(early form showing a crescent moon: 
) and 
(early forms showing a bright, hot sun: 
).Notes
These translations follow the basic structure of the original poems. As evidenced in the translations, the couplet is the basic building block of most classical Chinese poetry. Line lengths are rendered, relative to one another, as in the original. Generally they are either five or seven characters long. Exceptions to this rule are clear from line-lengths in the translations. Otherwise, I have freely used the resources available in English, even when they do not correspond to anything in the original: enjambment, for instance, is rare in classical Chinese poetry.
INTRODUCTION
Normally, the absent subject must be filled in with an “I” in English. Chinese poets will occasionally say “I,” but usually an “I” in English is translating that open space in the grammar where the poet exists as a kind of absent presence—an unavoidable and egregious distortion of the original.
EARLY COLLECTIONS: THE ORAL TRADITION
Line lengths in The Book of Songs are generally four characters, with lines occasionally running longer.
THE BOOK OF SONGS
Dark-Enigma: See Key Terms: hsüan.
Heaven: See chapter introduction, here.
Shang: China’s earliest historical dynasty (traditional dates 1766–1122 B.C.E.) and its people. See chapter introduction, here.
Celestial Lord: Shang Ti, for whom see chapter introduction, here.
T’ang: Renowned first emperor (regnant c. 1766–1753 B.C.E.) of the Shang Dynasty. In Chou times this story of T’ang was embellished, in light of the Chou’s emphasis on the idea of a Mandate of Heaven, and Emperor T’ang came to be known as the leader who overthrew the corrupt and unworthy Hsia, the quasi-historical dynasty that preceded the Shang.
Mandate: The Mandate of Heaven, the right to rule, bestowed by Heaven and dependent upon the ruler’s wise and benevolent actions. See also chapter introduction, here.
Wu Ting: Much celebrated later Shang ruler (regnant 1324–1265 B.C.E.). It is said that this poem was composed for a memorial ceremony several years after he died. It had clearly evolved considerably by the time it was collected in the Chou, as it speaks of Heaven and the Mandate, which were Chou concepts.
wine: There is no accurate translation for chiu, which is so prevalent in Chinese poetry. It was essentially the same as Japanese sake, whose recipe was imported from China. Chiu was made of fermented grains and had an alcohol content similar to that of wine. It was also similar to wine in the epicurean culture that surrounded it, for it was produced in a wide variety of styles and flavors, the finest of which were much valued by connoisseurs. Simple types of chiu could also be produced at home, and they often were by poor recluse poets.
Millet God: Millet was the staple grain in early Chinese culture, which was centered in the north. It was later replaced by rice, which was originally cultivated only in the south.
T’ai: Tan-fu (literally “True-Father”) was a celebrated early ruler of the Chou. He was the grandfather of Emperor Wen, who appears at the end of this poem and in the following one.
Tortoise shells: The ventral shells of tortoises were used in ancient China to seek divine guidance. They were inscribed with what is the earliest surviving form of Chinese writing, then pierced with a hot instrument until they cracked. The orientations of the cracks in relation to the inscriptions were taken to indicate answers to the questions posed.
Yü and Jui: Neighboring states. They pledged peace after seeing how perfectly ordered the Chou state was, and according to legend, this led another forty states to declare allegiance to the Chou ruler.
Emperor Wen: Wen (literally “Cultured”) is the Chou emperor who, through his exemplary rule, set the stage for the Chou conquest of the Shang. It was his eldest son, Emperor Wu (literally “Martial”), who actually overthrew the Shang. His other son, the Duke of Chou (see chapter introduction, here) ruled after Wu’s early death, and it was under his leadership that the Chou empire was consolidated and expanded.
Seventh Moon: The primary Chinese calendar is lunar. The beginning of the year comes with the second new moon after the winter solstice and corresponds to the beginning of spring, when the earth is reborn. It falls somewhere between January 20 and February 20, so the first month corresponds roughly to February and the twelfth to January. Hence, months one through three are spring, four through six are summer, seven through nine are fall, and ten through twelve are winter. In Chinese, the word for “month” is moon, and the word for “day” is sun, both of which are clear pictographic images: (early form showing a crescent moon: ) and (early forms showing a bright, hot sun: ).
Fire Star: Also known as the Year Star, Fire Star begins to decline in the seventh month, an event that was used to mark the annual cycles. Hence, the poem’s title and the repetition of “seventh moon” and “Fire Star” in the first three stanzas.
Silkworm moon: Silk was a basic industry in ancient China. The silkworm moon was the fourth lunar month, when the silkworms hatch out and feed on mulberry leaves. The reeds in line 2 were woven into baskets for gathering mulberry leaves and into frames where silkworms were kept as they were feeding.
He built his hut: This is the earliest surviving instance of the mountain-recluse poem that was to become so common in later Chinese poetry.
ch’in: A very ancient stringed instrument much revered by Chinese intellectuals as a means for attaining enlightenment, often appearing in poems and used as accompaniment when Chinese poets chanted their poems. In the hands of a master, a ch’in could voice with profound clarity the rivers-and-mountains realm, empty mind, even the very source of all things. For other descriptions of this spiritual aspect of ch’in music, see poems here, here, and here. See also The Resonance of the Qin in East Asian Art by Stephen Addiss (New York: China Institute, 1999).
TAO TE CHING
perennial absence … appearance: An especially noteworthy instance of the rich linguistic ambiguity in ancient Chinese and how well Lao Tzu exploits it, for these lines are often read
Free of perennial desire, you see mystery,
and full of perennial desire, you see appearance.
dark-enigma: See Key Terms: hsüan.
absence … presence: See general introduction, here.
nothing’s own doing: See Key Terms: wu-wei.
spirit … drifting away: It was generally believed that a person’s spirit drifts away after death.
ch’i: See Key Terms.
mirror: Empty mind or pure awareness. See Key Terms: hsin.
heaven’s gate: Gateway through which the ten thousand things come into being and return to nothing.
Integrity: The Te of Tao Te Ching, Integrity means integrity to Tao in the sense of “abiding by the Way,” or “enacting the Way.” Hence, it is Tao’s manifestation in the world, especially in a sage-master of Tao.
occurrence appearing of itself: See Key Terms: tzu-jan.
knot ropes: A very early system of writing in China.
THE SONGS OF CH’U
The Question of Heaven: It seems likely that the title originally applied only to the section translated here: the first twenty-two questions, which concern cosmology. Of course, it is very possible that there were many more such questions, and that the others were simply lost. The rest of the poem’s 172 questions concern earthly legends and legendary heroes, beginning in deep mythological times and slowly progressing up to early historical times (concerns that are of much less poetic interest and require extensive explanatory notes).
yin and yang: The two fundamental forces of the universe: male and female, hot and cold, light and dark. They arose from an undifferentiated primordial unity, and their interaction gave birth to the empirical universe, its ten thousand things, and their constant transformation. Here, yin and yang are the “blazing radiance and utter darkness” of the preceding section.
tethered … axle-pole: Legends tell how the center of the sky was supported by a celestial axle-pole, around which it revolved, held by ropes leading from the axle-pole to the edges of the sky.
eight pillars: In those same legends, the outer edge of the sky was supported atop eight mountains, one in each of the eight directions.
southeast tilting down: An early myth explains why the pole around which the heavens turn is not exactly overhead and why rivers all flow toward China’s southeast. The story tells how, in the midst of a battle between two gods, the northwest pillar was knocked down, causing the sky and earth (that is, China, which was believed to be the whole of the world) to tilt together in the northwest and apart in the southeast.
meanders: The constellations are not so neatly arranged that they fit inside nine perfectly symmetrical regions divided by straight boundaries. The boundary lines had to “meander back and forth” around the protruding constellations.
Boiling Abyss: In one myth, the sun bathes after its daytime journey in the waters of night, its heat causing them to boil.
rabbit inside its belly: Early myth saw in the darker regions of the moon a rabbit grinding herbs into an elixir of immortality.
ch’i: See Key Terms.
Great-Unity: A deification of the undifferentiated primordial unity out of which arose yin and yang and the ten thousand things. As a divinity, T’ai-yi was a sky-god identified with the brightest of the circumpolar stars.
spirit-one: A shamaness.
Solar-Perch Tree: According to myth, the sun is ten crows, one for each day of the week (the Chinese week was ten days long). They perch in the huge Solar-Perch (Fu-sang) Tree in the east waiting for their turn to rise.
waters of night: See note ”Boiling Abyss.”
Northern Dipper: The Big Dipper.
from Confronting Grief: This translation is composed of extracts chosen to create a much shortened version of the original while still reading like a poem. The original is over four times as long: 376 lines, compared with the translation’s 84.
P’eng Hsien: A noble minister from the Shang Dynasty who drowned himself when the emperor refused to heed his counsel. He returns at the end of the poem.
Emperor Shun: Mythic ruler (regnant 2255–2208 B.C.E.) of great sagacity during the legendary golden age of China.
K’un-lun Mountain: A towering range of mythic proportions in the far east, filled with supernatural sites and populated with legendary goddesses and immortals.
Solar-Perch Tree: See note here.
Shao K’ang … daughters: Characters from the quasi-historical Hsia Dynasty (c. 2205 to 1766 B.C.E.). Ch’ü Yüan is now traveling not only through space, but through time as well, for he has returned to the time before Shao K’ang had married the daughters.
P’eng Hsien … dwelling-place: The Ch’ü Yüan legend does indeed end with him drowning himself, like P’eng Hsien. Ch’ü Yüan does this in the Flood-Gauze (Mi-lo) River, an act of loyal protest against corrupt government that is still commemorated in the Dragon-Boat Festival (fifth day of the fifth lunar month), during which dragon-boats are paddled out onto waterways in imitation of the boats that reputedly went out searching for Ch’ü Yüan when he threw himself into the river.
LATER FOLK-SONG COLLECTIONS
Earth-Drumming Song: Reputed to be a poem dating to legendary Emperor Yao’s reign (2357 to 2255 B.C.E.).
We Fought South of the Wall: Many Music-Bureau folk-songs exist in later variations, in both the oral and the written traditions. For an especially well-known later variation of this poem, see Li Po’s “War South of the Great Wall.”
Great Wall: The Great Wall became emblematic of the hardship people endured because of war. Building it to defend China’s northern frontier caused vast amounts of suffering and death among the workers, and the soldiers sent to defend it against northern invaders also suffered and died in large numbers.
love-carp: A wooden container for letters made in the shape of paired carp, a symbol of marital joy and fertility.
six dragons: The sun was believed to be pulled by a team of six dragons.
Ox-Herd: One of China’s best-known star myths, recurring often in poetry, involves the Ox-Herd and Weaver-Girl stars, which correspond to our Vega and Altair. The myth tells how the Weaver-Girl was so devoted to loom-work that her parents, the Emperor and Empress of Heaven, began to worry about her happiness. They married her to the Ox-Herd, but then she forgot her loom-work entirely, preferring the joys of their new life together. This so displeased her parents that the empress, with a single stroke of her great silver hairpin, created the Star River (Milky Way) between the lovers, separating them forever. But the emperor, seeing how unhappy the lovers now were, declared that they would be allowed to meet for one night each year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, when all the magpies on earth fly up and hover over the Star River, creating a bridge for the Weaver-Girl to cross. And the lovers’ tears upon parting are said to account for the autumn rains. There is still a festival held on this day in honor of the lovers. Celebrants hope there will be no rain, for the Star River is always brimful, and even a little rain will push it over its banks, creating a flood that will wash away the magpie bridge, thus preventing the lovers from meeting.
Star River: The Milky Way, also known by a number of other appellations, such as Silver River and River of Heaven.
pine and cypress: Noteworthy because they stay green through the winter. Hence, they were traditionally planted in graveyards.
Lady Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons: There are 117 Lady Midnight songs, which are arranged in two collections: Lady Midnight Songs (42 songs) and Lady Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons (75 songs). This selection has incorporated a number of the Lady Midnight Songs in the seasonal cycle of the Lady Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons collection.
ready winter robes … sticks beating: In a grief-filled autumn ritual that often appears in poetry, the women of China would thicken cloth for winter clothes by spreading it on special stones and pounding it with a paddle, a process called “fulling.” In poetry, this was usually a ritual of longing for lovers who had been taken far away to fight in wars. The ritual’s sexual connotations are especially clear in the following oral-tradition poem from the same era as the Lady Midnight songs:
THE RIVER-CROSSING AT AZURE-BRIGHTS
For my fulling-stone of emerald jade,
this gold-lotus stick of seven jewels:
I lift it high, let it fall gently, gently
its light strokes plunge for you alone.
yin … yang: See note here. In a landscape, yin corresponds to places shaded from the sun’s light (north sides of mountains and south sides of rivers), and yang corresponds to places exposed to the sun’s light (south sides of mountains and north sides of rivers).
FIRST MASTERS: THE MAINSTREAM BEGINS
SU HUI
This facsimile was prepared by Michèle Métail, the French sinologist who reconstructed the complex rules that govern this text.
T’AO CH’IEN
dust: An oft-used metaphor for insubstantial worldly affairs.
gate: Literally, the entrance gate in the wall or fence that surrounds the courtyard of a house or monastery. But throughout the recluse tradition, gate often carries the metaphoric sense of “awareness,” that through which the empirical world enters consciousness. Hence, the home within the gates is not only a recluse’s house but his mind as well. This added dimension recalls a passage in Chapter 52 of the Tao Te Ching, where a kind of meditative practice is described:
If you block the senses
and close the gate,
you never struggle.
If you open the senses
and expand your endeavors,
nothing can save you.
The idea of “closing the gate” became a familiar motif in recluse poetry and recurs in Wang Wei’s work, the literal point being that the recluse’s house was very secluded and he was content in that seclusion, rather than longing for company. Other equally resonant motifs include leaving the gate open and sweeping the gate-path as a gesture of welcome for unexpected guests. See hsien in Key Terms for the role gate plays in that central spiritual posture, idleness.
empty: See Key Terms: k’ung.
idleness: See Key Terms: hsien.
occurrence appearing of itself: See Key Terms: tzu-jan.
During T’ao Ch’ien’s life, the country was ravaged by civil war and widespread peasant rebellions. The devastation described in this poem was no doubt caused by this fighting, which had recently swept through the region, and it gives another dimension to T’ao Ch’ien’s recluse life.
12th Month, KueiYear of the Hare: January 404.
cups and bowls: A reference to Confucius’s favorite disciple, Yen Hui, who is described in Analects 6.10:
The Master said: “How noble Yen Hui is! To live in a meager lane with nothing but some rice in a split-bamboo bowl and some water in a gourd cup—no one else could bear such misery. But it doesn’t even bother Hui. His joy never wavers. O, how noble Hui is!”
Drinking Wine: In Chinese poetry, the practice of drinking wine generally means consuming just enough to achieve a serene clarity of attention, a state in which the isolation of a mind imposing distinctions on the world gives way to a sense of identity with the world. Po Chü-i half-seriously claimed that wine rivaled Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism as a spiritual practice, and Li Po too thought wine could bring a kind of enlightenment, as in the poem here. In fact, wine and “drunkenness” generally function in Chinese poetry almost as a symbol that says the poet has attained a certain level of (temporary) enlightenment. For the nature of Chinese wine (chiu) itself, see note here.
a hundred years: Conventional reckoning of a life span.
Section 5: This famous poem resonated through the tradition, as can be seen in Su Tung-p’o’s “After T’ao Ch’ien’s ‘Drinking Wine’” and Yang Wan-li’s “Inscribed on a Wall at Liu Te-fu’s Absolute-Meaning Pavilion.”
chrysanthemums: The petals of chrysanthemums were mixed with wine to make chrysanthemum wine, popularly believed to promote longevity. Chrysanthemums have always been identified with T’ao Ch’ien because of the central place they held in his poetic world. See also here and here.
South Mountain: Calling up such passages as “like the timelessness of South Mountain” in The Book of Songs (Shih Ching 166.6), South Mountain came to have a kind of mythic stature as the embodiment of the elemental and timeless nature of the earth. Given this pedigree, poets often used this name to refer to whatever mountain happened to be south of them.
9/9: Dominated by thoughts of mortality, this autumn festival is celebrated on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month because the word for “nine” (chiu) is pronounced the same as the word meaning “long-lasting” or “long-living,” hence “ever and ever.” Hiking to mountaintops and drinking chrysanthemum wine were the customary activities on this holiday.
Cha Festival: Ancient name for the La Festival, which in T’ao’s time fell on the last day of the lunar year. It was the first day of New Year’s festivities celebrating the arrival of spring and the rebirth of earth.
Peach-Blossom Spring: This famous and often alluded to prose piece is actually an introductory note to a poem on the same topic. The story probably existed already in the folk tradition, where it was a fantasy about immortals, but in T’ao Ch’ien’s retelling it is about an idealized community of very real humans.
Great-Origin years: Chinese history is divided into reign periods, which were declared by the emperors. Great-Origin lasted from 376 to 397 C.E.
asked the way: An allusion to Confucius’s Analects 18.6, where the “river-crossing” represents the Way through this “surging and swelling” world, which a sage masters:
As Confucius passed by, Settled-Constant and Brave-Seclusion were in the field plowing together. He sent Adept Lu to ask them about the river crossing.
“Who’s that you’re driving for?” asked Settled-Constant.
“Confucius,” replied Adept Lu.
“You mean Confucius of Lu?”
“Yes.”
“Then he must know the river-crossing well.”
Adept Lu then asked Brave-Seclusion, but Brave-Seclusion replied, “So who are you?”
“I am Chung Yu,” replied Adept Lu.
“You mean Chung Yu who follows Confucius of Lu?”
“Yes.”
“It’s all surging and swelling,” continued Brave-Seclusion. “All beneath Heaven’s foundering deep, and who’s going to change it? To follow a man who stays clear of one person or another—how could that ever compare with following one who stays clear of the world?”
And folding earth back over seed, he went on working without pause.
old home’s on South Mountain: Tombs were placed on mountain slopes.
village of weeds: Reference to the early burial song “Village of Weeds.”
HSIEH LING-YÜN
dragons: As benevolent as it is destructive, the Chinese dragon is both feared and revered as the awesome force of life itself. Animating all things and in constant transformation, it descends in autumn into deep waters, where it hibernates until spring, when it rises. Because the dragon embodies the spirit of change, its awakening is equivalent to the coming of spring and the return of life to earth.
new yang swelling, transforming old yin: The ongoing process of change is produced by the intermingling of yin and yang. Winter is pure yin, but as yin declines and yang increases, the season moves through spring into summer, which is pure yang. Thereafter, yang declines and yin increases, moving the year back through autumn to winter. See also notes here and here.
yes this and no that: That one should not choose yes this or no that is a recurring idea in Chuang Tzu (two examples among many are 2.8 and 5.6). Only by accepting the unfolding of tzu-jan as it is can one dwell wholly as a part of that unfolding. As soon as you begin to judge, approving of some things and disapproving of others, wishing they were otherwise, you have separated yourself from the selfless unfolding of tzu-jan.
ch’i-sited: It was thought that the different features of a landscape determine the movement of ch’i, the universal breath (see Key Terms). The best site for a house would be chosen by a diviner who analyzed how the local movements of ch’i harmonized with the particular characteristics of those who would live in the house.
adoration: See chapter introduction, here.
inner pattern: See chapter introduction, here, and Key Terms: li.
grandfather: Hsieh’s ancestral estate in Shih-ning (Origin-Serene) was established by his renowned great-great-uncle Hsieh An. Ling-yün’s grandfather was Hsieh Hsüan, who returned to this family estate to live in seclusion after an illustrious career that included leading the Chinese armies to a decisive victory at Fei River (383), thereby saving Chinese civilization from being completely overrun by the foreign invaders who already controlled the north. Hsieh Hsüan developed the estate, but it had been neglected from that time until Ling-yün came, a period of thirty-four years. During this time there were several peasant rebellions against the aristocracy, and the Hsieh estate had probably suffered extensive damage as a result.
Ch’ü Yüan: First major poet in the written tradition. See here.
Yüeh Yi: Like Hsieh’s grandfather and Ch’ü Yüan, Yüeh Yi was a national hero who fell out of favor with his sovereign. Once the sovereign had turned against him because of slanders, Yüeh Yi decided to leave the country rather than risk execution.
idleness: See Key Terms: hsien.
Master Pan: Pan Szu (c. 1st century B.C.E.—1st century C.E.), a Taoist recluse known for his profound sayings.
Master Shang: A resolute recluse who eventually allowed himself to be coaxed into taking office to alleviate his desperate poverty. He served reluctantly and finally left to end his life traveling among China’s famous mountains.
Thatch-Hut Mountain: Perhaps the mountain most cultivated in the Chinese poetic tradition, Thatch-Hut Mountain is a presence in the work of most major poets, especially those in the rivers-and-mountains tradition. It was also a major monastic center. Of the many monasteries on Thatch-Hut Mountain, East-Forest was the most famous. It was founded there by Prajñā–Distance (Hui Yüan, 334–416), a major figure in Chinese Buddhism who emphasized dhyāna (sitting meditation) as he taught a form of Buddhism that contained early glimmers of Ch’an (ch’an is the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit dhyāna). It is said that Prajñā-Distance was an acquaintance of both T’ao Ch’ien and Hsieh Ling-yün, and that it was a visit to East-Forest that first aroused Hsieh’s devotion to Buddhism.
Ellipses indicate lacunae in the text.
T’ANG DYNASTY I: THE GREAT RENAISSANCE
MENG HAO-JAN
Autumn Begins: This poem is discussed at length in the general introduction.
Ch’in: See note here.
Juan Chi: Poet from the third century C.E.
mind: See Key Terms: hsin.
Warrior-Knoll: Location of the Peach-Blossom Spring in T’ao Ch’ien’s tale here.
five recluse willows: An oft-used reference to T’ao Ch’ien, who wrote a playful autobiographical sketch entitled Biography of Master Five-Willows, in which he described himself as having “five willows growing beside his house” (see my Selected Poems of T’ao Ch’ien, here).
North-Slope’s sage master: A master of the Way who visited Wang Hsi-chih, the great calligrapher and elder contemporary of T’ao Ch’ien. The purpose of his visit was to trade a flock of rare geese for a copy of the Tao Te Ching in Wang’s calligraphy.
dharma: The Chinese term (fa) literally means “law,” and as dharma it is the fundamental law governing the unfolding of reality, or in fact the very manifestation of reality. It is also the teaching of that law or manifestation of reality.
Warrior-Knoll: Here, Meng changes the focus of T’ao Ch’ien’s “Peach-Blossom Spring” paradise to Ch’an immediacy.
Thatch-Hut Mountain … Prajñã-Distance … East-Forest: See note here.
Deer-Gate Mountain: Meng Hao-jan’s legendary recluse home.
Master P’ang: A fabled recluse from the second century C.E., Master P’ang lived on Deer-Gate Mountain and never entered cities or took office.
peach-blossom pure: Another reference to T’ao Ch’ien’s “Peach-Blossom Spring.”
dark-enigma: See Key Terms: hsüan.
WANG WEI
find empty rivers and mountains: Not in the sense that he finds nothing, but in the sense that “empty rivers and mountains” are “old masters,” and that Meng’s sagacity was almost indistinguishable from theirs.
sangha: A Buddhist community, especially a group of people gathered around a particular teacher.
white cloud: This image of white cloud recurs often in the Chinese poetic tradition, simultaneously describing an empty and free state of mind, the sense of secluded distances, and the sense of drifting free like a cloud.
P’ei Ti: P’ei Ti was Wang Wei’s closest friend and kindred spirit. This friendship is famous for the poetic exchanges that resulted when they were together in the mountains. One would write a poem, then the other would try to write a reply that echoed or responded in some way to the first. The “Wheel-Rim River” sequence that follows this poem is a particularly well-known example. But this set is also quite famous. In it, the Wang Wei poem is responding to the following poem, which P’ei Ti had just written:
CAUGHT IN RAIN AT WHEEL-RIM RIVER’S SOURCE, THINKING OF WHOLE-SOUTH MOUNTAIN
Clouds darken the river’s meandering
emptiness. Colors adrift end in sand.
Wheel-Rim River flows distant away,
and where is Whole-South Mountain?
Wheel-Rim River: Perhaps Wang Wei’s most famous poetry, the “Wheel-Rim River” sequence was written at his hermitage in the Whole-South Mountains. There was also a corresponding scroll-painting, which survives only in copies and imitations. As mentioned above, there is a corresponding set of poems by P’ei Ti.
Autumn-Pitch: The second note (shang) in the ancient pentatonic scale, which is associated with autumn and things autumnal.
ch’in: See note here.
settle into breath chants: A method of harmonizing oneself with natural process.
second watch: Between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. There were five watches in the night, two hours each, beginning at 7:00 p.m. and ending at 5:00 a.m.
unborn life: A central concept in Taoist and Ch’an thought. Self is but a fleeting form taken on by earth’s process of change—born out of it and returned to it in death. Or more precisely, never out of it but totally unborn. Our truest self, being unborn, is all and none of earth’s fleeting forms simultaneously. This poem applies that insight directly to the issue of old age and death: if we are “unborn” in this sense, we cannot die. This leads to the very core of Taoist thought and Ch’an practice. As natural process emerges from absence (wu: nonbeing), to say we are unborn is to say that we are most essentially absence. This is the reality that is experienced directly in Ch’an meditation. And indeed, in addition to not (wu) birth (sheng), wu-sheng might also be read as absence’s (wu) life (sheng), which makes sense here because the ten thousand things are in fact absence’s life, which is a constant birth or burgeoning forth of change.
inner pattern: See Key Terms: li.
fundamental name: This couplet can also be read: “but my names together are fundamentally true: / this mind has returned to the unknown.” Wang Wei’s names (given name Wei, and literary name Mo-chieh) are the Chinese translation of Vimalakirti, the central figure in the Vimalakirti Sutra, which is especially important in the Ch’an tradition.
LI PO
newborn clouds: The Chinese believed, at least popularly, that clouds were born on high mountain slopes and rose from there into the sky.
Ch’ang-an: The capital, whose name means “Enduring Peace.”
spirit in sad flight: It was thought that the spirit often left the body and traveled on its own. People believed it could travel some distance during sleep, journeys that we experience as dreams, or when a person suffers some emotional trauma. According to this belief, the spirit could travel long distances after death.
East-Forest Monastery: See note here.
kalpa: A cosmic cycle extending from the creation of a world-system to its destruction—traditionally given as 4,320,000 years.
Fear-Wall Gorge: One of the three gorges in the Yangtze’s Triple Gorge (see note here) and far upstream from Steady-Shield Village, which was on the Yangtze near where it empties into the sea.
Star River: The Milky Way.
six sun-dragons: See note here.
ch’i: See Key Terms.
Hsi Ho: Hsi Ho drove the sun-chariot (in some myths, she is the mother of the sun).
Lu Yang: Lu Yang’s army was in the midst of battle as evening approached. Fearing nightfall would rob him of victory, Lu shook his spear at the setting sun, and it thereupon reversed its course.
Mighty Mudball: Chuang Tzu’s name for the world in its primordial state. See note here.
clouds-and-rain love: From the legend of a prince who, while staying at Shaman Mountain, was visited in his sleep by a beautiful woman who said that she was the goddess of Shaman Mountain. She spent the night with him and as she left said: “At dawn I marshal the morning clouds; at nightfall I summon the rain.”
Dragon…: See note here.
Untitled: An early example of the tz’u form, for which see here.
War South of the Great Wall: Cf. folk-song here.
TU FU
Sacred Peak: There is one sacred mountain for each direction in China, and one at the center. Exalt (T’ai) Mountain in the east is the most sacred of these five sacred mountains.
Change-Maker: Tao. See Key Terms.
son’s birth … daughter’s birth…: Reference to untitled poem here.
First-Devotion: After struggling for years to obtain a government position, an impoverished Tu Fu finally succeeded. He thereupon left the capital and journeyed north to the district of First-Devotion, where he had left his family in a village. The An Lu-shan Rebellion broke out within days of his arrival. For the larger biographical and historical context of this and the poems that follow, see the chapter introduction, here.
In this poem, Tu Fu describes passing by Clear-Glory Palace, the emperor’s summer palace in the mountains near the capital. For another poem describing this palace a month or two later, after An Lu-shan’s armies had captured the capital, see Tu Mu’s “Passing Clear-Glory Palace.”
pillars holding up heaven: See note here.
Moonlit Night: This is reputed to be the first explicitly romantic poem written by a poet about his wife (though typically for Tu Fu, the romance is integrated with the political urgency of the time). Language like that of the third stanza was generally reserved for seductive courtesans.
Ch’ang-an: The capital, where Tu Fu was hiding after the rebel armies conquered and sacked the city. Ironically, its name means “Enduring Peace.”
Beacon-fires: In times of war, neighboring garrisons would light beacon-fires each night at the same hour to signal one another that they were still secure.
Dreaming of Li Po: Li Po had become unwittingly involved with the leader of a minor rebellion in the southeast. Once the rebellion had been put down, Li was accused of being a traitor and banished to a waste region in the far southwest—an exile few survived. Li Po and Tu Fu were friends, and they wrote a number of poems for each other.
it is no living spirit I dream: In popular belief, at least, if someone came into your dreams it meant that person’s spirit had left their body during sleep and entered your dream. Tu Fu’s worry comes from the belief that it is only in death that a person’s spirit can travel long distances. See also notes here and here.
dragons: See note here.
monkey sage: From Chuang Tzu, 2.13:
To wear yourself out illuminating the unity of all things without realizing that they’re the same—this is called “three in the morning.” Why “three in the morning”? There was once a monkey trainer who said at feeding time, “You get three in the morning and four in the evening.” The monkeys got very angry, so he said, “Okay, I’ll give you four in the morning and three in the evening.” At this, the monkeys were happy again. Nothing was lost in either name or reality, but they were angry one way and pleased the other. This is why the sage brings yes this and no that together and rests in heaven the equalizer. This is called taking two paths at once.
watch: See note here.
Star River: The Milky Way.
Triple Gorge: A set of three spectacular gorges formed where the Yangtze River cut its way through the formidable Shaman (Wu) Mountains, forming a two-hundred-mile stretch of very narrow canyons. Famous for the river’s violence and the towering cliffs haunted by shrieking gibbons, they appear often in Chinese poetry. They were located on the very outskirts of the civilized world, in a part of south China inhabited primarily by aboriginal peoples and frequently encountered by traveling (often exiled) artist-intellectuals. Tu Fu was living in K’uei-chou, which was perched above the river at the beginning of these magnificent gorges (which have recently been inundated by a huge hydroelectric project).
Slumber-Dragon, Leap-Stallion: Chu-ko Liang and Pai-ti, well-known figures from Chinese history. The first was a great cultural hero, and the second an infamous villain.
knotting ropes: See note here.
departure and return: Departure and return is the movement of Way (Tao).
Jade-String: Constellation in Ursa Major.
Strung-Pearls: The five planets known by the Chinese: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
mirror: The moon.
ch’i: See Key Terms.
Wandering Star: After flowing out to sea in the east, the Yangtze and Yellow rivers were said to ascend and rarify, becoming the Star River. The Star River crosses the sky, then descends in the west to form the headwaters of the Yangtze and Yellow. “Wandering Star” refers to a story in which a Yangtze fisherman boards an empty raft floating past his home. The raft carries him downstream and eventually up onto the Star River, where it becomes the Wandering Star.
Southern Darkness: The Chuang Tzu begins:
In Northern Darkness there lives a fish called K’un. This K’un is so huge that it stretches who knows how many thousand miles. When it changes into a bird it’s called P’eng. This P’eng has a back spreading who knows how many thousand miles, and when it thunders up into flight its wings are like clouds hung clear across the sky. It churns up the sea and sets out on its migration to Southern Darkness, which is the Lake of Heaven.
COLD MOUNTAIN (HAN SHAN)
Way: Tao, meaning both “path or road” and Lao Tzu’s philosophical concept. See Key Terms: Tao.
white clouds: See note here.
wandering boundless and free: This phrase recurs in Chuang Tzu. It is the title of Chapter 1, and Chapter 6 (6.11) includes this description of two sages:
On loan from everything else, they’ll soon be entrusted back to the one body. Forgetting liver and gallbladder, abandoning ears and eyes—they’ll continue on again, tumbling and twirling through a blur of endings and beginnings. They roam at ease beyond the tawdry dust of this world, nothing’s own doing [wu-wei] wandering boundless and free through the selfless unfolding of things.
no-mind: Mind emptied of all content, of self and its constructions of the world. In this state, a goal of Ch’an practice, absence (wu) as empty-mind mirrors the ten thousand things. See also here.
WEI YING-WU
Dharma: See note here.
The six poems here are from a set that follows the seasons through the year after Wei Ying-wu’s wife died, beginning in winter and ending in autumn. As Wei explains in a note introducing the set, they mourn not only his wife but also the country’s dire social situation, and they were written at his “old home at Integrity-Alike Monastery.”
Mirror: Mirrors were made of polished bronze in a circular shape and small enough to hold in the hand. This one was cast in the form of a water-chestnut blossom: the back would have been shaped like the whorl of petals, and the surface of the mirror would have been at the opening of the blossom, with the tips of the petals projecting slightly around the edge of the surface.
moon: In Chinese poetry, the moon is often described as a mirror. See Tu Fu’s “Riverside Moon and Stars,” for example.
fulling-stones: See note here.
T’ANG DYNASTY II: EXPERIMENTAL ALTERNATIVES
MENG CHIAO
scales: Beginning of the dragon motif that runs through this sequence, as well as “Laments of the Gorges,” which follows. Here we have the hibernating dragon coming back to life in spring. For the dragon, see note here.
Way: For both “Cold Creek” and “Laments of the Gorges,” it should be remembered that water is Lao Tzu’s central metaphor for Way. It recurs often in the Tao Te Ching, taking many forms, as in Chapter 32:
Way flowing through all beneath heaven:
it’s like valley streams flowing into rivers and seas.
evens all things out: A central, recurring concept in this sequence, drawn from the second chapter of the Chuang Tzu: “A Little Talk About Evening Things Out.” For Chuang Tzu, “evening things out” means seeing the essential oneness of all things. Once you master that, you “move in the boundless, and the boundless becomes your home.” You do this by embracing things directly, rather than being trapped in intellectual distinctions and categories. After speaking of how limited such a life of distinctions is, he says: “But this is not the sage’s way: the sage illuminates all in the light of heaven.” This concept, though, soon proves to be of little real value in the poem, for natural process is driven by difference.
Triple Gorge: See note here.
dragons: See note here and here.
Death-owls call: The Chinese thought an owl’s voice resembled that of a ghost or spirit, so they thought a calling owl was beckoning the spirit of a dying person away.
Wu-t’ung trees: Especially admired tree, the wood of which was used to make ch’ins.
ch’in: See note here.
HAN YÜ
Tao: Altogether different from the philosophical Taoism of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, this is religious Taoism, which focused on the esoteric pursuit of immortality and boasted goddesses and immortals riding cranes and dragons through the heavens. For Han Yü’s hostility to Buddhism and religious Taoism, see chapter introduction, here.
singing geese, junk trees: In the first tale of Chapter 20 in the Chuang Tzu, Chuang Tzu sees a gnarled tree that is not cut because it is so useless, then a goose that is killed because it cannot sing (i.e., because it is useless). To resolve the contradiction, he suggests that we should not struggle to preserve our lives by being either useless or useful but that we abide in Way (Tao), and so let ourselves drift through the ongoing transformation of things, without clinging to arbitrary values such as life or death, good or bad, teeth or no-teeth.
from South Mountain: This translation is composed of extracts chosen to create a much shortened version of the original while still reading like a poem. The original is about twice as long.
South Mountain: Here, Han Yü is describing the Whole-South Mountains, just south of the capital, Ch’ang-an. These mountains appear often in Chinese poetry, most notably as the site of Wang Wei’s recluse home. Han shortens the name to South Mountain for the ancient resonance it carries (see note here).
P’eng bird: From the fable that opens the Chuang Tzu, for which see note, “Southern Darkness.”
yang: See note here.
ch’i: See Key Terms.
moxa: Pressed leaves that are burned on or near the skin as a medical treatment.
I Ching: The Book of Change, an ancient philosophical and divinatory text.
PO CHÜ-I
Empty Gate: Empty mind, the gate through which enlightenment is attained. Also a name for Buddhism.
New Yueh-fu: See chapter introduction, here.
Heaven Jewel reign: For this system of reign periods, see note here. The Heaven Jewel reign lasted from 742 to 756 C.E. (the time leading up to and including the beginning of the An Lu-shan Rebellion).
Open-Origin reign: Period lasting from 713 to 742, the “golden years” of the T’ang Dynasty.
Ch’in: See note here.
ch’i: See Key Terms.
Ch’ang-an: The capital, whose name means “Enduring Peace.”
dark-enigma: See Key Terms: hsūan.
Waves Sifting Sand: An early example of the tz’u form, for which see here. This poem is noteworthy for an understanding of geologic process that the West would not come to for over a millennium. See also Li Ho’s “Sky Dream” and “Past and Forever On and On Chant.”
ch’an: The ch’an of Ch’an Buddhism, which is a translation of the Sanskrit dhyāna, meaning “meditation.”
Home: At home, in Buddhist phraseology, means to be a lay practitioner, and giving up home means to become a monk.
LI HO
Endless-Peace: Site of a vast battle in 260 B.C.E. It is said that over 400,000 soldiers died, and relics were apparently still turning up in Li Ho’s time, a thousand years later.
Weaver-Girl and Ox-Herd: See note here.
Star River: The Milky Way.
moon’s old rabbit and cold toad: Mythic inhabitants of the moon. See also here and here.
dust soon seawater: Li Ho often evokes his timeless mythic realms by reference to the vast time-spans of geologic process that the West discovered only in the late nineteenth century: land rising from the sea, mountains eroding away into plains, and finally ocean floors again. See also Li Ho’s “Past and Forever On and On Chant” and Po Chü-i’s “Waves Sifting Sand.”
ch’in: See note here.
dragon: See note here.
heart-gut dangle grass: Also called “child-worry vine” and “farewell grass.”
Lucent-Lumen … Emerald-Blossom: Sun and moon.
pillars: A variation on the myth in note here.
Wives of the River Hsiang: The mythic Emperor Shun (note to here) had two wives, both daughters of Emperor Yao. When Shun died, they buried him on Nine-Doubt Mountain. Their sorrow was so great that they wept tears of blood, hence the red-flecked bamboo that grows throughout the region. Eventually, they leapt into the Hsiang River and thereupon became the spirit-wives of the river god.
clouds-and-rain love: See note here.
ch’i: See Key Terms.
Ever-Grass Tomb: The tomb of Wang Chao-chün, a great beauty who was sent to a Mongol chieftain as a tributary bride. When she died after an unhappy life among “barbarian” people, she was buried in Mongol lands, north of the Chinese border. It was said that the grass on her tomb was always lush and green, but here it’s been turned to dust by the grazing of Mongol warhorses.
Banner-Tip: A constellation corresponding to our Pleiades. It was believed that if its stars began to flicker, war was imminent with the Mongol people to the north.
South Mountain: Here referring to the Whole-South Mountains just south of Ch’ang-an, which had many graveyards on their slopes.
Ch’ang-an: The capital, whose name means “Enduring Peace.”
Two river spirits … blood-flecked bamboo: See note here.
TU MU
Weaver-Girl and Ox-Herd: See note here.
Southern Dynasty: A series of short-lived dynasties that rose and fell in quick succession during the fifth and sixth centuries C.E. (three to four hundred years before Tu Mu’s time), when northern China was controlled by foreign invaders.
white clouds: See note here.
fulling-stone: See note here.
where white clouds are born: For white clouds, see note here. For clouds being born on mountain slopes, see note here.
Clear-Glory Palace: The emperor’s summer palace in the mountains near the capital. This poem is remembering the days when An Lu-shan (see here) was carousing there after capturing the capital and declaring himself emperor, not long after Tu Fu passed by this same palace during the journey he describes in his “First-Devotion Return Chant.”
Ch’ang-an: The capital, whose name means “Enduring Peace.”
ch’i: See Key Terms.
LI SHANG-YIN
Ch’in: See note here. The ch’in was supposedly invented with fifty strings by Fu Hsi (2953–2838 B.C.E.), the first emperor in China’s legendary period, an act that was tantamount to the invention of music. (Fu Hsi also taught people to hunt, fish, and keep livestock.) Fu Hsi told the goddess Lady Origin-Weave to play his newly invented instrument, but when she did, it was so unbearably moving that he broke the instrument in half. The ch’in normally has seven strings. The twenty-five-string variant is technically called a se. The ch’in came to be associated with courtesans and romantic/erotic love.
fifth watch: Between 3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. See note here.
ink not ground thick enough: Ink was made by rubbing a dry ink-stick on a wet ink-stone.
Star River: The Milky Way.
moon-toad: See note here.
Northern Dipper: The Big Dipper.
clouds and rain: See note here.
ch’i: See Key Terms.
YÜ HSÜAN-CHI
ch’an: See note here.
Star River … love: See note for the Ox-Herd and Weaver-Girl myth here.
ch’in: Musical instrument associated with courtesans and romantic/erotic love. See also here.
clouds and rain love: See note here.
Graduates: These are the men who had passed the national exams and so were on their way to illustrious careers. The exam was not open to women.
fathoms my ch’in utterly: From Lieh Tzu 5.12:
Po Ya was a great ch’in player, and Chung Tzu-ch’i a great listener. Once, Po Ya’s thoughts wandered up among high peaks while he played.
“Exquisite!” cried Chung Tzu-ch’i. “Lofty as Exalt Mountain.”
When Po Ya’s thoughts wandered to flowing rivers, Chung Tzu-ch’i cried: “Exquisite! Boundless as the Yellow and the Yangtze.”
Whatever filled Po Ya’s mind, Chung Tzu-ch’i always understood perfectly.
Men robed purple and red: The elite statesmen who controlled the government.
Yen Hui: See note here.
SUNG DYNASTY: THE MAINSTREAM RENEWED
MEI YAO-CH’EN
Yellow Springs: The underworld where, according to popular legend, people go when they die. Mei’s wife has just died.
WANG AN-SHIH
Star River: The Milky Way.
ten thousand holes cry and moan: From Chuang Tzu 2.1:
“This Mighty Mudball of a world spews out breath, and that breath is called wind,” began Adept Piebald. “Everything is fine so long as it’s still. But when it blows, the ten thousand holes cry and moan. Haven’t you heard them wailing on and on? In the awesome beauty of mountain forests, it’s all huge trees a hundred feet around, and they’re full of wailing hollows and holes like noses, like mouths, like ears, like posts and beams, like cups and bowls, like empty ditches and puddles: water-splashers, arrow-whistlers, howlers, gaspers, callers, screamers, laughers, warblers—leaders singing out yuuu! and followers answering yeee! When the wind’s light, the harmony’s gentle; but when the storm wails, it’s a mighty chorus. And then, once the fierce wind has passed through, the holes are all empty again. Haven’t you seen felicity and depravity thrashing and flailing together?”
“So the music of earth means all those holes singing together,” said Adept Adrift, “and the music of humans means bamboo pipes singing. Could I ask you to explain the music of heaven for me?”
“Sounding the ten thousand things differently, so each becomes itself according to itself alone—who could make such music?”
sweeping my gate-path: A traditional gesture of welcome for anticipated visitors. See note here.
SU TUNG-P’O
Untitled: It was Su Tung-p’o who definitively established the tz’u (see here) as a form of serious poetry, a status previously reserved for the shih. One indication of this is that, rather than just tune titles, he begins using descriptive titles, as in the other examples of his tz’u translated here: here and here.
Yen Tzu-ling: To avoid the necessity of serving in the government when his old friend became emperor in 25 C.E.,Yen Tzu-ling disappeared into the mountains. He was found fishing at Seven-Mile Rapids but refused the high offices that were offered him, preferring instead to live as a recluse-farmer.
Lady West: Hsi Tzu or Hsi Shih: a great beauty from the fifth century B.C.E.
ch’an: See note here.
blank: This is the tan of Mei Yao-ch’en’s p’ing-tan, for which see here.
Setting animals loose: In their reverence for the sanctity of life, Buddhists would go to the markets, buy captured animals, and set them free.
Exiled, We Move…: This poem was written early in Su Tung-p’o’s first exile, just after he’d been tried for treason and very nearly lost his life.
Humanity and Duty: Touchstones of Confucian virtue. Humanity (jen) means a selfless and reverent concern for the well-being of others, and Duty (yi) means to put that moral sense into practice. Su Tung-p’o is saying that he’s been a selflessly devoted public servant.
ch’i’s movements: See note here.
Bright-Clarity: The mid-spring festival.
Red Cliffs: Site on the Yangtze where an epochal naval battle was fought in 208 C.E. This battle marked the end of the Han Dynasty when Lord Chou defeated the vastly superior fleet of the Han general Ts’ao Ts’ao by tangling it in a series of burning barges, thereby setting the Han fleet on fire. Twelve years later, the moribund Han fell, succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period (220–280).
Presented to Abbot Perpetua All-Gathering…: This poem is said to record Su Tung-p’o’s enlightenment and has been an oft-cited part of the Ch’an literature ever since. The story is that Perpetua All-Gathering (Ch’ang-tsung) had given Su Tungp’o a koan proposing that inanimate things continuously express dharma. Su stayed up all night working on the koan, then at dawn wrote this poem as his answer. After reading it, Perpetua All-Gathering acknowledged Su’s awakening.
tongue … body: The Buddhist literature speaks of Buddha’s “tongue broad and unending,” dharma’s “body pure and clear,” and the “eighty-four thousand” teachings of Buddha.
gathas: Sacred Buddhist texts in poetic form.
Peach blossoms … Warrior-Knoll: “Peach blossoms drift streamwater away” echoes Li Po’s “Mountain Dialogue.” The peach blossoms and Warrior-Knoll refer to T’ao Ch’ien’s “Peach-Blossom Spring” (see here).
mountaintop moon: The pure clarity of moonlight is a common metaphor for the clarity of a Ch’an master’s empty mind. Cf. Cold Mountain’s poem “199.”
After T’ao Ch’ien’s “Drinking Wine”: For T’ao Ch’ien’s original poem, see here (section 5). Su Tung-p’o wrote a poem following the rhymes of each of T’ao Ch’ien’s 120 poems—an enormous project and sign of the deep respect Su (and all Sung poets) had for T’ao.
LI CH’ING-CHAO
chestnut-blossom mirror: See note here.
9/9 … eastern fence: The 9/9 Festival and yellow chrysanthemums at the east fence are famously associated with T’ao Ch’ien and allude to his poems here (section 5) and here.
third-watch: Between 11:00 p.m. and and 1:00 a.m. See note here.
LU YU
Wall-Tower Above K’uei-chou … Tu Fu: Tu Fu, the great T’ang Dynasty poet (see here), lived in and around K’uei-chou during one of his most productive periods. He spent some of that time in this tower, where he wrote many of his late dark poems, for which see here.
Ch’ang-an: Traditional capital that was lost to the Mongol invaders when they took control of the north. Ironically, its name means “Enduring Peace.”
Wu … Shu: Ancient names for southeastern and western China.
Ch’ü Yüan: First major poet in the written tradition. See here.
Nine-Doubt Mountain … Hsiang River: Where Ch’ü Yüan wandered and finally committed suicide by drowning. See also note here.
Emperor Wen: See note here.
Duke of Chou writing “Seventh Moon”: For this poem, see here. For the Duke of Chou, see here.
first emperor: Fu Hsi, for whom see note here.
knotted ropes: See note here.
ch’in: See note here.
ch’an: See note here.
ch’i: See Key Terms.
Thatch-Hut mountains … Little-Forest: Buddhist monastic centers. For Thatch-Hut Mountain, see note here. One of China’s most famous monasteries, Little-Forest (Shao-lin) is said to be where Chinese martial arts originated and where Bodhidharma, legendary founder of Ch’an Buddhism, sat in meditation for nine years.
Star River: The Milky Way.
Dipper: The Big Dipper.
kalpas: See note here.
Maker-of-Things: See Key Terms: Tao.
Tu Fu’s old house: This is a house in western China where Tu Fu lived briefly during his travels. Tu Fu’s short career advising the emperor ended when his honesty enraged the emperor, and he spent the rest of his life wandering. The Sung emperor likewise had little patience for Lu Yu’s advice.
muddy and clear: Allusion to Mencius (7.8) and “The Fisherman” in the Ch’u Tz’u (The Songs of Ch’u), where muddy is a lack of personal integrity in government, causing social disorder, and clear means personal integrity, resulting in social order and prosperity:
When Chill-Flood Creek flows clear
I rinse my hat-strings clean.
When Chill-Flood Creek flows muddy
I rinse my feet clean.
yes this and no that: See note here.
YANG WAN-LI
Absolute-Meaning … T’ao Ch’ien: This poem plays on T’ao Ch’ien’s famous “Drinking Wine,” section 5 (here; cf. also Su Tung-p’o’s poem here), where the idea of “meaning something absolute” occurs.
ch’i veins: See note here and Key Terms.
beach gull: According to legend, gulls will associate only with a true recluse.
absolutely: Again, from T’ao Ch’ien’s “Drinking Wine,” section 5.
blank: This is tan from Mei Yao-ch’en’s p’ing-tan, for which see here.
On the Second Day…: This poem echoes Li Po’s “Drinking Wine” poems (here), from which the italicized passages in lines 5–6 are taken.
9/9: Holiday, for which see note here.