Content created: 2018-12-31
File Last Modified: 2021-06-09
Chinese literature is very rich in short poems, both elite, formal verses (and middle-brow imitations) and more vulgar folk songs and ditties. At least in the case of elite verse, there is also great appreciation of elegant linguistic patterning of linguistic features of the language (tones, rhymes, assonances, syntactic parallelisms) and the manipulation of sentiment, insinuation, and imagery as well as more or less oblique invocations of earlier admired literary productions.
Much Chinese verse focuses on the heartbreak of separation and the joy of reunion, often separation or reunion with one’s native place, but also often with another person, producing in the latter case something one might refer to as “friendship” verse. Not surprisingly, “friendship” poetry easily merges into love poetry. Indeed, several of the most famous poets were so famed for their intimate friendship that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that they were also lovers.
R. H. Van Gulik speaks of “the great musician and philosopher” Jī Kāng 嵇康 (223-262 A.D.), one of the famed Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (Zhúlín Qī Xián 竹林七贤), and his “bosom friend” the poet Ruǎn Jí 阮籍 (210-263 A.D.). He writes:
“Their close friendship has become the classical example of similar male attachments among poets and artists of later ages —as for instance of the Táng poets Lǐ Bái (701-762) and Mèng Hàorán 孟浩然 (689-740) and Bái Jūyì 白居易 (772-846) and Yuán Zhěn 元稹 (779-831). Whether these friendships actually bore a homosexual character is a mood problem that deserves a further examination …. It may be argued that men like Lǐ Bái, Bái Jūyì , etc. were so highly respected because of their literary achievements that people were reluctant to record their foibles.” (R.H. Van Gulik 1974 Sexual Life in Ancient China Leiden: E.J. Brill. Pp. 90-91. Romanizations modernized and characters added.)
As a quick example of “friendship” verse, consider the following lines from a collection of elite couplets (T.C. Lai, 1969 & 1970 Chinese Couplets Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh, p.93), which I have here retranslated:
相对亦无事； 不来忽忆君。
Xiāngduì yì wúshì; bù lái hū yì jūn.
相對亦無事； 不來忽憶君。
When we are together it seems so normal; when you are away suddenly I am thinking of you.
Why is there this ambiguity? The answer is that Chinese poetry (and literary prose, for that matter) generally lacks explicit pronouns. Modern pronouns, with a few printed but not spoken exceptions, are in any case identical for males and females.
Some metaphors are traditionally strongly gender-linked —girls are flowery and boys are not, or anyway not usually— but otherwise it can be unclear whether the “lovers” in love poetry are of the same sex or of opposite sexes. As a result, it is entirely imaginable that poems which were written with one relationship in mind, may be appreciated with a different relationship understood by the reader or hearer. Arthur Waley, in his influential translation of The Book of Songs, differentiates “courtship” from “friendship” songs, but in a footnote on one of the “friendship” translations, tells us that “This, of course, may be a [cross-sex] love song, just as several of the songs at the beginning of the book may really be songs of [same-sex] friendship.” (Waley 1937 & 1960, New York: Grove Press, p. 291.)
Most translators and commentators assume that the more affectionate a gender-ambiguous verse is, the more likely it is to be a cross-gender one. For example, the collection of folk rhymes from which the following is taken illustrates it with a drawing of a boy and a girl sitting on a seashore or riverbank. But the little ditty itself, rather than specifying romantic love, carefully uses the term “affection” (qíngyì 情义), frequently used for same-sex companionship.
| Our affection is weightier than a mountain, | 我们情义重过山， Wǒmen qíngyì zhòng guò shān, 我們情義重過山， |
| Deeper than a sea that can never be drained, | 海里水深挑不干， Hǎilǐ shuǐ shēn tiǎo bù gān, 海裏水深挑不乾， |
| Higher than a concealing umbrella of black clouds, | 乌云做伞遮得远， Wūyún zuò sǎn zhēdé yuǎn, 烏雲做傘遮得遠， |
| Shining more broadly than the light of the moon. | 月亮做灯照得宽。 Yuèliàng zuò dēng zhàodé kuān. 月亮做燈照得寬。 |
In the following folk song/poem, the speaker urges a married lover (clearly male) to return to his parents’ household where they and his duly established wife await him. Above all, he is told to reveal his extramarital love to no one else. Provocatively, the poem works identically whether the speaker is male or female.
| I urge my lover: “Wake up! And, waking, drink a cup of flower tea. Then, having drunk it, use the moonlight to hurry home. |
我劝情人：『醒醒吧， 醒来之时，吃杯香茶。 吃罢茶，趁着月色回家吧。 Wǒ quàn qíngrén “Xǐng xǐng ba, xǐng lái zhī shí chī bēi xiāng chá. Chī bà chá, chènzhe yuè sè huí jiā ba. 我勸情人：『醒醒吧， 醒來之時，吃杯香茶。 吃罷茶，趁著月色回家吧。 |
| If you do not go home, your father and mother will been troubled. And your wife expects your return. |
不回家，太爷太太心中挂。 就是你那令正夫人，也盼你回家。 Bù huí jiā, tàiyé tàitài xīnzhōng guà. Jiùshì nǐ nà lìng zhèng fūrén, yě pàn nǐ huí jiā. 不回家，太爺太太心中掛。 就是你那令正夫人，也盼你回家。 |
| Go home, and certainly don’t tell anyone about our intimacy. For if you speak of it, they will mutter about you and then yell at me.” |
回家去，千万别说咱俩相好的话； 说出来，你受嘟囔我挨骂。』 Huí jiā qù, qiān wàn bié shuō zán liǎ xiānghǎo de huà; shuō chūlái, nǐ shòu dūnāng, wǒ āi mà.” 回家去，千萬別說咱倆相好的話； 說出來，你受嘟囔我挨罵。』 |
The Chinese texts of the two poems used on this page have been taken from:
The simplified-character versions have been computer-generated and may contain errors. The Romanized version was produced by Google Translate and lightly edited. Although Kong provides English translations, the English translations given here are by DKJ. The Chinese and English texts here may be used for educational purposes without further permission.
(Poem Number 22)