SHEN'S GARDEN, VERNAL WAVES BRIDGE, SHAOXING
Wen Wei Po, Hong Kong, October 2, 1963
Translated by Ren Xiaomei
Several years ago I went to Shaoxing in Zhejiang province for the restoration of the Temple of King Yu's Footprints1 and the Orchid Pavilion. Upon my arrival I was lodged in the Memorial Museum of Lu Xun (1881-1936) within spitting distance of the Vernal Waves Bridge2 and the Shen's Garden. Recently refurbished, with a surrounding wall newly added, the garden was where Lu You (1125-1210)3 wrote a legendary lyrical poem to lament the collapse of his first marriage under feudal pressure, and a hall on the premises is dedicated to the memory of this celebrated patriotic poet of the Southern Song (1127-1279). For this reason, the Shen's Garden is thronged all year round with visitors who come to pay homage to him. The crowd is larger than usual when spring sets in.
Only a small yard remains of the old Shen's Garden today, where a few ancient trees, a tiny mound decorated with some yellow stone rockeries, and a limpid pond at its foot combine to engender an ambience tranquil and serene to the utmost. Lu You's memorial hall is housed in a row of rooms by the side of the mound, with a funeral portrait of the poet and a collection of his works on display. According to historical records, the Shen's Garden was quite well-known during the Southern Song and several times larger than it is today.
During his brief first marriage, Lu You was in deep love with his wife, Tang Wan (fl. 12th century), a childhood sweetheart who happened to be his mother's niece. However, the old lady did not get along with her daughter-in-law and demanded a divorce.4
Not wanting to abandon his wife, Lu You hid her away, but his effort was short lived. The marriage buckled under soon after, and Tang Wan ended up marrying a royal clansman by the name of Zhao Shicheng. In the first lunar month of 1155, the twenty-fifth year of the Shaoxing reign (1131-1163) of Emperor Gaozong,
the two star-crossed lovers chanced upon each other at the Shen's Garden next to the Temple of King Yu's Footprints. When they sat down for some wine and food, an emotional Lu You, at age thirty-one, improvised a lyrical poem to the tune of "Phoenix Hairpin," and scribbled it down on a wall to unbosom himself to his ex-wife:
Fine pink hands5, golden wine,
Spring paints willows green walls can't confine.
East wind unfair, affections wearing thin.
In my heart sad thoughts throng;
Our hearts were severed for years long.
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Spring is as green, in vain she's become lean,
Her silk scarf tear-soaked, red with stains unclean.
Our oath does remain.
No word to her can go.
No, no, no!
Revisiting the Shen's Garden a year later, Tang Wan wrote a poem to the same tune to echo her ex's melancholy feelings:
Worldly sentiments flimsy, Man's feeling hateful,
Easy victim to dusk rain, floral petals tumble.
The wind stills at dawn, yet tear stains remain.
Failing to speak my mind,
I'm left alone to murmur at the balustrade.
Hard! Hard! Hard!
Broken the wedlock, today not as of old,
Sickness haunts me like a swinging hood.
When dusk falls, blaring horns bring in cold.
Fearing to attract an enquirer,
I swallow down tears under joyful cover.
Faker! Faker! Faker!
Tang Wan died shortly afterward, a death which dealt a heavy blow to Lu You and tormented him for the rest of his life. At age sixty-eight in 1192, the third year of the Shaoxi reign (1190-1195) of the Southern Song, he lapsed into a poetic mood again, and wrote the following lines:
To the south of the Temple of King Yu's Footprints, there is a little garden belonging to a man surnamed Shen, where I scribbled down a short lyrical poem on a wall forty years ago. I happen to be here once more, only to find that the garden has changed hands thrice. Sadness wells up my heart when I reread my poem.
When maples begin to redden, oaks are yellowed,
New frost to his temples Heyang judge does dread6.
Woods and pavilion plunge me into nostalgic mood,
To whom can I open broken heart on death's road?
My drunk scribbling on ruined wall in dust covered,
Past events drift like cloud or dream long dissipated.
Gone, too, in my aging years are fantasies wild,
As I burn a joss stick in Buddha's niche in solitude.
Lu spent his twilight years in a mountain abode by the Mirror Lake in the outskirts of Shaoxing. Whenever he went to town he would stop at the Temple of King Yu's Footprints and go upstairs to gaze at the Shen's Garden. These visits culminated in "Shen's Garden: Two Stanzas":
For four decades she is unheard from, in dream even,
Willows too old to set catkins flying in Shen's Garden.
Though to be buried under loess upon Mount Ji anon,
Honoring her memory my tears rain on.
As sun sinks below town wall, a painted horn bewails;
The garden's old self is no more, be it pool or terrace.
My heart aches as vernal wave 'neath a bridge greens;
The startled swan's7 silhouette I espied once.
The last two lines of the second stanza are so heart-wrenching that they never fail to haunt those familiar with them whenever they walk up the Vernal Waves Bridge and see the clear water flow underneath. Lu You was already seventy-five when he wrote these lines. Turning eighty in 1205, the year Emperor Ningzong began his Kaixi reign (1205-1208), he wrote "Touring Shen's Garden in a Year-End Dream," in which he lamented once more:
My feet wobble as south town draws nearer;
The Shen's Garden finds me even sadder.
Aroma fills guests' sleeves, plum blooms lingering.
The temple bridge greens as water rises in spring.
As spring sets in anew on south town path's course,
I get an eyeful of plum blooms, yet not her presence;
Long after her bones under Yellow Spring turned ashes,
Locked beneath dust on the wall is my ink's trace.
Indeed, even in the twilight years of his life, Lu You still found his tragic first marriage hard to forget.
The poems quoted in this short article drive home what really happened in a love story gone wrong and shed some light on the history of the Shen's Garden and the Vernal Waves Bridge. Though couched in a plain and unassuming language, the passion and implications behind the lines are forever heartrending and poignant. Today, the Shen's Garden has been restored to its former glory, with the said memorial hall added to honour the poet's memory. Gone forever is the old society with its moribund feudal system. If our Old Man Set Free knew all this, he would wake up smiling broadly in the nether world.