The Pridi Banomyong Library Rare Book Room, Thammasat University, Tha Prachan campus, owns a number of rare and useful items of potential interest to students and researchers, especially those interested in history, literature, education, Asian studies, and related subjects.
Among them is the book A History of Chinese Literature by Herbert Giles.
Giles was a British diplomat in China and professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge, the United Kingdom.
Among his many works were translations of the Analects of Confucius, the Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching), the Chuang Tzu, and a Chinese–English Dictionary.
Some of his translations are still widely considered to be among the best available.
Giles was noted as an outspoken critic of fellow researchers and also of how Christian missionaries and British traders allowed poor conditions for Chinese emigrants on British ships.
When he was honored in 1922 by the Royal Asiatic Society, it was noted that
beyond all other living scholars, [Giles] had humanized Chinese studies. He had by his writings made more readers know more things about China, things that were material, things that were vital – he had diffused a better and a truer understanding of Chinese intellect, its capabilities and achievements, than any other scholar.
The TU Library collection also includes many books on different aspects of Chinese literature and other books by Herbert Giles.
Here are some excerpts from Giles’ book:
By general consent LI PO himself (A.D. 705-762) would probably be named as China’s greatest poet.
His wild Bohemian life, his gay and dissipated career at Court, his exile, and his tragic end, all combine to form a most effective setting for the splendid flow of verse which he never ceased to pour forth. At the early age of ten he wrote a “stop-short” to a firefly:–
“Rain cannot quench thy lantern’s light,
Wind makes it shine more brightly bright;
Oh why not fly to heaven afar,
And twinkle near the moon–a star?_”
Li Po began by wandering about the country, until at length, with five other tippling poets, he retired to the mountains.
For some time these Six Idlers of the Bamboo Grove drank and wrote verses to their hearts’ content. By and by Li Po reached the capital, and on the strength of his poetry was introduced to the Emperor as a “banished angel.”
He was received with open arms, and soon became the spoilt child of the palace. On one occasion, when the Emperor sent for him, he was found lying drunk in the street; and it was only after having his face well mopped with cold water that he was fit for the Imperial presence. His talents, however, did not fail him.
With a lady of the seraglio to hold his ink-slab, he dashed off some of his most impassioned lines; at which the Emperor was so overcome that he made the powerful eunuch Kao Li-shih go down on his knees and pull off the poet’s boots.
On another occasion, the Emperor, who was enjoying himself with his favourite lady in the palace grounds, called for Li Po to commemorate the scene in verse. After some delay the poet arrived, supported between two eunuchs. “Please your Majesty,” he said, “I have been drinking with the Prince and he has made me drunk, but I will do my best.”
Thereupon two of the ladies of the harem held up in front of him a pink silk screen, and in a very short time he had thrown off no less than ten eight-line stanzas, of which the following, describing the life of a palace favourite, is one:–
“_Oh, the joy of youth spent
in a gold-fretted hall,
In the Crape-flower Pavilion,
the fairest of all,
My tresses for head-dress
with gay garlands girt,
Carnations arranged
o’er my jacket and skirt!
Then to wander away
in the soft-scented air,
And return by the side
of his Majesty’s chair …
But the dance and the song
will be o’er by and by,
And we shall dislimn
like the rack in the sky._”
As time went on, Li Po fell a victim to intrigue, and left the Court in
disgrace. It was then that he wrote–
“My whitening hair would make a long, long rope,
Yet would not fathom all my depth of woe._”
After more wanderings and much adventure, he was drowned on a journey,
from leaning one night too far over the edge of a boat in a drunken
effort to embrace the reflection of the moon. Just previously he had
indited the following lines:–
“An arbour of flowers
and a kettle of wine:
Alas! in the bowers
no companion is mine.
Then the moon sheds her rays
on my goblet and me,
And my shadow betrays
we’re a party of three.
“Though the moon cannot swallow
her share of the grog,
And my shadow must follow
wherever I jog,–
Yet their friendship I’ll borrow
and gaily carouse,
And laugh away sorrow
while spring-time allows.
“See the moon,–how she glances
response to my song;
See my shadow,–it dances
so lightly along!
While sober I feel
you are both my good friends;
When drunken I reel,
our companionship ends.
But we’ll soon have a greeting
without a good-bye,
At our next merry meeting
away in the sky.” […]
Another poet of the same epoch, of whom his countrymen are also justly proud, is TU FU (A.D. 712-770). He failed to distinguish himself at the public examinations, at which verse-making counts so much, but had nevertheless such a high opinion of his own poetry that he prescribed it as a cure for malarial fever. He finally obtained a post at Court, which he was forced to vacate in the rebellion of 755. As he himself wrote in political allegory–
“Full with the freshets of the spring the torrent rushes on;
The ferry-boat swings idly, for the ferry-man is gone.”
After further vain attempts to make an official career, he took to a wandering life, was nearly drowned by an inundation, and was compelled to live for ten days on roots. Being rescued, he succumbed next day to the effects of eating roast-beef and drinking white wine to excess after so long a fast. These are some of his poems: […]
“From the Court every eve to the pawnshop I pass,
To come back from the river the drunkest of men;
As often as not I’m in debt for my glass;–
Well, few of us live to be threescore and ten._
The butterfly flutters from flower to flower,
The dragon-fly sips and springs lightly away,
Each creature is merry its brief little hour,
So let us enjoy our short life while we may.”
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)