ChineseStudy

39. Hearing An Wanshan Play the Tartar Reed Pipe | Li Qi

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English translation

Bamboo cut on the southern hill makes the bili pipe; the music first came out of Kucha.

Cutting bamboo gives the material, out of Kucha gives the lineage. The instrument gets a history before any sound arrives.

Passed into Han country, the tunes turn stranger still, and a Tatar of Liangzhou plays for me.

Turn stranger still is a judgment on the change — one line covers how a foreign instrument takes root in a new place.

Neighbours who hear it mostly sigh; travellers far from home all let tears fall.

Bystanders first, then the far-from-home. A sigh is light, tears are heavy; the two reactions go one deeper than the other.

People know how to hear but not how to prize it; it comes and goes of itself in the long wind.

Know how to hear but not how to prize it is where the poem stands: many listen, few understand.

Dead mulberries and old cypresses hiss in the cold; nine young phoenixes twitter all in a jumble.

The sound comes out through objects: wind among old trees, and the thin jumbled cries of fledgling phoenixes.

Dragon chant and tiger roar break out at once; ten thousand sounds and a hundred springs all turn to autumn together.

At once is the burst, turn to autumn together is the whole field shifting. One line opens, the other gathers.

Suddenly it turns to the Yuyang drum measure; the yellow cloud thins out and the white sun darkens.

The Yuyang measure is a drum piece, a turn to the urgent. The sound changes and the sky changes with it — this is the listener's feeling.

The changed tune is like hearing spring in the Willow song; the dense flowers of the imperial park dazzle the eye, all new.

From the urgent it turns soft again. The imperial park is the listener's association; he need not be standing in it.

On the last night of the year the high hall is lit with bright candles; a cup of good wine, and one tune.

The close sets out one concrete scene, cup and tune walking along line by line, and the sound now has a date on it.

赏析 · Commentary

一件乐器的来历 · Where the Instrument Comes From

前两句先把觱篥交代清楚：竹子做的，出自龟兹，传到汉地以后调子变了。这不是闲笔。一件西来的乐器进了中原，曲子会变成什么样，本身就是故事。李颀把它讲在声音之前，等于先说清楚：你要听的，是一个外来的东西在异乡安了家。

The first two couplets set the bili pipe out plainly: made of bamboo, out of Kucha, changed once it reached Han country. None of it is idle. What happens to the tunes when an instrument from the west moves into the central plains is a story in itself. Li Qi tells it before the sound, which amounts to saying: what you are about to hear is a foreign thing that has settled in a strange land.

「解听」与「解赏」 · Hearing It and Prizing It

第四句是全诗的骨。会听的人多，会赏的人少。李颀没有抱怨听众，只把这个区分摆出来，接着就写他听见了什么：枯桑老柏、九雏鸣凤、龙吟虎啸、万籁百泉。写这么多声音，是在证明自己站在「解赏」那一边。

The fourth line is the spine of the poem. Many know how to hear, few how to prize. Li Qi does not scold the audience; he sets the distinction down and then shows what he heard: dead mulberries and old cypresses, nine young phoenixes, dragon and tiger, ten thousand sounds and a hundred springs. Writing out so much sound is his way of standing on the prizing side of that line.

一曲里换了几个季节 · Several Seasons Inside One Tune

后半段的声音一路变过去：先寒，接着秋，忽然转急，最后又变出春。一首曲子要能这样走，演奏者的本事全在转调上。李颀不夸技巧，只记季节——听的人从冬听到秋，从秋听到春，一首曲子就听成了一整年。结尾摆上除夕的明烛和美酒，日子也就落到实处了。

The second half keeps changing: cold first, then autumn, then a sudden urgent turn, then spring again. For one tune to travel that far, the player's skill lies entirely in the changes of key. Li Qi does not praise technique; he records seasons. The listener goes from winter to autumn, autumn to spring, and a single tune is heard as a whole year. The close sets out bright candles and good wine on the last night of the year, and the date lands solidly under the sound.

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