身と心 : 白居易「自戲三絕句」から見えるもの

Abstract

Bai Juyi 白居易, a poet in the Mid-Tang 中唐, wrote a series of poems entitled "Three Quatrains for My Own Amusement" 自戲三絕句. Needless to say, they were written bearing in mind Tao Yuanming 陶淵明's famous trilogy of poems entitled "Substance, Shadow, and Spirit" 形影神. These three poems deal with how we should cope with the finite nature of life: "Spirit" sublates the conflict between "substance" (which insists on earthly pleasure) and "shadow" (which places more value on posthumous fame). On the other hand, in "Three Quatrains for My Own Amusement, " only "body" 身 and "soul" 心 appear, corresponding respectively to "substance" and "spirit". "Shadow" does not appear because "body" (substance) and "soul" are one thing for Bai Juyi, and "body" and "soul" are frequently depicted as a pair in his poems. Scholar-officials 士大夫 in the Mid-Tang accepted as an obvious and unavoidable fact that life is finite, and they prepared themselves to exist in this world--that is, in their secular society as government officials with awareness of their social responsibilities, although they were always attracted to the unworldly ways, meaning a life of seclusion. Bai Juyi wrote a number of "leisure poems" 閑適詩 until his later years, not because he had attained peace of mind, but because it was part of his recognition of that way of life, as mentioned above. The poems that deal with "body" and "soul" are most representative of this. It can be said that Bai Juyi is the poet who most consciously gives words to the mentality of scholar-officials in the Mid-Tang and that his mentality appears to lead to that of the scholar-officials after the Song 宋 Dynasty.