From Primer to Second-level Reader：David Hawkes and Du Fu,An Appreciation

William H.Nienhauser,Jr.

Author Affiliation：University of Wisconsin,U.S.A.

This paper could be titled“Translating Du Fu is impossible.”By that I mean that for me stand-alone translations of Du Fu rarely work.In class almost fifty years ago I recall that I only understood the rendition of“Chun wang”春望after my teacher,Liu Wuji柳無忌（1907—2002），had explained the historical background of the poem.This is not to say that stand-alone translations of Tang poetry cannot be handled by pens more skillful than mine,but just that for Du Fu,the“poetic historian”詩史，it is much more difficult.Thus the manner in which William Hung洪業（1893—1980）and Chen Yixin陳貽焮（1925—2000）present Du Fu’s poems within biographical frameworks seems to work best.[38]This is one of the reasons I was drawn to David Hawkes’masterful A Little Primer of Tu Fu（Oxford，1967）.Hawkes chose the thirty-five poems collected in the Tang shi sanbai shou唐詩三百首as his texts.Although he did not arrange them in chronological order,he did provide biographical contexts as part of his five-part analysis of each poem.These five parts were（1）the original text with a Pinyin Romanization thereof，（2）the historical background in what he called“Title and Subject，”（3）a section on“Form，”（4）an“Exegesis”that includes a word-for-word translation,and finally（5）a prose rendition of the poem.What seems to be missing is the literary context for these poems,something one encounters immediately in Chinese commentaries both traditional and modern.What I plan to do in this paper is to engage with these Chinese commentaries on or of the poems from Hawkes’corpus as a means to what I hope will be a deeper understanding of each.I should emphasize that I have the utmost respect for David Hawkes’and his work，[39]and in my readings,to borrow Han Yu’s韓愈（768—824）assessment of early critics of Du Fu,I am merely“an ant shaking a great tree”pi 2fu 2 han 4 da 4 shu 4蚍蜉撼大樹.[40]

Let’s begin with the fourth poem that Hawkes presented，“Yue ye”月夜“Moonlit Night.”[41]It is one of Du Fu’s most famous poems.[42]In“Title and Subject”Hawkes provides the circumstances in which the poem was written during autumn 756.That summer Du Fu had moved his family further away from the rebel-occupied capital of Chang’an to Fuzhou鄜州，about 120 miles to the northeast.Du Fu then set out to join the new court of Emperor Suzong at Lingwu靈武another 180 miles to the northwest.Along the way he encountered a band of rebels who forced him to return with them to the capital,possibly as a porter.He must have been released when they got to Chang’an,but was unable to return to his family for some months.This poem was probably written,Hawkes notes,at or around the Zhongqiujie中秋節or Mid-Autumn Festival in 756.

Hawkes then briefly explains that the prosody of regulated verse like this wu lü五律pentasyllabic regulated poem）is too complex to be reviewed for his purposes（a textbook），but he does speak to the rhymes,noting that kàn and hán in lines 2 and 6 were not level tones.The first couplet is then presented in what his“Exegesis”as follows：

To-night Fu-chou moon

My-wife can-only alone watch

今夜鄜州月，閨中只獨看。

There is an explanation of the metonymical guizhong閨中as“wife.”And at the end of the exegesis we have Hawkes’prose translation：“Tonight in Fu-chou my wife will be watching this moon alone.”

Here I would like to suggest the first emendation to Hawkes’presentation：the importance of the rhyme which is here han寒“cold，”[43]a ping-sheng rhyme,thus看should not be read as kàn,but as kān.[44]Du Fu uses kān in a similar fashion in his“Shihao li”石壕吏（The Official at Shihao）which begins：

暮投石壕村，有吏夜捉人。Mu tou Shihao cun,you li ye zhuo1 ren

老翁逾牆走，老婦出門看。Laoweng yue qiang zou,lao fu chumen kan

吏呼一何怒，婦啼一何苦。Li hu yihe nu,fu ti yihe ku.

At dusk I put up at Shih-hao Village，

An officer came in the night to seize people.

The old man fled over the wall，

The old woman came out to answer the door.

The officer’s shouting at once how angered，

The cries of the woman how embittered.[45]

Kān in“Yue ye，”again used as the final word of a pentasyllabic line,may connote the idea of“to take care of”or“look after”[46]as in Wang Jian’s王建“Hanshi xing”寒食行（Lines on the Cold Food Festival Day），which begins：

寒食家家出古城，老人看屋少年行。[47]

Hanshi jiajia chu gucheng，

Laoren kanwu shaonian xing.

For the Cold Food Festival every family comes out of the old city，

The elders take care of the houses,the young gallants are on the move.

Although I don’t think the kān in“Moonlit Night”means“to take care of，”it suggests to me something more responsible in Du Fu’s wife than merely looking at the moon.He watches the moon in Chang’an knowing that she can only be watching with the concern that kān may suggest.

The second couplet in“Moonlit Night，”followed by Hawkes’word-for-word rendering,reads：

遥憐小兒女，未解憶長安。Yao lian xiao er nv,wei jie yi Chang’an

In the word-for-word version：

Distant sorry-for little sons-daughters

Not-yet understand remember Ch’ang-an

Although Hawkes translates yi憶in line 4 literally as“remember，”it disappears in his final prose translation which goes：

“I think with tenderness of my far-away little ones，

too young to understand about their father in Ch’ang-an.”

In Du Fu’s verse yi often means“to remember，”but it can also mean“to miss”or“think of”as,for example,in the titles to three poems Du Fu wrote at about this time：“Yi youzi”憶幼子（Missing My Youngest Son；Qiu Zhaoao，4.323）and“Yi di,er shou”憶弟二首（Two Poems on Missing My Younger Brothers,Qiu Zhaoao，6.508-10）.[48]A number of modern translators have,like Hawkes,understood the subject of yi to be Du Fu’s children.[49]But traditional commentators are less sure.Wang Sishi王嗣奭（1566—1648），who Qiu Zhaoao called the best commentator on Du Fu,comments in his Du yi杜臆：“the meaning is based on longing for his family,but by secondarily imagining his family members missing him,he has taken the poem to another level,until he seems to think of his sons and daughters not being able to miss him,and the poem reaches yet another level”意本思家，而偏想家人思我，已進一層，至念及兒女之不能思，又進一層.[50]Following a similar line of interpretation Huang Sheng黄生（b.1622）says：“Although the wife has her sons and daughters accompanying her,they do not understand why seeing the moon would cause one to miss Chang’an”閨中雖有兒女相伴，然兒女不解見月則憶長安。我知閨中遠憶長安，對月獨垂清淚.[51]Bian Lianbao邊連寶（1700—1773）cites Yuan Shouding袁守定（1705—1782）who argued that[the lines]“I pity my little sons and daughters from afar,not understanding to miss Chang’an”mean that they“do not understand why their mother misses Chang’an”“遥憐小兒女，未解憶長安者，”未解其母之何以憶長安也.[52]This reading,although it strains traditional syntactical rules,is in concert with the image of Du Fu imagining his wife watching the moon.Yet a third possibility,and certainly not a primary meaning of the line,might be that Du Fu himself,returning to a capital city that had been sacked by the rebels,misses the former“Chang’an”as he knew it,for now that capital has indeed been destroyed：guo po shanhe zai國破山河在.[53]Indeed,the poems of late 756 and early 757 all seem to focus either on Du Fu’s family members or on current politics.For example，“Qian xing”遣興，speaking of Du Fu’s newly born youngest son，[54]and“Ai wangsun”哀王孫（Bemoaning a Royal Son；Qiu Zhaoao，4.310—14），a poem which contains a summary of the military and political situation at the end of 756，follow“Yue ye”in many editions.Chen Yixin in his epic biography of Du Fu labels his chapter on these months Riye geng wang guanjun zhi日夜更望官軍至（“Day and night watching all the more for the arrival of the imperial troops”），a line from the Du Fu’s“Bei Chentao”悲陳陶（Grieving over the Battle at Chentao）.[55]Perhaps the straightforward reading of the line,with Du Fu’s children too young to miss their father in Chang’an,is still the best solution,since it would imply that his wife has no one with whom to share her feelings for her husband.

The syntax of the third couplet of“Yue ye，”xiang wu yunhuan shi,qing hui yubi han香霧雲鬟濕，清輝玉臂寒，has also drawn attention from traditional commentators.Hawkes,literal translation is“Fragrant mist cloud-hair wet，/Clear light jade-arms cold.”The final prose translation that Hawkes offers is“My wife’s soft hair must be wet from the scented night-mist，/and her white arms chilled by the cold moonlight.”Both lines suggest that considerable time has passed while Du Fu’s wife has been gazing at the moon.Both the mist and the moon would have taken time to moisten（shi濕）her hair and chill（han寒）her bare arms.Thus the lines might better be understood as“In the scented mist her piled-high hair grows wet，/In the clear moonlight her bare arms turn cold.”The term xiang wu香霧seems to have first been used by Du Fu.In later Tang poems such as Li He’s李賀（791—817）“Qin Gong shi”秦宫詩（Poem on Qin Gong；J.D.Frodsham,The Poems of Li He[791—817][Oxford：Clarendon Press，1970]，p.163）it refers to the emanations from an incense burner.Qiu Zhaoao,however,argues that“the fragrance was emitted from the oil that Du Fu’s wife used on her hair（p.309）.Although Du Fu’s family was in straightened circumstances at this time,from the poem“Bei zheng”北征（Northern Journey）we know that she still carried powder and rouge：“In a minute powder and rouge cover their cheeks，/And the eyebrows are painted askew and too broad”移時施朱鉛，狼藉畫眉闊（Qiu Zhaoao，5.400，William Hung,Tu Fu,p.117）.However we understand this couplet,it moves the poem from the metaphysical speculations of the first couplets to a physicality that calls to mind Li Bo’s李白“Yujie yuan”玉階怨（Lament on the Jade Steps）：

玉階生白露，夜久侵羅襪。卻下水晶簾，玲瓏望秋月。

Yujie sheng bailu,ye jiu qin luowa，

Que xia shuijing lian,linglong wang qiu yue.

On the jade steps,white dew forms，

As the night lengthens,soaking her silk stockings.

She turns within,lowers the crystal curtains and

Gleaming continues to gaze at the autumn moon.[56]

A major difference between the two poems are the objects of the poet’s attention：Li Bo’s is a more impersonal depiction,possibly an allusion to a woman abandoned in the Han dynasty,or a veiled self-reference,whereas Du Fu is speaking of his wife.

Nevertheless,there is a level of sensuality in the fifth and sixth lines that Hawkes’rendition，“my wife’s soft hair must be wet from the scented night-mist，/and her white arms chilled by the cold moonlight，”suggests.This suggestiveness continues in Du Fu’s view of his wife’s bare,jade-like arms,once warm,now chilled by her exposure to watch“their moon”from the window of her bed chamber.

The final couplet heshi yi xu huang,shuangzhao lei hen gan何時倚虚幌，雙照淚痕乾in Hawkes’word-for-word version becomes：“What-time lean empty curtain/Double-shine tear-marks dry.”His polished prose translation reads“When shall we lean on the open casement together and gaze at the moon until the tears on our cheeks are dry?”The expression shuang zhao雙照seems lost here.Although both Du Fu and his wife are watching the moon alone（du kan獨看），Du Fu hopes that the moon will link them by shining on them both.Some scholars would also suggest,however,that it is either the reunited couple’s warmth or the moonlight itself that dries their tears，[57]and that the xu huang虚幌indicates a window covered in light silk or a sheer curtain.Beyond exploring the language of the poem itself,resonances with earlier well known poems such as“Yue chu”月出（The Moon Appears），Mao#143 in the Shijing are cited by some commentators as part of the context needed to fully understand“Yue ye.”“The Moon Appears”is one of the earliest poems that metaphorically compares a lover to the moonlight and in the following translation by Martin Kern brings out the full erotic connotations that may also be operable in“Yue ye”：

月出皎兮，佼人僚兮。舒窈糾兮，勞心悄兮。

月出皓兮，佼人懰兮。舒懮受兮，勞心慅兮。

月出照兮，佼人燎兮。舒夭紹兮，勞心慘兮。

The moon comes forth,how bright，

The beautiful girl,how adorable！

At leisure she is in her sensual allure—

My toiled heart,how anxious.

The moon comes forth,how brilliant，

The beautiful girl,how lovely！

At leisure she is in her beguiling charm—

My toiled heart,how troubled.

The moon comes forth,how radiant，

The beautiful girl,how vibrant！

At leisure she is in her enchanting appeal—

My toiled heart,how haunted.[58]

Du Fu’s“Yue ye”has also reminded commentators of the nineteenth of the“Gushi shijiushou”古詩十九首（Nineteen Ancient Poems）：

明月何皎皎，照我羅床緯。憂愁不能寐，攬衣起徘徊。

客行雖云樂，不如早旋歸。出户獨彷徨，愁思當告誰！

引領還入房，淚下沾裳衣。

The bright moon how pure and white，

Shines on my gauze bed curtains.

Worry and sadness won’t let me sleep，

Pulling on a coat I get up to pace about.

Although traveling away from home is said to have its joys，

Far better early on to turn towards home.

I go out the door and wander about alone，

To whom can I tell these sad thoughts?

Looking out into the distance as I return to my room，

Tears fall soaking my gown.[59]

Although Du Fu’s“Yue ye”is a well-known poem even in modern China,it offers a text laden with contexts that make translation difficult.Perhaps the poem is best understood by considering several of the available commentaries and translations.For me the driving emotion of“Yue ye”is a longing,both physical and emotional,replete with traditional associations.If I were to venture a new translation,it would run as follows：

今夜鄜州月，閨中只獨看。遥憐小兒女，未解憶長安。

香霧雲鬟濕，清輝玉臂寒。何時倚虚幌，雙照淚痕乾。

For the Fuzhou moon tonight，

My wife can only keep watch alone.

I pity my far away little ones；

They can’t understand why Chang’an should be held dear；

A mist made fragrant moistens her piled high hair，

The clear moonlight chills her bare arms.

When will be able to lean at an open window

And let the moon shine on us both,drying the tracks of our tears.

The suggestions I’ve made in this essary are speculative.Of course,it is possible to read Du Fu without delving into the poems and the commentarial tradition.But this would be to read the poems in lower-case type,to skim meanings off the surface of deep pools.My reading of resonances is intended to supplement Hawkes’own exegesis and notes.They are intended to demonstrate both the complexity of Du Fu’s verse and the meticulous accuracy and literary sensitivity of David Hawkes’comments on that verse.