Midnight Song

This week’s poem is the first of a group that appears in Arthur Waley’s 170 Chinese Poems entitled Five “Tzŭ-Yeh” Songs. But we don’t know with any certainty that Tzŭ-Yeh was the author!

Lady Night, aka Lady Midnight, Tzŭ-Yeh was said to have been a Chin Dynasty poet from Jiangnan, who worked as a courtesan or a “sing-song” girl. But the many poems attributed to her may have been written by various hands, one or none of them hers. Whatever the authorship, a new genre, Midnight Songs Poetry, was established towards the end of the fourth century, and remained influential for many years to come.

The intimate tone and vivid natural imagery of the Songs recall Ezra Pound’s version of the poem by Rihaku/Li-Po*, The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter, published in Cathay in 1915. Li-Po himself must have been influenced by the “Tzŭ-Yeh” songs. And it’s more than likely that Pound and Waley – who met from time to time at Pound’s poetry soirees – shared technical notes on their common task. The use of unrhymed free verse and everyday diction is an important common element in the success of these English translations. Waley, of course, translated far more extensively than Pound, and had the superior grasp of Chinese. But there seems little doubt that he learned from Pound’s poetics. / Carol Rumen, Guardian