ChineseStudy

38. Hearing Dong the Elder Play the Tatar Reed Whistle, With a Message for Fang the Attendant | Li Qi

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English translation

Lady Cai long ago made the music of the Tatar reed whistle and played it in eighteen sections.

The poem opens by tying the tune to an old story — Cai Yan's Eighteen Sections of the Tatar Reed Whistle — so that the sound that follows has a root.

The Tatar weeps, and his tears wet the border grass; the Han envoy's heart breaks as he faces the one going home.

Tatar and Han, both sides weeping. In the old story of Cai Yan's return to Han, neither the one who left nor the ones who stayed had an easy part.

The old garrison stands grey and vast, its beacon fires cold; the wasteland lies heavy, and the flying snow is white.

Cold is the colour of the beacons, white is the colour of snow; the frontier is chilled past any warmth.

First he sweeps the shang string, then the jue and the yu; all round, autumn leaves start and rustle.

Shang, jue and yu are note names. The fingering is given in notes, the effect in leaves — the sound startles the foliage itself.

Master Dong, you reach the spirits; in deep mountains goblins creep out to listen.

The line breaks short, three characters and a stop. The scene is over and the man takes the stage, the tone shifting from telling to praise.

Slow when he calls for slow, fast when he calls for fast, all answering the hand; about to go, then turning back, as if it felt something.

Four movements — slow, fast, away, back — describe how the music opens and closes, and behind it the player's own mind.

In the empty hills a hundred birds scatter and come together again; over ten thousand li the drifting cloud closes and clears.

Near and far, two paired motions — scatter and gather, close and clear — carry the rise and fall of the sound.

The note is the sour cry of a young wild goose that has lost its flock at night; it breaks off like a Tatar child crying after his mother.

Both lines are old human hurts: losing the flock, missing the mother. The zither carries these two kinds of weeping into the room.

The river stills its waves for it, and the birds too stop their calling.

The line goes short; this one states an effect. Water and birds both give way, which says more than calling it beautiful.

The Wusun tribes are far from home; out of the dust of Lhasa the grief and complaint rise.

Wusun and Lhasa are both far places. Setting the sound ten thousand li away gives it place names and grit.

The deep note changes key and suddenly scatters loose, like a long wind through the woods, rain falling on the tiles.

From a deep note to something let loose is one turn of key. Both figures are sounds you can hear: wind through woods, rain on tiles.

Spring water bursts and hisses up into the treetops; wild deer bleat and run beneath the hall.

Water flying to the treetops and deer running indoors are both illusions of hearing. The sound grows so large that it tips the picture off balance.

The walls of Chang'an run on to the eastern palace wall; the Phoenix Pool faces the blue-latticed gate.

The brush turns: from the zither back to the government offices of Chang'an. The real places are there to bring in the man addressed next.

A man of high talent who lets fame and profit go, waiting morning and evening for you to come with your zither.

The close gathers both hearings onto one person. What he waits for is not the playing but the man.

赏析 · Commentary

先给琴声一个出处 · Giving the Sound an Origin

开头两句不写今晚的演奏，先讲蔡琰造胡笳十八拍。这段旧事一句句摆下来：胡人落泪、汉使断肠、古戍烽火、大荒飞雪。等这些场景铺完，董大的琴还没响。李颀要的是这个顺序——知道来历的耳朵，听得比别人多。

The first two couplets do not describe tonight's playing; they tell the old story of Cai Yan making the Eighteen Sections of the Tatar Reed Whistle. The tale is laid out line by line: the Tatar weeping, the Han envoy heartsick, old garrison beacons, snow on the wasteland. Only after all that does Dong's zither sound. The order is the point — an ear that knows the history hears more than one that does not.

用万物写声音 · Writing Sound Through Other Things

中段十几句全是声音，却没有一句直接形容音色。鸟散又合、云阴又晴、雏雁失群、胡儿恋母、川净其波、鸟罢其鸣、风林雨瓦、泉飞鹿走——全是别的东西在动。李颀让世界跟着琴颤，读者自己把那些动作翻回声音。这段的密度全诗最高，句子也长短不齐，短到三字，长到七字，节奏本身就是琴的起伏。

A dozen lines in the middle are all sound, and not one of them describes a tone directly. Birds scatter and gather, cloud closes and clears, a gosling loses its flock, a Tatar child cries for its mother, the river stills, the birds stop, wind in the woods, rain on tiles, water flying, deer running — all of it is something else moving. Li Qi lets the world tremble along with the zither and the reader converts those motions back into sound. This stretch is the densest in the poem, and the lines run uneven, down to three characters and up to seven; the rhythm itself is the rise and fall of the music.

末尾落回一个人 · Landing at the End on One Man

最后两句从长安的宫墙绕出来，落到房给事身上：才高，不看重名利，早晚等董大抱琴来。前面那样大的声响、那么远的边地，最后收在一间屋子里两个人之间。听琴的热闹散了，留下的是一个愿意等的人。

The last two lines come out past the palace walls of Chang'an and settle on Fang the Attendant: high talent, no interest in fame or profit, waiting morning and evening for Dong to come with his zither. After all that noise and all those far frontier places, the poem closes on two men in one room. The crowd of listening disperses and what remains is a man willing to wait.

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