Three Poems of Po Chu-i
One of China’s greatest poets reflects on silence, on speech, and on a song in the heart of a friend.
One of China’s greatest poets reflects on silence, on speech, and on a song in the heart of a friend.
Po Chu-i or Bai Juyi (772-846) was a career bureaucrat in the Chinese government, national and regional, whose abilities and frank criticisms brought a head-spinning series of promotions and demotions. He is also one of China’s best-loved poets. Below are three of his many short poems, one playful, one protesting, and one a thoughtful tribute to his closest friend.
Translated by Arthur Waley
On the Philosophy of Lao-tzu*
“THOSE who speak know nothing;
Those who know are silent.”
These words, as I am told,
Were spoken by Lao-tzu.
If we are to believe that Lao-tzu
Was himself one who knew,
How comes it that he wrote a book
Of five thousand words?
The Red Cockatoo
SENT as a present from Annam —
A red cockatoo.
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.
And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.
Aboard Ship: Reading Yuan Chen’s Poems*
I TAKE your poems in my hand and read them beside the candle;
The poems are finished: the candle is low: dawn not yet come.
With sore eyes by the guttering candle still I sit in the dark,
Listening to waves that, driven by the wind, strike the prow of the ship.
Translated by Arthur Waley
From ‘A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems’ (1918), translated by Arthur Waley (1889-1966).
* A sixth-century BC philosopher and contemporary of Confucius, who was the founder of Taoism. The Tang dynasty (618-907), the royal house of Po Chu-i’s day, venerated him as an Imperial ancestor.
* Yuan Chen was Po Chui-i’s closest friend, and Po admitted that he did not make friends easily. Po would write of him:
We did not go up together for Examination;
We were not serving in the same Department of State.
The bond that joined us lay deeper than outward things;
The rivers of our souls spring from the same well.
Both men had a habit of speaking out of turn, and their various banishments kept them apart. Yuan Chen died in 831.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did Po find it incongruous that Lao-tzu recommended a habit of silence?
Because Lao-tzu was famous for his sayings.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Say what you think. People will try to stop you. Ignore them.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IFrank. IINotice. IIISilence.