Su Shi (Su Dongpo) - Revision history

Alexis Sagen at 04:16, 5 March 2012

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Alexis Sagen at 03:49, 5 March 2012

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Alexis Sagen at 03:40, 5 March 2012

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69.169.132.20 at 03:07, 5 March 2012

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69.169.132.20 at 23:26, 4 March 2012

2012-03-04T23:26:56Z

Alexis Sagen at 22:27, 4 March 2012

2012-03-04T22:27:44Z

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2012-03-04T22:23:54Z

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Alexis Sagen at 21:25, 4 March 2012

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 區區為酒錢。
 :'''"My Young Son"'''
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 I also excelled in the delicious arts of cooking, wine making, and perhaps my favorite, tea tasting (Min Xu). If you could ever have tasted my recipes of "Dongpo Fish" or "Dongpo Pork," you would understand that I am not exaggerating when I say that my skills with herbs and meat equaled my skills with pen and ink. You may think it foolish of me, but I also had a curiosity concerning alchemy, and I would sometimes spend long hours concocting elixirs of immortality; none of which were successful, I am sad to admit (Min Xu).
 '''Poetry'''

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 Perhaps it was due to my overly abundant ego, but I loved to write autobiographically; for who could be a more interesting subject then myself?
-I did not only look introspectively, however, but I opened my mind to the outside world and gained inspiration from it '''(Source)'''.
+I did not only look introspectively, however, but I wrote of my experiences, for I am happy to say I led an exciting and fulfilling life, unlike many scholars of the age who contented themselves with always writing from within four high walls. My writing was optimistic, fast and free, and relied heavily on inspiration ("Su Shi Biography").
 My writings and calligraphy brought me much fame and wealth, but my outspoken manner and staunch beliefs led my pen to flow too freely with constructive criticisms of the current regime, and in particular of  Wang Anshi and his "New Policies" which I saw as progress in the wrong direction(Egan 2010, p 410). After years of striving to improve China and the Chinese Government, I had gotten nowhere. Not in the literal sense, mind you, for my political commentaries had got me sent all around the country of China as a convicted criminal and I became quite the expert on the topographical features of China. What I mean is that the the leaders of China would rather send me hiking across the country or imprison me in a cell, then enforce any of the measures that I prescribed. No matter what I wrote, China would never change. I wrote sardonically of the matter once, when one of my wives gave birth to a son:
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 "Su Shi." Absoluteastronomy.com. Absolute Astronomy. Web. 04 Mar. 2012. <http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Su_Shi>.
 Su Shi. "Dreaming of My Deceased Wife on the Night of the 20th Day of the First Month." Chinese Poems. Web. 24 Feb. 2012. <http://www.chinese-poems.com/s5.html>.

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 :The Waterway Classic says: "At the mouth of a Pengli [Lake] there is a Stone Bell Mountain." Li Daoyuan (d. 527) held that "below it, near a :deep pool, faint breezes drum up waves, and water and rocks striking one another toll like huge bells." Others have often doubted this claim. :Today, if one takes a bell or a lithophone and places it into the water, even if there is great wind and waves, you cannot make it ring. How :much the less, then, for [common] rocks? It was not until the time of Li Bo [9th century, not the famous Li Bo, or Li Bai] of the Tang that :someone searched for a surviving trace of this phenomenon. Upon finding a pair of rocks on the bank of a pool, he knocked them together and :listened. Their southern tone was mellow and muted; their northern timber was clear and shrill. When the clang ceased, its resonance mounted; :the remnant notes then gradually came to rest. Li Bo then held that he had found the 'stone bells'. However, I am especially doubtful of this :statement. The clanking sound made by rocks is the same everywhere. And yet, this place alone is named after a bell. Why, indeed, is that?
-:On Dingchou day of the sixth lunar month in the seventh year of the Prime Abundance period (July 14, 1084), I was traveling by boat from Qi'an :(Huanggang, Hubei) to Linru (Linru, Henan). My oldest son [Su] Mai was just about to leave for Dexing in Rao to take up the post of :Pacificator. Since I accompanied him as far as Hukou (modern Hukou, Jiangxi), I was able to observe the so-called stone bells. A monk from a :[nearby] monastery dispatched an apprentice carrying an axe to select one or two among the scattered rocks and knock them [with an axe], upon :which they made a 'gong-gong'-like sound. I laughed just as I had done before and still did not believe the legend.
+:On Dingchou day of the sixth lunar month in the seventh year of the Prime Abundance period (July 14, 1084), I was traveling by boat from :Qi'an (Huanggang, Hubei) to Linru (Linru, Henan). My oldest son [Su] Mai was just about to leave for Dexing in Rao to take up the post of :Pacificator. Since I accompanied him as far as Hukou (modern Hukou, Jiangxi), I was able to observe the so-called stone bells. A monk from a :[nearby] monastery dispatched an apprentice carrying an axe to select one or two among the scattered rocks and knock them [with an axe], upon :which they made a 'gong-gong'-like sound. I laughed just as I had done before and still did not believe the legend.
-:That evening, the moon was bright. Alone with Mai I rode a little boat to the base of a steep precipice. The huge rocks on our flank stood :1000 feet high (304 m). They looked like fierce beasts and weird goblins, lurking in a ghastly manner and getting ready to attack us. When the :roosting falcons on the mountain heard our voices they too flew off in fright, cawing and crying in the cloudy empyrean. Further, there was :something [that sounded] like an old man coughing and laughing in a mountain ravine. Someone said: "That is a white stork." I was shaking with :fear and about to turn back, when a loud noise rang out from the surface of the water that gonged and bonged like bells and drums unceasing in :their clamor. The boatmen became greatly alarmed. I carefully investigated it, only to discover that everywhere below the mountain there are :rocky caves and fissures, who knows how deep. Gentle waves were pouring into them, and their shaking and seething, and chopping and knocking :were making this gonging and bonging. When our boat on its return reached a point between the two mountains and we were about to enter the :mouth of the inlet, [I saw that] there was a huge rock in the middle of the channel which could seat a hundred people. It was hollow in the :center with numerous apertures, which, as they swallowed and spat with the wind and water, made a bumping and thumping and clashing and :bashing that echoed with the earlier gonging and bonging. It seemed as if music was being played here. Thereupon, I laughed and said to Mai: :"Do you recognize it? The gonging and bonging is the Wuyi bell of King Jing of Zhou; the bumping and thumping and clashing and bashing are the :song-bells of Wei Zhuangzi [a.k.a. Wei Jiang; 6th century BC military advisor]. The ancients [i.e. Li Daoyuan and Li Bo] have not cheated us!
+:That evening, the moon was bright. Alone with Mai I rode a little boat to the base of a steep precipice. The huge rocks on our flank stood :1000 feet high (304 m). They looked like fierce beasts and weird goblins, lurking in a ghastly manner and getting ready to attack us. When :the roosting falcons on the mountain heard our voices they too flew off in fright, cawing and crying in the cloudy empyrean. Further, there :was something [that sounded] like an old man coughing and laughing in a mountain ravine. Someone said: "That is a white stork." I was :shaking with fear and about to turn back, when a loud noise rang out from the surface of the water that gonged and bonged like bells and :drums unceasing in their clamor. The boatmen became greatly alarmed. I carefully investigated it, only to discover that everywhere below the :mountain there are rocky caves and fissures, who knows how deep. Gentle waves were pouring into them, and their shaking and seething, and :chopping and knocking were making this gonging and bonging. When our boat on its return reached a point between the two mountains and we :were about to enter the mouth of the inlet, [I saw that] there was a huge rock in the middle of the channel which could seat a hundred :people. It was hollow in the center with numerous apertures, which, as they swallowed and spat with the wind and water, made a bumping and :thumping and clashing and bashing that echoed with the earlier gonging and bonging. It seemed as if music was being played here. Thereupon, :I laughed and said to Mai: "Do you recognize it? The gonging and bonging is the Wuyi bell of King Jing of Zhou; the bumping and thumping and :clashing and bashing are the song-bells of Wei Zhuangzi [a.k.a. Wei Jiang; 6th century BC military advisor]. The ancients [i.e. Li Daoyuan :and Li Bo] have not cheated us!

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:26, 4 March 2012
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−	I wrote several other pieces with the moon as my subject:	+	I wrote several other pieces with the moon as my subject, dreaming of a world forever outside my grasp but always visible in the night sky:

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:27, 4 March 2012
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	== A Renaissance Man ==		== A Renaissance Man ==

−	[[File:Su Shi painting.jpg\|300px\|thumb\|right\| A painting by yours truly(Source: The Painting Scroll of a Withered Tree and a Queer Rock)]]	+	[[File:Su Shi painting.jpg\|300px\|thumb\|right\| A painting by yours truly (Source: The Painting Scroll of a Withered Tree and a Queer Rock)]]

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 ''who got mad with her husband for spending on wine!''
 My happiness was not to last yet again, as Wang Runzhi died at 46. I requested to be buried beside my second wife, and waited until the time when we would be reunited ("Su Shi." Absoluteastronomy.com).
-My final companion was my concubine, Wang Zhaoyun, my former handmaiden and a singer who not only possessed the virtue of beauty, but was blessed with the infinitely superior virtue of a quick and eager mind, having taught herself how to read. She bore me a son, Su Dun, as well, but both were fated to die; Wang Zhaoyun of an illness at 33, and Su Dun while he was still still in infancy.
+My final companion was my concubine, Wang Zhaoyun, my former handmaiden and a singer who not only possessed the virtue of beauty, but was blessed with the infinitely superior virtue of a quick and eager mind, having taught herself how to read. She bore me a son, Su Dun, as well, but both were fated to die; Wang Zhaoyun of an illness at 33, and Su Dun while he was still still in infancy ("Su Shi." Absoluteastronomy.com).
 Perhaps, through my own willful selfishness, I had put both of my wives through too much hardship, and the life got sucked out of them while I continued to live heartily until the age of 66.
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 小兒不識愁，
 起坐牽我衣。
 我欲嗔小兒，
 老妻勸兒癡。
 兒癡君更甚，
 不樂復何為？
 還坐愧此言，
 洗盞當我前。
 大勝劉伶婦，
 區區為酒錢。
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 ''My young son knows no grief:''
 ''he tagged at my garment upon sitting upright.''
 ''I was just about to lose my temper''
 ''when my old wife chided the boy for being silly.''
 ''"But my husband's sillier than the son," she said.''
 ''"why not just be happy?"''
 ''I sat upright, embarrassed by her words;''
 ''she placed a washed wine cup before me.''
 ''She's far better than Liu Ling's wife''
 ''who got mad with her husband for spending on wine!''
 My happiness was not to last yet again, as Wang Runzhi died at 46. I requested to be buried beside my second wife, and waited until the time when we would be reunited ("Su Shi." Absoluteastronomy.com).
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 == A Renaissance Man ==
-[[Su Shi painting.jpg|300px|thumb|right| A painting by yours truly(Source: The Painting Scroll of a Withered Tree and a Queer Rock)]]
+[[File:Su Shi painting.jpg|300px|thumb|right| A painting by yours truly(Source: The Painting Scroll of a Withered Tree and a Queer Rock)]]

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 ''who got mad with her husband for spending on wine!''
-My happiness was not to last yet again, as Wang Runzhi died at 46. I requested to be buried beside my second wife, and waited until the time when we would be reunited.
+My happiness was not to last yet again, as Wang Runzhi died at 46. I requested to be buried beside my second wife, and waited until the time when we would be reunited ("Su Shi." Absoluteastronomy.com).
 Perhaps, through my own willful selfishness, I had put both of my wives through too much hardship, and the life got sucked out of them while I continued to live heartily until the age of 66.
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 == A Renaissance Man ==
 '''Painting'''
 I took joy in many activities, not constraining myself simply to poetry as many were prone to doing at the time; I also loved to paint and contributed greatly to the painting style of the Song period (Min Xu). I would often paint the beauties of nature as I saw them around me; from the tiniest of flowers hiding in the shadow of an elm, to the bird which can fly  perhaps a thousand li in the sky where my eyes can no longer discern it (Min Xu). Many youth saw what I was doing and  copied my actions (Min Xu). Although I was happy that they were moving down a path of learning and excellence, I wished they could have acted more for themselves and not tried to become Su Shis in Miniature.
 '''Cooking'''
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 :Is it acceptable for someone who has not personally seen or heard something to have decided views on whether it exists or not? Li Daoyuan :probably saw and heard the same things as I did, yet he decided not to describe them in detail. Gentlemen-officials have always been :unwilling to take a small boat and moor it beneath the steep precipice at night. Thus, none were able to find out [about the bells]. And, :although the fishermen and boatmen knew about them, they were unable to describe them [in writing]. This is why it has not been transmitted :through the generations. As it turns out, imbeciles sought the answer by taking axes and beating and striking rocks. Then they held that they :had found out the truth of the matter. Because of this I have made a record of these events, for the most part to sigh over Li Daoyuan's :superficiality, and to laugh at Li Bo's stupidity!
-("Su Shi." Absoluteastronomy.com)
+:("Su Shi." Absoluteastronomy.com)
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 Theobald, Ulrich. "Chinese History - Song Dynasty 宋 (960-1279) Literature, Thought and Philosophy." Chinaknowledge.de. 2000. Web. 04 Mar. 2012. <http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Song/song-literature.html>.

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-My first wife, Wang Fu, was also as wise as any Zen master '''(Source:)'''.
+I married my first wive, Wang Fu, when I was 19 years of age and she 16. She was kind and caring, but just as quick as my old friend Fo Yin at demolishing me on my idiocies. Wang Fu died at the age of 26 after giving birth to my first son, Su Mai. Ten years after her death, I dreamed of my dear wife and felt as if my heart was breaking anew ("Su Shi." Absoluteastronomy.com).
-:江城子•乙卯正月二十日夜記夢
+:《江城子•乙卯正月二十日夜記夢》
 十年生死兩茫茫，
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 (Su Shi, “Dreaming”)
 :Dreaming of My Deceased Wife on the Night of the 20th Day of the First Month
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 (History – Literature)