The Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines by Wiersinga Pim;

Author:Wiersinga, Pim;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: 2018-09-03T19:19:44+00:00

The moon in the bay

Bites in the tail of a cat

Deshima sleeps

Then the moon ripples

The cat slips away and I—

Forlorn in the night

‘Your Majesty cites me flawlessly!’ I cheerfully praised him. ‘By heart!’

He nodded, and mused out loud: ‘In it, I hear abandoned love: moon and cat—such compelling symbols of passion! The reflection of the moon rather. You know, I personally copied your poem before the flames devoured it.’

‘Thank You, Your Majesty.’

‘Thank me—why? It is almost a gem! Too foreign, alas; I could not rescue it from the fire. In two dozen words three civilisations merge! Those influences are too manifold to reflect prudence and good taste and they ruin your accomplished style, Cao Baoqin. To be sure, qing is a theme that appears in Chinese poetry too—did appear at least, in the aftermath of that doomed Ming dynasty—qing which prompts us to mindlessness, disrupts Heavenly harmony and troubles us in our sleep, so that we (that is to say you, a woman alone!) go out at the oddest of nightly hours and see cats wander in moonlight. Yes, qing destroys all measure and moderation! Think of the poem by the peasant girl Shuangqing. By uttering passion in this world I err…’

‘Again these welling tears, which I perforce restrain,’ I step in. ‘And oh, my hand is clutching a dead flower… How striking, Oh Majesty, that You should quote peasant-girl Shuangqing! You truly are a connoisseur! Precisely this stanza went through my mind while composing Moon over Deshima. But foreign influences? No, I humbly fail to see those.’

‘Lady,’ the Emperor went on, his voice acquiring a villainous edge, ‘We are delighted that you should deign to agree on the theme with Us. But do you claim to be ignorant of those Japanese forms you imitate so flawlessly?’

‘A sublime genre!’ I hastened to concur. ‘Though I am not the first in China to practice it; that is why the Japanese ancestry momentarily escaped my notice. Doesn’t that in itself prove the force of this form—unveiling unfathomable mysteries, quick as a lightning flash?’

‘It should have three lines,’ the Emperor grumbled, ‘not six. And those Japanese poets never refer to themselves as “I”!’

‘Your Majesty, I beg to differ! Moon over Deshima is—if experts speak the truth—a senryu, a double haiku, albeit less exalted in mysticism and scope.’

The Emperor looked at me good-naturedly. ‘How captivating!’ he exclaimed, eager to display his poetic expertise. ‘Pray tell me more about the origin of this poem, Lady. Take me with you to that night in Deshima, to the moon which shone upon your sleepless wanderings.’

‘Oh Son of Heaven, it has been such a long time.’

The manner in which I sketch these goings-on to you, Ti Qing, is sure to evoke reminiscences—fantasies—of noble poetry-lovers benignly entertaining one another, occluding the prying hidden in the Emperor’s words. If it weren’t so amusing, I would curse that credulity of yours! How could such a conversation be peaceful! The Emperor disposes of life and death; his benign countenance masks a terrible

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