The “Fu on the Snow” by Hsieh Hui-lien, cousin of the famous landscape poet Hsieh Ling-yün, appears to be a work of pure literary fiction, with no overt references to the writer’s own time or personality. It is set in what was looked upon as one of the golden ages of fu writing, the time of the early Han nobleman King Hsiao of Liang, the other great age being that of Sung Yü and his patron, King Hsiang of Ch’u, depicted in the “Fu on the Wind.” Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju is portrayed as the author of the main parts of the work, with the poets Tsou Yang and Mei Sheng contributing two songs in a slightly different meter and a reprise, while the snow itself speaks the concluding words. In Hsieh Hui-lien’s treatment, the snow becomes not merely a natural phenomenon to be described objectively, but a source of joy, an object of aesthetic appreciation, and, like the wind of Sung Yü’s poem, a symbolic presence capable of conveying lessons of deep moral and philosophical import. Wen hsüan 13.
The year was ending, the season in its twilight; cold winds piled up and cheerless clouds filled the sky. The king of Liang, dispirited, wandered in the Rabbit Garden; then he laid out choice wine and sent for his guests and companions, a summons to Master Tsou, an invitation to Uncle Mei; Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju arrived last, taking the place of honor to the right of the other guests.1 All at once a fine sleet began to fall, followed by heavy snow. The king proceeded to intone the “North Wind” from the songs of Wei, and to hum the “Southern Mountain” from the odes of Chou.2 Then, offering a writing tablet to Lord Ssu-ma, he said, “Try delving into your secret thoughts, setting your sleekest words to galloping; match color for color, weigh your fine effects, and make me a fu on this scene!”
Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju moved politely off his mat, rose, retreated a few steps, and bowed. “I have heard,” he said, “that the Snow Palace was constructed in an eastern country, that the Snow Mountain soars in a western borderland. Ch’ang of Ch’i poured out his lament of ‘when we come back’; Man of the Chi clan fashioned his song on the yellow bamboo.3 The Ts’ao air employs hemp robes as a smile for its color; Ch’u singers pair the Hidden Orchid with the song about it.4 If it piles up a foot deep, it offers fair omen for a rich year ahead; but more than ten feet, it signals disharmony besetting the power of the yin. The snow has far-reaching significance where the seasons are concerned. With your permission, I’ll speak of how it all begins:
“When the dark months have run out
And harsh breaths are ascendant;
When Scorching Creek ices over,
And Hot Water Valley freezes,
The Well of Fire is quenched
And Warm Springs congeal,
Their bubbling pools no longer churning,
Their fiery winds having ceased to stir;
When north-facing doorways have been chinked with plaster
And the land of the naked swathes itself in cloth;
Then rivers and seas bring forth clouds,
Northern deserts send their sands flying,
Wreathing vapor to vapor, piling up mists,
Hiding the sun, engulfing its red rays.
Sleet is the first to come hissing down,
Followed by thicker and thicker flurries of snow;
See them darting, scattering, mingling, turning,
Blanketing, blinding, dense and dark,
Softly seething, bobbing, gliding,
Faster and faster falling now,
Endless wings that beat and flutter,
Swirling till they come to rest in drifts.
At first they light on roof tiles, crowning the ridgepole;
In the end they force the blinds apart, slither in through cracks;
Where earlier they sidled nimbly over porch and verandah,
Now they whirl and tumble by curtain and mat.
In square hollows they form jade pilasters,
In round holes they’re transformed into circlets of jade.
Mark the lowlands—ten thousand acres of the same fabric;
Look at the mountains—a thousand cliffs all white!
Now terraces become like stacked jade discs,
Highways like ribbons of alabaster;
Courtyards are fitted with flights of jasper steps,
Forests ranged with chalcedony trees.
The snowy crane is robbed of distinction,
The silver pheasant bereft of hue;
Silken sleeves find their beauty shamefully lacking,
Jade faces hide their fairness from sight.
While the heaps of whiteness have not yet melted,
And the bright sun of morning shines clear,
They gleam like the Torch Dragon,
Flame in mouth, that illumines the K’un-lun Mountains;
And when rivulets flow and drip down in icicles,
Dangling from gutters, hanging at roof corners,
They sparkle as though P’ing-i, god of rivers,
Had pried open mussels and hung out bright pearls.
Such is this show of tangled profusion,
This model of stainlessness, purity, white;
The force of this wheeling, staggering onrush,
The wonder of this dazzle and charge,
That its shifting forms seem never to end—
Ah, who can hope to understand them all!
Before I finish, shall I describe our pastimes?
The night, dark and still, wakes many thoughts.
Wind buffets the columns, its echoes tumbling;
Moonlight rests on curtains, its rays pouring through.
We dip rich wine brewed from Hsiang waters in Wu,
Don double capes of fox and badger,
Face the garden pheasants that dance in pairs,
Watch the cloud-borne goose winging alone.
And as I walk the drifts of mingled sleet and snow,
I pity these leaves and branches forced apart;
Distant thoughts race a thousand miles away,
I long to join hands and go home together.”5
Tsou Yang, hearing these words, was moved by pity and admiration and, thinking to add to the beautiful flow of sound, he respectfully asked if he might contribute a composition of his own. Then he rose to his feet and recited this “Song of the Drifted Snow”:
Lift the folded curtains,
Spread silken comforters,
Perfumed mats to sit on.
We’ll light up incense burners,
Make the torches glow,
Ladle cassia-scented wine
To sing this pure refrain.”
Continuing, he composed the “Song of the White Snow”:
“Songs have been sung,
Wine already drunk;
Red faces flushed now,
Thoughts must turn to love.
I want to let down the curtains, push the pillows close;
I dream of untying sashes, of loosing girdle bands.
I hate the year so quickly ended,
Grieve we have no means to meet again.
Only see the white snow on the stairs—
How little will be left to shine in the warmth of spring!”
When he had finished, the king tried singing the songs over to himself two or three times, getting the feel of them, waving his arm to keep time. Then, turning to Mei Sheng, he asked him to stand up and compose a Reprise. This is how it went:
White feathers too are white,
But lightness is their special nature;6
White jade too is white,
But stubbornly it guards the chaste hardness of its form.
Neither can match this snow
That comes into being and melts away with the season.
When the dark yin freezes, its purity stays unsullied,
But when the warm sun shines, it no longer strives to guard its virtue:
“Virtue—when was that my fame?
Purity—what concern of mine?
Riding the clouds, I soar and descend,
Tagging the wind, I tumble and fall,
Taking on the form of things I encounter,
Assuming the shape of the land where I lie.
I’m white when that which I touch is so,
Grimy when surroundings stain me.
Free, my heart wanders far and wide;
What is there to fret over, what is there to plan?”
NOTES
1. Liu Wu, posthumously known as King Hsiao of Liang, was a younger brother of Emperor Ching (r. 157–141 B.C.) of the Former Han. The Rabbit Garden, where he and his guests took part in cultured pastimes, is famous in literary history. The poets referred to here are Tsou Yang (2nd cen. B.C.), Mei Sheng (d. 140 B.C.), and Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju (179–117 B.C.).
2. Book of Odes #41 and #210, both songs having to do in part with snow.
3. Ch’ang, posthumously known as King Wen of Chou, is supposed to have written the song in Odes #167 which contains the lines: “Long ago we set out / when willows were rich and green. / Now we come back / through thickly falling snow.” Man is the personal name of King Mu of Chou, who wrote the Yellow Bamboo song at a time of severe cold. In characteristic Chinese fashion, Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju begins with a barrage of classical allusions before settling down to the actual description.
4. Odes #150, one of the airs of the state of Ts’ao, compares the whiteness of snow to that of hemp robes; Hidden Orchid and White Snow are two pieces often performed by singers and lute players of the state of Ch’u.
5. According to commentators, the leaves and branches remind the poet of his brothers and kinsmen far away and he longs to join them.
6. Lightness would also seem to be a characteristic of snow; but I think Hsieh has in mind the contrast between an accumulation of feathers, which is still relatively light, and an accumulation of snow, which is much heavier than one would anticipate from watching it fall.