Goose, where have you been? What have you seen?

Qian Qi brings mythic imagination to the annual goose migration

The Wild Geese Return
Qian Qi

But why come back from the land between the Xiao and Xiang? Why leave?
From the deep south where widows grieve?
The sand is bright, sweet lichen grows both sides of sapphire waters,
In the deep south of Yao’s daughters.
“For twenty five sharp strings still sing and pierce the night and moon,
In the south where naiads croon.
The sound of their lamenting song is too much to be borne,
Where the Xiang River Goddesses mourn.”

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Qian Qi (710-782).

Tang Dynasty writers did not know where wild geese migrated to in the winter; they were conventionally imagined to go to southern Hunan, in the deep south of the empire, around the rivers Xiao and Xiang.

[Edit: The 25 strings refers to a se, a stringed instrument with silk strings stretched over a rectangular sound board. The se is associated with the music of grief: legend has it that the first se had 50 strings, but the sound was so heart-wrenching that the mythic Emperor Di could not bear it. He broke the instrument in half, and the se has had 25 strings ever since.]

The Xiang River Goddesses were named Ehuang and Nuying, and were the daughters of the mythical emperor Yao. They both married Shun, who was chosen as Yao’s successor. When Shun died, they became immortals in the River Xiang, perpetually mourning their dead husband.

Qian Qi playfully intersects these two legends in this poem.

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钱起  归雁

潇湘何事等闲回？水碧沙明两岸苔。

二十五弦弹夜月，不胜清怨却飞来。