Prologue: Lamenting Greece

On an early morning at an inn in Lüshun, a port city in northern China, two young Chinese gentlemen heard a song in English and recognized it as lines from Lord Byron's The Giaour: Such is the aspect of this shore—’Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave—Shrine of the mighty! can it be,That this is all remains of thee?Approach thou craven crouching slave—Say, is not this Thermopylae?These waters blue that round you laveOh servile offspring of the free—Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?The gulf, the rock of Salamis!These scenes their story not unknownArise, and make again your own蔥蔥猗!郁郁猗!海岸之景物猗!嗚嗚!此希臘之山河猗!嗚嗚!如錦如荼之希臘,今在何猗?. . . . . . 嗚嗚!此何地猗?下自原野,上巖巒猗,皆古代自由空氣所彌漫猗!皆榮譽之墓門猗!皆偉大人物之祭壇猗!噫!汝祖宗之光榮,竟僅留此區區在人間猗!嗟嗟!弱質怯病之奴隸猗!嗟嗟!匍匐地下之奴隸猗!嗟來前猗!斯何地猗?寧非昔日之德摩比利猗!嗟嗟!卿等自由苗裔之奴隸猗!不斷毒山,環卿之旁,周遭其如睡猗!無情夜潮,與卿為緣,寂寞其盈耳猗!此山何山猗!此海何海猗?此岸何岸猗?此莎拉米士之灣猗?此莎拉米士之巖猗?此佳景猗!此美談猗!卿等素其諳猗!咄咄其興猗!咄咄其興猗!光覆卿等之舊物,還諸卿卿猗!1This episode, including the translation of these Byronic verses, in the novel Xin Zhongguo weilaiji 新中國未來記 (The future of new China) may be seen as the starting point of a long journey that brought Greece to China, establishing a unique cultural theme in Chinese literature. In 1902 Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), a young leader in the former reform movement, incorporated these verses from The Giaour into his political speculation, followed by the first and third stanzas of “The Isles of Greece” from the third canto of Don Juan.The isles of Greece! the isles of GreeceWhere burning Sappho loved and sung,Where grew the arts of war and peace,Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!Eternal summer gilds them yet,But all, except their sun, is set.The mountains look on Marathon—And Marathon looks on the sea;And musing there an hour alone,I dream'd that Greece might still be free;For standing on the Persians' grave,I could not deem myself a slave.In the novel, the singer, another young Chinese, then stops; yet his audience is moved to recite a few more verses of Byron before leaving for a tour of Lüshu. The lines they mention include “And must thy lyre, so long divine, / Degenerate into hands like mine.” “For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear,” and finally, “A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine— / Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!”2For the first time, modern Greece under Turkish rule entered the literary imagination of the late Qing period, when the conflicts between China and the West were intensifying, forcefully ushering China into global affairs. Chinese intellectuals, especially those overseas, including Liang Qichao (then in exile in Japan), found themselves on a thorny course of essential adjustment, reconstructing their vision of China and urgently searching for ways to revive their country. After more than two hundred years under Manchu rule, the situation was deteriorating further due to the modern West's attempts to at least partially colonize China. Despite its brilliant civilization and glorious history, of which the Chinese were proud, China was on the edge of losing her sovereignty and integrity. Greece's humiliation by the Turks served as a frightening warning to these intellectuals, who viewed China as an equally ancient civilization. Startling was Byron's deliberate contrast between a country that was free and independent and a servile and submissive Turkish province.As a cornerstone of the Western imagery of modern Greece, Byron's poems provided the Chinese with a mirror to reflect and comment on their situation. These verses seamlessly fit into the modern Chinese nationalist discourse. A comment by the audience in the narrative conveys Liang's intention in inserting the verses into his political novel: “This poem of his Byron's is composed to exalt the Greeks. Yet nowadays as we are listening, it seems to be for the Chinese.”3 Lamenting Greece—later the Chinese title for the poem “The Isles of Greece”—became a way to lament China. In Lüshun, home of the Beiyang Fleet Base, which witnessed the force's fall and suffered a massacre during the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), these verses are too conspicuous to be ignored by attentive ears. The mention of Salamis, the naval battle that decided the failure of the Persian invasion during the Greco-Persian War, would bitterly remind the city's residents of those painful events and make the ongoing Russian colonization even more piercing to endure. In Liang's narrative, these political events took place before the two young men depart for Europe to seek a resolution for China. Upon their return, Lüshun becomes their first stop not by accident. Their overseas education is motivated by their concerns for the domestic situation in China. As these two prepare to unveil their project to revitalize China, Byron's literary legacy about modern Greece completes their education. The song mirrors their anxiety about China's future, illustrates their goal of saving China, and instills them with a sense of identification with the Greek heroes, like those in Salamis, Marathon, and certainly, Thermopylae.Both poems—the lines from the opening lyric part of The Giaour and “The Isles of Greece” in Don Juan—gained immediate popularity after Liang Qichao serialized The Future of New China in the first few issues of New Fiction. Side by side with the English verses sung by the character, Liang's translation nevertheless took liberties with the poem's English origins, leading to apparent additions and variations. For example, in the first stanza of “The Isles of Greece,” the lines “this place is the old castle of arts and literature, the main waive of skills” 此地是藝文舊壘,技術中潮 are not found in the original, while the next line in Byron's origin “Eternal summer gilds them yet” is omitted in Chinese translation. Liang claimed a license to Sinicize the poems freely and adapted them into the form of classical Chinese poetry. Lyrical and beautiful, the Sinicized translation, particularly the Don Juan stanzas in the form of arias in traditional Chinese drama, appealed to readers when classical Chinese poetry was a basic subject for any educated Chinese.“The Isles of Greece” met with colossal enthusiasm among the literati and would eventually become the most famous Western poem in China under the traditional Chinese title “Ai Xila” 哀希臘 (Lamenting Greece). The name was given by Ma Junwu 馬軍武 (1881—1940), a prominent educator and revolutionary. In 1905 he brought forth the poem's first complete translation in the ancient style of seven-character verse,4 to be followed in the next decade successively by Su Manshu 蘇曼殊 (1884–1918),5 a Buddhist monk and an important translator of European Romantic literature, and Hu Shih 胡適 (1891–1962),6 a founder of modern Chinese literature, in the ancient style of five-character verse and Chu Lyrics, or Songs of the South, respectively. Along with Liang Qichao, standing on the tail of classical China and at the head of modern China, they created a vibrant dialogue among one another and together with Byron's original work in terms of genre and meter, and text and context. This was continued by poets such as Bian Zhilian 卞之琳 (1910–2000), Wen Yiduo 聞一多 (1899–1946), and Zha Liangzheng 查良錚 (1910–2000) among others, making the translation of “The Isles of Greece” a legendary moment in the history of Western literature's reception in modern China.On the other hand, the verses from The Giaour were no less popular. A complete translation of Byron's long narrative poem would not appear in Chinese until the 1980s.7 These lyric lines sung by Liang's fictional character, however, were adapted into a Chinese song as early as in 1906. Jin Yi 金一 (aka Jin Songcen 金松岑, Jin Tianhe 金天翮, 1873–1947), an intellectual well connected with Liang Qichao, published a collection titled Xin Zhongguo gechangji 新中國歌唱集 (The collected songs of new China) that included “Bailun tan xila” 拜倫嘆希臘 (Byron sighing on Greece). The song, in four stanzas, is a relatively faithful adaptation, with minor adjustments to harmonize the lyrics with the tune recorded in numbered musical notation. It belongs to a series of lamentations in the collection Jin Yi addressed to ancient civilizations worldwide, such as “Ai yindu” 哀印度 (Lamenting India) and “Diao aiji” 弔埃及 (Mourning Egypt).8 These elegies duly highlight the contrast between the glorious past and the dim present of those civilizations. We read the lines such as “Where is my Buddha. . . . The hearts of the citizens have become deadly ashes,” and “Mummies preserve unrotten bodies but to be collected by museums. . . . The Suez is canalized in vain. People of the fallen country overwhelm their hearts with regrets and hatred.” Each echoes the lamentation of Greece to mirror the sentiment for China.A friend of Zhang Binling 章炳麟 (1869–1936), Jin Yi was a well-trained classical Chinese philologist in his own right. He was also a prominent name among the classical poets of the time. Separated from his collection titled Tianfanglou shiwenji 天放樓詩文集 (Collected poems and essays of tianfang pavilion), the set of songs in The Collected Songs of New China made a distinct statement about both its author and Chinese intellectual life at the time. From his education pedigree to the language and genres he wrote in, Jin Yi was deeply rooted in the classical tradition. His lamentation therefore is tangible and pressing: he was mourning the past to which he belonged. It overshadows the language and genres Jin Yi and his fellow literati used. These songs are written in beautiful literary Chinese, roughly accommodating traditional poetic forms, but nevertheless lament the very linguistic and poetic tradition that gave birth to them. Resonating in the literary intellectual sphere of the time, the songs were Chinese tradition's self-lamentation when China's seemingly endless classical epoch finally came to an end.But these songs are far from sentimental or disheartening. Jin Yi was a devoted educator. In the historic town of Tongli, near Shanghai, he successively founded its first modern (or Westernized) school and first girls’ school at the turn of the twentieth century. Clear in their meaning and simple in musical structure and melody, these songs were also composed for future citizens of the new China. For educational purposes, the collection roughly consisted of two categories: nationalist education, including the series of lamentations, and the promotion of modern life, represented by songs about automobiles and electric lights, for example. Thus, while the English song in Liang Qichao's text showcases the prestigious educational background of both the singer and his audience, necessarily proficient in English; Jin Yi's adaptation achieved easy accessibility for local young students, among whom would walk the future cultural and political leaders of China.During the May Fourth period, a comrade of Dr. Hu Shih's in the New Culture movement, Liu Bannong 劉半農 (1891–1934), made a remarkable contribution by including both the original version and his rendition of The Giaour excerpts in his 1916 introductory essay about Lord Byron. To pair with “Lamenting Greece,” he came up with a similar evocative Chinese title for these verses, “Diao xila” 弔希臘 (Mourning Greece),9 and adopted the form of Chu lyrics, a style also employed by Hu Shih in his translation of “Lamenting Greece.” Both the title and the style were later retained by Romantic poet Wang Duqing 王獨清 (1898–1940) when he produced his version in 1927. Dissatisfied with Liu's for being neither refined nor effective, Wang offered his own version to do justice to Byron's original poem. In the years after the launch of the New Culture movement, “Mourning Greece” began to equal the fame “Lamenting Greece” had enjoyed in the prior decade.When Liu Bannong included “Mourning Greece” in his introductory essay “Byron's Forgotten Deeds” 拜倫遺事, he declared the poem superior to “Lamenting Greece:” “Lamenting” is a sentimental expression of self-pity, while “Mourning” resembles a battle song. It directly addresses the Greeks, aiming to awake and exalt them. Liu's preferences for “Mourning Greece” echoes Liang's original intention when he introduced the poems to Chinese public. He attempted to urge the Chinese to rise up. While “Lamenting Greece” presents a lyrical voice tinged with sentimentality in face of the irreversible loss, reflecting the disappointment and anxiety of the late Qing period, the New Culture movement's leaders, seeing themselves as the enlighteners of their countrymen, appeared more ambitious than their predecessors. The more stirring “Mourning Greece” worked better with their agenda of modernizing Chinese culture and consequently gained more favor. Liu's essay was published in the influential journal New Youth edited by a rising new generation of intellectuals who would eventually reshape Chinese culture and literature.Almost all the intellectuals who participated in this lamentation of Greece, whether consciously or unconsciously, overlooked the fact that Greece at the turn of the twentieth century was tremendously different from Byron's Greece a century earlier.10 By then, Greece had gained independence. But the lamentation seemed tailor-made for China's domestic needs. It was more compelling for the Chinese to imagine Greece under Turkish rule. Throughout the twentieth century, various elements of ancient Greek civilization would be introduced, discussed, and even practiced in China. Yet the allusion to the fate of modern Greece became an essential undertone through these moments. As the motherland was constantly in crisis, nationalist concerns often overwhelmed the literary and cultural domains in twentieth-century China. The driving force behind the various literary, cultural, and ideological movements of the century—despite their different stimuli—was commonly underpinned by what C. T. Hsia calls the “obsession with China,” intellectuals and writers’ preoccupation with China's position in the fierce global competitions.11 The Greek story, after its elegiac debut staged by Liang Qichao, was intrinsically linked to Chinese nationalist sentiment.China's relationship with the West—its violent colonizers and invaders from Western Europe and America—was fraught with complexity. The West pushed the Chinese to step onto the global stage. Simultaneously, the West's allure was irresistible to China throughout the modern era. In his study of the Western influence on China between the First Sino-Japanese War and the rise of the New Culture movement in the 1910s, when the lamentation of Greece was popular in China, Theodore Huters borrows Paul Cohen's argument about the interplay between hatred and admiration. Huters further discusses this seeming contradiction: rather than “by turns” as Cohen suggests, “at all times and at the very same time in modern China,” the West was “hated as an imperialist aggressor and admired for its mastery.”12 The West thus became a source of both suspicion and anxiety, whose hegemony extended into the realms of culture and literature beyond military, political, and economic spheres.For example, this complex relationship with the West led to a long-standing anxiety in China over the absence of an epic in ancient Chinese literature. The figure of Homer in China intertwines two threads of narrative: he was enthusiastically welcomed and eagerly translated; meanwhile, his reception was complicated by national grievances. These grievances were exacerbated by Hegel's observation that China lacked a national epic, a deficiency he attributed to the “fundamentally prosaic outlook of the Chinese.”13 The West's cultural hegemony led the Chinese to internalize the critiques. They became obsessed with self-defense, both by seeking to identify the “epic” within ancient Chinese tradition and, more prominently, by attempting to write their modern epics. “Writing a new epic” and “an epic-like book” became typical descriptions for novels and TV dramas in China's popular discourse, a trend that persists to this day.Modern Greece, situated in Eastern Europe, was distanced and separated from ancient Greece—and the West. Ancient Greece and modern Greece refer to the same geographical location and share the language of historical continuity, but they were treated differently. The glory of Homer, instead of glorifying its modern descendants, became a source of humiliation. Victor Hugo's poem reads: Greeces of Byron and HomerYou, our sister, you, our motherGrèces de Byron et d'HomèreToi, notre soeur, toi, notre mère. (“Navarin,” 2:45–46)Ancient Greece, epitomized by Homer, is the mother of modern European cultures; whereas modern Greece, lyricized in Byron's “Isles of Greece” as a backwater and a struggling Turkish province, is a sister, weak as she was, in need of help. This Greece did receive support from Western European youths who joined the Greek Independence movement, heeding Byron's rallying call.14 When the Zhou as Zhou to what was to literature of the minor and weak in Eastern including those from modern Greece, they introduced to China the literary of the that similar and their in new school of literature from introduced into China, make with read in these the voice of their own hearts and the of The sentiment and of modern Greece, Chinese intellectuals a with this that a place among Eastern European ancient Greece and modern China, the of modern weak and in the face of the their This the anxiety by the modern while also from the of their When ancient Greek culture as the origin of modern Western intellectual was not the of most ambitious did to have a of the Western through the of ancient The by nationalist sentiment were not This Greek literary, or particularly at of the most in the of Chinese the between ancient Greece and modern China by and and by both intellectual and