CATHAY

CATHAY

Translations by
Ezra Pound

FOR THE MOST PART FROM THE CHINESE
OF RIHAKU, FROM THE NOTES OF THE
LATE ERNEST FENOLLOSA, AND
THE DECIPHERINGS OF THE
PROFESSORS MORI
AND ARIGA

RIHAKU flourished in the eighth century of our era. The Anglo-Saxon Seafarer is of about this period. The other poems from the Chinese are earlier.

Song of the Bowmen of Shu

HERE we are, picking the first fern-shoots

And saying: When shall we get back to our country?

Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen,

We have no comfort because of these Mongols.

We grub the soft fern-shoots,

When anyone says “Return,” the others are full of sorrow.

Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry and thirsty.

Our defence is not yet made sure, no one can let his friend return.

We grub the old fern-stalks.

We say: Will we be let to go back in October?

There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort.

Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country.

What flower has come into blossom?

Whose chariot? The General’s.

Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were strong.

We have no rest, three battles a month.

By heaven, his horses are tired.

The generals are on them, the soldiers are by them.

The horses are well trained, the generals have ivory arrows and quivers ornamented with fish-skin.

The enemy is swift, we must be careful.

When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring.

We come back in the snow.

We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty,

Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know of our grief?

by Kutsugen
4th Century B.C.

The Beautiful Toilet

BLUE, blue is the grass about the river

And the willows have overfilled the close garden.

And within, the mistress, in the midmost of her youth.

White, white of face, hesitates, passing the door.

Slender, she puts forth a slender hand,

And she was a courtezan in the old days,

And she has married a sot,

Who now goes drunkenly out

And leaves her too much alone.

by Mei Sheng
B.C. 140

The River Song

THIS boat is of shato-wood, and its gunwales are cut magnolia,

Musicians with jewelled flutes and with pipes of gold

Fill full the sides in rows, and our wine

Is rich for a thousand cups.

We carry singing girls, drift with the drifting water,

Yet Sennin needs

A yellow stork for a charger, and all our seamen

Would follow the white gulls or ride them.

Kutsu’s prose song

Hangs with the sun and moon.

King So’s terraced palace

is now but a barren hill.

But I draw pen on this barge

Causing the five peaks to tremble,

And I have joy in these words

like the joy of blue islands.

(If glory could last forever

Then the waters of Han would flow northward.)

And I have moped in the Emperor’s garden, awaiting an order-to-write!

I looked at the dragon-pond, with its willow-coloured water

Just reflecting the sky’s tinge,

And heard the five-score nightingales aimlessly singing.

The eastern wind brings the green colour into the island grasses at Yei-shu,

The purple house and the crimson are full of Spring softness.

South of the pond the willow-tips are half-blue and bluer,

Their cords tangle in mist, against the brocade-like palace.

Vine-strings a hundred feet long hang down from carved railings,

And high over the willows, the fine birds sing to each other, and listen.

Crying — “Kwan, Kuan,” for the early wind, and the feel of it.

The wind bundles itself into a bluish cloud and wanders off.

Over a thousand gates, over a thousand doors are the sounds of spring singing,

And the Emperor is at Ko.

Five clouds hang aloft, bright on the purple sky,

The imperial guards come forth from the golden house with their armour a-gleaming.

The Emperor in his jewelled car goes out to inspect his flowers.

He goes out to Hori, to look at the wing-flapping storks,

He returns by way of Sei rock, to hear the new nightingales.

For the gardens at Jo-run are full of new nightingales.

Their sound is mixed in this flute.

Their voice is in the twelve pipes here.

by Rihaku
8th century A.D.

The River-Merchant’s Wife: a Letter

WHILE my hair was still cut straight across my forehead

I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.

You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,

You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.

And we went on living in the village of Chokan:

Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.

I never laughed, being bashful.

Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever, and forever.

Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed.

You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies,

And you have been gone five months.

The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,

Too deep to clear them away!

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.

The paired butterflies are already yellow with August

Over the grass in the West garden;

They hurt me.

I grow older.

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,

Please let me know beforehand,

And I will come out to meet you

As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

by Rihaku

The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance

THE jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,

It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,

And I let down the crystal curtain

And watch the moon through the clear autumn.

by Rihaku

NOTE. — Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore a court lady, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore he has no excuse on account of weather. Also she has come early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.

Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin

MARCH has come to the bridge head,

Peach boughs and apricot boughs hang over a thousand gates,

At morning there are flowers to cut the heart,

And evening drives them on the eastward-flowing waters.

Petals are on the gone waters and on the going,

And on the back-swirling eddies,

But to-day’s men are not the men of the old days,

Though they hang in the same way over the bridge-rail.

The sea’s colour moves at the dawn

And the princes still stand in rows, about the throne,

And the moon falls over the portals of Sei-go-yo,

And clings to the walls and the gate-top.

With head-gear glittering against the cloud and sun,

The lords go forth from the court, and into far borders.

They ride upon dragon-like horses,

Upon horses with head-trappings of yellow metal,

And the streets make way for their passage.

Haughty their passing,

Haughty their steps as they go into great banquets,

To high halls and curious food,

To the perfumed air and girls dancing,

To clear flutes and clear singing;

To the dance of the seventy couples;

To the mad chase through the gardens.

Night and day are given over to pleasure

And they think it will last a thousand autumns,

Unwearying autumns.

For them the yellow dogs howl portents in vain,

And what are they compared to the lady Riokushu,

That was cause of hate!

Who among them is a man like Han-rei

Who departed alone with his mistress,

With her hair unbound, and he his own skiffs-man!

by Rihaku

Lament of the Frontier Guard

BY the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand,

Lonely from the beginning of time until now!

Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn.

I climb the towers and towers

to watch out the barbarous land:

Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert.

There is no wall left to this village.

Bones white with a thousand frosts,

High heaps, covered with trees and grass;

Who brought this to pass?

Who has brought the flaming imperial anger?

Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums?

Barbarous kings.

A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn,

A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom.

Three hundred and sixty thousand,

And sorrow, sorrow like rain.

Sorrow to go, and sorrow, sorrow returning.

Desolate, desolate fields,

And no children of warfare upon them,

No longer the men for offence and defence.

Ah, how shall you know the dreary sorrow at the North Gate,

With Rihoku’s name forgotten,

And we guardsmen fed to the tigers.

by Rihaku

Exile’s Letter

TO So-kin of Rakuyo, ancient friend, Chancellor of Gen.

Now I remember that you built me a special tavern

By the south side of the bridge at Ten-Shin.

With yellow gold and white jewels, we paid for songs and laughter

And we were drunk for month on month, forgetting the kings and princes.

Intelligent men came drifting in from the sea and from the west border.

And with them, and with you especially

There was nothing at cross purpose.

And they made nothing of sea-crossing or of mountain-crossing.

If only they could be of that fellowship.

And we all spoke out our hearts and minds, and without regret.

And then I was sent off to South Wei,

smothered in laurel groves,

And you to the north of Raku-hoku,

Till we had nothing but thoughts and memories in common.

And then, when separation had come to its worst,

We met, and travelled into Sen-Go,

Through all the thirty-six folds of the turning and twisting waters,

Into a valley of the thousand bright flowers,

That was the first valley;

And into ten thousand valleys full of voices and pine-winds.

And with silver harness and reins of gold,

Out come the East of Kan foreman and his company.

And there came also the “True man” of Shi-yo to meet me,

Playing on a jewelled mouth-organ.

In the storied houses of San-Ko they gave us more Sennin music,

Many instruments, like the sound of young phœnix broods.

The foreman of Kan Chu, drunk, danced because his long sleeves wouldn’t keep still

With that music-playing.

And I, wrapped in brocade, went to sleep with my head on his lap,

And my spirit so high it was all over the heavens,

And before the end of the day we were scattered like stars, or rain.

I had to be off to So, far away over the waters,

You back to your river-bridge.

And your father, who was brave as a leopard,

Was governor in Hei Shu, and put down the barbarian rabble.

And one May he had you send for me,

despite the long distance.

And what with broken wheels and so on, I won’t say it wasn’t hard going.

Over roads twisted like sheep’s guts.

And I was still going, late in the year,

in the cutting wind from the North,

And thinking how little you cared for the cost,

and you caring enough to pay it.

And what a reception:

Red jade cups, food well set on a blue jewelled table,

And I was drunk, and had no thought of returning.

And you would walk out with me to the western corner of the castle.

To the dynastic temple, with water about it clear as blue jade.

With boats floating, and the sound of mouth-organs and drums.

With ripples like dragon-scales, going grass green on the water,

Pleasure lasting, with courtezans, going and coming without hindrance.

With the willow flakes falling like snow,

And the vermilioned girls getting drunk about sunset.

And the water a hundred feet deep reflecting green eyebrows

— Eyebrows painted green are a fine sight in young moonlight.

Gracefully painted —

And the girls singing back at each other,

Dancing in transparent brocade.

And the wind lifting the song, and interrupting it,

Tossing it up under the clouds.

And all this comes to an end.

And is not again to be met with.

I went up to the court for examination.

Tried Layu’s luck, offered the Choyo song,

And got no promotion,

and went back to the East Mountains

white-headed.

And once again, later, we met at the South bridge-head.

And then the crowd broke up, you went north to San palace.

And if you ask how I regret that parting:

It is like the flowers falling at Spring’s end

Confused, whirled in a tangle.

What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking,

There is no end of things in the heart.

I call in the boy,

Have him sit on his knees here

To seal this,

And send it a thousand miles, thinking.

by Rihaku

The Seafarer

(From the early Anglo-Saxon text)

MAY I for my own self song’s truth reckon,

Journey’s jargon, how I in harsh days

Hardship endured oft.

Bitter breast-cares have I abided,

Known on my keel many a care’s hold,

And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent

Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship’s head

While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,

My feet were by frost benumbed.

Chill its chains are; chafing sighs

Hew my heart round and hunger begot

Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not

That he on dry land loveliest liveth,

List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,

Weathered the winter, wretched outcast

Deprived of my kinsmen;

Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,

There I heard naught save the harsh sea

And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,

Did for my games the gannet’s clamour,

Sea-fowls’ loudness was for me laughter,

The mews’ singing all my mead-drink.

Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern

In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed

With spray on his pinion.

Not any protector

May make merry man faring needy.

This he little believes, who aye in winsome life

Abides ’mid burghers some heavy business,

Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft

Must bide above brine.

Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,

Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then

Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now

The heart’s thought that I on high streams

The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.

Moaneth alway my mind’s lust

That I fare forth, that I afar hence

Seek out a foreign fastness.

For this there’s no mood-lofty man over earth’s midst,

Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed;

Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful

But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare

Whatever his lord will.

He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having

Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world’s delight

Nor any whit else save the wave’s slash,

Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.

Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,

Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,

All this admonisheth man eager of mood,

The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks

On flood-ways to be far departing.

Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,

He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,

The bitter heart’s blood. Burgher knows not —

He the prosperous man — what some perform

Where wandering them widest draweth.

So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,

My mood ’mid the mere-flood,

Over the whale’s acre, would wander wide.

On earth’s shelter cometh oft to me,

Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,

Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,

O’er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow

My lord deems to me this dead life

On loan and on land, I believe not

That any earth-weal eternal standeth

Save there be somewhat calamitous

That, ere a man’s tide go, turn it to twain.

Disease or oldness or sword-hate

Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.

And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after —

Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,

That he will work ere he pass onward,

Frame on the fair earth ’gainst foes his malice,

Daring ado, …

So that all men shall honour him after

And his laud beyond them remain ’mid the English,

Aye, for ever, a lasting life’s-blast,

Delight mid the doughty.

Days little durable,

And all arrogance of earthen riches,

There come now no kings nor Cæsars

Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.

Howe’er in mirth most magnified,

Whoe’er lived in life most lordliest,

Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!

Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.

Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is laid low.

Earthly glory ageth and seareth.

No man at all going the earth’s gait,

But age fares against him, his face paleth,

Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,

Lordly men are to earth o’ergiven,

Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,

Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,

Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,

And though he strew the grave with gold,

His born brothers, their buried bodies

Be an unlikely treasure hoard.

From Rihaku
Four Poems of Departure

Light rain is on the light dust

The willows of the inn-yard

Will be going greener and greener,

But you, Sir, had better take wine ere your departure.

For you will have no friends about you

When you come to the gates of Go.

Separation on the River Kiang

KO-JIN goes west from Ko-kaku-ro,

The smoke-flowers are blurred over the river.

His lone sail blots the far sky.

And now I see only the river,

The long Kiang, reaching heaven.

Taking Leave of a Friend

BLUE mountains to the north of the walls,

White river winding about them;

Here we must make separation

And go out through a thousand miles of dead grass.

Mind like a floating wide cloud,

Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances

Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance.

Our horses neigh to each other

as we are departing.

Leave-Taking Near Shoku

“Sanso, King of Shoku, built roads”

THEY say the roads of Sanso are steep,

Sheer as the mountains.

The walls rise in a man’s face.

Clouds grow out of the hill

at his horse’s bridle.

Sweet trees are on the paved way of the Shin,

Their trunks burst through the paving.

And freshets are bursting their ice

in the midst of Shoku, a proud city.

Men’s fates are already set,

There is no need of asking diviners.

The City of Choan

THE phœnix are at play on their terrace.

The phœnix are gone, the river flows on alone.

Flowers and grass

Cover over the dark path

where lay the dynastic house of the Go.

The bright cloths and bright caps of Shin

Are now the base of old hills.

The Three Mountains fall through the far heaven,

The isle of White Heron

splits the two streams apart.

Now the high clouds cover the sun

And I can not see Choan afar

And I am sad.

South-Folk in Cold Country

THE Dai horse neighs against the bleak wind of Etsu,

The birds of Etsu have no love for En, in the north,

Emotion is born out of habit.

Yesterday we went out of the Wild-Goose gate,

To-day from the Dragon-Pen,*

Surprised.  Desert turmoil.  Sea sun.

Flying snow bewilders the barbarian heaven.

Lice swarm like ants over our accoutrements.

Mind and spirit drive on the feathery banners.

Hard fight gets no reward.

Loyalty is hard to explain.

Who will be sorry for General Rishogu,

the swift moving,

Whose white head is lost for this province?

* I.e., we have been warring from one end of the empire to the other, now east, now west, on each border.

I HAVE not come to the end of Ernest Fenollosa’s notes by a long way, nor is it entirely perplexity that causes me to cease from translation. True, I can find little to add to one line out of a certain poem:

“You know well where it was that I walked

When you had left me.”

In another I find a perfect speech in a literality which will be to many most unacceptable. The couplet is as follows:

“Drawing sword, cut into water, water again flow:

Raise cup, quench sorrow, sorrow again sorry.”

There are also other poems, notably the “Five colour Screen,” in which Professor Fenollosa was, as an art critic, especially interested, and Rihaku’s sort of Ars Poetica, which might be given with diffidence to an audience of good will. But if I give them, with the necessary breaks for explanation, and a tedium of notes, it is quite certain that the personal hatred in which I am held by many, and the invidia which is directed against me because I have dared openly to declare my belief in certain young artists, will be brought to bear first on the flaws of such translation, and will then be merged into depreciation of the whole book of translations. Therefore I give only these unquestionable poems.

E. P.