Li Zhi’s poetry is just what you would expect from his character: simple, frank, emotional, slightly irregular, and highly personal. He was capable of writing the exquisite parallel couplets that were the pride of “recent-style poetry” (jinti shi 近體詩) (see “Watching the Rain with Dazhi”), but he was not fastidious about metrical rules, and only twenty of his three hundred or so extant poems were composed in the strictest classical form, the eight-line, sonnetlike heptasyllabic regulated verse (lüshi 律詩). (See the following five examples: “Drifting on East Lake with Li Jiantian,” “The Glazed Temple,” “Encountering Troops Marching East … ,” and the two Paradise Temple poems; and see, in pentasyllabics, “To Matteo Ricci of the Far West”). By typical Chinese literary standards, Li Zhi’s poetry is more valuable for its biographical content than its literary merit (see “Eight Quatrains from Prison”), but we may question the hierarchy and sureness of that distinction, and most readers will probably find at least some of Li’s poetry genuinely moving. It is strikingly forthright at times, especially in the idiom of modern translation, but even by late-Ming standards: “If you have something to say, / just spit it out” (you hua bufang ren jin tu 有話不妨人盡吐) (“Spring Night”). This may not be exquisite verse, but it has a grab-you-by-the-collar quality that is startling in its own way, just as Du Fu’s highly crafted lines were startling in theirs (see “On Reading Du Fu”).
About one-fifth of his poems have to do with Buddhism directly or indirectly, and some may have been intended to resemble gāthā verses in their simplicity (see “Lantern Festival” and “Monastic Seclusion”). A tone of melancholy pervades much of Li’s poetry—unsurprising, considering the circumstances of his life—but among the scenes of dispirited loneliness (“Evening Rain,” “After the Snow,” “A Sudden Chill”), there are moments of blissful solitude (“Sitting Alone in Meditation”) and quiet camaraderie (“Watching the Rain with Dazhi”). He wrote half a dozen poems to his closest friend, the famous scholar Jiao Hong, but in these as well as those to other friends, we find the true spirit of friendship without any hint of the sort of competition or literary debate that was typical of the period. Indeed, he rarely wrote “courtesy” poetry for the maintaining of connections, or poetry on political topics unassociated with personal relationships (but see “Watching the Army at the East Gate of the City”). Li’s “The Pleasure of Reading” seems to express both his ars poetica and raison d’être at the same time, from its iconoclastic preface to its quick tetrameters and jaunty rhymes: the verses are disarmingly silly and self-deprecating at first, then transform into lines of breathtakingly genuine seriousness and candor. The preface is particularly notable for Li’s claim that he had a special gift that allowed him to visualize a person’s whole being as if that person were present by merely reading that person’s writing. The notion is not at all a commonplace of Ming literature, and he repeats the idea elsewhere (see “My Feelings Upon Ascending …”). If this was indeed Li Zhi’s ideal of literary communion across time and space, in his poetry he left us the means by which to attempt it ourselves. (TB; YZN)
As Duke Cao once said, “Count up everyone who is old and still capable of studying, and you will have only myself and Yuan Boye.”1 Indeed, even when the country was splintered into factions and pikes and halberds raged across the land, the general could still be found with a book in his hands. So think how much easier studying is for an old man like me, withdrawn from the world without a care, living in peace and tranquility. Nevertheless, studying is not something that one can do by sheer force of will. For my part, I have certain heavenly blessings.
My eyes are a blessing, for even though I am a septuagenarian, I can still read the small print of commentaries. My hands are a blessing, for even though I am a septuagenarian, I can still write commentaries in small print—although that may turn out to be not such a blessing after all.
My disposition is a blessing, for I have never enjoyed the company of ordinary people, and so from my early days to my old age, I have avoided the constant nuisance of social interactions with relatives and visitors and have devoted myself single-mindedly to reading.
My feelings are a blessing, for I have never enjoyed intimacy with family members, and so, spending my final days at Dragon Lake, I have blessedly escaped the hardships of being forced to support my family, and so, once again, I have devoted myself single-mindedly to reading—although that may turn out to be not such a blessing after all.
The power of my mind’s eye is a blessing, for when I look into a book, I can see the person who wrote it, and moreover I can see the state of that person’s whole being. Of course, a great many writers since antiquity have read books and commented on the affairs of the world. Some of them see the visage; some of them see the body covered with skin; some of them see the blood vessels; and some of them see the muscles and bones. But the bones are as far as anyone ever goes. And although some of these scholars claim to have burrowed into the internal organs, in fact they have not even penetrated the bones. This is what I consider to be the foremost of my blessings.
My audacity is a blessing, for those who were envied and admired in earlier ages so much that they are regarded as worthies, I myself have mostly regarded as fakes. I have mostly regarded them as old-fashioned, worthless, and useless. Yet those who have been despised, abandoned, reviled, and spit upon, I truly believe could be entrusted with our country, our families, and our individual selves. My sense of what is right and wrong, as in this instance, gravely transgresses what people in earlier ages used to think—so what could I do without audacity? This is the next most important of what I call my blessings from heaven.
I love studying in my old age because of these last two blessings, so I amused myself by composing “The Pleasure of Reading.”
Heaven gave birth to Dragon Lake
To wait for old man Zhuowu’s sake;
Zhuowu was born, for heaven’s sake,
Right where you find the Dragon Lake.
At Dragon Lake, Zhuowu resides.
His happiness is in his looks.
He spends the seasons reading books.
He doesn’t know much else besides.
So, how does all my reading go?
In fact, I understand a lot.
And when a thing makes sense to me,
I laugh aloud and sing, you know.
When singing songs is not enough,
I then begin to sigh and shout.
I weep with passion, sigh, and shout!
And streams of tears come pouring out.
My singing has an explanation,
For in each book there is a person.
And when I truly see that person,
My heart is seized with admiration.
My weeping has an explanation,
For on the lake, there’s no one at all.
And when I see there’s no one at all.
My heart is filled with sad vexation.
Now stop this reading! Empty your shelf!
Pack all your books away for safe keeping!
Refresh your spirit! Enjoy yourself!
Silence the songs, and banish weeping!
Why waste your life in reading texts,
Insisting happiness come next?
I hear such comments quite a lot,
As if I were a pitiable sot.
But if I pack up the books on my shelf,
Where will I find my happiness?
Refreshing my spirit, enjoying myself,
For me lies precisely in nothing but this.
The great big world is rather small,
And slender books are broad and wide,
With countless sages crammed inside.
So how could you despise them all?
My body has no family.
My head’s as bald as any stone.
What dies is but the bodily.
What rots away is but the bones.
And these alone will never fade.
I long to end my days with these,
To shout in the woods, to lean on trees,
And thunder my voice to the hawks in the glade.
My songs and tears are friends to me;
My joy so boundless, no one knows.
My precious little time will flee.
How dare I waste it in repose!
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
They come from the south, they head to the north:1
Is there ever an end to it all?
They go seeking profit, they go seeking fame:
There is never an end to it all.
The ones seeking profit, the ones seeking fame
Already fill the world.
They come from the south, they head to the north:
It’s just as it should be.
The winds in the north in the early spring
Make any coat feel thin;
And travelers along the border
Can hardly bear the cold.
But those who live in the peace of the mountains
Can only smile and laugh
At those who freeze in the wind on the borders
For no good reason at all.
If some say I travel seeking profit,
They do not know me at all.
If some say, “He travels seeking fame,”
How could they possibly know?
Yet if my affairs have nothing to do
With either profit or fame,
Then wherefore do I rush about
On every path and highway?
Ask the old man his true intentions,
And he will surely say,
“My wish is but to join the rest
Who travel for profit and fame
In singing together the emperor’s praise,
Rejoicing in our great ways.”
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
It is not that the gentleman1
preferred chrysanthemums:
In the clear frost only
chrysanthemums were blooming.
The color of autumn fills my courtyard
with no one else to see it.
Do I dare hope for someone in white
to come bearing wine?
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
Seclusion is, indeed, intended for meditation.1
I allow the host to leave me here alone.
But the mind’s fixation on the world remains uncured:
Like everyone else, I go out to celebrate the new year.
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
The night of the Lantern Festival is truly a lovely night.1
I sit alone at a single lamp
surrounded by emptiness and silence.
If not for the discipline of this monastic seclusion,
The anger that poisons the mind2
would be aroused by the snow and wind.
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
I now understand that thoughts of spring1
come to the idle person:
Red and white flourishing together
keep coming into sight.
By the time the blossoms finally come,
you’re already much older:
The one who comes to gaze at flowers
is not the one who sows the seeds.
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
Lanterns fill the high hall in the evening.1
With good wine, there is no lack of inspiration.
An old friend arrived yesterday—
A spring wind blowing a thousand miles.
Shadows of bamboo fall into the cool pond.
Echoes of song rise into the fine rain.
How beautiful this new season is—
Except that it comes to a weak old man.
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
I myself have no place to return to—1
But why must you go so far from home?
In times of disappointment, weep your grief.
In times of complacency, do not linger long.
The temples of the wanderer will meet frosty days;
His saddlebag of poetry will bear rainy autumns.
If ever it feels cold and lonely in Beijing,
Remember that Jiao Hong is also there somewhere.
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
The Italian Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci1 (1552–1610) was one of Li Zhi’s many acquaintances. In “A Letter to a Friend” (pp. 256–57), Li Zhi wondered what the foreigner’s purpose was in coming to China. Here, addressing Ricci, he asks more or less the same question, though in the allusive and indirect language of classical poetry. Ricci’s diaries proudly register this homage among the many sonetti dedicated to him by Chinese scholars and officials. (HS)
Descending in xiao-yao fashion through the northern darkness,2
Through long and twisted wanderings marching toward the south:
Like the Kshatriya, you announce your [new] clan and personal names,3
And like a visitor from the Immortals’ island, you record the watery stages.4
Behind you is a hundred-thousand-li voyage,
And now you raise your eyes upon the nine-walled capital.5
Have you seen the glory of our country yet, or not?6
From the middle of heaven the sun shines directly down.7
TRANSLATED BY HAUN SAUSSY
Beacon fires to the west of the city—1
a garrison of a hundred generals—
Cold smoke from the cookstoves at dawn—
a village of ten thousand encampments.
These heroes of ours on the frontiers
dote on their horses’ tackle;
And the brave generals in their fortresses
shut their gates before dusk.
On the shores facing out to sea,
will we ever see the waves grow quiet?
Those who mount the platform of promotion2
give empty thanks for imperial favor.
there awaits a true Po and Mu—3
How can he not have been promoted yet
to appear before His Majesty?
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
It has never been the wisdom of the world1
to be alone in life;
For hundreds of years, we disciples
have been together here.
When the day of the Double Ninth arrives,
even the flowers should get drunk!
And when a bosom friend arrives,
even my illness abates.
Deep in the branches of an ancient juniper,
the evening magpies chatter;
In the courtyard, the west wind blows at sunset
as the shade tree sheds its leaves.
From the Golden Terrace, my thoughts go out
hundreds and hundreds of miles
To meet you on the road and say,
“Hongdao, quicken your pace!”
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
When all the officials under heaven1
gather for the great renewal,
I alone, free and at ease,
dwell in the temple’s spring.
Who else even notices this day of cheering
“Long live the emperor!”
Is also a paradise at dawn
when snow petals float around you?
A monk returns in perfect silence
to a temple on the edge of the clouds.
The moon shines down with perfect brilliance
on the denizens of the borderlands.
For years now I have let my hair
fall to the shaving razor;
I tried to escape the cares of this world
but have only attracted more.
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
On the shining road to the Glazed Temple1
the sun comes out of the west.
The autumn wind circles my horse.
Trees by the thousands look tiny.
The monk’s lodging is never closed—
guests may arrive at will.
The neighboring farmer has plenty of wine—
with whom else could he share it?
Yellow chrysanthemums along the fence
flourish in the drizzle.
Stars on the mountain ridges dazzle.
A rooster heralds dawn.
as my guide and companion,
Let’s laugh
and cross another stream.
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY BILLINGS AND YAN ZINAN
