Han Yu Loves Antiquities
Unfortunately, he sucks at politics, so the antiquities are lost
Song of the Stone Drums
Han Yu
.
The occasion of writing
The great stone drums of Qin—my friend, Zhang Ji
Had papers showing their calligraphy,
And sought me out for stone drum poetry.
Li Bai is gone; the great Du Fu is dead.
My meagre voice will serve these stones instead.
The carving of the stones
The dynasty of Zhou was faltering.
Rebellions rumbled, so the furious king
Raised high his spear, and called a gathering.
The hall soon filled with lord close packed on lord,
Each jostling sword rang out on jostling sword.
King Xuan declared they'd hunt the Qiyang ground:
Each duke would course, each noble horse would bound.
Across the park a thousand miles around,
Near every single bird and beast was downed.
When deeds are done, the deeds should be inscribed,
They hacked stones out of the mountainside.
They picked the artist with the finest skill,
And carved the stones, and left them on that hill.
Though sun and rain and forest fires raged,
Protective spirits kept the stones unaged.
The beauty of the calligraphy
How is it that we have this rubbing here?
It’s perfect: every mark is crystal clear.
The stones are enigmatic, deep, and wise,
Inscribed with living, water-dragon lines,
Not seal script nor demotic tadpole script,
But living beasts whose limbs were cruelly clipped
Where centuries of wear have left them chipped.
These carvings have a wild phoenix grace
The symmetry of a goddess’s face,
Like coral branches weirdly interlaced.
Like gold, but with the strength of iron chain;
Like legendary bronzes found again.
But did the low Confucian gang see fit
To include this text in their famous edit?
The Book of Odes could find no space for it!
Confucius picked up many lesser lights,
These stones are Phoebus, Selene in the night!
There’s nothing in his Odes that shines so bright.
The poet’s past attempts to rescue the stones
I always had an antique cast of mind:
I wept to be born so long out of my time.
The year I first became an Erudite,
A friend in the Battalion of the Right
Conspired with me to excavate a space,
And grant the stones, at last, their rightful place.
The Education Chancellor agreed
To hear what our museum plan would need:
“A dozen camels for a caravan,
With rugs as slings, and soon the stones would stand
Within the Royal Temple treasure store
And worth a hundred times or more
The treasures that already stand within,
Like the bronze from Gao, the ancient ding.
Or they could grace the university
For students to research attentively,
Just as they pack the yards and sit in rows
To read the classics on the Hongdu stones.
Let’s remove the lichen, brush them clean
And stand them safe, and level, and pristine.
Let’s house them in a gracious study hall,
Please end these stones’ misfortunes once and for all!”
But palace ministers are stuck in their ways,
Their sluggish interest is hard to raise.
Today, no priests caress the stones with lint.
They’re scraping blocks for cows, and herd-boys’ flint.
I came back five years later; just the same,
They’re scalded by the sun, and moon’s cold flame.
A final plea
Today’s calligraphers will never cease
To sing the praise of any Xizhi piece
(The man himself sold reams for a few white geese).
Still no-one has preserved a prize like these
Through wars and peace and countless dynasties.
Our peaceful times cry out for us to read;
But rigidly we follow Confucius’ lead.
If this entreaty had the force it should,
My words would surge like a raging flood
To sing the admiration in my mind
For drums of stone that history left behind—
They fall far short; to that I am resigned.
Han Yu’s weird record of his attempts to save the Qin Stone Drums tells us that he loves their odd calligraphy, and that he really didn’t know how to get on the right side of his superiors. All he needed was a few blankets and camels, but in the budget meeting he managed to belittle the Hongdu Stones already in the imperial temple, and probably to insult Confucius as well. As a result, his request was denied, and the stones remained out in the Shaanxi sun. They were only transferred to the Forbidden City Museum in Beijing in the modern era.
King Xuan was a real monarch of the Zhou Dynasty, who ruled in about 800BCE.
Seal script was the dominant form of Chinese writing in the first millennium BCE. It was probably mostly used for carvings, and looked like this:
Tadpole script was a script contemporary with seal script, used for writing on books or boards. None of those materials have survived, so we have little evidence of when or how it developed. It looked like this:
The script of the stone drums looks like this:
Erudite was the title awarded to teachers in the imperial university system.
The Battalion of the Right was one of the military groups tasked with defence of the capital.
The Education Chancellor was the head of the imperial university.
The bronze ding of Gao was a large bronze pot cast with an inscription, dating from an ancient Chinese state named Gao. It has since been lost. `
The Book of Odes is also known as the Book of Poetry or the Classic of Poetry. It is a collection of folk songs, allegedly compiled by Confucius himself, who believed that maintaining healthy music was one of the best ways a ruler could benefit his country.
Xizhi is the revered calligrapher Wang Xizhi. Han Yu mockingly references Wang’s hobby of raising geese.
韩愈 石鼓歌
张生手持石鼓文，劝我试作石鼓歌。
少陵无人谪仙死，才薄将奈石鼓何。
周纲凌迟四海沸，宣王愤起挥天戈。
大开明堂受朝贺，诸侯剑佩鸣相磨。
蒐于岐阳骋雄俊，万里禽兽皆遮罗。
镌功勒成告万世，凿石作鼓隳嵯峨。
从臣才艺咸第一，拣选撰刻留山阿。
雨淋日灸野火燎，鬼物守护烦撝呵。
公从何处得纸本，毫发尽备无差讹。
辞严义密读难晓，字体不类隶与蝌。
年深岂免有缺画，快剑斫断生蛟鼍。
鸾翔凤翥众仙下，珊瑚碧树交枝柯。
金绳铁索锁钮壮，古鼎跃水龙腾梭。
陋儒编诗不收入，二雅褊迫无委蛇。
孔子西行不到秦，掎摭星宿遗羲娥。
嗟余好古生苦晚，对此涕泪双滂沱。
忆昔初蒙博士征，其年始改称元和。
故人从军在右辅，为我度量掘臼科。
濯冠沐浴告祭酒，如此至宝存岂多。
毡包席裹可立致，十鼓只载数骆驼。
荐诸太庙比郜鼎，光价岂止百倍过。
圣恩若许留太学，诸生讲解得切磋。
观经鸿都尚填咽，坐见举国来奔波。
剜苔剔藓露节角，安置妥帖平不颇。
大厦深檐与盖覆，经历久远期无佗。
中朝大官老于事，讵肯感激徒媕娿。
牧童敲火牛砺角，谁复著手为摩挲。
日销月铄就埋没，六年西顾空吟哦。
羲之俗书趁姿媚，数纸尚可博白鹅。
继周八代争战罢，无人收拾理则那。
方今太平日无事，柄任儒术崇丘轲。
安能以此尚论列，愿借辩口如悬河。
石鼓之歌止于此，呜呼吾意其蹉跎。