Wang An-kuo's Jade Rewards and Millet Dream (review)

502 China Review International: Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 1997 All in all, this book is filled with fascinating insights into China's rural economy at an important stage in its development. Ben Stavis Temple University Ben Stavis is an associate professor ofpolitical science and Director ofthe Asian Studies Program at Temple University. He has a long-standing interest in rural development in China. Jonathan Pease. WangAn-kuo's Jade Rewards and Millet Dream. American Oriental Society Series, vol. 77. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1994. iv, 106 pp. Hardcover $18.00, isbn 0-940490-77-3. Jonathan Pease's tide reflects the discrepancy between ambition and reality in the life ofWang Anshi's younger brother, Wang Anguo 315SrS (1028-1074). Wang Anguo himselfhinted at this discrepancy in the third couplet of his "Plum Blossoms " (flgfb): mtntämöm Wade into the world; why not for white jade disks? Flowing years may not reach [even] the Yellow Millet. This is my translation (cf. pp. 4 and 60), but though Pease and I read the second line differentiy, I think we see the same ambivalence in the poet's attitude. Most ofWang's contemporaries would have aligned themselves (if not in life, at least in verse) with Zhuangzi's scorn for the white ceremonial jade disks that would have been his reward for accepting the post ofprime minister in Chu; and when they alluded to the tale of the man experiencing in dream the anguish of an up-thendown official career in the time it took to cook yellow millet for his dinner, they would have done so as a warning against ambition. Wang Anguo's rejection of these commonplaces is unusual, but he cannot reject them without evoking them, and so they remain along the borders ofhis consciousness. Having read Pease's biography of the man, we know that despite the bravado of this couplet, Anguo© 1997 by University. (b± ° m*m&± ° ^p??2&& ' T-mñ2Mm (Peiwenyunfu, 2020.2). If this is relevant at all to Wang's use of "self and "that one"/"other," he may be saying that he wishes to remain detached from the world of sense impressions and the emotional turmoil that comes with it. Pease's line permits this reading but requires a gloss. Page 65, ^FittUd (error for: H) / InBMhAMB: "those do not seem to be willows dangling / that yet fly / into the deep-doored chamber / blossoms" misses the point that "you are not as good as the willows / that still know enough to let fly their blossoms / into my deep-doored chamber." My translation could be revised depending on whether one thinks the speaker is a woman addressing the man, or the man addressing his dreaming soul, but the italicized part is crucial. Page 66, Ills]B^ Ï?MU: for "when dreams bring back bright moons that pierced the curtain" I suggest "my dream returns—the bright moon pierces the curtain." Pease's version has the advantage of a pleasant meter, and his idea that the poet is recalling several occasions on which the moon was seen is expressed ingeniously by pluralizing "moon," but for hui to have a transitive meaning ("bring back") here would be most unusual. [Pease] Noble footsteps glad to rank with the mountains' daring; In probing them you hope To pit against the sea for depth, (p. 76) [Sargent] On that fine outing, who cared that a mountain must be steep? Probing deeply you would contest with the sea for profundity. I'm not sure I have grasped what Wang Anshi is trying to do here, although he must be referring to the Yangtze island Jinshan and perhaps a certain monk, both ofwhich figure in the theme of the poem. My suggestions are on the level oflexicon . Shengjian (Pease's "noble footsteps") is used once by Su Shi, with the meaning of "an unusually scenic spot [where one has come] to walk." Ken lun (Pease's Reviews 509 "glad to rank with") is probably equivalent to the rhetorical JaUr, "how could one care whether. ..." Whether or not Wang Anshi is alluding to it, I think Han Yu's line "[the essence of] a fine spot is yet in its being steep...