Po-Chü-i's Poems of Reclusion
Po Chü-i (Bai Juyi, 772-846) is one of China's greatest poets. The importance of his voice lies in his testimony to reclusion and a lifelong attraction to the life of reclusion, as well as a life of poetry.
At the age of forty, after holding a modest government post near the capital, Po Chü-i retired upon the death of his mother. He returned to court after a few years but was then banished to Hsün-yang, and three years later was banished to Chung-Chou in extreme western China. Two years later he was assigned to the more significant posts of governorship of Hangchow, then governorship of Soochow. After illness, he retired to Chang-an and Lo-yang, capital of the province of Lo-nan. These were his last appointments, for he retired again due to illness, later suffering a stroke, and died at the age of seventy-four.
The themes and subjects of the poems of Po Chü-i reflect those common among the poets of his own Tang era: court office, reclusion, family, friends, nature in mountains, forests, gardens, love, friendship, wine, aging, illness, and solitude. Po Chu-i can be singled out among poets for his sense of balance, reserve, common sense, and humor. He has not the enthusiasm of Tao Chien, nor the gravitas of Tu Fu, nor the dissipation of Li Po. What distinguishes Po Chü-i is his practicality, his realism, and his ethical sensibility, which often displays itself as a lack of courtly discretion, leading to successive banishments. Many of his poems are veiled critiques of court and authority, clearly dangerous in his situation as a bureaucrat. Many poems clearly recall the Confucian dictum: When the court is good, serve, when it is not good, recluse.
Po Chü-i served indifferently in the court of several administrations, suffering punishment for speaking freely about a policy he disagreed with or a decision he thought unwise. Nor did he fit into the social circumstances of high office, due to his humble origins, his modest personality and -- as he relates of himself -- because he was not "a master of such accomplishments as calligraphy, painting, chess, or gambling, which tend to bring men together in pleasurable intercourse." Thus his rivals were always ready to exploit his personality and comments.
At the age of forty, after an unassuming post near the capital, Po Chü-i retired upon the death of his mother. He returned to court after a few years but was quickly banished to Hsün-yang, then three years later banished to Chung-Chou in extreme western China. Two years later he was assigned the more stable posts of governor of Hangchow, followed by governor of Soochow. After illness he retired to Chang-an and Lo-yang, capital of the province of Lo-nan. It was his last appointment, for he retired again due to illness and lived another fifteen years.
Early in his career Po Chü-i observed the dichotomy of service and integrity of self. He complains that “those who hold office get no rest except by falling ill!” Already he appreciates simplicity, “for restful thoughts one does not need space. The room where I lie is ten foot square. By the western eaves, above the bamboo twigs, from my couch I see the White Mountain rise. But the clouds that hover on its far-distant peak bring shame to a face that is buried in the World's dust.” He feels the same shame when walking on a hillside and notices a “poor woman follows at the reapers' side. With an infant child carried close at her breast. "With her right hand she gleans the fallen grain. On her left arm a broken basket hangs. And I today, by virtue of what right have I never once tended field or tree? Thinking of this, secretly I grew ashamed.”
An early poem (“An Early Levee”) tells of a levee, a formal occasion to visit the emperor, to which he set out on a winter dawn in a foot of snow, bitter cold, at dawn. His lantern goes out. His horse slips in the ice. “My hair and bear were frozen and covered with icicles, my coat and robe chilly like water.” At that moment he “secretly envied Ch’en Chu-shih, in warm bed-socks dozing beneath the rugs / And not getting up till the sun has mounted the sky.” Was this the beginning of wanting to retire from worldly affairs? Or when once he was up late in the palace working on documents and he fell asleep dreaming of Hsien-yu Temple, his favorite retreat, awaken to think that the dripping of the palace water clock was the murmur of a mountain stream. Po Chü-i reveals his clear preference: looking at Chung-nan mountain in spring, not a human being to be seen.
Because he has no close company, Po Chü-i takes up visiting mountains, hills, and temples. Of Hsien-yu temple he writes: “The crane from the shore standing at the top of the steps; / The moon on the pool seen at the open door; / Where these are, I made my lodging-place / And for two nights could not turn away. / I am glad I chanced upon a place so lonely and still / With no companion to drag me early home. / Now that I have tasted the joy of being alone / I will never again come with a friend at my side.”
At this time, too, he takes up the writing of poetry. Remarking at Chu-Chen: “Illness and idleness give me much leisure. / What do I do with my leisure, when it comes? / I cannot bring myself to discard ink stone and brush. / Now and then I make a new poem.”
During a forced retirement of several years, too early to be reconciled, Po Chü-i writes on a winter’s night:
“My house is poor; those that I love have left me. My body is sick; I cannot join the feast. There is not a living soul before my eyes. As I lie alone locked in my cottage room. My broken lamp burns with a feeble flame. My tattered curtains are crooked and do not meet. ‘Tsek, tsek’ on the door-step and window-sill. Again I hear the new snow fall. As I grow older, gradually I sleep less. I wake at midnight and sit up straight in bed. If I had not learned the "art of sitting and forgetting," how could I bear this utter loneliness? Stiff and stark m y body cleaves to the earth; Unimpeded my soul yields to Change. So has it been for four hateful years, Through one thousand and three hundred nights!”
An early poem about flowers was interpreted as a lack of filial piety upon his mother’s death. (Perhaps when he “retired” after his mother’s death?) A memorial written as praise for the emperor was perceived by courtiers as arrogant and presumptuous. In a poem titled “Politician,” about a Privy Councillor, Po Chu-i writes: “Yesterday he was called to a meeting of Heroes / Today he is banished to the country of Yai-chou. / So, always, is it with the Counsellors of Kings / Favor and ruin changing between dawn and dusk!” Po Chü-i criticized the authorities’ abusive treatment of subordinates, as in the poem “The Chancellor’s Gravel Drive,” wherein the poet sees a weary ox pulling a heavy wagon of gravel that will smooth the road because “the Assistant Chancellor of the Realm / was terribly afraid that the wet and mud / would dirty his horse's hoofs. / The Chancellor's horse's hoofs / Stepped on the gravel and remained perfectly clean. / But the bull employed in dragging the cart / Was almost sweating blood. / The Assistant Chancellor's business / Is to save men, govern the country / And harmonize Yin and Yang. / Whether the bull's neck is sore / Need not trouble him at all.”
In “The Charcoal-Seller,” a poor man in rags is always busy chopping wood and making charcoal, remunerated very little, hoping, ironically, for cold weather that will make his coal more expensive, though he himself lacks the proper clothing for the cold. One day, struggling with his oxen cart of charcoal down a road of frozen ruts, a pair of “preying” horsemen, government officials, waving a written warrant and shouting loudly, commandeering the wagon from the hapless charcoal-seller.
Another critique presents an old man with a broken arm who explains how once young he deliberately broke his arm in order to avoid military service. Another poem about flowers expresses the social criticism that the market is full of flowers for the homes of the rich, though a single bouquet would have fed a dozen families for a week. For these transgressions among others, Po Chü-i suffered exile, banishment to distant and inhospitable regions. Of this fate, friendless and dwelling in strange places, each more difficult than the previous, he reflects often: “How can I believe that since the world began / In every shipwreck none have drowned but rogues? / And how can I, born in evil days /And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate? / Often I fear that these untalented limbs / Will be laid at last in an unnamed grave!”
But as Governor of Chung-Chou in a primitive corner of the empire, he is left alone by officialdom, and comes to be reconciled to his isolation. Years earlier he had lost his wife and little daughter, and now he spends his time in his gardens, planting flowers and flowering-trees, thinking of past friends and distant relations. Of retirement, he writes: “Lined coat, warm cap and easy felt slippers. In the little tower, at the low window, sitting over the sunken brazier. Body at rest, heart at peace; no need to rise early. I wonder if the courtiers at the Western Capital know of these things, or not?“
These were the days of exile in the cold regions of Western China. Po Chi-i writes: “But to one place Summer forgot to come; I alone am left like a withered straw. / Banished to the world's end; Flesh and bone all in distant ways. / From my native-place no tidings come; / Rebel troops flood the land with war. / Sullen grief, in the end, what will it bring?”
On a later visit to a temple (Lin-Hui Temple), Po Chü-i notes the complexity and irony of his station: “This year there is war in An-hui. In every place soldiers are rushing to arms. / Men of learning have been summoned to the Council Board; .Men of action are marching to the battle-line. / Only I, who have no talents at all, /Am left in the mountains to play with the pebbles of the stream.”With appointment of governorship of Soochow, residing at the capital Lo-yang, Po Chü-i’s fortunes seem to improve, and so, too, his disposition.
"A government building, not my own home. / A Government garden, not my own trees. / But at Lo-yang I have a small house. / And on Wei River I have built a thatched hut. / I am free from the ties of marrying and giving in marriage; / If I choose to retire, I have somewhere to end my days. / And though I have lingered long beyond my time, / To retire now would be better than not at all!”
Not until being appointed to distant provinces as governor did Po Chü-i live in essential retirement. Retirement was a welcome boon. He discovers an ancient monastery in disrepair, and sets about fixing a portion in which he takes up residence, describing himself as the “Hermit of Xiangshan.” He confesses that while he has “broken away from the thousand ties of life,” he retains one “infirmity”: writing verse."
"By chance I meet a friend who is coming to see me; / Just as if I had gone specially to meet him. / They took my couch and placed it in the setting sun; / They spread my rug and I leaned on the balcony-pillar. / Tranquil talk was better than any medicine. / Gradually the feelings came back to my numbed heart."
Towards the end of his life, Po Chü-i reflects on the contentment of reclusion, echoing his own praise for the recluse Ch’en Chu-shih that he once described as envy.
"Lined coat, warm cap and easy felt slippers. / In the little tower, at the low window, sitting over the sunken brazier. / Body at rest, heart at peace; no need to rise early. / I wonder if the courtiers at the Western Capital know of these things, or not?"
¶BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Translations of Po Chü-i's poems are available in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, translated by Arthur Waley. London: Constable, 1918; More Translations from the Chinese, by Arthur Wley. New York: Knopf, 1919; The Selected Poems of Po Chü-i, translated by David Hinton. New York: New Directions, 1999; see also The Life and Times of Po Chü-i, 772-846 A.D., by Arthur Waley. London: Allen & Unwin, 1949.