Gems of Chinese Literature/Su Tung-P‘o-The Arbour to Joyful Rain

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Gems of Chinese Literature (1922)
translated by Herbert Allen Giles

The Arbour to Joyful Rain by Su Tung-P‘o

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SU TUNG-P‘O.

a.d. 1036-1101

[An almost universal genius, like Ou-yang Hsiu, this writer is even a greater favourite with the Chinese literary public. Under his hands, the language of which China is so proud may be said to have reached perfection of finish, of art concealed. In subtlety of reasoning, in the lucid expression of abstractions, such as in English too often elude the faculty of the tongue, Su Tung-P‘o is an unrivalled master. On behalf of his honoured manes I desire to note my protest against the words of Mr. Baber, recently spoken at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, and stating that “the Chinese language is incompetent to express the subtleties of theological reasoning, just as it is inadequate to represent the nomenclature of European science.” I am not aware that the nomenclature of European science can be adequately represented even in the English language; at any rate, there can be no comparison between the expression of terms and of ideas, and I take it the doctrine of the Trinity itself is not more difficult of comprehension than the theory of “self abstraction beyond the limits of an external world,” so closely reasoned out by Chuang Tzŭ. If Mr. Baber merely means that the gentlemen entrusted with the task have proved themselves so far quite incompetent to express in Chinese the subtleties of theological reasoning, then I am with him to the death.

There is one more point in regard to which I should be glad to cleanse the stuffed bosoms of some from a certain perilous stuff―the belief that Chinese sentences are frequently open to two and even more interpretations. No theory could well be more mischievous than this. It tends to make a student readily satisfied with anything he can get out of an obscure paragraph rather than push on laboriously through the dark passages of thought until the real sense begins to glimmer ahead, and finally to shine brightly upon him. I wish to place it on record, as my opinion, after the arduous task of translation now lying completed before me, that the written language of China is hardly more ambiguous than English; and that an ordinary Chinese sentence, written without malice aforethought, can have but one meaning, though it may often appear at the first blush to have several. There are exceptions, of course; but the rule remains unchanged. I have frequently been trapped myself, and may be again; trapped into satisfaction with a given rendering which I subsequently discovered to be wrong, and which I could then feel to be grammatically wrong though I had previously accepted it as right. The fault in such cases, I venture to suggest, should be sought for outside the text. (I leave this to stand as it stood in 1884, merely suggesting that it is the extreme difficulty of the book-language which is mistaken for ambiguity.)

To revert to the subject of this note, Su Tung-P‘o shared the fate of most Chinese statesmen of the T'ang and Sung dynasties. He was banished to a distant post. In 1235 he was honoured with a niche in the Confucian temple, but his tablet was removed in 1845. After six hundred years he might well have been left there in peace.]

Su Tung-P‘o1524128Gems of Chinese Literature — The Arbour to Joyful Rain1922Herbert Allen Giles

MY arbour was named after rain, to commemorate joy.

Whenever our forefathers rejoiced greatly, they used the name of whatever caused their joy in order to commemorate the event. Thus, Chou Kung named a book from the auspicious appearance of a double ear of corn. An emperor named a period of his reign from the discovery of an ancient bronze; and a case is on record of one who named his children after prisoners taken captive in war. The joy in each instance was hardly the same; but the principle of commemoration was uniformly applied.

Now the year after I was appointed to rule over Fu-fêng, I began to put my official residence in repair, and arranged for the construction of an arbour at a certain spot, where I let in a stream of water and planted trees, intending to use it as a refuge from the business of life.

In that very year it rained wheat; and the soothsayers predicted in consequence that the ensuing season would be most prosperous. However, for a whole month no rain fell, and the people became alarmed at the prospect. Then rain fell at intervals, but not in sufficient quantities. At length, it poured incessantly for three days. Thereupon, great congratulations were exchanged between officials; tradesmen and traders sang songs of glee in the market-place; while farmers wished each other joy across the furrowed fields. The sorrowful were gladdened: the sick were made whole. And precisely at that moment my arbour was completed.

So I spread a feast there, and invited a number of guests, of whom I enquired, “What would have happened if the rain had held off five days longer?” “There would have been no wheat,” was the answer. “And what if it had been ten days?” I continued; to which they replied that then there would have been no crops at all. “And had there been harvest neither of wheat nor of other grain,” said I, “a famine must inevitably have ensued. The law courts would have overflowed with litigation. Brigandage and robbery would have been rife. And you and I would have missed the pleasant meeting of to-day beneath this arbour. But God did not leave the people to perish. Drought has been followed by rain; and to rain it is due that we are enjoying ourselves here to-day. Shall we then let its remembrance fade away? I think not; and therefore I have given to this arbour its name, and have added to the record the following verses:―

"Should the sky rain pearls, the cold cannot wear them as clothes;
Should the sky rain jade, the hungry cannot use it as food.
It has rained without cease for three days―
Whose was the influence at work?
Should you say it was that of your Governor,
The Governor himself refers it to the Emperor.
But the Emperor says ‘No! it was God.’
And God says ‘No! it was Nature.’
And as Nature lies beyond the ken of man,
I dedicate this arbour instead.”