The Lyrical Lu Xun: A Study of His Classical-Style Verse 9780824845872

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
The Lyrical Lu Xun
Introduction
Lu Xun's Childhood and Youth (1881-1901)
Japan and Back(1902-1909; 1909-1917)
The May Fourth Era (1918-1927)
A "Fellow Traveler"? (1927-1936)
Verse in the Classical Style
1. Three Verses on Parting from My Brothers
2. Lotus Seedpod People
3. Seeing Off the Kitchen God in the Year 1901
4. An Offertory for the God of Books
5. Three Verses on Parting from My Brothers
6. A Fondness for Flowers: Four Regulated Verses
7. Untitled (usually referred to as "Personally Inscribed on a Small Picture")
8. Three Stanzas Mourning Fan Ainong
9. Redressing Grievances on Behalf of the Beanstalks
10. My Heartfelt Sympathies for Rousseau
11. Untitled
12. For Wu Qishan (Uchiyama Kanzo)
13. For Mr. O. E. on the Occasion of His Return [to Japan] with [a Shipment of] Orchids
14. A Lament for Rou Shi
15. For a Japanese Poet
16. Untitled
17. Ode to the Goddess of the Xiang River
18. Two Untitled Poems
19. For Masuda Wataru on the Occasion of His Return to Japan
20. In Answer to a Gibe from a Guest
21. Lyrics for a Nanking Ditty
22. Untitled
23. An Impromptu Composition
24. For Pengzi
25. Written after the January Twenty-eighth Conflict
26. Laughing at My Own Predicament
27. Desultory Versifying on Professors
28. Hearsay
29. Two Untitled Poems
30. Untitled
31. New Year's Day in the Twenty-second Year of the Republic
32. For a Master Painter
33. Students and Jade Buddhas
34. Lamenting the College Students
35. Inscribed in a Copy of Outcry
36. Inscribed in a Copy of Wandering
37. A Lament for Yang Quan
38. Inscription for the Stupa of the Three Fidelities
39. Untitled
40. A Lament for Ms. Ding
41. Two Poems as a Gift
42. Untitled
43. Untitled
44. Against Yu Dafu's Move to Hangzhou
45. A Spoof on Newspaper Reports That I Had Contracted Encephalitis
46. Untitled
47. Feelings on an Autumn Night
48. Inscribed on Part 3 of Mustard-Seed Garden
49. Composed on an Impulse in Late Autumn of 1935
Epilogue "Mourning at Lu Xun's Grave"
Glossary of Chinese and Japanese Names and Terms
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Lyrical Lu Xun

£ ' n

• Ä V •T

The

Lyrical Lu Xun A Study of His Classical-Style Verse Jon Eugene von Kowallis

• University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu

© 1 9 9 6 University of Hawai'i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

9 6 97 9 8 9 9 0 0 01

5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kowallis, J o n Eugene von. The lyrical Lu Xun : a study of his classical-style verse / J o n Kowallis. p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. I S B N 0 - 8 2 4 8 - 1 5 1 1 - 4 (alk. paper) 1. Lu, Hsiin, 1 8 8 1 - 1 9 3 6 — C r i t i c i s m and interpretation. Hsiin, 1 8 8 1 - 1 9 3 6 — P o e t i c works. English.

Selections.

2. Lu,

I. Lu, Hsiin, 1 8 8 1 - 1 9 3 6 . 1995.

PL2754.S5Z69625

Poetry.

II. Title. 1995

895.1'85109—dc20

95-17223 CIP

Frontispiece: Calligraphy by Tai Jingnong, Lu Xun's former associate.

Illustrations reprinted from Lu Xun hua zhuan [A pictorial biography of Lu X u n ] (Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1981); Maruyama Noburo, et al., comp., Rojin zenshii [The complete works of Lu Xun in Japanese translation] (Tokyo: Gakken, 1985); and Sun Baigang, Yu Dafu

waizhuan

[An unofficial biography of Yu Dafu] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1982).

University of Hawai'i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Book design by Kenneth

Miyamoto

Contents

PREFACE

ix

Introduction Lu Xun's Childhood and Youth ( 1 8 8 1 - 1 9 0 1 )

9

Japan and Back ( 1 9 0 2 - 1 9 0 9 ; 1 9 0 9 - 1 9 1 7 )

17

The May Fourth Era ( 1 9 1 8 - 1 9 2 7 )

27

A "Fellow Traveler"? ( 1 9 2 7 - 1 9 3 6 )

33

Verse in the Classical Style 1. Three Verses on Parting from My Brothers 2. Lotus Seedpod People

55

62

3. Seeing Off the Kitchen God in the Year 1901 4. An Offertory for the God of Books

67

71

5. Three Verses on Parting from My Brothers

82

6. A Fondness for Flowers: Four Regulated Verses

88

7. Untitled (usually referred to as "Personally Inscribed on a Small Picture")

100

8. Three Stanzas Mourning Fan Ainong

108

9- Redressing Grievances on Behalf of the Beanstalks 10. My Heartfelt Sympathies for Rousseau

126

11. Untitled ("To kill people we have generals . . . ") 12. For Wu Qishan (Uchiyama Kanzo)

121

131

135

13. For Mr. O. E. on the Occasion of His Return [to Japan] with [a Shipment o f ] Orchids

v

142

Contents

VI

14. A Lament for Rou Shi

147

15. For a Japanese Poet

152

16. Untitled ("So vast a countryside the barbed bramble enflanks . . . ") 156 17. Ode to the Goddess of the Xiang River

162

18. Two Untitled Poems ("Eastward, by night and day, the Great River flows on . . . ")

168

19- For Masuda Wataru on the Occasion of His Return to Japan 20. In Answer to a Gibe from a Guest 21. Lyrics for a Nanking Ditty

178

181

22. Untitled ("Blood enriches the Central Plain . . . ") 23. An Impromptu Composition 24. For Pengzi

185

189

194

25. Written after the January Twenty-eighth Conflict 26. Laughing at My Own Predicament

202

27. Desultory Versifying on Professors

209

28. Hearsay

174

198

219

29- Two Untitled Poems ("My old home locked in murky clouds . . . ")

223

30. Untitled ("Lake Dongting's trees have shed their leaves . . . ") 229 31. New Year's Day in the Twenty-second Year of the Republic 32. For a Master Painter

238

33- Students and Jade Buddhas

241

34. Lamenting the College Students 35. Inscribed in a Copy of Outcry

247 253

36. Inscribed in a Copy of Wandering 37. A Lament for Yang Quan

256 260

38. Inscription for the Stupa of the Three Fidelities 39. Untitled ("O'er the Realm of Yu . . . ") 40. A Lament for Ms. Ding

278

272

265

234

Contents

Vll

283

41. Two Poems as a Gift ("Bright-eyed Zhejiang girl . . . ") 42. Untitled ("Mist-shrouded waters . . . ")

288

43. Untitled ("The Xiang goddess derives comfort . . . ") 44. Against Yu Dafu's Move to Hangzhou

292

298

45. A Spoof on Newspaper Reports That I Had Contracted Encephalitis

307

46. Untitled ("The dark and haggard faces . . . ") 47. Feelings on an Autumn Night

311

316

48. Inscribed on Part 3 of Mustard-Seed Garden

326

49- Composed on an Impulse in Late Autumn of 1935

EPILOGUE:

331

"Mourning at Lu Xun's Grave," by Xu Shoushang

GLOSSARY OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE NAMES AND TERMS BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

363

353

339 343

Preface

MY INITIAL STUDY of Lu Xun's classical-style verse was prompted by a desire to probe aspects of his works that had been left relatively untouched by Western scholars. I also felt that a side of his personality which had gone unexposed in his more "public" writings could be brought to light by a focus on the delicate interplay of tradition and modernity that was signified by his deliberate choice of these older literary forms for vent of "private" emotions within the modern context. Essentially, I hoped to enter the mind of the private Lu Xun, the subjective poet, rather than the world-wise internationalist who speaks to us with an objectivity possible ostensibly only for someone who had achieved a cultural "distance" before he turned to look back at his own country. In a way, I wanted to question how much we (that is, Chinese and Westerners alike) had actually understood of Lu Xun by approaching him through the innovator/iconoclast model. I thought a close reading of his classical-style poetry might bring us closer to knowing the "real" Lu Xun, on an emotional level, if nothing else. Secondly, I wanted to examine the phenomenon of the continued practice of poetry in the classical styles by "progressive" writers after the May Fourth—to what extent could these, in fact, be more valid literary vehicles in the modern era than the "new-style" poetry? This together with the question of how we define "modernity" in the postcolonial era has led me off in several directions, particularly toward the study of its antecedents among the poets of the "old schools" during the late Qing and early Republican eras and to Lu Xun's 1907/8 wenyan essays in the classical language on Chinese and comparative literature, as well as fin de siecle intellectual history. These questions may ultimately prove too broad for a single scholar working alone, but I draw

IX

X

Preface

consolation from the fact that they at least may be of use to pao zhuan yin yu or, as the Chinese say, "to cast forth a coarse brick, in the hope that someone will throw back a fine piece of jade." That my work has already drawn spirited responses (some in agreement and some not) from Leo Ou-fan Lee, William Lyell, Zhang Longxi, Rhew Hyong Gyu, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Yang Xianyi, and Charles Belbin reminds me of Lu Xun's musing in the preface to Outcry [Nahan] that, "having lifted up my voice among the living," I am fortunate to find that I am not alone in the "boundless wasteland." The groundwork for this book began some time ago in Taipei, where I had carried in materials from Hong Kong, since all of Lu Xun's works were then banned in Taiwan. "Yet even amid that uncongenial atmosphere I was fortunate enough to find one or two kindred spirits," as Lu Xun once put it (again, see the preface to Nahan). The translation and notes were intended originally for no one but myself, but then a Chinese friend, an unsung writer in straitened circumstances at the time, who used to come over once a week or so to borrow books, discovered my notebooks one night and wanted the translations, which he insisted on taking home to read. The next week he began pointing out one or two of the more fortuitous lines in English, claiming he could savor them as much as the original, which I doubted. Several years later, I returned to work on those basic translations for a more critical, but limited, readership. After friends had looked at that version of the translations, they encouraged me to seek publication. I have, in this book, attempted to produce English versions of Lu Xun's verse that preserve not only the imagery, but the literary feel and the tight-knit auditory effects of the originals. Admittedly, this is not readily accomplished, yet I (and a number of Chinese readers) feel the somewhat archaic tone of Lu Xun's verse lends itself to such expression in English more readily than many other more familiar examples of classical Chinese poetry. Since this work hopes to serve the general reader as well as the student and the scholar of Chinese literature, an introduction has been provided that places the poetry in its historical context. Much of the biographical treatment is a synthesis of work done by my predecessors in the fast-growing field of Lu Xun studies: William Schultz, Harriet Mills, William Lyell, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Pierre Ryckmans, and Charles Alber, as well as sources in Chinese and Japanese. The debt is one I more than gratefully acknowledge, for without this prior work, I would never have had the time to move off into my own particular branch of "Lu Xun-ology."

xi

Preface

Out of concern for the general reader who has, of late, been forced by the mass media to come to terms with pinyin romanization, I have tried to provide something of a crutch. Old familiar place names such as Peking and Canton remain in their traditional spellings, instead of becoming Beijing and Guangzhou. Since this is a transitional period for Chinese name spellings, I have kept Chiang Kai-shek in his old form, rather than transmogrifying him into Jiang Jieshi; the same goes for Mao Tse-tung (not Mao Zedong). Most other names and words, however, are consistently represented according to pinyin, the official latinized system of transcription used in the People's Republic. For this reason, the reader may still encounter unaccustomed consonants, which I will approximate now: x

represents the old bs initial in Wade-Giles spelling. It is essentially like a light "sh" sound in English, pronounced by pressing the tip of the tongue slightly forward against the lower teeth.

c

is similar to the "ts" sound in "its."

q

is a light "ch" sound. Thus Ch'ing dynasty in Wade-Giles now becomes "Qing" dynasty.

z

is a "dz" sound, similar to the final consonant cluster in "kids."

zh

is like the "g" in "giraffe."

zhi takes on a "jr" sound, just as shi is pronounced "shr." The format of this book is designed to facilitate reading at different sittings as well as easy reference to individual poems through the table of contents and index. Because of this, each chapter stands relatively independent of the others, even though some repetition has been thereby necessitated. This study was funded in part by the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawai'i, and later by the Committee for Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. I would like to thank both these organizations for their help. Professors Lo Chin-t'ang, Russell McLeod, and Ho Shang-hsien were my initial guides, followed by Cyril Birch, Samuel Cheung, and Wen-hsin Yeh at Berkeley. Leo Ou-fan Lee has been the major inspiration in keeping me at the project over the years, and in the end it was Professor Tu Wei-ming of Harvard University who gave me the encouragement I needed to follow through with publication. I also benefited from the kind words of John Minford and the help of Fang Su, editor of The Nineties. David Palumbo-Liu, Marion Eggert, and Deborah Rudolph read over the ever-changing manuscript at varying stages, supplying their sinological expertise as well as their edito-

Preface

XI1

rial comments, as did Gerry Sussman, Don Cohn, Susan Stone, Zhuang Qubing, and Huang Jingying. My senior colleagues and teachers Maruyama Noboru, C. T. Hsia, Harriet Mills, Kitaoka Masako, Perry Link, Ozaki Fumiaki, Joseph S-M. Lau, Moss Roberts, Lin Yun, Bonnie McDougall, Wolfgang Kubin, Fred Wakeman, and J i m Hargett all provided inspiration, as did my dearest friends Joe McMaster, Homer Williams, Laurel Kendall, David Shambaugh, Ingrid Larsen, Randy and Joanna Ho Trumbull, Wang Tian, Mary Anne Cartelli, Lydia Liu, Jaydee and Lorette Hanson, Sabina Knight, Craig Castleman, Mary Hirsch, Serena Ross, Raoul Findeisen, Andrea Goldman, Steve Horowitz, Dia Warren, Deborah Porter, Shih Shu-mei, and Adam Schorr. I would also like to thank my teachers Lo Ch'i-yun and Ch'en Ku-ying, both originally of Taipei; in Hong Kong, Zhang Bingxin; in Peking, my daosbi at Beida, Sun Yushi; at Nanda, Professor Zhao Ruihong. At Williams, special thanks to my colleagues George T. Crane, Cecilia Mann-sun Chang, and Li Qunhu. In Prague, Oldfich Krai, Olga Lomova, Martin Hala, and Lucie Borotova have always been the lights of my professional life. Sharon F. Yamamoto, my editor at the University of Hawai'i Press, has done an exemplary job from start to finish. Many thanks also to the faculty secretaries at Williams College for their patient work with various drafts. Needless to say, all errors that remain are my own. Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to my father, John Robert, and my mother, Rita Ann, with deepest appreciation for their unlimited love and support throughout the past years and to the memory of my two late uncles George and Michael. Si natura negat, facit indignatiun versum et quando uberior vitiorum copia? (If nature cannot, indignation will make verses. And when was there a richer crop of vices?) Juvenal

^Tr

j*

H

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Lu Xun photographed on May 1, 1933.

Introduction Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it. Emerson

THE INFLUENCE OF LU Xun ( 1 8 8 1 - 1 9 3 6 ) in China's cultural, literary, and artistic life over the last seventy years has been inestimable. 1 Hailed at death as "The Soul of the Nation," he wore in life the laurels of "Father of Modern Chinese Literature," "Leader of the New Culture Movement," and "Founder of the Woodcut-Engraving School." But he was first and foremost a classical scholar—a poet from a backwater town, propelled by the times through mining, engineering, seamanship, medicine, philology, and pedagogy into the careers of educator, writer, publicist, and polemicist. His novella The True Story of Ah Q [A Q zheng zhuan}, replete with classical language and references, won enough recognition at home and abroad to culminate in consideration for the Nobel prize, despite a halting English translation with annotations nearly double the length of the text. 2 In 1981 Lu Xun became the subject of an international conference held at Asilomar, California, 3 not so much to dissect his works as to dispute his legacy—a legacy still hotly contested in China today between the cultural organs of the state and the mimeographs of its dissidents: for, coming as he did squarely out of the old culture to actively forge the new, Lu Xun was an intellectual titan, a literary colossus, and an ideological iconoclast, 4 the likes of whom China will, in all probability, not see again in the near future. Though he became the symbol of leftist opposition to the Kuomintang or Nationalist government in the 1930s and lent his name to the Communist cause, he steadfastly maintained an independent position and questioning spirit to the end, never surrendering his intellectual freedom to doctrinaire Stalinism, as did Gorky in the Soviet Union. In the eyes of the Chinese intelligentsia, therefore, Lu 3

4

The Lyrical Lu Xun

X u n maintained his integrity from start to finish, and so the validity of his cultural direction has never been negated by the posthumous distortion to which it has been subjected. 5 If a "loyal opposition" is ever to emerge in China, it will be pursuant to the independent intellectual and moral stance set down by the life and works of this great rebel. In short, Lu X u n is very much alive today, simply because he never allowed himself to make the compromises of a G o r k y and would never mount a pedestal of his own free will. 6 His literary accomplishments were staggering, 7 and the profundity of his insights on Chinese society unrivaled, yet the crux of his artistic impulse remains the outburst of an irascible conscience at pointless inhumanity. His works offer a critique of the national psyche at times so penetrating, so unnerving that even those who set themselves up as apostates to tradition and harbingers of a new order fly at its onslaught back to the comfortable clichés of the days of foot binding, demure daughters, and obedient sons. 8 From his experiences reading and translating Eastern European literature against the backdrop of a crumbling imperial order and later in the days of the foundering Republic, Lu X u n came to ascribe purgative powers to literature as a vehicle for psychological inquiry into the spiritual ailments of a people. Early in youth he ruminated on the nature of the ideal citizen, juxtaposed against what he and his contemporaries termed "the Chinese national character." More than anything else, he found the people of his country lacking in compassion (at, literally, "love") and earnestness (cbeng, also "sincerity," "faith," "conviction"). 9 Initially, he believed this character defect was attributable to lengthy periods of rule by alien invaders (the Mongols, Manchus, and others) that had bred slavish attitudes among their Chinese vassals. But by middle age he had concluded that China's ills were wholly of its own making and could not, in good conscience, be laid at the doorstep of any foreigner. H e argued that the greatest danger inherent in aggression was the arrogant indifference of potential victims and the shameless opportunism that often surfaces among a vanquished people. 1 0 The rulers of the M i n g dynasty, as he wrote many times, epitomized the folly of China. Paying no heed to the ever-lengthening shadow of Manchu might building on their northern frontiers, "they busied themselves instead in China with the slaughter of innocent men, as though they had no regard for human life." 1 1 Yet "the decadence and corruption of the M i n g was actually deprived of reaching its peak, simply because Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong rebelled." 1 2 Then, as the armies of peasants and outlaws swarmed into Peking, "because the rich and powerful were beside themselves lest their former slave become an

Introduction

5

emperor, they casually invited the 'great Manchu army' in to defeat him." 1 3 But seeing Chinese flee before their might, the Manchu horsemen were not disposed to stop at Peking, and so went on to finish the conquest of the entire land, destroying the Ming house in their wake. Lu Xun found himself much troubled by the values of an elite who would choose to give up the whole tianxia ("empire") into the hands of foreigners rather than endure the sight of the loss of one city to their own slaves, for he saw in this a recurrent theme in Chinese history. The Manchu statesman Gang Yi (1834—1900) had suggested it again on the eve of the Qing dynasty's collapse with his cavalier remark "Better to hand something over to a friend than have it taken by a household menial." 14 Lu X u n ascribed no better motives to China's later rulers, Yuan Shikai (1859—1916), the northern warlords, and then Chiang Kai-shek, all of whom he saw as too anxious to make concessions to Japan in order to buy time for their personal political agendas. But what has any of this to do with present-day realities or with universal literary truth? In Lu Xun's oeuvre we find a vast gamut of the literary spectrum employed to analyze social reality, yet we also see social reality recast through the prism of allegory, imagery, and metaphor into lyrical and philosophical art forms valid for all time—relevant to China and the world still in that they address the predicament of modern life—our faults, failings, and innermost fears, in a way that many other Chinese authors have failed to do. 15 As the late critic T. A. Hsia summarized it, Lu Xun's lyrical imagery is imbued with "a kind of terror and anxiety, an experience which we might call modern." 1 6 His art verges on the fable, borders on the morality play— in a sense Ah Q is a modern Everyman who attains his first glimpse of enlightenment only at the edge of the grave; 17 Aigu in Divorce [Lihuri\ faces a hearing as absurd as Kafka's Trial and awaits a fate nearly as arbitrary as that of Joseph K. 18 Interpretation of Lu Xun's works can be done at various levels of meaning, and this is a worthwhile undertaking for all, not merely the domain of the specialist. Literature can serve as a stepping stone into a highly complex conceptual framework, but it can also lure a sophisticated Chinese thinker out from his own societal preoccupations to engage the Western reader in a serious dialogue about cultural priorities—if only the latter is willing to hear him out. In the context of cultural synthesis, Lu Xun's genius at absorption from foreign literature was phenomenal. And in fiction, his stepping out of tradition into a blending of Chinese and Western forms is even more impressive. The sensitivity to and economy of language in his short stories and essays has drawn untrammeled praise from native

6

The Lyrical Lu Xun

critics, regardless of their ideological allegiances. These qualities along with his exceptionally sensitive powers of observation are traits that Jaroslav Prusek attributed directly to the influence of classical Chinese poetry, perhaps the most succinct yet stylized of literary forms, on his prose. 19 But in his classical poetry, he was less of the formalistic innovator and more the conduit of an ancient idiom into the modern context. In technique he deviates from the precedents set by Huang Zunxian (1848—1905), who advocated the revitalization of classical poetry through the liberalization of its formalistic requirements and the addition of new vocabulary. For Lu Xun took, with few exceptions, to the highly stylized forms of jueju (quatrains) and liishi (full-length regulated verse) poetry—forms with detailed, strict rules for rhyme and tonal prosody that evolved according to pronunciations and standards set up over a thousand years ago. 20 Instead of "new vocabulary," he relied, like his Tang precursor Li He (791—817), on the mythological and shamanistic imagery of the Chu ci lyrics, but used it to reflect feelings of modern alienation as well as to comment on and respond emotionally to the excesses, injustices, and vicissitudes of his own day.21 The Chu ci verses are "songs" or "elegies" from the Chu region, an ancient kingdom in south-central China, which were thought to have been reworked and anthologized by poet-statesman Qu Yuan (c. 343— 278 B.C.), the reputed author of the hi sao, during his wanderings in exile from the capital. Later generations also ascribed actual authorship of all the ci verses to Qu Yuan and afterward his legendary suicide turned him into a martyr figure and prototype for latter-day thwarted talents, loners, and patriots run afoul of slander. 22 In Lu Xun's verse there is a marked proclivity to employ words and images originating in the ancient Chu ci anthology to depict feelings engendered by twentieth-century reality. In fact, among the sixty-four extant classical-style verses by Lu Xun, there are at least twenty-five separate instances of such borrowing, the reasons for which are varied. First, they set a surreal, almost mystical backdrop for the action—a land "hushed with an ominous still" as if in anticipation of some unearthly manifestation. They are a reflection of Lu Xun's own inner world as well as a poetic encapsulation of the Zeitgeist in China during the years 1931— 1935, when the bulk of his classical verse was composed. He once authored an article explaining the persecution of writers in China to an American readership under the title "The Present Condition of Art in Darkest China," which reflects his feelings and fears. 23 Second, poetry was oblique enough to elude the censors while remaining spe-

Introduction

7

cific enough to be understood by educated readers with a limited knowledge of his situation as well as savored by the cognoscenti—his coterie of friends and literary allies, for whom much of Lu Xun's poetry was initially written. Third, such imagery provides for the identity of the poet through a subconscious, culture-bound process in the reader's mind—the poet is speaking in a voice similar to that of Qu Yuan and must, therefore, share in his dissident stance, if not in his convictions. Fourth, it is in keeping with his predilection for drawing on parts of the Chinese literary heritage alien to what he considered had been sanitized by the constraints of neo-Confucianism. And last, it is consistent with his notion of myths and legends as the origin of literary creation. 24 Though evidence of the influence of Qu Yuan's style on Lu Xun's verse composition can be traced back through his 1903 Japan-period quatrain (in chapter 7) all the way to the year 1901 when he composed the "Offertory for the God of Books" (in chapter 4) with Zhou Zuoren at the age of twenty, the most prominent employment of this imagery is actually characteristic of his mature period (see the untitled poem in chapter 43, for instance). As early as 1907-1908 Lu Xun had adopted a critical attitude toward Qu Yuan's insufficient will to resist the powers that drove him to a watery grave, yet he nonetheless granted him the highest merits as an artist, stating that Qu Yuan "made of the depiction of his own anger and sorrow a superb masterpiece . . . this man who dared speak forth on topics from which his predecessors had shrunk . . . whose song burst forth with beauty and pathos." 25 In many ways this is an appropriate characterization of Lu Xun's own work as well, though he denied that the Republic had preserved even the marginal freedom of poets in Qu Yuan's day (see chapter 30). "John Stuart Mill declared that tyranny makes men cynical," Lu Xun quipped. "He did not know that a Republic makes them silent." 26 By general consensus, Lu Xun is ranked as a poet of acumen and resource in the old style. Lin Yii-sheng observes that "Lu Hsiin's 'Notes of Chia-chien-sheng,' written at seventeen, and his classical poems, 'Parting with my Brothers' ('Pieh chu-ti') and 'Pity for the Flowers' ('Hsi-hua'), written at nineteen and twenty, reveal that he had already become an accomplished essayist and poet. His youthful poems are especially noteworthy for their thoughtful content and supple style."27 Though the frequent recourse to allusion that came to characterize the poetry of his mature period tends to obscure the meaning of certain lines, it gives his verse a depth and resonance few others can equal. Lu Xun's comments on the difficulty of composition in the old poetic

8

The Lyrical Lu X.un

styles underscore his respect for them, even though they were an avocation to him and not one of his major literary forms. 28 His lines seldom deviate from the classic rhyme and tonal specifications, and such deviations as do occur are more frequent in verse of a lighter vein. 29 As a poet he builds antithetical constructions (duizbang) with a sedulous craftsmanship. Duizhang are another demanding feature of the regulated verse style that require a matching or balancing of both sense and sound in two separate antithetical lines that form a couplet, usually with the "matching" terms functioning in semantic juxtaposition (see the poems in chapters 16 and 49)- Although the requirement for antithesis in quatrains is more lax than in full-length regulated verse, we find that his constructions of imagery in a number of quatrains are an interlocking and interdependent scheme of signals to the sentiment that draw the reader rapidly up into an emotional crescendo—again, a traditional technical goal for the form (see the poems in chapters 7 and 46). 30 Lu X u n was well read in Western poetry, but despite his early love for Byron and the martyred Hungarian poet Petôfi Sândor (1823— 1849), 31 it is difficult to demonstrate direct influence on his classical verse per se from Western literary sources. 32 Aside from Q u Yuan and Li H e , then, a third comparison has been made between Lu X u n and the late-Tang poet Li Shangyin (c. 813—858), whose image-rich and symbol-laden verse once drew Lu Xun's praise for its "fresh clarity and radiant beauty." In their technique of interweaving emotion-evoking image with the veiled specificity of symbol, Lu X u n and Li Shangyin may indeed come the closest together among these poets, even though Lu X u n claimed to take exception to the ambiguity of Li Shangyin's numerous historical and literary allusions. 33 Despite his protestations to the contrary, which seem to stem largely from feelings of political or didactic obligations to promote "the new literature," Lu X u n was very much the symbolic stylist that we find in the comparison with Li Shangyin. T h o u g h he had dabbled in new-style vernacular verse—poetry written in the common language of everyday speech—several times in 1918 and again in 1932, the results were discouraging, albeit "correct" in terms of the "progressive" literary trends of the day. More revealing of his true tastes and aesthetic loyalties is the fact that his continued practice in the old forms flew in the face of political correctness and of the more vociferous advocates of the much-touted "new poetry." A letter of November 1, 1934, to Dou Yinfu provides a glimpse of his private stand on the new-style poetry vis-à-vis the old:

Introduction

9

I think that there are two types of play scripts: the type that can be set on the stage and the type that can only be set on a desk. D o u b t less, the former is superior to the latter. Similarly, in poetry we have the type that can be read aloud and the type that can only be read in silence. Again, it follows that the former is the superior of the two. It is lamentable, therefore, that in China our "new poetry" must find itself in the latter group, since a poem lacking in both rhyme and rhythm does not lend itself to recitation aloud and is hence less easily committed to memory. It is for this reason that the "new poetry" has never succeeded in displacing the old forms. In the minds of the people, the position of the old has never been supplanted. 3 4

And it was for this reason, too, that Lu Xun chose not to abandon oldstyle verse; he was clearly convinced that it had retained both technical and emotional appeal in the modern era. Formalistic considerations aside, there remains the question of which among a host of predecessors Lu Xun most resembles in spirit. Liu Dajie, the author of the major mainland literary history of China past and present, has suggested that a kindred spirit is to be found for him in a figure no less than the Tang poet Du Fu (Tu Fu, 712—770), who has been called China's greatest poet. 35 Liu's praise may be prematurely effusive, but it does indicate that they share many of the same thematic concerns and are, at the heart of their lyricism, both of an essentially moral and philosophical temperament—the basic thread and humanistic core that has informed Chinese verse since its earliest days.

Lu Xun's Childhood and Youth (1881-1901) . . . H e was not only a great man of letters but a great thinker and revolutionary. Lu X u n was a man of unyielding integrity, free from all sycophancy or obsequiousness; this quality is invaluable among colonial and semi-colonial peoples . . . Lu X u n was a cultural hero without parallel in our country's history. . . . H e is a sage for a new China. Mao Tse-tung

Lu XUN was born into an old gentry family on September 25, 1881. He would be the eldest of five siblings, only three of whom would

10

The Lyrical Lu Xun

reach maturity. 36 His clan were absentee landlords, 37 and his grandfather, the patriarch of the family, had reached the upper echelons of the imperial civil service. The "New Compound of the Zhou Clan," the small manor house in which the birth occurred, is preserved today as a national shrine in the town of Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, by the central government of the People's Republic. Since early history, the town has been famous for its mellow rice wine and seasoned drinkers; but with the advent of the written word it began to provide some of the most infamous legal counselors (shiye) to the officialdom and aides-de-camp (muyou) to the warlords, furnishing the brains behind the brawn in various areas for "local bullies and evil gentry" throughout China. In Lu Xun's mature period, he was subjected to a deluge of innuendo from both critics and personal enemies, implying he was a typical product of this Shaoxing shiye mettle—a sinister little man behind a dubious cause. Perhaps this, more than anything else, led him once to lament that people are often denigrated for things over which they have no control at all—such as their ages, names or places of birth! 38 At birth, he was named Zhou Zhangshou, later styled Zhou Yucai, and finally adopted the name of Zhou Shuren himself. The graphs for Shuren mean literally "tree man," although the connotation lies beyond the words themselves in "fostering talent" or "nurturing ability" (as one might cultivate a plant or shape a growing tree). He used this name from the time he went to Nanking in his late teens until it gradually became supplanted by his pen name, Lu Xun, in the process of a spiral to fame, commencing in his thirty-seventh year (1918). 39 The first character in his pseudonym, Lu, was his mother's surname and also the name of an ancient state whose inhabitants were characterized by their frankness: Confucius hailed from the state of Lu. The second, Xun, means "swift" or "sudden," as in the old saying "a sudden peal of thunder leaves no time to cover the ears" (xun lei buji yan er). Thus, so far as the cryptography of noms de plume can shed light on the man, the name "Lu Xun" would seem to carry the connotation of a style of satire so bold and swift as to leave its targets no time to dodge. 40 Much has been made by communist biographers since the 1950s of the positive influences exerted on Lu Xun by the "rustic origin" and "progressive outlook" of his mother, whom he once characterized as a woman "from the country." She did, in fact, come from Anqiaotou, a town considerably smaller than Shaoxing, but was just the same a member of the gentry class, and so considered of a social standing commensurate to his father's own. Though she had never attended school

Introduction

11

(this, again, is no instance of disadvantage—it was simply not deemed proper for women to have schooling), she managed to learn to read and write on her o w n — t h e mark of an undeniably independent character. Well after her marriage, when the anti-foot-binding movement had gained momentum, she endured the pain of unbinding her own feet. I would not take exception to the commonly held view that her selfassertion and common sense in daily matters naturally made a deeper impression on her offspring than the retiring ways of their dissipated father, an opium smoker and alcoholic who took little interest in domestic affairs. Still, the father was no villain in the eyes of his children, only a rather pathetic f i g u r e — a loser in the civil service examination ordeal, and hence a failure in the eyes of his bureaucracy-oriented gentry peers. "If one excels at his studies," enjoined Confucius, "he may enter the officialdom," but Z h o u Wenyu could not. And thus Lu Xun's father was forced to live out his days in the house of his successful father, Lu Xun's grandfather, overshadowed for life by another generation. A t times, after partaking of rice wine, he would grow animated, gathering the children around to listen to a story he told. B u t by degrees, as he got deeper in his cups, a sort of melancholy would overcome him, whereupon the children would run off to play on their own again. 4 1 Lu Xun's father was a somewhat tragic figure in their recollections, but hardly a cruel or violent one. The reports of his "severity" by some biographers are unsubstantiated; despite his indulgence in wine and opium, it seems he never struck his children. A glance at his emaciated figure in an old portrait gives the impression of a strange listlessness— an ennui knowable in that era of conflict and upheaval only by a man groomed for a fading order of ancienne noblesse in some wayside outpost of the past. A t the age of six, a primer of Chinese history was selected for Lu X u n by his grandfather, and he began his schooling with this book under the tutelage of a great uncle, like his father, another reject of the examination system. This uncle Was eventually to commit a bizarre suicide and become, many years thereafter, the prototype for the protagonist of Lu Xun's story "The W h i t e L i g h t " [Bai guang}. The boy was tutored at home in the Chinese classics until, at the age of eleven, he was transferred to a one-room schoolhouse funded by his clan and presided over by a kindly old teacher who, surprisingly for those days, encouraged Lu Xun's extracurricular readings outside the orthodox canon. Since early childhood, Lu X u n had been enthralled by folk tales of

12

The Lyrical Lu Xun

his home province, and these were supplemented by an introduction to local history in the form of anecdotes told by his family servants about the intrusion of the Taiping Rebellion (1851—1864) into their sleepy town. In this way, the sights and sounds of his boyhood first drew Lu Xun toward many of the topics that would later become seminal in his adult research and study: local history, local opera, folk tales, Buddhist parables, popular fiction, drawing, and woodblock illustrations. His interest in mythology stemmed, in part, from the illustrated edition of the Shanhai jing [Classic of mountains and oceans], an "unorthodox" text about fantastical creatures and imaginary lands that was the first book he owned. These minor deviations from a boy's "proper" Confucian education served, in turn, to feed his creative energy, diversify his interests, and fire his imagination. A relatively happy childhood behind the closed gates of a gentry household, surrounded by benign family members and trusted servants, should be ascribed its due role in the formation of Lu Xun's adult personality. It provided him a contrast to the filth, corruption, seediness, and cruelty of the outside world, making him sensitive to, even resentful of, the ever-present crowd in the streets—the starers, the hawkers—"China's idiots, her vile idiots," as he often referred to them in conversations with his close friend Xu Shoushang when the two were studying in Japan. 42 True, Lu Xun did venture out of the family compound on occasion as a child to mingle with the peasants and artisans near his mother's family home or at local opera performances, but these instances were the exception rather than the rule; they were more often than not surrounded by some festive atmosphere, and he was almost always under some form of supervision. Late in Lu Xun's twelfth year, a disaster befell the Zhou house. His grandfather's complicity in a case of corruption involving the administration of the civil service examinations was exposed. Although such involvement may have been relatively common in those days, the letter of the law called for swift and harsh punishment. The old man was sentenced to death, and, out of fear for reprisals against his family because the grandfather had initially fled, Lu Xun and his younger brother Zhou Zuoren (who were classed as his direct heirs) had to flee to the countryside homes of maternal relatives at Huangpuzhuang and Xiaogaobu. Though Lu Xun spent slightly less than a year in hiding, that period became etched forever in his mind—as the time when he first felt the callous manner in which the unfortunate were treated by their betters: "I was sometimes even called a beggar," he later painfully recounted. 43 So his rite de passage into adolescence was one of depriva-

Introduction

13

tion and humiliation, coupled with a permanent plunge from the stately grace, the static security that had characterized the world of his childhood. On his return to their Shaoxing home, Lu X u n watched the depletion of his family's resources in appeals for clemency in his grandfather's case. The old man's death sentence was soon commuted, but his release from prison secured only after almost seven years' confinement. Though the patriarch was eventually returned to his household in 1901 in the wake of the Boxer amnesty, all would no longer be the same. Prison had embittered him to the extent that the family's welfare seemed of little concern to him. Moreover, Lu Xun's father had fallen ill of edema and died in 1896. His father's illness was particularly wrenching for Lu Xun as his family's eldest son. He was often sent with family heirlooms in hand to a pawnshop in a nearby part of town, where he raised them up to a broker behind a counter twice his height, who would then hand down money "proffered with contempt." From the pawnshop, he would proceed to an herbalist's store, where he had been directed to procure the exotic tonics and elixirs prescribed for his father by a traditional doctor of great repute in the locale. 44 W h e n the treatments proved useless, the doctor's remedies grew more ludicrous. Once, for example, when the ailing man had coughed up blood, his doctor ordered that a solution of ink be prepared for him to drink, based on the desperate logic that "black blots out red." By the time his father died, the experience had soured Lu Xun on traditional Chinese medicine for the rest of his life and led him to question the social system as well. Recalling these events in 1922, he remarked: "Someone who has grown up in a family of comfortable circumstances only to see it sink into the depths of hardship is, I believe, at least enabled through the course of such events, to come to see the true face of human society."45 Lu Xun's childhood has been an important source of much scholarship linking his life with his creative works and persons in his hometown with specific characters in his stories. The memoirs of Zhou Zuoren (1885-1967), his middle brother, detail such information, and a few of Lu Xun's own fictionalized reminiscences (in the collection Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk) tend to emphasize the interplay of reality with fiction. But most of Lu Xun's characters are, in fact, composite figures based on one or more prototypes and not clearly identifiable with any one specific person. Many of the events in his fiction are, moreover, of a representative nature and not assuredly accounts of any actual occurrence. Since his stories and, in part, his reminiscences are

14

The Lyrical Lu Xun

fiction and not journalism, they have, of necessity, been submitted to artistic distortion by the writer when he distills and dramatizes the subjective, murky reality that is dredged from memory. 46 A thorough grooming in the classics and training in the "eightlegged essay" style of composition had been de rigueur for every gentry son in China for centuries—preparations for the civil service exam were the focus of proper education for anyone of means. But in the spring of 1898, Lu Xun's mother was forced by economic necessity to withdraw her son from this genteel course of studies and to scrape together enough traveling funds to send him to Nanking to sit for an entrance examination at the tuition-free Jiangnan (South China) Naval Academy, where a relative's place on the faculty virtually guaranteed admission. The Naval Academy was one of a number of educational institutions established of late by the Qing or Manchu dynasty as a last-ditch attempt at securing China's territorial integrity in a century of imperialism and gunboat diplomacy through the acquisition of modern technical and military skills vital to the country's survival. So Lu Xun's entry into "Western studies," as they were then called, was, in a real sense, "striking out on a new path to meet a different type of person," as he later termed it. 47 From the historical perspective of the abolition of the whole traditional civil service system, which occurred only a few years later in the wake of the Boxer catastrophe (1900) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904—1905), Lu Xun can be seen as representative of an entire generation of intellectuals who were forced to come to terms with China's place in the "modern community of nations" without recourse to a luxury their fathers' generation possessed—the crutch of a traditional world order in which the assumption of China's preeminence remained unchallenged. Lu Xun quickly tired of the mediocre curriculum and poor teaching at this, his first "modern-style" school, transferring within a year to the School of Mines and Railroads attached to the Jiangnan Army Academy, from which he was graduated in January of 1902. Although conditions at this second institution were far from ideal, it was here that he was impressed by the idea that Western science had served as a catalyst in the Meiji era ( 1 8 6 7 - 1 9 1 2 ) reforms in Japan. Here, too, he gained exposure to the nineteenth-century European notions of "social Darwinism" through Yan Fu's ( 1 8 5 3 - 1 9 2 1 ) adapted translation of T. H. Huxley's Evolution and Ethics. Reading about the doctrine of "the survival of the fittest" against the backdrop of China's crushing defeat by the army of the Eight Allies in the Boxer fiasco, he formed a vision of his country as a weakened and atrophied nation pressed upon by dynamic competitors.

Introduction

15

But to imagine he had already become an antimonarchist revolutionary and radical social reformer at this early date, as Feng Xuefeng (1903—1976) and others have asserted, may be premature. Late in 1898, after already having embarked on the road to a Western-style education, he hedged enough to sit at the Kuaiji district examination for the xiu cai or "licentiate" degree, the lowest rung in the old examination system. And if Zhou Zuoren is to be believed, an early offertory verse (in chapter 4) indicates that his thirst for the imperial officialdom had not yet entirely abated even in 1901. The introduction of the theory of evolution, with the resultant spread of "evolutionism," social Darwinism, and other pseudoscientific credos from fin de siècle Europe, had a curious effect on Chinese intellectuals in helping to create the specter of a looming "cultural extinction." If China could not rise to meet the "challenge" of the West, it was argued, its civilization, its writing, and perhaps even its race would be doomed to go the way of the dodo bird. Because of this, the translator Yan Fu came to exercise a profound influence over Lu Xun as well as many others of his generation. In his editorialized and reworked versions of Darwin, Spencer, Mill, Adam Smith, Montesquieu, and Huxley, as well as his Ten-Thousand-Word Memorial to the Throne, Yan Fu suggested that although China's salvation lay clearly in the study of science and technology and in its selective adaptation of Western governmental systems, the true dynamism of the West was not to be found in the efficacy of its institutions, but rather in the importance placed upon the rights of the individual. Thus China, if it sought genuine progress, would eventually have to realize that material modernization alone is insufficient as an end. Lyell has observed, in line with Benjamin Schwartz, that "Yan Fu set forth priorities for China's attempts at reform and modernization, and argued that spiritual concerns (the nurture of men of ability, changes in customs and in men's minds) should take precedence over more material ones (military modernization, financial reform, and proper diplomacy)." 48 Yan Fu's priorities were to remain with Lu Xun for the rest of his life. Treating Lu Xun's ostensibly radicalized thought after his exposure to Marxism, Harriet Mills has commented perceptively: In essence Lu Hsiin had but one subject—China. The major concern of his life was that China should become great and strong. For him greatness lay not in military power but in the creative energy of a healthy, educated, and responsible citizenry. The cannibalism of the traditional society had sacrificed the many to the few. A new and more rational order had to take its place. But the new could not succeed until the old had been destroyed. The real urgency was to secure

16

The Lyrical Lu Xun for the new the chance to be born. The defeat of the old was of more practical moment than the blueprinting of the new. His work is therefore in a sense negative. He was not concerned with the good in China, nor with the details of the future, but with what was wrong. It was the evil that threatened the future. His work is essentially a commentary on the attitudes and practices he felt most endangered China. 49

Mills' view seems to bear out the idea of a logical continuity in Lu Xun's thought up until his last days. Late in life, Lu X u n once likened the services of the translator to Prometheus' stealing fire on behalf of humankind. And so it was that during his own formative period the ideas of John Stuart Mill on the rights of the individual were introduced through Yan Fu's elegant rendition of On Liberty, to reemerge in Lu Xun's mature years. Yet the doctrines that influenced him first were primarily those of Huxley and the "evolutionists." These held that though the world's cultures vie for survival, just as individuals are pitted against one another in society, human beings are yet enabled, by virtue of their capacity for rational endeavor, to elevate themselves and improve their lot. Thus hope cannot be denied completely, even for the most wretched of the earth. Given the coupling of "natural selection" w i t h "rational endeavor," or so the theory went, a nation's populace could be expected to improve from generation to generation. This assertion accounts in part for the abiding faith Lu X u n cherished in youth and the future. He was convinced that the young could show an improvement over his or his father's generation. It can even be argued that the doting, fatherly concern he showed toward so many young writers and artists during his final years calls into question the frequent assertion that he had abandoned this faith in youth totally in 1927, when he witnessed the duplicity of some of his own students in the witch hunts and mass executions that followed the anti-Communist purge at Canton. 5 0 The first group of thirteen verses, presented here in chapters 1 through 6, date from the period of Lu Xun's student days in N a n k i n g . They are the earliest extant examples of his classical poetry and were preserved by his brother Zhou Zuoren, who dutifully entered their texts into his own diary. Lu X u n must have produced additional verses in these years for himself or for classmates at school, but these are now either lost or destroyed. Although the verses of this period are conventional in their sentiments (with themes such as longing for home and family, exhorting his junior siblings to apply themselves to their studies, and so forth), they offer sensitive glimpses into the young

Introduction

17

poet's perception of familial decline and subtly reflect his determination to vie against fate by embarking on a new and seldom-traveled road to redeem the family fortunes. The moral and scholastic cultivation he urges upon his brothers, though on one level a typically paternalistic Confucian injunction from the senior to the junior, is imbued with notes of recurring urgency by the personal drive Lu Xun felt to regain distinction for his fallen family. This was, however, an urgency his siblings would never know so keenly, for as the eldest brother, he had borne and would continue to bear the brunt of familial and societal responsibility for them.

Japan and B a c k ( 1 9 0 2 - 1 9 0 9 ; 1 9 0 9 - 1 9 1 7 ) The message that calls you home Is written in a language you know. Brecht, Gedanken iiber die Dauer des Exils of furthering his studies in Japan must have occurred to Lu Xun before his graduation from the School of Mines and Railroads in January of 1902, for by February 20 of the same year he had already received notification of his acceptance to a scholarship program under the jurisdiction of the military governor of Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi provinces. 51 The dynasty had dispatched only a handful of students to Japan before the Boxer catastrophe in 1900. But the humiliations suffered during the Allied campaign to suppress this antiforeign rising, coupled with the exacting terms of the Boxer Indemnity forced upon the Qing court in 1901, left even the dynasty's most die-hard conservatives little room to challenge the applicability of technically oriented "Western learning" over traditional humanistically oriented "Chinese learning." 52 So by the time Lu Xun set sail for Japan on March 24, 1902, there were already around three hundred Chinese students enrolled at various universities and other institutions of higher learning throughout the island nation, all intending to study branches of the "new learning." By the following year that figure had swollen to 1,000, and in 1906 it had surpassed 8 , 0 0 0 . « T H E IDEA

The Qing dynasty had ample reason for designating Japan as the major training ground in China's quest for Western learning. Achievements of the Meiji reform and modernization campaign were already

18

The Lyrical Lu Xun

largely evident in Japan's economic, military, industrial, and scientific sectors. Moreover, its written language made extensive use of Chinese characters, and the advantage of these shared graphs for Chinese students was striking—the time expended to master a reading knowledge of textbook or technical Japanese might be less than half that required for a European language. The Japanese had, in addition, mobilized teams of experts for decades already to select and translate Western books on many subjects. Although their attempts at translating European works did not predate China's, the sheer quantities involved in the Japanese endeavor were phenomenal. Aside from these advantages there remained two major factors in the realm of "practical" consideration. First, Japan was geographically and culturally contiguous to China. This could save on expenditures for travel and, at the same time, minimize the potential for "culture shock" among students. Second, it can be argued that the dynasty feared, perhaps more than anything else in the "new learning," the threat of subversion by radical ideologies that might shake the rule of the Manchu house over China. Japan, itself a monarchy and a society even more homogeneous than China or Europe, would, or so it was thought, be less likely to serve as a breeding ground for the more extreme forms of Western egalitarian thought. But what came out of this undertaking for many Chinese participants was a disillusionment with the isolationist precepts of "selfstrengthening," the gradual faltering of the constitutional monarchists' cause, and an eventual rejection of the Qing claim on "universal kingship," the chief underpinning of Confucian ideological support for the Manchu dynasty. Although Lu Xun had yet to become a chief actor in any of this, the influence such an intellectual and cultural sojourn would have on him is undeniable. During the first two years spent in Japan, he was enrolled in the Kobun Institute, a language school set up for Chinese students planning to go on to a university or technical school as soon as they could achieve a working level of Japanese. The course load was relatively light and left him with a good deal of time for outside reading. X u Shoushang ( 1 8 8 2 - 1 9 4 8 ) , who met Lu Xun at the school in 1902 and remained a friend for the rest of his life, has testified that from very early on, Lu Xun cherished an abiding interest in the poetry of Qu Yuan and Byron, as well as in works on Nietzsche and Greek and Roman mythology. 5 4 From this observation it is apparent that his kindred spirit with the so-called Mara poets was already nascent. Aside from Byron, whom Lu Xun ranked as the foremost of these, the Mara poets included other nineteenth-century European literary figures such

Introduction

19

as Shelley, Heine, Pushkin, Lermontov, the Polish poet Mickiewicz, and the Hungarian lyricist Petofi. The common thread drawn between this divergent group of romantics was the impassioned voice with which they cried forth for justice for the oppressed peoples of captive nations in Greece, Eastern Europe and the Baltic, held down by the Ottoman Turks, Tsarist Russia, and the Austrian empire. A parallel seemed to be forming in Lu Xun's mind between the fate of these captive nations and that of China under the rule of an alien Manchu house, the legacy of foreign invasion, and the shame of subjugation. China's intelligentsia would have to own up to its own moral responsibility, he wrote in the winter of 1907— 1908, to come forth with men like Byron—jingshen zhanshi (combatants in the intellectual and spiritual realms) with the courage to cry out against all odds in the hope of awakening the Chinese people from their mental lethargy and self-deception. 55 By mid-1903 he had already published a tract adapted from foreign sources called The Soul of Sparta \Sibada zhi hun\, in which he called on the youth of China to learn from the self-sacrificing spirit of the ancient Spartan resistance to Xerxes at Thermopylae. 5 6 Yet he himself proved more favorably disposed to the abstractions of the written word than to the concrete undertakings of activists. Although guardedly sympathetic to the anti-Manchu cause, he shied away from real involvement in parties and organizations. The claim that he joined a revolutionary organization, the Restoration Society (Guangfu hui), in 1908 remains largely unsubstantiated and is denied by both his middle brother and his wife (the former was with him at the time). 57 From his writings of this period it is clear that he thoroughly detested the self-aggrandizement in which most would-be revolutionists were busily engaged. 5 8 Toward the end of his life, he set down a tongue-in-cheek account of his first encounter with the revolutionaries: I forget the exact name of the place where I had my initial experience of the sort, but I do remember how impressive it all was at first: a dashing young man with a white bandanna wrapped around his forehead up on stage m a k i n g an anti-Manchu speech, which he intoned in his Wuxi accent. B u t when he got to the point where he proclaimed, "As sure as I, Wu Zhihui, stand here before you now cussin' that old hag, she must be back there cussin' me too . . . " and the whole audience broke into hysterical laughter, I could bear it no longer. Such frivolity seemed incongruous with study abroad. O f course, by "that old h a g , " he was referring to our Empress

20

The Lyrical Lu Xun Dowager. Now there was no doubt in my mind that Mr. W u Zhihui had stood before us at a meeting in Tokyo "cussin' " the Empress Dowager, but I felt it highly unlikely that a similar meeting was being convened simultaneously in Peking by an elderly empress bent on hurling invective at Mr. W u . I'm not against perking up a dry speech with a bit of humor, but that type of pointless asininity can serve no purpose at all and may, in fact, prove deleterious [to a cause]. 59

The year 1903 also saw the publication of a number of articles by Lu Xun aimed at the popularization of scientific knowledge. To that same end, he made abridged and adapted translations of two Jules Verne novels, 60 hoping science fiction would spark an interest in science and discovery among young readers in China, for Yan Fu, Liang Qichao (1873—1929), and other reformers had already done much speculation on the potential for the popularization of "new knowledge" through the vehicle of pleasure reading. The young Lu Xun thought of himself as serious and dedicated. He took offense at the behavior of those among his classmates who, having received scholarships, whiled away their time practicing the newest dance steps. Remembering his father's illness and death while in the care of a traditional practitioner as well as his own embarrassment and consternation when his complaints of a toothache were once diagnosed as symptoms pursuant to excessive masturbation, Lu Xun came to believe that the acquisition of modern medical knowledge might equip him to better the lot of his benighted countrymen. So in the autumn of 1904 he left the social whirl of the swelling Chinese student community in Tokyo for the isolation of Sendai Provincial Medical Academy in cold northern Honshu. With Western medicine, he thought, he could convince people in China of the validity of the reformist cause by curing their illnesses and alleviating their sufferings. Yet one day in his second year of medical studies, according to his own account, this dream was shattered. The Russo-Japanese War (1904—1905), then raging on Chinese soil, was the news of the hour. In his biology classes, lantern slides were used to project photos of microbes and bacteria onto a screen as an aid during the lecture. If time remained at the end of the period, the instructor might show slides of news events. Sixteen years later, Lu Xun conjured up the fateful incident for his readers: Since it was during the Russo-Japanese War, a disproportionate number of slides were devoted to the hostilities. And of course being in their lecture hall, I had to join in on their cheering and applause [at

Introduction

21

Japanese victories and Russian defeats}. One day, out of the blue, there came the image of many Chinese people on the screen, and I hadn't seen another Chinese then for the longest time! But in this picture there was one all tied-up right in the center, and the rest were just mulling around about him. Though they were big and strong, they wore a shared expression of apathy. According to the news text that was read along with the slide, the one who was bound had given military secrets to the Russians and was about to be beheaded by the Japanese for this offense in a public execution designed as a warning to others. And come the others did, if for nothing but to enjoy the sensation of seeing a head lopped off! I dropped out of school before the semester was over and returned to Tokyo, because this one slide had convinced me that medicine was no longer important. For it matters little how physically strong the bodies of a citizenry racked by its own ignorance may be. As they are in their present state, they are good for nothing more than to serve as victims or provide the audiences at such spectacles. So it is not necessarily lamentable even if large numbers of them perish from illness. The most important task that lay ahead, then, was to change them in spirit; and since I thought that literature might serve this purpose, I decided to promote a literary movement. Many were the Chinese in Tokyo at that time who studied law, government, physics, chemistry, even police work and engineering, but not a single one was doing art or literature. Nevertheless, amid that uncongenial atmosphere I was fortunate enough to find one or two kindred spirits. We gathered around us a few others who were demonstrably necessary, and after discussion it seemed our first step should naturally be to bring out a literary journal, the title of which was to denote that this was a new birth. As we were by-and-large classically oriented then, we named it Xin sheng [New life].61 Yet as we neared the date of publication, a number of our contributors began to lose interest and then our funds ran out, leaving only three of us to hold the bag, without a penny to our names. Since we had picked a less than conducive time to begin our venture, when it fell through we knew that any whining from us would merely fall upon deaf ears. And subsequently even we three hangers-on [i.e., Lu Xun himself, Xu Shoushang, and Zhou Zuoren} would be cast apart by our separate fates and thus be unable to dream up any future projects together. Such was the fate of our abortive New Life.62 In J u n e of 1 9 0 6 Lu X u n returned to China briefly at the request of his mother. The result of the trip was a new psychological burden that must have weighed heavily on him during and after the New

Life

debacle, and indeed continued to haunt him for the remainder of his life. A rumor had reached his mother that he had married and fathered a child in Japan. In order to enforce vows that she had made on his

22

The Lyrical Lu Xun

behalf some years previously to the Zhu clan (a gentry family on the outskirts of Shaoxing), she feigned illness as a pretext in a letter to her son asking for his immediate return to China. To Lu Xun's chagrin a surprise wedding to an unknown woman two years his senior was in the offing to greet his return. Evidently displeased from the outset, he sailed for Japan several days after the ceremony, taking his middle brother with him, but leaving his new bride behind. Although the year 1906 was fraught with distraction and disappointment for the young Lu Xun, it did bring about one positive event, the release from prison in Shanghai of a man he would consider his mentor for years to come— the sarcastic philologist, caustic newspaper editor, and irascible gadfly of the Manchus, Zhang Taiyan (Zhang Binglin, 1868—1936). By the summer of 1908 Lu Xun and his brother had started to attend a class given by Zhang in Tokyo on the ancient etymological dictionary Shuowen jiezi,63 The lectures were often informed with Zhang's asides on the humble origins of the Manchu ruling house as nomadic herdsmen—primitive "tribesmen" from the periphery of the civilized world, who had usurped the Chinese empire as their own private dominion and brought the nation, as a result of their ineptitude and brutal misrule, to the verge of collapse in the face of the Western onslaught, or so it was held. But Zhang's racialistic preoccupation with the dynasty's forebears held only a limited appeal for Lu Xun, who was interested in developing a more self-reflective critique of China. Zhang Taiyan's influence on Lu Xun was most directly manifested in the archaic style of prose composition that he seems to have picked up from reading his teacher's essays before their classes together actually commenced. This was a written language that harked back to the Wei and J i n eras (between the third and sixth centuries A.D.). The challenging nature of its laconic style must have had a direct and personal appeal to Lu Xun, since these are qualities for which he continued to strive in his later fiction and classical poetry. Moreover, he adopted it promptly (at least as early as 1903) and clung to it with a fervor that allowed no flirtation with the style of the more widely accepted Tongcheng school of composition until necessity born of limited readership forced the change on him. The most important essays of Lu Xun's early period were written primarily in 1907 and published by Chinese student-run journals 64 in Japan in 1907 and 1908. In Wenhua pianzhi lun [Concerning imbalanced cultural development], he attempts to draw from an analytical approach to the rise (and problems) of the West conclusions relevant to China's own modernization process, and to delineate the position of

Introduction

23

Chinese culture vis-à-vis that of its neighbors. 65 His article Moulo shi li shuo [On the power of Mara poetry] deals with the role of literature in cultural transformation. In a third, more troubled, essay, Po esheng lun [On refuting the voices of evil], he excoriates China's elite for attempting to blame the country's backwardness on the "ignorance and superstition" of the peasantry rather than owning up to their own responsibility. He also critiques social Darwinism as a pseudoscientific ideology bent on justifying the subjugation of weaker peoples by the industrialized world. 66 William Lyell has summarized Lu Xun's ideas on China's "mission" in the world at that time, saying: China should not become powerful in order to lord it over others or seek revenge, but should rather seek strength to come to the aid of the oppressed and downtrodden by going to their succor much as Byron (the Mara poet par excellence) did when he went to the aid of the Greeks. In all three of these essays one is struck by the author's critical perceptiveness. Lu Hsiin's view of the West was a reasoned one, achieved only after much reflection, and was the result of much study and love; it was reached through hard work and was uniquely his own.67 Yet Lu Xun's early essays are laden with ambiguities and contradictions. On the one hand, he opposed the materialistic and scientistic credos then gaining popularity in China because of their negation of idealism, which he saw as the greatest motive force in history. On the other, the life-styles and material progress of the developed countries still drew him toward the promise of science and technology. He denounced the popular conception of democracy as the rule o f t e n million unprincipled varlets" and suspected that special-interest groups bent on their own profit at the expense of the nation as a whole were foisting themselves off as "industrializers," "modernizers," and "parliamentarians" in China. 68 Yet he displayed an equal intolerance for the old-fashioned gentry and the intransigence of autocracy. 69 An advocate of a balanced approach to modernization, he did not wish to see China give up certain aspects of its traditional priorities, which he termed the very "blood vessels" of its culture. 7 " The early essays ultimately represent a stage in a longer-term period of intellectual maturation, but one must, in all fairness, concede that a number of the themes Lu Xun grappled with in them have seen no easy solutions in China or the West. They remained concerns at the time of his death and have continued to haunt his successors until the present day. In 1908 Lu Xun also published his first scholarly translations,

24

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Yuwai xiaoshuo [Tales from abroad], a two-volume collection of short stories rendered into an erudite style of classical Chinese by Zhou Zuoren and himself. Though the set presented an informed selection of stories from Russia, Poland, Bosnia, Finland, England, France, and the United States, it was weighted heavily toward Eastern Europe. This was because the Zhou brothers had hoped (in vain, albeit, but clearly in advance of their day) that the Chinese readership would be able to identify with the writings of other peoples who, like themselves, were beset by external domination and internal cultural crisis. In fact, Lu Xun had studied German specifically with the hope of finding more translations from the various languages of Russia and Eastern Europe than would be available to him with Japanese as his only foreign language. He was, in this period, most influenced by Sienkiewicz and Gogol. He also had a liking for Andreyev, Garshin, and the Japanese authors Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) and Mori Ogai (1862-1922). From Sienkiewicz and Gogol, Lu Xun learned the technique that allows him to preserve a degree of "distancing" in his treatment of cruelty and oppression. In Natsume, his brother Zuoren observed in 1936, he obtained a model for "the poignant wit and subtle beauty" of his satire. 71 "Lu Xun was a man who seldom laughed aloud," recalled Xiao J u n , who knew him later. "He understood that humor embodies great tragedy, and so remained content to let others do the laughing." 7 2 Although Lu Xun had placed high hopes on these translations as a vehicle to inspire his compatriots and fire their imaginations to meet the challenge of the times, the public response was far from encouraging. In Tokyo the set sold scarcely a score of copies; and the Shanghai sales figures were similar. Dejected, Lu Xun later noted that some Chinese had an interest in foreign literature then, but mostly in suspense and adventure fiction like the works of Rider Haggard and Conan Doyle. And so he returned home to China in 1909 to take a job teaching science at the Zhejiang Normal School in Hangzhou, in part to finance his brother Zuoren, who had taken a Japanese wife and decided to remain in Japan longer to further his studies. Though he proved a competent teacher in the next few years, Lu Xun could never shake off his sense of initial failure as a writer and cultural critic: A feeling of futility descended upon m e — a futility that I had never known before. At first I did not understand what was happening to me, but I later realized that when a man's ideas meet with approval, he is encouraged and advances. W h e n they meet with opposition, at least he has something real to struggle against. But a true tragedy occurs when he raises up a cry to the rest of humanity and meets

Introduction

25

with no response at all from anyone. By the presence of neither encouragement nor opposition, he is rendered completely helpless— just as if he were to awaken in the midst of a horizonless desert. It was then that I became conscious of loneliness. And this was a loneliness that increased by the day, wrapping coil upon coil about my soul like a great, venomous serpent.73 By the time the Revolution of 1911 broke out in Wuhan, Lu Xun was back in his hometown of Shaoxing teaching middle school. He seemed excited by its initial prospects, but by the time Shaoxing was "freed from the Manchu yoke," he was among the first to realize that though the dynasty had finally fallen, little else would change. In fact, the nightmare he had foreseen in his early essay "Concerning Imbalanced Cultural Development" now materialized before his eyes in the form of a republic. Landlords, warlords, and opportunists of every hue had their heyday at last; evil ran unchecked throughout much of the countryside, trampling the weak underfoot. And China's failure at making a revolution that could change the lives of its downtrodden peasants, its dispirited intellectuals, and its desperate womenfolk would continue to gnaw away at Lu Xun's entrails until he spat it out at his countrymen in the form of his short stories. His classical poetry, very early on, alludes to a sham new order in which "the foxes" (i.e., the royalists) "had just left their lairs," when "peachwood puppets" (the officialdom of the republic) "took stage stairs" (i.e., mounted the political platform at the beck and call of the wealthy and the militarists—the foes of any real revolution). This reference occurs, moreover, in the context of a great personal loss to the poet, so there was an apparent psychological identification of his own straits and those of his friends with the demise of the revolution at a local level (see chapter 8). In this same vein, the characters in his fiction most deserving of a new deal are thwarted at every turn by the old social forces in the guise of the new. If they are not cowed by a newstyle constabulary, they are crippled from within by their own peculiar brands of cynicism and self-doubt, like so many casualties of some unsung war—victims of that "feeling of futility" that turned starryeyed idealists and erstwhile proponents of the new learning into "superfluous men," who "sprawl about on over-stuffed chairs like great lazy arrogant crabs, sighing and scowling as they puff away at their cigarettes." 74 Cai Yuanpei (1876—1940), who served the Republic initially as its minister of education, was a liberal familiar with both Chinese and Western learning, being the last scholar from the former Hanlin Yuan,

26

The Lyrical Lu Xun

the highest imperial academy, to serve as a major cultural leader in modern China. Through Cai, also a native of Shaoxing, Xu Shoushang obtained an invitation for Lu Xun to join the ministry as chief of libraries, museums, and art galleries. This invitation came as a particularly timely one because Lu Xun had already begun to feel threatened by Wang Jinfa (1882—1915), a local secret-society boss and military strongman in Shaoxing. Wang had been offended by a student-run newspaper with which Lu Xun was associated and had sent soldiers to smash its offices. Fan Ainong (1883—1912), a friend of Lu Xun's, however, was not so fortunate as to leave the town then (again, see chapter 8). 75 Lu Xun's new post resulted in subsequent relocations to Nanking and, soon thereafter, Peking. His stay in Peking corresponds roughly to the years 1912 to 1926, a period that would see the flowering of his writing and teaching careers. The first years there were lonely ones spent in the Shaoxing Hostel, a place along the lines of a YMCA, where his fellow townsmen boarded and congregated when in Peking. He did not bring his wife or mother to join him until December of 1919, over seven years after his initial move. Work at the Ministry of Education was not exceptionally demanding. In response to a program initiated by Cai, Lu Xun wrote an article on the necessity of promoting aesthetic education in Republican China and lectured on aesthetics. But Cai's proposals were never implemented, and he himself resigned from the ministry not long thereafter under conservative pressure. 76 As the political climate of the new Republic grew increasingly threatening under the presidency of Yuan Shikai (1859—1916), Lu Xun reacted by retreating into the contemplation of antiquity during his spare time. He studied Buddhist works, copied out ancient bronze and stone inscriptions, researched historical materials concerning his native locale, and eventually produced an authoritative edition of the works of third-century poet J i Kang (Hsi K'ang, 223—262). Compiling the proto-fiction anecdotes of the Han, Wei, Jin, and Six Dynasties periods, as well as classical tales from the Tang and Song led him eventually to undertake a systematic study of Chinese literary history. His textual work combined the best elements from the rigorous philological traditions of "the school of Han learning" that had developed during the Qing era with the spirit of independent inquiry characteristic of modern Western scholarship. In fact, his Brief History of Chinese Fiction [Zhongguo xiaoshuo shiliie} was the pioneer work of its type and remains largely unsurpassed in many aspects today. Much of the research that went into its preparation was undertaken during these years of solitude, when Lu Xun withdrew into the solace of the past to avoid

21

Introduction

confronting the broken dreams of the present. "My loneliness had to be relieved," he wrote, "because it was too painful": In order to attain some relief, I used various methods to benumb my soul, to allow me to sink back in among my people, and to retreat into antiquity. Later I was to experience still greater loneliness and witness events even more tragic than before, none of which I am willing now to explore or recall—in the hope that I may carry them with me to the grave and let them disintegrate into the earth together with my brain. And ultimately, these attempts to benumb myself were not without success, for I could never again recover the élan and enthusiasm of my youth.77

Although they were years spent brooding over the defeat of the revolution, dwelling on the inability of Western science to "cure" China, and swallowing the pill of his own literary misfortunes, they were not in the least wasted. As Xu Shoushang recollected, Lu Xun was a genius at time management; Xu attributed his success in part to a knack for putting to good use the many small segments of a day that others would normally waste. We have as evidence the great volume of quality scholarship by Lu Xun that dates from this period.

The May Fourth Era (1918-1927) In days to come they will not say: "The times were dark." But: "Why were the poets silent?" Brecht, In finstern Zeiten

position of the Peking warlord government vis-àvis Japan and its placators at the Versailles peace conference after World War I brought about a student movement that rocked the Chinese capital and reverberated throughout the provinces for many years to come. Dated from an initial protest march in 1919, the May Fourth Movement in politics was actually presaged by the beginnings of what has been termed the "May Fourth Era" in literature—a drive for "literary revolution" against the old styles and classical language that was first begun as early as 1917 by Hu Shi (1891—1962) and Chen Duxiu (1879-1942). It was chiefly at the urgings of the latter, 78 as well as of Qian Xuantong (1887—1939), a former classmate from their days with Zhang

THE WEAK-KNEED

28

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Taiyan in Japan, that Lu Xun began in April of 1918 to contribute stories to the magazine Xin qingnian [ N e w youth], a liberal publication with a relatively wide circulation. Lu X u n relates the incident in which he was convinced to return to a career in literature as follows: In the S[haoxing] Hostel there was a section of three rooms encircling a courtyard, in the middle of which grew a locust tree. It was said some time ago a woman had hanged herself from one of its boughs. Although the tree had grown so high that its branches were now completely out of reach, these rooms remained unoccupied. For some years already I had lived in this place, copying out inscriptions from ancient stone tablets. Since I had few visitors and my stelae inscriptions were devoid of "-isms" and issues, the days just slipped away quietly, which was all that I desired of life. On summer evenings, when the mosquitoes came out in swarms, I would sit fanning myself under the locust tree and gaze at the little patches of darkening sky visible through tiny spaces between the tree's thick foliage, while all along one or more of the caterpillars that came out in the evenings might drop, ice-cold, onto my neck. Those days my old friend Jin Xinyi [Qian Xuantong] would chance by occasionally for a talk. Because he was afraid of the watchman's dog, it looked as though his heart were still palpitating even after he had set his large leather portfolio down on my rickety table, taken off his long scholar's gown, and sat down opposite me. "What's the use of copying these?" he queried of me one night while leafing through my inscriptions. "There isn't any use." "Then, what do you intend by copying them?" "I don't intend anything." "I think you might be able to write something. . . . " I knew what he was getting at. They were bringing out The New Youth at the time, but it seemed they had not yet gotten any feedback from anyone—neither encouragement nor opposition—and doubtless they were feeling isolated, yet I said: "Suppose there were an iron house, sealed tight without a single window and virtually indestructible. Inside there are a large number of people fast asleep who within a short period of time will all die for lack of oxygen. Yet if they pass from the stupor of sleep into the extinction of death, they will be spared the agony of knowing they are about to meet with their own demise. Now if someone starts shouting and awakens a few of the lighter of these sleepers, but in so doing subjects them to the pain and suffering of inevitable death, would you, in fact, consider this to be doing them a favor?" "But since a few are aroused," he countered, "you cannot insist that there remains absolutely no hope of breaking down the iron house."

Introduction

29

True, though I may have reached my own conclusions, if someone mentions hope, I cannot write him off entirely. For hope is of the future, and thus I could not disprove his assertion that a possibility might exist with my evidence of none at hand. So I gave in finally and began writing for them, the initial product being my story "Diary of a Madman." From that point on there was no turning back, and I continued to write some things resembling short stories just to placate my friends, and sooner or later there came to be more than ten of these.79 The readership of New Youth was composed, by and large, of young intellectuals as partial to cultural introspection as they were eager to refute tradition, and this factor more than any other gave Lu Xun the foothold necessary to strike a responsive chord: within a few months' time he found himself catapulted from relative obscurity to national recognition. His stories were based "on the plight of unfortunates in a sick society." He explained: "It was my intention to expose this sickness and suffering so as to draw attention to it, in the hope that a cure might thereby be sought." 80 Lu Xun was a man who eschewed inconsequential detail, so his stories are often stark, their style bold, terse, and at times elliptical—much after the fashion of a traditional woodblock print in which the characters have to be delineated with a minimum of lines and an economical use of shading. 81 The first of his stories to run in The New Youth was titled Kuangren riji [Diary of a madman}. It incorporated elements from Gogol's story of the same title, although it differs significantly in form and content from its Russian predecessor. The story is of key importance in his oeuvre because it established the theme with which Lu Xun became identified by most Chinese—the denunciation of traditional ethical codes as hypocritical cant formulated by the oppressors to justify a homo homini lupus order that grants the strong license to prey upon the weak. The story's protagonist, a scholar seen as a paranoiac by his family and community, has read through Chinese history and come to see it as "containing no indexes, no chronologies, only the words 'benevolence,' 'righteousness,' and 'morality' scrawled throughout its pages." Reading for half the night, this troubled soul attains the revelation that the whole of history "is filled with two words: 'Eat people!' " 82 The story was structurally innovative, and its theme engendered much discussion in China concerning the "cannibalistic" nature of traditional social mores as well as the old family system. This discussion, in turn, drew a ready audience for the essays of social commentary Lu Xun published in subsequent issues of New Youth. Largely owing to its Western-

30

The Lyrical Lu Xun

influenced technique rather than the colloquial language in which it was for the most part written, the "Diary" later came to be considered China's first truly "modern" short story. From 1918 to 1926, Lu Xun labored through the wee hours of the night in an oil-lamp-lit Peking study to turn out stories in which the Shaoxing of his childhood (often called "S-town") became a microcosm for all of China, and its inhabitants representational types. The stories are thematically akin to his essays of this period, examining the inhumanity of conventions and attitudes that many people had come to take for granted. Yet the stories have an impact more visceral and embody a condemnation more thoroughgoing than most of the essays. Though Lu Xun reserved his greatest vituperation for the hypocritical gentry and self-serving "moderns," the subtleties of his narrative tone enable the stories to take to task a whole nation for falling victim to an ideology that enslaves it—for swallowing a credo of self-deceit and a litany of cruelty toward one's fellows. The Soviet scholar V. I. Semanov has pointed out that Lu Xun's stories "not only. . . show disgust for those who prevent 'the little guy' from struggling or even crawling up the social ladder, he brands the slaves themselves for naively believing that they will secure freedom from the hands of their masters." 83 In 1920 Lu Xun was invited to serve as lecturer in the faculty of Chinese literature at Peking University, and soon other institutions in the capital followed suit, most notably Women's Normal, where he became involved in a political imbroglio, siding with student activists against the school's American-educated woman dean in 1925 (see chapter 9). This dispute resulted in Lu Xun's "pen war" against Chen Yuan (Chen Xiying, 1895—1970), who supported the dean, and others associated with the new minister of education Zhang Shizhao (1881— 1973), which spread into larger questions of philosophy and the role of the intellectual in society (chapter 10). Public polemic notwithstanding, a serious inner struggle was taking place in Lu Xun's own mind during the mid-1920s. Conflicting attractions and revulsions wrenched simultaneously at his heart. 84 As evidence we have the volume of prose poetry titled Wild Grass [Yecao], a somberly lyrical opus sometimes compared with Baudelaire's Petits poemes en prose.85 But then the warlord Duan Qirui (1865—1936) took an action that stirred Lu Xun into an unprecedented rage by ordering his troops to cut down a group of unarmed marchers who had gathered in front of the executive mansion in Peking to protest government compliance with Japanese interference in China. Over forty demonstrators were killed, including two young women from Women's Normal

Introduction

31

whom Lu Xun had known personally—and so he commemorated them in print, calling the date of the shooting (March 18, 1926) "the blackest day in the history of the Republic." A warrant was subsequently issued for his arrest as a ringleader in the disturbances, which forced him into hiding for several months. By August he had left the city together with a former student, Xu Guangping (1898—1968), who was later to become his common-law wife. Lu Xun had been invited, largely at the initiative of Lin Yutang (1895-1976), to teach Chinese literature and phonology at Xiamen (Amoy) University, a newly founded school on the southeastern seaboard. Both Lin Yutang, with whom he had founded in 1924 the literary journal Yusi (Thread of Talk, the name being a sort of cryptogram for "May Fourth"), and the school's chancellor Lim Boon Keng (Lin Wenqing, 1869—1957) were sympathetic to his plight in Peking and hoped to rescue him through this appointment. But Lu Xun grew impatient and melancholic in Amoy, where he was separated from Xu Guangping, who had returned to her native Canton. He began to feel his academic duties and committee work were pointless, and he also disliked chancellor Lim Boon Keng's veneration of Confucius, which he thought "ought to be set straight." Moreover, he encountered in Amoy "men just like Chen Yuan," whose smug ivory-tower orientation irked him as much as that which he had encountered in Peking. In their complacency he seemed to read an erosion of the dynamism that May Fourth activism had at one time infused into his generation—this was the compromise, the gradual giving in to the enticements of an all-absorbing tradition that he so sorely dreaded for himself and resented in others, probably more so now that he was conscious of having entered middle age. The events of Peking in 1925—1926 combined with this period of "exile" in Amoy brought Lu Xun's discontent with the gentrification of Western-style education in China to a head, while turning him even more against the current trends in "native scholasticism"—the very "poison" he feared had infected his own mind for many years. Though he continued work on his fictionalized reminiscences for the collection Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk [Zhaohua xishi] at this time, the months in Amoy witnessed his abandonment of the short story genre for good—a decision much lamented in the field of Chinese letters ever since. Perhaps he despaired of the misinterpretations to which his fiction had been subjected. More likely he simply felt that other forms such as the short satiric essay could lend themselves more readily to his goals. No one can be sure why he relinquished the genre in which he

32

The Lyrical Lu Xun

had so distinguished himself, but we can speculate that he must have done so w i t h mixed emotions. He later mused mordantly: Some people have tried to persuade me not to write these short, critical essays. I am very grateful for their concern, and I know that writing stories is important. But there comes a time when I have to write in a certain way. And it seems to me if there are such troublesome taboos in the palace of art, I would do better not to enter it, but to stand in the desert and watch the sandstorms, laughing when I am happy, shouting when I am sad, and cursing openly when I am angry. The sand and stones may bruise me till my body is torn and bleeding, but from time to time I can finger the clotted blood and feel the pattern of my bruises; and this is not less interesting than following the example of the Chinese literati who eat foreign bread and butter in the name of keeping Shakespeare company.86 Lu X u n had turned forty-six at Amoy but had no intention of resting on his laurels there, so when a formal invitation to teach at Canton's Sun Yat-sen University arrived in late 1926, he jumped at it. For some time already Canton had functioned as power base for the mounting òf a "second revolution." Under the leadership of the Kuomintang and w i t h the active participation of the Chinese Communists and Russian advisers, a Beifa or "Northern Expedition" planned to destroy the warlords and reunite the country was already in the offing—something of immediate necessity, given the Japanese threat and the warlords' complicity with it. In January of 1927 Lu X u n arrived at Canton amid much fanfare from the Nationalist authorities there and w i t h a number of his former students from Amoy in tow. 87 Nevertheless, his enthusiasm for this self-proclaimed revolutionary government was guarded, and quite appropriately so, for by April 15 of that same year, Chiang Kai-shek's (1887—1975) purge of the Communists had spread from Shanghai to Canton, and Lu X u n suddenly became witness to great carnage. On the campus and in the streets of Canton he was confronted by the sight of yesterday's classmates turned informers, victims, and executioners. China's youth, in whom he had once placed so much faith for the future, suddenly turned on one another. W h e n his attempts at gaining the release of a number of imprisoned students failed, he resigned his posts in protest, 8 8 his tenure as dean lasting only a little over a month. From this time onward he washed his hands of academia under the Nationalist government and devoted himself to polemical essays, translations, and other projects including editing and promoting the works of other, less successful writers and developing a woodblock engraving movement in the arts.

Introduction

33

A "Fellow Traveler"? ( 1 9 2 7 - 1 9 3 6 ) In my view, China has now entered a great era. That, however, does not necessarily mean we can be saved by this "greatness." In fact, we might well perish. Lu Xun

had remained for Lu Xun in the betterment of China through the Nationalist Party must have been dashed on the streets of Canton. So at late middle age he again set out to find a cure for the "Sick Man of East Asia." He had been exposed to Communist writings in Japan as early as 1906, and his collaboration on The New Youth brought him into close quarters with Li Dazhao (1889— 1927) and Chen Duxiu, both founding fathers of the Communist Party in China. Yet he never seemed committed to their ideology, at least not until he gained a personal emotional stake in the nascent civil war that had its beginnings with the Shanghai and Canton massacres. In early autumn of 1927, Lu Xun left Canton with Xu Guangping and took up residence in Shanghai, where they remained until his death from tuberculosis in 1936. Two years after their move, a son was born to Xu Guangping—Lu Xun's only child. By moving to Shanghai he could unite—or so Lu Xun thought—his own efforts with those of the leftist literary groups already flourishing there. These included the Creation Society (Chuangzao she) and the Sun Society (Taiyang she). But the Guo Moruo (1892-1978) leadership proved unwilling to halt the barrage of abuse it had been leveling at him since the mid-1920s and continued to characterize him as a "feudal remnant," a "blearyeyed drunk," and an "outsider to the proletariat." 89 WHATEVER

FAITH

These attacks propelled Lu Xun to intensive study in Marxist literary criticism. He produced translations of theoretical works by Lunacharsky (1875-1933), Plekhanov (1856-1918), and the Japanese critic Katakami Shin (1884—1928), if for nothing more than to taunt his detractors with their own lack of theoretical sophistication and even basic background reading. To provide examples by which Chinese writers and critics could better gauge their own work, he translated representative pieces from both the proletarian and "fellow traveler" schools in Russian fiction.90 But he rejected the arguments that "revolutionary literature" and "socialist realism" were viable literary forms for China, commenting:

34

The Lyrical Lu Xun Some writers today use the common people—workers and peasants —as material for their novels and poems, and this has also been called people's literature when actually it is nothing of the sort, for the people have not opened their mouths yet. These works voice the sentiments of onlookers, who put words in the people's mouths. . . . Their works may seem to come from the people, but in fact they do not: they are not real stories of the people.91

The alternative he proposed for China was a literature of social realism, which would force the Chinese to face up to reality and prevent further escapes into "revolutionary romanticism." He charged that Chinese authors could not face reality as well as their Russian counterparts. 92 As a result of this ascerbic critique, no matter how assiduous his contributions to Marxist theory were, the Creation and Sun societies continued to regard him with ever-increasing hostility until late 1929, when the underground leadership of the Communist Party ordered them to cease their attacks, 93 for it could no longer afford the luxury of alienating a man who had become the very symbol of the national conscience—the government was tightening its controls, and a major literary figure was needed to rally the opposition. Beginning in 1928, the Kuomintang had enacted laws controlling the press, but literary journals remained relatively untouched until the early 1930s. This gave the Communists the opportunity to remain heard in the world of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism a few years longer than in other spheres of the media. By disguising his handwriting with the help of friends who copied manuscripts over for him and through the creation of scores of pen names, Lu Xun managed to continue publishing critical essays that satirized the government and mocked the foibles of its apologists. Still, these were often published with deletions by the censors. By February of 1934, all of his post1927 writings had been banned, with the exception of a volume of traditional woodcuts he had compiled and Liang di shu [Letters from two places], which contained only his correspondence with Xu Guangping. Even a personally compiled selection of his short stories was forbidden to booksellers by the government. 94 He once cautioned that no one could understand the China of those days or the literature of that era without a feeling for the censorship and intimidation that went on. 95 A letter to a friend on May 4, 1936, remarked caustically: "Publishers keep writing, asking me for contributions, but though I strive to retain at least some minimal level of content, even that is difficult if I want to avoid the things being banned. This has become brain-racking: I call it 'a dance in fetters and chains.' " 96

Introduction

35

Censorship may have played a part in Lu Xun's return to classical verse during the 1930s. W h i l e his essay style grew, of necessity, more evasive, he may have sought a sort of aesthetic retreat into classical poetry, where the multileveled implications of a deftly executed allusion could employ references to the past to lambaste the present. Poems presented to Japanese friends and acquaintances could serve as a bridge to span cultural barriers, all the while conveying a critique of the current state of affairs that resounded w i t h the level of metaphysical depth necessary to communicate on an emotional level w i t h a Japanese intellectual or a classically educated Chinese reader. Lu X u n seems, at times, to have relished the idea of turning a traditional literary form against the third-rate "men of letters" whom he believed were staffing the Kuomintang censorate. The very idea of using a genre supposedly revered by the minions of the regime, a legacy so sacred to the literary past, to defy these "murderers of the present," as he called them, must have seemed the ultimate coup. He explained on February 7, 1935, in a letter to his friend Cao J i n g h u a : Getting anything published here is sheer disaster. Some of these "men of letters" who have made it up the ranks to the job of censor seem to act with total disregard for reason. Toward the end of last year a friend collected some old writings I had done but never before published into a volume called Collection of the Uncollected. When he submitted it to the censors, they banned ten pieces straightaway. Even stranger to relate, the writings proscribed included some correspondence dating from ten years back, before the present "National Government" had even come into existence. Moreover, the content had nothing to do with politics. Yet the Collection includes a number of classical poems quite vehement in tone, which they did not choose to touch.97 In another letter, this time to the editor of the collection, Yang J i y u n , Lu X u n chortled: The banning of a mere ten pieces from the Collection of the Uncollected was truly "munificent as heaven in its infinite mercy." But as obvious as my classical verses are, the censors will end up being jeered at as dodos for their failure to delete even a one. [In the late Ming,} Ruan Dacheng, glib traitor that he was, could at least compose an opera on the caliber of The Swallow Letter.;98 But our present-day lapdogs, 99 together with their masters, lack even the germ of intelligence. "What has become of this younger generation?" 100 Indeed, the largest volume of his classical poetry was composed between the years 1 9 3 0 and 1935, consisting, for the most part, of pro-

36

The Lyrical Lu Xun

test verse in the vein of the Tang masters (see chapters 11—49)- It is here that he comes thematically closest to Du Fu, for his attacks on the terror, the censorship, the unpopular civil war, and on Kuomintang temporizing with an obviously insatiable enemy in Japan are reminiscent of Du Fu's antiwar and anticonscription themes, his wrath toward the effete Tang ruling circles, and his rage against the pointless inhumanity of a crumbling order. This use of poetry "as a medium for the allegorical expression of seditious thought," as David Hawkes has called it, 101 has a long and developed tradition in China that can be traced all the way back to Qu Yuan, the legendary dissident poet-statesman who fell afoul of treacherous courtiers. Lu Xun's poetry from the turn of the century as well as that from the 1930s abounds in imagery borrowed from works ascribed to Qu Yuan; and this is no accident, for the grief, despair, and isolation the two men knew were similar. But the angst that permeates Lu Xun's 1930s verse is discernibly different from Qu Yuan's—for Lu Xun could neither seek recourse to a king nor appeal to the supernatural. And this serves to make the "modern" feelings of alienation all the more pervasive in Lu Xun's classical-style verse even though the poet makes his voice heard through traditional devices (see chapters 12, 16, 30, 40, and 49). The Kuomintang regime had embarked in the late 1920s on a systematic program of intimidation, harassment, assassination, arrest, torture, and execution designed to rid China of the threat of Communist subversion. Since the campaign affected not only Reds but their liberal sympathizers and "fellow travelers," too, it came to be known as the W h i t e terror (the color white having symbolized opposition to the Reds during and after the Russian revolution). Lu Xun and many among his coterie became marked men as the terror went into full swing (see chapters 37 and 40). He had to move about Shanghai in secret much of the time, because of the constant threat of arrest or assassination, protected only by his tremendous personal prestige. His address and movements were kept secret from all but a few personal friends; mail and meetings with strangers were largely directed to Uchiyama Kanzo's bookstore in the International Settlement, a site relatively safe from government harassment since its proprietor was a foreign national (see chapter 14). Lu Xun's first close contacts with Communist Party members during the late 1920s coincided with the period in which he had begun to study Marxism and Marxist literary theory on his own. This was not a simple case of "conversion" by these young people; he first befriended

Introduction

37

them and then sympathized with their cause. A case in point is Rou Shi (Zhao Pingfu, 1901—1931), a young writer whom Lu Xun guided and helped with a fatherly devotion. When Rou Shi was arrested at a secret cell meeting and summarily shot (along with four other leftist writers) in 1931, Lu Xun was beside himself with grief and outrage (see chapter 13) and railed against the Kuomintang: When our young intellectuals realized their duty as pioneers, they were the first to utter a battle cry—a cry of revolt which terrified the rulers as much as the cries of revolt of the toiling masses. Then flunkey-writers rallied to the attack, spread rumours or acted as spies. And the fact that they always operated in secret and under false names simply proves them creatures of darkness. . . . The murder of these comrades of ours is naturally a loss to the revolutionary literature of the working class and a great grief to us. Our proletarian literature will continue to grow, however, because it belongs to the great ranks of the revolutionary toilers; and as long as the people exist and gain in strength, so long will this revolutionary literature grow. Our comrades' blood testifies that revolutionary literature of the working class suffers from the same oppression and terror as the toiling masses, that it is fighting the same battles and shares the same destiny, for it is the literature of the revolutionary toilers. Now according to the warlords' report, even old ladies of sixty have been poisoned by "heterodox writing," and the patrols in the foreign concessions are searching even primary-school children. All they have left, apart from the guns given them by the imperialists, are a few flunkeys; but they have enemies all around, even children and old folk, to say nothing of the young. And all these enemies of theirs are on our side. . . . Simply killing men is not art after all, hence these thugs have admitted their own bankruptcy.102 Although the above was written much after the rhetorical style used in Communist publications, it is clear from the piece that Lu Xun was still an "outsider to the proletariat" in that the intricacies of this case were too sensitive to be revealed to him. There is good reason to suspect treachery within the ranks here, for it would seem the arresting authorities had been tipped off to the location and time of the meeting at which these young writers and other Communist activists were rounded up—tipped off, that is, by a rival faction within the Communist Party at Shanghai. 103 This sort of factional rivalry would continue to play an important role in Lu Xun's relationship with the left, even after his own death. Feng Xuefeng, another young Communist who was first introduced to Lu Xun by Rou Shi in 1928, later served the Yan'an Party leadership

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The Lyrical Lu Xun

newly forming around Mao Tse-tung as a liaison to the "progressive national bourgeoisie" in Shanghai, much to the consternation of the underground Party bosses there, who regarded Shanghai as their own province and resented the whole idea of someone reaching over their heads, so to speak, to communicate directly with the most prominent liberals in the land. Their jealousy was evident in the eventual coldshouldering of Feng and Lu Xun, which precipitated the so-called Battle of the Slogans in 1936, something I shall treat briefly below. Lu Xun had been cooperating closely with the Communist Party during preparations for the inauguration of the League of Left-Wing Writers on March 2, 1930, at which he delivered the keynote address. This was a front organization for which he was to serve as nominal head, the actual powers being held by Zhou Yang (b. 1908), the general secretary of the League. Lu Xun also joined the International Union of Revolutionary Writers, headquartered at Moscow; attended the Conference of Representatives from the Chinese Soviet Areas (convened in Shanghai in May of 1930); and was then appointed to the staff meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the All-China Soviet Congress, which represented the federation of Red base areas throughout the mountains and countryside in areas beyond the control of the central government. 104 He probably thought of himself as a Marxist by this time, although he still maintained an aloof independence of Party dogma, which betrayed his lack of "discipline." This the Party did not seem to mind—his tremendous personal prestige could be used to add legitimacy to its front organizations; his work in the China League for the Defense of Civil Rights and the Freedom League during the 1930s served to harass the Kuomintang government by damaging its public image at home and abroad, though he could do little to halt the terror itself, which was his own main concern. Moreover, he could be trusted to convey messages between Party operatives and even provide, on occasions, a "safe house" for fugitives from the police. All went on fairly well until an order arrived from Moscow in 1936, 105 stating that an international antifascist front had to be consolidated and therefore directing the Chinese Communists to seek a united front with their Nationalist brethren against Japan. Zhou Yang then stepped forward unilaterally to dissolve the League of Left-Wing Writers without first obtaining agreement from Lu Xun. The League was to be replaced by the Association of Writers and Artists, which would accept any and all comers, courting especially those pro-Kuomintang writers of an anti-Japanese bent—for this was to be a "united front" operation. Thus what could be a better slogan,

Introduction

39

thought Zhou Yang (and Moscow), than "Literature for National Defense"? The Kremlin was adamant that the peoples of all countries outside of Germany and Japan should temporarily shelve their plans for revolution and unite behind their own governments to prepare for a war effort. So in China, leftist authors were encouraged to forget all past deprivations under the Kuomintang and to concentrate on turning out literature with a "resist Japan" theme, in the hope that the Kuomintang could be brought, thereby, to see the error of its ways and to turn from pursuing the civil war against the Communists toward building a powerful united front together with them against Japan. It sounded so clear and simple—every patriotic Chinese would agree, and if the Kuomintang did not, they would have to face the wrath of public opinion. But agree they did not, nor did the Trotskyists, nor did Lu Xun—all for their own very separate reasons. The Kuomintang was still in control of the central government and all key cities, so it had not yet begun to feel its power compromised—why then should it spare the Communists? thought its leaders. The Trotskyists were convinced that only world revolution could stop the fascist war machine, but they were a relatively small group in China. Lu Xun was irked by the arbitrary fashion in which his League had been dissolved; moreover, he could not abide the idea of cooperating with the "flunkey writers" and "creatures of darkness" he so detested. Two of his close friends had already fallen victim to the W h i t e terror: the writer Rou Shi and the civil liberties activist Yang Quan (see chapters 13, 14, and 37). Throughout his life, Lu Xun had feared the evil that arose out of a compromise of principles—the 1911 Revolution and the Northern Expedition launched jointly by the Kuomintang and the Communists against the warlords in the m i d - 1 9 2 0 s had all been defeated not by an outside enemy, but through compromises that quietly nullified their ultimate goals. So, nearly on his deathbed, but with the support of Feng Xuefeng and a handful of loyal followers, Lu Xun drafted "An Answer to a Visitor during My Illness," "A Reply to X u Maoyong," 1 0 6 and other documents that challenged the validity of Zhou Yang's slogan "Literature for National Defense" and proposed a counter slogan to rally leftist writers who would dissent from Zhou Yang's group—"Mass Literature for the National Revolutionary War." This was the beginning of the socalled Battle of the Slogans. "Of course," insisted Lu Xun, "a united front will be formed, but a united front formed by intimidation is no use in a fight. There have been previous examples of this, yet the ghosts of the fallen have not

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The Lyrical Lu Xun

realized their mistake and have appeared before me in the form of Xu Maoyong [who questioned the sincerity of opposition to Zhou Yang]." 107 In the essay "Jottings in Mid-Summer," Lu Xun continued: Naturally it is good to proclaim by the written and spoken word the sufferings of those who are slaves under a foreign yoke. But we must take great care lest people reach this conclusion: "then it is better after all to be slaves of your own compatriots, like us." . . . Since a "united front" was proposed, those "revolutionary writers" who went over to the enemy have reappeared, posing as pioneers of the "united front." All their contemptible acceptance of bribes and traffic with the enemy are now made out to be "progressive," glorious deeds.108 Such writings, which predate his death from tuberculosis by only a few months, make it clear that he had no intention of acquiescing to anyone—neither the Shanghai Communist Party bosses nor the Kuomintang. If the Communists planned a "sell-out," he had no control over that, but he would never lend his name to it. Moreover, if China had leftist writers with the backbone to resist Party dictates, he would be the first to lead them. And indeed there were others who joined h i m — t h e "anarchist" writer Ba Jin (Li Feigan, b. 1904), a man renowned as a voice of conscience in China even today; the novelist Mao Dun (Shen Yanbing, 1896—1981), a widely acclaimed realist writer; and the translator Huang Yuan (b. 1900) were among them. It is true that Lu Xun's very limited relations with the Yan'an branch of the Communist Party were still cordial up until the time of his death, as the open letter "A Reply to the Trotskyists" demonstrates. 109 It is also likely that Feng Xuefeng stood by him to the end in the Battle of the Slogans, at least in part because of a lack of contravening instructions from Yan'an. 110 But the lesson to be drawn from the whole affair is simply that, while his belief in the need for a real revolution remained unshaken, Lu Xun's support for the Communist Party was not unqualified. He had once believed the Communists presented the only viable alternative to the unconscionable brutality and ineptitude of the Kuomintang. A Communist revolution seemed to be the last chance at ridding China of the injustices so firmly entrenched in its social order as to have ridden out two previous revolutions. He could not find evidence to support a "third alternative," nor did he sympathize with those who claimed to stand aloof from politics, simply because he saw no efficacy in their position. The validity of the liberal or the apolitical "crisis of conscience" was, for him, truncated by the necessities of the times. As Simon Leys has summarized it:

Introduction

41

Lu Xun's true greatness belongs to an intellectual and ethical order. It resides in the sharp lucidity with which he faced the Chinese tragedy (a lucidity that was also his curse, as it condemned him to loneliness and even to the hostility of the very people he tried to save) and in the unbending integrity with which he lived, until the end, all his painful contradictions without ever yielding to the double temptation of escape—an escape that he could have found either by rushing into a blind sectarian commitment, or by taking refuge in a misanthropic individualism. He was the product of a period of transition, but he never resigned himself to suffer passively the inhuman chaos of history. He endeavoured to interpret and to turn into consciousness the cultural crisis of modern China. Not only around him, but also within himself he analyzed the endless agony of an old world that still retained its deadly grip over the living, and he tried to read the signs of a new world that was painfully struggling to be born.111 Leys underscores the idea that much of what makes Lu Xun interesting is the highly charged ambiguity of his political stance. Artistically, as well, Lu Xun straddled the gap between two different worlds. As a writer from the old culture who had been steeped in traditional modes of thought and expression, he later became the champion of and a model for much that was new and "Western." Yet inevitably a number of aesthetic predilections carried over from his formative period. His language in the vernacular, as has been observed, almost always contained numerous instances of crafted classical intrusions. But more characteristic still is his constant striving in all his writings to attain depth and perspective within extremely terse yet morally loaded venues. This is where he most resembles the classical poet. That he continued to compose verse in the classical style throughout his life, eventually repudiating much that was (formalistically, at least) the essence of the "liberation" of verse forms and the new-style poetry, is an even more direct indication of how strong a grip the aesthetic criteria of the past still held on him. The chance to flee, even momentarily, into the familiar world of an ancient literary medium afforded both the practitioner and his readership the seeming luxury of framing the modern world in a time-honored Chinese format, a luxury that Lu Xun the famous innovator, mover, deflater, and Mara-like rebel became increasingly unwilling to forswear.

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The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Regarding this pseudonym, which in the past appeared frequently as "Lu Hsiin," according to the Wade-Giles romanization, the surname (which always comes first in Chinese), Lu, is pronounced "loo" (somewhat like the Lou of Lou Gehrig) in a low, "curving" tone; the given name, Xun, is pronounced "syun," the "x" initial standing for a light "sh-" sound, while the vowel resembles an umlauted "Ü" in German. Xun is read properly in a "falling" tone, as though giving a command. Curiously enough, the whole name sounds more than a bit similar to that of another satirist—the second-century Greek writer Lucian (c. 125—c. 180) of Syria, of whose wry wit and pungent characterization Lu Xun's style is reminiscent. Lu Xun's targets were often scholars and literati, alike in their ineptitude and pretensions to the contemporary philosophers taken to task in Lucian's dialogues. Moreover, like Lucian, Lu Xun had a major interest in dissecting the ancient mythology of his culture. He authored a collection of reworked Chinese legends titled Old Tales Retold \Gushi xinbian], somewhat in the vein of Lucian's satires on the Olympian fables, in which he reexamines and critiques cultural totem and taboo with an eye toward present-day disputes. Lucian also composed verse in what I think can be termed a classical mode. This correspondence is uncanny but most probably coincidental. Lu Xun himself sometimes romanized his name "Lusin." 2. See his disclaimer in a letter of September 25, 1927, to Tai Jingnong in Lu Xun quanji [The complete works of Lu Xun} (16 vols.; Peking: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1991), 11, pp. 580-581. Hereafter cited as Quanji (1991) to differentiate it from the older (1938 and 1961) editions. 3. Organized by Leo Ou-fan Lee, Harriet Mills, Cyril Birch, Lin Yüsheng, and others. The International Conference on Lu Xun and His Legacy met from August 22 to 28, 1981, at the Asilomar Center (outside Monterey, California), funded by a grant from the Social Science Research Council and attended by scholars from Australia, Britain, China, Israel, Japan, and the United States. 4. See Lin Yii-sheng, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness: Radical Antitraditionalism in the May Fourth Era (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979), esp. pp. 3—9 and 104—151 ("The Complex Consciousness of Lu Hsiin"). 5. The well-known case of long-imprisoned dissident Wei Jingshen is a good example. John Fraser has observed: "By any critical standard, he was the best political essayist China had produced since Lu Xun, China's greatest writer in the twentieth century. Indeed, Lu Xun may well have been Wei's model, for they shared the same style, which combined logic with remorseless sarcasm toward the things they attacked. It is a style that hits home directly with Chinese people, who enjoy a spirited, pungent debate." See Fraser's The Chinese: Portrait of a People (Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, 1982), p. 314. Almost

Notes to the

Introduction

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every critically minded intellectual I have met in China today claims to have read Lu Xun and "been influenced by him." There are large numbers of Chinese writers, both on and outside the mainland, who think of themselves as following in his footsteps. Dissident plays and stories have been penned under titles taken verbatim from lines in his poetry, such as G an you ge yin dong di ai ("Yet who among us dares with song burst forth a sorrow that could move the very earth?"). A somewhat partisan appraisal of post-Liberation (1949) distortions of Lu Xun's life and works has been published in Chinese in Hong Kong: Yi Ding, Lu X.un: Qi ren, qi shi, ji qi shidai [Lu Xun: The man, his affairs, and his times} (Hong Kong and Paris: Centre de publication Asie orientale de l'Université de Paris 7, 1978). 6. The perhaps unfairly low appraisal of Gorky's life and works by dissident intellectuals in the former Soviet Union seemed inextricably linked with the same concepts one hears often enough from his Chinese detractors—questions of "integrity," "conscience," "the role and responsibilities of a writer in society," and so forth. It has been argued that Lu Xun's death occurred conveniently early for him, but this is a half-truth in view of his steadfast refusal to acquiesce to Zhou Yang's (i.e., Party) literary dictates late in life. Moreover, Gorky had had the choice as to whether or not to return to the Soviet Union after sampling Lenin's attitudes toward dissent, but the result of his choice was a modus vivendi with Stalin. The Communist takeover in China occurred in 1949, thirteen years after Lu Xun's death. 7. T. A. Hsia has noted that Lu Xun "let t h e p a i - h u a [modern vernacular-style Chinese writing] do things that it had never done before—things not even the best classical writers had ever thought of doing in wen-yen [classical language]." See Hsia's essay on the "Aspects of the Power of Darkness in Lu Hsiin," included in the collection of his essays The Gate of Darkness: Studies on the Leftist Literary Movement in China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968), p. 151. The late Czech sinologist Jaroslav Prusek, one of the first to focus on Lu Xun's modernity, has written: "The predominantly reminiscent and lyrical character of his writings brings Lu Hsiin not into the tradition of realists of the nineteenth century, but into that of the markedly lyrical prose writers of Europe between the two world wars." See his book of collected criticism The Lyrical and the Epic: Studies of Modern Chinese Literature, ed. Leo Ou-fan Lee (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), p. 1098. I have in mind here a 1981 adaptation of his short story Regret for the Past [Shang shi] in a much-touted cinematic version. The original story embodies a radical critique of the traditional moral code as a weapon in the hands of spite-filled, petty-minded people to hound a young couple who have found the courage to cohabit in the early 1920s. It also exposes the weakness and self-doubt of the young male protagonist (Juansheng), who is also the narrator. Had he not buckled under first, the woman he was with would never have been compelled to return home to die "amid the contempt and scorn" of her elders. Reflecting on their past life together, after her death the young man comes to regret his lack of strength and failure to stick by her (hence the title). But after Stalin decided that the proletarian family was an important

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The Lyrical Lu Xun

unit of social organization, the Communists in China withdrew their endorsement of cohabitation. Thus the couple in Lu Xun's story are no longer "progressive youth defying feudal morality" but "escapists" who are trying to "remove themselves from the real social struggle" going on outside their private little nook. So the original story had to be altered for a bowdlerized movie version in which the alienation of their affections and their eventual split are attributed to the contradiction between a young man's heightened revolutionary consciousness and a young woman's predisposition to homemaking! Juansheng has come to realize that he must leave their love nest to "go out into the streets" in order really to change society, whereas Zijun, her head full of feudal ideas, is to be cast off as an unenlightened piece of baggage before he embarks on his crusade for justice. In this way the moral is made clear, the story "improved" upon, and a petty-bourgeois element receives her just deserts. 9- X u Shoushang, Wo suo renshi de Lu Xun [The Lu X u n I knew} (Peking: Remin wenxue chubanshe, 1952), pp. 18-19- Hereafter cited as Xu Shoushang, Renshi de. 10. See, for example, his essay "Sudden Notions (4)," in Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, trans., Selected Works of Lu Xun (4 vols.; Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1980), 2, pp. 1 2 5 - 1 2 7 . Hereafter cited as Selected Works (1980), to differentiate it from the earlier (1956—1960) edition, with divergent pagination, cited simply as Selected Works. 11. Quanji (1991), 5, p. 121. 12. Quanji (1991), 3, p. 17. Li Zicheng ( 1 6 0 6 - 1 6 4 5 ) and Zhang Xianzhong (1606—1646) are regarded favorably today as leaders of a peasant insurrection that was p u t down by the combined efforts of feudal forces, i.e., landlords and gentry. 13. Quanji (1991), 5, p. 121. 14. Ibid., pp. 1 2 2 - 1 2 3 . 15. I have in mind primarily his works of fiction, poetry, reminiscence, and "prose poetry," but the same point has also been argued by Q u Qiubai (1899—1935), a martyred Communist literary theorist and translator turned political leader (and then back again), who applied this approach of the "typicality of characters" and the "representative nature of events" to Lu Xun's essays as well. Writing in a 1933 preface to a collection of Lu Xun's essays that he had compiled, Q u observes: Many readers today are of the impression that a number of these essays are merely invective, or perhaps some young people are no longer interested in them because they are not familiar with the details of men like Chen Xiying [Chen Yuan]. Yet in fact not only names like "Chen Xiying," but even those of Zhang Shizhao and others that occur in Lu Xun's essays can be interpreted as representing certain types. There is no need to know all about what they did and who they were. The important thing is that China today is still infested with such "fawning cats," "dogs more snobbish than their masters," "mosquitoes that insist on

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making long speeches—buzzing on indefinitely before they choose to suck a victim's blood"—and "flies that hound you half the day before landing to lick a drop of sweat and leave their filth behind." From Lu Xun zagan xuanji [A selection of Lu Xun's essays], ed. He Ning (Qu Qiubai) (Shanghai: Qing guang shuju, 1933), p. xii. 16. T. A. Hsia, The Gate of Darkness, p. 151. Hsia is referring to the short, impressionistic pieces included in Lu Xun's slim volume Yecao [Wild grass], which are often considered "prose poetry" and have been compared to Baudelaire's Petits poemes en prose a n d Les fleurs du mal, t h o u g h Yecao is

not written in lines of verse or stanzas. For an English version, see Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, trans., Wild Grass (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1974). 17. At the scene of his own execution, Ah Q "comes close to the first intellectual insight in his life—about the true nature of the crowd" (see Leo O u - f a n Lee's book Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun [ B l o o m i n g t o n :

Indiana University Press, 1987], p. 77). Ah Q sees in the crowd of spectators the image of a hungry wolf that had once chased him home at night. "He had never forgotten that wolf's eyes," Lu Xun writes, "fierce yet cowardly, gleaming like two will-o'-the-wisps, as if boring into him from a distance. Now he saw eyes more terrible even than the wolf's: dull yet penetrating eyes that having devoured his words still seemed eager to devour something beyond his flesh and blood. And these eyes kept following him at a set distance. These eyes seemed to have merged into one, biting into his soul." Selected Works (1980), 1, p. 153. 18. The testimony of the divorce hearing has no bearing on the verdict. "Seventh Master," an archetype for the reactionary scholar-gentry who sits in judgment, has more interest in his new prized curio, a jade anus-stopper recently excavated from an ancient tomb (which he continually rubs on his nose and face), than in the "court" proceedings. See Selected Works (1980), 1, pp. 272-282. 19. The Lyrical and the Epic, pp. 56, 83—85. Also see Leo Ou-fan Lee, ed., Lu Xun and His Legacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 271-272. 20. Here I would take a cautious attitude toward Xu Shoushang's pronouncements that Lu Xun's poetry is to be characterized by "the introduction of colloquialisms into classical-style verse" and "the liberation of rules of rhyme and tonal prosody" through the employment of neighboring rhyme categories within regulated verse. Though such instances undeniably occur, they are the numerical exception rather than the rule. Still more revealing about Lu Xun's choice of these forms is the large number of cases in which he adheres rigidly to the rhyme categories determined by the standard Pingshui yun and other traditional guides. Whereas in theory, at least, Lu Xun should have been interested in breaking down conventions and introducing the vernacular as much as possible, by adopting these forms he seemed actively to be seeking the strictures embodied in a classical style for the outpouring of per-

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The Lyrical Lu Xun

sonal emotions—"all of which indicates that a genuine artist, whatever terms he makes with propagandistic aims, is always interested in certain nonpractical values." See H. R. Hays, trans., Selected Poems ofBertolt Brecht (New York: Grove Press, 1959), p. 7. Xu's remarks were originally intended for a preface to a collection of Lu Xun's classical-style poetry and written on the anniversary of the May Fourth Incident in 1944, a factor that may have influenced his frame of mind in evaluating the "significance" of his late friend's poetry. See Renshi de, pp. 9 7 - 9 8 . 21. I am indebted to Leo Ou-fan Lee's insights on the "modernity" of Lu Xun's classical verse. Again, see his Voices from the Iron House, p. 42. 22. For a book-length treatment of the Qu Yuan cult throughout Chinese history, see Lawrence A. Schneider, A Madman of Ch'u: The Chinese Myth of Loyalty and Dissent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). 23. Quanji (1991), 4, pp. 2 8 5 - 2 9 0 . This article was written in 1931 for the U.S. left-wing journal New Masses at the suggestion of Agnes Smedley, who was then working in Shanghai and on close terms with Lu Xun. The article appears in Selected Works (1980), 3, pp. 122-126. Another article on the same theme is "The Revolutionary Literature of the Chinese Proletariat and the Blood of the Pioneers," in ibid., pp. 119-121. 24. "Myths were not only the beginning of religion and art but the fountain-head of literature." Lu Hsiin, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1976), p. 9. 25. Quanji (1991), 1, p. 69. 26. Quanji (1991), 3, p. 530. 27. Lin Yii-sheng, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness, p. 108. 28. Lu Xun's oft-quoted comments in a letter to Yang Jiyun dated December 20, 1934, to the effect that the Tang masters, in his view, could never be surpassed and that classical-style poetry is not a field to be entered into lightly by the amateur, although intended as a modest disclaimer for his own indulgence in these forms, are also a clear indication of his respect and appreciation for them. See Quanji (1991), 12, p. 612. 29. The most notable exceptions occur in chapters 14 and 32. 30. I owe thanks to the late Professor Wang Yao for a talk we had at Peking University in October of 1981 on the technique of Lu Xun's poetry. 31. Petofi Sandor was his Magyarized pseudonym. Sometimes known in English as Alexander Petofi (originally "Petrovitz"), he has been considered the greatest of Hungary's lyric poets. Ironically, he was of Ruthenian (Carpatho-Russian) extraction. See Lorant Czigany, The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 181. A patriot, nationalist, and voice of democracy, Petofi "met death upon the spears of the Cossacks," who invaded at the behest of Vienna to suppress the Hungarian revolution of 1848—1849. Like Lu Xun, he was a believer in the rights of the individual and a foe of the invocation of "tradition" to safeguard gentry privilege. 32. Zhang Xiangtian has attempted to link one word in one poem with an image from Byron's Lara (see my chapter 7, note 11). Although I am sympathetic with this attempt, there are no textual grounds for certainty.

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Introduction

47

33. This exception may be, in part, the result of partisan contention. Lin Gengbai (1897-1941), the first critic to link Lu Xun's verse with that of Li Shangyin, was sympathetic to the Kuomintang and therefore, in Lu Xun's mind, must have had his own agenda in saying this. Again, see Lu Xun's letter of December 20, 1934, to Yang Jiyun, in Quanji (1991), 12, p. 612. 34. Quanji (1991), 12, p. 556. 35. This view was expressed in Liu Dajie's article Lu Xun de jiu shi [Lu Xun's classical-style poetry], which appeared in Wenyi bao Al (November 5, 1956), p. 65. 36. His youngest (i.e., the fourth) brother died in childhood and a sister, in her infancy. 37. See his middle brother's testimony to this in Zhou Xiashou (Zhou Zuoren), Lu Xun de gujia [Lu Xun's old home] (Hong Kong: Dazhong shuju, 1962), p. 26. Also Ouyang Fanhai, Lu Xun de shu [Lu Xun's works] (Hong Kong: Lianying, 1947), pp. 9—12. 38. See Xia Mingzhao, Lu Xun shi quan jian [Complete exegeses of Lu Xun's poetry] (Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe, 1991), p. 236. 39- That is, commencing with the publication of his short story Kuangren r i j i [Diary of a madman] in April of 1918. See translations by William A. Lyell, in his book Diary of a Madman and Other Stories (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1990), and the Yangs, in Selected Stories ofLu Hsun (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, I960). 40. This interpretation is based on his own, as recounted to Xu Shoushang in Wangyou Lu Xun yinxiang ji [Impressions of my departed friend Lu Xun] (Shanghai: Emei chubanshe, 1947), p. 58. Hereafter cited as Xu Shoushang, Wangyou. 41. Zhou Xiashou, Lu Xun de gujia, p. 40. 42. Xu Shoushang, Renshi de, pp. 8 - 9 ; Lyells translation. 43. Quanji (1991), 8, p. 304. 44. See my chapter 3 for Lu Xun's own account. 45. Quanji (1991), 1, p. 415. This is my own translation. 46. See D. E. Pollard's review of Lyell in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London), vol. 41 (part 1), 1978, pp. 189-190. 47. Quanji (1991), 1, p. 415. 48. William A. Lyell, Jr., Lu Hsiin's Vision of Reality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p. 48. It is noted here that "spiritual" concerns may also be translated as "intellectual" concerns. I would suggest that the German geistig comes closest to the Chinese idea of jingshen in this context (for its connotation of both mental and spiritual qualities); the French esprit also conveys similar associations. 49. Harriet C. Mills, "Lu Hsiin: 1927-1936—the Years on the Left" (dissertation, Columbia University, 1963), p. 228. 50. See Huang Sung-k'ang, Lu Hsiin and the New Culture Movement of Modern China (Amsterdam: Djambatan, 1957), p. 121. Also Selected Works {1980), 3, pp. 1 7 2 - 1 7 4 ; Quanji (1991), 4, pp. 4 - 5 (Preface to Three Leisures).

48

The Lyrical Lu Xun

51. Bao Chang and Qiu Wenzhi, Lu Xun nianpu [A chronology of Lu Xun's life] (2 vols.; Tianjin: Renmin chubanshe, 1979), 1, p. 33. 52. Of course, old China had accomplished monumental scientific and technological advances on its own. See Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge University Press, 1954—). When I refer to "Chinese learning," I am speaking primarily of the civil service exam. 53. William R. Schultz, Lu Hsün: The Creative Years (dissertation, University of Washington, 1955), pp. 70, 117. 54. Xu Shoushang, Wangyou, p. 5. 55. Quanji (1991), 1, pp. 6 3 - 1 0 0 . 56. Quanji (1991), 7, pp. 9-1957. Lyell, Lu Hsün's Vision of Reality, p. 83. 58. See Quanji (1991), 1, pp. 44-46, 55-57. 59. Quanji (1991), 6, p. 558. 60. Working from Japanese translations he translated into Chinese Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and Journey to the Center of the Earth, first published in the journal Zhejiang chao [Zhejiang tide]. 61. A title derived from Dante's collection of prose and lyrics La vita nuova. 62. Quanji (1991), 1, pp. 4 1 6 - 4 1 7 . 63. Bao and Qiu, Nianpu, 1, p. 62. Bao and Qiu fix the date as "sometime in July of 1908." 64. These were Henan (the name of a northern Chinese province) and Zhejiang chao [Zhejiang tide]. 65. Quanji (1991), 1, pp. 4 4 - 5 7. 66. Quanji (1991), 8, pp. 2 3 - 3 8 . 67. Lyell, Lu Hsün's Vision of Reality, pp. 9 4 - 9 5 . 68. From "Concerning Imbalanced Cultural Development." See Quanji (1991), l , p . 46. 69. In "On Refuting the Voices of Evil." See Quanji (1991), 8, p. 29. 70. Quanji (1991), 1, p. 56. From the conclusion to "Concerning Imbalanced Cultural Development." 71. From an article by Zhou Zuoren, entitled Ah Q zheng zhuan (On the true story of Ah Q), cited in Schultz, Lu Hsün, pp. 101-102, n. 158. I have revised the translation slightly. Space does not permit a lengthy treatment of various foreign influences on Lu Xun's fiction; suffice it to say, however, that the Japanese is usually considered secondary to Eastern European and Russian influences. Nevertheless, Lu Xun paid no attention to Gorky during this period, even though his novel Mother was already out in Japanese translation and Gorky already had a considerable following in Japan. Again, see Schultz, p. 101. 72. From Xiao Jun's talks at Asilomar, California, August 1981. 73. Quanji (1991), 1, p. 417. 74. Quanji (1991), 2, p. 91. 75. On a visit to Shaoxing (April 1982), I discovered through a series of interviews with local scholars that both Fan's wife Shen Heying and his

Notes to the

Introduction

49

daughter Fan Lianzhu (who was still alive at the time) have insisted that Fan's death by drowning was neither accident nor suicide, but rather a murder perpetrated by "his enemies" (i.e., those he had offended through his editorials in the daily paper Minxing ribao after he had been ousted from his academic appointment by adherents of the local chapter of the Confucian Moral Rearmament League). The daughter, on her mother's authority, relates this version of the story as corroborated by the testimony of his oarsmen the morning after the drowning occurred. Most probably none of this was known to Lu Xun, off in Peking at the time he composed his three poems lamenting Fan Ainong, and we can still only infer that he suspected suicide "since Fan was a strong swimmer," even though an element of social indictment is present in the texts of the poems themselves. 76. Cai stepped down as Minister of Education in 1912, but Lu Xun continued to work there until 1925 when he was suspended by Zhang Shizhao for his role in supporting the student strike at Peking Women's Normal. 77. Quanji (1991), 1, p. 418. 78. Quanji (199D, 4, p. 512. 79- Quanji (1991), 1, pp. 4 1 8 ^ 19. 80. Quanji (1991), 4, p. 512. 81. See Prusek, The Lyrical and theEpic, p. 56. 82. Quanji (1991), 1, p. 425. 83. V. I. Semanov, Lu Hsiin and His Predecessors (White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1980), p. 81. 84. One manifestation of this struggle may be inferred through the discord that grew into a permanent rift between Lu Xun and his once-beloved middle brother Zuoren, four years his junior. They had been close companions since childhood and were intellectually akin from early youth throughout their period of study in Japan. When Zuoren decided to marry Habuto Nobuko in Japan, Lu Xun returned to China in 1909 to take a job in order to support Zuoren's continued study in Japan (Lyell, p. 101). After Zuoren began using the money to subsidize his in-laws, the drain became too great and Lu Xun was forced to travel to Japan again to persuade the couple to move back to China. At the time he claimed to have been frustrated by his inability to afford any new books while in Japan on that visit. On returning to Peking, the siblings were once again seen together, and people came to speak of "the brothers Zhou," rather than Zhou Shuren or Zhou Zuoren separately. But quarreling began over the family finances, which were managed by Nobuko. This dispute culminated in July of 1923, when Lu Xun stormed out of his house for good—the house in which he had literally been keeping Zuoren and his wife for several years, turning his monthly paychecks over to Nobuko (Lyell, p. 134). Yet there were other factors involved besides family finances. One was Zuoren's desire to step out from the shadow of his elder brother, for Zuoren was on the road to becoming an essayist, prose stylist, and academician of the first order. He felt comfortable around "ivory tower" intellectuals and must

50

The Lyrical Lu Xun

have resented his brother's constant sniping at disinterested scholarship. Lu Xun, for his part, was disquieted by what he perceived as convenient "copouts" from the burning issues of the day. He had always been overly protective of Zuoren and was not willing to let him wander or be led astray at that late hour, even though he himself felt at a loss to point the way. Clearly their perceptions of the role of the writer in society were drastically different, though many of their experiences had been deceptively similar. One reason may lie in the fact that Lu Xun's point of cognition for these experiences always varied from that of Zuoren. As the eldest son of a collapsing family, he felt the blow dealt by expulsion from a secure world behind walled courtyards much more acutely than his little brother. Zuoren was at play when Lu Xun was at the pawnshop. Zuoren made kites while Lu Xun made himself sick with worry about how best they could apply themselves. Zuoren was conducted to Japan by Lu Xun, who had arrived there four years earlier and could smooth the transition for him. Where Lu Xun had gone through years of soul searching and intellectual anxiety about the choice of a career, Zuoren had gone shortly after arrival to Hosei and then Rikkyo universities, where he was immersed in pure literary study—English, Japanese, and the Greek classics. Zuoren had the leisure to appreciate Japanese culture, history, and women, while Lu Xun scurried about trying to locate the remedies for his own country's malady and worried about their implementation back home. After their split in 1923, the brothers remained estranged. Though their mother and youngest brother, Jianren, attempted for a while to bring about a reconciliation, they could not (and eventually both drifted to Lu Xun's side). After Lu Xun's death, Zuoren betrayed the cause of Chinese resistance by his assumption of high offices in cultural and academic affairs under the Japanese-controlled "quisling" government set up in north China during the war. His real motivations at the time, however, remain unclear. Perhaps he felt best able to help Chinese who remained in the occupied areas through his collaboration with the enemy. He was imprisoned after the Japanese surrender by the Kuomintang government but released following appeals on his behalf by Hu Shi and others only shortly before the Communist takeover. There are indications that he planned to flee from Shanghai to Taiwan, but was unable to make the journey in time. The Communist government allowed him to live out his life in obscurity in Peking, where he wrote a number of reminiscences on Lu Xun's early period during the 1950s and died in 1967. The third brother, Jianren (1889-1984), a scientist and onetime editor at the Commercial Press, lived into his nineties. Jianren was married to Habuto Nobuko's younger sister, but his interactions with Lu Xun remained friendly until the latter's death, at which time Jianren was employed as an editor at the Commercial Press in Shanghai. 85. Prusek, The Lyrical and the Epic, p. 56. Leo Ou-fan Lee cautions: "While there are indeed some similarities of mood and texture between Yecao and Baudelaire's work, it seems that in terms of meaning and conception the two are still substantially different." See his Voices from the Iron House, p. 215. 86. Selected Works (1980), 1, pp. 2 4 - 2 5 . C. T. Hsia contends that "after

Notes to the

Introduction

51

his capitulation [to Communism}, the writing of short essays became with him [i.e. Lu X u n ] even more of a consuming passion, in compensation for his creative sterility." See C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), p. 51. The existence of these poems alone, however, would suggest otherwise. 87. He was the only full professor at Sun Yat-sen University and concurrently served as chairman of the Department of Chinese Literature. After one month he was given the additional post of dean. 88. In her dissertation Harriet Mills sets out to prove that his resignation was due more to the fact that "he had been disturbed at learning that members of the Contemporary Critic [i.e., Chen Yuan's group} were coming to the university" (Mills, "Lu Hsiin," p. 79). Although that was certainly the main factor initially, the slaughter eventually outweighed it. See Chen Shuyu, Lu Xun yanjiu ziliao [Lu Xun research materials} (Tientsin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1980), no. 6, p. 258. Also Quartji (1991), 4, pp. 4 - 5 . 89. See Quart ji (1991), 4, pp. 4, 8, 61, 66. 90. "Fellow traveler" is a translation of the Russian term poputchik, meaning someone who goes along with a cause without formal membership in it. 91. As cited in Mills, "Lu Hsiin," pp. 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 . 92. Ibid., p. 123. 93. Ibid., p. 139. 94. Ibid., pp. 2 6 9 - 2 7 0 . 95. Ibid., p. 258. 96. Lu Xun Shuxin ji [The Collected letters of Lu Xun} (2 vols.; Peking: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1976), 2, p. 992 (to Cao Bai). Hereafter this source will be cited as Shuxin ji. 97. Ibid., p. 748. 98. Ruan Dacheng (c. 1587—1646) is said to have written Yanzi jian [The swallow letter} to distract the opera-loving Ming pretender from his task of organizing resistance to the Manchu invasion. 99- "Lapdogs" (ba'er gou) refers specifically to the breed commonly known in America as the Pekinese or pug. It is a term of abuse invoked by Lu Xun to refer to "those who patter after the heels of the rich and powerful, barking at beggars and poor people." Here he means small-fry literati in the service of the Nationalist government as censors, apologists in the media, and so forth. See his essay "On Deferring 'Fair Play' " in Selected Works (1980), 2, pp. 2 2 8 - 2 3 7 . Quanji (1991), 1, pp. 2 7 0 - 2 7 7 . 100. The letter to Yang is dated January 4, 1935. See Shuxin ji, 2, p. 744. 101. David Hawkes, "The Quest of the Goddess," Asia Major, 13 (1968), p. 89. 102. Selected Works (1959), 3, pp. 1 0 7 - 1 1 3 ; cf. Selected Works (1980), 3, pp. 1 1 9 - 1 2 1 ; Quanji (1991), 4, pp. 2 8 2 - 2 8 3 . 103. SeeT. A. Hsia, Enigma of the Five Martyrs: A Study of the Leftist Literary Movement in Modern China, Research Series of the Center for Chinese

52

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Studies, No. 2 (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of International Studies, 1962), pp. 6 - 1 0 , passim. 104. Ibid., p. 91. 105. According to the personal testimony of Xiao J u n at Asilomar, California, in August 1981. 106. See Selected Works (1980), 4, pp. 2 7 9 - 3 0 0 ; Quartji (1991), 6, pp. 5 2 6 - 5 4 4 , 586-589- In an interview granted me on April 20, 1982, at his home in Hangzhou, H u a n g Yuan, the elderly translator and friend of Lu Xun, stressed that he had known X u Maoyong (of the pro—Zhou Yang faction) very well. H u a n g claimed that Xu's motivation in opposing Lu X u n was quite naive: "In Xu's mind, though Lu X u n was great, Moscow must have been even greater. X u felt that since the order to promote 'National Defense Literature' indeed came from Moscow, it had to be the more correct line." 107. Selected Works (1980), 4, p. 298; Quart ji (1991), 6, p. 537. 108. Ibid., pp. 3 0 1 - 3 0 2 ; Quanji (1991), 6, p. 595. 109. See Selected Works (1980), 4, pp. 2 7 9 - 2 8 2 . The Yangs translate the piece "Reply to a Letter from the Trotskyites." It was "dictated" by Lu Xun from his sickbed to Feng Xuefeng, which has caused some to question its authenticity. 110. At Asilomar Xiao J u n was adamant, in fact, that Feng had been acting on the instructions of Yan'an. Perhaps this affair then presaged the Sino-Soviet split, in the literary realm, at least. 111. Far Eastern Economic Review, December 11, 1981, p. 40.

Verse in the Classical Style

Lu X u n leaving his home in Shaoxing for N a n j i n g in 1898. From a latter-day artist's rendering (woodcut by Zhao Yannian).

1.

Three Verses on Parting from My Brothers (Bie zhudi san shou) MARCH

1900

A SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Lu Xun left his old home in Shaoxing in May of 1898 to attend the Jiangnan Naval Academy in Nanking and embark on a career based on the study of what was termed "Western learning." At that time in China, however, the mainstream elite still prepared for the traditional civil service examinations, bent on attaining office through mastery of the Confucian classics. Those who followed a course such as Lu Xun had taken were generally considered by society to be second-rate scholars who could do no better than submit in intellectual servitude to "things foreign." Since his family, once well-off, had run into dire financial straits subsequent to the arrest in Peking of his scholar-official grandfather for corruption,' Lu Xun needed to choose a career for which he could prepare in a tuition-free school. Having an uncle who was dean of the Engineering Section, 2 he was able to secure a place at Jiangnan Naval Academy, one of the schools set up by Qing reformers in the hope that China could master Western military skills, science, and technology in order to insure the preservation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity in a world of expansionist military powers. But toward the end of 1898, young Lu Xun left the naval academy, disillusioned with the quality of instruction, and transferred to the School of Mines and Railroads attached to the Jiangnan Army Academy in Nanking, where he was graduated in January of 1902. It was from the latter school that he returned home for a vacation over the lunar new year holiday in 1 9 0 0 and composed these, his earliest extant verses, for his younger brothers Zhou Zuoren (1885—1967) and Zhou Jianren (1889—1985). The first two verses reflect the sentimentality of an educated upper-class youth steeped in the refined lit55

56

The Lyrical Lu Xun

erary and cultural heritage of traditional China. The third is an exhortation to his younger brothers to apply themselves to their studies that Lu Xun, as the eldest sibling, may well have felt obliged to give, whether perfunctorily or otherwise. The strong melancholy expressed by the poet upon leaving home to return to school in Nanking may be partially ascribed to traditional land and familial links, as encapsulated in the Chinese idiom of antu zhongqian (being content on one's native turf, thus taking the idea of moving elsewhere very seriously). This world-view was quite prevalent in the ancient agrarian society that was still China at that time, especially among youths of Lu Xun's social position. The form of versification employed here is qiyan jueju (heptasyllabic or "seven-character" quatrain). A related form is the wuyan jueju (pentasyllabic quatrain), which has also been called a "five-character quatrain." The seven-character quatrain has four lines, each seven characters in length, whereas the five-character quatrain has four lines of but five characters each. These jueju (quatrain) forms are akin to a liishi (regulated verse) in that they must adhere to the same strict rhyme schemes and tone patterns, but they differ from the liishi in that they have four lines instead of eight and do not follow the same strictures as regards the use of antithetical couplets (duizhang). Lu Xun signed the present three verses with the pen name "Jiajian Sheng," which I interpret as expressing a desire for uniqueness in writings. Some seventy-odd years later, Zhou Jianren, his youngest brother, offered the following explanation of the pseudonym, which he interprets as a "man drawing a sword" (ostensibly to do battle with the "feudal forces" of the "old-style learning"): "He [Lu Xun] carved two seals. On one were the words 'Letter misled me,' meaning that studying old feudal books and writing in the old feudal style had wasted his youth. On the other he cut the words 'Man drawing a sword' [Jiajian Sheng], meaning that he would draw his sword and join the fight."3 Although it seems a bit far-fetched, Zhou Jianren's explication may be germane to this particular period as one of intellectual transition for the young poet, if not one of alleged radical transformation.

Verse in the Classical Style

57

jhl è

Móu

-

sheng

Planning livelihood

t You Have

wu

nài

no-choice-but

* 4ÉJ It dì

pian

brothers

yet

J* Zui

-

£

shi

ling

•h

rr

ri

ben

-

chi,

daily to run and dash about,

£

M bié

gè

li.

am made

A

That which most causes

fa

jiào

EI

rén

A

n ,

qi

jue

A chu,

one [to feel] isolated to the extreme—

&

tf)

Gu

qing

châng

yè

yu

lai

shi.

Lone

lampstand,

long

nights,

rains

come

time.

1.

Careers and plans leave no great choice save dashing 'bout to meet the day . . . Thus brothers were mine only to forsake them both and go away. What scene could make one feel the more alone or sore disheartened Than the length of night by one lone lamp that coming rains now portend? 4

58

The Lyrical Lu Xun

* no

%

Huan

jia

Returning home

E) Ri

-

Jia Lining

%

& jiu

you

ll

jia,

long,

again

leaving

home,

4K

xln

chou

dusk

new

sadness

dao

-it wan

M fen

-

zhu

yang

«f

hua

duan

dou

Gazing

therein,

all

-

liu

wi llow

^

zhong

jia.

#

#

Wang

wai

in extra measure added.

the road, ten-thousand measure

t

%

wei

mil

it

W-

yet not

M

[ A t ] day's

A

4

fk - chang

shu, trees,

& hua.

change into broken-entrail flowers.

Returned home but a while, again I'm leaving home; A n d now the dusk adds extra bite to sadness where I roam. 5 Ten thousand willows line the road on which I have departed Gazing deep therein, I see them change to flowers brokenhearted. 6

Verse in the Classical Style

59

it = 7 \

£ Cong

-

M

lai

As always,

once

bie

you

parted,

again

jing

% % £ M, Wan

chang

IT

A t

_

—

ke

chuan.

sees-off

traveler's

boat.

i t IE, if* ji

qu.

you

tian.

you

y>

yan

I

have

one

word

n- £

X -

zhang

Writings'

3.

song

&

Wo

Wen

% M

feng

Ten-thousand It in length wind

nian,

[ m u s t ] pass a year,

de

-

shT

bu

success [or] failure is not [determined] by heaven.

As before, once parted, another year must pass.7 A wind ten thousand li in length sends off the traveler's craft. 8 One word to leave with you I have, and may you mark it well: 'Tis hardly up to heaven if at writing you'd excel.9

60

The Lyrical Lit Xun

Notes 1. Lyell, Lu Hsun's Vision of Reality, p. 12. 2. Ibid., p. 4 1 . 3- Chou Chien-jen, "Lu Hsiin—Pioneer of China's Cultural Revolution," China Reconstructs, 2 0 (Sept. 1971), p. 3. 4. Lu Xun's use of yu lai shi ("when the rains descend") to describe the loneliness of fraternal separation is perhaps an instance of intertextual borrowing from the Song dynasty poet Su Shi ( 1 0 3 6 - 1 1 0 1 ) , who used it in two poems as an image associated with his longing to be reunited with his younger brother. See Zhang Xiangtian, Lu Xun shi jian zhu [Exegeses and commentaries on Lu Xun's classical-style poetry] (2 vols.; Hong Kong: Yadian meishu yinzhi gongsi, 1 9 7 2 - 1 9 7 3 ) , 1, p. 5. Hereafter this work will be cited by the commentator's name, followed by the date of publication (to distinguish between this set and the earlier one-volume editions published at Canton in 1959 and 1962), for example, Zhang Xiangtian (1972), l , p . 5. 5. This line is reminiscent of a duan ju ("fragment of a verse") Lu Xun wrote during his first trip to Nanking in May of 1898. At sunset, my sadness as a sojourner intensified. Through thick smoke—the constant din of strangers' dialects. O f that trip he wrote in a photo journal called Jiajian notes of Jiajian Sheng] the following:

Sheng zaji [Assorted

I strained to listen to an earful of dialects different from my own, while the setting sun was about to sink and the darkness was becoming oppressive. All around me were people from places other than my hometown. Upon thinking of my far-off home with my dear old parents and tender little brothers, with whom I so often wished to talk and tell of the progress of my journey to date, I could not help but feel my heart was truly about to break, nor could I control the tears welling up. See Lu Xun quanji [The complete works of Lu Xun], edited and published by Renmin wenxue chubanshe (10 vols.; Peking, 1 9 5 7 - 1 9 5 8 ) , 7, p. 709. Hereafter this source will be cited as Quanji. 6. The willows seem to mesmerize the young poet as he gazes into their midst, and they are transformed into duanchang hua (literally "flowers [of the] brokenhearted"), another name for the begonia. This line may contain an intertextual reference to a poem titled Gongzi xing [Sons of the lord] by Liu Xiyi (bom c. 651), which has the couplet: Pitiable are the weeping willows, trees of those so deeply hurt; How pathetic the peach and pear, blossoms of the brokenhearted.

Verse in the Classical Style

61

Such intertextuality strengthens, rather than diminishes, the effect of the imagery on the Chinese reader. In traditional China it was customary that when someone went away, a sprig of willow would be broken off and given as a token of sentiment at parting. Thus, the poet here symbolizes the depth of his regret at parting. 7. This is to say that, as in previous years when Lu X u n went off to school, an entire year had to pass before the three brothers could be reunited for the next lunar new year celebration. 8. Wan li chang feng ("a wind ten thousand li in length") is an image associated with the lofty goals and high-principled ambitions of those who would travel far in order to make their way in the world. See Jiang Tian, Lu Xun shi zhu xi [Lu Xun's poems annotated and analyzed] (Hong Kong: Jisi tushu gongsi, 1974), p. 2. Hereafter this work will be cited by the commentator's name, followed by the date of publication to distinguish between this and another undated edition that appeared under the title Lu Xun shi xin jie [ N e w interpretations of Lu Xun's poetry] (Hong Kong: Wenyu chubanshe, n.d.). 9. In Chinese the meaning of this line is "Success or failure in writing is not preordained by fate." Here Lu X u n urges his brothers to take advantage of their youth to study hard and practice consistently in order to perfect their literary abilities. The Chinese word for talent is tiancai ("heaven-given ability"); in deference to the popular belief that one must have an innate "knack" or "talent" to be a good writer, one m i g h t have used the latter to translate tian. Much later in his life, when speaking of his own literary prowess, Lu X u n remarked: " W h a t talent? I just use the time and effort other people put into kaffeeklatsching for my work"—attributed to him by his widow X u G u a n g p i n g ( 1 8 9 8 - 1 9 6 8 ) in her Lu Xun quanji bianjiao houji [Postscript on the editing and collation of the complete works of Lu Xun], as cited in N i Moyan, Lu Xun jiushi qianshuo [Lu Xun's classical-style poetry explicated] (Shanghai: Remin chubanshe, 1977), p. 239- Hereafter N i Moyan's book will be cited by his name.

2 .

Lotus Seedpod People (Lianpeng ren) AUTUMN 1 9 0 0

ACCORDING TO the diary of Lu Xun's middle brother, Zhou Zuoren, this poem was written during the fall of 1900. 1 It is a nature poem involving a heavy element of personification, written by Lu Xun for his younger brothers with the intent of urging them to pursue lofty goals and strive to make something of themselves. 2 In previous dynasties Chinese poets, most notably the Northern Song Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhou Lianxi (1017—1073), lavished praise upon the lotus or water lily plant. But Lu Xun, along the lines of a verse by the late Ming/early Qing era poet Wu Weiye (1609—1672) with the same title, 3 strays from convention in his selection of the seedpod per se as an object of adulation. What he seems to admire is its austere yet genuine beauty as it stands—devoid of ostentatious "makeup" such as red flowers with their powdery pollen—straight and tall amid the desolate surroundings of withering and decaying plant life in an autumn pond. The type of versification employed in this poem is qiyan liishi (heptasyllabic regulated verse), sometimes referred to as "seven-character regulated verse" because it has eight lines, each seven characters in length. There is a related style called wuyan liishi (pentasyllabic regulated verse): eight lines of but five characters in length. Both the sevencharacter and five-character regulated verse styles have strict rhyme schemes and fixed tonal patterns. In a seven-character regulated verse style such as Lu Xun employs in this poem on "Lotus Seedpod People," rhyme occurs at the end of the first, second, fourth, sixth, and eighth lines (that at the end of the first line may be omitted). In a five-character regulated verse, rhyme also falls at the end of the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth lines; rhyme at the end of the first line also being optional. 62

Verse in the Classical Style The rhyme

63 of a given Chinese character in classical verse

is dictated by its antiquated reading rather than its pronunciation in m o d e r n Mandarin. For the purpose of tone patterns in such classical verse, words in Chinese were classified as belonging to either the ping sheng (level tones) or the ze sheng (deflected tones), even t h o u g h there are four different tones in m o d e r n Mandarin, and even more existed in the spoken Chinese of the early Tang dynasty when "regulated verse" became an established form. As m i g h t well be imagined, m u c h memorization and practice was necessary to become adept at these verse forms. T h e y confine the poetry in terms of l e n g t h , rhyme, and tone patterns, as well as requiring that a poem's m i d d l e four lines form two antithetical couplets. B u t the attraction of these forms lay in their ability to furnish educated persons w i t h an almost irresistible challenge to show literary prowess and verbal acumen in the pithy, metaphor-laden m e d i u m that became classical Chinese verse. 4

Three Flavors Studio—Lu Xun's childhood schoolroom in Shaoxing.

64

The Lyrical Lu Xun

j£ f* ft ? Ji

chang

Caltrop

raiment

xing

M,/t

floating-heart

Fêng

ding

you

Wind

ceased,

still is

^

dai

wén

Egret's

reflection does not /Ji

hua

bàn

chu

Sweeping away

Tul

-

xian

xiang

live in

immortal

lands,

bi

*

i

-

yù

green-jade

xiang

fragrance

lái

qlu

come,

autumnal

sè

sè

soughing [sounds],

/r^ sù

accompanies

Sao

chu

IT -fW

^ ^ -Hi Wëi

#

íjt

bù

yïng

w

smelled

*

Lu

belt,

ib

4

qué

Shedding-off

ìù

o'er ni ght, dew

rang

M, # J. & ni

fen

chéng

oily

powder,

displays

áx * hóng

yi reddish clothing,

léj

&

Hao

xiang

Lian

Well

{to d o ] as

Lianxi

-

xi [urged},

? xué

learn from

feng

rang.

t

gu,

wind and bone,

& dan

zhuang

plain

adornment.

#

if

cheng

jing

zhi,

acclaiming pure and upright,

1

It

-

spread thick.

^

Mò

sui

cán

ye

duo

han

tang,

Do not

follow

spent

leaves

falling in

cold

ponds.

Verse in the Classical Style In water-caltrop raiment clad, with belt of you dwell in faerie wonderlands.

floating-heart,

5

Such lush jade-green, your perfumed h u e — tho' wind may cease, its fragrance yet expands. Egrets' reflections grace this pond no more, only the autumn wind's soughing, a soughing so glum. 6 Alone, but for the rush flower, you bear the nocturne wake and await the heavy dew that with the morn will come. With greasy makeup swept away, true character takes form! Red garments loud, stripped off display strength of a subtler norm! 7 Live up to what Lianxi said: stand up "so straight and tall." 8 Follow not the withered leaves in chilly ponds to fall! 9

66

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Lu Xun shi jian xuanji: fu shigao [An annotated selection of Lu Xun's poems: with reproductions of the handwritten manuscripts]. (Hong Kong: Wenxue yanjiushe, 1973), p. 165. This work by an anonymous commentator will hereafter be cited as Shi jian: fu shigao. 2. Ni Moyan, p. 14. 3. For the text of Wu's poem, see Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 165. 4. For a more detailed discussion on the basics of versification and auditory effects in Chinese, see James J . Y. Liu, The Art of Chinese Poetry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 2 0 - 3 8 . 5. Edward Schafer translates xing as "floating heart" or "fringed water lily" (Linanthemum nymphoides). In Qu Yuan's Li sao {On encountering sorrow], a protest poem attributed to this wronged statesman from the Kingdom of Chu who fell out of favor with his sovereign as a result of slander and court intrigue, there are lines about making clothing from the water caltrop and water lily. (See Chen Zizhan, ed., Chu ci zhijie [A direct exegesis of the Chu elegies] (n.p.: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1988), pp. 5 0 - 5 1 . Hereafter: Chu ci zhijie. Since Qu Yuan used this image to allude to his own sincerity and high moral character, it seems likely that Lu Xun's first line is in praise of the "upright character" of his imaginary "lotus seedpod people." Zhou Zhenfu, Lu Xun shi ge zhu [The annotated poems and ballads of Lu X u n ] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1962), p. 5. Hereafter cited as Zhou Zhenfu. 6. The poet uses the onomatopoeic word se-se, which I have translated as "soughing," to describe the heaving sound of autumn's winds, announcing the withering and decay of plant life. 7. Against the backdrop of a bleak autumnal scene, the fortitude and "real backbone" (fenggu) of the staunch seedpod are revealed as it towers aloof above the water wherein drifts the decaying matter that was once its "red clothing" (hongyi), i.e., its petals. I have added the word "loud" in the translation, since hongyi in Chinese carries the connotation of "gaudy attire." 8. As previously mentioned, Zhou Lianxi (Zhou Dunyi) had been lavish in his praise of the lotus, once lauding it for "standing so straight and tall." 9- The last line of this poem seems to be another exhortation to Lu Xun's younger brothers. "Hold on to your high ideals, principles, and goals—don't give up," the poet urges his readers, "lest you end up as lesser men, like autumn leaves that fall into an icy pool of decay." Cf. Ni Moyan, p. 14.

3.

Seeing Off the Kitchen God in the Year 1901 Jk^mttflF (Gengzi songzao jishi) FEBRUARY 1 1 ,

1901

AT THE TIME of this poem's composition, 1 Lu Xun's paternal g r a n d father, the head of the family, had spent seven years in prison for his role in a corruption case involving the civil service examination system. A good deal of the Z h o u family's resources were exhausted m a k i n g appeals. T h e protracted illness and eventual death of Lu Xun's father in 1 8 9 6 m a d e matters even bleaker. O f a childhood spent amid such circumstances, Lu X u n once wrote: For more than four years I used to go, almost daily, to a pawnbroker's and a medicine shop. I cannot remember how old I was then; but the counter in the medicine shop was the same height as I, and that in the pawnbroker's twice my height. I used to hand clothes and trinkets up to the counter twice my height, take the money proffered with contempt, then go to the counter the same height as I to buy medicine for my father who had long been ill. On my return home I had other things to keep me busy, for since the physician who made out the prescriptions was very well known, he used unusual drugs: aloe root dug up in winter, sugar-cane that had been three years exposed to frost, twin crickets and ardisia . . . all of which were difficult to procure. But my father's illness went from bad to worse until he died. I believe those who sink from prosperity to poverty will probably come in the process to understand what the world is really like. 2 There was a folk custom practiced widely in the China of Lu Xun's youth called song zaoshen or "seeing off the K i t c h e n G o d . " It is also k n o w n as guo xiaonian or "celebrating the m i n o r new year," as it occurs before the actual new year. O n the n i g h t of the t w e n t y - t h i r d or twentyfourth day of the t w e l f t h lunar m o n t h (la yue), the m i n o r deity w h o is

67

68

The Lyrical Lu Xun

said to preside over the hearth of every home is supposed to make a trip u p to heaven to deliver a report of the things that have transpired during the year in the home of his hosts, b o t h good and bad. Twenty-five years after the composition of this p o e m , Lu X u n again wrote of that custom in an essay entitled Song zao ri manbi [ R a n d o m jottings on the day for sending off the Kitchen God]: As I sit and hear the firecrackers going off far and near, I realize that all the kitchen gods are going up to heaven one after the other, to complain about their hosts to the Heavenly Emperor. However, they probably never say anything in the end. If they did, the Chinese would surely be even worse off than they are now. On the day that the Kitchen God is seen off, a taffy-like substance —candy the size of an orange—is sold on the streets. We have this in my hometown too, but flat, like a very thick cake. This is called the "teeth-gluing sweet." It is intended to glue the god's teeth together after he eats it, to prevent him from "opening his trap" and complaining about his hosts to the Heavenly Emperor. In China we apparently conceive of gods and devils as being more naive than people. That is why we use such drastic measures in dealing with them, whereas people need only be wined and dined. 3 T h e pentasyllabic quatrain that follows seems to reflect the hard financial straits that the nineteen-year-old poet's family found t h e m selves in around the t u r n of the century as well as to hint at his changing a t t i t u d e s toward the extravagances of a N e w Year's ritual his family could no longer afford.

"The Marriage of the Mouse"—from a New Years picture hung over Lu Xun's bed during his childhood.

Verse in the Classical Style

69

£ ifL nZhT

jl

A

chicken,

jiao

ya

tang,

glue-the-teeth

candy,

& fr

#

Dian

gong

yl

Pawning clothing

% t Jia

Home

zhong

-

t

>»\

wu

within, there is no

du

Mf ban

# xiang.

to offer a piece of incense.

£

&

zhang

wu,

spare item,

*

m QT

*

shao

huang

-

yang?

How could only be lacking a yellow/brown goat?

A chicken and the " t e e t h - g l u i n g sweet" . . . C l o t h i n g p a w n e d for incense that we mete. O u r household, of every last t h i n g depleted, 4 Still more than a yellow l a m b has been deleted! 5

70

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. The word jishi in a poem title indicates that it was written on the spot to commemorate a certain event that has just taken place. 2. Lu Hsiin, Selected Works of Lu Hsiin, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang (4 vols.; Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1 9 5 6 - 1 9 6 0 ) , 1, pp. 1 - 2 . Hereafter cited as Selected Works. 3. Ibid., 2, p. 2 4 0 . I have revised the Yangs' translation in places. Cf. Quartji, 3, p. 176. 4. Literally this line reads: "Our home has no extra things [left}." The implication is that all zhang wu ("spare items") have gone toward making an offering big enough to please the Kitchen God. In the original no rhyme occurs at the end of this line, but in this, as in other rhyming translations, I have adopted it merely to convey the spirit of the highly conventionalized classical Chinese forms. O f course, it is not possible to imitate every detail of a Chinese poem's formal scheme and still come out with something close enough to the original to serve the function of a translation. 5. The huang yang is literally a yellowish-brown sheep or goat, thought to be a rare and valuable offering sure to win the Kitchen God's favor if a family were fortunate enough to be able to provide it. The origin of this belief is in the biography of Yin Zhi in the Hou Han shu [History of the Latter Han dynasty]. According to the story, Yin Zhi's grandfather (called Yin Zifang) was once honored by a visitation from the Kitchen God. Just happening to have a huang yang on hand, Yin Zifang sacrificed the animal to the god, whereupon he was richly rewarded. From then on, everyone wished to be able to offer one up. See Fan Ye, Hou Han shu (Taipei: Shixue chubanshe, 1974), 2, p. 1133. For other editions, see Hou Han shu, juan 6 2 . Lu Xun's point with this line is to say that much more is missing from his family's offering than a huang yang. He increases the irony in the original by asking a rhetorical question: "How could [our offering] only be missing a huang yang?"

4. An Offertory for the God of Books (Ji shushen wen) FEBRUARY 1 8 ,

1901

ji wen ("offertory composition") has many elements that remind the reader of poems in the Chu ci [Songs/Elegies of Chu], an ancient anthology of poetry from what some scholars have called the "southern culture" before China was unified in the last part of the third century B.C. In fact, the style of this composition by Lu Xun with its peculiar terminology, lines of irregular length, and repeated use of the exclamatory particle xi has led one Chinese commentator to label it saoti shi, a poem after the style of Qu Yuan's Li sao or other poems in the Chu ci anthology attributed to him. 1 THIS

It was a widespread practice in the days that this poem was written for men of some means to offer up a number of costly dishes and delicacies annually to the God of Wealth to ensure his blessings in financial undertakings during the year to come. Lu Xun witnesses this practice all around him, yet he rejects it and scoffs at its practitioners as "slaves of money." In this verse he personifies the enemies of the God of Books as a philistine duo, Su Ding ("Vulgar Dolt") and Cang Fu ("Old Man Simpleton"), and calls on the God of Books to snub or intimidate them. The allusions employed in this composition display a marked predilection toward the use of personification (e.g., the references to ink as "the Concubine of Black" and to the traditional Chinese writing brush as "that Once-Ennobled Pen") as well as imaginative and uncommon imagery (the young poet has his Book God go out and harness a team of silverfish to draw the divine carriage). Sprinkled liberally throughout this piece we find allusions borrowed from the vast literary pool of ancient China. That Lu Xun could draw on these masterfully at the age of nineteen and weave them into a work such as this with a subtly humorous vein is yet another demonstration of his literary ability and

The Lyrical Lu Xun

72

also offers the latter-day reader some i n s i g h t s into his v a l u e orientation in 1 9 0 1 . W r i t i n g of the c i r c u m s t a n c e s s u r r o u n d i n g the composition of this verse, in w h i c h he i m p l i e d he had a p a r t , Lu X u n ' s brother Zhou Zuoren has c o m m e n t e d : Back in the Qing era, aside from sitting for the civil service examinations, which was considered the only proper course in life for a gentleman to follow, there were several other occupational options along with their minor variations that could be exercised. The first of these was to become a teacher in a private [usually clan- or familyfinanced] school. The second was to get into medicine as a so-called scholar-doctor; those in the latter profession were usually able to strike it rich more easily than ordinary doctors. A third option was to become private secretary or a "troubleshooter" for a local official. This was called being a shiye and was a specialty of those from Shaoxing. The fourth was to learn about business and get into financial dealings or money lending. Aside from these fields, all else was deemed beneath the dignity of the long-gown wearing [class]. It was another thing entirely to go to a new-style school [where foreign subjects were taught], and this was really looked on as a deviant course to pursue, so only those who had no other options took it up. But as the saying goes, "Those with club feet cannot get shoes out of their minds," and those who took this course could not avoid hankerings [for the more respectable one]. So on New Year's Eve of 1901, when we wrote an "Offertory to Chang En, God of Books," we still concluded it with the line "Should, in some coming year, the watercress flourish and the cassia flower give forth fragrance . . . " [expressing hope of winning a degree in the examination system]. Thus it is apparent just how binding a spell had been cast on our minds [by the traditional desires and aspirations of the gentry class for the prestige and emoluments of office]. 2

Lu Xun's middle brother, Zhou Zuoren, in the late 1930s.

if

Shaoxing at the turn of the century.

The Lyrical Lu Xun

74

Shang - zhang

kun

- dun

zhl

sui

M # ¿L fr # \ M i. i t vx % & £ft.t # -k & 1*7 « ^ 3

[In] the year of gengzi [shangzhang-geng;

Jia

ZT

ji

shi

kundun-zi,

zhl

1901}

xl

On the eve when Master J i a would offer up poems,

Kuai -

ji

Jia

- jian

Sheng

deng

[I] of Kuaiji—"The Sword-drawing Scholar" et al.

jln

yl

han - quan

leng -

hua

si

shu - shen

reverently take chilled Springwater, cold flowery splendor, offering [these] up to book-

Chang

En

er

zhui

yl

li

ci,

yue:

Chang En, and decorate with an unpolished ode, [which] runs:

Jin

zh!

xl

xl,

xi!

Chu

t- m ^ m m Today's [ v e r y ] eventide, lo, Eve of the New Year!

Xiang

yan

yun

Incense flames are orange,

# Qian

- shen

xi, lo,

Sf ^ zui

zhu

yan

Jun

du

he

chi,

candles' flames crimson,

f i - k 'hr

xl,

qian

-

nu

lo,

money's slaves are busy.

mmn % ^ t

The god of money drunken,

#

wei

xi,

shou

mang.

^ can

ji? My lord, alone why doest, lo, stand guard over battered volumes?

ifr

Verse in the Classical A

Hua

Style

75

H M ^ J»t ^ # yan

kai

xi,

la

Z ,f£ & ^

Splendid feasts are starting, lo,

Jïng

diân

diân

xî,

hu

yè

.

xi,

rù

People clamor and call,

lo,

entering

Shui

jiàn

jun

XI,

y

Who

will offer

Thee,

lo,

one

Jué

jiâo

A

du

XI,

# M

& 3L H % Sever relations [ w i t h ] "that t h i n g , "

te m Ba

jiu

Holding

wine,

da

qi banners,

Mài

Hàn

châng.

Wr

a drunken land;

m

shäng? goblet?

& m

shàng

shèng

xi,

hu

xi, lo;

yun

jun

lfn

Wàng

xi

[ a ] rue carriage . .

xi,

ju

shü,

jià

& du

driving

-

wo

ju.

Thou approachest m y d w e l l i n g !

yu,

rh ^ % lo,

can

[one] still has left battered books,

^ M tl

- quàn

xiäng,

ZUÌ

^ M ei & %

Leading [Faerie Bookworm], lo,

%

-fc

^ % ^L

Silken

Qiè

1

lo,

[ I ] loudly cry out,

Xiang

n i ,

xiang,

night is long.

A

xuân

jiu

sacrificial wine is fragrant;

Bells of the watches r i n g i n g , lo,

Rén

-

zu,

W i n t r y springwater, lo, chrysanthemum-garnish,

-

yu.

silverfish.

76

The Lyrical Lu Xun

m m it ^ % Kuang

song

Li

Wildly chanting

%

-

sao

the Lisao,

^

4L £

Jun

zhi

lai

Thy [possessive] coming,

% £ Jun

ql

-

wei

lo,

for

#

jun

wu

lo,

must not

xu

xi,

# -

xu.

tarry too long!

^ f fei

yu.

Thy entertainment.

#

xi,

fa

you

xi,

&

ik

guan - cheng -

hou.

Thou befriendest Pitch-Black Concubine, and Enfeoffed Writing Brush.

T* tit

ft

ft Xiàng

br

Face

Pen

#

•-

hâi

ér

xiào

Sea

and

sing

vx

X

YT

wén

- zhông

y>

-

ào forth,

*

XI,

lo. . .

&% yan

liu.

Lean upon writings' graves to linger [here] longer.

i-rt

*

BÙ •- fang

M

dâo

Mai

Wàng

ér

Why doest Thou not lead [Faerie Bookworm] and

$1 £ Yin

du

Bringing

& -

£

yu

zhi

silverfish

lai

to come [on an]

T i t Sl Su

-

Ding

& you, outing;

% %

%

jun

chou,

Vulgar Dolt and Simpleton Old-Man, lo,

are

Thine

enemies,

shi

Fu

ML H lu

yu

n xi,

zeng

*

XI,

ascend to immortals, lo . . .

wei

Wu

-

xiân

xi,

ty it

Cang

dêng

% jun

xiu.

Do not let [them] step upon the threshold, lo, accruing Thee shame.

77

Verse in the Classical Style

JL ZhI

zhT

Stop

them

-TF Shi

^ zhl

VX % & yi with

Wu

gôu,

[a] W u

dagger,

* *

Jt Qiu

Suo

Show them [copies of) Qiu and Suo,

Ling

guân

tuo

- chéng

xi,

j'

q>

lo,

pricking

their

m VX ying

«

it

li

yi

hóu.

throats

it! chu

xi,

Let the Ennobled Pen be bared of its cap, so as to come forth, lo . . .

i t 'it Shi

bi

Making

77

'/vil?

jul.

T

Ning

them

-It chuò

'YÀ -

chuò

& %

shu

-

wei

Ta

wo

/f

- man

you.

troubled.

^

#

lai

pi

^ ^ ^ lo,

0

shl

qin

shou

xi,

le

look-out,

lo,

joys

% ft mao

er

qiu

[let] come poetry-prisoners,

xl,

[If} Thou wilt for me

4

é

xin hearts

with

[I] would summon book - addicts,

Jun

yi

disquieted

X3

zhao

vx

#

£

wei

-

unceasing.

^ xi

xiang

[If in] another year watercress flourish and the cassia is fragrant,

j t % II VX fâ ®t| Gou

yi

ji

yi

xiang

xiu.

chou.

[I shall] buy rare volumes for mutual [i.e. Thy] reward.

^ xi, lo,

The Lyrical Lu Xun

78

In the lunar year gengzi (1901), on the very eve when, in days of yore, the poet Jia Dao ( 7 7 9 - 8 4 3 ) annually brought forth the fruits of his literary labors—his poems—and offered them up to the God of Books, I, Jiajian Sheng of Kuaiji County [in the modern Shaoxing vicinity} reverently bring forth "chilled springwater" [i.e., wine] and cold flowery [fruits] for Chang En, God of Books, garnishing them with this unpolished verse:

This evening, the Eve of the N e w Year, clouds of smoke bellow f r o m incense glow, red burn the candles' flames. T h e God of Wealth is d r u n k , for the slaves of money now busy themselves. W h y doest T h o u stand alone Keeping guard over battered tomes? A s u m p t u o u s feast is in the offing with fragrant N e w Year's wine. Toll after toll of the n i g h t watchman's bell, on drags the n i g h t long. W h i l e all the others clamor, falling into the land of drunkenness, W h o remains to offer Thee even one goblet? I am severing relations with that "thing" [money], yet will have my worn volumes still! Lifting high m y wine, in toast I cry for T h o u approachest my domicile. In a flurry of silken banners, riding a carriage of rue drawn by a team of silverfish 3 T h o u comest leading Mai W a n g , renowned faerie bookworm. I wait with cold springwater wine, and chrysanthemum-garnished delights; W i t h wild abandon chant forth verses of the Li sao,

Verse in the Classical Style

79

that these might delight Thee. Tarry not in Thy coming, 0 Friend of the Concubine of Black 4 and that Once-Ennobled Pen! 5 Sing out in exultation o'er the sea of writing brushes! 6 1 bid Thee relax and linger longer— Lean on the graves of writings [dug by the loved ones of letters}. 7 W h y not lead Mai Wang in a climb to faerieland, bringing silverfish to come and romp about. The Vulgar Dolt and Old Man Simpleton are Thine enemies! Permit not their likes to darken Thy doorstep divine, as such could tarnish Thy name. Should they pay no heed, Stop them with a curved W u dagger! Show them ancient classics on divination and the Nine Regions of old, 8 for when they attempt to intone the works of high antiquity, the very words shall pierce their throats. Remove the cap from a pen, that the writing tip be revealed— a sight disquieting to their ilk! I would summon to me book addicts and men imprisoned by the love of verse! Guide well the literary ventures of this, Thy servant and I promise Thee unceasing bliss. Should, in the coming year, the watercress flourish9 and the cassia flower give forth its fragrance, 10 Rare volumes shall I purchase and offer in return for Thine indulgence!

80

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Ni Moyan, p. 17. 2. Zhou Zuoren, Zhitang huixianglu [Reminiscences of Zhou Zuoren] (2 vols.; Hong Kong: Sanyu tushu wenju gongsi, 1971), 1, pp. 5 2 - 5 3 . Note, however, that Ni Moyan contends Zhou Zuoren is making a "deliberate distortion" here and slandering Lu Xun (p. 21). Ni contends that Lu Xun had already made up his mind firmly to embark on a course of Western studies at the time of this composition, and that by the line Zhou Zuoren quotes, he expresses merely the desire to perfect his scholarship, not any sort of aspirations to officialdom. For Xu Guangping's opinion of the low reliability of Zhou Zuoren's memoirs, see Hsu Kuang-ping, "Our Scabs Are Their Treasures," Chinese Literature, no. 3 (1968), pp. 1 2 4 - 1 3 1 . In this particular case, Zhou Zuoren's interpretation is, however, the more textually accurate version. 3. The Book God's banners are made of a particular type of silk called xiang, which was often used by the Chinese in high-quality book covers. Yuncao (here rendered as "rue") is an odiferous plant that in ancient times was placed in books to repel insects. By riding in such a carriage, drawn by a team of harnessed silverfish, the Book God is depicted as master over the destroyers of books and the nemeses of bibliophiles. 4. "The Concubine of Black" is literary jargon for moshui or Chinese ink. 5. In his biography of Mao Ying, Han Yu (768—824), the famous lateTang poet and essayist, makes mention of a story about the First Emperor of Qin (reigned 2 4 6 - 2 1 0 B.C.) conferring the rank of general on a tree and enfeoffing a writing brush. 6. A "sea of writing brushes" (b't ha't) refers to the vast number of extant written documents. 7. Wenzhong or "graves of writings" harks back to the story of Liu Fen of the Tang dynasty who, unable to bear throwing away written documents, was wont to cremate them first and then bury them out of respect. In Chinese culture it was held that paper on which there was writing should not be disposed of as ordinary trash. 8. The books referred to here are Qiu, which is a treatise on divination, and Suo, written about the jiu zhou or "Nine Regions" into which China was divided by a mythical emperor of the Xia dynasty, the Great Yu (legendary reign dates, 2 2 0 5 - 2 1 9 8 B . C . ) . 9- The qin (here rendered as "watercress") is an aquatic plant that was grown in the ponds of the xue guan or Confucian schools. It was said that those who had passed the xiu cai examination (the licentiate degree in the old civil service examination system) were permitted to enter and pick it. Thus this is most probably an allusion to passing the exam and being awarded the xiu cai degree.

Verse in the Classical Style

81

10. Xi (Osmanthus fragrans) is an alternate name for the guihua or "cassia flower." Those who attained the degree of juren or "provincial candidate" (the next-to-highest under the old system) were said to be able to zhe gui or "pick a flower from the cassia plant," which according to legend was sacred and grew on the moon, only to be plucked by those who received a juren degree and then again only in the spring when the examination results were posted.

5.

Three Verses on Parting from My Brothers

MUtfri- if (Bie zhudi san shou) MARCH OR A P R I L 1 9 0 1

THE FIRST SET of verses we have seen by Lu X u n on parting from his brothers was composed in Nanking in March of 1 9 0 0 , when the poet returned to school after a lunar new year's vacation spent at home in Shaoxing. T h e next year ( 1 9 0 1 ) , when he departed from home, his middle brother, Zhou Zuoren, composed poems according to the same rhyme as Lu Xun's original set and, presenting them to Lu X u n , asked the latter to compose another set of verses in reply. T h e first verse in this, the 1 9 0 1 set, describes Lu Xun's homesickness as he lies abed one sleepless night in Nanking. T h e second and third verses describe two events during his trip to school by riverboat to Nanking from Shaoxing. T h e three poems are tinged with the sort of sentimentality that characterized the highly stylized verse of youths from genteel backgrounds during the Q i n g era. To these poems Lu X u n appended the following postscript: My middle brother [Zhou Zuoren} composed three poems in the same rhyme that I had used for my original "Three Verses on Parting from My Brothers" {written in February of 1900] and presented these to me on my recent departure [this year]. Thereupon he requested I compose an additional three poems according to the rhyme scheme in answer to his set. Each time I took up my pen to write verses in reply I was overcome by gloom and had to stop without setting anything down. After ten or more days had passed I chanced upon a bit of spare time and thereupon scratched out these verses and mailed them to him. Alas! I climbed atop a storied building and gazed off toward my hometown through tears. Gallant heroes too get homesick! Thoughts of grasping each other's hands at parting melt me with sorrow. We are truly living apart now! Late in autumn when the moon is bright, 82

Verse in the Classical Style it seems especially radiant when shining on travelers and those far from home. On these cold nights the effect of the sound of a mournful jia [reed flute} is increased if the listener happens to be living in strange parts. With feelings and circumstances such as mine, there has probably never been anyone who could keep from becoming despondent from the sorrows [of separation]. 1

Huo Wuchang ("All Is Transient"), the folk-Buddhist version of the grim reaper. From a sketch by Lu Xun.

83

84

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Mb

-dÀ*

T

Mèng

f -

Dream

hún

cháng

xiàng

gù

soul

often

toward

old hometown

& a

A

xi n

ren

nan

Thereby

believe

in mortal

world

#

Yè Night -

bàn mid

&

y1 lean upon

chuáng bed

£

xiang

chi, gallops

M

W

Shi

*

-

kü

bié

li

bitter is parting/separation.

' I t

1 *

%

zhu di, y» remembering younger brothers,

ñ

m

%

Cán

dèng

rú

dòu

yùe

ming

shi.

Spent

lamp

like

bean,

moon

bright

time.

1.

My soul takes wing so oft in dream to fly home whence I came, And hence I've learnt that in this life parting is the bitt'rest pain. As thoughts turn toward my brothers dear I toss and turn well nigh midnight. The lamp wick's flame flickers bean-sized— about to expire 'mid bright moonlight.

Verse in the Classical Style

EI

85

Ri

mù

zhou

Dayfs]

dusk,

skiff

& ' f t

-

pü

jiä,

[at} old-planter's

wu

If

rào

fence

tencircling

& -

läo

% home,

¿ à

ft

Ji Bramble

Chàng

£

Ì f -

^

ran

Crestfallen,

shù

' I t

hui

-

-

jia.

intertwine.

%

yi

jia

think back on

^ r

jiao

trees

-

xiang

home-locale

H f

joys,

4

M

Bao

weng

he

shi

gong

yang

hua?

Carrying

crock,

what

time

together

raising

flowers?

A t sunset our boat moors by an old planter's house. 2 ' R o u n d his hut, a thorn f e n c e — above, intertwine boughs. Crestfallen, I think back on our joyous days at home, W o n d e r i n g when again I shall carry a watering-crock of m y own. 3

The Lyrical Lu Xun

86

Jt = / \

ja, Chun Spring

feng wind

rong

yi

easily/readily

song

shào

niàn,

sees-off

beauteous

years,

m &

#

YT

zhào

yàn

One

oar,

misty

H Hé

-

shi

-

4*.

bo

ye

shi

waves,

[by] night

pilot

# »

pied

tit -

ling

pian

ào

wagtail

insists on

defying

Hf Ft Hua

dian

Graying head/hair, &

Bai

yan

Whites of eyes

ifr Shi

wei

World's

flavor

A Ren

-

jian

& ft -

he

How could [in]

a Jing

liao

luö,

dry,

[turning]

sparse,

*

kän

ft

look [at]

J1 chicken

qiü

tu

chöng. ants.

# kü,

autumn wormwood

bitter,

iL i l

Mortals-among,

Nai

wei

n er

Actually [have]

zhi straight

san three

& shi

dao

qiong.

path impoverished.

nM yue

bie,

months

absence,

4

ji

-

gong,

lost so uncommon a figure?

Verse in the Classical Style

1.

'Mid whirling wind and rain this day,6 My memories of Ainong stay. With thinning, dry, and graying hair How his eyes would roll at the scrappers for fare!7 His gorge rose at men's worldly lust— W h a t gain's in store for those who're just? 8 Three months away, at such a cost— This uncouth friend I've truly lost. 9

113

The Lyrical Lu Xun

PI J t Hai

-

cao

Sea [shore] grass

guo country's

£* £ Duo

nian

lao

Many

years

old

men

%

gates greened,

fo U 7T Hu

li

fang

[The] foxes

just

Tao

-

-

ou

Peachwood puppets

it % Gu

Former

-

already

yi

xiang.

alien

land. / V

qu

xue,

left

lairs,

& % deng

-

chang.

took-the-stage.

li

han

yun

e,

village

wintry

clouds

ill/evil,

ye

chang.

night's

length.

leng

shui,

& * Yan

yl

bi,

tian

t

lin

m it > t

Fiery [summer] days

icy

Du

chen

qlng

Alone

sinking

clear

Neng

fou

di

Could

it or not

cleanse

f

4k J t cold

waters,

chou

chang?

forlorn entrails?

Verse in the Classical Style

2.

Its green our home-shore grass regained, Each year that we abroad remained. 10 The foxes had just left their lairs, When peachwood puppets took stage stairs.11 Cold clouds engulfing home bade ill; Sultry summer had a long night's chill. In that limpid river you sank alone to depart— Could its waters cleanse your forlorn heart?

115

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Jt = -zkr Vpf)

M Ba

jiu

Holding

wine,

it

£ Xian

lun

-

> b

sheng

[You,] sir,

Great universe

sf

Wei

jiu

you

mlng

M

man.

-

ding,

is as if reeling intoxicated,

% zi

i t chen

drunk, by yourself

j)t

ren.

If ^ St

zui

Slightly

A

little/belittle drinking

huan

M

shi, world,

n

xiao

I Da

dang

opined on the then

-

lun.

sunk-down.

A

i ?

CI

bie

cheng

zhong

gu,

This

parting

shall be

till end

of ages,

& .€ & "I"

V i Cong

zi

jue

From

here on

cut-off

ren

yun

A f

i t Gu

-

Old/former friends

Wo I

#

clouds

xu

-

yan.

provocative words.

It san

4

jin.

scatter completely,

H

M

yi

deng

qing

chen.

also

equal

light

dust.

Verse in the Classical Style

3.

117

Goblet in hand, you held forth on the day; To a bit of drinking, often gave way.12 Sure 'twas drink the whole world did confound, That alone, slightly drunk, you could sink and then drown. This time our parting will be forever, What you left unsaid, I'll know now never.13 Old friends finished like a cloud by a gust, Thus what am I but some specks of light dust!14

The Lyrical Lu Xun

118

Notes 1. See Selected Works, 1, pp. 410-421, for Lu Xun's own account of this and subsequent events under discussion. 2. Schultz, "Lu Hsiin," p. 1333. Selected Works, 1, p. 418. This piece titled Fan Ainong was written by Lu Xun in 1926. The information inserted in brackets is my own. I have altered the romanization of proper names. 4. Ibid., pp. 4 1 9 ^ 2 0 . I have revised the Yangs' translation and corrected one omission. The standing corpse is probably a symbol of defiance, and the water caltrops make it sound a bit like Qu Yuan. 5. Ni Moyan, p. 49. 6. According to Lu Xun's diary, the day he composed these poems lamenting Fan Ainong's death was one of fierce winds and storm. It was also on such a night that Fan went to his watery grave. But this phrase in Chinese is also a common metaphor for a time of crisis or a precarious situation. Such were the conditions in which the ill-led infant Republic of China found itself. Speaking of Lu Xun's 1926 prose piece titled Fan Ainong, William Schultz states: "It is a description of his strange friendship with this sympathetic figure, which then becomes the vehicle for a post-mortem judgment of the 1911 Revolution" (Schultz, "Lu Hsiin," p. 133). I feel it important for those reading these poems not to underestimate Lu Xun's indictment of local Shaoxing society as well as the national political climate for the role they had in bringing about Fan Ainong's demise. 7. The expression involving "looking at someone with the whites of one's eyes" (as a gesture of contempt) is said to have originated with the poet Ruan Ji (210—263), who lived during the Jin dynasty and was a member of a coterie of eccentric intellectuals referred to as the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. As juan 49 of the Jin shu [History of the Jin dynasty] relates, Ruan Ji looked people whom he liked directly in the eye, letting them see the dark-colored irises of his eyes. Upon encountering someone who displeased him, however, he flashed a glance toward the sky, exposing the whites of his eyes to express his displeasure. See Jin shu (Peking: Zhonghua, 1974), 5, p. 1361. Lu Xun, when he first encountered Fan Ainong in Japan, wrote of him: "The speaker was a tall, burly fellow with long hair and more white than black in his eyes, who always seemed to be looking at people contemptuously." Selected Works, 1, p. 411. A colleague of Lu Xun and Fan Ainong at the Shaoxing Normal School, He Jizhong, was often characterized as a lickspittle and toady to those in power. On occasion, he attempted to have Fan Ainong demoted or fired, and for this Fan, Lu Xun, and their friends crowned him with the demeaning epithet jichong, a pun on his given name Jizhong. See Zhou Xiashou (Zhou Zuoren), Lu Xun xiaoshuo li de renwu [The characters in Lu Xun's stories] (Shanghai: Shanghai chuban gongsi, 1954), p. 104. The word jichong is a reference to an image from Du Fu's (712—770) Fu ji xing [Ballad on trussing a chicken}, in which the poet inveighs against people preying upon one another

Verse in the Classical Style

119

by reflecting on how a chicken that once fiercely stalked ants in his courtyard now squawks and struggles at being trussed up for market by a servant in the poet's household. Thus, the epithet was intended both as a pun on H e Jizhong's given name and as a reference to his preying upon those in positions inferior to his own. After Lu Xun left the Shaoxing Normal School in 1912 for Nanking, H e Jizhong ingratiated himself with Fu Lichen, the new headmaster and concurrent leader of the local Confucian Moral Rearmament League. Soon this neoconservative block pushed Fan out of his job and into financial straits, bringing about his increasing despondency. 8. A literal rendering of this couplet might read: "Society's tastes were, to him, as bitter as the tu plant in autumn [Sonchus oleraceus, a bitter edible plant at the height of its most pungent season]; In this world, however, those who stick to the paths of righteousness are readily ruined [i.e., righteousness is ruin}." 9. Jigong, here rendered as "this uncouth friend," refers to a person who is markedly different from others, consequently thought of as weird, and thus rejected or ostracized. Yet because his ways may be very much in accordance with Nature, he is to be admired. The Dai zong shi [Great and venerable teacher] chapter of the book of Zhuangzi has this line: "The person deemed ji is ji to other people but is in accordance with [the way of] Nature." See Chen Guying, Zhuangzi, 1, p. 194. Here Lu Xun is using jigong as a sympathetic appellation for Fan Ainong. 10. Lu Xun spent a total of seven years ( 1 9 0 2 - 1 9 0 9 ) studying in Japan. Fan Ainong went to Japan in 1905 in the same group as Xu Xilin, but remained a bit longer than Lu Xun. 11. Cao Liwu (p. 11), basing himself on a gloss of the character hu ("fox") as yao shou ("demon beast") from the shuowen jiezi, says this line refers to the death of the empress dowager Ci Xi (the fox). That seems a bit far-fetched. The standard interpretation of this couplet is that as soon as the Manchus (the "foxes") were toppled, their former commanding general—with his own imperial aspirations—Yuan Shikai (1859-1916) and his underlings took over the government of the Republic of China. Here Lu Xun, referring to them as "peachwood puppets," likens Yuan Shikai and his henchmen to puppets of foreign imperialism. See N i Moyan, pp. 52—53. This interpretation is based on a statement by Xu Shoushang in Renshi de, pp. 25—26: "I particularly love this couplet because from it it becomes apparent that he [Lu Xun] had already seen through Yuan Shikai and knew he was about to start his machinations [against the Republic]." Another plausible understanding is that the lines are meant to denounce the local Shaoxing authorities as puppets and instruments of warlords like Wang Jinfa and the landlord class. See Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, pp. 6 4 - 6 5 . Lu Xun's essay on Fan Ainong hints at the latter interpretation in its discussion of how little real effect the 1911 Revolution had on their own locale: As winter approached we grew more hard up; still, we went on drinking and joking. Then suddenly came the uprising, and after that Shaoxing was freed. That following day Ainong came to town in a felt cap of the type farmers often wear. I had never seen him with such a smiling face.

120

The Lyrical Lu Xun "Let's not drink today, Xun. I want to see free Shaoxing. Come out with me." So we walked through the streets, and saw white flags everywhere. But though outwardly all was changed, beneath the surface all went on as before; for this was a military government organized by a few of the old-style gentry. The chief shareholder in the railway company was head of the administration, the money-lender had become director of the arsenal. . . .

Selected Works, 1, p. 415. Transcriptions have been altered. Cao Liwu (pp. 12— 13) suggests that the power of these lines lies precisely in the way they move the mind's eye of the reader from the center to the periphery. 12. Some commentators gloss the character xiao as a verb meaning xiao kan ("to regard [other drinkers] with contempt"). See Xia Mingzhao, p. 45; Ni Moyan, p. 53. This seems too much in contradiction with the first line to me. 13. The Chinese term xuyan, rendered here as "what you left unsaid," can be used to describe a provocative statement left unfinished as an inducement for the listener to ponder over its meaning. The allusion originates in the Yu fu [Old fisherman] chapter of Zhuangzi in a sentence supposedly spoken by Confucius to hail an old fisherman who had just made some critical observations about Confucius and then left the scene. The line goes: "Confucius said, 'A moment ago, sir, you made some xuyan ("incomplete or prefatory remarks") and then left.' " Chen Guying, ed., Zhuangzi, 3, p. 816. 14. "Specks of dust" (qing chen) is a Buddhist image for the transitory nature of human life in the mortal world. Lu Xun invoked the same image in a similar context in his December 27, 1933, letter to Tai Jingnong, saying: "I've never seen a situation like that which we have on our hands now in my entire life. Of my friends in the last thirty years, no matter if they were my own age or but half my age, there are truly only a handful of survivors. My sorrow turns to anger and thereupon I often view myself as nothing but a few specks of dust. Yet at times I get the idea I should take care of myself, if only to spare my loved ones pain and to avoid giving my enemies any pleasure." Quanji( 1961), 9, p. 357.

9 .

Redressing Grievances on Behalf of the Beanstalks (Ti douqi shenyuan) JUNE 5, 1 9 2 5

THIS POEM was recorded in an article titled Yaowen juezi [Exercising prudence in the choice of every word], published on J u n e 7, 1 9 2 5 , in the periodical Bei bao fukan [North news supplement}. It reflects Lu Xun's exasperation at the triumphant maneuvering of Yang Yinyu (d. 1 9 3 8 ) , American-educated president of the Peking Women's Normal College, who had successfully suspended six student leaders involved in a movement calling for her ouster. A supporter of Yuan Shikai and the warlord cliques that succeeded him as masters of the infant Republic, Yang Yinyu forbade the women of her college to attend a memorial service held for Dr. Sun Yat-sen upon his death in Peking on March 12, 1 9 2 5 , adding to that prohibition a singular accusation: "Sun Yat-sen was an advocate of épouses communes! There's nothing you can learn from a man like that! I forbid you to go mourning him." 1 Since Lu X u n was teaching part-time at Women's Normal then, his consternation must have doubled every time he remembered that Yang Yinyu had taken the place of the liberal X u Shoushang, his close friend, who had been squeezed out of the position. Yang was characterized by her critics as high-handed, paternalistic, and a cultivator of friends in high places. 2 On National Humiliation Day (May 7) in 1 9 2 5 , she held a banquet at a certain restaurant to consolidate support among the faculty for her suspension of the six young women who had led the movement against her, one of whom was X u Guangping (1898—1968). There Yang issued a pronouncement, stating:

"You

should realize a school is like a family. T h e elders, by adhering to the principle of loving their dependents, are entitled to have their children show respect for their wishes." 3 This led Lu X u n to observe that teaching in an institution headed by her was like serving as a private tutor in her household.

121

The Lyrical Lu Xun

122

In an effort to put a stop to the student movement, Yang Yinyu held another banquet on May 21, at the Pacific Lake Restaurant, feting her supporters among the faculty. In his essay Peng bi [Knocking one's head against a wall], Lu Xun wrote of the occasion: I smoked a couple of cigarettes and then I began to see it all clearly before my eyes. I envisioned the brilliance of the electrical lighting inside the restaurant and those "educators" who were plotting to harm their students between drinks. I saw murderers who, after exchanging pleasant smiles, were to go out and butcher people. Corpses danced atop manure piles while filth was strewn over Aeolian harps. I thought this would be a great topic for a [grotesque] cartoon, yet somehow I couldn't draw even the first line of the sketch.4 On June 2, 1925, the morning newspaper Chen bao ran a letter addressed to "educators all over the land" from the hand of a local pundit, Wang Maozu, who, after being feted properly, came out in wholehearted support of Yang Yinyu, distorting the entire story of the struggle against her and painting the students as fanatics who were only hurting themselves like "beanstalks burning in order to heat a cauldron containing beans of the very same plant." Here Wang Maozu was making an allusion to the story of Cao Cao's (155-220) two sons Cao Pei (187-226) and Cao Zhi (191-232). Cao Pei threatened to have his younger brother Cao Zhi beheaded unless he could make up a poem in the time it took to walk seven paces. Cao Zhi succeeded not only in composing a poem in that amount of time, but also in making a literary swipe at his brother. The poem is said to have run: To boil beans they burn bean vine; Amid the cauldron, the beans whine: "On the same root we both are based Why fry each other with such haste?"5 Lu Xun picked up the allusion and wrote his own poem as a spoof to set the record straight. Wang's point was that student radicals (beanstalks) only harm themselves by attacking exemplary educators like Yang Yinyu (the beans). Lu Xun, however, rewrote the Cao Zhi poem to say that for Yang (the beans), the students (beanstalks) are expendable items in her plans to advance her own career. Thus when they are consumed in fire to serve her purposes, Lu Xun has them cry out in pain, for they are the sole victims. For his support of the activists, Lu Xun was temporarily relieved of

Verse in the Classical Style

123

his post at the Ministry of Education by the Duan Qirui warlord government. Zhang Shizhao (1881—1973), then head of the ministry, took a series of steps culminating in the dissolution of Women's Normal and its reorganization under direct official control, "a decision that resulted," as Boorman notes, "in further violence from the students and faculty." Despite the remonstrances of friends and mounting public opposition, Zhang sought to enforce his measures by using the metropolitan police. Such was his unpopularity in Peking that in December 1925 his private residence was attacked and completely demolished during a student riot. Although he had tendered his resignation in November, he remained in Peking in the post of secretary general to Duan Qirui until April 1926. After Duan's withdrawal from the government, Zhang left Peking to take up residence in the Japanese concession in Tientsin. 6 Although he was eventually reinstated at the Ministry of Education, Lu Xun's resignation from the faculty of the women's college was to remain permanent. His exasperation with Zhang, Chen Yuan, and all those he considered apologists for the warlord government would not abate until he had written more about the controversies at Women's Normal than about any other specific event in his life, 7 so his personal and emotional stakes in the affair should not be underestimated, especially in view of the involvement of Xu Guangping, one of the six suspended "ringleaders," who would later become his commonlaw wife.

The Lyrical Lu Xun

#

3

»

t

JL

Zhu

dou

ran

dou

qi,

To boil

beans

ignite

bean

vines,

* £ & T i£ Qi The vines

zai

fu

at

cauldron

xia

qi.

beneath cry/whine.

A

&

fa

&

Wo

jin

ni

shu

7 liao,

I am reduced to ash, you [cooked until] well-done:

sl Zheng -

J$ hao

ban

jiao

-

xi.

Precisely what is needed to hold academic banquets.

To cook the beans they burn bean vine Beneath the cauldron beanstalks whine. 8 "Your career advanced, when to ash we turned, Have your banquets now, for which we burned!"

Verse in the Classical Style

125

Notes 1. Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, p. 692. Ibid., p. 69. 3. Ni Moyan, p. 60. 4. Quanji (1961), 5, p. 51. 5. The earliest version of this story, along with a variant text of the poem, appears in the Shishuo xinyu [New anecdotes of social talk] by Liu Yiqing (403-444). The present four-line text is from Gushi ji [Record of ancient verse], compiled by Feng Weine of the Ming dynasty. It is unlikely that such an event as the composition of this poem by Cao Zhi under duress from his brother occurred historically. Nevertheless, the poem is widely referred to as the Qi bu shi [Seven-pace poem}. 6. Howard L. Boorman, Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (4 vols.; New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1967-1970), 1, p. 107. 7. Mills, "Lu Hsiin," pp. 56-60. 8. Douqi and qi in the original poem, here rendered as "bean vine" and "beanstalks" respectively for the sake of rhyme, have the same meaning in Chinese. Lu Xun uses them to represent the students, whose futures Yang Yinyu was all too ready to sacrifice for the furtherance of her own career.

Student m a r t y r Yang D e q u n from Peking W o m e n ' s N o r m a l , who, along w i t h Liu H e z h e n and others, was cut d o w n as the troops of D u a n Qirui opened fire on u n a r m e d demonstrators on March 18, 1926.

10.

My Heartfelt Sympathies for Rousseau (Diao Lusao) APRIL 1 0 , 1 9 2 8

Lu XUN PUBLISHED this pentasyllabic quatrain at the conclusion of an essay titled Tou [Heads] 1 —a polemical feuilleton directed at Liang Shiqiu (b. 1902), whom he considered a representative of the conservative intelligentsia who supported the Kuomintang government. In an essay in the Shanghai newspaper Shenbao (Shun pao), Liang had struck out at leftist intellectuals, "new-style" writers, and conduits of May Fourthera thinking, 2 by impugning the name of Rousseau, whom he called "a moral degenerate, currently serving as role model for the majority of romantic intellectuals [in China]." 3 In his essay "Heads," Lu Xun made a rejoinder through wordplay on literary idioms, saying that "although this is not a case of jie dao sha ren ('killing people with a borrowed blade'), it is, nevertheless, something akin to jie tou shi ren ('warning the citizenry by displaying a borrowed head')." 4 In a previous essay in their "war of words," Lusuo be weikou [Rousseau and personal taste], Lu Xun berated both Liang and his American mentor Irving Babbitt, also a fashionable critic of romanticism, using a quotation he (Lu Xun) had translated from Upton Sinclair's Mammonart: With any critic of Rousseau there is one question to be settled at the outset: Why do you quarrel with this man? Is it because you wish to correct his errors, and clear the way to his goal of liberty, equality and fraternity? Or are you one of those who dread the torrent of new ideas and new feelings which Rousseau let loose upon the world? Is it your purpose to discredit the whole individualistic movement which he fathered, and to take us back to the good old days when children obeyed their parents, and servants obeyed their masters, and women obeyed their husbands, and subjects obeyed their popes and kings, and students in colleges accepted without question what their professors told them?5 126

Verse in the Classical Style

127

A collection of the articles that resulted from this and other literary debates between Lu Xun and Liang Shiqiu was published in 1979 by Cosmos Books, Hong Kong, under the title Lu Xun yu Liang Shiqiu lunzhan wenxuan [Selections from the debates between Lu Xun and Liang Shiqiu}, edited and annotated by Bi Hua. The following poem is in fact a microcosm of one of the most virulent debates on the Chinese literary scene at the time.

The Lyrical Lu Xun

128

tit n -ft i'à & Tuo

mào

huài

qiàn

chu,

Removing cap, clasped quill and went forth,

& tk & fc % Xiàn

- shéng

gài

dài

qióng.

You, sir, were of your era the most hard-pressed

II # Tóu

-

lu

xin

g

I

I

wàn

li,

[That your] head journeys ten-thousand li,

& -if it % ± ShT

-

jì

Confounds the plan

zào

ér

-

tóng.

for developing children.

Cap removed [in forced obeisance], 6 you took your quill and left; 7 In your day, sir, was no other so hard-pressed. 8 Since your head, to China now, has this lengthy journey to make; 9 A setback indeed have the ideals of Emile [by Liang] been forced to take. 1 0

Verse in the Classical

Style

129

Notes 1. Selected Works, 3, pp. 2 6 - 2 7 . 2. Jiang Tian (1974), p. 31. 3. Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, p. 77. 4. Ibid. 5. Selected Works, 2, pp. 3 5 1 - 3 5 2 . 6. I have added "in forced obeisance" here to convey the implications of tuo mao ("removing the cap") in Chinese. This was a gesture of self-deprecation performed by scholar-officials in old China to acknowledge to a higherup responsibility for a fault or crime and to ask to be spared punishment. This line says that Rousseau was pressured into gestures of recantation by his enemies during his own lifetime. 7. Since qian is an ancient Chinese writing implement, it seems appropriate to render it "quill" in this context, though they are different. 8. After having been virtually driven from France under pressure from the church and the National Assembly, Rousseau was forced to move from country to country. His assets dwindled, and he found little tolerance anywhere. 9- Here we have a reference to Liang's "warning the citizenry by displaying a borrowed head," i.e., attacking Rousseau to intimidate other Chinese intellectuals. This line together with the last line of the poem (save the reference to Entile) are modeled on a previous poem, Yongshi xiao yuefu [A short historical yuefu], by Wang Shizhen ( 1 6 3 4 - 1 7 1 1 ) of the Qing era. The celebrated defender of Emperor Xian (reigned 189-220), last ruler of the Latter Han dynasty, was a man called Yuan Shao. Yuan Shao slew a loyal adviser, Tian Feng, and was later defeated by Cao Cao precisely because he (Yuan) had refused to heed Tian Feng's wise counsel. The heads of Yuan's two sons were then sent a great distance as a gift to Cao Cao by Gongsun Kang, to whom they had fled after their father's defeat. Hence the lines in Wang Shizhen's poem: Their heads took a journey of ten thousand //'; This slaying of Tian Feng was bad strategy. 10. Only the last three characters in the final line of Lu Xun's poem differ from those of the Wang Shizhen couplet above. Lu Xun's zao ertong ("creating," [i.e., writing about] the rearing of children) refers to Rousseau's novel Emile, by which the author, through the creation of a literary paradigm, hoped to facilitate the spread of a naturalistic approach to child rearing, relying on positive reinforcement and freedom for children. After Rousseau's death, this sort of thinking became more and more prevalent in the West, where Liang Shiqiu had received his higher education. Lu Xun's concluding line is a farcical way of saying: Rousseau, you failed in your educational proposals. Just look at the type of "pupil" (Liang Shiqiu) being turned out by your liberal

130

The Lyrical Lu Xun

educational system. He comes back to China only to turn against and attack you in order to uphold the type of conservatism you detested during your own lifetime. At the same time, it is a play on the line from Wang Shizhen—"This slaying of Tian Feng was a bad strategy." A literal translation of Lu Xun's final line might read: "The creation of [such] children [through new-style education] was a bad strategy."

T h e Hanlin Cai Yuanpei, first Minister of Education of the Republic and later chancellor of Peking University, cashiered by Yuan Shikai and the warlord government. Cai was Lu Xun's chief backer at the Ministry of Education

11.

Untitled (Wuti) S E P T E M B E R 1, 1 9 3 0

Lu XUN wrote down this poem of six four-character lines in a notebook, followed by his name, seal, and the date, September 1, 1930. The notebook was that of X u Guangping's cousin, a young woman named Feng Huixi, who was then a third-year medical student at Peking's Union Medical College and who later became an ophthalmologist. 1 The poet himself had once studied medicine at the Sendai Medical Academy in Japan, wishing to alleviate sickness and relieve suffering among his people by acquiring a knowledge of Western medical science and then returning to China to practice. While witnessing a slide show of current events concerning the Russo-Japanese War (then in progress in China), he saw a crowd of strong, sturdy Chinese gathering around to enjoy the spectacle of an execution of one of their compatriots whom the Japanese forces in Manchuria had accused of acting as a spy for the Russians. Much later, Lu Xun summarized the feelings that ran through his head during and after that fateful slide show: "After that day I felt that medicine was not so important. The people of a weak and backward country, however strong and healthy they may be, can only serve to be made examples of, or to witness such futile spectacles, and it is not necessarily deplorable no matter how many of them die of illness." 2 Coming to such a conclusion, Lu Xun abandoned his study of medicine to go into literature, hoping that it could be used to treat the soul by awakening the conscience. After having experienced setbacks, fits of disillusion, and periods of withdrawal, he achieved nationwide recognition with the publication of his first short stories. After a teaching career as a professor of Chinese literature in Peking, Amoy, and Canton, he went to Shanghai where he became a distinguished columnist and leading social critic. Originally a sympathizer 131

132

The Lyrical Lu Xun

with the Kuomintang and its revolutionary movement centered in Canton in the early 1920s, he was shocked by the bloody purge perpetrated under the new leadership of Chiang Kai-shek against the Communists in April of 1927. The sight of his students being slaughtered or turning their own classmates in to the authorities had a profound effect on Lu Xun, 3 as seen not only in this and subsequent poems, but also in his other writings and his steady ideological move toward the left. These feelings are all reflected in this short satirical ancient-style verse. In many ways it is more addressed toward Lu Xun's own inner struggle than to Feng's proposed career.

Verse in the Classical Style

133

A * M-

j&L Sha

ren

Killing

people

A

you

jiang,

there are generals,

M

Jiu

ren

wei

y1-

Saving

people

is to be

a doctor.

liao

da

ban,

greater

half,

T *L *

Sha

[ W h e n ] killed-off

* *

Jiu

qi

jie

yi.

To be saved their remaining portion {is left].

'J- M ^ A Xiao

bu

zhl

zai,

Small

amends

to this,

alack!

hu

yl

xl!

Wu

-

[classical onomatopoetic sounds of weeping]

To kill people we have generals, Those who save people are the doctors. W h e n the greater portion are slain, To be healed, few remain— Small help to things awry, I can but weep and cry! 4

134

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Ni Moyan, p. 692. Chou Wen, "A Recently Discovered Poem by Lu Hsun," Chinese Literature, June 1976, p. 111. 3. Mills, "Lu Hsun," pp. 76-88. 4. The original poem ends with four classical Chinese particles that were originally onomatopoeic for the sound of weeping out loud. More recently they have been used to convey feelings of grief or mourning for something that is a great pity. Here the poet rails against the topsy-turvy state of affairs and priorities in China under the new Kuomintang government, calling it in this last line a "crying shame," yet he also mourns the ineffectuality of the entire intellectual endeavor in the modern era. In that sense this poem is a precursor to that in chapter 35 ("Inscribed in a Copy of Outcry").

12.

For Wu Qishan (Uchiyama Kanzo) (Zeng Wu Qishan) FEBRUARY OR MARCH 1 9 3 1

Wu QISHAN is intended as a sinicized name for Lu Xun's Japanese friend Uchiyama Kanzo (1885—1959), the proprietor of Neishan shudian (Uchiyama's Bookstore) in Shanghai. Previous Chinese commentary on Lu Xun's poetry suggests that the name Wu Qishan was given Uchiyama in jest by Lu Xun. 1 Ni Moyan, basing himself on an article by Xu Guangping (Lu Xun's widow), disputes this, contending that wu qi is nothing more than a transliteration of the initial sound uchi in Uchiyama's name, and that Uchiyama had adopted it himself.2 The Chinese character shan being read yama in Japanese, one got a closer approximation of the Japanese pronunciation of at least the first two syllables in the surname Uchiyama when pronouncing the graphs in Chinese. After Lu Xun moved to Shanghai in October of 1927, he became a frequent patron of Uchiyama's Bookstore, buying mostly Japanese translations of Russian and other foreign books. In March of 1930, after having been elected to the seven-man executive committee of the League of Left-Wing Writers, Lu Xun became apprehensive about being tailed by police agents and hid in Uchiyama's Bookstore for over a month. At the time, Kuomintang authorities were, for the most part, hesitant to seize Chinese in the houses or on the property of foreign nationals. Again, after the arrest of Rou Shi and the other leftist writers, Uchiyama helped Lu Xun and his family obtain lodgings at a Japanese-owned guesthouse in Shanghai on January 20, 1931. During the January Twenty-eighth Conflict the following year, Uchiyama again proved instrumental in preserving Lu Xun's safety, taking him in and later conducting him, through gunfire, to a branch store he operated in the British concession of Shanghai.3 Uchiyama's devotion to Lu Xun continued even after the latter's 135

The Lyrical Lu Xun

136

death. During World War II when Shanghai was under the control of a quisling government, Lu Xun's grave was desecrated. According to X u Guangping, it was Uchiyama who secretly restored it. 4 In 1 9 5 9 , while leading a Sino-Japanese friendship delegation to China, Uchiyama died of a stroke and was buried in Shanghai, in compliance with his own request. In this poem, Lu Xun makes sarcastic reference to the antics of various Chinese politicians and warlords over the then short history of the Republic. According to an article published in 1961 by X u Guangping, the poem was prompted by the following observation made by the Japanese bookman to Lu X u n : In the twenty years I've lived in Shanghai, I've noticed Chinese politicians and warlords behaving in the exact manner of their Japanese counterparts. This is to say that they spend their days biding time until they can get into positions of power, whereupon they set out to kill off, in the greatest possible numbers, all those who once stood against them. B u t should the situation become disadvantageous to them, they again lie low temporarily, declaring their retirement from the political arena in order to sneak off the scene and out of sight. 5

Lu X u n must have been pleased by his Japanese friend's perceptiveness, for he produced this poem as a gift for Uchiyama the very next day. W h e n Uchiyama asked him to affix his name seal, the poet, being caught without his personal chop, smeared his finger into a gob of red ink normally used for seals and made a fingerprint autograph. Though the poem is at first glance written in the style of wuyan lushi, it fails to conform to the strict rhyme scheme set down traditionally for that verse form. Aside from a slight incongruity in the first line, the word hua ("splendors") at the end of the second line falls into the tonal classification of xia pingsheng ("lower level-tone") and belongs to the rhyme category of ma ("hemp"). The word shu ("book") at the end of the fourth line is a shang ping-sheng ("upper level-tone") in the rhyme category of yu ("fish"). The sixth line ends with the character duo ("many"), which falls under the rhyme category ofge ("song"). The poet then has the last line end with tuo (used in transliterating Sanskrit). That character is, like duo, in the category of ge. In view of the above, the poet has employed three separate rhymes and has overstepped the bounds for complying with the strict rules of the regulated verse form. Judging from the depth of Lu Xun's knowledge of classical Chinese poetics, it is not likely that he would make an error. There are two possible explanations for the form employed: one, that this was deliberately intended as a type of dayou shi (doggerel

Verse in the Classical Style

137

verse) to emphasize farcical overtones; the second has been suggested by Lu Xun's old friend Xu Shoushang: "In 'For W u Qishan,' the use of bua, yu, duo, and tuo in the same rhyme is in accordance with the conventions of the gushi (ancient verse) style. But this use of characters from the ma and yu categories as rhyming words in a poem of regulated-verse style may indeed be termed unconventional (qite)" (Renshi de, p. 82).

Lu Xun (left) with the Japanese bookman in Shanghai (1933).

The Lyrical Lu Xun

-tfNiàn

Jk Jl nian

A score of years

ju

Shàng

living [in]

-

hai,

Shanghai,

f

0 i t I ri

jiàn

Every

day

seeing

Mei

# ^ You

bing

& m

T h e r e is

Wu

-

Zhòng

[ y e t ] no

liao

cai

huà.

M i d d l e Splendor.

bu

sickness

-

£

m

qiu

yao,

it t

seeking remedies,

du

shu.

[ O u t of} boredom only then is study [taken up].

a m 3C

ffl & YT

kuo

lian

jiu

bian,

A s soon as prosperous, faces i m m e d i a t e l y c h a n g e ,

^ Suo

kan

m -M $ tou

jian

T h o s e - b e i n g severed heads

& Hu

-

er

[ T h e n ] suddenly

duo.

g r a d u a l l y increase.

X T you

xia

ye,

again d o w n to countryside,

M- H Na

-

mo

A

ft -

mi

-

tuo.

[Chanting:] "Namah Amitabha!" [a Buddhist incantation].

Verse in the Classical Style Twenty years in Shanghai did you stay,6 Glimpsing China's splendors every day: 7 Afflictions for which medicine's not sought, And study just as boredom's afterthought; 8 A volte-face when fortune comes their w a y 9 — Decapitations increase by the day. Then suddenly they're on the outs again, 1 0 "Let's trust the Amitabha Lord, A m e n ! " 1 1

139

The Lyrical Lu X.un

140

Notes 1. Jiang Tian (1974), p. 32. 2. Ni Moyan, p. 87. 3. Zhou Zhenfu, p. 66. 4. Zhang Xiangtian (1972), l , p . 108. 5. Ni Moyan, p. 86. 6. Uchiyama Kanzo had been doing business in China for twenty years. 7. This line reads literally: "Every day seeing China," but it carries ironical import in that the name by which China has been designated, Zhonghua, is written with graphs meaning "Middle Splendor." 8. These two lines are a reference to the sort of excuses used by military figures and politicians to go into temporary retirement to "nurse illnesses" or to "devote themselves to quiet self-improvement," whenever the political situation turned against them. See Quanji (1961), 5, p. 189. 9- The colloquial Chinese expression used in this line y't kuo lian jiu bian means that as soon as a given party gets hold of power, his attitude changes completely. The implication here is that whenever a politician or warlord who has been "off in retirement" gets a chance to return to power again, he drops his veneer of recuperating from an illness, going off to engage in "self-cultivation," or reading Buddhist sutras, and reverts to his former bloodthirsty ways. Cao Liwu (p. 113) contends that although the reference is to the behavior of warlords, Chiang Kai-shek himself is the implied subject of the line. Ito Masafumi draws attention to a quotation from Lu Xun's "Open Letter in Reply to an Open Letter from Mr. Yang Cunren," dated December 28, 1933, which uses the character kuo (prosperous) as part of the binom kuoren (a person who prospers). Rojin zenshii (Tokyo: Gakken, 1985), 9, p- 514. Lu Xun writes: What I refer to as a "profiteer" (jian shang) includes two types of people: one is the type that prospered (kuo ren) during the period of cooperation between the Nationalists and the Communists. At that time they praised the Soviet Union and communism at great lengths, but as soon as the purge came, they used the blood of communist youths and suspected communist youths to wash off their own hands. They remained prosperous (kuo ren)—although the circumstances changed, their prosperity (kuo) did not. The other type is the "brave commander" of the revolution type. They killed "local tyrants" and "evil gentry" with great fierceness, but as soon as there were reversals, they immediately said they had "renounced heresy and returned to the correct path," deploring the "bandits" and murdering their former colleagues with equally great ferocity; although their "-ism" had changed, their "bravery" had not. For the Chinese text, see Quanji (1961), 4, p. 489. Since the coup referred to here occurred in 1927, I would not rule out Ito's hypothesis on the relevance of this quotation, but he subsequently reiterates the charge by other (Chinese) commentators that the final line of the poem refers to Kuomintang political figures such as Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei, Dai Jitao, and the Beiyang

Verse in the Classical Style

141

warlord Sun Chuanfang, in that they all used periods of "retirement" strategically. This tends to weaken his case, rather than strengthen it. 10. The term xia ye, as used in the original poem, implies a fall from power but literally means "to go off into the countryside [away from the capital]," usually to take up some form of study or religion as did officials of old when seeking retirement from the ways of the world through renunciation of "mundane ambitions." 11. A number of implications can be drawn from the concluding line of the poem, an incantation transliterated into Chinese as na-mo a-mi-tuo [fo] from the Sanskrit Namah Amitabha, which means "I trust in the Amitabha Buddha." The cult of Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Life, offered its devotees an eternal bliss amid the pleasures of the so-called Pure Land, rather than the more orthodox teaching that the cycles of rebirth culminate with a final extinction in Nirvana. It became, as a consequence, the most popular form of Mahayana Buddhism in China. In this vein of interpretation, one can easily envision the politician or warlord, fallen from power and without more mundane avocations, worshiping Buddha out of fear for his future incarnations or simply to assume "holier-than-thou" airs in the face of critics. The second implication comes with the assumption that the incantation has been uttered not by the oppressors but by their victims. In this case it carries the colloquial connotation of "Thank heavens [they are gone}!" A third aspect of the particularly varied use of the incantation is that it is often written out in large characters and posted as a sign on walls or tree trunks in order to ward off evil influences. On the original copy of the poem presented to Uchiyama, Lu Xun intentionally wrote these characters in extralarge script to play on the fact that exorcistic powers were ascribed to them by such folk beliefs. This was intended to further heighten the irony—now that our oppressors have left, let's keep them away!

13. For Mr. O. E. on the Occasion of His Return [to Japan] with [a Shipment of] Orchids

iiLo.E.^iiiif a (Song O. E. jun xie lan gui guo) FEBRUARY 1 2 ,

1931

"O. E." STANDS FOR the name of the Japanese merchant Obara Eijiro, whom Lu Xun had met through his friend Uchiyama Kanzo (see the previous chapter). In his diary on February 12, 1931, Lu Xun recorded that Obara, owner of Keikado, a business in Tokyo that specialized in assorted Chinese goods and floral articles, was about to depart for Japan. Lu Xun composed a jueju (in this case, a heptasyllabic quatrain) to present to him. 1 The poem was not published until August 10 of that year, when it appeared in number 22 of the periodical Wenyi xinwen [Literature and art news], along with two of his later poems, under the headline "Lu Xun's Grief and Anger—Expressed in Classical Poetry." An editor's note followed: W e have learned that some Japanese sojourning in Shanghai would, at times, ask Lu Xun for a piece of writing as a souvenir, and that owing to his particularly troubled state of mind at the time, he would write out some poems he had thought of already, just to comply with their requests. From those Japanese nationals, we obtained the following three verses. Additionally, we were informed that they were composed after the Changsha Incident and the news of the deaths of Rou Shi et al.; this accounts for the tones of grief and anger expressed therein. 2

Ni Moyan suspects the editor's informant to have been Lu Xun himself rather than his Japanese friends. 3 On January 17, 1931, thirty-six suspected Communist conspirators were arrested at a meeting in Shanghai by the British police of the 142

Verse in the Classical Style

143

International Settlement and handed over to the Kuomintang authorities. 4 Those arrested included five young writers, four of whom were known to Lu Xun through their activities in the League of Left-Wing Writers, a Communist-front cultural organization, of which he (Lu X u n ) was the titular head. Lu Xun's name and address having been found on the person of one of the arrested parties, rumor had it that a warrant had also been issued for his arrest. Consequently, on January 20, he fled with his wife, child, and maid to a Japanese-owned guesthouse, where he remained in hiding for a period of thirty-nine days until the heat died down. Deep in the night of February 7, 1931, a group of twenty-three people, including the five writers, were secretly executed at the Long Hua Garrison Headquarters. Lu Xun, though suspecting the worst, was still trying to gather enough money for their bail on February 16. No Chinese newspapers carried the news of the executions. On February 24, in a letter to Cao J i n g h u a , Lu Xun wrote that he had learned the ill tidings from a Japanese paper. These executions served only to intensify his hatred of the Nationalist government. In her dissertation on Lu Xun's later years, Harriet Mills states that to Lu Xun, Rou Shi (Zhao Pingfu, 1 9 0 1 - 1 9 3 1 ) , one of the victims, had become the very symbol of all the sacrificed youths of China. 5 In the period following their deaths, Lu Xun wrote for an underground memorial publication of the League of Left-Wing Writers: Since the rulers knew their flunkey-writers were no match for the revolutionary literature of the proletariat, they started banning books, closing bookshops, issuing repressive publishing laws, and putting authors on the black list. And now they have sunk to the lowest tactics of all—arresting and imprisoning left-wing writers and putting them to death in secret—they still have not made this "execution" public. While this proves them to be creatures of darkness about to perish, it testifies also to the strength of the camp of revolutionary literature of the Chinese proletariat. 6 As to the poem for Obara Eijiro, I believe the first line to be indicative of Lu Xun's concern for the fate of the arrested writers, all youths in their twenties. The second line seems to be a testimony of the extent to which writers, including the poet himself, were subject to persecution and intimidation in the China of the 1930s. The third line reveals a feeling of warmth and friendship, offered despite the ill times in the poet's homeland and the growing animosity between the two nations, to the visitor from Japan. A twist then comes in the concluding line, which hits the reader through the sheer force of its imagery.

144

£

Jiao

fen

The Lyrical Lu Xun

fe

ft

gui

Pepper-plant burned, cassia

%.

zhe,

jia

plucked,

comely

K -

ren

it A It Du Only

tuo

you

consigned to secluded

lao,

person[s] grow old,

/ J>

yan

zhan

crags

open-up

su

-

xin.

pure-hearts.

£ .It

# # it it £

QT

fang

xl

-

How could begrudge fragrant

it Gu Native

-ftp -

xin

wei

scents

given to

Sf-

yuan

-

zhe,

one-from-afar,

#

%

xiang

ru

zui

you

jlng

zhen.

land

like

drunk

has

brambles

thorns.

Pepper plant aflame and flowering cassia broken, 7 comely men grow old. 8 Only consigned to secluded crags can pure hearts unfold. 9 H o w can we feel reluctant to part with these fragrant scents for one from afar, 10 W h e n our own old home, as if drunk, has its brambles and thorns [to prick and scar]. 11

Verse in the Classical

Style

145

Notes 1. Lu Xun r i j i [Lu Xun's diaries] (Shanghai: Shanghai chuban gongsi, 1951), 19.4b5-6 (i.e., ce 19, folio 4; "b" or verso side, lines 5 to 6). This is a traditionally bound edition of the diary, reproduced photostatically from the original in Lu Xun's own hand, hereafter to be cited as Riji, followed by a ce, folio, side, and line number as above. 2. As quoted in Ni Moyan, p. 73. For a brief description of the Changsha Incident, see chapter 16, note 3. 3. Ibid., p. 73. 4. Frederic Wakeman, Jr., Policing Shanghai 1927-1937 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 174. For a detailed study, see Hsia Tsi-an, Enigma of the Five Martyrs: A Study of the Leftist Literary Movement in Modern China, op. cit., reprinted in T. A. Hsia, The Gate of Darkness (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968), pp. 163-233. 5. Mills, "Lu Hsiin," p. 288. 6. Selected Works, 3, p. 107. 7. Traditionally, the pepper and cassia were used to symbolize virtuous men of high principle. Their destruction may represent Lu Xun's apprehension about the fate of Rou Shi and the others taken into custody. Cf. the phrase lan cui yu zhe (literally, "the orchid has withered and the jade is broken"), used commonly in classical writing as a metaphor for the death of a man of virtue while still young. 8. Jiaren lao ("comely men grow old") suggests that the forces of good are battered and worn down by evil. Zhou Zhenfu has maintained that jiaren, which literally means "beauties" or "beautiful women," is a sarcastic reference to "fair-weather" leftists and literati—remnants of Lu Xun's own May Fourth generation who went back on their former ideals to make propaganda for the government or had been frightened into silence by the anti-Communist W h i t e terror; see Zhou Zhenfu, p. 71. I doubt that because the switch of topics within the same line would be too sudden. 9- Suxin, a literary name for the orchid, means "pure heart," or "white heart"; it symbolizes purity of character and purpose. In times such as these, those determined to keep the cause alive would have to lie low, hence the image of you yan ("secluded crags"). The character you in classical Chinese is used like the archaic meaning of "abstruse" in English, implying "hidden," "unknown," "secret," or "obscure." 10. This line refers literally to the shipment of fragrant orchids (fangxin) that Obara makes ready to take with him to Japan. 11. Guxiang ("our own old home") is a reference to one's native area or hometown but is used here with the implication of the poet's entire homeland. Ru zui ("as if drunk") signifies a state of exaggerated turbidity. "Brambles and thorns" (jing zhen) are plants that draw blood and probably symbolize the suppression by the Kuomintang of dissidents and their sympathizers,

The Lyrical Lu Xun

146

hence my addition to rhyme. Cf. Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, p. 88. Zhang feels that these thorns are used as a reference to "poisonous weeds," i.e., pieces of literature produced by "flunkey writers" with the official stamp of approval for circulation in Kuomintang-ruled China. In view of Lu Xun's use of a similar term, jingji ("bramble bushes"), in a letter of February 18, 1931, to Li Bingzhong, I cannot wholeheartedly agree with Zhang's interpretation. The second sentence in that letter runs: "Living at this time and in this place is truly as if dwelling amid a bramble thicket; it is especially disgusting to find that among our compatriots there are those who fatten themselves by selling the very lives and limbs of others" Quanji (1961), 9, p. 319- This clearly refers to his external surroundings. Iritani Sensuke says that the entire poem, and the fate of the orchids in particular, underscores the fact that it was composed in a time of crisis for China. It is not so much a depiction of the revolutionaries' resistance to oppression as it is of their tragic fate. Iritani also summarizes W u Benxing's views in Lu Xun jiushi xintan [New explorations into Lu Xun's old-style poetry] (Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1981) that the jiaren of the first line refers not only to the hard-pressed revolutionists but to the poet himself. See Rojin zenshii, 9, p. 185. My own reading of the poem is that the orchids symbolize beauty and integrity here, as they do in the Li sao. See Chu ci zhijie, pp. 40, 44. Despite his disclaimers to the contrary, the poet mourns their departure for Japan all the more acutely when he turns back to look upon the brambles and thorns that are left in their native place. This line provides a good contrast with the Li sao, where the speaker is overcome at the end by feelings of nostalgia for his homeland {Chu ci zhijie, pp. 76—77). Nevertheless, like Q u Yuan, Lu Xun preferred to remain in his homeland, however debased, rather than seek asylum abroad.

The martyred writer Rou Shi.

14. A Lament for Rou Shi (Dao Rou Shi) LATE F E B R U A R Y

1931

IT IS POSSIBLE that Lu Xun composed this poem on the very night that news of the deaths of Rou Shi and the other leftist writers, who later came to be collectively referred to as the "Five Martyrs," reached him (see the preceding chapter). Two years later, in an essay on their tragic deaths titled Weile wangque de jinian [In memoriam in order to forget}, he described his feelings at the time he learned of their execution: "Deep in the night I stood alone in the courtyard of a (Japanese-run] inn, surrounded by piled-up junk. Everyone around was asleep, as were my wife and son. I was profoundly aware that I had lost a true friend, and China one of her best youths. When my sorrow and rage had stilled a bit, old habits came to the fore again, resulting in my rattling off these verses."1 This poem was originally untitled, but it has most frequently been referred to in Chinese sources either under the title of the aforementioned essay in which it first appeared or by a title consisting of the poem's first four words, guanyu chang ye (literally, "Accustomed to long nights . . . "). I have taken Dao Rou Shi [A lament for Rou Shi] as the title here since Lu Xun himself once referred to it as such in a December 20, 1934, letter to his editor Yang Jiyun. 2 The form of the poem is qiyan liishi or heptasyllabic regulated verse. According to Ni Moyan, four different manuscripts of the poem exist, each with minor variations. 3

147

148

The Lyrical Lu Xun

'If

t

Guàn

£ yu

Accustomed to

it

4

Ht

chang

yè

guò

chun

shi,

long

night[s]

passing

spring

time,

chu

bin

yòu

si.

# # # # # # & Qiè

fu

jiàng

Leading

wife,

taking

Mèng

IT

yl

Dream

within

faintly

young; [my] temples have [white] silk.

% fc # % ^ ik m

Chéng City-wall

-

xl

ci

mu

lèi,

[see]

loving

mother's

tears,

t

^

i

tóu

biàn

huàn

dài

wàng

qi.

atop

change

illusorily

"great

kings"'

banners.

kàn

péng

bèi

chéng

xln

guT,

as

friends

become

new

71

It

& % m % & Rén

-

To bear looking-on

&

&

ft

-

£

%

ghosts,

#

Nù

xiàng

dao

cóng

mi

xiào

shi.

In anger

face

knife

thicket

seeking

little

verse[s].

^ ft ^ M M M A Yin

bà

di

mèi

done;

lowering

brows,

H

it

-b

7]C

03

gg

Yuè

guàng

ru

shui

zhào

zi

yl.

Moon's

rays

like

water

shine upon

black

clothing.

Chanting

wu

xié

there is no writing

chù, place,

fr

Verse in the Classical Style

To long and sleepless night I've grown accustomed in the spring; 4 Fled with a wife and babe in arms, my temples are graying. 'Mid dream there comes an image faint— a loving mother's tear;5 On city walls the overlords' 6 e'er-changing banners rear.7 I can but stand by looking on as friends become new ghosts, 8 In anger face bayonet thickets 9 and search for verse ripostes. The poem intoned, my gaze turns l o w — one cannot write such down. 10 Moonlight shimmers with watery sheen upon my jet-black gown.

149

The Lyrical Lu Xun

150

Notes 1. Quanji ( 1 9 6 1 ) , 4, p. 3 7 4 . This is m y own translation; for an English translation of this essay, see Selected Works, 3, pp. 202—213. The Yangs' 1 9 8 0 revised translation uses the title "Written for the Sake of Forgetting." Selected Works ( 1 9 8 0 ) , 3, pp. 2 3 4 - 2 4 6 . 2. Quanji (1961), 10, p. 2 2 4 . 3. Ni Moyan, p. 794. T h i s line also suggests that the p r i m e years of the poet's life have been passed a m i d such circumstances (as darkness and flight), further intensifying the irony of the couplet. 5. The mother could be either Lu Xun's mother who, hearing reports of her son's arrest and possible death, became ill w i t h anxiety over his fate, or Rou Shi's blind mother, of w h o m Lu X u n wrote: I remember Rou Shi had gone home just before New Year's and stayed so long that upon his return some of his friends reproached him. He told me in great distress that his mother had lost her sight in both eyes and that when she urged him to stay a bit longer, he could not bear to leave. I know how that blind mother felt and of Rou Shi's devotion to her. When Bei dou [The dipper] was first published, I wanted to write something about Rou Shi but could not. All I could do to commemorate him was to select Käthe Kollwitz' woodcut The Sacrifice, showing a mother giving up her son and depicting all the agony entailed therein. I alone knew that this was meant to commemorate Rou Shi. ( Q u a n j i [ 1 9 6 1 ] , 4, p. 374. Many commentators favor the former explanation. I would be more drawn to the latter, however, especially in view of the "title" used for this poem by Lu Xun himself—JK.) 6. The term daiwang ("overlord") was used historically to address chieftains of bandits. It is sarcastic in tone here, being composed of the characters da ("big") and wang ("king"). One commentator feels it refers specifically to C h i a n g Kai-shek; see Zhang X i a n g t i a n ( 1 9 7 2 ) , 1, p. 102. 7. A Zhou Yang era (i.e., 1950s) interpretation says this line "refers to the contradictions and conflicts between the K u o m i n t a n g government in N a n k i n g and the warlord powers in various locales, which resulted in outbreaks of armed conflict" (Quanji [ 1 9 6 1 ] , 4, p. 555). A l t h o u g h it stands to reason that Lu X u n would be disgusted by this, I fail to see how it enters into the suppression, arrest, and k i l l i n g of leftist authors in Shanghai, a politically motivated action taken by the K u o m i n t a n g to consolidate its control over Shanghai. Rather, I am partial to the interpretation of Zhang X i a n g t i a n , who holds that "banners" refer to slogans and propaganda reflecting the Kuom i n t a n g central government's fickle policies, ranging from t r u m p e t i n g the "Rule of Law" one day to touting their doctrine of "Political Tutelage" the next ( [ 1 9 7 2 ] , 1, p. 103). Such arbitrary designations reflected policy changes

Verse in the Classical Style

151

on civil liberties that might well cost the actual lives of vulnerable dissidents then active in the urban areas under central government authority. The incident involving the execution of the "Five Martyrs" is but one case in point. In Enigma of the Five Martyrs (pp. 6—10), the late critic T. A. Hsia has suggested that the deaths of these young writers may be attributable to internecine quarreling between two factions of the Communist Party in Shanghai. According to Hsia's account, the police of the International Settlement at Shanghai burst into a preparatory meeting for the All-China Congress of Soviets on January 17, 1931, after having been tipped off by an informer loyal to the more orthodox pro-Comintern leadership, which Rou Shi and the others opposed. One is impressed by the possibility that the "Five Martyrs" were, indeed, engaged in setting up a rival Li-Lisanist leadership faction along with the other participants in that ill-fated meeting. This would have broad implications in interpreting the poem in question were it not unlikely that Lu Xun was aware of any such double-dealing at the time; moreover, the fact that the writers were put to death by the Kuomintang authorities, to whom they were handed over by the foreign police, would still place the burden of guilt, in Lu Xun's eyes, squarely on the Nationalist government. 8. The words ren kan here mean "to endure the sight of" (some hideous or unbearable thing). Ren is probably not being used rhetorically, as a number of Chinese commentators hold, to mean qi ren or "how can one bear . . . ?" The original version of the poem, recorded in Lu Xun's diary on July 11, 1932, as written out for Yamamoto Hatsue, uses yan kan ("to witness before one's very eyes," "to watch helplessly," or "to look on passively as . . . ") in the place of ren kan. Though the revision is of Lu Xun's own hand, the intended meaning becomes clear when the different textual versions are compared. The image of people freshly slaughtered turning into "new ghosts" harks back to a line from an antiwar poem by the Tang master Du Fu titled Du't xue [Toward the snow]: "When battle's done, many a new ghost cries." This term has been in use as far back as the Zuo zhuan [Zuo commentary], where the statement "I've seen that new ghosts are enormous, whereas the old ones are small" occurs (Duke Wen section, year 2). See James Legge, The Chinese Classics (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, reprint 1970), 5, pp. 232-234. 9. Daocong (literally, "knife thicket") is reminiscent of the image daolin jianshu ("groves of knives and trees of swords") used in descriptions of the Buddhist hell, where they are implements of torment. 10. The import of this line is that because of government censorship, there is no chance for writing like this poem (or any other such outpouring of grief and anger) to see print. Lu Xun himself explained the phrase, saying, "In China at that time this poem could not be published. We were sealed up more tightly than in a tin can." Quanji (1961), 4, p. 374.

15.

For a Japanese Poet If EI

A

(Zeng Riben geren) MARCH 5, 1931

THE ENTRY IN LU Xun's diary for March 5, 1931, begins: "The day was overcast. In the afternoon I wrote a poem for each [of the following three persons}: Masuya {Jisaburo], [Katayama] Matsumo, and Matsumoto [Saburo}, recording them below."1 Masuya, for whom this specific poem appears to have been written, was a scholar specializing in dramatic arts.2 Lu Xun calls him a geren, which I have translated as "poet," for such is the connotation of the characters (kajin) in Japanese. They literally read "singer" in Chinese, but I doubt that this was Lu Xun's actual meaning here. He may have chosen geren as a literary appellation for Mr. Masuya, intending reference to his profession in drama. O f late, it has been suggested in some "internal-circulation" journals in China that Lu Xun could have mixed up Masuya with another Japanese acquaintance—a poet of the Araragi Group called Tsuchiya Bunmei, to whom the poem in chapter 43 was presented—but this is somewhat speculative.3 Judged purely from its content, this heptasyllabic quatrain was written on the eve of Masuya Jisaburo's return to Japan from Shanghai after he had viewed a number of contemporary operatic adaptations of traditional popular fiction. Lu Xun held such productions in low esteem and viewed them as symptomatic of the cultural wasteland engendered by government censorship and bad taste on the part of audiences.

152

Verse in the Classical Style

153

Chun

jiang

hao

jlng

Spring

River's

fine

scenery

yl

i| s

j i A jH:

Yuan

zheng

guo

Far-off

-

ren

cT

country voyager/campaigner

Mo

xiang

yao

tian

D o not

toward

distant

skies

»'JL.

-

zai, is here,

ji

at this time

xing. journeys off.

& %

ft

X/

ran

just-as-always

wang

yan

Journey to the West

shi

liao,

performed,

as a l w a y s , g r a n d ; 5 V o y a g e r , d e p a r t i n g now, to his far-off land. 6 G a z e not at the distant sky, recalling song and dance. 7 to the West has r u n ,

n o w . . . Ennobled Gods'

# # Feng

-

'tis [now] Enfeoffing

S p r i n g River's 4 fine scenery is,

For Journey

wu,

gaze-off [at] song and dance,

M T

you

ge

Romance.8

shen.

Gods.

154

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Riji, 19.6b6. 2. This is a pseudonym. Masuya's original name was Sugawara Eijiro. See Rojin zenshu, 9, p- 189, note by Iritani Sensuke. 3. This theory originated with Takata Atsushi; see his Rojin shiwa, p. 86. The commentator Iritani Sensuke disagrees with Takata; see Rojin zenshu, 9, p. 189. 4. Chun jiang ("Spring River") refers to the Huangpu River, which runs by Shanghai; hence it is sometimes used as a poetic appellation for that city. Spring was also the season of Masuya's departure. 5. A literal rendering of this line would be "The Spring River's fine scenery is still with us." The word hao ("fine") may, of course, be ironic. 6. Translated more in accordance with the literal meaning, this line would read: "A voyager [Masuya] from a far-off land {Japan] now departs." The term zhengren also means a campaigning soldier or warrior. "Now" ( c i j i , literally, "this time") is a time of repression. 7. The poet is urging the traveler not to get nostalgic about the "drama" he has viewed in China. This is tongue-in-cheek. 8. Lu Xun seems to be putting in a sarcastic jab at the state of affairs in China with this concluding line. Xi you ji {Journey to the West] and Feng shen bang [Ennobled gods' romance] were serialized dramatic adaptations of two classic Chinese novels, revised and rewritten for popular consumption. In a letter to Wei Suyuan ( 1 9 0 2 - 1 9 3 2 ) dated March 22, 1929 (Quartji [1961], 10, p. 21), Lu Xun sounds disgusted with such stage shows, just as a serious writer today might be contemptuous of television soap operas or so-called exploitation movies. In Lu Xun's day, such forms of art looked frivolous when compared with those of the May Fourth tradition (new Western-influenced spoken plays that made no recourse to acrobatics, sword-fighting, dance, or opera). Plays by May Fourth—era playwrights conveyed social critiques, exhibited political themes, and engaged in polemics against conventional morality, so Lu Xun viewed the revival of hackneyed plots about demons, gods, and marvelous warriors as backsliding on the Chinese literary scene. For some divergent interpretations of this line's implications, see Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, pp. 157—162; also Zhou Zhenfu, p. 76. The main theme of these arguments is that Lu Xun is attacking the feuding factions within the Kuomintang government by comparing their rule with the malevolent roles of monsters and ghosts in the Journey to the West, while satirizing Chiang Kaishek for trying to enlist the cooperation of warlords by offering them high position and rank in his government (here there is a presumed play on the word feng—"to ennoble" or "to enfeoff" as used in the title Ennobled Gods' Romance). Wolfram Eberhard has rendered the title Enfeoffment with the Dignity of the Gods. The book version of Feng shen yan yi also contains something akin

Verse in the Classical Style

155

to antidictatorial sentiments with its theme of tyrant Zhou's treachery, so these interpretations are not necessarily forced. A double entendre adds to the irony of the concluding line. I also wonder about the possibility of a reference to the situation in Japan (i.e., the growing militarism and the end of constitutional government there) in the final line—now that Masuya's trip to China (Xi you) is over he has yet another spectacle to come to terms with at home.

Lu X u n with young artists of the woodcut movement, August 22, 1931

16.

Untitled (Wuti) MARCH 5, 1 9 3 1

Lu X U N WROTE this pentasyllabic regulated verse for Katayama Matsumo, fiancee of Uchiyama Kakichi, the younger brother of his friend Uchiyama Kanzo. 1 The poem makes reference to the state of his troubled homeland in the years immediately preceding its composition, "years of civil war and record floods, children sold because of destitution, decapitated heads on display, secret assassinations, and confessions extracted by electric shock under Kuomintang rule," as he was to describe them, writing later in 1931. 2 Since their first publication in August of that year, this poem and that in the next chapter have been identified with Lu Xun's grief at the loss of the "Five Martyrs" and the outbreak of civil war. 3 Beginning in December of 1930, the Kuomintang leadership launched the first of its "Encircle and Annihilate" (weijiao) campaigns against the Communist base area known as the Jiangxi Soviet. The socalled soviet districts (suqu) were military strongholds incorporating adjacent villages in the mountains and plains of central China, to which the Communist forces had fled in 1927 after Chiang Kai-shek's victorious putsch, but this particular attempt to root out the Reds proved disastrous for its instigators. Aside from their campaign's commander being captured, the Nationalist forces also lost a good deal of military supplies to the Communists, who were in dire need of weapons and provisions at this time. In successive years, the Nationalist government carried out four more "Encircle and Annihilate" campaigns, each on a more grandiose scale, yet still failed to overcome the tenacious guerrillas. Only in the last of these efforts, with the aid of German military advisers and relying on increased firepower, was it able to force the Reds out of their 156

Verse in the Classical Style

157

base areas in Jiangxi and Fujian (Fukien). Employing tanks, airplanes, and an ever-tightening ring of blockhouses, the Nationalist troops inflicted such severe losses that the Communists had no choice but to break out of the strangling blockade at any cost. In 1934 the Ruijin (Juichin) Soviet Government collapsed and its remaining armies began a treacherously long retreat across C h i n a — w h i c h later came to be known as the Long M a r c h — e n d i n g only in m i d - 1 9 3 6 with the gathering of survivors in the vicinity of Yan'an (Yen-an), soon to become their new base area in the north.

Lu Xun reclining in a cemetery outside Amoy, September 4, 1926.

The Lyrical Lu Xun

n%

Dà

yë

duo

Vast

countryside

many

Châng

tiân

lié

zhàn

yun.

arrange

battle

clouds.

chûn

niâo

-k

H

Length [of} sky

gou

ji,

barbed brambles,

t t 4 tk â JT

jiâ

-

niâo,

How many families in spring['s breezes] a-sway?

~ i #

Wàn

lài

jîng

'ft

yin

yin.

Ten-thousand sounding things quiet silent, silent .

T i 4Ê Xià

-

tu

wéi

Qin

zuî,

[On] Lower Earth only [due to] Qin's intoxication,

t

Zhong -

&

liu

[ A t ] mid-current

M Feng

-

chuo

Yuè

yin.

ceases

Yue

singing.

pt-

m

bo

yi

Storms/disturbances

WM

one

hào

-

spread/burst forth,

Ah

Huâ

shù

Flowers

trees

nâi

dàng,

xiao

-

A sen.

at that point [are] defoliated.

Verse in the Classical Style

So vast a countryside the barbed bramble enflanks, 4 Across the lengths of heaven warclouds drawn up in ranks. 5 Of spring's gentle breezes few families enjoy their fill, Ten thousand sounding things hushed with an ominous still. This lower world fell to Qin, all of heaven's caprice, 6 And now amidst the torrent's course our bold Yue songs cease.7 When a seething storm bursts forth its turbulence: Trees are left barren— flowers lose their scents. 8

159

160

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Riji, 19-6b6-10. This is the diary entry for March 5, 1931- They married in August 1931 and opened the Tokyo branch of Uchiyama's Bookstore in 1935. 2. Quanji (1961), 4, p. 285. 3. See the prefatory statement in chapter 13 for a translation of the editor's note at the time of publication. The Changsha Incident refers to the Red Army's attempts at the seizure and occupation of the Hunan capital, which lasted from J u l y to October of 1930. Enormous casualties were incurred as a result of this botched effort to realize a Communist takeover in the urban areas, later attributed to Li Lisan's (1899—1961) "erroneous line." 4. The "barbed bramble" (gou j i ) refers to thorny plants. They often symbolize trouble or peril, but in ancient times the graphs were also used to represent spears and halberds—weapons of warfare. 5. This is obviously a reference to the civil war, but whether it points to the Changsha Incident or the Encircle and Annihilate Campaign of December 1930 to January 1931 is still a matter for debate. 6. The "lower world" ( x i a t u ) is mortal society and, by extension, the body politic that was China in Lu Xun's day. This line is an allusion to the story narrated in Zhang Heng's ( 7 8 - 1 3 9 ) fu ("rhapsody," a genre that intersperses descriptive prose with verse) titled Xi jing [Western capital], which states: In olden times, the Heavenly Emperor [the supreme being] took great delight in Duke Mu of the Qin house, honoring him with an audience in heaven. After much feasting and great revelry, which lasted throughout an entire day, the Heavenly Emperor grew drunk, presenting Duke Mu with a golden tablet [a great land deed], upon which was indicated that the stellar division known as the Quail's Head was to be cut off and vouchsafed to Qin [as sovereign territory]. See Xiao Tong, comp., Wenxuan [Selections of refined literature] (Peking: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), juan 2, p. 38. Lu Xun seems to employ the allusion to underscore the arbitrary nature of the fashion in which the Nationalist revolution had swung to the right after the death of Sun Yat-sen and the coup by Chiang Kai-shek. Reference to the Qin usually conjures up a comparison with the tyrannical First Emperor (Qin Shihuang) of the Qin dynasty, who reigned from 246 to 210 B.C. See Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, p. 125. 7. Another allusion occurs here, this time to the story of Zhuang Xi, a man from the state of Yue who, though in the employ of the king of Chu, never forgot his loyalty to the land of his origin. Lu Xun uses the allusion to swipe at Chiang Kai-shek, who turned from the ideals of the Nationalist revolution while it was still in mid-course, forgetting his political origin as a member of a revolutionary coalition. See Ni Moyan, pp. 91—92.

Verse in the Classical Style

161

8. A literal rendering of this line would be "Thereupon, flowers and trees wither and are [made} barren." It is a picture of desolation: perhaps a remembrance of things past, maybe a depiction of the present, but most likely a prediction of dire consequences for China, should its civil war continue. Some versions use the character yi ("thereafter") where nai ("thereupon") occurs here. Lu Xun produced these variant texts himself.

Lu Xun at an open-air lecture, Peking Normal University, November 1932

17.

Ode to the Goddess of the Xiang River O-J-et n f t JfiU

M M. W^ (Xiang ling ge) MARCH 5 , 1 9 3 1

THIS POEM WAS written out for Matsumoto Saburo on the same day as the preceding two (see chapters 15 and 16). Its title originates in the Yuan you [Far-off journey] section of the Cbu ci [Songs of Chu], which contains the lines: I made the Hsiang [Xiang] goddesses play on their zithers And bade the Sea God dance with the River God.1 Legend has it that the Xiang River Goddess (some accounts tell of two goddesses) was either the concubine or the daughter of Emperor Shun (traditional dates, 2255—2208 B.C.) and that her spirit manifests itself eternally near the place where Shun died. References to this river goddess abound in Chinese poetry, including that of Mao Tse-tung, a native of Hunan province, in ancient times part of the Chu kingdom. Generally she is associated with purity and is the constant object of an unrequited quest by a poet or shaman. But her main role in this poem is perhaps as a personification of a legend specific to a certain geographical area—the vicinity of Changsha in Hunan, where great carnage was wrought as a result of the Red Army's thwarted attempts to seize that city from July to October 1930. 2 In the past, Chinese commentators have offered a number of vastly different explications of the poetic imagery and subject matter of this heptasyllabic regulated verse. Zhou Zhenfu, writing at a time when Chinese artists were being called on to produce a "positive" literature along the lines of Soviet socialist realism, would have us believe that the poem's first four lines portray the beauty of life in the Communist base areas adjacent to the Xiang River valley.3 The subject matter of the poem is, however, evident when all the verses are read together as part of the same poetic entity. Lu Xun deals 162

Verse in the Classical Style

163

with the state of China consistently throughout, but on different levels and from separate points of cognition. The first two couplets use unearthly imagery to describe unnatural manifestations in the world of men away from the poet's immediate vicinity and alien to his everyday perceptions. The second half of the poem describes his own feeling of the repression that lurks close at hand, the price it exacts from literary and art circles, and finally the hollowness of the victory enjoyed by those who can silence but cannot convert.

Martyred woman writer Feng Keng.

164

The Lyrical Lu Xurt

M

M 7]c

jf

-kv

£

XT

wen

Xiang

shui

bi

ru

ran,

Formerly

heard

Xiang's

waters

blue-green

like

dyed,

zhl

hen.

M

Jin

wen

Now

hear

ita

/sfs* H2P

Xiang

ling

Xiang

M

Xiang

^ shui

Xiang River

yan

[has} rouge/make-up

A M M 7]c

zhuang

cheng

zhao

ru

Pale

shui, waters,

n -&L

like/as

hào

yuè

moon

white

kul

Gao

qiu

Lofty

hills

mò

jì silent/alone,

^

-

quàn plants

Fragrant

ling

Gu

wan

yao

Playing

finished

inlaid

£ -

- f -

&

ping

cheng

Peace

-

luò

shed leaves/wither,

B se

zither,

-

xiang

yun.

t

song

zhong

yè,

trembling

mid

night,

Jt # wu

yu

chun.

nothing

remains

of spring.

A ^ M rén

bù

wén,

person

does not

hear,

JÓZL.

manifestations

tóng

peeking through red

il

Tai

Xiang

rrg-

tè

Jiao

Great

traces.

Goddess' make-up complete, reflects on Xiang's

Ì5C

Fang

-

m€

ying fill-up

& n Qiu

-

men.

Autumnal Gate.

Verse in the Classical Style

Once ran the Xiang, 'twas said of old, bluer than indigo, Yet rouge streamers now add new hue to her former cyan flow.4 The Xiang's surface, made mirror to the Goddess' made-up face, Shines glowing white like a pale moon that crimson clouds encase.5 Solitary stillness on this lofty hill— fear and trembling deep in night. 6 Fragrant grasses wither and fall— the passing spring gains no respite.7 The inlaid zither's final notes are heard by none of late,8 As the trappings of a wondrous peace glut the Autumnal Gate. 9

165

166

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Hawkes, Ch'u Tz'u, p. 86. Original in Chu ci zbijie, p. 266. 2. Wenyi xinwen [Literature and art news], no. 22, August 1931. According to this source, published in Shanghai by persons in contact with Lu Xun and his Japanese friends at the time, this poem, like the other two verses presented that day, had been composed at an earlier date, while the news of the Changsha Incident and the executions of Rou Shi et al. was still fresh in Lu Xun's mind; "thence came the tones of grief and indignation." 3. Zhou Zhenfu, pp. 78-80. 4. The poet speaks of yanzbi hen ("traces of rouge") running through the Xiang's waters. These have been rendered "rouge streamers" in my translation and symbolize blood mixing into flowing water. It was common practice to dump the bodies of victims of fighting or execution into rivers when there were too many to bury. The Cultural Revolution saw a resurrection of this age-old practice. 5. A background of red-tainted water offsets the already pale face of the goddess, made up, as was the custom of the day, with white powder. 6. The "lofty hill" (gao qui), as originally used by Qu Yuan in the Li sao, symbolizes the isolation felt by those of high principles from the vulgar practices of toadies and social parasites (Chu ci zhijie, p. 61). It is a state of lonely alienation, but nevertheless a voluntary and necessary one. Qu Yuan used it as a symbol of his own plight, as does Lu Xun, deprived of allies and forced to stand alone once more. "Fear and trembling deep in night" (song zhong ye) is a graphic description of the so-called baise kongbu or "White terror" directed by the Kuomintang government (the "Whites") at leftist writers and artists (the "Reds"). Lu Xun had been victim to all types of threats and harassment by the date of this poem's composition, to say nothing of that which would follow. 7. Since the Li sao s precedent, the term fang quan ("fragrant grasses") has been used to represent those of exemplary character, especially in political allegory. Here it most likely refers to the silenced writers such as Rou Shi, cut down by the firing squad. As in Western literature, spring is regarded as a time for growth and development; even that is gone. 8. The Xiang goddess supposedly plays a yaose or "inlaid zither." In high antiquity, shamans sought in vain after the elusive player of this divine music, only to find her vanished into thin air. But nowadays, paradoxically, none remain to hear her through. 9. Traditionally, times of peace were "without incident," making this line ironic already. See Cao Liwu, p. 31. The "Autumnal Gate" (qiumen) traditionally connotes a national capital—here Nanking. Sarcastic overtones are implied in this use of the term y 'tng ("to fill up," here rendered as "glut"). Nanking brags of peace and stability, but at what cost? Also, the Taipings had their capital in Nanking (1853-1864) and reigned supreme in south China

Verse in the Classical Style

167

until they lost popular support and were defeated militarily by armies loyal to the alien Manchu dynasty. This may function as a warning to the Kuomintang government now in its proud state of supremacy. To me, qiumen sounds a bit like qiujue ("execution in autumn"—traditionally, executions were held in autumn), giving the final line an even more ominous tone: sacrificial victims glut the killing grounds.

18. Two Untitled Poems

MrZg (Wuti) JUNE 1 4 , 1 9 3 1

untitled poems were written out by Lu Xun at the same sitting on June 14, 1931, for the Japanese lawyer Miyazaki Ryusuke (1892—1971) and his wife Byakuren, 1 respectively. Because of this relation between the two verses, Xu Guangping kept them grouped together for publication, rather than classifying them as two separate untitled poems. 2 The spring of 1927 not only brought about an anti-Communist coup with massive killings in Shanghai and Canton, it also saw a split between the Kuomintang right wing, which established a national government in Nanking in April 1927, and the Kuomintang left (in Wuhan). After feuding for five months, the factions reunited. The next round of inner-party strife was a revolt led by Wang Jingwei (1883— 1944), Feng Yuxiang (1882-1948), and Yan Xishan ( 1 8 8 3 - 1 9 6 0 ) in 1930. Subsequent to Chiang Kai-shek's decision to convene a national assembly and adopt a provisional constitution, Hu Hanmin (1879— 1936), president of the Legislative Yuan, dissented and was soon interned. An assembly extraordinaire of Hu's supporters, including Wang Jingwei and such doyens of the Kuomintang as Sun Ke (Sun Fo, 1 8 9 1 - 1 9 7 3 ) and Li Zongren (1890-1969), was convened in Canton on May 17, 1931. The next day, the pro-Hu "Canton faction" declared itself a rival national government. Civil war seemed imminent, but the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September of 1931 eventually brought the two feuding factions together again for a time. 3 THESE TWO

It seems that Lu Xun composed the first of these two heptasyllabic quatrains as thinly veiled innuendo directed at the Kuomintang's power-hungry "heroes" and, in the concluding couplet, at the Chiang Kai-shek clique in Nanking for its empty pretensions of grandeur. The second quatrain displays a more restrained and less sarcastic mood, per168

Verse in the Classical

Style

169

meated with baleful tones. It is couched in an eerie imagery of disconsolation and melancholy, perhaps at the loss of comrades or in mourning for the passing of noble souls from a bygone era. Uchiyama Kanzo had been responsible for the introduction of the Miyazaki couple to Lu Xun. During his stay in Japan, Lu Xun had come in contact with Miyazaki Toraz5, an early supporter of Sun Yatsen's cause, who was the father of Miyazaki Ryusuke. 4 This contact has led Professor Zhao Ruihong to speculate that the second quatrain contains reference to the bloodshed around Nanking during the 1911 Revolution and laments the failure of that revolution to bring about meaningful change, which meant its casualties had fallen in vain. In a 1976 article, Zhao criticizes previous commentators who have asserted the second quatrain makes reference to the secret execution of Communist and other revolutionary elements by the Nanking-based regime, but he fails to produce a detailed and systematic exegesis of the entire poem. Since the first quatrain contains reference to events much nearer, chronologically speaking, to the date of the poem's composition, it is unlikely that the subject matter in the second would vary with such disparity of time. 5

170

The Lyrical Lu Xun

% El Da

jiäng

Great

River

ijx.

n

Ju

ri

X

qün

xiong

group o f heroes,

Liü

däi

Six

Dynasties

qi

-

luö

gossamer silks

tou

liü,

east

flows,

it yuan

you.

again

afar

tour/travel.

£

¥

cheng

jiu

meng,

become

old

dream[s],

Ji

m

dong

you

jf. A

ft

^

s

1.

toward

%

yi

Stone/rock[s}

xiäng

day and night

Gathered righteous

Shi

ye

*

H -k*

cheng

shang

yue

ru

gou.

city/wall

atop

moon

is like

hook/barb.

Eastward, by night and day, the Great River flows on; 6 Our righteous heroes meet, then journey forth anon. 7 Six Dynasties silk fineries become but bygone dreams. 8 Above the City of the Stone a hooklike moon now gleams. 9

171

Verse in the Classical Style

%

A m. m &

l i t Yu

Mò Do-not

hua

-

chóu Grieve

cai

-

biàn

mai

duàn

jï,

side/near

bury

broken

halberd[s},

* # M

hu Lake

ir

yu

within

remain

£ A * Suo

si

mëi

-

rén

That-which-is thought [of} beauty/-ies

If Gul Return

2.

tër y» memories

jiàng

tiân

river's

sky

bù

wêi

minuscule waves.

"T JL kë

not can [cannot]

#

bô.

jiàn, be seen

fa

hào

gê-

let-loose

mighty

song.

B y Raining Flowers Terrace nigh 1 0 the broken halberds buried lie; 11 Sorrow-Not Lake is yet astir 1 2 with ripplets churning off her shore. 13 The noble beauties on my mind, one can search for, but never find.14 Recalling, o'er the river's sky, in m i g h t y song my sorrows fly.15

The Lyrical Lu Xun

172

Notes 1. Byakuren (White Lotus) was the pseudonym of Yanagiwara Akiko ( 1 8 8 5 - 1 9 6 7 ) , a prominent Japanese woman writer at the time and the second daughter of Count Yanagiwara. 2. Ni Moyan, p. 993. Boorman, Biographical

Dictionary of Republican China, 3, pp. 1 6 4 - 1 6 5 .

4. See Rojin zenshu, 9, p. 517. 5. Wenjiao ziliao jianbao [Bulletin of educational resource materials], nos. 7 - 8 , Nanking: Nanjing shiyuan zhongwenxi, 1 9 7 6 . 6. The "great river" is the Yangtze, which flows past Nanking, capital of the Kuomintang central government, in an easterly direction toward Shanghai (where part of the "left" opposition to Chiang Kai-shek was gathering). This image is also indicative of the passage of time. It is akin to saying that history does not stand still. 7. In this line, factions among the Kuomintang leadership are sarcastically likened to the outlaw bands of old China, which often had pretensions of gathering to defend the poor and downtrodden, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, much in the Robin Hood fashion. See Ni Moyan, p. 98. Their sojourns could, in times of political failure, take them as far off as Europe or, when expedient, only as far as Canton. 8. Nanking served as the capital for the Kingdom of Wu ( 2 2 2 - 2 8 0 ) , the Eastern J i n dynasty ( 3 1 7 ^ 1 2 0 ) , the (Liu) Song ( 4 2 0 - 4 7 9 ) , the Southern Qi ( 4 7 9 - 5 0 2 ) , the Liang ( 5 0 2 - 5 5 7 ) , and the Chen dynasties ( 5 5 7 - 5 8 9 ) . These are what the poet is referring to by liu dai (six dynasties). The implication of the line is that the Chiang Kai-shek clique, with its aspirations to imitate the splendor of the ancients in the south, was indulging in empty fantasy. 9- The moon in the thin, curved shape of a hook is interpreted as an illboding omen for the government in Nanking. See Zhang Xiangtian ( 1 9 7 2 ) , 1, p. 172. The image also suggests loneliness, hence the increasing isolation of the Chiang Kai-shek clique. 10. "Raining Flowers Terrace" (Yuhuatai) is located atop Jubao Mountain on the south side of Nanking. In olden days there was a fortress there, but under the Kuomintang it was used as an execution ground. Communist sources estimate the number killed there to have been 2 0 0 , 0 0 0 . See Ni Moyan, p. 9 8 . 11. Ni Moyan states that this line refers to the dismantling of the ancient fortress by the Kuomintang to make way for more grisly productions (p. 99). One commentator believes the halberds to be symbolic of the dead revolutionaries buried beside the execution grounds. See Zhang Xiangtian ( 1 9 7 2 ) , 1, p. 172. Cf. Zhou Zhenfu, p. 83. 12. Mochou Lake was once a famous scenic spot of Nanking. Legend has it that the lake acquired its name from Lu Mochou, a girl talented in singing, who lived in the environs. Takata Atsushi in Rojin shiwa [Notes on Lu Xun's

Verse in the Classical Style

173

classical poetry] (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha, 1971), p. 105, says that her name signifies "No Sorrow Is Greater," as in the line "No sorrow is greater than the parting of the living" (from Shao si ming [The lesser master of fate] in the "Nine Songs" section of the Chu ci). See Chu ci zhijie, p. 101. 13. Ni Moyan states that under the Kuomintang the once scenic lake was allowed to "go to seed," becoming clogged with mud (p. 99). For an interpretation of the "tiny ripples" (wet bo) as a symbol for the transforming effect the examples of martyrdom exert on later generations, see Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, p. 173. 14. It seems the poet is comparing the victims of the White terror to Lu Mochou, the beautiful singer long gone to the land of the shades; either that or lamenting the fact that the ideals of the 1911 Revolution have been betrayed. 15. In Shao si ming [The lesser master of fate] from the "Nine Songs" in the Chu ci there is a line that runs: "Longing for the beauty who has not come, / Dejected, in the face of the wind, [I let forth] a mighty song." (Chu ci zhijie, p. 102). Clearly this is an unhappy or painful memory, but the anonymous commentary in Shi jian: fu shigao suggests that Lu Xun uses this image of the speaker "bursting forth in mighty song" (fa haoge) as one of transforming one's sorrow and anger into a new strength (p. 59). In classical poetry the river often functions as an emblem of grief, remembrance, or feeling, but here the poet fixes his gaze on the horizon above, which I would also find suggestive of hope, just as the character hao ("mighty/powerful") is suggestive of new-found strength.

19.

For Masuda Wataru on the Occasion of His Return to Japan

iiOf tf&gifi 0 (Song Zeng Tianshe jun guiguo) DECEMBER 2, 1 9 3 1

MASUDA WATARU ( 1 9 0 3 - 1 9 7 7 ) was graduated from Tokyo Imperial University with a major in Chinese literature and philosophy in 1929After his arrival in Shanghai in March of 1931, he came to know Lu Xun through Uchiyama Kanzo.1 The second time they met, Lu Xun presented Masuda with a copy of his book Zbaohua xishi [Dawn blossoms plucked at dusk], telling Masuda that it might help him understand some aspects of China. Later, when Masuda expressed difficulty with certain passages, Lu Xun invited him to his home for sessions of textual explication and general conversation.2 Soon Masuda wanted to embark on the ambitious task of translating Lu Xun's Zhongguo xiaoshuo skilue [A brief history of Chinese fiction] into Japanese. For over three months Lu Xun personally devoted two or three hours per day to directing Masuda Wataru's study of this unprecedented scholarly work.3 During breaks they chatted about current events and the literary scene. Additionally, Lu Xun helped Masuda select books on Chinese literature, took him to art exhibitions and movies, set up opportunities for him to lecture, and introduced him to such notables in the field as Yu Dafu ( 1 8 9 6 - 1 9 4 5 ) and Zheng Zhenduo ( 1 8 9 8 - 1 9 5 8 ) . When Masuda eventually departed from Shanghai, Lu Xun composed this heptasyllabic quatrain as a token of their friendship. Their relationship did not end here, however. The two scholars kept up a correspondence that totaled sixty-eight letters, of which only fifty-eight are still extant. 4 Revising the notes he had made for the translation in Shanghai, Masuda continued to write, asking Lu Xun for help when difficulties arose; Lu Xun consistently responded by mail. In the summer of 1936, on hearing Lu Xun was seriously ill, Masuda returned to China to pay him a final visit. 174

Verse in the Classical Style

175

This case is representative of a n u m b e r of others. Lu X u n was constantly offering money and labor to aid Chinese writers and artists and encourage the young in bleak times. People came to him with m a n u scripts, sometimes incomplete, asking for advice or editing. Others needed an introduction from a famous author in order to interest p u b lishers or convince skeptics of the literary merit of their works. A l t h o u g h he did these things gladly and untiringly, some would later turn against h i m out of conflicting loyalties in the hotly contested polemics of the day.

Masuda Wataru (c. 1930).

176

The Lyrical Lu Xun

& Fu

-

&

SL

sang

zheng

A -

shi

N u r t u r i n g Mulberry [Isles] presently

% Feng

ft

ye

ru

dan

leaves

like/as

cinnabar

# £ # Que

zhe

chui

yang

pluck

dangling

willow,

Fit Xin

sui

* # dong

follows east-bound

zhao

It qiu

guang

hao,

autumn

scenery

is fine,

&

&

- iz

Sf

g ?

rir*

song

gul

ke,

yi

hua

oar,

Your Isle of Sacred Trees displays 5 an autumn landscape fine these days; And maple leaves of crimson hue, with chill, produce a redder view.6 Yet to see you off, right here I stand, a broken willow branch in hand: 7 My mind's eye follows your east-bound oars back to a youth spent on those shores. 8

^

-

nian.

Verse in the Classical Style

177

Notes 1. Ni Moyan, p. 101. 2. Ibid., p. 102. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid., p. 104. 5. In classical Chinese, Fusang at times appears as a poetic reference to Japan. This I have translated as "Isle of Sacred Trees," though other interpretations are possible and thousands of characters have been written in scholarly contention over the exact meaning of these two graphs. One explanation is that the name comes from that of a rare tree akin to the mulberry, which a traveler of old once told the Chinese abounded in the islands beyond the eastern seas. Naturally one first thinks of Japan. Recently some Chinese scholars have attempted to link Fusang with America, but that issue has nothing to do with the interpretation of Lu Xun's poem. 6. A more literal rendering might read: "The crimson hues of maple leaves reflect the slight chill of the air." 7. Here yang (poplar) is a stand-in for yangliu (willow). It was a custom in old China, as has been mentioned in chapter 1, note 6, that on parting, a friend of the traveler would present him with a sprig of willow as a token of remembrance. This is because of a play on words: both "willow" and another character meaning "to bid someone to stay" are pronounced liu, though the written graphs and tones are different. 8. Lu Xun spent over seven years in Japan, from April of 1902 until August of 1909- The last three characters in the concluding line of the original poem mean literally "[I] think back to the years of my youth." The term dong zhao ("east-bound oar"), of course, refers to Masuda Wataru's ship, and, by extension, to his return homeward.

20. In Answer to a Gibe from a Guest (Da ke qiao) LATE 1 9 3 1 OR EARLY 1 9 3 2

Xun's friend Xu Shoushang, this heptasyllabic quatrain "was probably written because [Lu Xun's] beloved son Haiying [b. 1929] had become so lively and rambunctious that guests said [the father] had been over-indulgent to the point of spoiling him." 1 Lu Xun had repeatedly gone on record as opposing the sort of strict upbringing inherent in traditional education and child rearing. He wished that future generations in China could be a new breed of people, free of the negative characteristics he saw in old China; thus his short story Kuangren riji [Diary of a madman], which was published in the magazine Xin qingnian [New youth] back in 1918, ended with the impassioned cry "Save, save the children!" To provide new reading materials for China's children, he devoted much time and effort to translating foreign fables and juvenile literature. 2 In his 1933 essay Shanghai de ertong [Shanghai children], he stated categorically his belief that "the child's environment determines the future man."3 This poem was originally composed for Dr. Tsuboi, a Japanese pediatrician practicing in Shanghai, who had treated Lu Xun's son, Haiying, on numerous occasions. I base the dating on a photostatic copy of the poem written in Lu Xun's own hand, which states that it "was done in jest during the winter of the lunar year wet," i.e., between late 1931 and early 1932. 4 Approximately one year later, on December 31, 1932, Lu Xun recopied the poem as a present for his friend Yu Dafu, also a writer with children of his own. ACCORDING TO LU

178

Verse in the Classical Style

A

t »»\

179

Wu

qing

wei

bi

zhen

Lack of

feeling

is not

necessarily

true

#

- k ?

f

Lian

zi

To pity

a child

ru

# ZhI

fou

Know [you} or not

*

H

-

he

how is it

$ s

L \

xlng

M

bu not

.

feng

raising winds

IsJ

Bf

3f

;#

Hui

mou

shi

kan

Turns back eyes

#

J t T

4

ft

at times to look at

A

3 t zhang

-

kuang

fu?

[being] a he-man?

*

& xiao

zhe,

madly roaring one who [does],

< b

xiao small

Must a true he-man be unfeeling and cold? 5 Cannot a d o t i n g father be a hero untold? 6 K n o w you not that tigers, whose m i g h t y roar winds send, 7 O f t e n take a backward glance for their cubs to fend. 8

hao jie, hero/champion,

£

tfc

wu

%

-

ru.

cubs [young of tigers].

180

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. X u Shoushang, Renshi de, p. 27. 2. Ni Moyan, p. 148. 3. Selected Works, 3, p. 3 0 0 . 4. For a copy of this manuscript version in the poet's own hand, see Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 62. The background information on Tsuboi comes from X u Guangping's own testimony about the doctor's treatment of her small son for dysentery. For a comprehensive survey of the views concerning questions of dating, see the work by Professor Zhang Enhe of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, titled Lu Xun jiushi jijie [Compendium of interpretations o f L u Xun's classical verse] (Tientsin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1981), pp. 1 8 8 - 1 8 9 . Hereafter Zhang Enhe. 5. The Chinese reads literally: "[Those] unfeeling are not necessarily true great heroes." For the sake of readability, I have turned the statement around; the import remains the same. I have made another switch in the translation's first and second lines: the order of occurrence of "hero" (haojie) and "he-man" {zhangfu) has been reversed for the aid of the English reader (see note 6). 6. A more direct reading might be: "How is it that one who dotes on his children cannot be a real he-man?" I have added the word "untold." Lu X u n here employs an allusion to the story of Chu Zhe in the Zhanguo ce [Annals of the warring states]. Chu Zhe once asked the queen to make his youngest son a member of the palace guard, an elite outfit, so that he could rest assured of the boy's future before he died. T h e queen posed the question "And do hemen also dote on their children?" to which Chu Zhe replied, "More so than women." See the Annals of Zhao, part 4, in the Zhanguo ce (Yuangzhou: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1985), 2, p. 1 1 2 1 . 7. This line refers to the tiger as "the one whose wild roar stirs the wind," an image that dates back as far as the Yijing [Book of changes], ascribing awesome supernatural powers to the beast. It was anciently thought that wind actually emanated from the tiger's roar (see the wenyan commentary to hexagram 1). In J i n Jingfu and Lii Shaogang, annot., Zhou yi quan jie [A complete exegesis of the Yijing] (Changchun: Jilin daxue chubanshe, 1989), p. 24. 8. The term translated "cubs" (wutu) is from the ancient Chu dialect and originally meant only "tiger." Here Lu X u n refers to the tiger's young (xiao wutu) in a jocular comparison of his own father-son relationship with Haiying.

21.

Lyrics for a Nanking Ditty llj^CfUir (Nanjing minyao) DECEMBER 2 5 , 1 9 3 1

Lu X U N PUBLISHED this poem anonymously in the second issue of the periodical Shizi jietou [Crossroads], dated December 25, 1931. After his death, X u Guangping identified it as one of his works. 1 Japan had invaded Manchuria following the Mukden Incident (September 18, 1931) but the Kuomintang leadership failed to provide a unified response to this national crisis. Instead the Fourth General Assembly of the Nationalist Party in 1931 was held separately by two feuding factions at two different locations (Nanking, November 12—22 and Canton, November 18—December 5). In an attempt to placate the Kuomintang left wing, which had broken away from the central government in Nanking, setting up a rival power base in Canton (see chapter 18), Chiang Kai-shek resigned his chairmanship of the national government in favor of Lin Sen ( 1 8 6 8 - 1 9 4 3 ) . Sun Ke became the head of the Executive Yuan, while Chiang Kai-shek and Wang J i n g w e i assumed the posts of permanent members of the Party's Central Committee. In order to emphasize their new-found unity and dedication to the principles of the Party founder, members of the Kuomintang's Central Committee all mounted the steps of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum in Nanking on December 23, 1931 and stood together there in silence in his honor. Sensing a lack of sincerity and their inability to divorce themselves from base motives such as the quest for personal power, Lu Xun composed this pentasyllabic quatrain after the style of oldfashioned popular ditties in order to ridicule their tinhorn style of politics. Dr. Sun Yat-sen had brought about a coalition in 1924 between his own party, the Kuomintang, and the Communists, accepting the help of Russian advisers to reorganize the Kuomintang along the lines of a 181

182

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Leninist party in the hope that such an alliance and such a reorganization could hasten the defeat of their common enemy, the northern warlords. After his death in 1925 and the subsequent split (1927) between the two parties, both contested his legacy, each depicting themselves as the true implementers of his "Three People's Principles" (nationalism, democracy, and guaranteed livelihood). Within the Kuomintang, however, the veneration of Sun quickly took on cult proportions, centering on his new mausoleum, constructed at Nanking, which became a national shrine.

Sun Yat-sen.

Verse in the Classical Style

183

k % Dà

-

jia

Everyone

/at* pop /XK qù

yè

ling,

goes to pay respects to spirit,

&

M

JlflL Qiâng

-

dào

Robbers/bandits

w &L Jing

-

mo

zhuâng feign

+

zhèng

-

jing.

solemnity/propriety.

shi

fën

zhong,

ten

minutes

[of] time,

Quiet

silence

£

n

Gè

Z1

xiàng

Each to

himself

thinks of

*

quân

M •-

"fist"

jingtactics.

O n the Sun Mausoleum's lofty stairs, 2 R o b b e r s pay h o m a g e w i t h solemn airs: In a ten-minute silence, 3 side by side there, Each plots his next m o v e when the struggles flare. 4

184

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Ni Moyan, p. 114. 2. Ye ling (literally "to pay one's respects to the spirit") refers to paying homage at the tomb or mausoleum (ling). 3. "A ten-minute silence" is a deliberate exaggeration by the poet of the customary three minutes of silence. 4. The original Chinese version of the last line, gezi xiang quanjing, literally means "Each devises his own Kungfu moves." The gist is that although the various politicians are ostensibly reunited, they will in fact pursue separate courses with a view to their own personal aggrandizement rather than out of concern for national unity and the good of China as a whole in the face of Japanese aggression.

22. Untitled (Wuti) JANUARY 2 3 , 1 9 3 2

ACCORDING TO LU Xun's diary, this poem was written for Kora Tomi (b. 1896), 1 a professor at Tokyo Women's University, who at the time was passing through Shanghai in her capacity as a leading member of the Japanese Christian Women's Peace Movement. Kora, a Quaker, remained in Shanghai for over a month on the first leg of a journey to India, where she intended to meet with Gandhi about his proposal to mediate personally the growing hostilities between China and Japan. Uchiyama Kanz5 had informed Lu Xun of her plan. On January 12, 1932, Lu Xun and X u Guangping met Kora at Uchiyama's bookstore, presumably to discuss the idea over dinner in Uchiyama's living quarters. After this, their first and last meeting, Lu Xun saw no more of Kora Tomi, but he did sit down on an afternoon three days later to write out this poem for her. Upon her return to Japan from India, Kora was surprised to find the poem, dutifully forwarded to her by Uchiyama, among the letters awaiting her.2 The historical background of this poem is similar to that of those in chapters 18 and 21 in that more references are made to the in-fighting between various factions within the Nationalist government, yet a number of commentators have asserted that the first two lines present a tribute to Communist troops killed in the civil war then progressing in the interior of China. 3 Whether this is so cannot be entirely substantiated textually, for "the Central Plain" seems more likely a reference to China as an ethnic and cultural entity than to a specific geographical region (the Yellow River basin) within its national boundaries. The purpose and goals of Kora's trek to India must be kept in mind, so a tribute is less likely than an outcry for the beleaguered.

185

186

The Lyrical Lu Xun

j f e Xue

wo

Blood

drenches

*

M

Zhong -

yuan

fei

Central

Plain,

fattening

i

-4i-

J& Han

ning

da

di

fa

chun

hua.

Cold

congeals

on great

land,

sprouting

spring

flowers.

£ Ying

[Brave}

& $ -

it

xiong

duo

gu

heroes

many

afflictions,

k. & mou

-

fu

bing,

aides-de-camp

sick,

^ &

WL % Lei

sa

chong

ling

zao

mil

ya.

Tears

soak

lofty

tomb,

clamor

dusk

crows.

Blood enriches the Central Plain, 4 giving hardy grasses fertile earth; 5 Across a vast and frozen land flowers of spring come bursting forth. 6 Afflictions plague our "heroes" now, as aides-de-camp have taken ill; 7 That revered tomb is drenched with tears8 by eventide crows clamor still. 9

Verse in the Classical Style

187

Notes 1. Riji, 20.2bl0—3a2. Rojin zenshu, 9, p- 525, gives the pronunciation of her name in hiragana as Kora Tomi. 2. Zhang Enhe, pp. 197-198. 3. Ni Moyan, pp. 120-123. Also see Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, pp.199-210. 4. The "Central Plain" (Zhongyuan) is an ancient name for China, harking back to the days when its civilization first developed in the Yellow River valley. Haoranzhai yatan [Elegant talks from the vast and mighty studio} by Zhou Mi of the Song dynasty contains a fragmentary line ascribed to "the Hermit of Mt. Lu," which says: "Spring grasses are nourished by the blood spilt in battle." In Lu Xun's poem the blood drenching China may have been spilled by the Japanese military, who were then threatening the Shanghai area as well as the north. Since Kora was a Japanese peace activist headed for India to work toward a settlement of mounting tensions between Japan and China, it is possible that the first lines of this poem refer to Japanese aggression rather than to the civil war between the Kuomintang forces and the Communists, as most current mainland sources hold. 5. In the Wang Ba zhuan section of the Hou Han shu [History of the Latter Han dynasty}, there is a line "Strive! In a strong wind one can tell the hardy grasses," which is a metaphor describing fortitude amidst trying times. But Lu Xun's usage here may be ironical in order to underscore the tragedy of China's plight. See Hou Han shu, 2, p. 735. 6. The Chinese phrase fa chun hua, here rendered "flowers of spring come bursting forth" (despite the ice-locked condition of the earth), may be used to depict the resilience of the Chinese resistance to Japan. But if the first two verses are parallel, then it is the cold of winter on the land (perhaps a metaphor for Kuomintang repression) that causes the flowers of spring (Left resistance?) to sprout up across the land. 7. "Heroes" (yingxiong) here is a sarcastic reference to warlords and generals, perhaps the divided Kuomintang leadership. In a letter of January 9, 1935, to Zheng Zhenduo, Lu Xun mentioned: "Some are heroes for having saved people, but there are also those who became heroes by killing people." Quanji (1961), 10, p. 128. "Aides-de-camp" (moufu) is an archaic term for politicians or civilian counselors to military men. Cao Liwu contends this is Hu Hanmin. It is also possible to interpret moufu as "plotters"—both Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kai-shek plotted against Sun Ke, Wang using illness as a pretext to remain in Shanghai at one point during the fracas. See Cao, p. 38. 8. Some commentators insist that chong ling ("revered mausoleum") be interpreted as a "high" or "lofty" tomb (Jiang Tian [1974}, p. 52). Since what Lu Xun here calls chong ling is Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum in Nanking, I see no fault in rendering chong in its secondary meaning of "revered" or "respected."

188

The Lyrical Lu Xun

9. Such discordant weeping is the butt of the poet's ridicule. As in chapter 21, Kuomintang politicians would weep at Sun's mausoleum, as an outward manifestation of the sincerity of their commitment to his cause of rebuilding China or as a protest at their mistreatment by the clique currently in power. Ito Masafumi holds that this is a specific reference to Sun Ke's appearance at his father's tomb on January 22, 1931, during which he reportedly cried, realizing that he had been outflanked by Chiang Kai-shek. Three days later Sun Ke resigned as head of the Executive Yuan. See Rojin zenshu, 9, p. 526. The "crows" of the poem need not be interpreted as symbolizing particular people involved in the scramble for power or those calling for redress of specific grievances. They merely provide an inauspicious backdrop for the tomb scene and heighten the shading of the irony. See his 1932 essay "The New Don Quixotes of the Chinese Republic," in Selected Works, 3, pp. 132— 134, where Lu Xun speaks with heavy irony of those who were feigning a desire to fight Japan "weeping at Sun Yat-sen's tomb" and "vowing to set out." Chinese text in Quanji (1991), 4, pp. 352-353-

23. An Impromptu Composition (Ou cheng) MARCH 3 1 ,

1932

THIS HEPTASYLLABIC quatrain first appears untitled in Lu Xun's diary under the entry for March 31, 1932. However, it was not published during the poet's lifetime, and the title Ou cheng was added to it by X u Guangping. The diary indicates that this poem was composed for one Shen Songquan, 1 a fellow-provincial of Lu Xun from the town of Wuxing, who was involved in the publishing business and had brought out some of Lu Xun's translations on literary theory.2 The occasion for this writing was the eve of Shen's departure to further his studies in Japan. Since part of the poem's content has to do with censorship, a look at Harriet Mills' description of the ever-tightening restrictions on Lu Xun and other social critics in the period around the time of its composition sheds much light on its import. Popular resentment against the Japanese [for] their invasion of Manchuria, however, was so strong that to allow no outlet would have cost the government dearly. Late in 1931 the government therefore made some concessions, but with the cessation of hostilities at Shanghai in March 1932, Nanking reestablished control with renewed vigor. Censorship, hitherto largely decentralized, was coordinated by the establishment of censorship bureaus in five principal cities. New regulations declared news of military events, foreign policy and "local peace" were to be censored. By the end of 1932 virtually all open and underground organs of the Left League had been stopped. Lu Hsiin's work reflects these developments. Beginning about mid-1930, just as the government was inaugurating its Nationalist Literature movement and other measures to compete with and suppress left-wing literature, Lu Hsiin began to comment. He compared these repressive measures of the Kuomintang, newly come to power, to the harsh policies of the Ch'ing dynasty in its early years. By the

189

190

The Lyrical Lu Xun end of the Ch'ing, he claimed, however, that one could speak ill of the emperor with relative impunity. He thus implied that the new regime was more oppressive than the monarchy. Even criticism of long acknowledged evils of Chinese society was now censored, he complained. He accused the government of killing literature under a twofold attack. On the one hand, he protested, the government used slander, persecution, arrest, "thugs, spies, watchdogs, and murderers" against authors. On the other, it took over publishing companies under pressure and staffed them with renegade leftists or government agents. The result, he declared, was that there was no real literature. 3

Similar thoughts ran through the poet's mind the afternoon he composed this quatrain for his friend Shen. Because of mounting political pressure, Lu Xun had considered going to Japan for a short respite, but by April 13, 1932, as evidenced by a letter of that date to Uchiyama Kanzo, he had changed his mind and decided to remain in Shanghai. 4 The reason behind this decision was simply his belief that only by remaining in China could he understand current developments and comment meaningfully on them. 5 In a letter to Li Bingzhong dated March 20, 1932, only eleven days before the composition of this poem, Lu X u n wrote of returning to the apartment he had fled over a m o n t h before, during the Japanese attack on Shanghai (January 28, 1932), and spoke wryly of the fact that looters had carried off over twenty items, save for "my books, papers, and ink, which were all untouched, obviously bearing witness to the value placed upon writings." In an earlier letter to the same correspondent (February 29, 1932), Lu X u n had described his plight during and immediately subsequent to the hostilities, writing: "Now we find ourselves temporarily quartered above a bookstore. W h e t h e r we shall continue to remain in Shanghai or move back to Peking is still undecided. Mayhaps it will be best to await future developments before making firm plans." The similarity of sentiments expressed in the first two lines of this quatrain with the actualities set forth in those letters has led some to speculate that the lines are, in fact, purely autobiographical. However, the poem's concluding couplet is rife with symbolic import, making it evident that the poet perceives his own situation as part of a larger scheme—the worsening of repression in cultural life and the increasing gravity of the political impasse.

Verse in the Classical Style

191

X f Wen

-

i

zhäng

Writings/lettres

t

^

jf

ru

tu

yu

he

zhi?

like

soil/dirt,

desire

whither

to go?

meng

M it Qiao

shöu

dong

yun

re

Raising

head

eastern

clouds

provoke

Suö

hen

fang

That-which-is hated: fragrant

4

si,

dream-thoughts,

fl

*

luo

shen,

liäo grove's

-

barrenness [to the] extreme,

M * ft Nr

II

Chun

lan

qiu

ju

bu

tong

shi.

Spring

orchids,

autumn

mums

not

same

time.

W r i t i n g s worth their w e i g h t in dirt, 6 w h i t h e r can one go? H e a d raised toward the eastern clouds, dreams and thoughts now flow. . . . A w o e f u l sight this fragrant grove, 8 its florae sparse and few; 9 T h e a u t u m n m u m can share no days w i t h orchids that spring grew. 1 0

7

The Lyrical Lu Xun

192

Notes 1. Riji, 20.8al0. 2. Ni Moyan, p. 123. 3. Mills, "Lu Hsiin," pp. 262-2634. Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, p. 221. 5. Ni Moyan, p. 125. 6. The Chinese wenzhang ru tu in the original line means simply "[My] writings are like unto dirt," i.e., they have no market now. It is an outcry against the tightening stranglehold of censorship. By February 1934, all Lu Xun's post-1927 works were banned, except Liangdi shu [Letters from two places], a collection of his correspondence with Xu Guangping. Mills comments: "Sarcastically he complained that the government seemed determined to starve him to death, for all his works, old or new, were being banned" (pp. 272—273). Yu he zhi ("whither can one go?") might also be interpreted as "what can be done with them [i.e., my works]?" or "what use are they?" 7. Here the poet uses dong yun ("eastern clouds") in alluding to Japan, the island-empire to the east of China where he studied in the years of his youth. The phrase re mertg si, which I have rendered "dreams and thoughts now flow," could also be translated literally as " . . . provokes dream thoughts." The poet is probably thinking back on his own youthful idealism and the fact that he once embarked on an abortive literary career in Japan. 8. Fanglin ("fragrant grove") is explained by most Chinese commentators as a reference to the wentan or "literary scene" in China during the thirties. Such an inference appears justified given the context and the fact that Lu Xun often used such sonorous terms as wenyuan ("literary garden") to convey the same meaning. 9. The term liaoluo, translated as "sparse and few," carries the literal meaning of "defoliated" or "scattered." The implication of the line is that the censorship has left China's literary scene barren and desolate. See Ni Moyan, pp.124-125. 10. A more literal translation of the concluding line might be made to read: "Spring orchid and autumn chrysanthemum are flowers of a different season," i.e., they do not flourish at the same time. There is some confusion among Chinese commentators over how to interpret this concluding line. Ni Moyan (p. 125) and the anonymous commentator in Shi jian: fu shigao (pp. 68—69) agree that the difference of seasons mentioned must allude to dissimilar circumstances brought about by different times; i.e., when Lu Xun was young it was fitting for him to go off to Japan and study, but now that the world is so significantly altered since the days of his youth, it is necessary that he remain in Shanghai to carry on the struggle against the government and its apologists. Zhang Xiangtian (1, pp. 221—223) holds much the same opinion, but Jiang Tian (on pp. 53—54 of the 1974 edition of his book) seems to think Lu Xun uses the spring orchid(s) to symbolize the slain young leftist writers

Verse in the Classical Style

193

or "Five Martyrs," while the poet (the autumn-chrysanthemum) is left to live out his remaining years deprived of their company. Zhou Zhenfu, in contrast, takes it as a disparaging comment on repression in Japan (p. 100). Xia Mingzhao, Lu Xun shi quan jian (pp. 161—165) argues this last line signifies that revolutionary literature and art cannot coexist with counter-revolutionary literature and art. This seems unlikely because orchids and chrysanthemums are both flowers of beauty, neither carrying the bad associations of "counterrevolutionary literature." Among the Jiu ge [Nine songs] in the Chu ci, there is one using these images titled Li hurt [Rites for the souls}, which the Yangs translate as "The Last Sacrifice": The rites performed the wizards strike the urn, Pass round the sacred herbs and dance in turn. With grace the lovely damsels dance and sing: "Asters for autumn, orchids for the spring, Through endless years this sacrifice we bring." See Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Li Sao and Other Poems of Chu Yuan (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1955), p. 30. Judging from this, the earliest instance of its employment, it is possible that Lu Xun is alluding to sacrifice by his use of this image here, albeit indirectly. The Yangs have added the words "this sacrifice we bring," but they are, nevertheless, implied. See Chu ci zhijie, p. 115. A literal rendering of the Chu ci lines chun lan xi qiu ju, chang wu jue xi zhong gu would run: "[In] spring orchids, o, in fall chrysanthemums; Thus has it been, o, throughout the ages unto time immemorial." Some connection with the preceding images of cultural strangulation must exist. Lu Xun has painted a picture of desolation here, not one of optimism and ultimate victory through resolute struggle, as some would have us believe. Although chun lan ("spring orchid") and qiu ju ("autumn chrysanthemum") may symbolize different styles of writing or types of literary creation, as argued by Wang Erling (quoted in Zhang Enhe, p. 204), it is apparent that Lu Xun exhibits little faith in the possibility of their immediate success as harbingers of a new order.

24.

For Pengzi (Zeng Pengzi) MARCH 3 1 , 1 9 3 2

THE SECOND OF two poems entered in Lu Xun's diary on March 31, 1932, 1 this verse for the writer Yao Pengzi ( 1 9 0 5 - 1 9 6 9 ; father of "Gang of Four" member Yao Wenyuan) deals with an event connected with the January Twenty-eighth Conflict, in which the Japanese launched an attack on Shanghai. 2 To protest Japanese aggression in Manchuria, the Chinese had organized a nationwide boycott of Japanese goods at great cost to the Japanese economy. As tension mounted, fighting broke out at Shanghai and laid waste to large areas of the city, ceasing only in March. During the hostilities Mai Guangde, wife of the writer Mu Mutian (1900—1971), became separated from her husband. 3 In a frantic attempt to find him, she took off in two rickshaws with her small son and luggage, ending up at the home of Yao Pengzi. Yao, astonished by the appearance of the mother and child out of thin air at his doorstep, was at a loss as to what to do to reunite them with Mu Mutian. According to one account, Mai Guangde was soon to die of complications of shock resulting from this incident. 4 In the past there have been varying explanations of Lu Xun's motives for writing this poem as well as its implied meaning. According to Ni Moyan, Yao Wenyuan, the son of Yao Pengzi, used to insist that the word lingtong ("wonder child") in the text of the poem was a laudatory reference by Lu Xun to himself (Yao Wenyuan) as a child (p. 128). Another interpretation holds that one day Yao Pengzi brought his son to Lu Xun's home and boasted about the boy's intelligence, whereupon the poet dashed off this heptasyllabic quatrain as a spoof on Yao's vanity. 5 A third assertion is that the poem is social commentary—an attack on the privileged classes, who find it easy to escape disaster during wartime by fleeing in airplanes, in contrast to dependents of impoverished writers, who can at best afford rickshaws, scant protection under fire.6 194

Verse in the Classical Style

195

N i Moyan contends that the meaning of the poem was much distorted in the past owing to Yao Wenyuan's great political influence (gained during the Cultural Revolution, which commenced in the mid-1960s) and his obligations as a "filial son" to shield his father from criticism. 7 N i considers the poem to be an attack on Yao Pengzi; this is dubious at best. At the time of this composition, Yao Pengzi was a member of the League of Left-Wing Writers, over which Lu Xun nominally presided. In 1934 (two years later), Yao Pengzi was arrested by the Kuomintang government and collaborated with the authorities, issuing a statement titled Tuoli Gongchandang xuanyan [A declaration of severance with the Communist Party]. 8 Yet I fail to see how that later event could have any bearing on the interpretation of this particular poem, even as an unlikely prognostication of a future defection from the revolutionary ranks. I also doubt that Lu Xun would have made light of any matter connected with so unfortunate a death as that attributed to Mai Guangde. Therefore I can only surmise that her death occurred at a later date and was not pursuant to the shock of flight during the hostilities. The "wonder child" is, as context demonstrates, one who arrived with the "flying faerie," and, judging from the wordplays, our winged Immortal is more likely Mai Guangde than a host of other choices, which include "the reactionary writer Ding Ling" and "the trade name used by a Shanghai cab company." 9 It is hard to imagine Yao Wenyuan trying so hard for a posthumous compliment from the great Lu Xun as to claim relation to Mai Guangde or "the reactionary writer Ding Ling"! 10 The poem is written in a light vein, but it bears witness to times of war and flight, so its import is ultimately a serious one. This seems to be one point that all commentators agree on.

The Lyrical Lu Xun

196

& Mo

-

€

di

^

fei

Unexpectedly

xian

flying

f

if- H jiang

^

^

Yun

che

shuang

liang

qie

Cloud

vehicles

pair of

[measure]

bring

Ke

# -

lian

Pitiable [that]

it

£ ^ Peng

bi

kong,

immortal descends jade-green

^

T

s

-

#

21

[Yao] Pengzi

fei is no/is not

it

$ ling

sky,

-f -

tong.

wonder-child.

* tian

-f -

zi,

Son of Heaven,

Jt JSL

Tao

qii

tao

lai

xl

bei

feng.

Fleeing

forth

fleeing

back,

inhaling

north

wind.

A b r u p t l y bounds a f l y i n g faerie 1 1 d o w n f r o m out of the clear blue; In a pair of cloud chariots, leading her wonder child too. 1 2 A p i t y that Pengzi was not her Tianzi; 1 3 Fleeing back and forth to wit's end, her only sustenance the north w i n d . 1 4

Verse in the Classical Style

197

Notes 1. See Riji,

20.8al0-8b3.

2. NiMoyan, pp. 126-1293. X i a Mingzhao (p. 167), based on a column from an April 4 , 1932 issue of Wenyi xinwen [Literature and art news}, no. 4 9 , says Mu and Mai had just taken their small son, who was ill, to the hospital amid the hostilities. W h e n the staff of the hospital panicked, Mai fled alone with the child in her arms, accounting for the separation, but not for her appearance at Yao Pengzi's home. 4. Wong Chun-tung (Huang Jundong), Xiandai Zhongguo zuojia jianying [Silhouettes of modern Chinese authors] (Hong Kong: Youlian chubanshe, 1973), p. 2 3 8 . Probably based on the account by [Jiang] X i j i n in Wenxue yuekan [Literature monthly], 1 9 5 6 , no. 11. 5. N i M o y a n , p. 128. 6. Shi j'tan: fu shigao, pp. 7 1 - 7 2 . 7. Ni Moyan, pp. 2 4 5 - 2 4 6 . 8. Ibid., p. 127. 9- See Zhang Enhe, p. 20910. Here I am using this once-standard Communist appellation for Ding Ling ironically. These are quotations from commentators. 11. Lu X u n refers to Mai Guangde, Mu Mutian's wife, as a fei xian ("flying faerie" or "winged Immortal"). 12. The pair of rickshaws in which Mai Guangde and her son dashed across the embattled city of Shanghai become yun che ("cloud chariots"), the vehicles driven by Immortals across the sky. The boy, too, is called lingtong, which has here been rendered as "wonder child" to preserve the ambiguity of the original and to lay stress on the poet's choice of the word ling (here "gifted," "talented," "perceptive"). This, of course, can be a compliment to the mother, as well as the child; it goes with fei xian ("flying immortal"). Cf. Ni Moyan, pp. 1 2 6 - 1 2 9 . 13. Tianzi ("the Son of Heaven"), a well-known appellation for the emperor of China, is intended here as a pun referring to the name Mu Mutian. There is a legend in China that Mu Tianzi, i.e., Emperor Mu (reigned 1001— 9 4 7 B.c.) of the Zhou dynasty, undertook a lengthy journey westward and met with a certain X i Wang Mu (Queen-Mother in the West). Here Lu X u n uses Mu Tianzi as a humorous stand-in for Mu Mutian: see Ni Moyan, p. 126; also Zhang Xiangtian ( 1 9 7 2 ) , 1, pp. 2 2 7 - 2 2 8 . 14. The concluding three-character phrase xi beifeng, translated here "her only sustenance the north wind," is used as a metaphor for being in desperate straits. Literally, it means "to inhale (or take in) the north wind." Perhaps Lu X u n is implying that Yao Pengzi could have been a bit more solicitous toward this unfortunate woman, given her situation.

25. Written after the January Twenty-eighth Conflict (Yi-er-ba zhan hou zuo)

July 11,1932

This poem

written for Yamamoto Hatsue (1898-1966), the wife of a Japanese ship captain, was entered on July 11, 1932, in Lu Xun's diary.1 Yamamoto, herself a tanka poet,2 often visited Uchiyama Kanzo's bookstore while in Shanghai, and thereby became acquainted with Lu Xun. In a letter of July 18, 1932, to Masuda Wataru, Lu Xun mentioned that he had met with her four or five times and that they had gone out to a Chinese restaurant once. He said that although he had not heard her express many views, she seemed disgusted with life in Tokyo.3 At the time of this composition, Yamamoto Hatsue had already embarked on her way back to Japan, so Lu Xun asked their mutual friend Uchiyama Kanz5 to forward this heptasyllabic quatrain to her there. Afterwards, the two kept up an active correspondence (twentyfour letters in total) in which Lu Xun criticized the repressive tactics of the Kuomintang government and spelled out his intent to take up the pen time and again in protest.4 This poem, though originally untitled, was probably assigned the name "Written after the January Twentyeighth Conflict" by Xu Guangping, when editing a collection of his previously unpublished works. For a brief summary of the events leading up to the hostilities in the Shanghai area, see chapter 24. During the fighting, Lu Xun found his flat in the line of fire, and he fled with his family into a branch store of Uchiyama's in the British concession of Shanghai. Although the Nineteenth Route Army resisted the Japanese valiantly and with more effect than had been previously anticipated, part of the city was decimated. Peace talks were convened only after almost two months of armed conflict, through the good offices of the League of Nations. Of 198

Verse in the Classical Style

199

these negotiations, Westel Willoughby writes: "The Shanghai Conference opened its negotiations for the cessation of hostilities on March 24. By this time f i g h t i n g between the Japanese and Chinese forces had largely ceased. . . . By March 30, the Conference was able to announce that an agreement had been reached for a definite cessation of hostilities b u t the formal agreement was not signed until May 5. "5 T h a t agreement, which brought the area a short-lived peace, offers the historical backdrop for this poem on the occasion of Yamamoto Hatsue's return to Japan from Shanghai.

Yamamoto Hatsue with her son.

200

The Lyrical Lu Xun

%

t Zhan

-

yun

zan

War-clouds

4 £

M. lian

can

temporarily rolled-back,

-

chun

zai,

dying-spring

remains,

^

m Zhong

pao

qing

Heavy

cannon,

light

-

ge

liang

arias — both

A # & # Wo

yi

wu

shl

I,

too,

am without

poem

fe

ji

$ -

[are/fall]

silent.

#

^ song

gul

ran.

-

to see-off returning

zhao, craft,

M, fa -f

Dan

cong

xln

di

zhu

But

from

heart's

depths

wish

Ping

The clouds of war withdrawn a while, 6 snatches of spring remain; Those heavy guns and arias— silence befalls the twain. 7 Nor do I have a single verse to offer as we part, 8 I can but wish you Godspeed, 9 from the bottom of my heart.

-

an.

peace/safety.

Verse in the Classical

Style

201

Notes 1. Riji, 2 0 . 1 9 b 2 - 3 . Her husband worked for a Sino-Japanese joint venture shipping firm which was disbanded after the January Twenty-eighth Conflict. See Xia Mingzhao, pp. 173—174. 2. Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, pp. 2 2 9 - 2 4 3 . 3- Shuxin j i , 2, pp. 1108—1109. Perhaps this means the "situation" in Tokyo. Although he was never completely sure of her politics, they carried on an extensive correspondence after Yamamoto's return to Japan, second in volume among Japanese friends only to Lu Xun's correspondence with Masuda Wataru, according to Rojin zenshu, 9, p. 534. 4. Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, p. 230. 5. Westel Willoughby, The Sino-Japanese Controversy and the League of Nations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1935), pp. 3 5 2 - 3 5 3 . 6. In view of the future turn of events that eventually led to a full-scale war after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on J u l y 7, 1937, less than a year after Lu Xun's death, the poet's phrase zhan yun zan lian ("the clouds of war withdrawn a while") rings with prophetic irony: Shanghai was eventually occupied by the Japanese. 7. The silence of heavy artillery is easily explained as a result of the cease-fire; that of the qing ge, literally rendered as "vocal arias," is subject to interpretation. Ni Moyan, on the one hand, asserts that the lack of songs is due to the sorrow of the people amid the desolate wreckage of their homes and formerly bustling market places (p. 131). Zhang Xiangtian, on the other hand, feels that qing ge refers to the high, clear pitch with which the lyricist Yamamoto Hatsue must have chanted her poems or sung songs before Lu Xun at a gathering of friends at one time or another during the course of her stay in Shanghai ([1972], 1, p. 241). The implication, according to Zhang, is that now that she is leaving, her works can be heard no more by Shanghai friends. The latter explanation seems most logical, given that this is an occasional verse. In my translation, I have employed the term "aria"—qing ge generally refers to a song sung without any sort of musical accompaniment. 8. A more literal rendering of this line might read: "Nor do I have a poem to offer the returning oar." Gui zhao ("returning oar") refers to the vessel that will carry Yamamoto back to her homeland and, in an extended sense, to the whole act of departure. 9. Ping-an (here translated "Godspeed") is a wish for safe travels. But it might also be understood as "peace," hence the extended meaning of "a peace between our peoples," or at least the hope that she will not be affected if the war clouds return, as they eventually did.

26. Laughing at My Own

Predicament

ij ^ (Zi chao) OCTOBER 1 2 , 1 9 3 2

Xun's diary, this poem was written out on the afternoon of October 12, 1932, 1 for Liu Yazi (1887-1958), 2 a poet and founding member of the Nanshe (Southern Society), a literary group organized on the eve of the 1911 Revolution. He had met Liu through his friend the author Yu Dafu. To the poem he appended a short statement regarding some background material about the event that had led to its composition, which reads: "Dafu treated [us] to a dinner; as we idlers were making up doggerel verses, I latched onto half a couplet and turned it into a complete regulated verse, which I present to Yazi for his correction." 3 Ni Moyan states that the half-couplet Lu Xun "latched onto" (the poet used the word tou, literally, "to steal") is the allusion from the Zuo zhuan in line six. 4 In 1932 Lu Xun wrote that under the last dynasty, "slaves" could but obey their superiors and never argue or talk back, but he intended this "historical observation" as a thinly veiled attack against the authorities of his own day. In fact, he held that the literary censorship and political persecution under the Kuomintang had reached beyond even the harshest periods in the Qing dynasty's literary inquisitions. Mills summarizes Lu Xun's views around the time of this poem's composition: ACCORDING TO LU

Censorship, he contended, was as old as recorded history in China. Official historians had constantly presented barbarians and thieves as heroes and saviors, and portrayed saviors as rebels and traitors. Throughout history facts had been distorted to widen the gap between rulers and the ruled. . . . One by one he exposed the techniques of literary inquisitions, past or present. He reviewed the pretexts and brutality that were employed. He discussed the forced confessions that were extracted 202

Verse in the Classical Style

203

and the current prejudices that were often involved. Though his talk was of the Ch'ien-lung Emperor's persecution of men like Feng Ch'iyen or Yin Chia-ch'uan, his target was clearly the government's drive against its enemies. He manipulated his language to play on the special terminology of the government. The point was not lost on his audience. He criticized censors, past or present, for the ignorance they chronically displayed toward their victims. . . . He vividly described the brutal methods used in the past against victims and his terminology was often so close to that of the present that it was censored. Lu Hsiin's audience might well have asked itself if the government's banning of Kuo Mo-jo's account of his own childhood or Lu Hsiin's creative works was any more justified than the Ch'ien-lung suppression of the complete works of Yin Chia-ch'uan.5 The imagery employed in this poem is highly suggestive of social protest, yet the poet is able to steer a course between bitter irony and frivolity by relying on tongue-in-cheek humor that tempers pride with modesty and rationalizes personal tragedy as matter-of-course. Lu X u n felt undeniable pressures at the time of this composition, and its import is not purely light-hearted "self-mockery," as the title may lead us mistakenly to conclude. As Xiao J u n (Hsiao Chun), a writer closely associated with Lu Xun in the mid-1930s, remarked in a 1981 talk at Asilomar, California: "If as in the poem, his hat were truly worn-out, he would not have continued to wear it; if the boat in the poem truly referred to a leaky boat, he would never have gotten on it in the first place—these are all symbols." This is not a symbolist poem, but it is one in which personal reality plays a major role through symbols. If the poem is read in this light, Lu Xun's main concerns at the time emerge as the overriding theme. In the January 1, 1932, New Year's edition of the biweekly magazine Zhongxuesheng [Middle-school student], which was aimed at a high-school-aged audience, Lu Xun answered the following question posed by the magazine's editor: "Suppose there were a middle-school student, growing up in this abnormally troubled era in which China is beset by both troubles from within and calamities from abroad, standing before you, Sir. W h a t would you advise him to take as the direction of his strivings?" His oft-quoted reply ran: "If I might, Sir, reply with a question of my own, it would be 'Is there any freedom of speech at present?' Were you to answer, 'No,' then I know you would not blame me for not making an utterance. But if you insist on eliciting a reply in the name of that middle-school student standing before me, then I would say that the first step is to strive to win the freedom of speech." 6

The Lyrical Lu Xun

204

3C

Yùn

jiao

£

£ ££ H ;fc

JUL. huà

-

gài

Fortunes crossed [by] Flower Canopy,

yù

he

qiü,

desire what [then] to seek?

M it m k e. yi

Wèi

Not yet

gàn

fan

daring

to turn

Pò

mao

Broken

hat

it

-

shén

body,

zhé

yan

covering

face,

pèng

tóu.

already

knocked

head.

guò

nào

shi,

Ì& If] t cross

noisy ci ty/market,

ilm n m it t /Jìiù.IL ih A t* Lòu

chuàn

zai

jiu

fan

zhòng

Leaky

boat

carrying

wine,

drift

mid

current.

Heng

mei

léng

dui

qian

fu

zhi,

Slanting

brows

coolly

face

thousand

men's

fingers,

it -tf- % m -f ^

Fü Bowing

shöu

gan

wei

head,

willingly

act as

ru

niu.

child's/ childrens'

w 3Ü 'h & A Duo

jin

Hide

inside

lóu

Guan

-

ta

-

töng,

small building, take on/create unity/consistency,

t fc

Caring not [ o f ]

chéng

ox.

dong

winter,

X # 4 xia

yu

chun

qiu.

summer,

and

spring,

fall.

Verse in the Classical Style

What's to be done under ill-boding stars with such a change of luck,7 Before I'd even dared rise up, my head already struck! A worn-out hat to cover my face, I cross the busy marketplace; 8 In a leaky boat loaded with wine, 'mid torrent float as though supine. 9 Eyes askance, I cast a cold glance at the thousand pointing fingers;10 But bowing my head, I gladly agree, an ox for the children to be.11 In a little garret hidden away, I make my bid at unité;12 Of outside climes, why care at all— be it winter, summer, spring, or fall.13

205

The Lyrical Lu Xun

206

Notes 1. The Chinese title of the poem, Zi chao, is often taken to mean "selfmockery" and has been translated as such by William R. Schultz. See Liu Wuchi and Irving Yucheng Lo, Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), pp. 509-510. I cannot agree that a literal rendering of the title is satisfactory, for the poem itself has a dimension above self-mockery, wherein the poet decries life under a repressive government. Strong protest is concealed in its facetious tone and heavy irony. 2. Riji, 20.20al0. 3. Ni Moyan, p. 133. 4. See Ni Moyan, pp. 141-144, for a discussion of which half-couplet Lu Xun may have been referring to here. 5. Mills, "Lu Hsiin," p. 275. 6. Quanji (1961), 4, p. 283. 7. Huagai, here rendered as "ill-boding stars," is "a group of nine stars said to form the canopy above the Celestial Emperor's heavenly throne," according to the Tianwen zhi [Astronomy monograph] as quoted in Zhang Xiangtian (1972) 1, p. 261. Lu Xun chose it as the title for two collections of miscellaneous essays written during 1925 and 1926. In the preface to the first of these, Lu Xun writes: "Though I've never studied fortune telling, old people say that sometimes one's fortunes come under the influence of "huagai luck." . . . Now for monks this is fine, to be under the huagai stars for them is an omen that they will become bodhisattvas or attain Buddhahood. But for lay folk it's disastrous; under the influence of the huagai stars, nothing seems to turn out right." Quanji (1961), 3, pp. 3-4. 8. Lu Xun often wore a tattered Western-style cloth hat that he called a "coolie's hat." In this line of the poem he describes himself pulling the hat down low (to avoid recognition) when venturing out into public places. Writing on the problems of Lu Xun's personal security during the period immediately following the poem's composition, Mills states: In this period he resigned himself to a role of judicious caution, feeling that no real protection was possible should the authorities decide to arrest him. Thus, when he went to the movies and theatre, he was cautious to avoid attracting attention. He was still cautious about who came to the house and at times he went out only at night and then only to his neighbor's Uchiyama Kanzo. He did not attend the secret meeting of the Congress Against Imperialist War in September 1933, although he was a member of its presidium, (p. 193) 9- The phrase "as though supine" is my own addition, which was deemed necessary to convey the import and force of the image Lu Xun evokes in this line, as well as the rhyme. Drifting in mid-current in a leaky boat

Verse in the Classical

Style

207

loaded with wine symbolizes an air of nonchalance amid a precarious situation. See Ni Moyan, p. 136. Ni states that the character fan (to float, drift) is used to describe Lu Xun's self-possession in the face of danger. Ni then quotes a line from Du Fu's poem Jing ji zudi Tang shiba shi jun, (Respectfully addressed to my third-cousin, Envoy Tang Shiba), "I can drift down amid the torrent," and directs the reader to Qiu Zhao'ao's traditional commentary thereon, which states: "This line describes someone drifting along calmly through perilous straits, alluding to his being unintimidated by powerful or evil people." 10. In this pair of antithetical lines Lu Xun uses zhi ("fingers") in juxtaposition to niu ("ox"), but there are those who would have zhi interpreted as a verb. Cf. Schultz' translation in Sunflower Splendor: "With knitted brows, frozen glances, the officials I accuse . . . " (p. 509). Were one to follow this line of interpretation, zhi would take on the meaning of "rebuke" or "point the finger at." See Han shu, juan 86, biography of Wang Jia. In Han shu (Taipei: Shixue chubanshe, 1974), 6, p. 3498. 11. The phrase wei ruzi niu (literally, "to serve as an ox for the child[ren]") is borrowed from the Ai Gong liunian zhuan [Biography of Duke Ai: year six} section of the Zuo zhuan, where a reference is made to the story of Duke J i n g of Qi, who took a rope into his mouth as a bit and reins while playing ox for his son. When the boy accidentally fell with a sudden jerk, the father lost a tooth or two. See James Legge, The Chinese Classics (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1970), 5, pp. 8 0 9 - 8 1 1 . This is an image of devotion to the young by a dedicated and self-sacrificing elder. See Lu Xun's letter of April 15, 1931, to Li Bingzhong, in Quanji (1981), 12, pp. 4 3 ^ 4 , where he discusses the necessity for a parent to work harder to provide for a child, after one has been born, using precisely this image and these words (wei ruzi niu). By extension, the phrase can be applied to Lu Xun's desire to encourage young writers and to stand up for the interests of the oppressed and downtrodden. Some speculate that it is merely a reference to Lu Xun giving a piggy-back ride to Haiying in the private world of his flat, but that seems unlikely in this context. Cf. Jenner, Lu Xun: Selected Poems, p. 138. Mao Tse-tung was to provide the orthodox interpretation of the couplet formed by this and the preceding line in his 1942 "Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art," where he used it to remind intellectuals of their place in the new order: Since integration into the new epoch of the masses is essential, it is necessary thoroughly to solve the problem of the relationship between the individual and the masses. This couplet from a poem by Lu Hsiin should be our motto: Fierce-browed, I coolly defy a thousand pointing fingers, Head-bowed, like a willing ox I serve the children. The "thousand pointing fingers" are our enemies, and we will never yield to them, no matter how ferocious. The "children" here symbolize

208

The Lyrical Lu Xun the proletariat and the masses. All Communists, all revolutionaries, all revolutionary literary and art workers should learn from the example of Lu Hsiin and be "oxen" for the proletariat and the masses, bending their backs to the task until their dying day.

The above is an English translation taken from Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), p. 231. The interpretation, of course, remains Mao's personal opinion. It is a latter-day reading stilted by his own political agenda, which was to ensure obedience to communism, not the sort of defiance of the status quo implied by the lines in their original context. 12. Xiao lou means literally a "small storied building," probably a reference to Lu Xun's apartment in Shanghai. I have translated it "garret" because this term suggests a writer's life. The last three characters of this line, cheng yitong, defy direct translation. Literally they mean "to become united." This has led to speculation that Lu X u n is making light of invective directed at his cohabitation with X u Guangping ("becoming united as one") by making a wordplay on the Kuomintang's favorite boast of having "unified China" after the completion of the Northern Expedition (1927). See Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, p. 264. But it seems unlikely that Lu X u n would confine his meaning to this alone, as the tone of the whole couplet is somewhat bitter. N i Moyan explains this line by saying that in those times Lu Xun's way of doing battle was to shut himself inside, p u t t i n g his all into his writings, and that "cheng yitong implies the oneness of purpose and dedication Lu X u n was able to achieve under these particular circumstances (pp. 139-141). O n e of the reasons Lu X u n moved to Shanghai in 1927 was to unite his own efforts with those of the leftist literary groups there, but this "unity" was never totally successful, either—another source of potential irony here. 13. That is to say, no matter what the ever-changing political climes m i g h t bring, Lu X u n intended to preserve his personal integrity and determination to write the truth about the society in which he lived. In his introduction to the Chinese short story anthology Straw Sandals (Cambridge: MIT, 1974), Harold Isaacs comments on this poem: "The final reference to 'spring and a u t u m n ' [chun qiu] is the use of the title of an old historical chronicle [The Spring and Autumn Annals] to say that the poet does not care what historians may say about him" (p. xxvi). Isaacs is at least partially correct in this assessment, although it is somewhat stretched syntactically, since it requires ignoring the characters dong xia ("winter and spring") which occur in the same line.

27.

Desultory Versifying on Professors

mtm^

(Jiaoshou zayong) DECEMBER 29, 1932, AND EARLY 1933

THE TITLE of this group of four poems in the pentasyllabic quatrain style was originally assigned only to the first two, which Lu X u n entered in his diary on December 29, 1932, stating they had been written "for {Zou} Mengchan and Baipin," respectively.1 The third and fourth poems in this group were written sometime in late 1932 or early 1933- Lu X u n once sent the whole set together to his friend X u Shoushang, who later identified the pundits as (Qian) Xuantong, Zhao Jingshen, (Zhang) Yiping, and (Xie) Liuyi. 2 Qian Xuantong (1887—1939) hailed from the town of Wuxing in Lu Xun's native province of Zhejiang. He had been studying in Japan around the turn of the century and, together with Lu X u n , had attended Zhang Taiyan's lectures on philology and politics. As an editor of the magazine Xin qingnian

[New youth}, he once attacked old-

style morality and advocated writing in the baihua (vernacular) language. In Lu Xun's preface to a collection of his own short stories titled Nahan

(usually translated Outcry or A Call to Arms), he records that a

certain Mr. J i n Xinyi (a cryptogram for Qian Xuantong) had urged him to contribute to the magazine, resulting in the creation of Lu Xun's Diary of a Madman

and other short stories. But from the latter

half of 1925 on, the two became estranged and developed a mutual contempt. Lu Xun felt Qian had sold out to the establishment and become too complacent in his post as chairman of the Chinese department at Peking Normal University. 3 Zhao Jingshen (1902—1985) was a professor at Shanghai's Fudan University and an editor for the Bei X i n Book Company, a progressive publisher. In an ongoing feud over theories on translation that Liang Shiqiu had launched against Lu X u n in 1929, 4 Zhao aligned himself with Liang, arguing that the most important aspect of translation is 209

210

The Lyrical Lu Xun

readability in the target language. Faithfulness to the original, Zhao argued, was of secondary importance. 5 Lu Xun's position was that the foremost goal of translation should be an accurate rendering of the original work into the target language, regardless of the unavoidable losses in elegance and readability. In his translation of foreign fiction and Russian literary theory, Lu X u n always endeavored to stay as close to the original as possible, terming this method yingyi ("hard," i.e., "direct" translation). Zhang Yiping (1902—1947), subject of the third poem, had been a student of Lu Xun's at Peking University, later becoming a professor of literature at Shanghai's J i ' n a n University, and also had connections with the Bei X i n Book Company. His admiration for "the great books of the world" (at the expense of those of China) led him eventually to the singular pronouncement that "we [Chinese] should come out and admit that we are far inferior to others in literature, art, and everything else." 6 Although constantly picking at other Chinese writers for their failure to increase their creative output, he was content to produce only a few trashy love stories. 7 Lu X u n felt that the closing of Bei Xin Book Company in 1932 was even more the fault of the general atmosphere created by editors like Zhao and contributors like Zhang than the direct result of an imbroglio over a Bei X i n children's book mentioning pork taboos that proved offensive to Chinese Muslims, who in turn mounted protests to the government against Bei Xin. 8 Though Zhang Yiping had, for a time, been a familiar visitor at the home of his teacher Lu Xun, from 1 9 3 0 onward their friendship dissolved. 9 X i e Liuyi (1896—1945), like Zhao Jingshen, was a professor at Fudan University and an editor at what was once the largest publishing house in the world—the Commercial Press in Shanghai. W h e n , as M i l l s writes, "provoked by the obvious success of left-wing w r i t i n g , N a n k i n g tried to launch an officially sponsored Nationalist Literature Movement in J u n e 1930," 1 0 Xie Liuyi became one of its earliest exponents. 11 Lu X u n contended that their self-proclaimed nationalism was only a mask for a movement directed against the Chinese left and the Soviet Union. 1 2 In a letter to Li Xiaofeng, he charged that they had "only a movement without a literature," 1 5 and he later excoriated it as being only so much "sediment stirred up from the bottom of a stagnant pond." 1 4 Lu X u n was exceptionally harsh with those whom he regarded as "turncoats," especially when he felt personally betrayed. He could, at times, be spiteful and cruel; emotions ran high during these polemics,

Verse in the Classical Style

211

and Lu Xun, more often than not, found himself the target of personal vendettas. Yet the extent to which he became involved in literaryworld mudslinging has left some historians with reservations about the direction of his talents. In any case, these poems are perhaps best viewed as a highly personal testimony to the times and the struggles in which Lu Xun was involved.

The Lyrical Lu Xun

212

# & * Zuò

fa

bu

Making

rules

do not

ij

ft

zi

bi,

self-execute,

Ì& W You

ran

guò

Ease

comfortably

pass

si

"f -

shi.

[the age of) forty.

fa He

-

fang

Prithee why not

DT

-

dang

To block/resist

dù

féi

wager [thy own] fat head,

bian

-

zheng

-

fa.

dialectics [doctrine of].

1. (On Qian Xuantong) You create "laws" you don't live by:15 Having eased past forty, you still don't die.16 Why not try wagering your own fat head Dialectics in its tracks to stop dead.17

tóu,

Verse in the Classical Style

T

213

^

-k

lian

zhT

nu

xlng,

[the}

Weaving

Maiden

Star—

#

Ke

-

Pitiable

4fc % $ ^ Hua

wei

ma

-

lang

Changed into [a]

horse-groom's

4k

*

I^J Wu

que

[The]

magpies

i

l Tiao

i

l tiao

[Across a] vast

y' suspect,

bil

3.

# fu. wife.

lai,

do not

* niu

nai

"Cow's

Milk

2. (On Zhao Jingshen) How piteous the star known as the Weaving Maid,18 Into a horse-groom's bride she's been transmogrified. 19 Dismayed, the magpies will ne'er bestride A "Cow's Milk Road" so vast and wide.20

lu.

The Lyrical Lu Xun

* Shi

you

wén

world

has

lettres studies,

-k Shào

nu

Young

maidens

W tâng

#

Bëi

-

xln

The N e w N o r t h

xué,

j3-

n

duo

fëng

tun.

many abundant derrières.

m

$

zhu

rou,

dài

Chicken soup takes the place

Jb

-

?£

ft

J'

#

j'è

-

[The]

X

t

of pork meat,

H

it sui thereupon

yân

-

men.

closed [its] doors.

3. (On Zhang Yiping) The world has its literature, 21 And girlies' voluptuous derrières' allure.22 With chicken soup galore, partake of pork no more;23 'Twas thus Bei Xin Bookstore thought best to close its door.24

Verse in the Classical Style

215

A

it

Ming

rén

xuàn

Famous

man

compiles

xiàn

-

Entry-boundaries

t Sul

you

Although

Wu

nài

'Tis of no help

t

yun

you

xiàn.

said

to have

limits.

wàng

it -

yuan

-

jing> scanning-distance-lens,

i -

f

t

^

have

M.

shuò,

xiào

fiction [anthology],

"¿r

A. Rù

< b

*JL

t jin

-

shi

[to} near-:sighted

-

yàn. eyes.

4. (On Xie Liuyi) Big-name editor compiles a short story anthology; Those who can make the grade, you claim, are a select company. 25 Though you have a spyglass for looking all around, By your sort of nearsight, you'll be forever bound! 26

216

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Riji, 20.38b8-9- [Zou] Mengchan (b. 1905) was a calligrapher from Yongjia in Zhejiang. See Quanji (1991), 15, p. 436. Baipin is unidentified. 2. Xu Shoushang, Renshi de, p. 71. 3. Ni Moyan, pp. 1 5 6 - 1 5 8 . 4. For a Lu Xun essay in answer to Liang, see " 'Hard Translation' and the 'Class Character of Literature,' " in Selected Works, 3, pp. 65—86. Those in answer to Zhao are available only in Chinese; see Quanji (1961), 4, pp. 270-278. 5. Ni Moyan, p. 159. 6. Ibid., p. 160. 7. Ibid. 8. Based on Lu Xun's letter of November 3, 1932, to Xu Shoushang in Quanji (1961), 9, p. 293- The book's title was Xiao zhu ba jie [Little pig of the eight prohibitions]. 9. Ni Moyan, p. 161. 10. Mills, "Lu Hsiin," p. 175. 11. Ni Moyan, p. 162. 12. Mills, pp. 1 7 5 - 1 7 6 . 13. Quanji (1961), 10, p. 36. The letter's date is January 23, 1931. 14. Quanji (1961), 4, pp. 2 5 4 - 2 5 6 . 15. This is a play on an idiom derived from the biography (no. 8) of the ruthless legalist Shang Yang in juan 68 of the Shiji [Records of the historian] by Sima Qian, zuo f a zi bi (literally, "to make laws killing oneself"), meaning that a lawmaker can eventually be caught in the web of his own statutes. See Shiji (Peking: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), 1, pp. 2 2 3 6 - 2 2 3 7 . 16. Professor Qian once quipped that "anyone who lives past the age of forty ought to be shot." See Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, p. 275. At the time of this poem's composition he was forty-five and still had not shot himself. 17. At Peking University, Qian was adamantly opposed to letting classes discuss Marx or Hegel, reportedly having announced: "Heads will have to roll before any class in dialectical materialism is given here!" (Ni Moyan, p. 157). In the original poem the word didang conveys more the sense of "to impede" than my stronger translation of "to stop [dialectics] dead in its tracks." 18. According to legend, two celestial bodies known as the zhinii xing ("weaving maid star") and the niulang xing ("cowherd boy star") once went to earth as human beings to indulge in connubial bliss. When found out by the Queen Mother of Heaven, they were ordered back into the sky and separated by the vast width of the Milky Way. Later they were permitted to meet once a year on the seventh eve of the seventh lunar month, when a large flock of magpies was said to form a bridge spanning the Milky Way, allowing them to cross. 19- Professor Zhao, contending that he stressed readability over accuracy in his translations from foreign tongues, once erroneously rendered the Ger-

Verse in the Classical Style

217

man word Zentaur (Centaur—the title of a novel by Frank Thiess) into Chinese as "banren banniu guai" (a monstrosity half-human and half-cow), rather than correctly denoting that the animal part is a horse. Here Lu Xun mocks him by changing the legendary cowherd into a horse-groom. See Ni Moyan, p. 160. 20. In rendering Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Zhao once translated the English term "Milky Way," referring to the distant stars and nebulae, literally into Chinese as niunai lu ("cow's milk road"), instead of giving the proper idiomatic rendering as yinhe. Thus Lu Xun conjures up a tongue-in-cheek tragedy for the two lovers spawned by mistranslation. If the magpies are in for such uncanny sights as a "Cow's Milk Road" and this strange horse-groom, the poet muses, they may become reluctant to form their customary intergalactic bridge for the lovers' annual crossing of the Milky Way! 21. This is a reference to Zhang's statement "We Chinese should come out and admit that we are far inferior to others in literature, art, and everything else," an outgrowth of his admiration for "the great books of world literature." See Ni Moyan, p. 160. 22. Here the poet harks back to a sentence in Zhang's book Zhen shang suibi [Random jottings upon the pillow] (Shanghai: Beixin shuju, 1929) where he waxes: "Ah, the effect of those lazy days of summer on a man! I don't even have the energy to rub a girl's bum!" Quanji (1991), 7, p. 436. 23. When picking up a sum of royalties at Bei Xin Book Company, Zhang Yiping reportedly said: "With all this money, I won't need to eat pork any longer; I can really drink up on the chicken soup" (Ni Moyan, p. 161). The mere mention of pork here, however, calls to mind the incident over Bei Xin's book about Muslims and pork taboos that caused such a snafu. Cf. Zhang Xiangtian (1972), 1, pp. 280-281. Cao Liwu (p. 117) says the line "With chicken soup galore, partake of pork no more!" comes directly out of the offending book, arguing that Zhang Yiping had a personal grudge against Bei Xin and took this out by planting offensive material in the book. 24. In Lu Xun's letter of November 3, 1932, to Xu Shoushang, he expresses disgust with Bei Xin's handling of the whole affair, saying that they should have run newspaper ads admitting their error, apologized to the Muslim groups, and destroyed their stocks of the offending book. Instead, they chose to bring business to a halt and refused to confront the problem—a tactic typical of their managers, he adds. See Quanji (1961), 9, p. 293. 25. Xie Liuyi compiled a lucrative short story anthology titled Mofan xiaoshuo xuan [A selection of exemplary fiction], in which he included only the stories of famous authors bound to sell, such as Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Ye Shaojun, Bing Xin, and Yu Dafu. This collection of big names reaped a large profit, which then went to the compiler, not to the authors. But what Lu Xun seemed to object to was that China was full of starving artists who needed a break but could not get it because of the greed of publishers and compilers for a quick profit. See Quanji (1961), 10, p. 36; also Mills, p. 15926. The last three lines of the poem are a spoof on Xie's preface to the short story anthology, which ran in part:

218

The Lyrical Lu Xun Opening up any biographical dictionary of Chinese authors now on the market gives one the impression that the number of writers in our country will soon equal the five hundred Lohans. Since I've only selected five of them for my book, I'm already braced for the impending reviling by the others. Moreover, I've even guessed that the first line of attack on me will be: "You've been so nearsighted!" But the fact of the matter is that I am far from being nearsighted; I even used a spyglass to scan the barren desert here in every direction. Now, it is an irrefutable fact that our writers are not limited to just these five, but my work in this undertaking has been the work of a craftsman. When a craftsman selects materials, he must be sure that they are up to his specifications. So I had to make bold and weed out the dead wood (as cited in Quanji [1991], 7, p. 436).

28. Hearsay (Suo wen) DECEMBER 31, 1932

THIS HEPTASYLLABIC QUATRAIN is one of five written out on December 31, 1932, by Lu X u n for some friends. The title comes from a later copy of the poem, also written in Lu Xun's own hand. 1 Like another poem he presented to a friend that same day, Da ke qiao [In answer to a gibe from a guest}, 2 "Hearsay," though first copied out for Uchiyama Kanzo's wife, 3 could in fact have been composed at some previous date closer to the event that inspired it. In his essay Huai jiu [Remembering the past], X u Shoushang reproduces this poem, adding the comment: "The poem offers a juxtaposition of loud and gaudy opulence with the silence of those who have no recourse. I think it must have been inspired by something he heard after the destruction of Zhabei [a prosperous area outside the foreign concessions, in what was then the socalled Chinese city of Shanghai] by the bombings during the January Twenty-eighth Conflict." 4 In the course of hostilities, the Japanese military had unleashed much sophisticated weaponry upon Shanghai's beleaguered defenders and systematically targeted civilian areas (especially Zhabei) for bombing. The subject of this quatrain is a girl servant in the home of a wealthy Chinese, possibly resident in the International Settlement, that had been spared the bombing. The time is after the cessation of hostilities, when all had returned to "normal." Lu X u n was particularly sensitive to the plight of women in China. H e authored a number of essays addressing feminist concerns, such as "My Views on Chastity," 5 " W h a t Happens after Nora Leaves H o m e , " 6 "The Collapse of Lei Feng Pagoda (nos. 1 and 2)," 7 "Inferring our N o n adherence to the 'Doctrine of the Mean' in China through a Look at the Feet of Chinese Women and from this Postulating the Existence of Confucius' Gastronomic Ailments," 8 and "Shanghai Girls" 9 (which 219

220

The Lyrical Lu Xun

dealt specifically w i t h the sexualization of l i t t l e g i r l s in treaty port society). In the last article he m a d e an observation that seems g e r m a n e to the u n d e r s t a n d i n g of this p o e m : It is not only the demon king in the Pilgrimage to the West who insists, when he wants human flesh, on eating boys and girls. In the homes of the rich and great here on earth, they have always taken young girls to wait on them, satisfy their lust, show their superiority, seek immortality and restore their vitality, just as those who are tired of ordinary fare like suckling pigs or tippy tea. Today this is true of shopkeepers and workmen as well; but it is the result of the frustration of their life, and should be compared with the search of starving men for roots and bark. It has nothing in common with the way in which the rich and great satisfy their lust. But in brief, even young girls in China are in danger. This danger makes them mature even earlier, so that in spirit they are women, while their bodies are still those of children. The Russian writer Sologub once created a girl of this type, describing her as a child with grown-up eyes. Our Chinese writers, though, use different, approving terms like "pert and petite." 1 0

Verse in the Classical Style

221

^

m

Hua

deng

zhao

yan

Flowery

lamps

shine on

feast

-k m

8£ & PI

g

chang

hao

open-wide great gates [house],

£ #

i

Jiao

nu

yan

zhuang

shi

yu

Tender

girl

precise

in attire

waits on

jade

K 'ft" 'It 11 Hu

yi

Suddenly remembers

#

qing

qln

dear

relatives

% £

men,

# y*rr>

zun. 1

flagons.

i

jiao

tu

scorched

earth

&

rain?

Yangtze-south-[of]

X % M & 3c i * % You

wei

si

min

ku

jian

Again

for

this

people

cry [for]

stalwart

Gone, I thought, impassioned moods like those of long ago: Flowers blossomed, flowers f e l l — and of their own did so. 11 That tears would fall 'mid southern rain— how was I then to know 1 2 Our people's loss of a dauntless son could plunge me again to woe? 1 3

-

er. son/man.

Verse in the Classical Style

263

Notes 1. Boorman, Biographical Dictionary, 4, p. 4. 2. Mills, "Lu Hsiin," p. 293. 3. Boorman, Biographical Dictionary, 4, p. 6. 4. Mills, "Lu Hsiin," pp. 296—297. Mills notes that "Yang had a license number and other information linking Ma Shaowu, secret service agent of the Kuomintang Central Headquarters then attached to the Bureau of Public Safety in Shanghai, to the kidnapping." 5. Quanji (1961), 10, p. 150. The letter is addressed to the Liuhua she (Pomegranate Blossom Society), publishers of an art magazine in Taiyuan concerned with woodblock prints. 6. See Lu Xun's letter of June 25, 1933, to Masuda Wataru. Shuxin ji, 2, pp. 1135-1138. 7. Xu Shoushang, Wangyou, p. 102. 8. For a photostatic copy, see Shi jian: fu shigao, pp. 113—114. 9. Riji, 21.20b8-910. Ni Moyan, p. 186. 11. The first two lines suggest the poet was hardened by suffering, tragedy, and loss over the years and had come to feel that getting worked up over such things could have little or no effect on their final outcome. In a preface to the works of the martyred father of Chinese Marxism, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun wrote on the night of May 29, 1933: But the blood of revolutionary pioneers is no longer a novelty. Take my own case, for example. Seven years ago, on account of a few martyrs, I gave vent to a good deal of stirring, empty talk. Since then I have grown accustomed to stories of electric torture, firing squads, decapitation, and secret murders. By degrees my sensibility has become so numbed that nothing shocks me any more and I have nothing to say. I fancy the "vast crowds" who, according to the papers, go to see the heads displayed as a public warning can hardly feel more excited than during a lantern festival. Too much blood has flowed. {Selected Works, 3, pp. 259-261) 12. Jiangnan ("South of the Yangtze River") means, by extension, southern China; hence jiangnan yu becomes "southern rain." As Xu Shoushang records, it was raining the day they paid a last tribute to Yang Quan. This line also carries the import of the heavens weeping or the poet's tears streaming down like southern rain. Yet I think it best understood literally as "How could I have expected that [my own] tears would fall 'mid the southern rain?" in order to bring out the effect this loss has had on the poet, who once thought himself already too n u m b for grief and too cynical for such outpourings of emotion. 13. Si min ("this people") refers to the people of China.Jian'er literally means "strong son" but according to ancient usage is a laudatory term for a

264

The Lyrical Lu Xun

strong and courageous warrior. See Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, pp. 117-118. Feng Xuefeng notes that after Yang's assassination, while Lu Xun still felt his own life in danger, he reminisced about Yang, telling Feng: That a man like him [Yang], who was originally a Kuomintang person, would come to sympathize with the Communists I feel could only be owing to his concern for the interests of the Chinese people. . . . To be for the interests of the people is, at present, the foremost thing. The reactionaries can only worry about how to keep ahold of their power, even at the expense of the national interest. We, in contrast, are for both revolution and the national interest. The point is that revolution is for the Chinese people. Huiyi Lu Xun [Remembering Lu Xun] (Peking: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1957), pp. 42^43. Although Feng was a "liberal" communist and later purged for his deviations, his reminiscences of Lu Xun have been criticized for their left-wing biases by scholars outside China. Nevertheless, the degree of Lu Xun's shock and anger at Yang Quan's murder is clear from the text of the poem itself.

Lu Xun and the soon-to-be-slain human rights activist Yang Quan, February 1933.

38. Inscription for the Stupa of the Three Fidelities (Ti San yi ta) JUNE 2 1 , 1 9 3 3

THE BOMBING of Shanghai by Japanese planes in 1932, during the hostilities referred to as the January Twenty-eighth Conflict, reduced many homes to piles of scorched rubble. Most affected was the Zhabei section of the Chinese city, where there lay a street known as San yi li ("Three Fidelities Lane"). Nishimura Makoto ( 1 8 8 3 - 1 9 5 6 ) , a Japanese biology professor then in Shanghai as head of a fact-finding delegation sent by Mainichi Shinbun, was walking through the bombed-out area when he spotted a domesticated dove perched amid the ruins of what he took to be the home of its former owner. He assumed that the dove had winged its way out of the death trap while the fighting raged and returned home after the bombing had ceased. Taking pity on the dove and moved by the uncertain fate of its owners, Dr. Nishimura brought it home with him and later took it back to Japan, planning to breed it with Japanese doves as a symbol of his hopes for peace between the two countries. 1 "At first it got on well," writes Lu Xun, "but later it passed away."2 According to Ni Moyan, the Japanese peasants in the area where Nishimura lived were much taken with the story of this dove, and, assuming that it had died out of homesickness for its country and original owner, they deemed it a "faithful dove" and enshrined its remains in a specially built stupa, which was named San yi ta ("Stupa of the Three Fidelities"), to commemorate both the dove's home and its loyalty thereto. 3 All we know for certain, however, is that some peasants assisted Nishimura in placing a rather weighty tombstone atop a small burial mound that housed the dove's remains. The word "stupa" (ta) in the title of the poem may have been chosen by Lu Xun as a poetic term for the dove's grave, rather than the more common word "burial mound" (zhong), which is generally used when referring to the final resting places of pets. 265

266

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Judging from the details of the incident, the sentiments expressed here are not confined to those of two commiserating animal lovers. Nishimura had been in Shanghai since early 1932. In his capacity as a medical investigator he bore witness to the human misery caused by the Japanese attack on Shanghai. 4 Based on Lu Xun's diary, we have no indication that he ever met with Nishimura in person. But he did receive three letters from him, the first of which included a sketch of the dove.5 On June 9, 1933, Lu Xun's diary records the receipt of a letter from Nishimura, which probably mentioned the death of the dove and the proposed burial mound, asking Lu Xun to contribute a poem for its dedication or as an inscription to be placed on the tombstone. On June 21, Lu Xun sent Nishimura a copy of this poem, written on a scroll. The dove's grave and tombstone are, today, still intact in Japan. But the "inscription," were it actually intended as such, was never carved on the stone. This heptasyllabic regulated verse, containing Buddhist terms used in common between the Chinese and Japanese, provides an example of Lu Xun's internationalist spirit and humanist world-view. Stylistically, it represents a high level of accomplishment in the use of traditional imagery in a modern context, a challenge taken up by some of the poets of the late Qing era and continued by Lu Xun.

Lu X u n photographed on M a y Day, 1933.

H.

PS 4 h É?

^

y >

Ad designed by Lu X u n for an exhibition of the woodblock prints of Käthe Kollwitz ( 1 8 6 7 - 1 9 4 5 ) , the German artist whose works Lu X u n had published at his own expense in 1936.

268

The Lyrical Lu Xun

tin* Ben

ting

Dashing thunderbolt

It Bài Caved-in

# jing wells

fei

biao

jian

flying

flame

annihilate

m tui collapsed

zhi

By chance meets

&

Zhòng

In

Jg Spirit

yuan

great/kind

heart

A

T

tà

lofty

stupa

sheng

e

P/

leaving

zhai,

fiery

dwelling,

Ying

iue

reng

xian

shi,

as before

carries

pebbles,

JL

iA

L

gong

kang

Fighting

warriors

true

together

resist

jin

Passing

over

«

liu. flow/tide

£

JL lie

bo

xiong

di

zai,

brothers

[will]

remain,

%

it Xiang

féng

Together m e e t i n g ,

zhou.

£

m

chéng

DÙ

j^I -

commemorating [ i n ] Japan.

shi

1L

dove.

huo

Dòu

•it

jiu.

£

¥t

fowl/bird in dream

i

4

•A

gao

meng

zi,

sons-of-man,

walls remains-alive hungry

xin

%

qin

-

a .

da

-jfc 3Ì y1'

In the end is left

ren

^

-K

tè Óu

a

m

y1 one

min smile

en

-

chou.

wash-away feelings of enmity.

Verse in the Classical Style

269

Lu Xun prefaced the poem: "The Stupa of the Three Fidelities was built with the help of peasants in Japan; here the remains of a dove from Three Fidelities Lane in the Zhabei section of Shanghai, China, are interred."

Dashing thunder and flying flame 6 leave mortal men slain; 'Mid crumbling walls and caved-in wells a hungry dove remains. By chance he meets a kindly heart and leaves the fiery dwelling; In old Nippon a lofty tomb commemorates our starveling. Were he to wake as though from dream, the dove's shade would carry pebbles;7 And stand with comrades resolute— 'gainst tide and flood as rebels.8 We brothers will yet see the day when stormy surges all abate;9 On reuniting, with one smile, we'll wash away the hate. 10 To the poem, he appended the following remark: After the fighting in Shanghai, Dr. Nishimura found a homeless dove, which he then took back to Japan with him to raise. At first it got on well, but later it passed away, so a stupa was erected in which to bury the dove. Asked to supply a verse for the stupa, I scratched out this poem in response to these sentiments from afar. postscript by Lu Xun on this 21 J u n e 1933

270

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Xia Mingzhao, p. 250. 2. This line is taken from a statement appended to the poem by Lu Xun. A translation appears in this chapter, following the text of the translated poem. 3. See Ni Moyan, pp. 188-191. 4. Nishimura received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He was also a part-time artist and student of Buddhist philosophy. See Xia Mingzhao, pp. 2 4 9 - 2 5 0 . 5. Riji 21.14bl—2. This is the entry for April 29, 1933. 6. Ben ting ("dashing thunder") and fei biao ("flying flame") are metaphors for bombs dropped by enemy planes during the aerial bombardments of Shanghai. 7. Literally translated, this line would read: "If the bird's jing ("spirit") were to awaken as if from dream, it would yet carry pebbles in its beak." This is an allusion to the story of Nii Wa, daughter of Emperor Yan, which is found in the ancient Chinese mythological text Shanhai jing [Classic of mountains and seas], juan 3, "Beishan jing," 12a 7—10. The girl was drowned while swimming in the Eastern Sea. It is said that after death, her spirit manifested itself as a bird called jingwei, which was seen carrying stones from the Western Hills in its beak with the intention of gradually filling in the Eastern Sea. It seems the girl's spirit wanted revenge on the sea for taking her life as a human. In China tht jingwei bird became a symbol of diehard determination. Lu Xun here uses the allusion to praise the dedication and persistence of those who continue to work for peace, opposing the Japanese government's militaristic and aggressive policies toward China. See Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 125. 8. That is to say, those among the populace in China and Japan who oppose the imperialist war are working together. See Ni Moyan, p. 190. 9- Here Lu Xun invokes a Buddhist image—jiebo (from the Sanskrit kalpa), which I have rendered as "stormy surges"—to describe the mounting hostilities between China and Japan. The term itself originally denoted various natural disasters that beset mortals. See Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, p. 130. 10. Though an advocate of resistance to Japanese aggression, Lu Xun always distinguished between the innocent common people of Japan and the warmongers who controlled their government. A good example is a cable he is said to have sent to the family of martyred Japanese writer Kobayashi Takiji (1903-1933), a victim of police brutality. Kobayashi, a member of the Communist Party of Japan since 1931 and general secretary of the Proletarian Writers' Guild, was beaten to death after his arrest by Japanese authorities. The text of Lu Xun's telegram expressing his condolences appears in Lu Xun shuxin xuan [Selected letters of Lu X u n ] (Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1973), p. 7 2 . 1 translate from it on p. 271:

Verse in the Classical Style

271

The peoples of China and Japan are as close as brothers, but the bourgeoisie, seeking to deceive the people, is separating us by a chasm filled with blood. Moreover, they are presently in the process of widening that chasm. Yet the proletariat and its vanguard are using their own blood to destroy the chasm. Comrade Kobayashi Takiji's death is a proof of that. All this we know and shall not forget. Resolute, we walk hand-in-hand forward on the path laid down by Comrade Kobayashi Takiji's blood.

Left to right. Agnes Smedley (seated); George Bernard Shaw; Soong C h ' i n g ling; Harold Isaacs; Lin Yutang; center foreground. Cai Yuanpei; extreme right. Lu X u n . February 17, 1933-

39. Untitled AM (Wuti) JUNE 2 8 , 1 9 3 3

Lu X U N RECORDED this pentasyllabic quatrain in his diary on June 28, 1933, as having been "written for Pingsun." 1 Yu Dafu had conveyed a request for a sample of calligraphy to Lu Xun from "a youth named Huang Pingsun." 2 Huang, at the time, was working for the progovernment fortnightly Yue feng (Wind of Yue or The Ways of Yue); the name Yue derived from that of an ancient kingdom during the Spring and Autumn periods ( 7 2 2 - 4 8 1 B.C.) that lay in the region of modern Zhejiang province. Lu Xun hailed from this area himself, and he identified with scholar-gentry tradition there, especially that of the Kuaiji (Shaoxing) locale, on which he had undertaken a number of specialized research studies in the past. After receiving the poem, Huang Pingsun made a zincographic reproduction of it, which he eventually ran on the cover of his magazine in order to gain publicity and boost sales through its notoriety. The greatest incongruity, which seemed not to bother Huang in the least, was that the poem lambastes government policy in no uncertain terms. But this was seemingly inconsequential to the editors of the periodical; either that or they failed to contemplate the deeper meaning behind the allusions employed. After this initial response, Huang tried repeatedly to solicit more contributions from Lu Xun, who did not reply to his requests until February 10, 1936, in a letter couched in sarcastic classical jargon, which I translate below: Pingsun, My Good Sir: Thrice were your gracious missives received, all in good order. Yet because of your humble servant's connections with the China Freedom League, an order was issued at the behest of the Zhejiang [Kuomintang} Party Headquarters for my arrest. "Kuaiji in Yue is a place where righteous vengeance is sought to cleanse the shameful fdth of

272

Verse in the Classical

Style

273

disgrace!" 3 As a man of Yue, I cannot forget this sacred obligation. So under the reign of this lot I can but allow them to do their own ranting. I fear I must postpone repayment of your magnanimous gestures until some later date. The above, in special reply to you; wishing you peace amid your compilations, I remain, Respectfully yours, Lu Xun February 10, 1936 4 The gist of this letter indicates that Lu X u n was aware by then, at least, that the editorial board of Yue feng were in league w i t h the Zhejiang Kuomintang party headquarters and that he would, therefore, not consider sending them anything else. 5 But after receiving this letter, H u a n g Pingsun persisted in w r i t i n g yet again to ask for more contributions to the magazine. 6 Later Lu X u n wrote a short statement concerning this affair, unpublished until after his death, which runs: When I joined the Freedom League, two Zhejiang natives, Xu Shaodi of Taizhou and Ye Suzhong from Wenzhou, scurried off to the authorities in Nanking, suggesting that a warrant be issued for my arrest. As a result, Xu rose in the officialdom to head the Zhejiang office of public education, and Ye got a high position in the government-run Zhengzhong Book Company. Then there was Huang Pingsun [of Hangzhou, also in Zhejiang], who, at the beck and call of Xu and Ye, ran a tabloid that was to attack me twice a month for a salary of thirty yuan. Surprisingly enough, he [Huang] got his career off to a good start this way, later becoming a minor official on the board of public education. He edited Yue feng, which requested articles from "big-name authors." Writing on tales of [ancient] heroism and famous anecdotes from the past, he had forgotten about the land from which he hailed. [It used to be said that] "Kuaiji in Yue is a place where righteous vengeance is sought to cleanse the shameful filth of disgrace!" Yet when one is confronted by the likes of so insignificant a lapdog, 7 one is always in a quandary as to how, exactly, to deal with him. 8 Lu Xun's feelings toward H u a n g Pingsun aside, this poem is an indictment of the Nationalist government's pursuit of the civil war in the face of Japanese aggression and military encroachment on China. 9 It is also an attack on Nanking's repressive policies toward freedom of the press. For an illustration of the second point as well as to explain Lu Xun's use in the poem of the term wo lu ("snail shell"), we should look at his preface to a collection of his own essays, Er xin ji [Two hearts, i.e., "double allegiance"], written on April 30, 1932: By 1930 periodicals were growing rare and some could not come out on time, largely because of the daily increasing repression. The

274

The Lyrical Lu Xun Tattler and Torrent were confiscated so often by the post office and banned by so many local authorities that they simply could not carry on. The only magazine left in which I could write was Sprouts, but after five numbers that too was banned, and we brought out New Territory. Hence this volume contains less than ten short articles written that year. I also gave a few talks in different schools, but nobody took notes, and today I myself have forgotten on what subjects I spoke. All I remember is that in one university I talked on "Ivory Towers and Snail Shells." I argued that there could be no ivory-tower art in China because we lacked a suitable environment, lacked even the site for an ivory tower, all we could expect in the near future were probably a few "snail shells." By snail shells I meant the sort of thatched hut to which Jiao Xian, the "recluse" of the Three Kingdoms period, retired. It must have been rather like the hovels put up by poor folk north of the Yangtze, only smaller; and he spent all his time crouching there, seldom emerging or stirring, going without food, clothes and conversation. For in such a time of murder and looting, of internecine strife between warlords, that was the only way for a dissident to survive. But as a world of snail shells had no art, if we went on like this we could be certain that China would have no art. This speech of mine already smacked strongly of snail shells. Still, before long I was surprised to find myself criticized in the governmentsponsored Republic Daily in Shanghai by a courageous young man who declared that he despised me utterly because I dared not talk like a Communist. For those living in our Kuomintang party-state after the "purge of the party," to talk about communism is a great crime, and a net has been cast all over China for the capture and execution of those who do so; yet unless I do so I am despised by courageous young men loyal to our party-state. All I can do is change into a real snail. This is my only chance to escape denunciation. 1 "

Verse in the Classical Style

275

^ ^ I t Yu

yu

[Over] Yu's realm

m

J

Wo

. lu

duo

fei

t -

jiang,

many "Flying General[s],"

Br 'A & sheng

yi

-

min.

[In] a snail's hut survive[s} recluse[s]/refugee[s].

i Ye

t

% Jk

yao

tan

[ B y ] night invite[s]

m

- i f Xuan

-

jiu

di

pond-bottom

Y' n g> reflection,

%

^ song

[With] murky wine to toast

$

huang

^ ren.

emperor's mercy.

O'er the Realm o f Y u , 1 1 many Flying Generals zoom. 1 2 Yet in some snail shell down below, a recluse has eluded doom. 1 3 B y night he invites his reflection in a pool 14 To toast with heaven's wine 1 5 The Emperor's merciful rule. 16

The Lyrical Lu Xun

276

Notes 1. Riji, 2 1 . 2 2 a l - 2 . 2. Ni Moyan, p. 194. Xu Guangping writes: He "called himself'a youth' in asking for the calligraphy because Lu Xun always did anything he could for young people." Quoted in Xia Mingzhao, p. 255. 3. This is a quote from the time of the Ming dynasty's defeat at the hands of the Manchus. In 1645, after the Qing (Manchu) troops took Nanking, the Ming prime minister Ma Shiying fled into Zhejiang. Wang Siren (d. 1646), a loyalist scholar, admonished him in a letter, saying: "When a strong enemy came, you shrunk back and fled. . . . [Now] you seek refuge in my homeland of Yue. [ B u t ] Yue is a land where righteous vengeance is sought to wipe away the shameful filth of disgrace!" Quoted in Quanji (1991), 13, p. 306. 4. Chinese text of letter in ibid. 5. Xia Mingzhao (p. 256) says the poem was not actually run on the cover of Yue feng until no. 21 (October 31, 1936). 6. Ni Moyan, p. 195. 7. Lu Xun uses these dogs as a symbol of all who fawn on the rich or powerful and bully the unfortunate. 8. This is translated as it appears in Quanji (1991), 8, p. 404. 9- See the discussion in chapter 31 for more information on Lu Xun's attitude toward the bombings. Also see Selected Works, 3, pp. 2 3 7 - 2 3 8 , "The Chinese People's 'Lifebelt' "; and the later essay "A Kingly Culture" on pp. 2 4 4 - 2 4 5 ; Chinese texts in Quanji (1991), 5, pp. 9 8 - 1 0 0 , 135-137. 10. The "purge" referred to is Chiang Kai-shek's 1927 putsch. This translation is taken from Lu Hsun: Writing for the Revolution (San Francisco: Red Sun Publishers, 1976), pp. 6 - 7 . Also in Selected Works (1980), 3, pp. 176-17911. Yu yu ("Realm of Yu") is another name for China. Yu, a legendary figure, succeeded in curbing great floods with the use of channeling and thus became the first emperor of the Xia dynasty (c. 2205 B.C.). He used natural boundaries to divide China into nine sections called the jiu zhou ("nine provinces"). To honor his accomplishments, the country was sometimes called the Realm of Yu. Here the poet invokes his name as an example of a benevolent ruler in the past who did things for the people, in contrast to the rulers in Lu Xun's day who did things to the people. Cf. chapter 34, note 2. 12. The term fei jiang ("flying general") here refers to bomber pilots, but it originates in the nickname "Flying General of the Han," given to the Han dynasty military commander Li Guang (d. 119 B.C.) by the non-Chinese Xiongnu, who were awed by his prowess in battle. According to his biography (no. 49) in juan 109 of the Shiji [Records of the historian], for many years these foreign invaders sought to avoid him, daring not intrude into the northern regions under his control. He was an advocate of resisting China's foes rather than of policies of appeasement: Shiji (Peking: Zhonghua, 1959), 6, pp. 2867—2879. It is with bitter sarcasm that Lu Xun applies this nickname to

Verse in the Classical Style

277

China's military commanders, who were weak-kneed in the face of Japanese aggression but fierce in dealing with their own people, or to the bomber pilots of the Nationalist air force, who kill their own people rather than resist the enemy from without. For the latter view, see Zhou Zhenfu, pp. 136—137. Cf. Ni Moyan, p. 193, who argues that it may apply to the Imperial Japanese air force as well. 13- Theyimin are either recluses or refugees, dwelling in huts resembling snail shells. Perhaps the poet identifies with the common people, who must live under constant threat of bombings by both the Chinese and Japanese air forces, just as he is threatened in different ways in Shanghai. See Selected Works, 3, pp. 2 3 7 - 2 3 8 . O f course, Shanghai was bombed as well (by the Japanese). 14. Zhang Xiangtian quotes X u Guangping as saying: "The two concluding lines are a depiction of a large empty space in front of the place [we] lived at that time in Dalu xincun [the "Continental Terrace," an apartment complex in Shanghai], Whenever it rained a big puddle formed, around which frogs croaked" (Zhang Xiangtian [ 1 9 7 3 ] , 2, p. 143). This implies that Lu X u n is the only one doing any mock toasting. One might agree with Ni Moyan, however, in imagining the unindicated subject of this couplet to be the various isolated survivors of the bombings (pp. 193—194); the translation reads either way. Ito Masafumi rejects the view that this refers to Lu Xun, arguing that yimin connotes the common people or figures like Boyi or Shuqi of old, who became recluses to avoid serving the Zhou conquerors. See Rojin zenshu, 9, pp. 5 6 3 - 5 6 4 . 15. I have rendered xuanjiu as "heaven's wine," an old English euphemism for plain, ordinary water. The Chinese term xuanjiu is deceptive in that the characters literally mean "dark or murky wine," but in fact refer to water. This line about offering a toast of water to the benevolence of an emperor whose weapons have just chanced to spare the humble abode of someone living on the margins of society drips with sarcasm. 16. When Lu Xun wrote out this verse, he left a blank space before the character huang ("emperor"), carrying on an old practice in written style that is supposed to indicate the writer's respect for an emperor, president, and so forth. See Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 126. But it is used by Lu Xun as a device for heightening the satire of the Kuomintang in this line: they still carry on such formalistic conventions from the old imperial era while styling themselves revolutionaries, the poet implies. The Japanese emperor Hirohito might be counted a recipient of this toast as well as Chiang Kai-shek. A two- or even three-pronged attack should not be ruled out here, even though its thrust is aimed at the Kuomintang. Lu Xun may also have intended a jab at Pu Yi, puppet ruler of Manchukuo, for the Japanese were then bombing Chinese "bandits" in the region of Rehe (Jehol), adjacent to Manchukuo. Again, see his essay "The Chinese People's 'Lifebelt'," in Selected Works, 3, pp. 237—238. At this time the Yao minority people were being obliterated in the Kuomintang's bombing of Guangxi, which the government referred to as "the lenient, benevolent policies [toward minorities] of a kingly culture." See Lu Xun's essay "A Kingly Culture" (cited in n. 9).

40. A Lament for Ms. Ding (Dao Ding jun) JUNE 2 8 , 1 9 3 3

DING LING is the pen name of the well-known feminist writer Jiang Bingzhi (1904—1986). Her husband, Hu Yepin, was among the group collectively known as the "Five Martyrs," which included Rou Shi (see chapter 14). After his execution, Ding joined the Communist Party in 1931. She played an important role in the League of Left-Wing Writers as editor of its official publication Beidou [The dipper]. On May 14, 1933, she was abducted by order of the Kuomintang authorities from the International Settlement in Shanghai. 1 O f this and later events, Mills writes: "She was arrested in 1933 and later released under circumstances which are still unclear. She went to Yenan where she was an important literary figure. Her long identification with a group opposed to Chou Yang's rather rigid stand on matters of literary theory finally brought her at least temporary punishment and eclipse in the anti-rightist campaigns of the mid-fifties. She has written some good descriptions of family and rural life." 2 Lu Xun was infuriated at the authorities' brazen use of strong-arm tactics and blatant disregard for human rights in this case. In a letter of June 26, 1933, he wrote to Wang Zhizhi: "Protests over the Ding [Ling] affair are of no use. W h y would the authorities pay attention to protests? Whether she is now dead or alive is not clear. Actually many people are constantly disappearing in Shanghai, but because they are unknown, they pass unmentioned. Yang Quan was one of those working hardest for Ding Ling's rescue." 3 Speculating on her fate at the hands of the authorities, he wrote to Lei Ruying on May 1, 1934, nearly a year after her disappearance: "Ding Ling has been arrested, and whether she still lives or is dead already cannot be determined. In working for [the good of} society, the ultimate goal is, of course, not to give up one's life—all those sacrificed 278

Verse in the Classical Style

279

are killed by others. If by chance, they could be spared, but this would lead to the detriment of society, they would rather choose instead to give up their lives." 4 In the postscript to Wei ziyou shu [False liberty}, a collection of his essays, he added: "Then there is this business of the disappearance of Ding Ling and Pan Zinian. Everyone figures they have been done in and the evidence for that conclusion is mounting daily." 5 Finally, in an essay on being inoculated against smallpox written on J u n e 30, 1933, he noted, with regard to his having reached the age of fifty: "A whole fifty years is microscopic when calculated against the age of our globe, but when speaking in terms of human history, it's half a century. Rou Shi, Ding Ling, and the others never had the chance to live this long." 6 According to his diary, Lu Xun wrote out this heptasyllabic quatrain "for Taoxuan" on June 28, 1933. 7 It was not until September 4, 1934, that we have an indication that he had learned the true nature of Ding Ling's fate. In a letter of that date, he wrote to Wang Zhizhi: "Ding Ling is definitely alive and well, but in the future we can expect no more writing from her, or at least not of the sort she did before. This is the price of her being kept alive and well." 8 To that he added, in November of 1934, his suspicion that "the government was now maintaining" her (zhengfu zai yang ta).9 Despite this, the fact that Lu Xun sought to have this heptasyllabic quatrain published in September of 1933 shows that he still felt very strongly about the incident and the sentiments expressed in the poem. 10 In December of 1934, though knowing fully well that Ding Ling had not been martyred, he made some minor alterations that did not affect the poem's meaning and included it in his Jiwai ji [Collection of uncollected work}. That it was subsequently omitted from collections of his works and selections of his poetry was solely because of Ding Ling's post-Liberation misfortunes.

280

-kv

The Lyrical Lu Xun

#

Ru

pan

ye

Like/as

flagstone

night

liu

Trimming-willow

chun

feng

spring

wind

se

ning

dao

m

chen

#

&

-k

liar

Lamentable that

there is no woman

lou,

Jl

qing

Inlaid

Ke

chong

qiu.

¿4-

WL Yao

ya

^ JH

1 " Jian

qi air/sense

n

XL?

ft

yuan

jue,

sorrow

ceases,

ifj

yao

gao

qiu

to shine

on high high

hills.

On storied buildings endless night weighs down like flagstones overhead; 11 Spring's breeze that once shaped willow trees to autumn's ninety days has led. 12 The inlaid zither now dust-choked, its clear and poignant music stops; 13 Alack that we're without the maid who lit up lonely mountain tops! 14

Verse in the Classical

Style

281

Notes 1. See Mills, "Lu Hsiin," p. 297. 2. Ibid., p. 296. 3. Shuxin j i , 1, p. 384. Yang Quan was himself murdered (see chapter 37). 4. Quanji (1961), 10. p. 229. 5. Quanji (1961), 5, p. 128. Postscript dated J u l y 20, 1933. 6. Quanji (1961), 7, p. 652. 7. Riji, 21.22a2—4. This is Zhou Taoxuan ( 1 9 0 3 - 1 9 6 7 ) , a cousin of Huang Pingsun (see chapter 39), who had requested a specimen of Lu Xun's calligraphy through Yu Dafu. 8. Shuxin j i , 1, p. 622. 9. Shuxin j i , 2, p. 660. This is a letter of November 12, 1934, to Xiao J u n and Xiao Hong. The term yang ("maintain") is not laudatory. 10. Lu Xun wrote to Cao Juren asking that the poem be run in Tao sheng [Sound of the breakers]. It eventually appeared in that publication (vol. 2, no. 38) on September 30, 1933. Cao Juren ( 1 9 0 0 - 1 9 7 2 ) was a professor at Jinan University and chief editor of Tao sheng. 11. Lu Xun revised this and the third line in December of 1934 for publication in Jiwai ji [Collection of uncollected works}. Although his handwritten text (which was not the final draft) has the poem's first line as Ru pan yao ye yong chonglou ("Like a flagstone, the unending night holds down the storied buildings"), this was later changed to read Ru pan ye qi ya chonglou. In the third line, what originally was Xiang se (a "Xiang" or "Hunan zither") has been altered to read yao se ("a [fine] inlaid zither"). In both instances I have followed the poet's revised text in my translation. See Ni Moyan, p. 199- Here ye qi ("the feel of night," literally, "the vapor of night") pressing down upon a chonglou ("storied building") is a metaphor for stifling repression. Writing the essay Ye song [In praise of n i g h t ] on J u n e 8, 1933, Lu Xun spoke of how the evils generally symbolized by darkness are, in fact, perpetrated by society, more often than not, in daytime: "The broad daylight and the noisy coming and going are simply a cover for the darkness, the golden lid on a cauldron of human flesh, the cold cream on a devil's face." Selected Works, 3, pp. 2 6 7 - 2 6 8 . Zhang Xiangtian feels that the "storied building" in this poem refers to Lu Xun's apartment building at Dalu xincun ("The Continental Terrace") in Shanghai. See Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, pp. 1 4 7 - 1 5 1 . I would, however, associate it with the city of Shanghai as a whole. 12. Jiu qiu ("ninety days of autumn"), suggesting the withering, desolate feeling of fall, is probably used symbolically to say that forbidding times have befallen dissident writers and artists in China. 13. In the Yuan you [Far-off journey] section of the Chu ci, the Xiang River Goddess plays on a stringed instrument, as in this line. (See Chu ci zhijie, p. 266.) Xiang is an alternative name for Ding Ling's native province of

282

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Hunan. Here Lu X u n seems to be saying that since the player (in this case the author Ding Ling, who has been taken away by the authorities) is gone, the repression has rendered out-of-commission another fine artist, whose voice once rang through the world of letters clearly and poignantly. Lu Xun assumes that, like the goddess of the Xiang River legend, Ding Ling has disappeared to those who love her. See chapter 17, note 8. 14. The phrase gao qiu wu nil ("to be alone on a high cliff without any women or companions") originates in Qu Yuan's Li sao and has frequently been invoked by later poets as an image of melancholy and isolation (Chit ci zhijie, p. 61). Lu Xun's concluding line seems to be mourning a personal loss as well as the loss to society of a woman of extraordinary powers who gave of herself to enlighten others.

Ding Ling (right) with her mother in the early 1920s

41.

Two Poems as a Gift if (Zeng ren er shou) JULY 2 1 ,

1933

ACCORDING TO an entry in his diary for July 21, 1933, Lu Xun wrote both these poems for a Japanese acquaintance, Morimoto Seihachi. 1 They were originally without titles, but at the same time he revised them for inclusion in his Jiwai ji [Collection of uncollected works], he added the somewhat ambiguous title Zeng ren ("as a gift to someone"). 2 In a letter dated December 9, 1934, to Yang Jiyun, who was editing the collection at the time, Lu Xun indicated that this pair of heptasyllabic quatrains should be grouped together. 3 As in the poem "Hearsay" (chapter 28), which depicts the tragic lot of a servant girl juxtaposed against the opulence of her employer's household, Lu Xun here writes sympathetically of singsong girls in their silent suffering. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, natural disasters such as flood, drought, and crop failure repeatedly struck various provinces in China with an increased severity, taking an untold number of lives and uprooting countless people. 4 O f the impoverished young women who were lucky enough to make it to the coastal cities, not a few ended up as prostitutes or "singsong girls." It is of these unfortunates that Lu Xun writes. Many Chinese commentators suggest he uses their plight as a vehicle by which to reflect on the sorrowful state of the nation. 5 Moreover, natural disasters and falling stars are traditionally interpreted as ill-boding portents for those currently in power, signaling the potential for dynastic change due to heaven's discontent with the present rulers.

283

The Lyrical Lu Xun

284

$ 4M

Ming

Bright

-

mou

Yue

eyed

Zhejiang

ft Xing

shui

he

Floating-heart waters; lotus

* JdSL

tf

-k H A nfi

ba

chen

zhuang,

woman

finishes

morning

dress,

M, feng

wind

f t

shi

jiu

xiang.

old home--county.

such are

n m*

Jt

Chang

jin

xln

ci

huan

bu

jian,

Singing

through

new

lyrics

joy/love

is not

seen,

Han

yun

ru

huo

pu

qing

jiang.

Drought

clouds

like/as

fire

rush at

clear/dry

river.

& -T 1.

m

B r i g h t - e y e d Z h e j i a n g girl, 6 her m o r n i n g toilet made, F r o m a river v i l l a g e where w i n d - s w e p t lotus and water plants pervade. 7 T h e new songs s u n g , her lover nowhere to be found; 8 O ' e r that now parched river 9 fiery d r o u g h t clouds bound.

Verse in the Classical

Style

285

% ^

-k

Qin

nu

Shaanxi

duan

woman of dignified

M :

/feti

Liàng

chén

Rafters'

dust

yóng

-

yu

li

yu

zhèng,

face

plays on

jade-fine

zither,

jk

ML

yuè

ji

reverberation frenzy

te J!U

feng

qlng.

wind

lightens.

&

blng

xuan

jue,

icy

string

snaps,

you

sheng.

%

if

Dan

jian

ben

xing

Lo/yet

behold

shooting

star

2.

yè night

^

é xiang

In an instant

-

- f -

rong

leaps/jumps/throbs

it

fa Xu

i

jing

strongly having sound/voice.

By a Shaanxi girl of dignified face, an ornamented zither played; 1 0 Rafter dust undulating in cadence . . . the night wind, by music allayed. 1 1 In an instant switch to a frantic pitch an ice-white string snaps outright; 1 2 Lo, behold the sound of a falling star in its might. 1 3

286

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Riji, 21.24b6—9- Morimoto was working in Shanghai at the time in the employ of an insurance agency; see Rojin zenshii, 9, p. 212. 2. Ni Moyan, p. 200. Zheng Xinling thinks the first verse was written for Xu Guangping and Zhang Ziehen (p. 255) says the second "was recopied for Mr. Yamamoto," but Xia Mingzhao (p. 265) questions their lack of a reference for both these assertions. I also think they contradict the entry in Lu Xun's diary with no good reason. 3. See Quanj't (1991), 12, pp. 5 8 9 - 5 9 0 . 4. In a letter to Zhou Cishi, a Left-League writer, dated May 25, 1933 Lu Xun complained of the lack of clear reportage from the afflicted areas in government-controlled newspapers. See Quanj't (1993), 12, pp. 178—1795. E.g., Zhong Xiangtian (1973), 2, pp. 1 5 3 - 1 6 6 . Xia Mingzhao, pp. 265-270. 6. Yue nii (a girl of Yue) is a designation of a classical bent, equivalent to saying she came from somewhere in Zhejiang province. Yue was an ancient state during China's Spring and Autumn period (722^481 B.C.) that lay in the approximate vicinity of modern Zhejiang province. See chapter 39 for another reference to this area. 7. The term xing shut indicates a river in which aquatic plants such as floating-heart grow. He feng could be interpreted either as "the wind in the water lilies" or as "a breeze, fragrant with the smell of lotus." Here the poet uses both to describe the girl's hometown in bygone days, before she came to Shanghai and became a singsong girl. See Ni Moyan, p. 202. 8. It seems that when the girl finally finishes entertaining the guests, she is struck with a pang of remorse at her separation from her true love, who remains in her native river village. This line, which uses the old word huan, literally meaning "joy," for "lover," has been borrowed in its entirety from the poem Ta ge ci [Lyric to a foot-tapping melody] no. 1, by the Tang poet and philosopher Liu Yuxi (772—843); see Liu Yuxi shi wen xuan zhu [An annotated selection of Liu Yuxi's poems and prose] (Xi'an: Sanqin chubanshe, 1988), p. 189. 9. The term qing jiang (here rendered as "parched river") is explained by Zhang as being "the river's water, glaring with the light of rays shot down by a scorching, fierce sun." See Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, p. 162. Ni Moyan, however, feels that the term is used by Lu Xun to describe a river whose waters are drying up owing to a drought of excessive length (p. 202). 10. Once again, Lu Xun uses the name of an ancient state (this time Qin) to designate that his subject hails from the modern province of Shaanxi (Shensi). The zbeng is an instrument resembling a zither with thirteen strings, sometimes played in accompaniment to a vocalist, sometimes by itself. 11. These are both conventional images, descriptive of moving music in low, mournful tones. See Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, p. 1 6 2 - 1 6 5 .

Verse in the Classical Style

287

12. According to Ni Moyan, the player has snapped the string intentionally, giving vent to an emotional outburst (pp. 202—203). 13. The morpheme dan in danjian signals a command like "lo!" Ben xing ("falling star," literally, "dashing star" or "running star") is generally regarded as an older term for liu xing ("shooting star"). In part 2 of the "Astronomy Monograph" in the Jin shu [History of the Jin dynasty], a line about meteorites that fall to earth describes them as "making a sound like thunder, being that they are an omen of anger." They are also called "heaven's messengers" (tianshi). See Jinshu, 2, p. 328. Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, p. 163, takes this to be an image of heaven's wrath and mortals' anger. Ni Moyan would have ben xing glossed as "shooting star," rather than "falling star" (pp. 202—203). He explains this line by saying: "In the end, the brilliant string snaps with a twang, breaking with such force that it resembles a shooting star speeding past with a roar" (p. 203).

42.

Untitled (Wuti) AUTUMN, 1 9 3 3

O N DECEMBER 30, 1933, Lu Xun recorded in his diary that on that day he had written out a poem for Huang Zhenqiu; the text of this pentasyllabic quatrain follows. 1 Yet around 1959 the Lu Xun Museum in Shanghai discovered a copy of the poem written out in Lu Xun's own hand, to which were appended the words "an impromptu verse, written during the autumn of the lunar year you."2 That would place the date of the poem's composition somewhere between September and October of 1933. 3 A photostatic reproduction of this copy, which is signed by Lu Xun and also bears his seal, can be seen in the book Lu Xun shi jian xuanji: fu shigao [An annotated selection of Lu Xun's poems: with reproductions of the handwritten manuscripts]. 4 Huang Zhenqiu (b. 1908), who hailed from Guangxi and had once been a student at Yenching University in Peking, made her way to Lu Xun's Shanghai residence on April 23, 1933, carrying a letter of introduction from Yu Dafu. Finding Lu Xun gone at the time, she left him a note and a signed copy of a journal titled Xiandai funii [Modern woman], 5 of which she was an editor. 6 The magazine seems to have ceased publication after that, its first issue. From the discussion presented by Ni Moyan, it appears that on December 30, 1933, Lu Xun copied out this poem, a previous composition, in response to a written request from Huang for a specimen of his calligraphy as a memento. 7

Among Chinese commentators there has been a good deal of disagreement on how this poem should be interpreted. One suggests that Lu Xun is describing his own feelings of alienation and depression. 8 Another reads biting satire into the lines, 9 and yet a third interpretation sees the poem not as a reference to the poet's own predicament, but rather as a description of the lot of millions of his impoverished compatriots." 1 Judging from its bleak imagery, the poem appears to be a portrait of a man on a lonely quest through a desolate and unstable world where spiritual sustenance often seems elusive. 288

289

Verse in the Classical Style

Yan

shui

Misty waters [are}

xun

- chang

shi,

routine/usual

affair,

& # Huang

cun

yl

Desolate

village

one

f

f

Shen

xiao

Deep

fe diao

^ chen

-

^

zui

qi,

[in] night sunken/heavy drunk

Ji

Di

Wu

chii

mi

gu

Without

a place

to seek

m

A

tu.

fisherman,

r-E*

M

-

Mist-shrouded waters are the normal lot: 11 For a lone fisher by deserted h a m l e t s Deep in n i g h t , arising d r u n k e n yet, Reed and rush are nowhere to be sought. 1 3

arising,

^ir

>n -

pu.

reed tor} rush.

290

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Riji, 2 1 . 4 2 b 6 - 7 . 2. Ni Moyan, p. 216. 3. Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, p. 183. 4. Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 142. 5. Riji, 2 1 . 1 3 b l 0 - l 4 a l . 6. Ni Moyan, pp. 213—216. It was published in Shanghai by Guanghua shudian. 7. Ibid., pp. 2 1 3 - 2 1 6 . Her request dated from December 17, 19338. See Shi jian: fu shigao, pp. 143—144. 9. See Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, pp. 1 8 3 - 1 9 2 . 10. See Ni Moyan, pp. 2 1 3 - 2 1 6 . 11. The word yanshui, which I have rendered as "mist-shrouded waters," refers to rivers or streams, over which looms a thick mist that impairs vision. Most commentators believe it implies danger or precarious surroundings. See Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 143; cf. Ni Moyan, p. 213. By saying that such waters are routine (xun chang) for the fisherman, the poet implies that he is used to living amid uncertain circumstances. There is also a certain element of alienation expressed by the statement. Compare the line in chapter 14 "To long and sleepless night I've grown accustomed in the spring." 12. The literatus-cum-hermit of the Tang dynasty Zhang Zhihe (c. 7 4 2 c. 810) styled himself Yanbo diaotu ("Fisherman Amid Mist and Waves"). See the Xin Tang shu [New history of the Tang dynasty}, juan 196, Yin yi zhuan (Biographies of hermits and recluses), cited in Rojin zenshu, 9, p. 569. It would seem more likely that Lu Xun would be captivated by the loneliness of the image as a self-description than that he is likening himself directly to Zhang. The image of a huang cun (a deserted or nearly deserted village) is a bit similar to that of our ghost town—a site of desolation or destitution, not necessarily of voluntary retirement from the world. Writing on "hermits," past and present, Lu Xun later remarked in January of 1935: "As for those members of the literati and elder poets who styled themselves 'fisherman' and 'woodcutters,' most of them were landed gentry or nobles who traveled in comfort and never touched a fishing pole or an axe. That they even thought they could become hermits, I would attribute solely to their own jaundiced fantasies." See Quanji (1961), 6, p. 179- Nevertheless, an alienated artist can easily begin to think of himself as an isolate, especially in those times of death squads and political repression. See the discussion of this image in Xia Mingzhao, pp. 2 7 6 - 2 8 1 . 13. Gu ("reeds") are usually found growing in shallow places near the edge of a body of water. The stalk of this aquatic grass is eaten by the Chinese as a vegetable called jiaobai, which is similar to wild rice. As such, it may be viewed as symbolic of food or sustenance. Pu ("rushes") grow in the mud near the water's edge. In China they are woven into mats, bags, fans, and so forth.

Verse in the Classical Style

291

In this sense, these plants represent food, shelter, and a place for the fisherman to moor his boat. By saying "in no place can reeds or rushes be sighted," the poet implies that the fisherman cannot find sustenance. See Z h a n g X i a n g t i a n (1962), p. 1 8 1 . 1 t h i n k it is best to understand this in a spiritual sense. Perhaps, as Takata Atsushi has suggested, Lu X u n is speaking of the difficulties he had at the t i m e w i t h associates, in trying to cope w i t h feelings of frustration and isolation as well as in c o m i n g to grips w i t h his own mortality. T h e letter Takata quotes (to Cao J u r e n ) is, however, misdated by an entire year as having been w r i t t e n on April 10, 1934, instead of April 10, 1935 (its actual date). This pushes any chronological relation between Lu Xun's feelings in the a u t u m n of 1933, when he wrote this poem, and those expressed in that particular letter farther apart. See Takata's Rojin shiwa. p. 215. T h e anonymous c o m m e n t a t o r in Shi jian: fu shigao also identifies the plants as "companions" but holds that the poem's final line reflects a melancholic desire on the part of the poet to w i t h d r a w from the society of others and retreat into solitude (p. 144). To m e the poem seems more like an inkbrush sketch of the poet's inner world, more of a self-portrait than an indication of desire to change his status in any specific way. Certainly it is no happy portrait, because of the alienation and heavy d r i n k i n g he alludes to, b u t it is a sympathetic one.

Lu X u n at fifty-three (September 13, 1933).

43. Untitled (Wuti) NOVEMBER 2 7 , 1 9 3 3

THE ENTRY for November 27, 1933, in Lu Xun's diary records that he wrote this heptasyllabic quatrain for Tsuchiya Bunmei (b. 1891), 1 a Japanese poet of the Araragi Group and teacher of his friend Yamamoto Hatsue, for whom he wrote the poem in chapter 25. 2 The year 1933 had been no easy time for Lu Xun as a writer, faced with mounting restrictions on his freedom of expression; nor had it been a pleasant time for Lu Xun as an intellectual leader and a spokesman for the opposition. He had seen his country threatened by Japan, while a senseless civil war continued. His friends among the dissident intelligentsia had been subject to all forms of harassment, including kidnaping and assassination. Looking back on the latter half of 1933, he wrote in the postscript to a collection of his works from that period, titled Zhun fengyue tan [Permitted to talk on the wind and the moon]: These sixty or more miscellaneous essays were written under various pen names after the repression had hit, from June of last year [1933] onward. The wool having been pulled over the eyes of editors and censors alike, they were published one after another in the "Free Comments" column {of Shenbao]. In a short time, I was again favored with the praise of some quite "inspired" men of letters, and they were powers from which nothing could be concealed—even though their verdicts, based on their sense of smell, had not always proved accurate in the face of the facts. At any rate, those without a knack for mending their ways were to be allowed no escape in the end. In less than six months, the repression had intensified even more and, having muddled my way all the way through 'til early November, I finally had to cease writing. My pen and ink could prove no match for those false-faced heroes who strut forth to do battle beneath their commanders' sabers.3 292

Verse in the Classical Style

293

In this particular poem, as in many before it, Lu Xun borrows heavily from the imagery and language of the Li sao and the Chu ci, yet he employs these devices to shed light on his own inner soul and uses them to depict, allegorically, the difficulties he faced as a dissident leader during the 1930s. The poem strikes a note of keen tragedy, yet stops short of total pessimism through an expression of faith in the resilience of truth.

294

The Lyrical Lu Xun

—

m

&

Yi

zhl

One

spray

^ M

& -

[ o f ] pure

orchid

x>2?

aTA

tuo

Xiàng

ling,

comforts

Xiang

goddess,

è M, M $

Jl Jiu

wan

zhen

feng

wei

du

xing.

Nine

leagues'

chaste

wind

consoles

lone

sobriety.

II Wu

-

t nai

zhong

f

shu

N o t h i n g can be done in end

lose to

xiao

t

I

ai

mi,

mugwort artemisia thick[ening],

3P A it % # # * Que

cheng

qian

-

ke

Yet/instead become exiled - traveler,

bo

fang

-

xln.

spreading fragrant scent[s].

T h e X i a n g goddess 4 derives c o m f o r t 5 f r o m an orchid p u r e ; 6 'Tis b u t t h i s w i d e s p r e a d 7 n o b l e scent t h a t m a k e s t h e loner sure. 8 U n a b l e t o stave off at last these weeds, e n c r o a c h m e n t - b e n t ; 9 In exile one can w a n d e r yet, a n d spread t h e f r a g r a n t scent. 1 0

Verse in the Classical Style

295

Notes 1. Riji, 21.38alO-38b2. 2. Rojin zenshii, 9, p. 567. 3. Quanji (1961), 5, p. 307. 4. The Xiang ling or goddess of the Xiang River frequently appears in Lu Xun's poetry. Some sources hold that there are two, not just one, of these divine women in the region of the ancient kingdom of Chu, the approximate area covered by the modern provinces of Hubei and Hunan in south-central China. In the Chu ci, they were depicted as elusive nature goddesses, actively sought after by a male figure, originally taken to be Qu Yuan himself, but now thought to be a shaman. Though the Shanhai jing [Classic of mountains and seas] juan 5, "Zhongshan jing," 29a4-b6 refers to them as daughters of the emperor of heaven, they were very early on associated with the cult of the legendary sageking Shun. It was said in that version of their story that they had been the daughters of Shun's predecessor, good king Yao (who had in turn married them to the man he deemed his most worthy successor, Shun). In the poem Xiang furen [Lady of the Xiang] from the Jiu ge [Nine songs] section of the Chu ci, the male figure (a shaman) fashions a house of fragrant plants, leaves, and vines, perfumed by orchids and other rare scents, which he presents as an offering to entice the Xiang goddess (Chu ci zhijie, pp. 94-95). In short, she represents something that is sought after, yet remains elusive. According to my reading of the poem, the goddess here symbolizes Lu Xun's cause and ideals. 5. The character tuo is usually glossed as "to comfort" or "to console" by Chinese commentators. Ito Masafumi, however, says it means "to carry out a sacrifice in order to assuage the spirits [here the Xiang goddess]." He translates the entire first line: "A blade of fragrant grass is offered up to the goddess, the Lady of the Xiang." See Rojin zenshu, 9, pp. 566-567. 6. Most Chinese commentators concur that qingcai (literally, "pure flower") refers to the orchid. Ito Masafumi holds that its locus classicus is yet to be determined, however (ibid., p. 567). I cannot agree with Ni Moyan (pp. 204—205) and other commentators who deduce that the Xiang goddess must stand for the Chinese people and the Communist Party, and that the orchid represents leftist literary works. Orchids are traditionally symbolic of a high moral character and loyalty to principle, in short, integrity. Their "noble scent" (zhen feng) in the second line represents truth and beauty, just as the poet's act of spreading their fragrance (in the final line) is symbolic of the proliferation of truth. If my reading is correct and the goddess symbolizes Lu Xun's cause and ideals, the orchids (integrity of character and loyalty to principle) are the wherewithal required to implement these goals. Without uncompromising integrity, the cause is nothing. But if integrity can be retained, "hope cannot be said to not exist." See the close of his story Guxiang [My old hometown], in Selected Stories ofLu Hsun (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1972), p. 64. Chinese text in Quanji (1991), 1, p. 485.

The Lyrical Lu Xun

296

7. T h e term jiu wan, here translated "widespread," m i g h t also be rendered as "spread over many a league." The phrase signifies, literally, "nine fields," the word wan being an archaic area measure for the size of large fields. It is indicative of a vast expanse of land, not any specific number of units with modern acre equivalents. In the Li sao, Q u Yuan proclaims: I once grew nine wan of orchids, And planted one hundred mou of melilotus. (Chu ci zhijie, p. 44) 8. A more exact equivalent of wei ("makes . . . sure") would be the verb "to console." Thus, the line m i g h t more literally read: " 'Tis this widespread noble scent that consoles the loner." The term rendered "loner" (du xing) stands for someone of solitary sobriety, i.e., of uncommon clarity and keen discernment, embodying the perspicacity available only to those divorced from vulgar interests. This usage originates in the poem Yu fu [An old fisherman} from the Chu ci, wherein an old man inquires as to the reasons for Q u Yuan's misfortunes and banishment. The exiled poet replies to the fisherman: 'Twas that all the world is muddy and I alone am clear, For all those men are drunk, but I alone am sober. (Chu ci zhijie, p. 293) In this line in his poem, Lu Xun stresses his alienation, yet reaffirms his faith in the power of uncompromised ideals. Cf. the phrase du qing du xing, which Liang Shih-ch'iu glosses as "to remain sane and sober and realize the lurking dangers in time of outward peace and prosperity when others live in a false sense of security." Zui xin shiyong Han-Ying cidian (Taipei: Far East Book Co., 1972), p. 684. 9. A literal translation of this line m i g h t read: "To no avail, in the end [1} lose to the encroaching mugwort and artemisia." The plants xiao (southern wood) and ai (mugwort)—both species of artemisia—are noxious weeds and have, as such, symbolized men of lowly and mean character. In the Li sao they are the toadies and sycophants who have slandered the poet and usurped his place in court as privy counsel to the king of Chu. Q u Yuan wrote a line describing them, which runs: "Wherefore have those fragrant grasses of yesteryear become the noxious weeds (xiao ai) of the present day?" (Chu ci zhijie, pp. 7 0 - 7 1 ) . In this sense, Lu Xun's line has quite a negative ring to it. H e had become disillusioned with China's intellectuals in general, as he witnessed repression and betrayals. The progressive writers and artists that remained had all become targets. Government apologists dominated the media and thus Lu X u n had come to feel his pen and ink "could prove no match for those false-faced heroes [the flunky literati] who strut forth to do battle beneath their commanders' sabers." Quanji (1961), 5, p. 307. 10. In this line, bo means "to spread or scatter" (as of seeds). A more literal rendering of this line would read: "Yet [one] becomes a wandering exile, spreading the fragrance." As for the morpheme xin, which connotes a pervasive and strong fragrance, such as the smell of burning incense, there is a long-established literary tradition for its use as a metaphor for distinction achieved through high-principled conduct, i.e., loyalty to a code of morality

Verse in the Classical Style

297

and absolute t r u t h . In the section titled Jun chen [Monarchs and ministers] in the Shang shu [Book of history], there is a line "The truly fragrant t h i n g s are not aromatic grains, b u t rather the ways in which virtue is illustrated—these are the true manifestations of fragrance in the world." T h e Jiu ge [ N i n e songs] section of the Chu ci has a p o e m titled Shan gui [Spirit of the m o u n t a i n ] , in which we find the line "I plucked some sprays of fragrant plants, that I would give the one I long for" (Chu ci zhijie, p. 109). Finally, in the Chronicles of Fujian from the Jin shu [History of the J i n dynasty],/VM» 113—114, one comes across the four-character phrase chui xin qian si ("to set d o w n a virtuous example for posterity"), where xin ("fragrance") is again used as a m e t a p h o r for high principles. See Jin shu, 9, p. 2 8 8 8 . T h i s line signals an intent to keep u p "the good fight," no m a t t e r what the straits or to what lengths one is forced. T h e particle que ("yet") is used as a coordinating c o n j u n c t i o n indicative of contrasting states, roughly equivalent to saying "despite the above." T h e t e r m qianke, translated as "wander in exile," is actually a noun, m e a n i n g "an exiled wanderer." Anciently it was a term by which a banished official was referred to by the people of the locale to which he was sent. A l t h o u g h the subject of this concluding line (who exactly becomes an exile) is unstated, Xia M i n g z h a o (pp. 2 7 3 - 2 7 5 ) argues strongly that it is the orchids being taken to J a p a n by Y a m a m o t o Hatsue. B u t to m e this is a stand-in for the poet himself, on the last leg of a lonely crusade, one to which he cleaves w i t h almost quixotic d e t e r m i n a t i o n . T h e word "exile" need not be interpreted literally. Lu X u n ' s living in the way he did in Shanghai was a form of exile in itself, and he was certainly in disfavor w i t h those in power. I cannot agree w i t h Takata Atsushi (Rojin shiwa, p p . 202—204) and others w h o propose that this final line is a veiled reference to the t h e n - d e m o t e d former secretary-general of the C o m m u n i s t Party, Q u Q i u b a i , who, while on the run in Shanghai, often called at Lu X u n ' s h o m e surreptitiously to discuss politics and literary criticism. More far-fetched still is the theory introduced by Liu Yisheng on the pages of the April 3, 1964, edition of Canton's daily "internal circulation" newspaper Yangcheng wan bao [Evening news f r o m the City of the R a m s , i.e, Canton], Liu p u r p o r t s to have discovered that the phrase xiao ai mi ("encroaching noxious weeds") is a h o m o p h o n o u s cryptog r a m m i c reference to the Russian name of the Chinese writer and translator Xiao Aimei (Emi Siao), more c o m m o n l y known as Xiao San (1900—1984). According to Liu, Lu X u n wrote the p o e m to tell Q u Q i u b a i that the contributions m a d e to the cause of leftist letters by Xiao Aimei, while living in the Soviet U n i o n , far surpass those m a d e by both Q u and Lu X u n himself ("In the end, we've lost out to Emi Siao. W e can, however, still become w a n d e r i n g exiles, spreading truth."). More speculation has been published about this one verse than any other in Lu Xun's poetic oeuvre. B u t the most i m p o r t a n t t h i n g to keep in m i n d is the b a c k g r o u n d against which the poem was composed, when c o m i n g to an u n d e r s t a n d i n g of it. W h e n Lu X u n addresses the repression, his own p l i g h t , and the p l i g h t of other writers t h r o u g h poetry, he does so in an indirect b u t usually very consistent pattern. This poem is yet another example of how interconnected he had come to believe his own career was w i t h the life of the nation and his cause.

44. Against Yu Dafu's Move to Hangzhou (Zu Yu Dafu yijia Hangzhou) DECEMBER 3 0 , 1 9 3 3

in Lu Xun's diary for December 3 0 , 1 9 3 3 , states that he wrote this heptasyllabic regulated verse on that afternoon for (Wang) Yingxia, 1 the wife of writer Yu Dafu. The title, added at a later date by Lu Xun himself, often led readers to the mistaken belief that the poem was written before Yu's departure in an attempt to dissuade him from going at all, but in fact Yu had already moved away at the time this poem was written and was only back in Shanghai for a visit. 2 Yu and Yingxia had been to see Lu Xun together the day before the composition. 5 Lu Xun's purpose in this writing was to ask Yu Dafu to reconsider the decision.4 Yu Dafu was, like Lu Xun, a native ofZhejiang who had studied in Japan (for ten years). There Yu and a group of fellow students from China founded the Creation Society, a coterie destined to become a major leftist literary group in their homeland. In 1922 he returned to China after having already attained a degree of recognition through the publication of a short story anthology titled Chenlun [Sinking], Many of his stories are autobiographical; they deal with sexual drive and psychological anguish, and they explore the dark inner recesses of the psyche. They were well received and widely read by the young intelligentsia. With his having come under the influence of Lu Xun in 1924, Yu began to move away from writing literature that isolated and focused on the psychology of the individual toward examining society and its influence on the individual. After a split with the Guo Moruo leadership of the Creation Society, Yu was obliged to resign in August of 1927, whereupon his association with Lu Xun grew closer. Boorman sheds some light on the events leading up to this poem's composition: THE ENTRY

298

Verse in the Classical

Style

299

Yii admired Lu Hsiin and rated his writing as the most mature and profound among his contemporaries. Lu Hsiin reciprocated his feeling, and the friendship between the two culminated in Yii's editing the monthly Pen-liu [The torrent] jointly with Lu Hsiin in 1928. . . . . . . After 1928, Yii's association with Lu Hsiin and his followers became more sporadic. In 1929 he gave in to left-wing [i.e., Creation Society] pressure and took over the editorship of Ta-chung wen-i [Mass literature], but later he joined Soong Ch'ing-ling, Ts'ai Yiianpei, Yang Ch'iian, Lu Hsiin and others in sponsoring the China League for Civil Rights. In 1930 Yii became a member of the League of Left-wing Writers, but he soon found the group too demanding of time and agitprop output. He left the league to become an associate of Lin Yii-t'ang and Chou Tso-jen, who at that time stood for a nonpolitical humanistic literature. . . . In 1932 Yii withdrew formally from the field of proletarian literature with the publication of his second and last novel, T'a shih i-ko jo nii-tzu [She is a weak woman]. A year later he retired with Wang Ying-hsia to the scenic West Lake at Hangchow, where he spent most of his time sightseeing and writing about the city and its environs. He also visited most of the historic and scenic places of interest in Chekiang, and he eventually produced more than 30 travel diaries of varying lengths detailing his visits to them. Between travel writing and extensive reading in the Chinese classics, another of Yii's diversions at Hangchow, he had very little time for fiction.5 One assumes that Yu's p l u n g i n g himself into the classics, scenery, and historic sites around Hangzhou accounts for the overflow of classical imagery and allusions to the history of that locale employed by Lu X u n in this poem. Lu X u n chooses to use history didactically, urging Yu to see the folly in his withdrawal to Hangzhou through the example of the fate of past worthies from the locale. In early 1927, Yu had fallen madly in love w i t h W a n g Yingxia, a young leftist author, whose beauty and charm had made her the toast of scholarly society in her native Hangzhou. After he left his previous wife, he and Yingxia stayed married for almost ten years, until an old foe of Lu Xun's and acquaintance of Yu Dafu's, X u Shaodi (see chapter 39), seduced Yingxia while Yu was away from home. W r i t i n g from Singapore in 1938 in his essay Huiyi Lu Xun [ R e m e m b e r i n g Lu X u n ] , Yu Dafu spoke of this poem and its significance to him, both personal and political: When I moved to Hangzhou, Lu Xun wrote a poem for me. . . . He told me that the poem speaks of the senselessly tyrannical nature of those apparatchiks in the Hangzhou [local] Kuomintang government. In the annals of the Five Dynasties period he had read of how

300

The Lyrical Lu X.un under kings Qian, Wu, and Xiao, the people of Zhejiang were so pressed for taxes that they had not even pants left to wear and could only resort to wearing clay tiles to cover their lower regions. That line from his poem, in fact, refers to this. Not heeding his trustworthy admonitions, I ended up living in Hangzhou. The outcome was within the range of his foresight, for I was deprived of home and family by a gent from [Kuomintang] Party headquarters. This person [Xu Shaodi] was a propertied man worth several hundred thousand (yuan), and he owed it all to the Kuomintang, where he got his start. He, who had once implored central Party headquarters to issue a warrant for our teacher's [Lu Xun's] arrest, was quite capable of doing things even more vicious to our people than our neighbors [the Japanese] have come up with. 6

After the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1 9 4 2 , Yu escaped to Sumatra, where he lived under an assumed name. Eventually pressed into service as an interpreter by the J a p a n e s e m i l i t a r y police there, Yu worked to shield partisans and confound the collaborators. 7 In all probability, he had been a witness to a n u m b e r of atrocities against the local populace. As a result of this k n o w l e d g e , a week after the Japanese surrender and only a few days before the Allies assumed control over Sumatra, Yu Dafu disappeared mysteriously. It is g e n e r a l l y believed that he was murdered on orders of the already defeated Japanese authorities, after the war was, in fact, over. 8

Wang Yingxia and Yu Dafu.

Yu Dafii in 1934 (inscribed for Lin Yutang).

The Lyrical Lu Xun

302

i

si Qian

-

wang

[Surname] K i n g

-

xiang

[Surname] Premier

f

Ping

f

-

deng

-

xia

chu

JtP réng

ascend-to-immortals, yet still

Ft

fa Wu

m.

&

&

sui

bo

follows

waves

X bù

he

Even/neat woods, sun[ny and}

mild

*b

J-)

^

%

Xiao

shan

xiang

man

Small

mountains

perfume-filled

Fén

tan altar

-

luò

/Jl

# Mei

he

Plum

ql

-

liang

crane forlorn/desolate [where]

HA ^

H He

lëng

neglected/in disrepair

-

si

%

ju

jia

How could such rival bestirring family

JU Feng

-

bo

Wind/storm waves

hao

-

% dang

powerful/awesome

T kë

xun.

m

zêng

jiàn

hé,

loathe

strong

plumage,

bi

gào

cén.

lofty

peaks.

cover

MGrave

zài, alive,

not able to be sought/found

0 ^ 'ft ri

ru as if

jiâng

& f

¥ jun

[for] General

JL chu

Yuè, Yue [Fei],

#

-ir shì

Lin.

Hermit Lin [once dwelt].

M

iâ

yóu

kuàng

to travel

vast

distances?

zu

xing

y in.

enough

to stride

chant.

-

yuan,

^

Verse in the Classical Style

303

Long ago did tyrant Qian from this mortal world ascend, {but today in old Hangzhou,] it's as if he'll never go. 9 Wronged Prime Minister W u Zixu, [once the god of the tidal bore,} now drifts aimlessly with the wave, his body to be sought no more."1 Manicured trees, warm sun, and balmy climes suit not stout birds of hardy plume; 11 A spring peak, by flowers covered, can but a hill's stature assume. 12 Forlorn and cold are the altar and tomb of renowned general Yue Fei;13 Hermit Lin's plum grove and crane pavilion— now in sorrowful disarray.14 W h a t are those things when your whole family could traverse the far and wide? See storm and sea in society— inspired, you'd chant and stride. 15

304

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Riji, 21.42b3-6. 2. Ni Moyan, p. 207. 3. Riji, 21.42b2. 4. Ni Moyan, p. 207. 5. Boorman, Biographical Dictionary, 4, p. 72. 6. Yu Dafu, Huiyi Lu Xun [Remembering Lu Xun], as quoted in Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, pp. 220-221. 7. Boorman, Biographical Dictionary, 4, p. 73. 8. Ibid. 9- The original line rendered literally would read: "[Though] King Qian rose up it's as though he's still around." The word dengxia is used to refer to the deaths of monarchs and is explained by the Han commentator Zheng Xuan in his annotations to the Qu li section of the Liji [Book of rites] as "going up to [join] the Immortals." (Cited in Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 139). Qian Liu ( 8 5 1 - 9 3 2 ) was a native of what is now Zhejiang and obtained power through the emperor's gratitude for his military triumphs. He ruled a sort of grand duchy in the area called Wu-Yue with an iron hand. It is said that he had a flood embankment erected against the bore of the Qiantang River near his capital, Hangzhou. Once, when it seemed ready to give way to the pressures of the flood, he supposedly drove back the waters by shooting arrows at the raging bore. Lu Xun mentions King Qian in one of his essays, saying: "Under the reign of the overlord Qian the people were stripped [by taxes] so much that they had no clothing or pants left and could but take pieces of earthenware tile to cover their lower regions. But he was still not satisfied and tried to exact more from them, so they had to submit to beatings that left them bleating like antelopes." Quanji (1961), 4, p. 457. 10. Literally, this line could be translated "Minister Wu follows the waves, never to be found," but since it is merely a reference to a rather involved allusion, I have thought it best to bring out more detail in the translation. Wu Zixu was a minister in the government of the state of Wu during the Spring and Autumn period. After he had aided his sovereign in reforming the government and defeating the state of Chu, his advocacy of a military campaign against Yue at length brought him to loggerheads with the monarch he had so faithfully served. His fate is recorded in Lun heng 4 (shu xu), which David Hawkes renders into English in "The Quest of the Goddess," Asia Major, 13 (1968), p. 75. I quote from Hawkes' translation: The history books say that when King Fu-cha of Wu killed Wu Tzuhsii, he boiled him in a cauldron, put his body in a wineskin and threw it into a river. But Tzu-hsii's hate was so powerful that it drove the waters before it and made the rushing tidal bore in which people were drowned. Today in the Kuei-chi area there are temples to Tzu-hsii on

Verse in the Classical Style

305

the Yangtze at Tan-t'u and on the R. Chekiang at Ch'ien-t'ang. These have been founded to mollify his hatred and assuage the violence of the tide. 11. The terms jian he ("stout birds of hardy plume") in this line and gao cen ("a spiring peak") in the next are used by Lu X u n as images symbolic of the strength he would hope to see in Yu Dafu. T h e verb zeng here has the meaning "ill-suited for" and should not be misconstrued in its more common definition "to hate." See Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 141. 12. This line, were it rendered literally, would read: "A hill covered by fragrant [flowers] conceals the spiring peak." Lu X u n here may be cautioning Yu that his stature will be obscured by a lack of stimulation and contact in bucolic Hangzhou. 13- This line and its follow-up are both daozhuang ju ("inversions"), meaning that they are written in a sort of backward order in which the topic of the sentence is not specified until the end of the line. Yue Fei ( 1 1 0 3 - 1 1 4 1 ) was a patriotic general who warded off Tartar invasions during the Song dynasty. An opponent of the policies of appeasement, he was demoted and imprisoned by Q i n Gui, who later had him murdered in secret. Here Lu X u n may be using Yue Fei as a symbol of those who called for resistance while the government suppressed anti-Japanese sentiment and tried to buy time through policies of appeasement. 14. Lin Bu (967—1028) was a poet during the Northern Song dynasty, who retired to Mt. G u near the West Lake in Hangzhou to live out his days as a recluse. H e had no desire for worldly position, power, wealth, or sex, holding that the p l u m trees he grew took the place of a wife and that the cranes he kept were his children. The present desolation of his former haunts described in this line seems intended to tell Yu that the life of an ancient recluse in Hangzhou is no longer a viable alternative for dissidents in modern China. Speaking once of the most famous poet of the m i d - Q i n g era, Yuan Mei (1715— 1797), who traveled in Hangzhou, Lu X u n is said to have commented in 1928: "Though the scenery and climes of the West Lake are quite pleasant, with places to eat and frolic, I feel that if one becomes too enraptured with magnificent lakes and breathtaking mountains, the whole sense of purpose and dedication can be wiped away. Those such as Yuan Mei, who floated around in silken robes with [courtesans] like Su Xiaoxiao from the house of one old hometown friend to the next, led pointless existences." The above attribution is from Chuan Dao's book He Lu Xun xiangchu de rizi [Days spent together with Lu Xun], as quoted in N i Moyan, p. 210. N i feels this line is aimed at debunking Yu Dafu's a t t e m p t to imitate the recluses of old by retiring to Hangzhou, far from the madding crowd. 15. The phrase fengbo haodang describes an image of surging wind and waves, and like our "storm" (in the figurative sense) suggests the disturbances, disputes, and restlessness in society. The concluding phrase zu xingyin means that something "is enough [to inspire] walking and chanting [verse]." This is an allusion to Qu Yuan, who is said to have chanted his verses (or even

306

The Lyrical Lu Xun

composed them) while pacing beside the rivers and marshes after he had been banished. In the concluding line, the words "see" and "in society" are my own additions. A more literal rendering might be simply "The very might of the storm will sufficiently inspire you to chant verses while walking." I cannot agree with the reading of this verse as an admonition to Yu to take his family still farther away (to the Liberated Areas, the Soviet Union, or Japan, for example) as many commentators hold (see Zhang Enhe, pp. 340—344). Xia Mingzhao (pp. 2 8 7 - 2 8 8 ) says the point ought to be to keep the reference unspecified— anywhere away from Hangzhou! I tend to think that kuangyuan ("the vast and wide") in the second-to-last verse refers to the vast sociopolitical drama unfolding in Shanghai at the time. Zhang Xiangtian (1962, p. 179) suggests this. Shanghai in the 1930s was a combination of New York, Chicago, and Hollywood all rolled into one—add to this a powerful Communist underground, agitprop workers, the opulence of capitalism and international trade, offset by a backdrop of poverty and destitution, and it is easy to see why Shanghai was often symbolized by its entertainment center—the "Great World." The point of the concluding line is underscored by the title—Yu should, according to Lu Xun, have stayed in Shanghai; this is the reason why the word zu ("to restrain") appears in the title, although it might best be translated as "an appeal against" (because the act of moving was fait accompli). Otherwise, Lu Xun might have better titled the poem "Advice to Yu Dafu to Flee Hangzhou" (and go to the Soviet Union?). Chen Youxiong and Ding Yanzhao would dissent, arguing the title was added to the poem by someone other than the author himself (see Zhang Enhe, p. 323). But it is clear that Lu Xun never objected to the use of this title when the poem was printed in Jiwai ji [Collection of the uncollected] in 1934, with his own editing and approval.

45.

A Spoof on Newspaper Reports That I Had Contracted Encephalitis (Bao zai huan naoyan xizuo) MARCH 1 5 , 1 9 3 4

THE MARCH 1 0 , 1 9 3 4 , edition o f Tientsin's once highly respected daily newspaper Da gong bao (L'Impartial) carried the following statement: According to a dispatch from Shanghai run in an issue of the Japanese paper Seikyo Nippo, earlier this month, Lu Xun, dormant in Shanghai, has no freedom to publish or circulate his work. And now he is plagued with sudden attacks in the cerebral region that often cause pain and leave him with a general feeling of disorientation. After medical examination, it was confirmed that the source of these attacks is acute encephalitis. At the time of diagnosis, Lu Xun was forbidden under doctor's orders to do any mental work such as writing for the next ten years (?). This means that he'll have to put aside his pen for a decade, otherwise his brain will be incurably destroyed.1 Speaking o f rumor mongers, Lu X u n wrote in 1 9 2 6 : " W h a t we call rumors are actually things that their creators hope will come true. From them we can get a good idea o f some people's ideas and actions." 2 Later he was to refer to rumors as "weapons that kill without leaving a trace o f blood." 3 In this particular instance when the newspapers carried tales o f his suffering from encephalitis, he was obliged to write "dozens o f letters" in order to allay the fears o f his friends and relatives. 4 T h i s heptasyllabic quatrain is a literary version o f these notices, serving to tell his former student Tai J i n g n o n g that he was all right. 5 Lu Xun's letter o f March 1 5 , 1 9 3 4 , to Yao K e provides a less literary but more specific indication o f his resentment at such "news." I translate an excerpt below: From your letter of the tenth, which I just received, I learned of how the Tientsin papers had caused my friends so much worry and alarm

307

308

The Lyrical Lu Xun by writing that I have contracted encephalitis. It was a cruel prank. It wasn't so bad when some tabloids in Shanghai were just saying I fled to Hong Kong. The fact of the matter is that I've never had encephalitis, nor have I been suffering from any other ailment. I'm holding up as well as ever. If I had actually contracted a disease such as they mentioned, I should certainly have died or been crippled by it. How could I have gotten off so lightly as merely being compelled to stop my writing for ten years? This rumor is the product of literary hooligans, and from it we can see how much is lacking in their lives and to what extremes they will go as a result. I hope it won't worry you any more. 6

In his next letter to Yao Ke on March 24, 1934, Lu X u n added another remark on r u m o r mongers that is helpful in u n d e r s t a n d i n g this poem: " T h o u g h their m i n d s are vicious, their pens are weak, and so they are unable to fight w i t h the w r i t t e n word. H e n c e they resort to slander and insidious libel; when that fails they move on to cursing people. Like witches and panderers w h o engage in all forms of deceit, they are thoroughly disreputable and worthy of n o t h i n g b u t contempt." 7

Verse in the Classical

# M Héng

Bu

mei

M

qT

liào

Could-not-predict

duo

é

mèi

i

-k

t

réng

wéi

zhòng

nu

xin.

still

offend

crowd of

women's

hearts.

s.

fH- JL xfrj Zu

-

zhòu

Cursing/hexing

ér

jln

fan

and

now

turn/try

M: •!&> £

1

Wu

-

ru

To-no-avail,

yé?

how-could usurp moth[-fine} brows' seductivity?

ft

# -

309

£

Horizontal brows

r-

Style

yì different

yang, design,

it -fr

¿ K

chén

nào

gù

ru

bing.

vassal's

brain

is-as-ever

like

ice.

Could fierce brows for flattery e'er displace their mothlike eyebrows and seductive face? 8 Who would have thought I'd provoked their ire, kindling damsels' hearts with jealous fire?9 They'd called down curses upon my head, but this one's different from past ones spread. 1 " 'Twas of no avail, this malicious vice, for your subject's brain is as cool as ice."

310

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. Quoted in N i Moyan, p. 219- The question mark in parentheses is from the original. 2. Quanji (1961), 3, p. 2093. Ibid., 4, p. 209. 4. Quoted in N i Moyan, p. 2195. This poem, originally untitled, had a postscript reading: "Written on the night of March 15 as a spoof after hearing the rumors, just to give J i n g [Tai J i n g n o n g ] a laugh." It was signed with another of Lu Xun's pen names— Lii Sun ("Traveling Falcon"). The commonly used title of the poem apparently comes from this postscript. 6. Shuxin ji, l , p . 504. 7. Ibid., p. 506. 8. Lu X u n uses the term heng met ("fierce brows") to describe his own defiant attitude toward the authorities and their apologists, in juxtaposition with e mei ("mothlike eyebrows"), which is a figurative description for a lovely girl but can be extended in meaning to describe a flatterer's fawning posture. See Shi jian: fu shigao, pp. 146—147. Ye, commonly used to describe the painted face of a seductive woman, makes Lu Xun's meaning even clearer. Here he is referring to those scholars and writers who would stop at nothing to ingratiate themselves with the authorities. See N i Moyan, p. 220. 9- The first two lines of Lu Xun's poem seem to be a play on a couplet from Q u Yuan's Li sao, which Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang translate (p. 5) They envied me my moth-like eyebrows fine, And so my name his damsels did malign. (Chu ci zhijie, p. 48) Yet, unlike Q u Yuan, Lu X u n does not wish to adopt these "mothlike eyebrows" for himself. Q u Yuan still wished to be restored to favor with the King of Chu; whereas Lu Xun had no desire to return to the good graces of the Kuomintang authorities. Hence he ascribes those characteristics only to his enemies. The use of zhong nii ("a crowd of damsels," "the many women") remains the same in that both poets apply it to jealous slanderers who want to boost their own positions "in court" at the expense of others (the poets). 10. Fan yi yang could be rendered more literally as "to come up with a new trick," but since wishing a mortal illness on someone is still a form of curse, I have chosen the above translation to preserve the rhyme in English. 11. In the concluding line of the original poem, Lu X u n refers sarcastically to himself with the self-effacing term chert (your "vassal" or "subject"), which he deliberately wrote smaller than the other characters, as dictated by tradition, to heighten the effect of the satire. See Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 145. In this line another play on words is evident: the Chinese term for encephalitis is naoyan, which consists of the graphs for "brain" and "fire," meaning that the brain's lining is inflamed. Here the poet refutes the rumor by saying that his brain is, "as ever" (gu), cool "as ice" (ru bing).

46. Untitled (Wuti)

MAY

30, 1934

1961,

WHEN G R E E T I N G a Japanese goodwill delegation to China in Mao Tse-tung presented them with a copy of this poem that he had written out in his own distinctive xingshu ("running style") calligraphy,1 remarking: "This poem was composed by Lu Xun during China's darkest years before the dawn."2 Subsequently the poem drew a great deal of attention in the press, and various scholars tried their hand at explicating it. Guo Moruo lost no time in producing an "authoritative" paraphrase into vernacular Chinese, after his completion of a Japanese translation at Mao's behest.

An entry for May 30, 1934, in Lu Xun's diary records the poem as having been written out on that day at the request of the Japanese writer Nii Itaru who had been introduced to him by Uchiyama Kanzo.^ The poem is followed, on one copy that bears Lu Xun's signature and seal, with the short postscript "Composed on an 4 impulse during early summer of the lunar year xu

(1888—1951),

[1934],"

On May 30, 1925 (nine years earlier to the day), British troops had cut down unarmed Chinese demonstrators in Shanghai, in what became known as the May Thirtieth Incident. Because of the imagery and power of this heptasyllabic quatrain, I would not discount as totally coincidental the connection between the date on the poem and the poem's expression of deep concern for the fate of the poet's compatriots under a stifling regime and faced with new forms of foreign aggression. Mao's statement refers to the fact that near the time of the poem's composition, the Japanese had established a puppet government in Manchuria and were in the process of threatening China's sovereignty over the adjacent northern provinces.5 While following a policy of appeasement toward Japan, Chiang Kai-shek's government actively pursued its "Encircle and Annihilate" campaigns against the Commu311

312

The Lyrical Lu Xun

nists, launching the fifth such strike in October of 1933. For the common people in the countryside those were times of heavy tax burdens, economic instability, crop failure, and natural disaster. In the cities, the "White terror" raged. Lu Xun wrote to Yamamoto Hatsue on January 11, 1934: "The W h i t e terror in Shanghai worsens daily. Many young people disappear with no further word. I am still living at home. I don't know whether it is because they have no leads on me or because they think I am too old and therefore don't want me." 6 In a preface to a book of woodblock illustrations, also written in early 1934, Lu Xun depicted China in starkly haunting images, somewhat similar to those of this poem: "Present-day China is a vast expanse of thorns; all that is visible is the tyranny of foxes and tigers and the ignoble living of rabbits and pheasants." 7 Yet his faith in the value of resistance and his hope against all odds were reiterated in the summer of 1934: "If assassination could frighten people into submission, then assassins would ply their trade in ever-increasing numbers. They are now creating rumors that I have already fled to Qingdao, but that makes me want to live in Shanghai all the more so I can write on, cursing them—not only write but publish, to see who, in the end, will pass into oblivion." 8

313

Verse in the Classical Style

"Si

% Wan

jia

mo

mian

Ten-thousand families' ink-dark faces

# t

&

-if-

/3L

iSj

mo

hao

sunken in

« f

f f r

Gan

you

ge

yin

dong

Dare

there be

songs

sung

to move

AST

/ C

Xin

shi

Heart's

concerns

* Yu In/at

iy »->\ t wu

hao

-

mang

boundless,

-

lai,

underbrush,

^ di

ai

the earth in sorrow?

y >

T

lian

guang

yu,

connecting

vast

expansefs],

)ing

lei.

* A m sheng

without-sound[s]

chu

ting

place

hear

T h e dark and haggard faces of a countless host are sunken in the bushes, living still, at most. 9 Yet w h o a m o n g us dares with song burst forth a sorrow that could move the very earth? 1 " Troubles boundless in my heart expand, ranging the vastness of our l a n d , " And in this place w i t h o u t a trace of sound, I hear tremorous t h u n d e r raging 'round. 1 2

314

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. For a copy, see N i Moyan, p. 1. 2. N i Moyan, p. 222. 3. Riji, 2 2 . 1 9 b 6 - 7 . N i i Itaru was graduated in political science f r o m Tokyo University and worked as a journalist until 1924, w h e n he became interested in literary undertakings. Associated w i t h the anarchist m o v e m e n t in J a p a n , he translated Pearl Buck's novel The Good Earth into Japanese (1935). See Rojin zenshu, 9, p. 574. T h i s p o e m offers a useful contrast w i t h Buck's vision of China. 4. Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 149. 5. O c c u p y i n g the entire northeastern region in 1931, the Japanese proclaimed a reestablished monarchy under P u Yi on March 1, 1934. 6. Shuxinji, 2, p p . 1 1 6 0 - 1 1 6 1 . 7. Quanji (1991), 7, p. 4 1 8 . T h i s preface is dated January 20, 1934. It was for a book of woodcuts f r o m the Soviet U n i o n , titled Yin yu ji {Jadeb r i n g i n g collection], which Lu X u n had published at his own expense. 8. Quanji (1991), 13, p p . 5 2 9 - 5 3 0 . T h i s is a letter of J u l y 11, 1933, to Y a m a m o t o Hatsue. 9. Wan jia ("a countless host") m i g h t have been more literally rendered as "ten thousand families," b u t it seems here only to be descriptive of a large n u m b e r of the poet's compatriots. Mo m'tan(literally, "inky faces") describes the dark, g a u n t faces and disheveled appearance of a hard-pressed populace. See N i Moyan, p. 223. Mo mian also may refer to a form of t a t t o o i n g done on the face as a p u n i s h m e n t in ancient China; t h u s understood, the line signifies that the masses are treated as criminals by the g o v e r n m e n t . In the last half of the line, I have preserved the literal m e a n i n g of the second mo ("sunken") in English, because it conveys the feeling of being overwhelmed or m a d e helpless, while at the same t i m e connoting a sinking to lower levels of physical or economic well-being. It m i g h t have also been rendered "grovel," b u t does not necessarily connote subservience or deliberate self-abasement. 10. T h e original Chinese line is in the form of a rhetorical question. I have preserved this in translating, b u t the force of the line is clearly to e m p h a size that no one dares sing forth of his sorrows because of repression or out of fear for some unforeseen consequences. 11. Guangyu is sometimes explained as "a vast expanse of countryside," but it seems clearly to refer to the poet's whole country here, so I have rendered it as "the vastness of our land." Ito M a s a f u m i refers us to a q u o t e f r o m Lu Xun's essay "This, Too, Is Life," "while outside n i g h t took its course, and all that infinite space, those i n n u m e r a b l e people, were linked in some way w i t h me" (Selected Works, 4, p. 288), which he thinks has bearing on this image and its explication. See Rojin zenshu, 9, p. 575. Chinese text in Quanji (1991), 6, p. 6 0 1 . 12. T h e t e r m jing lei is applied to the startling, tremorous sound of

Verse in the Classical Style

315

thunder. Here it symbolizes the pent-up anger in a politically repressed society. In an essay written in May 1925, Lu Xun had conjured up a similar image of a "fierce silence" foreboding "genuine fury": "We need not be surprised to hear groans, sighs, weeping, or pleading. But when a fierce silence falls, we should be on our guard. When we see something like a poisonous snake gliding among the corpses, or an avenging spirit rushing through the darkness, we should be even more on our guard; for this is a sign that 'genuine fury' is coming." See Selected Works, 2, p. 144, "Stray Thoughts." Chinese text in Quanji (1991), 3, p. 50. Many Chinese commentators see this combined image of thunder and silence as a metaphor for nascent revolution and compare it with Lu Xun's famous line in the foreword to Yecao [Wild grass]: "A subterranean fire is spreading, raging underground." Quanji (1991), 2, p. 159. But it may also be a comment on the intellectual's ability to perceive contradictions beneath the surface in society. Guo Moruo suggests the image is derived from two paradoxical lines in Zhuangzi, which speak of "thunder from the silence of an abyss" (yuan mo er lei sheng) and "hearing where there is no sound" (ting hu wu sheng). Quoted in Zhang Enhe, p. 364. For original text see Chen Guying, ed., Zhuangzi jinzhu jinyi (Peking: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), pp. 271, 300.

47.

Feelings on an Autumn

Night

(Qiu ye you gan) SEPTEMBER 2 9 , 1 9 3 4

Lu XUN'S DIARY states that this heptasyllabic regulated verse was written out on the afternoon of September 29, 1934, for Zhang Zisheng (1892-1967). It was originally untitled, and the name under which it is now known seems to have been assigned by Lu Xun's wife sometime after his death. 1 Zhang Zisheng became a colleague of Lu Xun's youngest brother Jianren when the two men were teaching at the Mingdao Girls School in Shaoxing in 1910. It was then that he first met Lu Xun by borrowing his notes on Zhang Taiyan's lectures on the Shuoiven jiezi.2 Around the time of the May Fourth Movement in 1919, while Lu Xun was serving in Peking at the Ministry of Education, he carried on an active correspondence with Zhang, at times mailing newspapers and magazines to him. In December of 1919, when Lu Xun returned to Shaoxing to help move his family north to Peking, he left three cartons of books with Zhang. 3 Thereafter the two continued to keep in touch by mail. From 1922 to 1935, Zhang was in Shanghai, where he did editorial and translation work for the Commercial Press and the newspaper Shenbao. He was chief editor for Shenbao s column Ziyou tan [Free comments], to which Lu Xun was a frequent contributor from January of 1933 until August of 1934. Although writing for the public press entailed censorship of his work, this led Lu Xun to develop an oblique and laconic style of essay that became his mark. 4 Zhang did not take over the reins of editorship for the column until May of 1934, but he and Lu Xun were in frequent contact thereafter. Lu Xun's diary mentions him forty-eight times between May and November of 1934. 5 To protect Zhang, Lu Xun claimed in the preface to a collection of his essays from the period, titled Huabian wenxue [Fringed literature], that he had been hoodwinking Zhang: 316

Verse in the Classical Style

317

Afterward, the editor [of "Free Comments"], Mr. Li Liewen, was really put under pressure, and by the next year he was squeezed out of his job. At the time I could have ended my writing career too, but out of spite I decided to change my style, adopt new pen names, and ask others to copy over my manuscripts in their handwriting before I submitted them. The new editor [Zhang Zisheng} was not adept at distinguishing [which were mine and which were not], so my essays were still carried.6 On the night of September 17, 1934, Zhang Zisheng, accompanied by Lu Xun's brother Zhou Jianren, went to Lu Xun's home and stayed for dinner. 7 According to a 1962 interview with Zhang, conducted by Ni Moyan in order to ascertain the subject matter of this poem, that night the three (Lu Xun, Zhang, and Zhou Jianren) spoke at length of the literary scene with its various "struggles, literary turncoats, and the ruthless tactics of the Kuomintang 'cultural agents.' "8 On that occasion Zhang asked Lu Xun for a specimen of his calligraphy as a keepsake, and Lu Xun laughingly agreed to prepare such a piece. 9 After writing the poem for Zhang on September 29, Lu Xun had Zhou Jianren deliver it to him. A copy bearing Lu Xun's seal and signature with a brief postscript, "written as an impromptu composition on an autumn night," has been reprinted in facsimile. 10 According to Ni's interview in 1962 with Zhang, the topic of the poem is precisely what the three friends spoke about over dinner on September 17, 1934—the contemporary literary scene in those days. 11 Another point of historical background that may furnish some insight for interpreting this poem is that according to a dispatch from the Central News Agency dated April 17, 1934, the Kuomintang authorities at Hangzhou invited the Ninth Panchen Lama (1883— 1937) to preside over a large Buddhist convocation ceremony on April 28 of the same year, designed to "invoke the powers of the Buddha as the only means by which to ward off the dire calamities [converging on China]." This ceremony was only part of a five-day extravaganza that was to have included singing by opera star Mei Lanfang (1894—1961) and performances by the most celebrated actress of the silver screen, Hu Die "Butterfly" Wu (b. 1907), and the young starlet Xu Lai (1909—1973), as a fund-raising event for the government. Lu Xun viewed news of the affair with contempt and, at the time, wrote an essay satirizing it titled Fahui he geju [Buddhist ritual with a singalong], in which he chided: I have heard that when Our Lord Buddha preached the Dharma in ancient times, a "heavenly maiden sprinkled the site with flowers."

318

The Lyrical Lu Xun Now at the ceremonies in Hangzhou, Our Lord Buddha may not put in a personal appearance, so they have invited Mei Lanfang to come and play the part of the "heavenly maiden" for them. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that, but what has all this to do with those fashionable young starlets? Do they mean to tell us that the singing of movie queens and ravishing beauties can "ward off dire calamities" as effectively [as the Panchen Lama}?12

In another essay, Zhongguoren shidiao zixinli le ma? [Have the Chinese lost all self-confidence?], which was completed on September 25, 1934, only four days before the date of this poem, he wrote of the Nationalist government: "Now, since they have no way to brag about themselves anymore, nor do they have any faith in the League of Nations, they can only resort to asking the gods and Buddhas for divine intervention in the face of the Japanese threat." 15 It has been suggested by Zhou Zhenfu and others that the second line of this poem contains a reference to the ceremony at Hangzhou, since Lu Xun speaks of a ritual for deliverance being carried out, one interpretation of the phrase zuo daochang. Zhou holds that the rituals to have been presided over by the Panchen Lama were carried out next to a place that had been formerly used by the Kuomintang authorities as an execution ground, thus underscoring the sanctimony and brutal hypocrisy of a ceremony intended to save the nation by invoking the aid of the spirit world. 14

Lu Xun talking with young artists at the Second National Woodcut Exhibition, October 8, 1936.

320

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Qi Gossamer

luo

mu

hòu

silk

curtains

behind

# £ Bo

n

cong

biân

Cypress

chestnut

groves'

side

Wàng

-

Wistful

-

guang,

send-off flying rays [of time],

# it zuo

dao

- chang.

perform [requiem] ceremony.

Dì

zhong

iiao

fang

cao

biàn,

Emperor

in end

causes

fragrant

grasses

to change,

yâng

# *L W liao

shi

for a time decorates

da vast

y i u

tian

huang.

fields

of waste.

m M- të -f- \%

ft lai

W h e n c e will come

7> J

fei

¥

Flowering thistle

He

song

if It # it fé Mi

in fd &

lào

guo

yoghurt

fruits

gòng

qian

-

f. converge,

JH Zhong

ye

M i d d l e of night

jl

ming

feng

rooster's

crow:

wind

& B it QT

ran

Rising-up light

yan tobacco

* -

juan

jué

xln

liâng.

roll [ed],

feel

new

chill.

Verse in the Classical Style

Amid gossamer silk-curtained pleasure fleeting time is whiled away as leisure; 15 While 'neath the chestnut and the cypress tree— a requiem in all solemnity! 16 The cuckoo's plaintive cry that signals fall has fragrant grasses wither, one and all;17 And naught but thistle flowers are yet left to decorate vast wastelands so bereft. 18 So whence shall come treats fine enough indeed to satisfy a host of Buddhas' need? 19 Nor can a lotus fair enough be found, though to surpass Liu Lang 'twill not be bound. 20 This night the cock would rather crow than rest, 21 as wind and rain in storm together press; Arising from my couch, a cigarette I light and feel the chill of an early autumn night. 22

321

322

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. See N i Moyan, p. 226. Zhang Xiangtian extrapolates the date of its composition as being "the night of September 15, 1934." See Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, p. 295. Xia Mingzhao (p. 300) agrees with Zhang's dating. I am continuing to use the date it was "written out" (September 29) according to Lu Xun's diary for considerations of certainty. Zhang's argument centers on the fact that September 15 was "a stormy night of lightning and heavy rain" according to the entry in Lu Xun's diary for the 15th. See Quanji (1991), 15, pp. 169, 171. But perhaps he takes line 7 too literally. 2. Xia Mingzhao, p. 2993. N i Moyan, p. 227. 4. Mills, "Lu Hsün," p. 265. 5. N i Moyan, pp. 2 2 7 - 2 2 8 . 6. Quanji {1961), 5, p. 341. 7. Riß, 2 2 . 3 3 b 8 - 9 . 8. N i Moyan, p. 229. 9. Ibid., p. 22910. For a copy, see Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 151. 11. N i Moyan, p. 229. 12. Quanji (1961), 5, p. 368. Mei Lanfang was a famous female impersonator {dan) in Peking opera. 13. Quanji (1961), 6, p. 91. The idea for the ceremonies supposedly came from the right-wing Kuomintang leader Dai Jitao and from Lu Xun's old enemy Duan Qirui. See Xia Mingzhao, p. 300. 14. See Zhou Zhenfu, pp. 156—159- Mei Lanfang and the other major celebrities failed to show. See Rojin zenshü, 9, p. 577. 15. Qiluo ("gossamer silk") here is used as a symbol of opulence, as in the first of the two untitled poems in chapter 18. The first line in this poem describes the decadent lives of K u o m i n t a n g officials, according to N i Moyan (p. 230). This could also be a play on the proposed performances by Mei Lanfang, "Miss Butterfly" W u , et al. (the curtains of the stage?), or even some sort of sexual innuendo. See Zhang Enhe, pp. 3 6 7 - 3 6 8 . 16. In antiquity, chestnut and cypress groves were often chosen as sites for executing criminals, since the word li ("chestnut") is homophonous with the word "to quake" (in fear)—the idea being that public executions would serve as a deterrent to crime by intimidating the populace. As early as Shang times, the woods served as sacrificial altar locations. See Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 152. The phrase zuo daochang refers to Buddhist or Taoist rites conducted for the delivering of souls from purgatory; hence it is here rendered "requiem." W h e t h e r or not Lu Xun had this meaning in mind is subject to debate. Perhaps he was only referring to the "cultivation of merit" by the faithful officials and prominent personages who attended the rituals held at Hangzhou and telling the reader that tyranny belies their piety.

Verse in the Classical Style

323

17. In this line Lu Xun may be using Wang Di (the "Wistful Emperor"), title of Du Yu, who ruled the kingdom of Shu (in present-day Sichuan) during the late Zhou era, as a literary stand-in for the cuckoo. Wang Di was supposedly changed into a cuckoo at the time of his tragic death (see chapter 29, note 10). The Guang yun says that the cuckoo's cry signals fall and, as such, portends the doom of fragrant flowers and grasses. See Zhang Enhe, p. 380. Some commentators maintain that Lu Xun meant the line to imply that a number of leftist writers could not stand up under increasing pressure from the government and so eventually changed over to the government's side. See Zhou Zhenfu, pp. 157—159- Others read it as a description of the decimation of leftist literary circles by the government repression (Ni Moyan, pp. 231—232). 18. Literally translated, this line would read: "For the time being, the rniyang decorates a vast wasteland." Miyang is a thorny weed used here by Lu Xun to accentuate the lack of more desirable flora in the literary garden. The term originates in the Renjian shi chapter of Zhuangzi. See Chen Guying, Zhuangzi, 1, pp. 140—141. Its use here is interpreted either as a back-handed compliment to Zhang Zisheng's "Free Comments" column or as a reference to Lu Xun's discontent with developments in literary circles then. See Zhang Enhe, pp. 3 7 9 - 3 8 8 . The anonymous commentator in Shijian: fu shigao (p. 154) says miyang refers to Lu Xun's own essays and da tian to the entire wentan or "literary scene," i.e., that Lu Xun provided the "barbs" to torment the government and its apologists. In a 1931 essay titled Shanghai wenxue zhi yipie [A glance at Shanghai literature], Lu Xun spoke of the harassment of left-wing literary workers by the Kuomintang authorities: The establishment of the League of Left-wing Writers in Shanghai last year was an important event. As the theories of Plekhanov, Lunacharsky and others had been introduced by them, they enabled us to study them and become firmer and stronger. But precisely because of this, we were oppressed and persecuted in a way scarcely ever known in the world. And this being so, those so-called revolutionary writers who had thought left-wing writing was going to be all the fashion and authors would be offered bread and butter by the workers immediately changed again—some recanted, while others turned to attack the League of Leftwing Writers to show how much wiser they were this year. Though the League did not take the initiative in this, it still served as a sort of house-cleaning; for those authors, whether they change back or not, are incapable of good writing. (Selected Works, 3, pp. 123-124) Chinese text in Quanji (1991), 4, p. 299- My inclination is that this line refers to precisely these phenomena, i.e., the literary persecution. 19- Qian fo ("a host of Buddhas") may be a sarcastic reference to the Kuomintang government officials, who were trying at the time to promote a "Nationalist Literature Movement" in an attempt to gain control over the development of Chinese literature in the 1930s, which had up until then been in the hands of the leftists. See Ni Moyan, p. 232. Lu Xun scoffed bitterly at their literary power play:

324

The Lyrical Lu Xun Though piles of so-called literary magazines are still published in Shanghai, they actually have no content. To steer clear of trouble those printed by publishers out for a profit choose the most innocuous articles on such subjects as "Revolution is necessary—but it must not be too radical." The unique thing about them is that you may read them from beginning to end, but will find nothing in them. As for the government-owned magazines and those published to please the authorities, the contributors are a mixed lot whose one aim is to make money. They themselves think nothing of their writing and do not believe their own arguments in such articles as "English Literature of the Victorian Age" or "Why Sinclair Lewis Received the Nobel Prize." That is why I say all the literary magazines in Shanghai have no content. Revolutionary writing is being suppressed, and the magazines sponsored by those doing the suppressing contain no literature either. Do the oppressors really have no literature then? They have, but not here. It is contained in telegrams, decrees, news items, nationalist "literature," court sentences and the like. (Selected. Works, 3, p. 127; Chinese text in Quanji [1991], 4, pp. 3 0 2 - 3 0 3 )

20. T h e allusion to Liu Lang ("Sixth Lordling") comes f r o m the biograp h y of Yang Zaisi in the Jiu Tang shu [Prior history of the Tang dynasty]. Liu Lang, whose given n a m e was Z h a n g C h a n g z o n g , was famed for his good looks, and these natural e n d o w m e n t s soon led to his becoming a great favorite w i t h the tyrannical empress W u Zetian ( 6 2 5 - 7 0 5 ) . Taking advantage of his access to her, Liu Lang, along with his brother, gradually monopolized the reins of power. In order to curry favor w i t h Liu Lang, Yang Zaisi m a d e a statem e n t in the typically obsequious style of W u Zetian's reign: "Someone said that Liu Lang's face is like u n t o a lotus. Yet I feel we should say that a lotus is as fair as Liu Lang, not that Liu Lang is as fair as a lotus." See Liu X u , e d , , J i u Tang shu [Former history of the Tang dynasty] (Shanghai: Shanghai tushu jicheng yinshuaju, 1888), ce 17, juan 9 0 , 5a7. Lu Xun's use of this allusion is to say that the government's most valued young writers are merely the renegades of the leftist m o v e m e n t . In his 1931 article written for the American magazine New Masses titled Heian Zhongguo de wenyijie de xiankuang [The present condition of art in darkest China], he wrote: Today their most treasured writers are some who, supported by the revolutionary youth, called themselves left-wing and did not suffer any persecution when the left-wing movement in literature started, before there was suppression, but who have now crawled under the rulers' swords and turned to snap at left-wing writers. They treasure these men because having once been left-wing some of their magazines still appear partly red, only the pictures of peasants and workers have been replaced by Aubrey Beardsley's drawings of diseased looking characters. (Selected Works. 3, pp. 1 1 1 - 1 1 2 ; Chinese text in Quanji [1991], 4, p. 287) 21. T h e allusion to an untimely cock crow in the middle of night apparent in this line comes from the biography of Z u Ti in the Jin shu [History of the J i n dynasty], which runs: "Zu Ti and Liu K u n slept upon the same bed and shared their covers. In the middle of the night Z u Ti heard the untimely crow

Verse in the Classical Style

325

of a rooster and kicked Liu K u n awake, saying: 'This is an auspicious sign.' Thereupon they arose from bed and began practicing swordsmanship." See Fang Xuanling, e d , , J i n shu (Peking: Z h o n g h u a shuju, 1974), 6, p. 1694. This allusion was later used to symbolize the determination of patriots striving to improve themselves in order to serve their cause, for Z u Ti was to be instrumental in the defeat of the Turkic usurper Shi Le ( 2 7 3 - 3 3 2 ) . T h e other portion of this line—-fengyu ji ("wind and rain in storm together press")—is viewed by all Chinese commentators as being a reference to a similar line f r o m the Zheng feng [Odes of Zheng} section of the Shijing: feng yu ru hui, ji ming bu yi ("In the darkness of a storm, cocks crow on unceasingly"), Shijing zhijie, 1, p. 271. T h a t image later came to be used metaphorically to describe keeping a clear head when the rest of the world is in confusion, as, in times of disorder, the people long for justice f r o m their rulers. See Z h a n g Enhe, pp. 394—397. Z h a n g Ziehen in Lu Xun shijie [Lu Xun's poems explained} (Peking: Z h o n g g u o shehui kexue chubanshe, 1982), pp. 288—289 disagrees, saying this line only portrays the poet staying u p all night working. H e argues the allusion to Z u Ti is irrelevant. Since the previous line is highly allusive, however, I t h i n k that this one may be so also. 22. T h e xin liang (literally, "new coolness") the poet feels is the first chilliness in the air at the b e g i n n i n g of fall. T h u s the "early a u t u m n n i g h t " in my translation should be taken to mean a n i g h t in early a u t u m n . Some interpret this line as "reflecting the cool-headed, rousing spirit of the poet's o p t i m i s m " (Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 155). N i Moyan contends that Lu X u n has g o t t e n u p to write, in order that he may continue his struggle for justice, even t h o u g h it is already late at n i g h t (pp. 2 3 4 - 2 3 5 ) . Certainly the poet is anxious at the state of his country and irked by the vain posturing as well as the hypocrisy of its rulers. T h e act of arising in the middle of the night to smoke a cigarette indicates to m e more of an a t t e m p t to dispel feelings of frustration and angst. Although Lu X u n was a chain smoker, the image is being employed within the framework of a poem's artistic conception (yijing) and is hence imbued with a symbolic significance beyond the pure recording of events. Therefore it is partly a hint at existential dilemma. Ito Masafumi draws our attention to the last lines of a reminiscence Lu X u n penned in O c t o b e r of 1 9 2 6 about his favorite professor in medical school, Mr. Fujino: All I have left is his photograph, which hangs on the east wall of my Beijing lodging, opposite my desk. At night if I am tired and want to take it easy, when I look up and see his thin, dark face in the lamplight, as if about to speak in measured tones, my better nature asserts itself and my courage returns. Then I light a cigarette, and write some more of those articles so hated and detested by "just minds and gentlemen." (Rojin zenshu, 9, p. 580; Selected Works [1980}, 1, pp. 4 1 0 - 4 1 1 ; Chinese text in Quanji [1991}, 2, p. 308) B u t Lu X u n was w r i t i n g eight years later here and the image as a selfportrait has taken on an increasing resonance precisely because of the ambivalence of feelings introduced by the last three characters: jue xin liang ("to feel a new chill").

48.

Inscribed on Part 3 of

Mustard-Seed Garden «^-f-S (Ti

Jieziyuan)

DECEMBER 9, 1 9 3 4

THIS HEPTASYLLABIC QUATRAIN was rediscovered a t a later d a t e b y Lu

Xun's widow, Xu Guangping (1898—1968), who found it in 1946, written in a volume in her library. 1 The book,Jiezi yuan [Mustard-seed garden], was first printed in the seventeenth century as an illustrated manual for the art and technique of Chinese painting. The particular reprinted edition that Lu Xun gave his wife was part of a series of art reprints to which he had devoted much time and attention, helping with the compilation, printing, and introductory material. 2 After the books of this lot came off the press, Lu Xun had to buy a set at his own expense and was greatly dissatisfied with it. The original edition was a masterpiece of polychromatic woodblock printing, but the price set by the publisher for this reprint was prohibitively high. Moreover, the newspaper ads were misleading, contending that it was done entirely with woodblock printing and that over ten years of research had gone into the production techniques. 3 Still, he felt that since the original Qing dynasty editions had become so rare and no superior reprints existed, the set was worthy of presentation to his wife. 4 On the first volume of the third part of that set, he inscribed this poem as a token of his appreciation for all she had gone through with him in times of danger and adversity. Xu Guangping first saw Lu Xun when she was attending his lectures on the history of Chinese literature at Peking Women's Normal. On March 11, 1925, she wrote him for the first time during a student movement soliciting advice on what to do with her life in order to make a contribution to society in those troubled times. Lu Xun took an active interest in their correspondence, which eventually grew to number 135 letters or more; it was later collected, edited, and published 326

Verse in the Classical Style

327

under the title Liang di sbu [Letters from two places}. Interested in politics, Xu contributed to the magazine Mangyuan [Wilderness] that Lu Xun was then editing. Because of her leading role in the student movement against Yang Yinyu, the president of Women's Normal in 1925, Xu was expelled from school. Lu Xun was later suspended from his post at the Ministry of Education for his vociferous support of the student activists. On the news of his dismissal, Xu Guangping rushed to his house to console him. 5 When Lu Xun was forced to flee Peking by the Duan Qirui warlord government, subsequent to his denunciation of the massacre of forty or more young demonstrators who were protesting outside the executive mansion, Xu left the city together with him, returning to her native Canton, where she began a teaching career, while Lu Xun taught at Amoy University. His first wife, Zhu An, remained in Peking. When Lu Xun left Amoy in 1927 to take up the chairmanship of the Chinese literature department at Canton's Sun Yat-sen University, Xu began living with him. In April 1927, having been forced to witness the slaughter and the double-dealing during Chiang Kai-shek's purge of the Communists, Lu Xun resigned his post, disillusioned with the "revolution." He and Xu Guangping remained in Canton for a short while only, leaving in October of 1927 for Shanghai, where she bore his only child in 1929—a son called Haiying ("the Shanghai baby"), a name he carries up to the present day. But, they were not destined to find tranquility there either. After 1930, Lu Xun came under "constant threat of arrest because of his dissident activities and his hostility toward the Kuomintang." 6 During his last few strenuous years of life, Xu Guangping gave untiringly of herself to provide the physical care and spiritual consolation he so sorely needed. She also created the only stability he had in those days—an ad hoc family life. After Lu Xun died in 1936, Xu Guangping devoted much of her time and energy to collating and editing his works for the first edition of the Lu Xun quanji (1938). During the Second World War she remained in Shanghai under the Japanese occupation, and was arrested in 1941 for her activities in the Fu she ("Restoration Society"), an underground resistance group she had helped found. 7 After the war she took an active role in leading various women's associations. W i t h the proclamation of the Communist government in 1949, she accepted a number of posts and headed delegations to foreign countries. She edited a collection of Lu Xun's letters and also contributed significantly to the compilation of the second edition of the Lu Xun quanji (1957—58), which contains annotations (the first one did not). Before

328

The Lyrical Lu Xun

her death in the early years of the Cultural Revolution, she was at loggerheads with both Zhou Yang, the erstwhile "revisionist" cultural czar, and Zhou Zuoren, middle brother of Lu Xun. Her accusations that the two had been involved in a long-standing conspiracy to distort Lu Xun's legacy were widely publicized by the pro-Mao, anti—Liu Shaoqi factions and did, perhaps inadvertently, serve the study of Lu Xun in a positive manner, in that they brought to light new information regarding the "Battle of the Slogans" in 1936 (see the introduction). Recently she has become the subject of posthumous censure in China for having been too eager to side with radical factions during the Cultural Revolution. My assessment is that she did so principally because she felt muzzled by the Communist literary establishment in the 1950s and early 1960s, presided over by Zhou Yang, who had been a member of the faction most hostile to Lu Xun during the "Battle of the Slogans." To fault her for speaking out when she finally got the chance is, I think, disingenuous.

Soong Ch'ing-ling (center), Xu G u a n g p i n g (right), and Haiying at Lu Xun's funeral in 1936.

Verse in the Classical Style

+

329

4 4JJ *

Shi

nian

xie

shou

Ten

years

holding

hands

VX

^

fa

>f

xiang

& & gong

jian

together adversity

ru

#

T

danger,

&

Yi

mo

Using

saliva

Liao

jie

hua

tu

yi

juan

yan,

For now

avail of

painted

pictures

to ease

exhausted

eyes,

liäng

xin

zhl.

two

hearts

know.

each-other moisten

jfc t # CT

zhöng

Herein/amidst

gan

ké y> also worthy of

wei,

ai, lament.

# kü

sweetness bitterness

For ten years, hand in hand, together 'mid adversity; 8 S p e w i n g saliva, we kept each other moist as t w o fish aground m i g h t do. 9 N o w take, a w h i l e , these p a i n t i n g books and soothe your tired eyes; 1 0 T h e joys and sorrows of these years were shared alone by you.

330

The Lyrical Lu Xun

Notes 1. The poem was originally untitled. This title is based on those used by Xu Guangping. 2. See Ni Moyan, pp. 236-237. 3. Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, p. 350. 4. According to Lu Xun's prefatory statement as quoted in Ni Moyan, p. 236. 5. Ni Moyan, p. 238. 6. Boorman, Biographical Dictionary, l , p . 132. 7. Ibid. Yamamoto Hatsue and Uchiyama Kanzo worked strenuously for her release at this time. See Xia Mingzhao, p. 174. 8. Literally this line reads: "For ten years, holding hands, we shared hardship and peril." In a letter of March 6, 1931, to Li Bingzhong, Lu Xun wrote of leaving Canton for Shanghai: "At the time I was accompanied by someone who had been a student of mine in the past. Together we shared distress and adversity and have been of much help to each other for a long time already. She has made light of the hardship that staying with me entails." Shuxin ji, 1, p. 272 9- The phrase yi mo xiang ru ("to moisten each other with saliva") comes from the Dai zong shi [Great and venerable teacher] section of Zhuangzi. The original usage occurs in the line "When the springs are dried up and the fish are left stranded on the ground, they spew moisture and wet each other down with saliva. But they would be better off forgetting each other out in the rivers and lakes." See Chen Guying, ed., Zhuangzi, 1, p. 178. This four-character phrase has come to be employed in describing mutual aid in a hostile environment, as in a symbiotic relationship among persons. 10. The word yi means "to delight" or "to take joy in" but here may be understood as "to rest, ease, or soothe [one's eyes}."

49. Composed on an Impulse in Late Autumn of 1935 (Hainian canqiu ouzuo) DECEMBER 5 , 1 9 3 5

Xun's diary, he wrote out this heptasyllabic regulated verse on the above date "for Jishi" (his lifelong friend Xu Shoushang). 1 From what we know of extant copies of Lu Xun's poems, this is the last classical-style verse he composed before his death of tuberculosis on October 19, 1936. As such, it is fitting that he again took the fate of his country and the welfare of its people to heart in this writing. Having set up the puppet state Manchukuo in China's northeastern provinces in early 1932, by 1934 Japan had placed the last Manchu emperor of China, Pu Yi, on the throne there. Not content to confine its control to Manchukuo and Jehol, in the spring of 1934 Tokyo declared that no foreign power could take any major action in China without the prior consent of Japan, thereby making clear its plan of turning the whole of China into a Japanese client-state. In June of 1935 the Kuomintang concluded the "He-Umezu Accord" with the commander of Japanese forces in north China. In it, General Umezu Yoshijiro required the withdrawal from the provinces of Hebei and Chahar "any officials, armed detachments, or organizations that might prove unfriendly to Japan." It is to this withdrawal and tacit relinquishing of China's sovereignty that Lu Xun alludes in the fourth line of his verse. 2 ACCORDING TO LU

There have been varying interpretations of individual lines in this poem. Looming especially large is the question of whether or not the poet himself is to be taken as the subject in the third couplet. Perhaps the most authoritative statement comes from Xu Shoushang, who wrote: "This poem laments the suffering of the people and shows us the vast range of things that [Lu Xun] took to heart. He was deeply disturbed by much of what he saw. He had no place where he could go for 331

332

The Lyrical Lu X.un

rest or shelter, so he was invariably tempered in struggle. Yet amid the dismal isolation he feels, the poem is yet infused with the first faint rays of the dawn of hope."5 In an attempt to refute this poet-centered reading, N i Moyan makes the point that unless the image of "having no place to go to rest or take shelter" is one describing the plight of the broad masses of common people, X u Shoushang cannot contend that "this poem laments the sufferings of the people." 4 But it would appear to me in this case that Ni's argument is inappropriate. One needs only to see the first couplet in the poem as a general reference to the plight that befell China in the 1930s, the backdrop for the poem. Writing on September 27, 1933, just after the second anniversary of the Mukden Incident (September 18, 1931), with which pretext the Japanese military had illegally seized control of Manchuria, Lu Xun spoke more specifically of "autumns," saying: We cannot tell what autumn was like in the earliest geological epochs, but in modern times there is little variation from one year to another. If the autumn before last was a stern one, this is a dismal one, and it looks as if the life of this earth is going to be considerably shorter than the astronomers predicted. Human affairs change most rapidly, however, and poets in particular are struck by the differences between different autumns, conveying them in tragic or pathetic language. . . . The autumn before last [that of the seizure of Manchuria} did seem a tragic one. Townsfolk raised money, boys and girls risked their necks . . . compatriots [went] empty-handed and unarmed. . . . In a mere two years, the volunteer troops have become "bandits," and some of the "heroes of the resistance" have settled down in Soochow, while there is even doubt about the war funds. On the anniversary of September 18 in the Chinese Settlement [of Shanghai] prison vans followed the armed patrols, but as a splendid conveyance thoughtfully provided for any "reactionaries" who "meant to seize the chance to stir up trouble." The weather was wretched too, with high winds and driving rain. The papers said this "cyclone" was heaven and earth weeping over China, but between heaven and earth—in the world of men—the day passed "peacefully." So this has become a "peaceful" if somewhat dispirited autumn, like the season when a mourner lays aside mourning. [Some] poets, however, find such times suit them best. I heard low groans and comfortable words in "Autumn Dusk," published in Current News on September 25 and by the author of "Oh, Countrymen, Awake!" Every autumn my spirits droop, and at dusk in autumn I shed tears. I am well aware that my depression is whipped up by the buffeting autumn wind, and it dawns on me that my surround-

Verse in the Classical Style

333

ings are absolutely appropriate to autumn. Softly I caress the sound waves which a u t u m n sends out to Nature. I know that fate has made me an "autumnal" man. . . . In China today we often see fashionable young ladies chased by hooligans or young revolutionaries chased by detectives. We seldom see men of letters or writers chased. If we could do a little sleuthing for a few months or years, we should discover how many poets turn somersaults to suit the times. Of course, a living man wants to go on living. Even slaves, the lowest of the low, struggle to survive. But at least they know they are slaves. They endure hardships, burn with resentment and struggle to free themselves—sometimes they succeed in doing so. Even if defeated for a time and fettered again, they are simply slaves. . . . But utterly damned are those who try to find "beauty" in slavery, praising and caressing it or being intoxicated by it, for they try to reconcile themselves and others to being slaves for ever. This slight difference between slaves gives rise to the difference in society between peace and disturbances, and the striking difference in the world of letters between escapist and fighting literature. 5 T h e above q u o t a t i o n , t h o u g h w r i t t e n in 1 9 3 3 , m a y shed s o m e l i g h t o n Lu X u n ' s f e e l i n g s d u r i n g t h e a u t u m n of 1 9 3 5 as well; for t h e K u o m i n t a n g ' s e q u i v o c a t i o n in t h e face of p o p u l a r s e n t i m e n t in favor of r e s i s t i n g J a p a n e s e a g g r e s s i o n h a d b e c o m e still clearer by t h e t i m e of this poem's composition.

At the woodcut exhibition in Shanghai on October 8, 1936, photographed shortly before Lu Xun's death on October 19-

The Lyrical Lu Xun

334

# t Ceng Once

jlng

su

qiü

E

^

hn

tian

T -

xia,

grimness approaching heaven-beneath,

alarmed at/by fall's

I: Ü 4

¡1 J:

f

m

Gän

qiän

chun

wen

shàng

bï

duän.

Dare

let/set

spring's

warmth

travel-up

pen

tip?

it

g

7X2

ït f

Chén

häi

cäng

máng

chén

Dust

seas

hazy

vastness [in]

sink

JÊ

ä Jin

feng

tr

a zou

xiao

Gold [autumn] wind soughing [amid],

£ Läo

If gui

T

M-

flee

bài

gän,

a hundred emotions,

- f - 1 qian

guan.

a thousand officials.

£

jnii.

dà

zé

Grown old, return to great -Af-

ê

V L

marshes,

gu

pu

jin,

reed and rush are spent/gone,

3C

&

Mèng

zhui

kông

yún

chi

fa

hán.

Dream

plunge

empty

clouds,

teeth

hair

chilled.

pian

qu

íÉ- TfL Söng

ting

huäng

Strain to listen for untimely cock,

^

yff JL

QI

kàn

Rising,

see

xlng

4 -

döu

star[s and] dipper

but

ji. [all is] silent/quiet,

SL

M

zhèng

lán

-f -

gan.

just-now transverse [the skies].

Verse in the Classical Style

335

Alarmed at autumn's grimness which bore down upon the earth, 6 Would I have set my pen to write how balmy spring is mirth? 7 Amid dust oceans' vastness sink my passions hundredfold; 8 To flee with soughing autumn w i n d officials all make bold!9 To marshes in old age return, where reed and rush are gone,10 Chilled to the bone, when dreams that fall through empty clouds are drawn.11 I strain to hear a rooster crow— in silence all stands b y . . .

12

Arising, see the stars stretch forth, across the nighttime sky.13

The Lyrical Lu Xun

336

Notes 1. Riji, 23.40al0—b3. The poem was originally untitled. The title in common use comes from a postscript appended to the poem by Lu Xun. See Ni Moyan, p. 240. 2. See Ni Moyan, pp. 2 4 0 - 2 4 2 . 3. Xu Shoushang, Renshi de, p. 84. 4. Ni Moyan, p. 243. 5. Selected Works, 3, pp. 3 2 3 - 3 2 4 . Chinese text in Quanji (1991), 4, pp. 586-588. The author of "Oh, Countrymen, Awake!," whom Lu Xun satirizes, is Shao Guanhua, a proponent of "Nationalist Literature." 6. As has been argued, this line refers to China's dire straits in the 1930s. Lu Xun had previously used the image of qiu su ("autumn's grimness") to describe the dim prospects for China's future unless it embarked on a new course. This usage occurs in his 1907 essay Moluo shi li shuo [On the power of Mara poetry], which opens with the lines: "Those who read chronologically through the history of the world's most ancient cultures will unavoidably incur a depressing feeling upon reaching the end. It is like plunging from the warmth of spring into the grimness of autumn—budding sprouts are wrenched up and naught but withering and emaciation loom ahead. I have no name for this, but for the time being shall refer to it as 'desolation.' " Quanji (1961), 1, p. 194. 7. Literally this line might be rendered: "Would I have dared use my pen to soak up spring's warmth?" The image is of the cheery warmth of spring soaking its way up a traditional Chinese writing brush. The poet's figurative meaning is that in times of trouble one should depict the world as it is in stark reality, not try to cloak it in a happy or colorful light, as did some government-approved writers. 8. Chen hat ("sea of dust") is an appellation used by both Buddhists and Taoists for the world of mortals. Here Lu Xun may well be saying that the passions and hopes he has invested in China seem to be dashed at every turn of events. See Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, pp. 315-316. 9. Jin feng is a literary term for "autumn wind." The onomatopoeic word xiaose, which is used here much as English-speaking people refer to the wind as "soughing," carries the connotations of "cold" and "desolate" as well as the sound of the wind blowing through rustling, dry leaves. The clause zou qian guan ("a thousand officials flee") refers to the Kuomintang's withdrawal from Hebei and Chahar in June of 1935 under Japanese coercion. 10. This implies that the subject of the line cannot find the comforts of a secure life or a safe home. See chapter 42, note 13. Ito Masafumi says that gu refers to wild rice, hence sustenance, and pu suggests a mat woven of bulrush stems, hence a bed. See Rojin zenshü, 9, p. 585. Angelika Gu and Wolfgang Kubin translate "weder Reis noch Stroh" (neither rice nor straw). See Das trunkene Land, volume 6 of Lu Xun: Werke in sechs Bänden (Zürich: Unionsverlag, 1994), p. 64.

Verse in the Classical

Style

337

11. One explanation by a Chinese commentator would have this line read: "In a dream I fall down through layers of clouds and, because of my alarm, even my teeth and hair turn white." Chi f a hart, meaning literally "chilled unto the teeth and hair," is similar to our "chilled to the bone," though one commentator insists it is an indication of Lu Xun's awareness of his advancing age (see Shi jiart: fu shigao, p. 159). Most commentators feel that this sentence is in fact a daozhuang ju or "inverted construction." My reading is that it is the dreams, ideals, or hopes that fall through empty clouds and not the dreamer himself; or, as we would say, the dreams are dashed. See Zhang Xiangtian (1973), 2, p. 314. Cf. Shi jiart: fu shigao, p. 157; Ni Moyan, p. 242. 12. Again, this is the recurrent allusion to Zu Ti and Liu Kun (d. 317), loyalists of the J i n dynasty, who were awakened at night by the premature crowing of a rooster and then chose to use the early morning hours to practice their swordsmanship. Consequently, they helped deliver the Jin state from invaders. See the biography of Zu Ti in the Jin shu, op. cit. in my chapter 47, note 21. Some speculate that this line expresses Lu Xun's hope for a patriotic resistance to Japan (Shi jian: fu shigao, p. 160), whereas others feel he waits anxiously for news of revolution (Ni Moyan, p. 242). To me, he seems distraught at the lack of a serious response to the plight of the nation. He is unnerved by the dearth of commitment at an hour already critically late. 13. Translated literally, this line means only: "Arising, [I] see the stars just now arrayed across the sky." Langan means to "crisscross," or "cross diagonally." Many commentators take xingdou (the stars; heavenly bodies) to be a poetic stand-in for beidou (the dipper), and langan to mean "slant downward." See Zhang Enhe, pp. 4 0 5 ^ 0 8 . Since the implication of that stellar phenomenon is that dawn is about to break, I might have taken the liberty to add the clause "and know the dawn is nigh" to the text of the English translation, but have refrained from doing so out of consideration of loyalty to the original. There has been much debate in China about the interpretation of this final line. Typically, Ni Moyan reminds us that those were really the days when one could say "it's always darkest before the dawn" (p. 242). Xia Mingzhao disagrees, saying the stars indicate it is still night (p. 317). So does Ito Masafumi in Rojin zenshu, 9, p. 585. Seemingly, the poem ends on a hopeful note. Xu Shoushang, its earliest recipient, gives this reading in Wo suo renshi de Lu Xun, p. 84: "Amid the dismal isolation he [Lu Xun] feels, the poem is yet infused with the first faint rays of the dawn of hope." But to second-guess the poet on the specific reason for the positive note is next to impossible. Perhaps he did mean that he felt the revolution or some other form of deliverance was at hand, but he could just as easily be referring to that "blow from a giant whip" which he sometimes insisted would be necessary to straighten China out. See Quanji (1991), 1, p. 164. Even if the latter were the case, however, he was on no account a total pessimist about China's long-term future. "To say that we have no place on the twentieth-century stage," he once wrote, "is sheer rubbish."

Epilogue

"Mourning at Lu Xun's Grave" by X u Shoushang

(Ku Lu X u n m u shi) JANUARY 1 9 3 7

AFTER LU XUN'S death, his old friend Xu Shoushang wrote: "During my semester break in January of the year following his death, I went back south and made a special trip to the International Cemetery {in Shanghai], where I placed a wreath of flowers on Lu Xun's grave with deepest respects. On my way home I composed a poem titled 'Mourning at Lu Xun's Grave,' which I record here to end this book." 1 As this is one of the most moving commemorative verses penned upon Lu Xun's death, I have chosen to reproduce it at the conclusion of this book as well. Xu Shoushang continued to write his reminiscences which served as valuable sources of information for Lu Xun biographers and researchers all the way up until his death in 1948, when he was murdered in Taiwan while serving as the chair of the newly formed Department of Chinese Literature at Taiwan University. Prior to his gory death by stabbing, Xu had received numerous threats connected to his writing on Lu Xun. 2 Apparently Lu Xun was still seen as a threat by the Kuomintang government even into the late 1980s. Fortunately, the political climate in Taiwan has now changed and some of the most interesting scholarship on Lu Xun during the next decade may well come out of that island enclave, an irony which would certainly not have been lost on Lu Xun.

339

340

The Lyrical Lu Xun

% Shën

-

hòu

wàn

min

ten-thousand people

qiân

ft Dan

xin

-k

gû single

sword

fx*

Mu qì

overwhelming spirit

il

xuë

ti,

like

snow

tears,

jiàn

hào

Sincere

tóng

#

M M m

fa Sheng -

ft

M

#

Chang

ye

ping

shui

Long

night

rely upon

whom

dû alone

chöng

-•

feng.

charged/stormed.

i zhöng end in

huâng

tu,

yellow/brown earth,

T

&

kòu

xiäo

I

f

zhông.

to strike dawn/morning bell?

After his death, the tears of ten thousand like a blizzard o f snow f e l l 3 — Y e t while alive, alone he s t o r m e d the e n e m y citadel. A sincere heart, o v e r w h e l m i n g s p i r i t — all end in the yellow earth; N o w in our long, unending n i g h t , w h o can toll the new dawn's birth?

Verse in the Classical

341

Style

Notes 1. X u S h o u s h a n g , Wangyou, p p . 134—135. 2. M y t h a n k s to Z h a o R u i h o n g and other scholars in m a i n l a n d C h i n a and Taiwan for this i n f o r m a t i o n . 3. T h i s line seems to refer to Lu X u n ' s funeral, t h e p r o p o r t i o n s of which X u S h o u s h a n g does not exaggerate in t h e least. In an article titled "Lu X u n : Literature and R e v o l u t i o n — f r o m Mara to Marx," H a r r i e t Mills conjures u p a vivid d e p i c t i o n of it: At two-thirty on the afternoon of October 22, 1936, a procession ten thousand strong left the International Funeral Parlor in the International Settlement of Shanghai to escort Lu X u n to his grave in the Chinese city. Their banners hailed "the soul of China," whose "pen was mightier than the sword." In the settlement, mounted Sikh policemen and armed patrolmen lined the route of march, which authorities had shortened for fear of possible leftist demonstrations. In the Chinese city, Chinese policemen with fixed bayonets stood guard. It was a guard mounted not in honor but in fear. It was not just Lu X u n the writer but Lu X u n the anguished patriot who was being interred—the Lu X u n who in his later years had shifted his hopes for China from the G u o m i n dang at N a n k i n g to the C o m m u n i s t opposition. (See Merle G o l d m a n , ed., Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977], p. 189.)

Portrait ofLu Xun ( 1 9 3 6 ) by Li C h u n . N o t e d o g beneath pen on left, a reference t o Lu X u n ' s 1925 essay " O n D e f e r r i n g 'Fair Play.' "

Glossary of Chinese and Japanese Names and Terms

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