Hallucinations and Epiphanies in T'ang Poetry

Hallucinations and Epiphanies in T'ang PoetryAuthor(s): Edward H. SchaferSource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 104, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1984), pp. 757-760Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/601906 .

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Hallucinations and Epiphanies in T'ang Poetry

"For Auden as for Nabokov, 'art is a game of intricate enchantment and deception."' (John Bayley, review of Edward Mendelson, Early Auden, in TLS, I I December 198 1)

Literary transformations are like perceptual transforma-

tions. A large number of T'ang poems have the quality of illumi-

nating hallucinations. In them concrete objects or whole

scenes are transformed into visions of their astral or celestial "counterparts."l

For instance, a lunar halo may assume the aspect of a crystal palace in the sky, or of a radiant mist-swathed goddess. Such an epiphany is analogous to the vision of a Taoist adept who experiences a mystical transformation of the world his senses reveal to him into a higher or eternal semblance of

itself. The poet's skill in verbal magic is best displayed when he contrives this transformation between the first and last couplet of his artifact, the poem-especially when this is a simple quatrain. Then a close succession of interlocking images leads the reader, in a short verbal space, to an in- evitable perception of the unity and coherence of the vision embodied in the poem. At its best, the transformation is effected continuously, like the gradual illumination of a stage. Every word, every interrelation between words, every high- lighting of one word by contiguity or interaction with an- other, must be consistent with the texture and design of this carefully designed gestalt. No single word is chosen idly or fortuitously: in a good poem each word has a vital part and

its exact nuances must be understood perfectly in order to decipher the whole message. This admonition must be kept in mind when reading any poem. It is all the more necessary

to do so when the artful illusionist is contriving an illusion

within an illusion-that is, a phantom within a poem. Often these hallucinatory images are identified as such by

the writer. They are defined by similes, explicit comparisons, or even proclaimed identities. A flight of cranes becomes a

bevy of moon-maids; a lamp-lit geisha street becomes a

sylphine paradise; a patterning of frost is an array of sword blades; drifting snow is jade sand washed from the Sky River, or it is a show of white flowers, then ashes of jade from a sacred mountain, and finally a procession of moon fairies; pine trees become magic sky-rafts; a misted pine-clad mountain is Nu Kua's skirt; rain is water dripping from the Sky River.2 "Evening on the Kiang," the second of the poems translated below, belongs in this group.

In more challenging poems, the writer does not give the whole show away: he requires that the reader detect a veiled transformation, guided by a subtle sequence of clues. For instance, an apparent priestess is in fact a goddess; a house can be seen as a mansion on the Sky River; a window becomes a constellation; a mist becomes a rain spirit; a round mirror becomes the full moon, and a curtain hook its crescent phase; the Lo River is transmuted into the Sky River; Mount Sung becomes a celestial palace of white jade; frost becomes apricot flowers; a geisha house becomes Ch'ango-o's glittering

' For the pervasiveness of the doctrine of correspondences, the basis of Chinese astrology, but also very significant in religion, magic, medicine and other aspects of medieval cul- ture, see E. H. Schafer, Pacing the Void: T'ang Approaches to the Stars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 55-56, where a simplified version of the concept is out- lined: "Celestial events are the 'counterparts' or 'simulacra' of terrestrial events, sky things have doppelgtingers below, with which they are closely attuned. 'In the sky are formed counterparts (hsiang); on the earth are formed contours (hsing)."' Hence asterisms are "mystic simulacra" (hsaan hsiang) and have macrocosmic roles analogous or identical with those of things and events which, in the microcosm of the physical world or human body, are in sympathetic harmony with them. See Manfred Porkert, The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine: Systems of Correspondence (Cambridge, Mass.: M. I.T. Press, 1974), for an elaborate statement of this theory.

2 All of the examples are from my own publications, in the following order: E. H. Schafer, "The Cranes of Mao Shan," in Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R. A. Stein, Vol. 2, ed. M. Strickmann (Melanges chinois et bouddhiques; Brussels, 1983), p. 392; "Notes on T'ang Geisha, 3. Yang- chou in T'ang Times," Schafer Sinological Papers, 6 (19 March 1984), 11; Pacing the Void, p. 153; "The Snow of Mao Shan: A Cluster of Taoist Images," in Myth and Sym- bol in Chinese Literature, ed. N. J. Girardot (forthcoming); Pacing the Void, p. 266; The Divine Woman: Dragon Ladies and Rain Maidens in TFang Literature (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1980), p. 92; "The Sky River," Journal of the American Oriental Society 94 (1974), 406.

757



758 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.4 (1984)

pavilion in the moon.3 The third of the poems translated

below falls in this category. The position of my first specimen is harder to define,

probably because of its somewhat whimsical tone.

SPECIMENS "I strive for the transcendental mountain" (Mei Niang)4

The Gallery at Scorched Cliff Wei Chuang5

1. Li Po once sang "The Shu Road is hard."6

2. [I have] heard: "In white sun[light one may] ascend to the

blue sky." 3. Now at sunrise, having passed to the Gallery at Scorched

Cliff by night, 4. I begin to believe that the Starry Ho lay in front of my

horse.

Comments

1. In the course of his poem, Li Po uses the words "the

hardship of the Shu Road-harder than the ascent of the

blue sky!" three times, putting much emphasis on the com-

parison between the ascent of the pass and the ascent to

heaven. Wei Chuang echoes this motif in his first couplet.

2. But there is this difference: the interposition of "in white

sunlight" adds a specifically Taoist element. It was well

known that Li Po aspired to transcendence, and had even been initiated into the lower arcana. In one of his own poems he expresses his delight at receiving a sacred register.7 Adepts of the highest level could expect to ascend into the sky "in white sunlight"-a simultaneous transfiguration and assump- tion-a feat here attributed to Li Po, either in Wei Chuang's belief or in his fancy. Indeed, it was believed that Li Po had been appropriately stellated in the asterism "Wine Star" (Chiu Hsing) in our constellation Leo (k, j, X Leonis), as was rec- ognized by the late T'ang poets Li Ho, P'i Jih-hsiu, Cheng Ku, and P'ei Yueh.8 3. After a harrowing climb by night, Wei Chuang's persona finds himself at the summit just at sunrise, where he can inspect the path below, with its narrow ledges and hanging trellises. (I cannot identify either "Scorched Cliff" or its gallery. The latter may have been an actual rest-house, or a natural rock formation.) 4. There are stars in Li Po's "Shu Road is Hard" as well: "I feel my way past Triaster, and I traverse Well" (men shen li ching). Both asterisms are lunar lodgings, the significant ele- ments of Chinese astrology. "Triaster" contains the brightest stars of Orion, notably 6, c, and 4, which stud the sword- belt, plus a (Betelgeuse) and ,B (Rigel). "Well" consists of stars in Hydra. Both constellations hang over the southeast in January, that is, back towards the lowlands and the Yangtze watershed. In "disastrous geography" (fen j'eh), Triaster governs Shansi, while Well controls the destiny of the west country, including the passes into Szechwan. Li Po has given an astrological version of a journey into the west. Now Wei Chuang pronounces, in a rather jocular tone, that he has equalled Li Po's feat of rising to heaven by a steep and mysterious passage and hobnobbing with the stars. He himself has, undoubtedly, watered his horse in the glittering water of the great sky river (Hsing Ho). Ad astra per ardua.

11 Evening on the Kiang

Ts'ui Tao-yung9 1. In the Kiang's heart the autumn moon is white. 2. I take up the rudder and move on, confident in the tide. 3. Kraken-dragons'l mutate-become human: 4. At midnight-the sound of [someone] blowing a flute.

3 E. H. Schafer, "The Capeline Cantos: Verses on the Divine

Loves of Taoist Priestesses," Asiatisehe Studien 32 (1978),

passim; "Two Late T'ang Poems on Music," Literature East

and West 16 (1972), 993; "Supposed 'Inversions' in T'ang

Poetry," Journal of the American Oriental Society 96 (1976),

121; "Cantos on 'One Bit of Cloud at Shamanka Mountain',"

Asiatische Studien 36 (1982), 111-112; "A Trip to the

Moon," Parabola 8/4 (Fall 1983), 79-80; Pacing the Void,

p. 259; "Notes on T'ang Geisha, 3. Yang-chou in T'ang

Times," Schafer Sinological Papers, 6 (19 March 1984), 12. 4 Mei Niang, "Ho Cho Ying-ying Chin-ch'eng ch'un wang,"

Ch 'uan Tang shih (Taipei: Fu-hsing shu-chu, 1967), han 12,

ts'e 6, p. 3b (hereafter CTS); translated in E. H. Schafer,

"Three Divine Women of South China," Chinese Literature:

EssaYs, Articles, Reviews 1 (1979), 37. 5 Wei Chuang (fl. 900), "Chiao yai ko," CTS, han 10, ts'e 9,

ch. 5, pp. 3a-3b. 6 Li Po, "Shu tao nan," CTS, han 3, ts'e 4, ch. 2, pp. Ib-2a.

See the translation in Arthur Waley, The PoetrY and Career

of Li Po, 701-762 A.D. (3rd impression, London: Allen &

Unwin, 1969), pp. 38-40.

E. H. Schafer, "Li Po's Star Power," Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions 6 (Fall 1978), 5-15.

8 Pacing the Void, pp. 124-125. 9 Ts'ui Tao-yung (fl. 879), "Chiang hsi," CTS, han 11, ts'e

1, p. 2a. '0 Chiao lung. The chiao "kraken" is generally regarded as

a terrifying subspecies of lung "dragon."



SCHAFER: Hallucinations and Epiphanies in T'ang Poetry 759

Comments 1. The full moon of mid-autumn is mirrored in the water of

the broad Yangtze. (White is the color of the supernatural world.) 2. The traveler takes in his rudder and allows natural forces

to direct his movements. (He must be in the estuary, probably near Yang-chou, where the tidal waters make themselves felt.) 3. Krakens are malignant, demoniac beings which sometimes

turn into lovely girls-bloodthirsty witch-wives who lure

young men to their deaths in their subaqueous lairs. Their bait is usually the false shape of an elegant mansion, seen by moonlight, where the sounds of revelry may be heard." 4. It is the very witching hour-we should expect werewolves and vampires. It seems to be a peaceful autumn night-but is it a night of horror? Now the siren's song. Is it a dream, or is this really happening to me?:

Evening in Transylvania Some unseen power carries me away: It is the night of the full moon When satanic creatures take on human form-

And somewhere I hear the notes of a zither. (Ah there, Dracula!)

III

Daybreak Ch'uan Te-yu 12

1. Daybreak wind shakes the "five-ounce.' 2. Fading moon glints on stone wall.

3. Bit by bit, a pale light opens. 4. A slip of sail stands in the indigo of space.

Comments 1. The dawn breeze rises, sufficient to register on the mast- head weathervane of a river-boat. 2. The light of a quarter moon, waning, riding high at dawn (a full moon would be setting at this time) is barely per- ceptible on the white surface of a wall-apparently a sea- wall where the boat is moored. It is about to set sail. 3. The morning light spreads slowly through the sky. 4. The moon fades to become a pale ghostly sail, blown by the dawn breeze across the black void, which is now turning dark blue. It is the wayfarer's boat, wafted up to merge with its celestial counterpart, to sail eastward and ultimately to vanish in the full light of day. The theme of the magic boat which sails up the Yellow River, or out to sea, ultimately to find itself on the Sky River, high above the world, is a com- monplace of T'ang literature.'4 Here are K'o-p'in Yi's verses about a sky raft:

Vehicle fading afar, ah! none knows its movements; Route through a watery waste, ah! leaving no trace

behind.

Nor can one know whither it goes.'5

EDWARD H. SCHAFER

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

" For tales of their nocturnal atrocities, see The Divine Woman, pp. 158-160.

12 Ch'uan Te-yu (759-818), "Hsiao," CTS, han 5, ts'e 8, ch. 6, p. 8a.

'3 Shu kuang. Shu is a faint, diffuse light in the sky, especially dawn light.

14 See "Sky Rafts" in Pacing the Void, pp. 262-269. 15 Pacing the Void, pp. 266-267.

GLOSSARY

Cheng Ku V &

Chiang Hsi A: y

Chiao lung O'kW

Chiao yai ko 4,A V

Chiu Hsing ,K

Ch'uan T'ang shih *

Ch'uan Te-yu )V OV

Fen yeh ,e e

Ho Cho Ying-ying Chin =

ch'eng ch'un wang

Hsiang K&

Hsiao f%

Hsing l

Hsing Ho ,;w



760 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.4 (1984)

Hsuan hsiang i~t P'i Jih-hsiu I By*

K'o-p'ing Yu 4 $ il Shu a

Li Ho At Shu kuang dr t

Mei Niang NA4 Shutaonan FAX Men shen Ii ching MPt Ts'ui Tao-yung t&@, P'ei Yueh t-k Wei Chuang *t



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Hallucinations and Epiphanies in T'ang Poetry