CMO/OAA Cahier #04
Nan-shan 
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hen I stayed in Taipei, Taiwan, for ten months to observe Mars in 1986, a Taiwanese master of the
laundry to which I usually went marked any laundry of mine by the name “
”= “Southern
Mountain” in Chinese characters. I did not know his age, but I supposed he
understood some Japanese pronunciations as the old Taiwanese did, and
at least he knew my name “MINAMI” implies “South” and he further knew that I
was usually called in 
=mountain is “san” in Chinese pronunciation in Japan, and so here the laundry master
intended to imply and pronounce 
as “MINAMI-san.” 
is originally pronounced in China as “Nan-shan”
(there is also used a Chinese pronunciation in Japan, but
pronounced as “Nan-zan.”) I suppose “shan” is more akin to “san” at the southern part of the Chinese
continent (eg at Fu zhou) and
I like this kind of wit, and
furthermore I liked it as a pronoun of my own name because frequently appears in gems of the Chinese
poetry. One of famous cases is in an old poem sung by TAO Yuan-Ming (365 - 427)
which partly composes “I pick
chrysanthemums at the eastern hedge, and then I gaze far off toward the
Southern Mountain.” Usually “western mountain” or “eastern mountain”
implies just a mountain in the west or east, but here in the TAO Yuan-Ming
case, the Southern Mountain was rather a proper noun and implied the famous
mountain called Lu-shan.
TAO Yuan Ming lived in the time of declining Eastern Jin Dynasty, but in the
later era of the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907), the usually implied 
Zhong-Nan-shan which was
the long range of mountains located to the south of the metropolis Zhang-an (now Xi-an) of Tang.
As one of the poets in the time
of the Tang Dynasty who liked “Zhong-Nan-shan”, WANG Wei (699 - 759) has been famous.
For example he sang such a song as “looking
over Zhong-Nan-shan” or a poem whose title is just
“Zhong-Nan-shan.”
The latter has such a phrase as “White
clouds are, if I look back, close behind me, and Blue mists, if I come near
them, cannot be seen.” He also used the word Nan-shan
inside several poems; these are thus showing Nan-shan
implied calm mountains of deep misty forests and valleys devoid of any bustling
sign.
WANG Wei was a brilliant person
proficient in calligraphy and painting as well as composing music, in addition
to making poems. He was successful also as an officer of the Tang Government,
but he frequently had a sense of setback and often wanted to live in seclusion
at a cottage located at the foot of Nan-shan.
The following five-letter/six-line poem entitled “Farewell” is one of the most
well-known poems of WANG Wei (read from left to right):
Note that the fourth line contains the word
. This poem roughly implies as follows:
Dismounting
from my horse,
I offer you,
my friend a cup of wine.
I ask you
then where you intend to go.
You answer:
“I have never been content,
And would
retire to lie down at the foot of Nan-shan.”
Now leave to
go and no more speak to me.
White clouds
will drift there without end.
Here “you”
looks to imply the second person (once so believed, see below), but nowadays it
is interpreted that “you” implies
WANG Wei himself. In fact it was associated with WANG Wei himself who met an
obscurity in earthly affair world despite his brilliancy, and really secluded
at the foot of Nan-shan. At Nan-shan,
the white clouds rise eternally. In
Several poems show that WANG Wei was very fond of
using the word of white cloud in poem lines. Note he was quite religious
(Buddhist). We also note as another declination, he often wanted to force his
intimate friends to drink a cup of wine.
The Chinese poetry has a long
history, but nobody would deny it was most flourish during the Tang dynasty
era. In addition to WANG Wei, such poets as LI Bai
(or LI Tai Bai or LI Po, 701 - 762), DU Fu (maybe TU
Fu in Wade-Giles spelling), BAI Juyi (or BO Juyi, 772 - 846) and others have since been very well known
even in Japan as great poets.
It was however not until the 19th century that the Tang poems were widely known and attracted a great
deal of attention in
The above poem “Farewell” of WANG Wei
was translated by SAINT-DENYS: The title became “En se séparant
d'un voyageur” and WANG Wei was spelled “OUANG-OEY.” The poem was
translated as
Je descendis de
cheval; je lui offris le vin de l'adieu,
Et je lui demadai
quel était le but de son voyage.
Il répondit; Je n'ai pas réussi dans les affaires du
monde;
Je m'en retourne aux monts Nan-chan pour y chercher le repos.
Vous n'aurez plus désormais
à m'interroger sur de nouveaux
voyages,
Car la
nature est immuable, et les nuages blancs sont éternels.
The French pronunciation of Nan-chan is basically not far from 
Nan-shan, and so preserved quite
exactly. The words of wine of farewell and failure in the
earthly affairs are too realistic but faithful. The plural mountains are
pertinent since Nan-shan is a range of mountains (in
Chinese, it is rather not easy at a first glance to judge the plurality as well
as the tense). However WANG Wei’s concealment (to retire and lie) looks
somewhat different from a search of the rest. We don’t know furthermore if it
is right to say the nature is immutable or immovable or eternal, while the
white clouds at least here remain well translated.
The French translation has a note (note (1)) on the following
page in which the second person of “Farewell”
is described as MENG Hao-Ran (MONG-kao-jén by SAINT-DENYS). Really MENG Hao Ran (679 - 740) was a friend of WANG Wei, and also one of the great Tang poets (more
popular in Japan than WANG Wei: I suppose MENG Hao-Ran’s
phrase “Spring dawn brings a peaceful
over-sleep” is known to every Japanese as a proverb), but later
investigation denied the relation of MENG Hao-Ran
with the “Farewell” poem.
The Tang poems were introduced to 
on
the French translations. Among them, Hans BETHGE’s
translations in “Die Chinesische
Flöte” (1907) were regarded as most impressive (BETHGE also
wrote “Japanischer
Frühling”,
1911). The above WANG Wei “Farewell” was translated by
BETHGE while he translated it from le marquis de SAINT-DENYS’s
French translation (maybe as well as from Hans HEILMANN’s).
The title was thus “Der Abschied des Freundes” and the lines went as follows:
Ich stieg vom Pferd und reichte
ihm den Trunk
Des Abschied dar. Ich fragte ihn, wohin
Und auch warum er reisen
wolle. Er
Sprach mit umflorter Stimme: Du mein Freund,
Mir war das Glück
in dieser Welt nicht hold.
Wohin ich geh? Ich wandre in die Berge,
Ich suche Ruhe für
mein einsam Herz.
Ich werde nie mehr in die Ferne schweifen, -
Müd ist mein Fuß, und müd ist meine Seele, -
Die Erde ist die gleiche
überall,
Und ewig, ewig sind
die weißen Wolken....
Unfortunately here Nan-shan disappeared!
To BETHGE who was not so acquainted with Chinese affairs, Nan-shan must have not meant anything,
and it was degraded to mere Shan (Berg) with a definite article. However, though not word for word he added some
atmosphere à la WANG Wei: SAINT-DENYS’ voyage sounds prosaic, but here BETHGE inserts more poetic words wohin und warum, and it is good for him to suppose the hoarse voice spoken (though I
suppose WANG Wei had a beautiful voice pertinent to reading loudly the Buddhist
secret scriptures), though it may be usually difficult to suppose his tired
feet. Anyway, Die weissen
Wolken was preserved with the nice word “ewig”, zweimal ewig!
Nan-shan
and White Clouds were indispensable and rather indivisible in WANG Wei, but unfortunately Nan-shan
as a peaceful accommodation disappeared in Hans BETHGE, and subsequently the
White Cloud also disappeared in Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911).
As is well known, Gustav MAHLER was impressed with the
translated Chinese poems of BETHGE, and composed
the heterodox symphony “Das Lied von
der Erde” made of six movements based on BETHGE’s poems. In particular, the latter part of the sixth
movement, which occupies a half of the symphony, depends basically on WANG
Wei’s Farewell. However MAHLER was
elder than BETHGE by sixteen years, and it looked he did not pay so much respect to the original lines of BETHGE, and changed
some words and phrases as he liked.
One plausible change is however
made as follows: As aforementioned, SAINT-DENYS put a note on MENG Hao-Ran nominated as the second person, and hence BETHGE
chose a poem of MENG Hao-Ran (he expressed as Mong-Kao-Jen) as “In
Erwartung des Freundes”
on the left hand side page (p18), and put WANG Wei’s “Der Abschied des Freundes” on the
right-hand side page (p19). In view of this balance, MAHLER invented a long
lyric by combining two
poems: MENG’s poem just begins like this, “Since the
sun has set down beyond
the western range, every
valley is shadowy and dull….”, and MAHLER begins from
Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge.
In alle Täler steigt der Abend nieder
…….
And in the middle, MAHLER turns to WANG Wei’s lines (from “Er stieg
vom Pferd und reichte ihm den Trunk/ Des Abschieds dar. Er fragte ihn,
wohin…”, however note that G M alters Ich in H B to Er) and ends with several repeats of “ewig.” Thus MAHLER employed the dismounting from the horse and a cup of wine,
but did not pay attention to the white
clouds. The last several lines are the ones utterly created by MAHLER
himself:
Ich wandle nach der Heimat, meiner Stätte.
Ich werde niemals in die Ferne schweißen.
Still ist
mein Herz und harret seiner Stunde!
Die liebe Erde allüberall
Bluht auf im Lenz und grünt aufs neu!
Allüberall und ewig blauen licht die Fernen!
Ewig, ewig........ewig, ewig........
We can admit Nan-shan
cannot be restored in MAHLER because of BETHGE, while it is unfortunate to see
that MARLER discarded the religious white clouds: WANG Wei’s white clouds split
into nature and white clouds in SAINT-DENYS, and they were varied to die Erde und die weissen Wolken in BETHGE, and finally in MARLER just die Erde was
preserved and it suggested a flourish world of green forests and blue bright
light. This colourful landscape looks thus far from that of Nan-shan.
However we may say the lines around Heimat and Stunde convey more of feeling of a calm resignation than
WANG Wei’s. In fact WANG Wei also wanted to greet his last moment at the corner
of Nan-shan.
Gustav MAHLER suffered from angina pectoris before the composition of
this symphony, and after finishing, according to Bruno WALTER (1876 - 1962),
MAHLER was afraid if the symphony might bring some of audience to commit
suicide. MAHLER died in 1911 at the age of 51 without observing the first
performance of “Das Lied von der Erde”.
When WANG Wei was 52 years
old, he lost his beloved mother who deeply believed in Buddhism. He then
converted his cottage at the foot of Nan-shan to a
temple, and when he was 63 of age, he laid down his pen and died there. He was
buried to the west of the temple.
Masatsugu
MINAMI
The above was published originally in Japanese in CMO #225 (25 November
1999 issue).
NB: Judith
GAUTIER must have encountered with the word
Left:Judith GAUTIER
Right: Hans BETHGE
MAHLER
employed “Der Pavillon
aus Porzellan” of
BETHGE in the third movement of “Das Lied von
der Erde.” This
poem is a direct translation of Judith GAUTIER’s “Le pavillon de porcelaine” in “Le
Livre de Jade.” Judith records it’s a translation
of Li-Tai-Pé (LI Tai-Bai)’s
poem. However it is known to be difficult to identify it with any of LI Bai’s poems while discussion was a lot raised to tell the
original poem: It is now known there is no exactly corresponding poem, but
there are counted two candidates that may inspired Judith. Both contain in
addition to some other hints the Chinese character (Kanji in Japanese) called TAO
which implies a name of a particular person here, but at the same time it has a
meaning of porcelain. So it is quite
probable she gave, from a misreading, a free play to her imagination.
(Mn on 5
May 2005)
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