Translator's Note: The cache of scrolls translated below from an early Mandarin dialect was unearthed in 2004 from the ruins of a large residence during an archaeological dig in the city of Xian (formerly, Chang'an), sponsored and executed by Beijing University.
Tests confirm that the most likely period of origination was the beginning of the fourth century, during the Sixteen Kingdoms Period. Several more scrolls of the same period were unreconstructable as they had been severely damaged by moisture. The remaining nine scrolls are presented below in roughly chronological order, ranging over a period of about sixty years, and tell of Zhang’s youth as a monk, his marriage, life as a fisherman, and his final years as a recluse.
All that is known of the poet is his signature, Lao Zhang (Old Zhang), though many unverified facts of his life are discussed in the scrolls. The Xiongnu were warriors who used heavy cavalry and swept through the Yang-Tze Valley in central China about 304 A.D., firing a number of villages and killing thousands. Dongting Lake still supports many fishing families. Lu Mountain is still a place of pilgrimage and retreat in modern Jiangsi Province.
The Tian Shan range is a Himalayan spur which lies along the borders of China and Kazakhstan and Kirgyzstan in the modern province of Xinjiang. It would have taken at least a month of traveling to reach it from Lake Dongting.
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FIRST SCROLL
In Reclusion
Immured in this cliffside cave,
watching the path down Lu Mountain
which brings the village woman
who cooks my barley and greens,
I remember my promises to her:
equanimity, long life.
On clear nights I go mad,
snatch up my flute and rush
outside to the precipice
and dance, a grinning
skeleton. So far
my balance is good.
During the day I chant and pray,
and watch vultures. When
the sun grows high I wait
for her, but it’s pointless, she’s married,
and I’m a monk, a filthy one at that.
One hundred thousand prostrations
to Wenshu—but the woman—real—
who cooks my barley and greens,
I remember my promises to her:
equanimity, long life.
On clear nights I go mad,
snatch up my flute and rush
outside to the precipice
and dance, a grinning
skeleton. So far
my balance is good.
During the day I chant and pray,
and watch vultures. When
the sun grows high I wait
for her, but it’s pointless, she’s married,
and I’m a monk, a filthy one at that.
One hundred thousand prostrations
to Wenshu—but the woman—real—
SECOND SCROLL
My Innermost Thoughts
It won't last long, this state
of intense intoxication—
And what do I find? What are
my innermost thoughts? May I explain
that my thoughts are like the green
silk of Changan? I think of you.
The silk flutters over your shoulders.
I am twenty-eight, a man. Please accept my poem.
THIRD SCROLL
Leaving Lu Mountain
Wild clarity. I seized her
and she did not protest.
My unread poem fell from
her apron. Blind in the sun
I settled my body on hers.
When she swung down the rocky path
later, saying nothing, braid untied,
I struck the walls with my fists.
Would she tell? No longer a monk
I climbed down Lushan with my flute.
Pines began to line the path,
and low stone walls.
I looked up, but mist flowed
along the pale cliff. Where
did she live? What did it matter?
Then the hot tears fell.
FOURTH SCROLL
We Leave for Lake Dongting
She was sent to keep house for a relative
far away in Luoyang, selling spring bulbs,
but I found her soon after the New Year.
I knew her husband had divorced her,
so she was honest.
At the flower market, she spoke shyly to me,
standing so close, I began to think about what
I had done to her on Lushan, and wanted to do
again. She saw this, and turned as if as if
to disappear with the crowd, but I caught her arm—
she buried her face in my shoulder—my neck—
I told her that I was going to marry her. When
she said, “Maybe, we’ll see,” swinging her braid,
I was happy. Next day, we drifted like white clouds
toward Lake Dongting. We settled there and fished.
FIFTH SCROLL
Unexpected Happiness
My only love, when you lie
drowsy beside me in gray dawn,
vanquisher of loneliness,
black-eyed giver of meaning,
when you bend to wash your face,
smooth your hand over your round belly,
catch me looking, I am seized
by an agony of need, to keep
you by me forever, against all
change. The first spring rays bring clucks
from the hen-yard. "Stupid", you tell me,
smiling at my fears, and go looking for eggs.
When you bring our lunch
and we sit on the greening slope
along the water, I often dare to hope
that Buddha is wrong, that happiness
may outweigh suffering. This worrying
over you—you jump up as lake-gulls
dive and disturb my nets. Steady,
laughing, you chase them all away.
SIXTH SCROLL
The Body of My Wife
As I think back on it now—our happiness
I recall the winter birth as something fantastically
sublime, far more sublime than the fierce deities
I had visualized during my years of retreat—
my son attached me invincibly to earth.
My wife's enemy was a mere first husband
who could be clubbed with the knobbed stick
I kept beside our bed. He never came,
but that year my own enemies came, the
deities who once were my protectors—because
I had broken my vows. With the Xiongnu
they came, iron-armored on their horses,
with gnashing teeth and bulging eyes, and wielded
their swords up and down our rural valley,
the sound of galloping muting the dull
impacts of the swords, the shouts and screams—
rain, rain, yet the sky lit itself
orange as our cottages burned—
they came, the ones Padmasambhava
tamed, bloodthirsty, wreakers of revenge,
demons ripping through the veil of night
and chased down and cruelly killed my wife.
What was left
then? Nothing was left
then, except a duty to my infant son.
SEVENTH SCROLL
Drunk
Grieving, I go to her hillside grave.
For my son, I remarry. My new wife
asks me not to drink. I drink
as though this pain could be contained—
amnesia is what I seek. One day
my old abbott appears at my door.
"What did you expect?" he asks
reasonably. I throw him out, pull out my jug
and drink into insensibility. My son—
I watch him, my eyes hooded, drunk.
He grows tall as bamboo; his disgust for me
matters not at all. I bring home food
and pay his tuition. He goes much further
than I ever did—accepts the summons
to some warlord's court. His future
assured, he becomes an honorable official.
Then she and I and the fish are alone—
she doesn't love me—cold winds sweep across
the lake while I try to roll, roll, capsize—
very funny, boat and man, both tipsy!
At the beginning of winter, I said, "Consider
me dead—d'you understand?
I am going away. Take
the cottage for your wage, it is over."
The woman took her share and set me free.
the cottage for your wage, it is over."
The woman took her share and set me free.
EIGHTH SCROLL
I Begin to Write
My birth, in a distant village by a reedy river,
is of no interest. The same is true of my family
and my occupation. I retired ten years ago
to the Tian Shan range, far west in Xinjiang,
and built Spring Hut above apple and walnut orchards.
My loved one died young, and I have gradually
become accustomed to my solitude. I occupy
myself with my studies, my daily chores, drinking wine
with other hermits when they brave the climb.
This body likes to rise early, likes the smell of wood
fire, likes feeding the goat and milking her, the scented
spruce. What else? I sometimes have thoughts, which fly
into my head, which I try to force from my brush—
about the changing splendor through my doorway—
about her waist—how small it was.
NINTH SCROLL
Season of Fruit
One day in mid-summer, a rich man is carried
up the path to Spring Hut, a lady’s carriage behind.
His porters set their loads down in the yard
and he comes to my hut, dressed in silk
in a high black hat, carrying a carved staff.
Confused, I fall back into the shadows
until he says, “Father?” and bows deeply.
“What is this nonsense?” I answer. “Go away.”
“It is a long hot trip,” he says mildly.
He helps her from the carriage, a young woman
with eyebrows like raven’s wings. “My wife,
Zhang Peiman,” he says. “She requested that
we come here, to ask for your blessings.” His men
are already setting out a meal. I take hold
of his sleeve, pull his face down to mine, and find
my wife’s eyes, as though she never died.
Then my grandchildren bow. The little girl’s
braid swings when she sees my flute—soon
it’s at her lips, her own mother listening, gazing
below at the fruiting orchards, soft in valley haze.
I close my eyes. A young monk once piped this song,
capering under burning stars, on Lu Mountain—
COLOPHON: THE ZHANG SCROLLS
Note: This colophon was found in the lower left of Scroll 9, and exhibits much smaller brushwork than Lao Zhang’s.
Signed by Lady Zhang Peiman in the Year of the Waterhorse [770 A.D.]:
My grandmother presented these scrolls to me on the occasion of my betrothal, and I will try to take good care of them. They have been in our family for centuries, and I feel very honored. I see in Lao Zhang many of our family traits, such as a love of the brush and of very plain description. I admire him and hope to write also. My esteemed ancestor Lao Zhang lived to the age of seventy-seven.
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