Tune: “Spring in the Ch’in Garden” (About to swear off drinking, he warns the wine cup to go away)
Hsin Ch’i-chi (1140–1207)
Cup, you come here!
Your old man has been
Looking himself over today.
For years on end he’s had a thirst
With a throat like a scorched pot.
But now he’s ready to go to sleep and snore like thunder.
You say, “Liu Ling1
Was the great philosopher of all time.
Once drunk, what did it matter if he died and was buried on the spot.”
A shame you’re so ruthless
With your very best friend.
Worse, you’re in league with song and dance.
I reckon you are man’s worst poison.
What’s more, the thing we hate, a lot or a little,
Is what we once loved.
Nothing itself is good or bad,
It’s excess makes the trouble.
Here’s my ultimatum:
Don’t stay, go away fast.
I have the strength to dispose of you.
The cup bowed and said,
“If you say so, I’ll leave;
I’ll come again when you call me.”
Translated by James Robert Hightower
Like Li Ch’ing-chao (see selection 101), Hsin Ch’i-chi was born in Li-ch’eng (modern-day Tsinan, Shantung). He was passionate and insistent in his patriotic advocacy of a more determined effort to recapture the north of China from the Jürchen, who had established the Chin dynasty there. Hsin was a friend of the renowned Neo-Confucian scholar Chu Hsi (1130–1200) and entertained at his villa near the Fukien-Kiangsi border many of the greatest thinkers and statesmen of his day. His youthful espousal of Confucian virtues gave way to a more Taoist view in later life, and he held great store by the writings of Chuang Tzu (see selection 8). Hsin was primarily responsible for developing the lyric as a more erudite, expansive, and allusive genre than it had been. The most prolific Sung period author of lyrics, of which 626 by him survive, he also played a large role in the ultimate divorce of the metrical patterns of the genre from their once musical background. After Hsin, the lyric became a vehicle for the display of technical virtuosity, where it had once been the voice of popular songs.
1. Liu Ling (c. 221–300) was one of the seven bohemian sages of the Bamboo Grove. A famous toper and author of “Hymn to the Virtue of Wine,” Liu declared that he would not mind being buried so long as he died drunk. His abstinence-advocating wife once compelled him to renounce wine before the gods, but he tricked her by persuading her to prepare an offering of meat and wine for the celestial spirits and then guzzling down the alcoholic beverage by himself.
Tune: “Pure Serene Music” Rural Life
Hsin Ch’i-chi
Low hang the eaves of the thatched hut,
Green, green grows the grass beside the brook.
To whose family belongs that tipsy white-haired couple,
Chatting and merry-making in the dulcet accents of the south?
Their eldest son is hoeing the bean-field east of the brook,
The second is busy weaving a hen-coop;
But the one they think most lovable is the youngest, that scamp of a boy:
Lo! he is sprawled on the bank peeling lotus pods!
Translated by Jiaosheng Wang