2011

李白, Lǐ Bái (701 - 762) or Lǐ Bó , or 李太白 Lǐ Táibó , its pen name, are one of largest the Chinese poets of the Dynastie Tang. It passed most of its life to travel through the China. Influenced by the thought Taoist, it was sensitive to the fantastic aspects of wild nature. Its work expresses its personality, which refused the constraints. Its more or less legendary life inspired parts and accounts.

Biography

The birthplace of Li Bai is dubious, but can be Suiye in Central Asia (close to Tokmok to the Kyrgyzstan). However its family had initially lived in south-east of what is now the province of the Gansu, and is established successively in Suiye then with Jiangyou, close to Chengdu in the province of the Sichuan, when it was five years old. It was influenced by the thoughts confucéenne and taoist, but its family antecedents did not open to him any door in the aristocracy of the Tang dynasty. Although it expressed the desire to become a civil servant, it did not present to the imperial examinations. It started to travel through China at the twenty five years age, appreciating the wine and leading a life without concern - very contrary to the idea that one was done of a confucéen. Its personality fascinated the aristocrats as much that the common peoples. It was presented to the emperor Xuanzong towards 742.

One offered to him a station with the Académie Hanlin. Li Bai remained less than two years to the service of the emperor like poet before being thanked for indiscretion. Then he wandered in the whole of China for the remainder of his life. He met Of Fu during the autumn 744, as well as the following year. These were the only occasions that they had to meet, but their friendship was particularly important (ten poems of Of Fu treat Li Bai whereas there is one of Li Bai dealing with Of Fu). At the same time that An Lushan entered in rebellion, it was implied in a secondary revolt against the emperor. The failure of this revolt condemned it to the exile one second time. It was forgiven before to have reached its place of exile in Yelang.

Li Bai died in Dangtu, today province of Anhui. The tradition wants that it drowned while trying to embrace the considered image of the moon in a river. Certain researchers think that its death would be due to a poisoning with mercury by absorption of the elixir of longevity taoist whereas others think that he would have quite simply died of alcoholism.

Presentation of the Marquis d' Hervey de Saint-Denys

Here how the Marquis D' Hervey de Saint-Denys, in his translation of poetries of the Dynasty Tang, presented it:

This name, which will perhaps pass for the first time under the eyes of those which will want to read to me well, is since more than thousand years so popular in China that one finds it registered everywhere there, in the cabinet of the well-read man as in the house of the plowman, on the rays of the libraries or the panels of the poorest walls, on the Bronze S, the Porcelaine S and until on the potteries of a daily use. It is not kind that the fertile genius of the poet did not approach that this name represents, and, while the student reads again his worms, the peasant repeats his songs.

Li Taibo, which one also calls by abbreviation Li Bo, was born in the Sichuan, the year 701 of the Christian era. Li was its family name; Taibo , literally great glare , a nickname which his/her mother gave him as of her birth, because she had believed to notice, in time even where she conceived it, that the brilliant star which precedes to raise it sun threw an extraordinary glare.

It made very strong studies, obtained the rank of doctor at twenty years, and occupied already the first rank among the scholars and the poets of its province, when it solved to go to the capital, where protection that the emperor Ming Huang (Xuanzong) granted to the letters attracted of all shares the men of talent. The first of years called Tien-CAM, i.e. the year 742 of J. - C., it thus took the road of Chang' year (Tchang-ngan), without another protection that the glare of its liveliness and the noise of its name.

The court of the Chinese monarch had his patron, the minister Ho-tchi-tchang, to whom Li Taibo was initially made present. It was one of these fortunately endowed spirits, which share their time between science and the pleasure. Exerting near the emperor of serious functions which required a constant assiduity, he liked to find at his place, with the return of the audience, the men of a fine and varied conversation, of which he felt the charm as a man of taste. The brilliant improvisations of the newcomer inspired a very sharp admiration to him: he wanted that he placed in his own palate, and was not long in making his/her best friend of it. Seizing the occasion soon to praise with the emperor the merits of his host, it inspired the desire to him for knowing it. Ming Huang was not charmed less than had been to it its minister, he saw in the young poet one of principal glories of his reign, and Li Taibo could acquire a favor such, than the Chinese history has hardly the similar one to record.

The Père Amiot devotes a rather long note to Li Taibo, among its portraits of the famous Chinese; it gives several details drawn from its biographies that it seems to me interesting to borrow to him. ““I have, in my house, had said Ho-tchi-tchang to the Chinese emperor, the largest poet perhaps who ever existed: I did not dare to still speak about it with Your Majesty, because of a defect of which it appears difficult that it is corrected: he likes the wine, and drinks some sometimes with excess. But how its poetries are beautiful! Judge yourself, lord”, continued it while putting to him between the hands some Li Taibo worms.

“The emperor lute these worms and was filled with enthusiasm by it. “I know, says it, to condescend with the weaknesses of humanity. Bring to me the author of these poetries; I want that it remains at my Court, nozzle I not to succeed in the efforts which I will try to correct it.” ”

Li Taibo was thus presented the very same day. The sovereign assigned a place to him among the well-read men of his Court, and took as well pleasure to his conversation as it was not a long time without honouring it with his more close friend familiarity. He gave him an apartment in that of his gardens named Theng-hiang-ting, where he was going to rest himself after having finished the businesses of the Empire. There, delivered embarrassment of the ceremonial, it discussed with its subject as with its equal; it made him make worms and especially verses of songs which they sang then together; because the emperor liked the music, and Li Taibo united with its other talents that to sing with grace. While the poet composed, the emperor pushed sometimes kindness until him to be used as secretary. Some courtiers wanting to represent with this prince that it did too much of it, that a similar control could lower it to the eyes of its subjects: “All that I make for a man of such a beautiful talent, answered them it, can only honor me near those which think well; as for the others, I mistake the judgment which they can make of me. ” An infinity of anecdotes, collected by the tradition, testify to this distinguished favor whose Li Taibo was in possession during several years. The emperor even thought of conferring a considerable load to him, when it was prevented by it by intrigues of palate, that the Amiot father tells as follows:

“It at the court eunuque had called there Kao-Li-ché, which enjoyed a very large authority; he received the homages of all the courtiers; the ministers even were for him full with respect. Only Li Taibo seemed not to realize of its credit, it even arrived that this poet being with the emperor in the garden of Theng-hiang-ting, and appearing to be able to walk only with sorrow, because a new shoe held the foot with the narrow one too much to him, the emperor says to him to be put at ease, and ordered with eunuque Kao-Li-ché to expose it. Li Taibo was let make, and the proud eunuque one preserved the rage in the heart of it.

“The occasion to be avenged appeared favorable to him, when he learned that Ming-hoang thought of filling honors that which he hated. Li Taibo had composed some stanzas which one could interpret in satires against famous the Yang-feï, more known under his title of Taï-tsun, and for which the emperor had a blind tenderness. The eunuque one could excite the anger of this favorite and be made a weapon against its enemy of it. Li Taibo, on its side, more shocked to be suspected of having wanted to insult its Master than to have missed a fortune than it did not ambitionnait, took little by little such a dislike of the Court, than it solved to entirely break all the bonds which attached it to it. He requested the emperor with as well authority to enable him to withdraw itself, and so often returned to the load, as this prince granted finally his request to him. Wanting however to give him evidence of the regard of which it honoured it, Ming-hoang made him present of a complete set of its own clothes, favor which it only conceded very seldom and only for rendered services with the Empire. At this honourable present he united that of thousand ounces gold.

“A so splendid treatment, adds the father Amiot, should have penetrated that which received it sharper recognition; but Li Taibo proved only too, by the control which it held then, that qualities of the heart, at a large poet, always do not equalize those of the spirit. Hardly it had recovered its freedom which it started to traverse randomly all the provinces of the Empire, stopping only in the taverns, and giving up themselves without reserve with its passion for the wine relating to the Chinese, T.V, pp. 399-403. ”

Was this well the wine which he liked? Wasn't this rather the dizzy spell which intoxication gets? The lapse of memory of this vague concern, of this thought of the dead one which obsessed it unceasingly, and that one constantly finds in his worms? The mixture of unconcern and sadness, which makes the bottom of the Li Taibo character, very frequently meets among the members of the Chinese big family. It would not be surprising that this frame of mind of the famous poet had contributed much, for its part, with the enormous vogue of its writings.

Li Taibo had carried out for several years this wandering life, when a large lord, those which he had formerly known in Tchang-ngan, managed to fix it close to him. This lord became one of the chiefs of the formidable revolt which burst during the last years of the reign of Ming-hoang, and the poet, although his panegyrists defend some, remained strongly suspected of having taken share with the conspiracy, It was imprisoned; its complicity, apparent or real, would have perhaps cost him the life, if the prestige of its name had not put it safe from any danger. The doors of its prison opened; one recalled it even to the Court, and it was prepared to go there, when death surprised it in the sixty and unième year of its age, the year of Christian era 763.

How does the favorite poet of the Chinese nation finish? The biographers are far from agreeing on this subject. The ones make it die of a rapid disease, in the house of the one of its nephews called Yang-ping, which lived Kiang-nan; they say that it was buried on the slope of a mountain, close to the town of Thang-tou. Others want that he perished victim of intoxication, this passion of which he could never cure himself: they tell that it crossed the province of Kiang-nan, by the way of the channels and the rivers, when having tried to be held upright on one on the sides of its boat, after having drunk more than of reason, it was not firm enough on its feet, fell into water and drowned. This last version appears to have inspired the legend that Mr. Th translated. Pavia and which is expressed as follows: “The moon, this night, shone as in full day; Li Taibo soupait on the river, when suddenly, within the airs, a concert of harmonious voices resounds which little by little approached the boat. It rose at once a large swirl in the middle of water: in fact whales drew up themselves, by agitating their fins; and two immortal young people, bearing at the hand of the standards to show the way, arrived opposite Li Taibo. They came, on behalf of the Master of the skies, to invite it to turn over to take its place in the higher areas. People of the crew transfer the poet to move away sitted on the back from a whale; the harmonious voices guided the procession… soon all disappeared at the same time in naked and New ones, translated from Chinese by Th. Pavia. ”

The admiration of the Chinese was until raising a temple with that which they call the Large Doctor, the Prince of the poetry, the Immortal one which liked to drink.

Of Fu, the only Li Taibo rival, looked at it itself like its Master. A famous well-read man, who commented on complete works of these two famous men, however finishes thus his appreciation of their respective merits: “One should not discuss on the question of knowing which of Li Taibo or of Fu is higher than the different one. They have each one their manner. When two eagles take their rise towards the most raised areas, and that they steal each one in a different direction, it would be impossible to say which of both rose highest. ”

A transcribed poem

Jing yè if

Chouang quian ming yué gouang

Yi chi di chang chouang

Ju toou wouang ming yué

Di toou if gou xiang

Pensées at the time one night calms

In front of my bed, moonbeams étincelants:

- Ground of a cold country? I wondered.

And raising the head I contemplate the fair moon,

And curving the head I dream with my old hearth.

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