The Peach Blossom Spring
T’ao Ch’ien (365-427)
During the T’ai-yüan period of the Chin dynasty, a fisherman of Wu-ling once rowed upstream, unmindful of the distance he had gone, when he suddenly came to a grove of peach trees in bloom. For several hundred paces on both banks of the steam there was no other kind of tree. The wild flowers growing under them were fresh and lovely, and fallen petals covered the ground-it made a great impression on the fisherman. He went on for a way with the idea of finding out how far the grove extended. It came to an end at the foot of a mountain whence issued the spring that supplied the stream. There was a small opening in the mountain and it seemed as though light was coming through it. The fisherman left his boat and entered the cave, which at first was extremely narrow, barely admitting his body; after a few dozen steps it suddenly opened out onto a broad and level plain where well-built houses were surrounded by rich fields and pretty ponds: Mulberry, Bamboo, and other trees and plants grew there, and crisscross paths skirted the fields. The sounds of cocks crowing and dogs barking could be heard from one courtyard to the next. Men and women were coming and going about their work in the fields. The clothes they wore were like those of ordinary people. Old men and boys were carefree and happy.
When they caught sight of the fisherman, they asked in surprise how he had got there. The fisherman told the whole story, and was invited to go to their house, where he was served wine while they killed a chicken for a feast. When the other villagers heard about the fisherman’s arrival, they all came to pay him a visit. They told him that their ancestors had fled the disorders of Ch’in times and, having taken refuge here with wives and children and neighbors, had never ventured out again; consequently they had lost all contact with the outside world. They asked what the present ruling dynasty was, for they had never heard of the Han, let alone the Wei and the Chin. They sighed unhappily as the fisherman enumerated the dynasties one by one and recounted the vicissitudes of each. The vistors all asked him to come to their houses in turn, and at every house he had wine and food. He stayed several days. As he was about to go away, the people said, “There’s no need to mention our existence to outsides.”
After the fisherman had gone out and recovered his boat, he carefully marked the route. On reaching the city, he reported that he had found to the magistrate, who at once sent a man to follow him back to the place. They proceeded according to the marks he had made, but went astray and were unable to find the cave again.
A high-minded gentleman of Nan-yang named Liu Tzu-chi heard the story and happily made preparations to go there, but before he could leave he fell sick and died. Since then there has been no one intersted in trying to find such a place.
The Ying clan disrupted Heaven’s ordinance
And good men withdrew from such a world.
Huang and Ch’I went off to Shang Mountain
And these people too fled into hiding.
5 Little by little their tracks were obliterated,
The paths they followed overgrown at last.
By agreement they set about farming the land
When the sun went down each rested from his toil.
Bamboo and mulberry provided shade enough,
10 They panted beans ad millet, each in season.
From spring silkworms came the long silk thread,
On the fall harvest no king’s tax was paid.
No sign of traffic on overgrown roads,
Cockcrow and dogsbark within each other’s earshot.
15 Their ritual vessels were of old design,
And no new fashions in the clothes they wore.
Children wandered about singing songs,
Graybeards went paying one another calls.
When grass grew thick they saw the time was mild,
20 As trees went bare they knew the wind was sharp.
Although they had no calendar to tell,
The four seasons still filled out a year.
Joyous in their ample happiness
They had no need of clever contrivance.
25 Five hundred year this rare deed stayed hid,
Then one fine day the fay retreat was found.
The pure and the shallow belong to separate worlds:
In a little while they were hidden again.
Let me ask you who are convention-bound,
Can you fathom those outside the dirt and noise?
I want to tread upon the thin, thin air
And rise up high to find my own kind.
Translated by James Robert Hightower
This is the most important and most quoted description of a utopia in the whole of Chinese literature. Note that the prose preface is actually far more famous than the poem to which it is attached. The poem, indeed, is usually taken to be little more than a perfunctory versification of the story.
For information on T’ao Ch’ien, see selection 29.
376-396.
Modern Ch’eng-te in hunan. It is not far from the town of T”ao-yüan(“peach Spring”) on the Yüan river.
This line is probably intended to convey the idea that these were not immortals or other-worldly beings clad in shining raiment or covered with feathers, but people just like any other. The term translated here by “ordinary people”(literally, “outside people”) occurs later as “outsiders,” those who live outside this hidden retreat. This second occurrence makes it unlikely that it means “forrigners” here-that they were wearing a garb not familiar in fourth-century China, as might be the case if they were actually dressed in the style of Ch’in dynasty.
An individual whose devotion to principle and whose refusal to accept office must have excited T’ao Ch’ien’s admiration. He surely would have been one to appreciate the advantages of such a retreat.
The concluding line of the story more literally reads, “Since then no one has asked about the ford,” an allusion to the Analects (selection 7, passage 18.6) upon which T’ao Ch’ien so often drew.
The first Emperor of the Ch’in is here referred to by his clan name.
This refers to a passage in the Classic of Documents (selection 188) where His and Ho are blamed for throwing heaven into disorder. There it is the regular progression of the heavenly bodies; here it is the order of nature generally that has been upset by had rule.
This line versifies a phrase from the Analects (14.37): “The worthy man withdraws from the world.”
Hsia Huang-kung and Ch’I Li-chi, two of the Four White-head recluses who withdrew from society to the isolation of Shang Mountain.
This line is constructed with components from two odes in the Classic of Odes (selection 22).
留言列表
104第二學期 (1)
