China and the West

The Cassia tree : a collection of translations & adaptations from the Chinese. David Rafael Wang ; in collaboration with William Carlos Williams [ID D29171].
Note : These poems are not translations in the sense that Arthur Waley's versions are translations. They are rather re-creations in the American idiom – a principle to which William Carlos Williams dedicated his poetic career. (D.R.W.)

Popular T'ang and Sung poems
I
Meng Hao-chuan (689-740) [Meng Haoran 689/691-740]
In spring you sleep and never know when the morn comes,
Everywhere you hear the songs of the birds,
But at night the sound of the wind mingles with the rain's,
And you wonder how many flowers have fallen.
II
Li Po (701-762) [Li Bo]
Spotting the moonlight at my bedside,
I wonder if it is frost on the ground.
After raising my head to look at the bright moon,
I lower it to think of my old country.
III
Liu, Chung-yuan, 773-819 [Liu Zhongyuan]
The birds have flown away from the mountains,
The sign of men has gone from the paths,
But under a lone sail stoops an old fisherman,
Angling in the down-pouring snow.
IV
Ho Chi-chong = Ho Chih-chang), 659-744 [He Zhizhang = Jizhen] [(Xiaoshan, Zhejiang 659-)]
Returning after I left my home in childhood,
I have kept my native accent but not the color of my hair.
Facing the smiling children who shyly approach me,
I am asked from where I come.
V
Meng Hao-chuan = Meng Hao-jan (689-740) [Meng Haoran 689/691-740]
Steering my little boat towards a misty islet,
I watch the sun descend while my sorrows grow :
In the vast night the sky hangs lower than the treetops,
But in the blue lake the moon is coming close.
VI
Wang Wei (699-759)
Alighting from my horse to drink with you,
I asked, 'Where are you going ? '
You said, 'Retreating to lie in the southern mountains'
Silent,
I watch the white clouds endless in the distance.
VII
Li Yu (The last king of the Southern T'ang dynasty, 937-978)
Silently I ascend the western pavilion.
The moon hangs like a hairpin.
In the deep autumn garden
The wu-t'ung stands alone.
Involute,
Entagled,
The feeling of departure
Clings like a wet leaf to my heart.

The maid (Ancient folk poem)
Drives sheep through ravine,
With the white goat in front.
The ole gal unmarried,
Her sigh reaches heaven.
Aihe ! Aihe !
Endless dream of the shepherd.
'Hold man's left arm,
Turn and toss with him'.
'Stroke man's whiskers,
watch changin' expression'.
The shepherd unmindful
Can she force him ?

Cho Wen-chun (Han poetess, 2nd century B.C.) [Zhuo Wenjun, ca. 179-ca. 117 B.C.]
Lament of a graying woman
White as the snow on mountaintop,
Bright as the moon piercing the clouds,
Knowing that you have a divided heart,
I come to you before you are gone.
We have lived long together in this town.
What need is there for a feast of wine ?
But a feast we must have today,
For tomorrow we'll be by the stream
And I'll lag behind you at the fork,
Watching the waters flow east or west.
Tears and still more tears.
Why should we lament ?
If only there is a constant man
Till white-hair shall we never part !

SOCIETY OF POETS
I To Li Po
Tu Fu 712-770 [Du Fu]
The floating cloud follows the sun.
The traveler has not yet returned.
For three nights I dreamt of you, my friend,
So clearly that I almost touched you.
You left me in a hurry.
Your passage is fraught with trouble :
The wind blows fiercely over lakes and rivers.
Be watchful lest you fall from your boat !
You scratched your white head when leaving the door,
And I knew the journey was against your wishes.
Silk-hatted gentlemen have swamped the capital,
While you, the poet, are lean and haggard.
If the net of heaven is not narrow,
Why should you be banished when you are old ?
Ten thousand ages will remember your warmth ;
When you are gone the world is silent and cold.
II To Meng Hao-jan
Li Po [Li Bo]
I love Meng-fu-tsu.
His name is known throughout China.
While rosy-cheeked he gave up his office ;
Now with white hair he lies in the pine clouds.
Drunk with the moon he is a hermit-saint ;
Lost in flowers he will not serve any kings.
Can I reach him who is like a high mountain ?
I am contented if I only breathe in his fragrance.
III To Wang Wei
Meng Hao-chuan [Meng Haoran 689/691-740]
Quietly, quietly, why have I been waiting ?
Emptily, emptily, I return every day alone.
I have been in search of fragrant grass
And miss the friend who can accompany me.
Who will let me roam his private park ?
Understanding ones in the world are rare.
I shall walk back home all by myself
And fasten the latch on the gate of my garden.

Meng Hao-chuan [Meng Haoran 689/691-740]
After the party
The guest, still drunk, sprawls in my bed
How am I going to get him awake ?
The chicken congee is boiling on the stove
And the new wine is heated to start our day.

Meng Hao-chuan [Meng Haoran 689/691-740]
Late spring
In April the lake water is clear
Everywhere the birds are singing
The ground just swept, the petals fall again
The grass, though stepped on, remains green
My drinking companions gather to compare fortunes
Open the keg to get over the bout of drinking
With cups held high in our hands
We hear the voices of sing-song girls
ringing.

Wang Wei (699-759)
Ce-Lia the immortal beauty
The beauty of a maiden is coveted by the world.
So how could a girl like Ce-Lia be slighted for long ?
In the mourning she was just another lass in the village,
But in the evening she has become the king's concubine.
Was she different from the rest in her days of poverty ?
Now that she is favored, all begin to realize her beauty is rare.
She can command her maids to powder and perfume her face,
And is no longer obliged to don her own clothing.
The adoration of her Emperor has brought pride to her being,
And the king's 'Yes' and 'No' vary in accordance with her caprice.
The companions who washed at the brookside along with her
Are not entitled any more to ride back home in the same carriage.
Why should we bother to sympathize with these rustic girls,
Since they'll never have Beauty to accompany them,
Even if they should master the art of coquetry ?

Wang Wei
The peerless lady
Look, there goes the young lady across the street
She looks about fifteen, doesn't she ?
Her husband is riding the piebald horse
Her maids are scraping chopped fish from a gold plate.
Her picture gallery and red pavilion stand face to face
The willow and the peach trees shadow her eaves
Look, she's coming thru the gauze curtains to get into her chaise :
Her attendants have started winnowing the fans.
Her husband got rich early in his life
A more arrogant man you never find around !
She keeps busy by teaching her maids to dance
She never regrets giving jewels away.
There goes the light by her window screen
The green smoke's rising like petals on wave
The day is done and what does she do ?
Her hair tied up, she watches the incense fade.
None but the bigwigs visit her house
Only the Chaos and the Lees get by her guards
But do you realize this pretty girl
Used to beat her clothes at the river's head ?
There goes the light by her window screen
The green smoke's rising like petals on wave
The day is done and what does she do ?
Her fair tied up, she watches the incense fade.
None but the bigwigs visit her house
Only the Chaos and the Lees get by her guards
But do you realize this pretty girl
Used to beat her clothes at the river's head ?

Li Po [Li Bo]
A letter
My love,
When you were here there was
a hall of flowers.
When you are gone there is
an empty bed.
Under the embroidered coverlet
I toss and turn.
After three years I
smell you fragrance.
Your fragrance never leaves,
But you never return.
I think of you, the yellow leaves are ended
And the white dew dampens the green moss.

Li Po [Li Bo]
Spring song
A young lass
Plucks mulberry leaves by the river
Her white hand
Reaches among the green
Her flushed cheeks
Shine under the sun
The hungry silkworms
Are waiting
Oh, young horseman
Why do you tarry. Get going.

Li Po [Li Bo]
Summer song
The Mirror Lake
(Three hundred miles),
Where lotus buds
Burst into flowers.
The slippery shore
Is jammed with admirers,
While the village beauty
Picks the blossoms.
Before the sails
Breast the rising moon,
She's shipped away
To the king's harem.

Li Po [Li Bo]
In the wineshop of Chinling
The wind scatters the fragrance of the willows over the shop
The sing-song girls pour the rice wine heated for the guests
My friends have gathered to say goodbye
Drinking cup after cup, I wonder why I should start
'Say, can you tell me about the east-flowing river –
Does it stretch as long as this feeling of departure ?'

Li Po [Li Bo]
Solo
The pavilion pierces the green sky
Below is the white jade chamber
The bright moon is ready to set
Casting its glance behind the screen window
Solitary she stands
Her thin silk skirt ruffled by autumn frost
She fingers softly the séchin
Composing the Mulberry Song.
The sound reverberates
And the wind circles the crossbeams
Outside the pedestrians are turning away
And the birds are gone to their nests.
The weight of feeling
Cannot be carried away by song and
She longs for someone
To soar with her like a mandarin drake.

Li Po [Li Bo]
The youth on horseback
The youth from the capital rides by the east of the city.
His white horse and silver saddle sail through the spring breeze.
Having trampled all the flowers where else could he go ?
Smiling, he enters the barroom of the white prostitute.

Li Po [Li Bo]
The Knight
In March the dust of Tartary has swept over the capital.
Inside the city wall the people sigh and complain.
Under the bridge the water trickles with warm blood
And bales of white bones lean against one another.
I departed east for the Kingdom of Wu.
Clouds block the four fortresses and the roads are long.
Only the crows announce the rise of the sun.
Someone opens the city gate to sweep away the flowers.
Wu-t'ungs and willows hover above the well.
Drunk, I come to the knight-errant's home.
The knights-errant of Fu Feng are rare in this world :
With arms around their friends they'll heave mountains.
The posture of the generals means little to them
And, drinking, they ignore the orders of the cabinet.
With fancy food on carved plates they entertain their guests.
With songs and dance their sing-song girls unwind a fragrant wind.
The fabulous dukes of the six kingdoms
Were known for their entertainment :
In the dining hall of each three thousand were fed.
But who knew which one would remember to repay ?
They stroke their long swords, arching their eyebrows ;
By the clear water and white rock they decline to separate.
Doffing my hat I turn to you smiling.
Drinking your wine I recite only for you.
I have not yet met my master of strategy –
The bridgeside hermit may read my heart.

Li Po [Li Bo]
Drinking together
We drink in the mountain while the flowers bloom,
A pitcher, a pitcher, and one more pitcher.
As my head spins you get up.
So be back any time with your guitar.

Li Po [Li Bo]
The march
The bay horse is fitted with a white jade saddle.
The moon shivers over the battlefield.
The sound of iron drums still shakes the city walls
And in the case the gold sword oozes blood.

Li Po [Li Bo]
Long Banister Lane
When my hair was first trimmed across my forehead,
I played in front of my door, picking flowers.
You came riding a bamboo stilt for a horse,
Circling around my yard, playing with green plums.
Living as neighbors at Long Banister Lane,
We had an affection for each other that none were suspicious of.
At fourteen I became your wife,
With lingering shyness, I never laughed.
Lowering my head towards a dark wall,
I never turned, though called a thousand times.
At fifteen I began to show my happiness,
I desired to have my dust mingled with yours.
With a devotion ever unchanging.
Why should I look out when I had you ?
At sixteen you left home
For a faraway land of steep pathways and eddies,
Which in May were impossible to traverse,
And where the monkey whined sorrowfully towards the sky.
The footprints you made when you left the door
Have been covered by green moss,
New moss too deep to be swept away.
The autumn wind came early and the leaves started falling.
The butterflies, yellow with age in August,
Fluttered in pairs towards the western garden.
Looking at the scene, I felt a pang in my heart,
And I sat lamenting my fading youth.
Every day and night I wait for your return,
Expecting to receive your letter in advance,
So that I will some traveling to greet you
As far as Windy Sand.

Adaptation of Li Po [Li Bo]
The visitor
See that horseman from the distant land,
Greeneyed and wearing a tigerskin hat,
Smiling, he lifts two arrows from his case,
And ten thousand people shy away.
He bends his bow like a circling moon
And from the clouds white geese spin down in pairs.
Shaking his whip high in the air,
He starts out hunting with his pack.
Once out of his dooryard what does he care ?
What matters if he dies pro patria ?
Prouder he is than five filtans
And has the wolf's love for seeking out a herd.
He drives the cattle further north
And with a tiger's appetite tastes the freshly killed.
But he camps at the Swallow Mountain,
Far from the arctic snow.
From his horse a woman smiles at him,
Her face a vermilion vessel of jade.
As his flying darts haunt birds and beasts,
Flowers and the moon land drunk in his saddle.
The light of the alien star flashes and spreads
While war gathers head like the swarming of wasps.
From the edge of his white sword blood drips and drips.
It covers the floating sand.
Are there any more reckless generals left ? –
The soldiers are too tired to complain.

Tu Fu [Du Fu]
Profile of a lady
A pretty, pretty girl
Lives in the empty mountain
Came from a celebrated family
Now alone with her fagots.
In the civil war
All her brothers were killed.
Why talk of pedigree,
When she couldn'd collect their bones ?
World feeling rises against the decline,
Then follows the rotating candle.
Husband has a new interest :
A beauty subtle as jade.
The acacia knows its hour
The mandarin duck never lies alone.
Husband listens to the laughter of new girl
Deaf to the tears of the old.
Spring in the mountains is clear,
Mud underfoot.
She sends the maid to sell jewels
Pick wisteria to mend the roof
Wears no fresh flower
Bears cypress boughs in her hands.
Leans cold against the bamboo
Her green sleeves flutter.

Tu Fu [Du Fu]
Visit
The life we could seldom meet
Separate as the stars.
What a special occasion tonight
That we gather und the candle-lamp !
How long can youth last ?
Our hair is peppered with white.
Half of our friends are ghosts
It's so good to see you alive.
How strange after twenty years
To revisit your house !
When I left you were single
Your children are grown up now.
They treat me with great respect,
Ask where I came from.
Before I can answer
You send your son for the wine.
In the rain you cut scallions
And start the oven to cook rice.
'It's hard to get together
Let's finish up these ten goblets.'
After ten goblets we are still sober
The feeling of reunion is long.
Tomorrow I have to cross the mountain
Back to the mist of the world.

Wang Ch'ang-ling (circa 727) [Wang Changling (698–756)]
Chant of the frontiersman
I
The cicadas are singing in the mulberry forest :
It is August at the fortress.
We pass the frontiers to enter more frontiers.
Everywhere the rushes are yellow.
The sodbusters from the provinces
Have disappeared with the dust they kicked up.
Why should we bother to be knights-errant ?
Let us discuss the merits of bayards.
II
I lead the horse to drink in the autumn river.
The river is icy and the wind cuts like knives.
In the desert the sun has not yet gone down ;
In the shade I see my distant home.
When the war first spread to the Great Wall,
We were filled with patriotic fervor.
The yellow sand has covered the past glories ;
The bleached bones are scattered over the nettles.

Wang Chen (circa 775) [Wang Zhen]
The newlywed's cuisine
The thir night after wedding
I get near the stove.
Rolling up my sleeves
I make a fancy broth.
Not knowing the taste
Of my mother-in-law,
I try it first upon her
Youngest girl.

Li Yu
Bella donna Iu
Spring flowers, autumn moon – when will you end ?
How much of the past do you recall ?
At the pavilion last night the cast wind sobbed.
I can hardly turn my head homeward
In this moonlight.
The carved pillars and the jade steps are still here.
But the color of your checks is gone.
When asked : 'How much sorrow do you still have ?'
'Just like the flood of spring water
Rushing eastward.'

Li Ts'un-hsu (Emporor Chuang of the later T'ang Dynasty, 10th century. [Zhuang Zong]
In dream's wake
We dine in a glade concealed in peach petals.
We dance like linnets and sing like phoenixes.
Then we part.
Like a dream,
Like a dream,
A mist envelops the pale moon and fallen blossoms.

Kuo Mo-jo (1893-) [Guo Moruo]
From Phoenix undying
Ah !
Our floating and inconstant life
Is like a delirious dream in a dark night.
Before us is sleep,
Behind us is sleep ;
It comes like the fluttering wind,
It comes like the trailing smoke ;
Enters like wind,
Departs like smoke.
Behind us : sleep,
Before us : sleep.
In the midst of our sleep we appear
Like the momentary wind and smoke.

Mao Tse-tung (1893-) [Mao Zedong]
Spring in the now-drenched garden
The northern countryside of China
Is bound by miles and miles of ice.
Snow flies over the border,
And outside of the Great Wall
Waste land stretches as though endless.
The great Hwang Ho rushes in torrents
Up and down the skyline.
The mountains thrash like silvery snakes,
Their contours soar like waxen elephants
Vying with the gods in height.
On a fine day,
The landscape unveils like a maiden
Dressing up in her boudoir.
Such enchanting mountains and rivers
Have led countless heroes to rival in homage.
Pity that the founders of Ch'in and Han
Were unversed in the classics ;
Pity that the great kings of T'ang and Sung
Were deficient in poetry ;
Pity that the magnificent, the pride of heaven,
Genghis Khan
Could only shoot with bows and arrows.
All these were of the past !
For the greatest man yet – only
My dynasty, my era will show.

Ping Hsin (1902-) [Bing Xin]
The old man and the child
The old man to the child :
'Weep,
Sigh,
How dreary the world is !'
The child, laughing :
'Excuse me,
mister !
I can't imagine what I Haven't experiences.'
The child to the old man :
'Smile,
Jump,
How interesting the world is !'
The old man, sighing :
'Forgive me,
Child !
I can't bear recalling what I have experienced.'

Tsong Kuh-chia = Tsang Ko-chia (1910-) [Zang Kejia]
Three generations
The child
Is bathing in the mud.
The father
Is seating in the mud.
The grandfather
Is buried in the mud.

D.R.W. [David Rafael Wang]
Cool cat
For Gary Snyder
The rain has soaked the cabin
The wind has shaken the mast
My mistress's red petticoat is wet
And knitted are the eyebrows of my lovely wife
I tie the boat to the nearest tree
And observe the flowering billows
The bamboo blinds are left sagging
The broken teacups litter the deck
On my way back I feel a sudden calmness :
Autumn has invaded the summer
I dry my sleeves in a Yoga posture
And leave the girls to fret and chatter.

Snyder, Gary. August on Sourdough : a visit from Dick Brewer. In : Holiday ; vol. 40, no 2 (1966).
Snyder, Gary. Four poems for Robin. In : Snyder, Gary. Poems of our moment. (New York, N.Y. : Pegasus, 1968).
David Rafael Wang : The two poems are strikingly Chinese in feeling and sensibility.

Auden, W.H. Sonnets from China [ID D30728].
I
So from the years their gifts were showered: each
Grabbed at the one it needed to survive;
Bee took the politics that suit a hive,
Trout finned as trout, peach moulded into peach,
And were successful at their first endeavour.
The hour of birth their only time in college,
They were content with their precocious knowledge,
To know their station and be right for ever.
Till, finally, there came a childish creature
On whom the years could model any feature,
Fake, as chance fell, a leopard or a dove,
Who by the gentlest wind was rudely shaken,
Who looked for truth but always was mistaken,
And envied his few friends, and chose his love.
II
They wondered why the fruit had been forbidden:
It taught them nothing new. They hid their pride,
But did not listen much when they were chidden:
They knew exactly what to do outside.
They left. Immediately the memory faded
Of all they'd known: they could not understand
The dogs now who before had always aided;
The stream was dumb with whom they'd always planned.
They wept and quarrelled: freedom was so wild.
In front maturity as he ascended
Retired like a horizon from the child,
The dangers and the punishments grew greater,
And the way back by angels was defended
Against the poet and the legislator.
III
Only a smell had feelings to make known,
Only an eye could point in a direction,
The fountain's utterance was itself alone:
He, though, by naming thought to make connection
Between himself as hunter and his food;
He felt the interest in his throat and found
That he could send a servant to chop wood
Or kiss a girl to rapture with a sound.
They bred like locusts till they hid the green
And edges of the world: confused and abject,
A creature to his own creation subject,
He shook with hate for things he'd never seen,
Pined for a love abstracted from its object,
And was oppressed as he had never been.
IV
He stayed, and was imprisoned in possession:
By turns the seasons guarded his one way,
The mountains chose the mother of his children.
In lieu of conscience the sun ruled his day.
Beyond him, his young cousins in the city
Pursued their rapid and unnatural courses,
Believed in nothing but were easy-going,
Far less afraid of strangers than of horses.
He, though, changed little,
But took his colour from the earth,
And grew in likeness to his fowls and cattle.
The townsman thought him miserly and simple,
Unhappy poets took him for the truth,
And tyrants held him up as an example.
V
His care-free swagger was a fine invention:
Life was too slow, too regular, too grave.
With horse and sword he drew the girls' attention,
A conquering hero, bountiful and brave,
To whom teen-agers looked for liberation:
At his command they left behind their mothers,
Their wits were sharpened by the long migration,
His camp-fires taught them all the horde were brothers.
Till what he came to do was done: unwanted,
Grown seedy, paunchy, pouchy, disappointed,
He took to drink to screw his nerves to murder,
Or sat in offices and stole,
Boomed at his children about Law and Order,
And hated life with heart and soul.
VI
He watched the stars and noted birds in flight;
A river flooded or a fortress fell:
He made predictions that were sometimes right;
His lucky guesses were rewarded well.
Falling in love with Truth before he knew Her,
He rode into imaginary lands,
By solitude and fasting hoped to woo Her,
And mocked at those who served Her with their hands.
Drawn as he was to magic and obliqueness,
In Her he honestly believed, and when
At last She beckoned to him he obeyed,
Looked in Her eyes: awe-struck but unafraid,
Saw there reflected every human weakness,
And knew himself as one of many men.
VII
He was their servant (some say he was blind),
Who moved among their faces and their things:
Their feeling gathered in him like a wind
And sang. They cried 'It is a God that sings',
And honoured him, a person set apart,
Till he grew vain, mistook for personal song
The petty tremors of his mind or heart
At each domestic wrong.
Lines came to him no more; he had to make them
(With what precision was each strophe planned):
Hugging his gloom as peasants hug their land,
He stalked like an assassin through the town,
And glared at men because he did not like them,
But trembled if one passed him with a frown.
VIII
He turned his field into a meeting-place,
Evolved a tolerant ironic eye,
Put on a mobile money-changer's face,
Took up the doctrine of Equality.
Strangers were hailed as brothers by his clocks,
With roof and spire he built a human sky,
Stored random facts in a museum box,
To watch his treasure set a paper spy.
All grew so fast his life was overgrown,
Till he forgot what all had once been made for:
He gathered into crowds but was alone,
And lived expensively but did without,
No more could touch the earth which he had paid for,
Nor feel the love which he knew all about.
IX
He looked in all His wisdom from His throne
Down on the humble boy who herded sheep,
And sent a dove. The dove returned alone:
Song put a charmed rusticity to sleep.
But He had planned such future for this youth:
Surely, His duty now was to compel,
To count on time to bring true love of truth
And, with it, gratitude. His eagle fell.
It did not work: His conversation bored
The boy, who yawned and whistled and made faces,
And wriggled free from fatherly embraces,
But with His messenger was always willing
To go where it suggested, and adored,
And learned from it so many ways of killing.
X
So an age ended, and its last deliverer died
In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe:
The sudden shadow of a giant's enormous calf
Would fall no more at dusk across their lawns outside.
They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt
A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death,
But in a year the slot had vanished from the heath;
A kobold's knocking in the mountain petered out.
Only the sculptors and the poets were half-sad,
And the pert retinue from the magician's house
Grumbled and went elsewhere. The vanquished powers
were glad
To be invisible and free; without remorse
Struck down the silly sons who strayed into their course,
And ravished the daughters, and drove the fathers mad.
XI
Certainly praise: let song mount again and again
For life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face,
For vegetal patience, for animal courage and grace:
Some have been happy; some, even, were great men.
But hear the morning's injured weeping and know why:
Ramparts and souls have fallen; the will of the unjust
Has never lacked an engine; still all princes must
Employ the fairly-noble unifying lie.
History opposes its grief to our buoyant song,
To our hope its warning. One star has warmed to birth
One puzzled species that has yet to prove its worth:
The quick new West is false, and prodigious but wrong
The flower-like Hundred Families who for so long
In the Eighteen Provinces have modified the earth.
XII
Here war is harmless like a monument:
A telephone is talking to a man;
Flags on a map declare that troops were sent;
A boy brings milk in bowls. There is a plan
For living men in terror of their lives,
Who thirst at nine who were to thirst at noon,
Who can be lost and are, who miss their wives
And, unlike an idea, can die too soon.
Yet ideas can be true, although men die:
For we have seen a myriad faces
Ecstatic from one lie,
And maps can really point to places
Where life is evil now.
Nanking. Dachau.
XIII
Far from a cultural centre he was used:
Abandoned by his general and his lice,
Under a padded quilt he turned to ice
And vanished. He will never be perused
When this campaign is tidied into books:
No vital knowledge perished in that skull;
His jokes were stale; like wartime, he was dull;
His name is lost for ever like his looks.
Though runeless, to instructions from headquarters
He added meaning like a comma when
He joined the dust of China, that our daughters
Might keep their upright carriage, not again
Be shamed before die dogs, that, where are waters,
Mountains and houses, may be also men.
XIV
They are and suffer; that is all they do;
A bandage hides the place where each is living,
His knowledge of the world restricted to
A treatment metal instruments are giving.
They lie apart like epochs from each other
(Truth in their sense is how much they can bear;
It is not talk like ours but groans they smother),
From us remote as plants: we stand elsewhere.
For who when healthy can become a foot?
Even a scratch we can't recall when cured,
But are boisterous in a moment and believe
Reality is never injured, cannot
Imagine isolation: joy can be shared.
And anger, and the idea of love.
XV
As evening fell the day's oppression lifted;
Tall peaks came into focus; it had rained:
Across wide lawns and cultured flowers drifted
The conversation of the highly trained.
Thin gardeners watched them pass and priced their shoes;
A chauffeur waited, reading in the drive,
For them to finish their exchange of views:
It looked a picture of the way to live.
Far off, no matter what good they intended,
Two armies waited for a verbal error
With well-made implements for causing pain,
And on the issue of their charm depended
A land laid waste with all its young men slain,
Its women weeping, and its towns in terror.
XVI
Our global story is not yet completed.
Crime, daring, commerce, chatter will go on,
But, as narrators find their memory gone,
Homeless, disterred, these know themselves defeated.
Some could not like nor change the young and mourn for
Some wounded myth that once made children good,
Some lost a world they never understood,
Some saw too clearly all that man was born for.
Loss is their shadow-wife, Anxiety
Receives them like a grand hotel, but where
They may regret they must: their doom to bear
Love for some far forbidden country, see
A native disapprove them with a stare
And Freedom s back in every door and tree.
XVII
Simple like all dream-wishes, they employ
The elementary rhythms of the heart.
Speak to our muscles of a need for joy:
The dying and the lovers bound to part
Hear them and have to whistle. Ever new,
They mirror every change in our position,
They are our evidence of how we do,
The very echoes of our lost condition.
Think in this year what pleased the dancers best,
When Austria died, when China was forsaken,
Shanghai in flames and Teruel re-taken.
France put her case before the world: Partout
Il y a de la joie. America addressed
Mankind: Do you love me as I love you ?
XVIII
Chilled by the Present, its gloom and its noise,
On waking we sigh for an ancient South,
A warm nude age of instinctive poise,
A taste of joy in an innocent mouth.
At night in our huts we dream of a part
In the balls of the Future: each ritual maze
Has a musical plan, and a musical heart
Can faultlessly follow its faultless ways.
We envy streams and houses that are sure,
But, doubtful, articled to error, we
Were never nude and calm as a great door,
And never will be faultless like our fountains:
We live in freedom by necessity,
A mountain people dwelling among mountains.
XIX
When all our apparatus of report
Confirms the triumph of our enemies,
Our frontier crossed, our forces in retreat,
Violence pandemic like a new disease,
And Wrong a charmer everywhere invited,
When Generosity gets nothing done,
Let us remember those who looked deserted:
To-night in China let me think of one
Who for ten years of drought and silence waited,
Until in Muzot all his being spoke,
And everything was given once for all.
Awed, grateful, tired, content to die, completed,
He went out in the winter night to stroke
That tower as one pets an animal.
XX
Who needs their names? Another genus built
Those dictatorial avenues and squares,
Gigantic terraces, imposing stairs,
Men of a sorry kennel, racked by guilt,
Who wanted to persist in stone for ever:
Unloved, they had to leave material traces,
But these desired no statues but our faces,
To dwell there incognito, glad we never
Can dwell on what they suffered, loved or were.
Earth grew them as a bay grows fishermen
Or hills a shepherd. While they breathed, the air
All breathe took on a virtue; in our blood,
If we allow them, they can breathe again:
Happy their wish and mild to flower and flood.
XXI
(To E.M. Forster)
Though Italy and King's are far away,
And Truth a subject only bombs discuss,
Our ears unfriendly, still you speak to us,
Insisting that the inner life can pay.
As we dash down the slope of hate with gladness,
You trip us up like an unnoticed stone,
And, just when we are closeted with madness,
You interrupt us like the telephone.
Yes, we are Lucy, Turton, Philip: we
Wish international evil, are delighted
To join the jolly ranks of the benighted
Where reason is denied and love ignored,
But, as we swear our lie, Miss Avery
Comes out into the garden with a sword.

Sekundärliteratur
1985
Jean-Paul Forster : Auden's Sonnets from China is a good illustration of the nature of Auden's experimentation and of its relation to tradition. When the cycle first appeared under the title In time of war in Journey to a war, it formed the natural emotional climax of an experienc4e of disillusion and a poetical summing-up of the travel book. The sonnets deny and blur the distinction between history and discourse, past and present, rather than underline it. As is customary with sonnet sequences, Sonnets from China is not organized according to a consistent pattern. It presents a juxtaposition of pictures. This juxtaposition of what are for the most part portraits and scenes does, offer a fairly systematic survey of social and political life. If there is any order in the way the sonnets are arranged, it is social and not chronologically historical. The division into two groups of equal length would rather correspond to a distinction between sonnets dealing with ruling ideologies, masters and profiteers (sonnets I-IX) and those dealing with the victims and manipulated (sonnets X, XII-XVII). The sonnets consider in turn farmers, tyrants, soothsayers, poets, politicians, religious leaders, soldiers, wounded men in a hospital, gardeners, chauffeurs and exiles, as well as different aspects of life and social institutions. Each sonnet tells the story of a failure and there remains no doubt that the cycle is but an impressionistic survey of social and political life. Auden uses the conciseness and compactness of the sonnet form to present caricatures : striking, distorted pictures in which the distortion becomes denunciation. The poet combines past and present, ancient and modern features to create composite pictures of different sorts of life and types of men. The result is ahistorical. The first sonnet is a caricature of the Darwinian evolutionary myth, but it also shows that man escapes Darwin's determinism, though he is incapable of making use of his freedom. The fifth and eighth sonnets are caricatures of the tyrannical and liberal leaders of all times, and the twelfth of war as lived by the private soldier, who never fully understands what is really happening.
Sonnets from China is one of Auden's ambitious projects and typical creations in the second half of the thirties. He has found a new way of using the sonnet form. With their style and tone akin to those of reporting, the individual poems are like hasty magazine snapshots or political cartoons : this is what the historical and political vignette has become in the cycle. The very looseness of the form becomes expressive comment when it shows that man has lost his true nature as the sonnet has lost its true character.

1991
Edward Callan : Many of these sonnets are not directly about the war in China. The poems are wartime reflections on the human condition and on the role of the artist in time of war. The first three sonnets constitute a prologue on the evolution of human consciousness. They imply that only plants and animals are innocent or good by nature, and that man may use his freedom for either good or evil as he chooses. The next seven, a retrospect of human history markedly anti-Romantic and far from Marxist in outlook, combine the evocation of a series of historical epochs with portraits of personified types who supplied successive ages with models of heroic personality : the agriculturalist, the soldier, the prophet, the poet, and so on.
The Sonnet X is an sonnet on the Enlightenment. Its theme is that the Enlightenment, by banishing the mythical, the mysterious, and the illogical, prepared the way for their reappearance in the unconscious. Auden made the culmination of the retrospective survey of his own Western, intellectual heritage – a placement that gives weight to its questioning of wholly rational values (expressed elsewhere in his view that Hitler's rise in a center of humane learning cast doubt on the proposition that liberalism was self-supporting). Since this sonnet was composed in 1936, prior to Auden's visit to Spain and China, it confirms that the stages of his return to Anglicanism enumerated in Modern Canterbury Pilgrims are stated in exact sequence.
The second half of Sonnets from China moves on to the immediate situation in China by way of a transitional sonnet affirming the value of song. There follows a group of sonnets dealing directly with scenes from the war, with individual sonnets devoted to the dead, the wounded, air-raids, diplomats exchanging views, and so on.

Edward Albee, The Art of Theater No 4. In : the Paris review ; no 39 (1966). Interview by William Flanagan.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4350/the-art-of-theater-no-4-edward-albee.
Albee : You know the old story about the—I think it's one of Aesop's fables, or perhaps not, or a Chinese story—about the very clever animal that saw a centipede that he didn't like. He said, "My god, it's amazing and marvelous how you walk with all those hundreds and hundreds of legs. How do you do it ? How do you get them all moving that way? " The centipede stopped and thought and said, "Well, I take the left front leg and then I—" and he thought about it for a while, and he couldn't walk.

Rexroth, Kenneth. An autobiographical novel [ID D32236]. Chap. 34.
Witter Bynner was just beginning to translate Chinese poetry. He was the first person I had met with whom I could share my own interest. He had a very sensible Chinese informant, and bad never fallen victim to the outrageous ideographic theories of Ezra pound and Amy Lowell. He introduced me to the major Sinologists in French and English, in those days still a rather limited study, and recommended a Chinese student at the University of Chicago who was a great help to me the next winter. He also helped me to shift my focus of interest from the poetry of Li Tai Po, in those days considered by most Westerners China's greatest poet, to Tu Fu. For this-an hour's conversation in a sun-baked patio—I have reason to be eternally grateful to Witter Bynner. Tu Fu has been without question the major influence on my own poetry, and I consider him the greatest nonepic, jiondramatic poet who ever lived. In some ways he is a better poet than either Shakespeare or Homer. At least he is more natural and intimate.
Tu Fu comes from a saner, older, more secular culture than Homer and it is not a new discovery with him that the gods, the abstractions and forces of nature are frivolous, lewd, vicious, quarrelsome, and cruel, and only men s steadfastness, love, magnanimity, calm, and compassion redeem the nightbound world. It is not a discovery, culturally or historically, but it is the essence of his being as a poet If Isaiah is the greatest religious poet, Tu Fu is not religious at all. But for me his response to the human situation is the only kind of religion likely to outlast this century, "Reverence of life" it has been called. I have saturated myself with his poetry for thirty years. I am sure he has made me a better man, as a moral agent and as a perceiving organism. I say this because I feel that, above a certain level of attainment, the greatest poetry answers out of hand the problems of the critics and the esthetician. Poetry like Tu Fu's is the answer to the question "What is the purpose of art?"

Cavell, James. Tai-Pan : a novel of Hong Kong [ID D33471].
Sekundärliteratur
The novel begins following the British victory of the first Opium War and the seizure of Hong Kong. Although the island is largely uninhabited and the terrain unfriendly, it has a large natural harbour that both the British government and various trading companies believe will be useful for the import of merchandise to be traded on mainland China, a highly lucrative market.
Although the novel features many characters, it is Dirk Struan and Tyler Brock, former shipmates and the owners of two massive (fictional) trading companies who are the main focal points of the story. Their rocky and often abusive relationship as seamen initiated an intense amount of competitive tension. Throughout the novel, both men seek to destroy each other in matters of business and personal affairs. Struan is referred to throughout the novel as Tai-Pan, indicating his position as head of the largest of all the trading companies in Asia. Clavell translates Tai-Pan as "Supreme Leader," although as described in the Tai-Pan entry, "Big Shot" might be more accurate. Brock, owner of the second largest of the trading companies, constantly vies to destroy Struan's company and reputation in an attempt both to exact revenge on Struan and to become the new "Tai-Pan" of Chinese trade.

Gina Macdonald : The novel begins with problems experiences by Europeans in Canton and Macao and traces step-by-step the establishment of Hong Kong, the political twists and turns that threatenened its permanence, and the typhoon that destroyed its buildings but proved its value as a port. It also begins with the dreams and strategies of Dirk Struan, his love affair with a Chinese concubine, May-may, whom he secretly marries, and his conflict with the rival Brocks. The unexpected death of Dirk Struan and May-may amid the violence of a terrifying typhoon leaves the Noble House of Struan as vulnerable as the newly founded Hong Kong colony. Clavell's themes are as multifaceted as his book, but four dominate : 1. The determination, gamesmanship, and wit that are necessary to establish a colony that will endure ; 2. fascination with China ; 3. the threat of China ; 4) the importance of crossroads where alien cultures can meet and learn from each other to mutual benefit.
For Clavell, the founding of Hong Kong illustrates the genius, strength, and farsight-edness of the Englishman abroad, and, in particular, of the British sailor-merchant abroad. Contact with the West, argues Clavell, offers China Western technology through trade that increases wealth, better lives, and provides outlets for the potentially rebellious. Westerners and Easterners alike can escape some of the restrictions of their breeding in Hong Kong. Furthermore, contact with the West provides the Chinese with new models of law, justice, and human rights.
Struan/Clavell argues that the Portuguese priests want one's soul in exchange for kindness. To his disgust, Struan learns that the most pious religious leader in Hong Kong incestuously forced himself on his own dependent sister and that the most respectable community members lead secret lives of sin. May-may argues the wisdom of an open mind about religion, but notes that the Christian practice of burning heretics is far worse than the Chinese custom of offering the sea god a bar of silver bullion but only tossing over a prayer paper as a gesture.
Clavell contrasts nineteenth-century European ignorance about disease, their reliance on purging and leeching, and their distrust of washing and bathing with the ancient Chinese practice of medicine and the Chinese association of cleanliness with health.
Tai-Pan depicts British colonial, Hong Kong Chinese, and mainland Chinese family relationships, manners, mores, business strategies, and political maneuverings.
Struan' secret marriage to May-may, their death and their burial together unites the alternating movement between Chinese and European in a final amalgam that is Struan's dream for the future : a merging of the best of both cultures into a hybrid, the Eurasian.
Tai-Pan is a fictionalized history, dramatizing the founding of Hong Kong and bringing to life the men and women who created that citry. It is a historical romance, tracing the affairs of Hong Kong's founding fathers ; a dynasty story, of extended families gaining wealth and power through trade ; a sea adventure, with a night-time chase and private attack ; a medical story, about malaria and a cure that may be only legend ; and a spy story.

Higgins, Jack. The iron tiger. (New York, N.Y. : Fawcett, 1966).
Before the sun can set on Jack Drummond's career as a pilot in the British Navy, he must complete one final flight—a weapons drop over Tibet to aid guerilla fighters in their border dispute with the Red Chinese. But before he can complete the job, his plane and supplies are burned, stranding him in the Himalayas. Now, with his plane grounded, he must deliver a Tibetan leader's son to safety over land. With the advancing Chinese enemy hot on his heels, Drummond's final mission becomes a suspense-filled struggle for survival across the world's most rugged terrain.

Kulturrevolution. (2) : Westliche Literatur während der Kulturrevolution
Die klassische und moderne chinesische Literatur und die Weltliteratur wird negiert. In den Buchhandlungen stehen nur die Werke von Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin, Iossif Wissarionovitch Stalin und Mao Zedong. In den Bibliotheken darf man keine ausländische Literatur ausleihen, viele Werke werden als Abfall verkauft oder verbrannt, Übersetzungen werden verboten und nur heimlich geschrieben. Die einzigen erlaubten Übersetzungen sind Texte von Eugène Pottier, der Autor der Internationale und ausgewählte Gedichte von Georg Weerth wegen seiner Freundschaft mit Karl Marx. Bertolt Brecht und Huang Zuolin werden während der Kulturrevolution verboten. Huang kommt in Gefangenschaft.
"Livres confidentielles", die von einigen ausgewählten Rotgardisten gelesen werden :
Camus, Albert. Ju wai ren. = L'étranger.
Garaudy, Roger. Ren de yuan jing. = Perspectives de l'homme.
Kerouac, Jack. Zai lu shang. = On the road.
Salinger, J.D. Mai tian li de shou wang zhe. = The catcher in the rye.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Yan wu ji qi ta. = La nausée. Xian dai ying mei zi chan jie ji wen yi li lun wen xuan. (Bei jing : Zuo jia chu ban she, 1962). [Sélection des essais théoriques littéraires des bourgeois anglais et américains modernes]. 现代美英资产阶级文艺理论文选

Gründung des East Asian Institute der Universität Oslo.

Henry Henne ist Professor of East Asian Languages and Literature an der Universität Oslo.

Gründung des Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Moskau.

Antonino Forte studiert chinesischen Buddhismus am Research Institute for Humanistic Studies der Kyoto-Universität.

Leonard Appleyard arbeitet an der britischen Botschaft in China.

Percy Cradock ist Councellor der britischen Botschaft in Beijing.

Peter Hewitt ist Generalkonsul des britischen Generalkonsulats in Shanghai.

Walter P. McConaughy ist Botschafter der amerikanischen Botschaft in Taiwan.

Zheng Weizhi ist Botschafter der chinesischen Botschaft in der Schweiz.

Zeng Yongquan ist Botschafter der chinesischen Botschaft in Bukarest, Rumänien.

Ausstellung "Chinesische Malerei : Sammlung von Faksimile-Reproduktionen" in Neuchâtel.

Ausstellung "Les quatre grands peintres de la dynastie Ming" in der Collections Baur, Genève.