SOURCE: "Late Period of the Northern Sung—1050-1100," in An Introduction to Sung Poetry, translated by Burton Watson, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967, pp. 85-133.

[In the following excerpt, Yoshikawa presents a detailed discussion about the manner in which Su was able to "transcend sorrow by means of a philosophy that viewed the infinite variety of human life with a largeness of vision that was equally varied.]

Su Tung-p'o's poetic works, in which he gives free and unrestrained expression to his rich and varied talent, are unmatched in stature by anything else in Sung poetry. First of all, he took over the interest in description that was already evident in the work of Ou-yang Hsiu and developed it to the fullest extent. As descriptions of objects we may note the series of poems written early in his career which he called "Eight Sights of Feng-hsiang," particularly that entitled "Song of the Stone Drums," while as descriptions of journeys or outings we should note his "Visit to Gold Mountain Temple" and "Hundred Pace Rapids," both of them remarkable for their keenness of observation, imaginativeness and use of simile. Because both these are rather lengthy, I shall quote a poem written early in 1077 when the poet was on his way from Mi-chou in Shantung to the capital. It is in five-character old form and bears this heading: "I was detained by a heavy snow at Wei-chou on New Year's Eve, but on the morning of the first day it cleared and I resumed my journey. Along the way, it started to snow again."

New Year's Eve blizzard kept me from leaving;
On the first, clear skies see me off.
The east wind blows away last night's drunk;
On a lean horse, I nod in the remains of a
  dream.
Dim and hazy, the dawn light breaks through;
Fluttering and turning, the last flakes fall.
I dismount and pour myself a drink in the
  field—
Delicious—but who to share it with?
All at once evening clouds close down,
Tumbling flurries that show no break.
Flakes big as goose feathers hang from the
  horse's mane
Till I think I'm riding a great white bird.
Three years' drought plaques the east;
Roofs sag on house rows, their owners fled.
The old farmer lays aside his plow and sighs,
Gulps tears that burn his starving guts.
Spring snow falls late this year
But spring wheat can still be planted.
Do I grumble at the trials of official travel?
To help you I'll sing a song of good harvest.

In his later years, Su's use of simile became freer than ever. When he was exiled to Hainan he described the journey which he made in a semicircle along the coast of the island, from Ch'iung-chou on the north shore to Tan-chou on the east shore, as being "like following the from of the crescent moon." Or, to turn to an example of simile applied to an intimate scene of daily life, he writes of his son thumping out of the rhythm of the poems he has memorized:

The little boy sits with book closed,
Reciting poems from memory as though striking
  a lute.

But we should not let ourselves become too engrossed in the surface brilliance of Su's poetry; beneath this surface lies a deep and penetrating warmth of personality. Of the various tasks which the poet was able to accomplish, the most important was that of freeing Chinese poetry from the preoccupation with sorrow that had characterized it for so long.

…[One] of the important accomplishments of Sung poetry was to escape from that preoccupation. The escape first became a real possibility with the poetry of Su Tung-p'o. Ou-yang Hsiu himself was not fully conscious of that fact, and his method of escape was a negative one, seeking only to maintain a state of mental serenity.

In Su Tung-p'o's case, however, the escape was conscious and deliberate. He set about to transcend sorrow by means of a philosophy that viewed the infinite variety of human life with a largeness of vision that was equally varied. Moreover, he was able, because of the breadth and warmth of his personality, to expound his philosophy effectively in words.…

This new, broad-visioned philosophy of Su Tung-p'o is based upon the recognition that man's life does not consist of sorrow alone. Sorrow, to be sure, is to be found everywhere in life, and yet it is not the only element of which life is made. If there is sorrow, there is joy as well, the two intertwined like the strands of a rope. It is therefore foolish to become engrossed in the sorrowful side of life alone. Indeed, one should go a step further and examine whether those things which by ordinary standards are regarded as sorrows and misfortunes are really so or not. Looked at from the broader point of view, they may not be sorrows at all.

The following poem in five-character old form is an expression of this outlook. It was written shortly after the poet arrived in Huang-chou, his place of exile, and had moved from the quarters first assigned him to a slightly better house, the official lodge attached to the post station at a place called Lin-kao overlooking the Yangtze. The poem is called "Moving to Lin-kao Pavilion."

Between heaven and earth I live,
One ant on a giant grindstone,

Trying in my petty way to walk to the right
While the turning of the mill wheel takes me
 endlessly left.
Though I go the way of benevolence and duty,
I can't escape from hunger and cold.
The sword-cooker—a perilous way to fix rice!
The mat of spikes—no restful sitting there!
But don't I have the beautiful hills and rivers?
I no sooner turn my eyes than wind and rain
  bear them off.
A man doesn't have to be old to retire,
But how many have the daring to do it?
Fortunately I've been turned out and abandoned,
A weary horse with pack and saddle removed.
All my family here, we have the run of the river
  post house.
When things looked blackest, Heaven poked a
 hole for me.
Hunger and poverty now multiplied, now
 divided,
I don't see that I deserve either condolence or
  congratulation.
Peaceful and calm, I have no joy or sorrow;
My complaint has no reason to end with a so!

The term in line four translated as "mill wheel," literally, "wind wheel," derives from Buddhist literature and refers to the forces which move the world. In lines seven and eight, the poet refers to two types of side-show performers, the man who prepares rice for cooking while seated on the point of a sword, and the man who sits down on a mat of spikes, suggesting that his own position may be equally perilous and uncomfortable. After referring to the beauties of the natural world and the fickles with which they may be snatched from man's sight by storm and change, the poem takes a brighter turn. From the ordinary point of view, exile can only be considered a misfortune. And yet the poet, because he looks at life with a broader and more varied view, can speak of his exile as a fortunate occurrence. Perhaps his present situation is actually one of happiness, or at least will be the source from which some future happiness will spring. Or perhaps one should forget both sorrow and happiness and be content with a state of calm. The songs of the state of Ch'u in ancient times, most of them laments or complaints, employed an exclamatory particle pronounced so at the end of the lines to give the rhythm a raped and forceful beat. But the poet in his new-won state of peace and calm has no need for such exclamations in his song.

Such is the general meaning of the poem. The line "Hunger and poverty now multiplied, now divided," reflects a philosophy of cyclical change such as is expressed in the Book of Changes. The outlook which regards misfortune as fortune, or which transcends such relative distinctions and value judgments, is based upon the philosophy of Chuang Tzu, particularly as it is expressed in the second chapter of the work which bears his name, the Ch'i-wu-lun, or "Discussion on Making All Things Equal."

Chuang Tzu's doctrine of "making all things equal" is only briefly touched upon in the poem quoted above. In the poem which I shall quote next, it appears much more clearly. This poem was written in 1071, when the poet, aged thirty-six, was on his way from the capital to Hangchow to assume the post of vice-governor. As he traveled down the Grand Canal, he stopped at Ch'en-chou in Honan to visit his younger brother Su Tzu-yu, who had, like the poet himself, clashed with Wang An-shih and had been assigned to an insignificant post in Ch'en-chou, referred to in the poem as Wan-ch'iu. After they had visited for some time, Su Tzu-yu accompanied his brother as far as Ying-chou in Anhwei, where they parted. The poem, in five-character old-form, is the second of two entitled "On Taking Leave of Tzu-yu at Ying-chou: Two Poems." The first, which begins

The traveler's sails are spread in the west wind,
Tears of parting fall into the clear Ying …

is given up to a mood of sorrow. But the second poem introduces the philosophy of the "equalization of things" as a means of transcending sorrow.

Let the place be close by and parting faces
  hardly change;
Let it be distant and tears wet our robes.
But a foot apart, if we cannot meet,
We might as well be parted a thousand miles.
And if in life there were no partings,
Who would know the gravity of love?
When I first came to Wan-ch'iu
The children danced and hung on my clothes.
You knew then this sorrow was coming
And begged me to stay till autumn winds pass.
By now autumn winds are gone,
But the sorrow of parting never ends.
You ask when I'll be coming back?
I answer, when the Year Star is in the east.
Since parting and meeting are an endless cycle,
Grief and joy must jostle each other.
As we talk about it, we give great sighs—
Our lives are like wind-blown tumbleweed.
But too much worry brings the grey hairs early.
Haven't you seen what it did to Master Six-one?

The poem begins at once with a breadth of vision that transcends the distinction of ordinary life. People are sorrowful when someone they love is going far away, but hardly disturbed at all if the destination is close by, though the fact of separation is exactly the same in both cases. To be consistent, therefore, we must either regard all partings as sorrowful, or admit that none of them really deserves to be lamented. Already the poet is seeking a broader view that will transcend sorrow. The couplet that follows is even more daring:

And if in life there were no partings,
Who could know the gravity of love?

Parting contains not only the negative element of sorrow, but a positive element as well; it serves to make us aware of the value of love. In this sense, should it not also be regarded as an occasion for happiness, or at least as a necessary step in the direction of future happiness? So far as I know, this view of the value of separation is original with Su Tung-p'o. I can recall nothing to match it in Chinese literature before him.

The breadth of vision with which the poem begins is not necessarily sustained throughout. In the central section the sadness of parting from his brother momentarily overwhelms the poet. The "Year Star" in line fourteen is the planet Jupiter, whose twelve-year cycle was used by the Chinese in measuring time. At the time when the poet was writing, Jupiter was in the northeast sector of the sky marked by the cyclical sign hai. Three years later, it would be dead east in the sector marked by the sign yu, and his term as vice-governor of Hangchow would be ended.

In the closing lines, the poet once more makes an effort to rise above his sorrow, this time by reference to the philosophy of cyclical change. His grief was in fact too strong in this case to be banished by the thought of future meetings and happiness, and led him to the simile of the wind-blown tumbleweed, which I shall have occasion to discuss later. But there is a final rallying of spirit in the last couplet, and the poem ends on a relatively light note with a reference to "Master Six-one," one of the names of Ou-yang Hsiu. Ou-yang Hsiu, the teacher of Su Tung-p'o had of course gone to call on him and pay his respects when he passed through Ying-chou. It was the last meeting between teacher and disciple; Ou-yang Hsiu died the following year.

Though the poet makes the bold assertion that it is separation alone that teaches us the real value of love, he is not wholly successful in driving away sorrow. It would almost appear, in fact, that his efforts to do so on occasion only lead him deeper into grief. And yet the underlying tenor of the poem is one of transcendence of sorrow through greater breadth of vision.

This, then, is the first stage of Su Tung-p'o's philosophy. As we have seen, the doctrines upon which it is based are not original with him, but derived partly from the Chuang Tzu and partly from the view of cyclical change expressed in the Book of Changes. What is new and original with Su, I believe, is the attitude which recognizes sorrow as a necessary and inescapable element of life, but considers an exclusive preoccupation with sorrow to be ridiculous.

It was always easy for Confucianism, with its strong element of idealism, to visualize a society without sorrow. The sadness and indignation expressed by the poets in the Book of Odes are the sadness and indignation of men who had hoped for better things, but whose hopes have been betrayed, and the same, I believe, may be said of the poetry of Tu Fu in the T'ang period. This was not true of Su Tung-p'o who asserted that sorrow, and the misfortunes that are the cause of sorrow, are omnipresent in human life and constitute one of its inescapable elements. As long as the possibility of conflict exists between the individual and society, or between desire and fate, he perceived that sorrow would always be a necessary part of human life.

As an illustration of Su's view of the omnipresence of sorrow, we may look at a poem written in 1079, eight years after the one quoted above, when the poet was transferred from the post of governor of Hsü-chou in Kiangsu to that of governor of Hu-chou in Chekiang. He had been a good governor, and when he prepared to leave Hsü-chou, the people flocked to see him off and even tried to prevent his departure. The poem, in five-character old form, is the first of five written at the time to be sent to his brother and bearing the title, "I have left my post in Hsü-chou and am proceeding to Nan-ching; I am writ-ing these on horseback to send to Tzu-yu."

Clerks, townsmen, don't hang on me!
Songs, flutes, don't sob like that!
My life is made of sojourns only;
Is this the first time I've had to take leave?
Separation follows us everywhere;
Sadness and fret are bound up with love.
Since I have done you no favor,
For whose sake do you shed these tears?
Scrambling like mischievous children,
Trying to break my whip, to slash my stirrups—
By the roadside, that pair of stone men:
How many governors have they seen depart?
If they knew what has happening, how they'd
  laugh,
Clapping their hands till their hat strings
  snapped!

In the opening lines, the poet points out that since "My life is made of sojourns only," separation is inevitable, and the sorrow which separation occasions may be said to be an ever-present element in human life. But if "separation follows us everywhere," then it is not foolish to allow one's emotions to become so bound up with the occasion? In pointing out the omnipresence of sorrow, he urges a way to escape it. In the lines that follow he deliberately adopts a cold attitude, denying that he has done anything to win the affection of the people, scolding them for trying impetuously to prevent his departure by breaking his whip or attempting to cut his stirrups. In the closing lines he returns once more to the theme of the frequency of parting, pointing to the stone figures by the roadside and imagining how many times in the past they have witnessed such a scene of the departure of a governor. If they were aware of what went on around them, they would surely laugh uproariously at the foolishness of human beings in behaving in this fashion over something as frequent and inevitable as separation. The poet no doubt felt deep regret at leaving the people of Hsü-chou, among whom he had lived for over two years. But, at least on the surface of the poem, none of this appears; he merely points to the ubiquitous nature of sorrow, and advises us not to become preoccupied with it.

This is the second stage of Su's new, broad-visioned philosophy, by which he proposes to transcend sorrow. But the poem quoted above also reveals a very important mode of thinking which makes it representative of the third state of Su's philosophy. I am referring to the view which sees man's life as a thing of long duration. This outlook is revealed in the third line: "My life is made of sojourns only," which in the original is in simile form, literally, "My life is like sojourns only."

True, on the surface the line says nothing about life being long. The surface meaning is that life is a thing of doubt and uncertainty, like so many inn stops along a road. But beneath the surface there exists an awareness of the long time-span of human life. If there were no such awareness, then the following line, "Is this the first time I've had to take leave?" with its sense of almost endless succession of partings stretching out of the past and into the future, would be impossible to imagine.

If we look back now at the first two stages of Su's philosophy we will see that the view of cyclical change which appears in the first stage, and the recognition of the omnipresence of sorrow in human life which appears in the second stage, both imply a consciousness of the long duration of human life. But this consciousness is first clearly stated in the line, "My life is made of sojourns only."

This is not the only poem in which the poet employs this line; it is to be found in many places in his works, as is the similar line in the poem to his brother, quoted earlier: "Our lives are like wind-blown tumbleweed." These two similes, the brief sojourn and the wind-blown tumbleweed, in addition to expressing the uncertainty of life, often imply the unspoken premise that man's life is of long duration. For example, in the poem called "Passing the Huai," which was written when the poet had been released from prison and was on his way to exile in Hua-ng-chou, we find the following lines which imply that, because life is nothing but a long series of ups and downs, one's destination can never be fixed:

My life is made of sojourns only,
And I never get to choose the place I'm to go.

Or, in a poem written to the rhymes of a poem by his friend Wang Chin-ch'ing, in which the poet, after his return to political power, reminisces over his period of exile in Huang-chou, we read:

My life is made of sojourns only;
What is good luck, what is bad?
Better to forget them both.
Who can recapture last night's dream?

The view of cyclical change, the alternation of good luck and bad, demands a long period of time in order to be conceivable.

Another example is to be found in a poem written during his exile on Hainan Island and employing the same rhymes as T'ao Yüan-ming's poem entitled "Imitating the Ancients":

My life is made of sojourns only;
What shall I point to and call my house?

Because life is of such long duration, one may come to realize that any place is home.

The last example I shall cite is from a poem written when the poet had left Hainan Island and passed through Yü-ku-t'ai in Kiangsi on his way north:

My life is made of sojourns only;
The peaks and the sea—those were pleasure trips
  too.

The "peaks and the sea" refer respectively to his place of exile in Hui-chou and Hainan Island. Looking back on it, the poet now sees that his exile too was only one small incident in a long life crowded with incident, just another "pleasure trip."

This view, which sees man's life as a period of long duration, is original with Su; or, if it is not actually original with him, he used it to create a new era of poetry, for such a view had never been common in the poetry of earlier times. Until Su's time, it had been customary, on the contrary, to emphasize the brevity and fleeting quality of man's life.

As evidence we may point to the fact that the sojourn simile is never used in earlier poetry in the way in which Su used it. The simile itself is by no means original with Su, but is very old in Chinese poetry. Before his time, however, it was employed rather to emphasize the brief duration of man's life and swiftness with which he moves toward death. It is found first in the twelfth of the anonymous "Nineteen Old Poems" which date from the first or second century A.D.

Man's life is brief as a sojourn;
His years lack the firmness of metal or stone.

Ts'ao P'i (188-226) used the simile in his poem in folkstyle entitled Shan-tsai-hsing, again probably to emphasize the brevity of life:

Man's life is like a sojourn;
With so many sorrows, what can he do?

Chu Yi, a scholar of the Southern Sung, in the first chüan of his Yi-chüeh-liao tsa-chi, has noted the sources from which Su Tung-p'o took his allusions and figures of speech. On the Sojourn simile, he points to the following lines in a poem entitled "Thoughts on the Times" by Po Chü-i:

How long is the life of man?
He is in the world for a sojourn only.

and those in a poem by the same poet called "Autumn Mountain":

Man's life lasts no time at all,
Like a sojourn between heaven and earth.

All of these examples obviously place emphasis upon the brevity of life.

But Su, while employing the same simile, invested it with a new meaning. What he did represents not only a shift in the meaning of the simile, but in the whole attitude toward human life. It is hardly necessary to add that the attitude which emphasizes the length of human life will be less productive of sorrow and despair, and more productive of hope, than one which emphasizes the brevity of life. True, Su sees life as a period which is full of ups and downs. But it is precisely because it is long that it is so marked by fluctuations. And when one is conscious of this lengthy and fluctuating character, it becomes more foolish than ever to allow oneself to think only of the sorrow which occurs during the low points. One must learn to put faith in the future.

We find this view of the length and changing quality of life clearly and logically stated in Su's works. But even where it is not explicitly stated, it seems always to underlie his poetry. We feel its presence, for example, in the famous poem in seven-character regulated verse written when the poet was en route by water from the capital to Hangchow. It bears the heading, "Passed the place where the Ying River enters the Huai, and for the first time saw the mountains along the Huai. Today we reached Shou-chou."

I travel day and night toward the Yangtze and
   the sea.
Maple leaves, reed flowers—fall has endless
 sights.
On the broad Huai I can't tell if the sky is near
 or far;
Green hills keep rising and falling with the
  boat.
Shou-chou—already I see the white stone
  pagoda,
Though short oars haven't brought us round
  Yellow Grass Hill.
Waves calm, wind mild—I look for the landing.
My friends have stood a long time in twilight
 mist.

Already in the opening lines we have a sense of life as a journey, as a thing of length and duration. In the lines that follow, the sky, whose distance it is impossible to discern, may be intended as a symbol of some aspect of man's life; the rising and falling of the green hills are surely meant to symbolize the up-and-down quality of life. After describing the circuitous course which the boat must take to reach its destination, the poet concludes on a note of expectation and quiet joy as he imagines how his friends, not yet in sight, have been standing waiting for him in the twilight mist.

Su Tung-p'o's philosophy for the transcendence of sorrow, the first three stages of which I have described above, reaches its culmination in the fourth stage. This culmination is to be found in the view that, if the outward process of life is characterized by a continuing series of ups and downs, then man's true inner life must lie in a continued resistance. This does not necessarily mean that one struggles against the ups and downs. The act of resignation may also be regarded as a kind of resistance exercised by the human will.

An early expression of this idea is to be found in the opening lines of "Beginning of Autumn: A Poem to Send to Tzu-yu," which the poet wrote during his period of exile in Huang-chou:

The hundred rivers day and night flow on,
We and all things following:
Only the heart remains unmoved,
Clutching the past.

The same idea is clearly expressed in a poem written in 1097, during his second period of exile, when he was ordered to move from Hui-chou to the Island of Hainan. In five-character old form, it too is addressed to his brother Tzu-yu and begins as follows:

I've had a lot of trouble from the time I was
  young,
Dodging and threading my way through life.
A hundred years aren't easy to live out;
We must draw the strong bow inch by inch.
I'm old—what is left to say?
Honor and shame mean nothing now.
I face the single road to nirvana;
Wherever else I took, the way is blocked.

Here the term "hundred years" applied to man's life clearly describes the sense of life's duration, while the metaphor of drawing a stiff bow expresses the exertion and resistance with which life must be lived. In the lines that follow the poet's nerve seems to fail him, and he speaks somewhat despairingly. But later on in the poem, we once more find such lines as the following:

This parting, how's it worth talking about?
My life surely won't come to an end yet!

A final example is to be found in a poem written in the summer of 1101, just before the poet's death. In five-character regulated verse, it is the second of two poems entitled "Following the Rhymes of Chiang Hui-shi." It was written when he was traveling home along the Yangtze from his place of exile in the south.

Bell and drum on the south river bank:
Home! I wake startled from a dream.
Drifting clouds—so the world shifts;
Lone moon—such is the light of my mind.
Rain drenches down as from a title basin;
Poems flow out like water spilled.
The two rivers vie to send me off;
Beyond treetops I see the slant of a bridge.

In the opening couplet the poet wakes startled from a dream-a dream which in a larger sense is symbolic of the whole astonishing up-and-down course of his life. In the couplet that follows, in the contrast between the shifting clouds of the world and the steady brightness of the moon, he gives precise expression to the pride of a man who has resisted and overcome his environment. Wang Ying-lin, an eminent scholar of the end of the Southern Sung period, in his K'un-hsüeh chi-wen, comments upon this second couplet; "T'ung-p'o in his late years achieved great profundity." After a reference to the poet's unflagging creativity, the poem returns to a contemplation of the natural scene, ending with a delicate contrast between the rolling rivers and the static lines of the bridge seen above the tops of the trees.

I have attempted to outline the process by which Su Tung-p'o transcended sorrow. In the discussion of the line, "My life is a sojourn only," I have drawn gratefully upon the study by Yamamoto Kazuyoshi, "Some Remarks on the Poetry of Su Shih" [Journal of Chinese Literature, 13, October, 1960]. Certain aspects of my discussion may be based upon rather arbitrary judgments, but the correctness of my general conclusion is borne out, I believe, by the fact that, in spite of the extreme fluctuations of fortune to which the poet was subjected during his lifetime, his 2400 poems contain almost no works that are wholly sorrowful in tone. As case in point I will cite a poem written near the end of 1079 to say farewell to his brother. The poet was in prison under accusation of "slandering the Emperor," and fully expected to die. It is in seven-character regulated verse.

Under the heaven of our holy ruler, all things
  turn to spring,
But I in dark ignorance have destroyed myself.
Before my hundred years are past, I'm called to
  settle up;
My leaderless family, ten months, must be your
 worry now.
Bury me anywhere on the green hills
And another year in night rain grieve for me
  alone.
Let us be brothers in lives and lives to come,
Mending then the bonds that this world breaks.

The poem is one of great sorrow, not surprisingly in view of the circumstances under which it was composed. Even so, there is a suggestion of hope, though it must wait until the next world for fulfillment. And although the word "to grieve," so rare in Su's poetry, appears here, it is interesting to note that it is applied not to the poet himself but to his brother.

This mood of sorrow did not last, however, for shortly after the poem quoted above was written, on the 28th day of the 12th month, after a hundred days in prison, the poet was set free. The following poem celebrates his re-lease in terms of outspoken boldness.… [It] is in the same form and follows the same rhymes as the poem of sorrow quoted above, a fact that lends emphasis to the dramatic change of mood.

A hundred days, free to go, and it's almost
  spring;
For the years left, pleasure will be my chief
  concern.
Out the gate, I do a dance, wind blows my face;
Our galloping horses race along as magpies
  cheer.
I face the wine cup and it's all a dream,
Pick up a poem brush, already inspired.
Why try to fix the blame for trouble past?
Years now I've stolen posts I never should have
 had.

For the purpose of comparison I shall quote here a poem written under circumstances rather similar to those of Su's prison poem above. It is by the T'ang poet Han Yü and was written when he was on his way into exile in 819 after incurring the imperial wrath because of his attack on Buddhism expressed in his famous "Memorial on the Buddha Bone." Like Su's poem, it is seven-character regulated verse. It bears the title "Written on my way into exile when I reached the Lan-t'ien Pass and shown to my brother's grandson Hsiang." Hsiang had accompanied the poet as far as the Lan-t'ien Pass, south of Ch'ang-an.

One document at dawn, submitted to the nine-tiered
  palace;
By evening, banished to Ch'ao-chou eight
  thousand li away.
For our holy ruler I longed to drive away the
  evil;
What thought for this old body, for the few
 years remaining?
Clouds blanket the Ch'in Range-which way is
  home?
Snow blocks the Lan Pass-my horse will not go
  on.
You must have some purpose, coming so far
  with me:
Be kind and gather up my bones from the shores
  of the fetid river.

Like Su, Han Yü had resigned himself to the thought of death, and his poem is given up to sadness. The clouds of the Ch'in Range, the snow in the Lan-t'ien Pass, everything that he sees, serves only to deepen his sorrow. But, unlike Su, who imagines himself being buried somewhere "on the green hills," Han Yü can only visualize his bones being left to rot by the malarial rivers of Ch'ao-chou far to the south and begs his kinsman to rescue them from the fate.

Su Tung-p'o did more than simply transcend his own personal sorrow; he initiated a new era in the history of Chinese poetry. The preoccupation with sorrow which had become a habit with the poets of earlier ages was brought to an end by his efforts, and poetry was led into the direction of a more hopeful view of life. Su's admirers in later centuries have loved him for his largeness and freedom of spirit, and his detractors have criticized him for the almost excessive ease with which his poetry flows along. But whatever they have thought of him, the poets who live after Su Tung-p'o gave far less space in their songs to the despair and sorrow of life than those who had lived before him, and this fact was the direct result of the revolution which he had brought about in the tenor of Chinese poetry.

Future historians of literature and philosophy will some day, it is to be hoped, make an exhaustive study of the epoch-making nature of Su Tung-p'o's literary works. When they do, they will have to give careful attention to one aspect of his personality in particular: the great breadth of his love. He was no political planner like Wang An-shih, but he had an innate love for the common people. It may be seen, for example, in the following poem written in 1071 when the poet was vice-governor of Hangchow. In five-character old form, it describes how the poet was kept late at his office on New Year's Eve by criminal cases. According to custom, cases involving the death penalty had to be settled before the New Year, which marked the beginning of spring.

New Year's Eve—you'd think I could go home
  early
But official business keeps me.
I hold the brush and face them with tears:
Pitiful convicts in chains,
Little men who tried to fill their bellies,
Fell into the law's net, don't understand
  disgrace.
And I? In love with a meager stipend
I hold on to my job and miss the chance to
  retire.
Do not ask who is foolish or wise;
All of us alike scheme for a meal.
The ancients would have freed them a while at
  New Year's-
Would I dare do likewise? I am silent with
 shame.

When the poet compares himself to the condemned prisoners and tell us, "Do not ask who is foolish or wise," he is not, I believe, speaking as a member of the ruling class who feels a certain tenderness toward his charges. He himself often denied that he belonged to the elite and expressed the desire to live the life of an ordinary citizen. When he was exiled to Huang-chou, he lived among farmers and actually became a farmer himself, working a plot of land at a place called Tung-p'o, or Eastern Slope. The following poem, the fifth of eight entitled "Eastern Slope," gives a glimpse of his life at that time. It is five-character old form.

A good farmer hates to wear out the land;
I'm lucky this plot was ten years fallow.
It's too soon to count on mulberries;
My best bet is a crop of wheat.
I planted seed and within the month
Dirt on the rows was showing green.
An old farmer warned me,
Don't let seedlings shoot up too fast!
If you want plenty of dumpling flour
Turn a cow or sheep in here to graze.
Good advice—I bowed my thanks;
I won't forget you when my belly's full.

He hoped to become a farmer once more at the time of his second exile in Hainan Island, as may be seen in the following poem dating from that period, though he was unable to realize his desire. In five-character old poem form, it is called "Buying Rice." As the poet buys rice and other necessities in the market place, he images how happy he would be if he could have a plot of land and grow his own food.

I buy rice and bundles of firewood,
Each commodity at its proper stall.
But getting them like this without plowing or
  gathering,
Though I fill my belly, the flavor is thin.
Bowing twice, I'll beg the lord of the land
Please to let me have a plot of ground.
I know where I was wrong, I laugh at past
  dreams;
If I work for my food, I need feel no shame.
Spring seedlings—when will they bloom?
Summer barngrass—its seeds are ripe by now!
Fondly I will stroke the plow and share—
Who understands what it would mean to me?

The principal fault of Su Tung-p'o's poetry is that he often wrote with an ease and facility that bordered on carelessness. In ["Following the Rhymes of Chiang Hui-shu"] we have already encountered a description of the facility with which he composed: "Poems flow out like water spilled"; and in another poem he writes,

A new poem is like a crossbow pellet;
Once it's left the hand it never stops a moment.

He certainly did not belong to the painstaking, hard-working category of poets. His manner of composition was an expression of the freedom of his mind and of his talent. But although he himself was not the hard-work-ing type, he could appreciate the worth of the man who was perhaps the hardest-working poet of the past, Tu Fu, and, along with Wang An-shih, strived to win for Tu Fu the recognition he deserved.

… Su Tung-p'o composed poems to the rhymes of all T'ao Yüan-ming's poems, completing the task during his years of exile in Hainan. This feat, too, is an expression of the overflow of energy and talent which characterized his work. I shall quote an example of T'ao Yüan-ming's poetry and the poem which Su wrote to match it. T'ao Yüan-ming's poem is the third of his twenty poems entitled "Drinking Wine," in fivecharacter lines.

A thousand years the Way's been lost;
Men are stingy with their hearts.
They have wine but they're unwilling to drink;
They think of nothing but worldly fame.
What's so precious about this body of ours?
Is it not the fact that it's alive?
One life—how long does it last?
Swift as a bolt of lightning it passes.

Within the press of a hundred years,
What will you do with this fame of yours?

The following is Su's poem, which employs the same rhyme words. The "refined gentlemen south of the Yangtze" are T'ao Yüan-ming's contemporaries of the Eastern Chin dynasty, which had its capital at Nanking.

The Way is lost, and men have lost themselves;
Words spoken now are never from the heart.
The refined gentlemen south of the Yangtze
In the midst of drunkenness still sought fame.
Yüan-ming alone was pure and true,
Living his life in talk and laughter.
He was like a bamboo before the wind,
Swaying and bending, all its leaves tremble,
Some facing up, some down, each a different
  shape—
When he'd had his wine, the poems wrote
 themselves.

The last line probably refers less to T'ao Yüan-ming's way of writing poetry than it does to that of Su Tung-p'o himself.

Wang An-shih, in spite of his good intentions, was never popular with the common people of his time. Su Tung-p'o, by contrast, seems to have been loved by all who knew him. There must have been something very different in the manner of the two men. Su's poetic follower, the Buddhist priest Ts'an-liao, wrote the following poem after Su's death. In seven-character chüeh-chü form, it is entitled "Poem Written in Memory of My Teacher Tung-p'o."

When with tall hat and firm baton he stood in
 council,
The crowds were awed at the dignity of the
  statesman in him.
But when in cloth cap he strolled with cane and
  sandals,
He greeted little children with gentle smiles.

Ts'an-liao was also acquainted with Wang An-shih. For the sake of comparison, I shall quote a poem which he wrote on visiting the Ting-lin Temple where Wang An-shih, referred to here by his title Duke Ching, used to walk. In the same form as the poem above, it is called "Visiting the Ting-lin Temple and Paying My Respects to the Portrait of Duke Ching."

Old trees, green rattan, one trail winding
  through;
Our Duke in days past would wander here.
Under the lonely roof, I look at his portrait:
The hero's air, the noble pose, impressive still.