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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
These WORDS of Li Ch'ing-chao, regarded by many as the greatest woman poet in Chinese history, were written shortly after the death of her husband, who had been her devoted companion and faithful comrade in letters. His death was the strongest influence in her life, bringing to her poems a depth of feeling that, like a colorless blue in the flame of her genius, gave them brilliance and intensity. To be sure, Li Ch'ing-chao had earned a position in Chinese poetry long before her husband's death, largely because of her rare sensitivity to the aesthetic and poetic quality of the world in which she lived. While her poetry reflected a limited world of nature and of man, she more than compensated for this apparent lack with the depth of her imaginative penetration.
Note 1 in page 521 My translations of Li Ch'ing-chao's tz'u are based on the following edition, which seems to be the most reliable because the editor has consulted a large number of editions and noted their discrepancies. Chao Wan-li, Chiao-chi Sung Chin Yuan jen tz'u (Collated Tz'u of Sung, Chin, and Yüan Poets, Nanking: Academia Sinica, 1931). Li Ch'ing-chao's poems are numbered as they appear in the draft of my translation. The tz'u genre began to flourish in the late T'ang Dynasty (ca. 1000). It has been regarded as a “liberation” from the shih genre, which required a rigid prosodic uniformity based on quatrains with a uniform number of syllables in each line. The tz'u was set to the tunes popularly known in the 10th century, hence the necessity to vary the number of lines and the number of syllables in each line. There is evidence that at least 924 tz'u styles existed.
Note 2 in page 521 I am grateful to Professor T'ien-yi Li of Yale University, who correctly pointed out, at the 1961 Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Chicago, where the first draft of this paper was read, that the dating of Li Ch'ing-chao's poems will remain largely conjectural until further evidence has been uncovered. I attempt such a treatment of the subject only with the hope that her poetry may be better appreciated. A definitive chapter of literary history centering around Li Ch'ing-chao must await further extensive research.
Note 3 in page 521 Her father, a high-ranking government official, was a writer in his own right. Her mother was taught by her own grandfather Wang Kung-ch'en, a chuang-yüan (who passed the highest imperial examination at the very top of the list). The best single source of biographical information for Li Ch'ing-chao is still her own preface and postscript to the catalogue of objects of art which she and her husband collected. Slightly different versions of these two autobiographical essays are found in a number of works, e.g., Hsieh Wu-liang, Chung-kuo fu-nü wen-hsüeh shih (A History of Chinese Literature—Women Writers, Shanghai: Chung-hua, 1916?), Book iii, pp. 5–9; Chiang Shang-hsien, Li Ch'ing-chao tz'u hsin-shang (An Appreciation of Li Ch'ing-chao's Tz'u, T'ai-nan: I-ming, 1960), pp. 63–68.
Note 4 in page 522 The year of her marriage has been disputed by many scholars, including Hu Shih. Here I accept the latest finding by Hsia Ch'eng-tao in his T'ang Sung tz'u lun-ts'ung (Essays on the Tz'u of the T'ang and Sung Dynasties, Shanghai: Kutien, 1956), pp. 190–197, which establishes Li's birth date as in 1084, making the age when she married eighteen.
Note 5 in page 522 The painting is preserved in the Palace Collection. See its reproduction in Three Hundred Masterpieces of Chinese Painting from the Palace Museum (Taichung, Taiwan: National Palace Museum, 1959), Plate 54.
Note 6 in page 522 Chao Wan-li, section “Sou yü tz'u,” 11a, notes the skepticism of several writers on the authenticity of this poem, but it seems that before definite counter-evidence is secured, these poems should continue to be treated as part of Li's writing that reveal another aspect of her life and thought.
Note 7 in page 522 One variant reading in certain editions, possibly a misprint, could change “the mat” in this line into a plant that flourishes in autumn.
Note 8 in page 523 Records differ on the number of poems Chao wrote to the same melody. Lang-huan chi (quoted in Chang Tsung-hsiao, Tz'u-lin chi-shih, chüan 19, 7a) has “fifteen”; T'an Cheng-pi has “over fifty” in his Chung-kuo nü-hsing te wen-hsüeh sheng-huo (The Literary Lives of Chinese Women, Shanghai: Kuang-ming, 1931), p. 247.
Note 9 in page 523 Li's family misfortune during these years included: Chao forced to go alone to assume the governorship of Tzu-ch'uan (near present-day Chi-nan, Shantung) in 1126; Chao's mother dead in Nanking in 1127; Li's home and library in Ch'ing-chou (I-tu, Shantung) burned by the Tartars in the winter of 1127; flight to Kan-shui (Kan-hsien, Kiangsi) in the spring of 1128; Chao reporting for duty alone at Hu-chou (Chia-hsing, Chekiang) while she stayed at Kuei-ch'ih in Anhwei; Chao's death from malaria in Nanking in the summer of 1128.
Note 10 in page 525 The legend about Li's second marriage seems to have been adequately disproved by Hsia Ch'eng-tao, op. cit.
Note 11 in page 525 In his Pi-chi man-chih, quoted in Chiang Shang-hsien, p. 21, and in Lu K'an-ju, Chung-kuo shih-shih (History of Chinese Poetry, Peking, Tso-chia, 1957), p. 666.
Note 12 in page 525 Take Li Shang-yin's “Ching-se” (“The Jewel-inlaid Lute”), for instance. See comment on this poem in Li I-shan chi (The Poems of Li Shang-yin), annotated by Feng Hao (T'ai-chung, Chung-yung, 1956), p. 342.
Note 13 in page 526 Milton Bracker, “Miracle of the ‘Sparrow Kid’,” The New York Times Magazine (22 Jan. 1961), p. 35.
Note 14 in page 526 The two missing characters from the second line of the second stanza have not yet been found. Wu-t'ung, a plant resembling paulownia, is one of those poetic images in Chinese literature whose rich associations defy translation.
Note 15 in page 526 Shu Meng-lan, Pai-hsiang tz'u p'u (The Pai-hsiang Tz'u Styles, Shanghai: Sao-yeh shan-fang), p. 84.
Note 16 in page 527 Shu Meng-Ian, p. 83.
Note 17 in page 527 The flute (chiang-ti) in the line second to the last is actually a bugle-horn introduced into China by the northern non-Chinese troops. Its musical character, perhaps often suggesting the effect of the “tap” played by a skillful bugler, cannot be adequately conveyed in the word horn or bugle or flute alone.
Note 18 in page 527 Hai-t'ang, a plant frequently mentioned in classical Chinese poems, is identified as the crabapple. I took the liberty of using “apple blossom” instead, because of the sound of the word and the general association with the names of these plants.
Note 19 in page 527 The season is late and the grass has grown tall enough to be used in the traditional folk game. The game is played by two players each selecting a strong length of grass stem. A knot is tied at one end of the grass stem. The two pieces are then interlocked at the knotted ends while the players each pull the other ends to see whose grass breaks first. Another folk game played with grass is commonly associated with the Dragon Boat festival season. On that day, people collect specimens of grass, weeds, and shrubs in a contest which awards the most extensive collection.
Note 20 in page 528 This study is based on a paper read before the Chinese Literature Panel at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Chicago on 28 March 1961.