A Letter in Reply to Jeon Iji (全履之), Who Had Written Discoursing on Letters答全履之論文書
月日。某頓首。履之足下。間闊未覿。方深渴仰。忽蒙辱損手敎累幅。奉翫在手。尙未釋去。不惟文彩之曄然。其論文利病。可謂精簡激切。直觸時病。扶文之將墮者已。甚善甚善。但書中譽僕過當。至況以李杜。僕安敢受之。足下以爲世之紛紛效東坡而未至者。已不足導也。雖詩鳴如某某輩數四君者。皆未免效東坡。非特盜其語。兼攘取其意。以自爲工。獨吾子不襲蹈古人。其造語皆出新意。足以驚人耳目。非今世人比。以此見褒抗僕於九霄之上。玆非過當之譽耶。獨其中所謂之創造語意者。信然矣。然此非欲自異於古人而爲之者也。勢有不得已而然耳。何則。凡效古人之體者。必先習讀其詩。然後效而能至也。否則剽掠猶難。譬之盜者。先窺諜富人之家。習熟其門戶墻籬。然後善入其室。奪人所有。爲己之有。而使人不知也。不爾。未及探囊胠篋。必見捕捉矣。財可奪乎。僕自少放浪無檢。讀書不甚精。雖六經子史之文。涉獵而已。不至窮源。況諸家章句之文哉。旣不熟其文。其可效其體盜其語乎。是新語所不得已而作也。且世之學者。初習場屋科擧之文。不暇事風月。及得科第。然後方學爲詩。則尤嗜讀東坡詩。故每歲榜出之後。人人以爲今年又三十東坡出矣。足下所謂世之紛紛者是已。其若數四君者。效而能至者也。然則是亦東坡也。如見東坡而敬之可也。何必非哉。東坡。近世以來。富贍豪邁。詩之雄者也。其文如富者之家金玉錢貝。盈帑溢藏。無有紀極。雖爲寇盜者所嘗攘取而有之。終不至於貧也。盜之何傷耶。且孟子不及孔子。荀楊不及孟子。然孔子之後。無大類孔子者。而獨孟子效之而庶幾矣。孟子之後。無類孟子者。而荀楊近之。故後世或稱孔孟。或稱軻雄荀孟者。以效之而庶幾故也。向之數四輩。雖不得大類東坡。亦效之而庶幾者也。焉知後世不與東坡同稱。而吾子何拒之甚耶。然吾子之言。亦豈無所蓄而輕及哉。姑藉譽僕。將有激於今之人耳。昔李翺曰。六經之詞。創意造言。皆不相師。故其讀春秋也。如未嘗有詩。其讀詩也。如未嘗有易。其讀易也。如未嘗有書。若山有恒華。瀆有淮濟。夫六經者。非欲夸衒詞華。要其歸率皆談王霸論道德與夫政敎風俗興亡理亂之源者也。其辭意宜若有相襲。而其不同如此。所謂今人之詩。雖源出於毛詩。漸復有聲病儷偶依韻次韻雙韻之制。務爲雕刻穿鑿。令人局束不得肆意。故作之愈難矣。就此繩檢中。莫不欲創新意臻妙極。而若攘取古人已導之語。則有許底功夫耶。請以聲律以來近古詩人言之。有若唐之陳子昂，李白，杜甫，李翰，李邕，楊，王，盧，駱之輩。莫不汪洋閎肆。傾河淮倒瀛海。騁其豪猛者也。未聞有一人效前輩某人之體。刲剝其骨髓者。其後又有韓愈，皇甫湜，李翺，李觀，呂温，盧同，張籍，孟郊，劉，柳，元，白之輩。聯鏕竝轡。馳驟一時。高視千古。亦未聞效陳子昂若李杜楊王而屠割其膚肉者。至宋又有王安石，司馬光，歐陽脩，蘇子美，梅聖兪，黃魯直，蘇子贍兄弟之輩。亦無不撑雷裂月。震耀一代。其效韓氏皇甫氏乎。效劉柳元白乎。吾未見其刲剝屠割之迹也。然各成一家。梨橘異味。無有不可於口者。夫編集之漸增。蓋欲有補於後學。若皆相襲。是沓本也。徒耗費楮墨爲耳。吾子所以貴新意者蓋此也。然古之詩人。雖造意特新也。其語未不圓熟者。蓋力讀經史百家古聖賢之說。未嘗不熏鍊於心。熟習於口。及賦詠之際。參會商酌。左抽右取。以相資用。故詩與文雖不同。其屬辭使字。一也。語豈不至圓熟耶。僕則異於是。旣不熟於古聖賢之說。又恥效古詩人之體。如有不得已及倉卒臨賦詠之際。顧乾涸無可以費用。則必特造新語。故語多生澁可笑。古之詩人。造意不造語。僕則兼造語意無愧矣。由是。世之詩人。橫目而排之者衆矣。何吾子獨過美若是之勤勤耶。嗚呼。今世之人。眩惑滋甚。雖盜者之物。有可以悅目。則第貪翫耳。孰認而詰其所由來哉。至百世之下。若有人如足下者。判別其眞贗。則雖善盜者。必被擒捕。而僕之生澁之語。反見褒美。類足下今日之譽。亦所未知也。吾子之言。久當驗焉。不宣。某再拜。
On a certain day of a certain month, so-and-so bows his head. Iji, my good friend: long parted and unable to see you, I was just then looking toward you in deep thirst. Then suddenly you bestowed upon me several sheets of instruction in your own hand, and having taken them in my hands I delight in them and cannot yet lay them down. Not only is the light of the writing bright; what it discourses on the merits and the maladies of letters may be called precise and spare, keen and earnest, going straight to the malady of this age and holding up the writing that is about to fall. Very good, very good indeed. Only, within the letter, your praise of me is excessive, going so far as to set me beside Li Bai and Du Fu — how should I dare receive it?
You said that those in the world who imitate Dongpo (東坡) in confusion and never arrive are already not to be led anywhere. You said that even those four or five men known for their poetry cannot escape imitating Dongpo, and that they do not merely steal his words but take away his meaning along with them and make it their own skill. You said that I alone do not tread after the men of old, and that my making of words all comes out of new meanings and is enough to startle the ears and eyes of others, so that I am not to be measured against the men of this age. By this you praised me and lifted me above the nine heavens: is this not praise beyond measure?
Only, within it, what you call the making anew of words and meanings is truly so. Yet this is not something I did out of a wish to differ from the men of old; it is only that circumstance left me no choice. Why is this? Now one who imitates the form of a man of old must first study and read his poems closely, and only then can he imitate and arrive. Otherwise, even the stealing is hard. Compare it to a thief: only after he has first spied out a rich man's house and come to know its gates and walls well can he enter the chamber neatly and take another's goods for his own without the other knowing. Otherwise he will surely be caught before he has even felt into the purse or opened the box. Could he carry the goods off?
From childhood I played as I pleased with no discipline, and my reading was not very precise. Even the writings of the Six Classics and the philosophers and the histories I only skimmed roughly, and never came to dig to their source. How much less the writings of the many houses that gloss the phrases. Since I was never skilled in their writings, could I imitate their forms and steal their words? This is why I make new words because there is no help for it.
Besides, the students of the world at first study the examination writings and have no leisure to chant poems, and only after they have passed the examination do they begin to learn to compose poetry — and so they take all the more delight in reading Dongpo's poems. And thus every year, after the list is posted, everyone says, "This year another thirty Dongpos have come out." These are what you call the confused ones of the world. Men like those four or five are those who imitate and arrive. If so, then these too are Dongpo. It is well to revere them as though one saw Dongpo himself; what need is there to call it wrong?
Dongpo, since recent ages, has been ample and unbridled, a hero of poetry. His writing is like the gold and jade, the coin and cowrie of a rich house, filling and overflowing the storerooms without end. Though a thief take and keep some of it, it will never grow poor in the end; so what harm is there in the stealing?
Again, Mencius does not come up to Confucius, and Xunzi and Yang Xiong do not come up to Mencius. Yet after Confucius there was none who greatly resembled Confucius, and Mencius alone imitated him and came near; and after Mencius there was none who resembled Mencius, and Xunzi and Yang Xiong came near. And so that the later age says "Kong-Meng," and says "Ga-Ung" and "Sun-Maeng," is because they imitated and came near. Those four or five men spoken of above, though they could not greatly resemble Dongpo, are likewise men who imitated and came near. How do we know that the later age will not name them alongside Dongpo? Why then do you bar them so? And yet how should your words too have come out lightly, with nothing behind them? You only meant, for the present, to borrow your praise of me in order to shake the men of these days.
Long ago Li Ao (李翺) said: "The words of the Six Classics bring forth new meanings and make their own language, and none of them imitate one another. And so, reading the Spring and Autumn Annals, it is as if the Odes had never existed; reading the Odes, as if the Changes had never existed; reading the Changes, as if the Documents had never existed. It is as the mountains have Mount Heng and Mount Hua, and the great waters have the Huai and the Ji." Now the Six Classics do not set out to boast the flowers of language; and if one looks to where they tend, they all speak of the way of kings and the way of overlords, discourse on virtue, and speak of the sources of government and teaching and custom, of rising and falling, of order and disorder. Their words and meanings would seem to have places where they take over from one another, and yet they differ as much as this.
As for what is called the poetry of recent men, though its source came out of the Mao Odes (毛詩), there gradually arose besides the rules of tonal faults and of parallel matching, of following the rhyme and continuing the rhyme and doubling the rhyme, so that men labor at carving and boring and are bound up and cannot spread their meaning freely. And so it is harder still to compose. Even within these bonds, there is none who does not try to bring forth a new meaning and reach the limit of subtlety; and if one were to take away the words that the men of old have already drawn upon, what study would there be in that?
Let me speak, if you please, of the poets of the near past, after the tonal rules arose. Such men of the Tang as Chen Ziang (陳子昂), Li Bai, Du Fu, Li Han (李翰), Li Yong (李邕), and Yang, Wang, Lu, and Luo were all broad and great and unchecked, men who tipped over the Yellow River and the Huai and overturned the great sea and galloped in their unbridled strength. Not of one of them have I heard it said that he imitated the form of such and such a predecessor and stripped out his bones and marrow. After them again there were such men as Han Yu, Huangfu Shi (皇甫湜), Li Ao, Li Guan (李觀), Lü Wen (呂溫), Lu Tong (盧同), Zhang Ji (張籍), Meng Jiao (孟郊), and Liu, Liu, Yuan, and Bai, who joined bit to bit and set their reins abreast and galloped through their age and looked down upon a thousand ages. Of them too I have not heard it said that they imitated Chen Ziang or Li Bai and Du Fu or Yang and Wang and carved up their flesh. Coming to the Song, there were again such men as Wang Anshi, Sima Guang, Ouyang Xiu, Su Zimei (蘇子美), Mei Shengyu (梅聖兪), Huang Luzhi (黃魯直), and the brothers Su Zizhan (蘇子瞻); and there was not one of them who did not hold up the thunder and tear the moon and shake and illumine an age. Did they imitate Han and Huangfu? Did they imitate Liu, Liu, Yuan, and Bai? I have not seen the traces of their stripping and carving. And yet each of them made a house of his own, as the pear and the orange differ in flavor and yet neither fails to suit the mouth.
Now that the books compiled grow gradually more numerous is in general so that they may be of profit to those who study after. If they all took over from one another, this would be printing the same thing over again, and only a vain spending of paper and ink. This, in general, is why you hold new meaning precious.
Yet though the poets of old brought forth meanings that were especially new, there was none whose language was not roundly ripe. For in general there was never one of them who did not labor at reading the classics and the histories and the hundred schools and the words of the sages and worthies of old, making them familiar to his heart and familiar to his mouth. And when it came to the chanting, they compared and gathered and weighed, drawing from the left and taking from the right and using them for one another's stuff. And so, though poetry and prose differ, the weaving of words and the handling of characters is one. How should the language not come to be roundly ripe?
With me it is otherwise. I am neither familiar with the words of the sages and worthies of old, nor willing — for I am ashamed — to imitate the forms of the old poets. When I come to a place where there is no help for it, or where I must chant on the sudden, I look about me and find all dried up with nothing to use, and so I must make new words of my own. And thus my language is raw and rough and there is much in it to be laughed at. The poets of old brought forth meanings but did not bring forth words; I bring forth words and meanings together and feel no shame in it. For this reason there are many among the poets of the world who glare and push me aside. Why is it that you alone are so diligent in calling me too beautiful?
Ah — the men of these days are the worse for the blurring of their eyes, so that even if a thing be a thief's goods, if it please the eye they only covet it and delight in it. Who will recognize it and look into where it came from? If a hundred generations hence there be one like yourself who divides the true from the false, then even the skillful thief will surely be caught. And it may also be — there is no knowing — that my raw and rough language will on the contrary receive praise, and come to be as your praise of it is today. Your words, given time, will surely be borne out.
I cannot set it all out here. So-and-so bows twice.