ren bu ke wen

this man not may hear

mingzhao gua fan qu

tomorrow-morning hang sail depart

feng ye luo fenfen

maple leaves fall disorderly-profusely ⁴¹

Night at Ox Isle, over west river,

Clear sky, not a speck of cloud.

Climbing aboard, I gaze at the autumn moon,

Vainly recalling General Xie.

I too know how to chant loftily;

This man cannot be heard anymore.

Tomorrow morning I'll hoist my sail and depart;

The maple leaves will fall at random in profusion.

(Li Bo, "Recalling Antiquity While Mooring at Ox Isle at Night")

The first couplet presents the cosmic perspective: there is no trace of any human being. Line 3 introduces the speaker and links the personal perspective with the cosmic by means of the word wang ("gaze"). Line 4 presents the historical perspective by mentioning General Xie (Xie Shang, who, as Li Bo points out in a note, heard Yuan Hong chanting his poems on history at this very spot). In line 5, the phrase gao yong can be taken to mean "chant aloud" or "chant on lofty themes," or both, and line 6 can be understood as "This man may not be heard anymore," or "This man cannot hear me anymore." No matter how we interpret these lines, they undoubtedly juxtapose the personal perspective with the historical. Li Bo compares himself to Yuan Hong and laments the absence of a contemporary Xie Shang to appreciate him. However, his frustration is transcended in the final couplet, in which the personal perspective submerges in the cosmic. The image of the boat sailing away into infinite space can be taken as a metaphor for the speaker's disappearing into infinite time, and the falling of the maple leaves suggests the indifference of nature to both personal and historical events. Against this cosmic perspective, one's own misfortunes appear insignificant, and the speaker transcends his sorrow.

SPATIALIZATION OF TIME AND
TEMPORALIZATION OF SPACE

Apart from spatial terms commonly used to express temporal relations, such as qian ("before") and hou ("after"), we sometimes find in Chinese poetry uncommon ways of expressing temporal concepts in spatial terms and vice versa. Such expressions can be recognized by uncommon diction, imagery, or syntax. We have already seen an example of the spatialization of time in Du Fu's phrase chang wang qian qiu ; here are a few more examples.

1.

xing dao shui qiung chu

walk reach water end place

zuo kan yun qi shi

sit watch cloud rise time ⁴²

I walk till I reach the place where the water ends,

I sit and watch the time when the clouds rise.

(From Wang Wei, "Zhongnan Villa") ⁴³

This couplet involves some ambiguity. We can take chu ("place") and shi ("time") as the objects of the verbs dao ("reach") and kan ("watch") respectively, as in the translation given above, or take both lines as noun phrases instead of sentences and render them this way:

The place where I walk and reach the water's end—

The time when I sit and watch the clouds rise—

In either case, the juxtaposition of chu ("place") and shi ("time") at the end of the two lines calls attention to the interaction of space and time. In the first line, the temporal process of walking to the source of the water is spatialized by the word chu ; in the second line, the spatial relationship between the speaker and the clouds is temporalized by the word shi. It may be argued that a temporal element is also present in the first line and a spatial element is also present in the second, but it is undeniable that the emphasis in the first line is on the spatial relationship between the speaker and the water's source, not on the time it takes to get there, whereas emphasis in the second line is on the temporal aspect of the experience of watching the clouds rise, not on the distance between the speaker and the clouds. Furthermore, we may note the contrasts between static and dynamic images. ⁴⁴ The dynamic image xing ("walk") in the first line contrasts with the static zuo ("sit"), which occupies the corresponding position in the second line. Similarly, the static qiung ("end") contrasts with the dynamic qi ("rise"). At the same time, there is also internal contrast within each line: xing against qiung in the first line, and zuo against qi in the second. These subtle and complex imagistic contrasts, which belie the seeming simplicity of the couplet, reveal the poet's underlying perception of spatiotemporal relationships, for the static images primarily imply temporal duration, whereas the dynamic images primarily imply spatial change, although the former also involve spatial location and the latter also involve temporal process.

2.

xi ren yi cheng huang he qu

former man already ride yellow crane depart

ci di kong yu Huang He Lou

this place empty remain Yellow Crane Tower

huang he yi qu bu fu fan

yellow crane once depart not again return

bo yun qian zai kong youyou

white cloud thousand year empty long-long ⁴⁵

The man of old has already left, riding on a yellow crane;

Here, the Yellow Crane Tower remains in vain in the empty air.

The yellow crane, once gone, will not return again;

The white clouds, for a thousand years, will last in vain in the empty air.

(From Cui Hao, "Yellow Crane Tower")

In the first couplet, although superficially xi ren ("former man") is contrasted with ci di ("this place"), the underlying contrast is really between xi shi ("former time") and ci ri ("this day"), and so it seems valid to say that the word di is temporalized. Alternatively, we may say that the temporal relationship between past and present is expressed in spatial terms as a contrast between "former man " and "this place. " In the third line, the temporal term yi ("once") temporalizes the spatial image evoked by qu ("depart"), and the phrase bu fu ("not again") further temporalizes the spatial image evoked by fan ("return"), which already implies temporal recurrence anyway. In the next line, the temporal phrase qian zai ("thousand year") refers to the spatial image bo yun ("white cloud"), so that the reduplicative compound youyou ("long-long") appears to mean both "lasting long" and "extending far." At the same time, the word kong , which is used twice, primarily in the sense of "in vain," implies the passage of time, for it is only after a lapse of time that we realize that something has been in vain. However, we should not forget the original meaning of kong , "empty," and should consider "empty space" as an implication of the word. (Hence, the word-for-word translation above gives "empty" as the equivalent of kong )

3.

wan li bei qiu chang zuo ke

myriad li lament autumn constantly be traveller

bo nian duo bing du deng tai

hundred year much illness alone climb tower ⁴⁶

Over a myriad miles, lamenting autumn, I am constantly travelling;

Within a lifespan of a hundred years, full of illness, I alone climb the tower.

(From Du Fu, "Climbing High")

Syntactically, the spatial wan li ("myriad li" ) contrasts with the temporal bo nian ("hundred years"), and the temporal chang ("constantly") with the spatial du ("alone"), but semantically we may also see a contrast between wan li and du, a contrast that emphasizes the speaker's loneliness in vast space, and one between bo nian, the conventional maximum lifespan for a human being, and chang, a contrast that emphasizes the seeming endlessness of wandering. Thus, if we were to transpose the first half of each of the two lines and write,

bo nian duo bing chang zuo ke

wan li bei qiu du deng tai

the couplet would still make perfect sense. The underlying interactions between time and space enrich the poetic meaning and add to the complexity of the linguistic structure.

4.

qun shan wan he fu Jingmen

flock mountain myriad valley go-to Jingmen

sheng zhang Ming Fei shang you cun

bear rear Ming Fei still have village

yi qu zi tai lian shuo mo

once depart purple tower join northern desert

du liu qing zhong xiang huanghun

alone leave green tomb face yellow-dusk ⁴⁷

Amid flocks of mountains and a myriad valleys I head for Jingmen.

Bearing and rearing Princess Ming: the village is still there.

Once departing from the purple towers, she joined the northern desert;

Alone she left behind the Green Tomb to face the yellow dusk.

(From Du Fu, "Thoughts on Ancient Sites, No. 3")

These lines from Du Fu's poem on Wang Qiang, also known as Wang Zhaojun or Ming Fei ("Bright Consort"), present some striking features. As various scholars have noticed, the syntax of the first line is ambiguous: we can either take the implied subject to be "I," as in the above translation and in David Hawkes's paraphrase, ⁴⁸ or take qun shan wan he ("flocks of mountains and myriad valleys") as the subjects, as in Hans Frankel's translation ⁴⁹ and in Irving Lo's, ⁵⁰ but in either case the spatial relationship between "flocks of mountains and myriad valleys" and the place Jingmen is rendered dynamic by the verb fu ("go to"), which implies a temporal process. The syntax of the second line is even more unusual. Instead of writing shang you Ming Fei sheng zhang cun, which is what one would have expected, Du Fu wrote, sheng zhang Ming Fei shang you cun , not, I believe, simply to conform to the prescribed tone pattern or out of a desire for novelty for its own sake, but as a daring way to spatialize time. Had he written the former, Ming Fei would have been the subject of sheng zhang , which then would have meant "was born and reared," and the clause Ming Fei sheng zhang would have referred to a period in the past. As the line now stands, Ming Fei is the object of sheng zhang ("bearing and rearing"), and the phrase sheng zhang Ming Fei modifies cun, as if one were to say, "the bearing-and-rearing-Ming-Fei sort of village." Thus, a past event is transformed into an attribute of an object that still exists in space. In the next couplet, the spatial relationship between zi tai ("purple tower," representing the Chinese palace) and shuo mo ("northern desert") is temporalized by yi qu ("once gone") and lian ("join"), both of which involve temporal processes; the temporal term huanghun ("yellow-dusk"), which denotes a specific segment of time, is spatialized by the verb xiang ("face"), for the yellow dusk must exist in space to be "faced" by the tomb, which, according to legend, remains ever green in the desert. Through the spatialization of time and temporalization of space, Du Fu merges past and present, Ming Fei's native village in Sichuan and her tomb in the Mongolian desert, in the total world of the poem.

TRANSCENDENCE OF TIME AND SPACE

In some poems we see a conscious attempt to transcend time and space, such as in the following poem by Li Bo:

Huanghe zou dong ming

Yellow-river run east sea

bo ri luo xi hai

white sun set west sea

shi chuan yu liu guang

vanish river and flow light

piaohu bu xiang dai

sudden-fast not (one) wait

chun rong she wo qu

spring appearance desert me depart

qiu fa yi shuai gai

autumn hair already fade change

ren sheng fei han song

human life not cold pine

nian mao qi chang zai

year visage how long exist

wu dang cheng yun chi

I should ride cloud dragon

xi jing zhu guang cai

inhale light stay bright color ⁵¹

The Yellow River runs to the eastern ocean,

The white sun sets over the western sea.

The vanishing river and the streaming light

Both are gone suddenly, awaiting no one.

My spring looks have deserted me and gone,

My autumn hair is already fading away.

Human life is not a wintry pine:

How could years and visage remain for long?

I would ride a dragon among the clouds

To inhale celestial lights and keep my bright countenance.

(Li Bo, "Ancient Airs, No. 11") ⁵²

Both the river and the sun are, of course, common symbols of time in Chinese poetry, but what is uncommon is the visualization of these as moving in opposite directions in space: the Yellow River is flowing eastward while the sun is moving westward. This emphasizes the speed with which time passes. To transcend time and space, the poet wishes to rise vertically, as it were, above the river and the sun's course, so as to remain young forever. ⁵³

Apart from such examples of the transcendence of time and space in individual poems, in a broader sense all poetry transcends time and space, since, once a poem is written, it exists potentially outside time and space, to be re-created by a reader of another time and space. As suggested in chapter 3, all deictic expressions in a poem should be taken as if they referred to the reader's present, or, to use Paul Ricoeur's terminology, all "ostensive references" to an actual world should be taken as "nonostensive references" to possible worlds. ⁵⁴ By creating a world in a linguistic structure, the poet transcends time and space and enables countless readers to re-create the world of the poem in their own time and space.

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Source: https://publish.iupress.indiana.edu/read/the-interlingual-critic/section/c1d0112e-99ed-4c09-b6fb-02372f64b6fd

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