Poems of Mao
32. The Winter Plum (December 1961)
The Winter Plum
[a tsu, to the melody The Fortune Teller, Pu Suan Tsu.]
[translated by Nancy Lin]
After Lu Yu’s ‘Ode to the Winter Plum’, with a reversal in the theme.
She saw Spring off in wind and rain,
She greets it back now, in sleet and snow.
Where icicles dangle a thousand feet down the cliff,
There she is, branch and blossom,
Pert in her splendor.
All splendor, she lays no claim to Spring,
She would only be Spring’s harbinger.
When hills are glowing with flowers of all hues,
She stays in their midst,
Smiling ever.
Notes [by Nancy Lin]
The 22nd Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in October 1961 spelled out in effect the irrevocable finality of the Sino-Russian ideological break. This poem is the poet’s answer. In short, China will not be cowed. China defiant shall be China triumphant. Not the triumph of a claim, but the triumph of a message, the aim and fruit of which is Spring destined for all, with China as an unobtrusive rejoicing participant.
The winter plum, for centuries the symbol of a forlorn scholar in self-appreciative purity, is here transformed into a personification of an inspired nation dedicated to a fighting ideal, or in the poet’s eye in this case, of a true Marxist-Leninist Party at this specific juncture of history.
Lu Yu, a great Sung poet (1125-1210 A.D.) sang of the winter plum on some 100 occasions out of the 10,000 poems he wrote. The following is the specific piece Mao refers to in his note as shown above:
Beyond the post house, by a broken bridge,
She blooms to herself – all forlorn:
Sorrowful enough in the gray of dusk,
And by wind and rain further torn.
Let sister flowers their envies pour.
Parading in spring she’d disdain.
Blown and fallen she’s ground into dust.
Her fragrance alone shall remain!
[next - 33. Winter Clouds]