Lu You

Names
Xìng 姓:	Lù 陸
Míng 名:	Yóu 游
Zì 字:	Wùguàn 務觀
Hào 號:	Fàngwēng 放翁

Statue in Fujian

Lu You (Traditional Chinese: 陆游; Simplified Chinese: 陸游, 1125-1210), was a Chinese poet of the southern Song dynasty.

Career

Early career

Lu You came from a family in which there were some government officials. At that time the southern Song dynasty was frequently invaded by the Jin Dynasty (金國). When he was one, Kaifeng (汴京 or 開封), the capital of Northern Song dynasty had been captured by the troops of Jin Dynasty. Lu You, who was still an infant, fled with his family. Because of the family influence and social turbulence in childhood, Lu You was committed to save the nation by ousting the Jurchens (女真人).

Marriage

Lu You's family brought good education to him, especially on patriotism, but it also brought misfortune to his marriage. He grew up with his cousin Tang Wan, who is quiet yet good at paining and literature. They fell deeply in love and got married at his age 20. But they didn't have any child, and his mother didn't like her. Though they had lived happily together, his mother forced them to divorce in order to making him concentrate in study and fulfill his aspiration of saving Song dynasty. In traditional Chinese culture, good children should be respectful and obedient to their parents. Lu You loved his mother and reluctantly divorced Tang Wang. Then, she married a nobleman Zhao Shi Cheng, and he married Ms. Wang.

Lu You was very sad after his first marriage. One spring, at his age 31, eight years after their divorce, he past by Sheng's Garden and encountered Tang Wang and her husband by chance. Tang Wan asked her husband to let her send a glass of wine to Lu You. When her hands past the wine to him, he saw her eyes brimming with tears... His heart was broken, and he took the glass of bitter wine bottom up. He turned back and wrote down the poem “Phoenix Pin” on the wall of Sheng’s Garden within one breath. After this meeting with Tang Wan, he went up to the North against Jin Dynasty and then turned down to the South Shu(Today’s Sichuan in China) to pursue his dream of unifying China as a whole nation.

Meanwhile, after Tang Wan read his poem, she immediately wrote one in the same form to response. Less than a year, she died. One year before Lu You’s death, at age 85, he still wrote another romantic loving poem “Sheng’s Garden” to commemorate his first love.

Official Career

He passed the civil service examination, but was unsuccessful in his official career: he adopted a patriotic stance, advocating the expulsion of the Jurchen (女真) from northern China, but this position was out of tune with the times. He retired to Shaoxing (紹興) in frustration. His wife died in 1197.

Style

Lu You wrote over ten thousand poems, in both the shi (詩) and ci (詞) forms, plus a number of prose works. In his poetry he continues to articulate the beliefs which cost him his official career, calling for reconquest of the north. Watson identifies these works as part of the legacy of Du Fu (杜甫). Watson compares a second body of work, poems on country life and growing old, to those of Bai Juyi (白居易) and Tao Qian (陶潛). Lu You had written a lot of poem in his whole life, more than 10000, still having 9300 after erasing some of them by Lu You himself. His period of style can be divided into three periods.

First Period

First Period of Lu You’s works Is from his teenager to age 46. This period lasts the longest, but keeps the least of his works, about two hundred poems, because he eliminated his early works through selection.

Second Period

Second Period runs from age 46 to 54, leaving approximately more than two thousand four hundred works of the shi and ci. During this period, he lived deeply into the military. Therefore the main style of his work turns to liberal, forthright, and splendid; his patriotic spirit in turn heightens into another level. The maturity and richness presented in this period’s works establishes the sublime position among Chinese Literature ancestors.

Third Period

Third Period starts from moving back to his hometown until death. Because he didn’t have enough time to eliminate his works through selection, there are abounding works, six thousand five hundred, are living from this period. During this period, because he was old, lived with farmers, and had went through ups and downs in military and governmental office, the style of his work gradually went peaceful pastoral and desolate and bleak human life.

Though his style changes through periods, his works are fully packed with furiously enthusiastic patriotism. This is the most important nature of his works, and the greatest reason they have been eulogized for almost thousand years.

Bibliography

Lu You was born on a boat floating in Wei Water River in an early rainy morning of October 17th, 1125(Chinese calendar), . That was the time Song dynasty was frequently invaded by the Jin Dynasty. One year after his birth, the troops of Jin Dynasty conquered the capital of Northern Song dynasty; his family fled from home while he was still an infant. Under such an influence, he determined to expel the Jurchen (女真) from the North and bring a United Song dynasty back even when he was very little.

At age 12, Lu You was already excellent in writing, mastered the skill of sword fighting, and delved deeply into war strategy. At age 19, he took civil service examination, but didn’t pass. Ten years later, he took it again; this time he not only past it, he was the first winner in region Lin Ann. But this triumph did not bring him any luck; oppositely, it brought big trouble to him. Qin Sun, who was the grand son of Qin Hiu(秦桧 was a notorious traitor to China and tremendous powerful aristocrat in Song Dynasty), also took this exam, and Lu You’s winning threatened Qin Sun's position, because Lu You was possible to be the first winner in the next year’s national examination. In fact, not only Lu You, all possible winners for the next year’s nation-wide competition got excluded, even some of the examination officer.

After Qin Hiu's death, he started his official career in government. because he avidly proposed fighting against Jin Dynasty and didn’t follow the mainstream, he was dismissed from his job. In 1172, he was hired to create strategic planning in military. Military life opened his eyes and mind widely, he found his hope to fulfill his aspiration — bring broken China back to whole. He wrote out plenty of unrestrained, untrammeled poems to express his passionate patriotism. But Song Dynasty was so corrupt at that time; most of officers just wanted to make a nice living; he couldn’t get the opportunity to deploy his talent.

In 1175, Fan Dia Cheng asked him to join his party. They had used to share similar interests via writing, and now behaved casual in the governmental society. Plus, because Lu You always felt there was no place for him to use his talent and ambitions to save Song Dynasty, he started to become self-indulgent, enjoying drinking to forget his unsuccess in personal life and career pursuit. He gave himself a nickname "Freed guy"(放翁), and was sarcastic to himself in his poems.

After several promotions and demotions in governmental career, in 1190, he retired and lived in seclusion at his hometown Shaoxing (紹興), a rural area. He started to enjoy keeping in good health and like eating pearl barley and wooden ear. This kept his good vision and listening until death. Though during this period, he still ardently proposed fighting against Jin Dynasty, but always got disputes and rejections. Finally on December 29, 1209(Chinese calendar), he died with the biggest regret – the Northern China was still in the control of the Jurchen (女真) – at age 86.

Books

《劍南詩稿》
《渭南文集》
《放翁逸稿》
《南唐書》
《老學庵筆記》
《放翁家訓》
《家世舊文》

Poems

To Son (示儿)

Lu You wrote many poems. One of his most famous is "To Son" (<<示儿>>). This is how it goes:

死去原知万事空，

但悲不见九州同。

王师北定中原日，

家祭无忘告乃翁。

All turns to the dust - in my dieing eyes,

only hate is a unified land - not being seen.

The day of General Wang - sweeping the North,

mustn't forget to tell me - before my tombstone.

This poem was composed by him when he was about to die.

What this poem means is that he doesn't mind not being able to take anything with him when he dies(死去原知万事空）, but he is upset to see that China is not united as a nation（但悲不见九州同）. He is telling his son that if this day ever comes（王师北定中原日）, his family must not forget to go to his grave and tell him there（家祭无忘告乃翁。）.

Full River Red (满江红)

There are also many more that are well-known, like <<满江红>>.

Phoenix Pin (釵頭鳳)

紅酥手，黃藤酒，滿城春色宮牆柳。

東風惡，歡情薄，一懷愁緒，幾年離索。錯、錯、錯！

春如舊，人空瘦，淚痕紅邑鮫綃透。

桃花落，閒池閣。山盟雖在，錦書難托。莫、莫、莫！

Lily hands, rippling wine,

The town is filled with spring like willows swaying,

Biting wind, sweetness thin,

A glass of sorrow holds several years of parting...

Wrong, Wong, Wong!

Spring is the same; girl pales in vain.

Through the sheer silks, it’s the tearful eyes brimming.

Blossoms falling, glimmering pound freezing,

Paramount promise is still there, glorious book hardly to be held.

Moan, moan, moan!

This poem is the tear of his real loving story (see [marriage]). In this poem, "Biting wind" is a metaphor for traditional Chinese view about women – women are two-edged sword. This view breaks his first marriage. “glorious book” is another metaphor for his ambitious of unifying China. But he doesn't seem to be successfull in either of them(marriage and career). He also uses antithesis, which is very popular in Chinese poetry. It matches both sound and sense in two poetic lines, like “a glass of sorrow” pairing “several years of parting” and “Paramount promise” pairing “glorious book”. The sounds are perfectly matching each other in Chinese. This poem falls in the first period of his works.

Mei Flower (卜運算元-詠梅)

驛外斷橋邊

寂寞開無主

己是黃昏獨自愁

更著風和雨

無意苦爭春

一任羣芳妒

零落成泥碾作塵

只有香如故

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