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she asks the Taoist, an envoy from the Emperor Hsüan
Tsung, to bring back her message, “her eyes, with
much love, fixed, and she expresses her gratitude to
the Emperor” (han-ch’ing-ning-t’I-hsieh-chün-wang).
The original depicts her sincerity and attentiveness,
but Snyder remodels her into a composed woman who
by nature can fully control herself: “Restraining her
feelings, cooling her look, / she told him to thank the
Emperor” (The Gary Snyder Reader 554). Snyder
purposely remodels her into someone small and
delicate in appearance, elegant and temperate in
personality. It is likely that the distortion is for the
purpose of conforming to the Western perception of
Oriental beauty. We can find plentiful examples of
such Oriental beauty in twentieth-century Hollywood
cinema. The film “Sayonara” (1957) tells how a
delicate, small Japanese girl falls in love with a tall,
handsome, white American officer. “The World of
Suzie Wong” (1960) depicts how a Hong Kong
prostitute falls fervently in love with a tall American
writer, and the heroine played by Nancy Kwan is a
Chinese American who is only five feet tall. Both
heroines are lovely, small and delicate, and vowed
profound love to their white lovers. This stereotypical
image of the Oriental girl fabricated by Hollywood
suggests the psychology of a conqueror — the
psychology of a colonist. It seems that Snyder, though
a fervent student of Oriental cultures, cannot steer
clear of Orientalism.
Snyder also alters the story of Emperor Hsüan
Tsung’s life during the An-lu Shan Rebellion (A.D.
755). In Po Chü-i’s original, when the Emperor fled
from the capital Ch’ang-An, he was escorted by a
large army, and thus the line should read, “A thousand
chariots and ten thousand horsemen march southwest”
(ch’ien-ch’êng-wan-ch’I-hsi-nan-hsing); in Snyder’s
revision, the army becomes all disbanded: “Thousand
of chariots, ten thousand horsemen / scattered
southwest —” (The Gary Snyder Reader 550). In Po
Chü-i’s original, when the Emperor reaches his haven,
the Szechwan region, and passes through the
mountains, there are very few other travelers on the
road: “There are very few people walks on the paths
under O-mei Mountains” (O-mei-shan-hsia-shao-jênhsing).
But Snyder changes the story drastically, so
that when the emperor arrives at the region, only very
few escorts remain by his side: “Under Omei Shan /
the last few came” (The Gary 551). His distortion
seems to emphasize the plight of the Emperor. Could
this distortion of the Emperor’s lot be due to Snyder’s
knowledge of European history European monarchs,
if defeated by a rebellious army, often end rather
pathetically, sometimes driven out of their palaces
without escorts — Louis XVI was beheaded, as was
Mary Queen of Scots; Napoleon died alone on the
Island of St. Helena. Snyder’s revision of the
emperor’s fate is either a misinterpretation or a
distortion to meet the Western imagination. In
Snyder’s “Long Bitter Song,” the distorted image of
Yang Kuei-fei and the changed story of the emperor’s
life are likely imprints of Orientalism.
Snyder’s T’ang poems are published in The Gary
Snyder Reader, a thick volume of more than 600
pages. Their appearance was not as highly anticipated
as “The Cold Mountain Poems,” which were
published in the Evergreen journal before appearing
as Riprap and the Cold Mountain Poems (1999).
However, there are other reasons for their relatively
low visibility. They did not echo any contemporary
literary or countercultural movement, nor do they
have the focus of a single author. Also, their language
is more formal and less dynamic because of Snyder’s
strict adherence to the metric and linguistic modes of
classical Chinese poetry. However, as a superb poet
and master of English language, Snyder’s renderings
of the 17 T’ang poems are fascinating, especially
when they yield such images as this line in the “Long
Bitter Song” describing the beauty of Yang Kuei-fei:
“Hair like a flooding cloud, flower face, / ripple of
gold when she walked.” The phrase “ripple of gold”
distorts the original ch’in-pu-yao (gold / walk /
wavering), which is a kind of hairpin made of gold
with dangles that swing as one walks. Snyder’s
revised poetic imagery, “ripple of gold,” denotes not
the hairpin but Yang’s mien. How radiant, light, and
swaying is she, walking toward you!
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