By Bai Juyi (772-846) from the anthology Changqing Hou Ji. It is also Poem 455 in the Complete Tang Poems. Bai Juyi, from Taiyuan, began his career as a rather serious bureaucrat and around 806 he was appointed to the prestigious Hanlin Academy - the "forest of brushes" where all the best writers were gathered. But in middle age he took early retirement (yet another ancient Chinese invention rediscovered recently by the West) and styled himself Letian or Happy-go-lucky. Pastimes such as go, which he frowned upon when young (there is a letter by him to Yuan Weizhi which says so), he took up with passion, and it was said that sometimes he "played go, gambled and drank wine until daybreak."
Since he lived in his late years at Xiangshan (Fragrant Hill) near Luoyang he took the pen-name Retired Scholar of Fragrant Hill. He is one of the greatest poets of the Tang era. His poems were plain and easy to read and circulated very widely. His "Song of Everlasting Regret" and "Song of the Pipa Guitar" are still very popular.
This is his only complete go poem, though he does refer to the game in other poems. It is one of two jueju style poems written together - only the first one is given here.
Translated by John Fairbairn.
Chi Shang Er Jue (Lu Yi Shou)
First of two short poems by the lake
Shan seng dui qi zuo
The monks from the mountain temple sit playing go.
Ju shang zhu yin qing
On the board the bamboo shadows stand in bold relief,
Ying zhu wu ren jian
While the reflecting leaves prevent others from seeing.
Shi wen xia zi sheng
Occasionally is heard the sound of a stone being played.
The most important character in this poem is one that is not even written:
It refers to silence of the type associated with mountain solitude, and has a nuance of mystery, even of gloom. Words such as mountain, monks, bamboo and shadow contribute to this. It is this solitude that is pierced by the sound of the go stones, the vibrant last sound of the Chinese (sheng = sound) seemingly hanging in the air as the poem ends - a brilliant finish, and this final phrase was one that was to be copied by later poets.
There is also a nice contrast of the shadows making the board easier to see for the players, while, because of the sharp reflections, the light unexpectedly makes it impossible for others to see. This all turns on the repeated use of zhu = bamboo as we are invited to ponder the startling contrast created by the two sides of the leaves.
The "occasionally" is the only time word in this poem about space and place and so stands out starkly, actually reinforcing the dominant feeling of stillness, and so resolving at a stroke the brief feeling of tension induced by "reflecting" and "preventing", so that at the very end of the poem the two themes of stillness and the sound of stones do not so much contrast as richly fuse together.
(772-846) from the anthology Changqing Hou Ji. It is also Poem 455 in the Complete Tang Poems. Bai Juyi, from Taiyuan, began his career as a rather serious bureaucrat and around 806 he was appointed to the prestigious Hanlin Academy - the "forest of brushes" where all the best writers were gathered. But in middle age he took early retirement (yet another ancient Chinese invention rediscovered recently by the West) and styled himself Letian or Happy-go-lucky. Pastimes such as go, which he frowned upon when young (there is a letter by him to Yuan Weizhi which says so), he took up with passion, and it was said that sometimes he "played go, gambled and drank wine until daybreak."
