[In the following essay, Chen expounds on the social criticism found in Po Chu-i's poetry.]

Popular, bitter and lyrical, the poet Po Chu-i (772-846 A.D.) is no stranger to people outside China. For over a thousand years, his name has been inseparably connected with Chinese poetry, which is of course an integral element of Chinese civilization. But today Po has a fresh significance for Chinese poetry lovers and for the people of the world. The new, correct interpretation of Chinese history strengthens our appreciation of his contribution to the humanitarian mainstream of world literature, and to the "people first" tradition which was at times obscured but never extinguished in the five-thousand-year development of Chinese culture.

Fearless Social Critic

Po Chu-i is now admired and studied in China chiefly as a man who was at once poet and fearless social critic. This should not be construed as negligence or indifference on our part to his extraordinary lyrical quality as shown in the well-known Song of the Lute or the Song of Unending Sorrow, both of which have been translated time and again into nearly all modern languages. Now that our people are liberated and know more of the joys of life, they have greater reason than ever to appreciate the beauty of lyrical poetry. But it is on Po Chu-i the humanist, the ardent lover of the people and valiant champion of their cause that attention is centred today. In his own time, Po Chu-i was universally appreciated by the people. Since the liberation, his poetry is once again treasured by the people as their own. We are paying this great poet the high tribute of gratitude and affection that has long been his due, but has been so long delayed by historic circumstances.

Po Chu-i stood resolutely and persistently for the union of poetry with the social and political life of the people. True to this principle, he carried out in practice what he firmly believed in theory. No matter what might be the consequences, he spoke for the inarticulate millions of China whose lot, at that time, was not much better than that of the Russian serfs in the time of Nekrassov. The 174 satires he wrote during the first decade of the ninth century offended those in power to such an extent that his enemies, who were also the enemies of the people, conspired to silence him by banishing him, in the year 815, to Kiukiang (then called Hsunyang) in Kiangsi province, about a thousand miles overland from Changan, the capital of China at that time.

Po's theory and practice as a poet place him in the main current of the Chinese literary tradition which can be traced as far back as the Book of Odes edited by Confucius. But in his lifetime very few literary men shared his stubbornly held views. Misunderstood and extremely lonely he confided to his intimate poet friend, Yuan Chen: "Today the world can only appreciate such of my poems as the Song of Unending Sorrow. I set no store by what the world values. My satires are expressions of my indignant, challenging and agitating ideas in plain, outspoken language … Of my contemporaries you alone understand and love them. Who knows, a thousand years hence, perhaps some one like you will be born who will also understand and love my satires?"

It is 1,107 years since Po Chu-i died. A whole people, almost 500 million strong, have now awakened to the value of his poetry. Never has it been more true that "a poet is a prophet".

Life and Views

Po Chu-i was born in Hsincheng, Honan province, a few years after the death of Li Po and Tu Fu, the two other members of the great triumvirate of Tang poets. His father was poor and often in difficulties. In his youth he wandered about Hupeh, Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces seeking a living. At twenty-eight he passed the state examinations in the capital and started on an official career, the one and only opening for a Chinese scholar at that time.

The poet was conscientious and took his work seriously. "Since entering his majesty's service," he wrote, "I have grown older and gained experience by degrees. Talking with people I often ask about current events; studying history and literature I seek for the ways of reason. I have begun to realize that the work of literature must truthfully reflect the life of the people."

Political Poetry

Well versed in state affairs, Po was no courtier. He was too honest to win official approbation at that time. Court poems are not the important part of his work. Believing earnestly that poetry should be used as a political weapon, he used it to satirize the misrulers high and low. In his poem, The Imperial Collector of Poetry he reminded the emperor that the ancient sage kings had acquainted themselves with the people's joys and sorrows by paying close attention to songs and satirical poems composed for or by the people and had even maintained a special office for that purpose.

The Imperial Collector of Poetry
Collected poems and listened to songs,
The true voice of the people, true criticism;
The criticizers were not to blame.
The criticized should heed warning!
When criticism from below reached up to
The Most High, all was well.

Unfortunately, for over a thousand years,
There has been no office of Collector of Poetry.
Now all the Emperor hears are songs in his praise—
Hymns sung for ancestor worship in the Imprial Temple
Or Songs thrilling the banqueters with pleasure…

Bold are the corrupt officials, oppressing and fleecing the people.
Bolder are the State Ministers, deceiving His Majesty.

This poem leaves no room for doubt that poetry has an important political function in ancient China. Applying this criterion to the poetry of his predecessors, Po Chu-i found little to admire after the Chin dynasty (265-419 A.D.) and "mourned that poetry had deteriorated and decayed." For nearly four hundred years, he complained, the poets simply ignored or neglected the political role of poetry. They merely tossed around such words as wind, snow, flowers and grass, but did not use them as metaphors to satirize political wrongs and social follies.

Historical Setting

And political wrongs and social follies were not wanting in Po's day. The endless civil wars and the taxes levied to pay for them, not to mention the material devastation they left in their wake, all meant untold suffering for the people. In addition, the people were the main sufferers from the rapacity and extortions of the hosts of officials of all ranks whose promotion depended on the amount of tribute they paid to the court. Because the historical conditions for basic change were not yet present, Po Chu-i could not realize that the feudal suffering was in itself a bad thing. The only struggle he could conceive was to attempt to improve the lot of the common people within the existing framework of society. His poems burn with scathing social criticism devoted to this purpose.

People's Sufferings Sung

The satirical poems of Po Chu-i expose two things: the grinding exploitation of the peasants and the rapacity and lust of the officials. With a bitterness which resembles Nekrassov's in Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia, Po wrote his ten plaintive Songs of Chin (Chin, a powerful kingdom in ancient China, was located in what today is Shensi province). When the bigwigs and their favourites heard these songs, they lost countenance.

The Heavy Taxes, one of this group, reads in part as follows:

The rapacious official heedlessly follows bad practices…
He fleeces me to woo the favour of his superior,
Always demanding, extorting, first in spring and then in winter….
Weaving silk taffeta, not even enough to make a bolt,
Spinning silk thread, not even weighing a pound,
I am forced to give the village tax collector all;
At once, with not a single moment's delay!….
Oh you wretched official!
You have stripped the warmth from my back
To buy favours for yourself!

How can one ever forget this picture of the unbearable sufferings of the oppressed! Let us turn to another word picture of the peasant's hard life which the poet painted in Watching a Wheat Harvest.

The summer earth burns the toilers' bare feet,
Rays of the flaming sun scorch their naked backs….
Exhausted with work they no longer feel the heat,
Toiling on, making full use of the long daylight….
By their side stands a woman in threadbare clothes,
Holding her infant son close to her breast;
Her right hand gleans the fallen ears of grain,
On her left arm hangs a broken basket….
"All we reap has to go in taxes," she says,
"I glean the fallen grain to pacify our hunger…."

Frequent crop failures brought additional calamities to the already hard-pressed peasants. Po Chu-i always stood up for them and was always ready to proclaim their grievances. The bitter irony of The Herb Gatherer leaves a lasting impression on the reader's mind:

Roaming in the fields all day I dig up wild herbs
Which I hope to exchange for some coarse dry food.
In the early morning I go out with my hoe, seeking….
But by nightfall my basket is still unfilled….
I carry it to the door of the big mansion,
And sell it to the gentleman with the plump cheeks
To feed his strong, stout horses that will grow
Coats so sleek, they will reflect the light.
I exchange my herbs for some fodder left after his horses have eaten
To relieve me from the sharp pains of hunger….

In the year 809, when Po was 37 years old, he was appointed Counsellor to Emperor Hsien Tsung. He immediately reminded this ruler of the importance of listening to the voice of the people through the Imperial Counsellor, whose duty it was to speak for the people instead of flattering the emperor. He often argued with the other courtiers and the emperor himself about tax acts, famine relief measures, conscription and the imposing of various penalties. In 810 he published fifty New Songs, in the preface of which he wrote:

… My language is simple and direct, intelligible to all who can read; my meaning is plain and exact, unmistakable to those who will take the warning; my exposures are all based on facts, credible to anyone who cares to collect them; my style is easy and modulated, adaptable to music for popular singing. In a word, my poems are composed for the people, contain facts and are meant to be perused by the state ministers and scrutinized by His Majesty. I do not make poetry for poetry's sake.

Attack on Oppressors

One of the fifty songs, The Old Man with the Broken Arm, a satire against militarism, was widely publicized after the first World War. It relates how an old peasant deliberately broke his arm in order to escape conscription. Another song in the same series is the Old Peasant of Tu Lin, from which the following is an extract:

The rain expected in the third month never came,
Instead a dry wind rose …
My wheat sprouts had not yet grown into ears but turned yellow and died…
Suddenly the autumn became unusually cold,
In the ninth month unseasonable heavy frosts fell,
My rice withered in the ear, while still green and unripe…

The official knew all, but took no heed, made no report!

Taxes were urgently demanded … taxes were forcibly collected …
To win his own promotion was all he cared and hoped for!

For the taxes I mortgaged my mulberry trees, sold my land.
Whence will come my food and clothes before next harvest?
From my body, Official, you have stripped the clothes,
From my mouth you have taken away the food….
Every beast that preys on man is a wolf—
It need not have hooked nails or bloody teeth,
Just the same it devours human flesh!

In his exposure of the criminal and evil deeds of the official class, Po Chu-i used his masterful pen to depict striking contrasts—both sides of the social contradiction. While on the one hand the poor peasants were bled white by heavy taxes, on the other hand, the high officials lived amid luxury and lust. The building of private parks and sumptuous houses was in great fashion among them. With his Lament Over a Big Mansion, one of the ten Songs of Chin, the poet sounded the trumpet of warning. Like an oracle, he predicted the inevitable unhappy fate of the ill-starred mansions and their owners, notwithstanding their apparent and temporary prosperity.

Who owns this big mansion, this stately house
With its scarlet gates opening on the wide street?
Six or seven halls stand side by side,
The roofs are of glittering green tiles,
And a high wall surrounds all.
A single hall must have cost a million cash!
The owner living in it has now for ten years
Held important posts in the government.
In his overstocked larder, the meat is rotting,
In his treasury, copper coins corrode with rust…

Let him take warning from the questions i ask:
Have you not poor relations near in blood?
can you bear to leave them hungry and cold?
Do you care for yourself only, disregarding all others?
can you enjoy your good fortune a thousand years?

The fine buildings owned by the Ma family
Have been confiscated and are now the Feng Chen Park…

It was for standing up for the people, disregarding the risk of offending the emperor and his flatterers that Po Chu-i was disgraced or dismissed many times. His critical verses made enemies for him right and left. His friends were anxious about him but not sympathetic. "I made a name in the world by poetry," he remarked ironically. "It is really fit that I should have earned my penalty with poetry!" Disgusted by the underhand dealings of the court lackeys, he was glad to leave the capital to become Prefect of Hangchow, Chekiang province. The most notable thing he did there was the building of the dykes and locks around the Chientang lake, saving thousands of acres of farmland from drought.

Loved by People

The Tang dynasty was the Golden Age of Chinese poetry. The number of works produced was tremendous. Po Chu-i alone wrote 3,840 poems. And he was as popular as he was prolific. He deliberately chose the simple language of the people as the medium for his poetic expression and succeeded so well in his use of it that his poems were intelligible even to illiterate old peasant women. Over a period of years, in Changan, the capital, his poems were copied on the walls of temples and post stations. They were also known in many provinces.

"From Changan to Kiangsi," Po wrote to his friend, "I travelled a distance of three thousand li. I frequently saw my poems on the walls of country schools, hotels, Buddhist temples and even in the cabins of boats. And just as frequently I heard them being recited by Buddhist monks, learned scholars, illiterate women and young girls."

Outside China, in Korea, Japan and other neighbouring countries Po's poems were also read and valued during his lifetime. Whenever merchants from Korea came to trade in Changan they bought copies of his new poems. They said they would make a big profit by selling them in their own country.

Memory Treasured

Po Chu-i's greatness is shown by the fact that while his poems were universally appreciated by the common people, they were bitterly hated by the rich and powerful. It is of great significance that he drew a demarcation line between the oppressors and the oppressed, which, as we now see, illuminated the irreconcilability of the contradictions between the feudal rulers and the people. Herein lie his merit and the reason we cherish the memory of this great poet today.

Po Chu-i was above all a humanist who, like Leonardo da Vinci and Victor Hugo, used his art to criticize men and affairs from the viewpoint of the people. He spoke for the Chinese people and for all people. And that is why all people will treasure his work.