Goddess of the Luo River, painting by Ren Xiong (d. 1857)
Source: The Poetry of Cao Zhi, Translated by Robert Joe Cutter, Edited by Paul W. Kroll, c. 2021, published by Walter de Gruyter Inc., Boston/Berlin
In the third year of the Huangchu reign period, I went to court at the capital, and on my return, I crossed the Luo River. The ancients had a saying that the name of the goddess of this river was Fu Fei.2 Inspired by the affair of the goddess that Song Yu spoke of in response to the king of Chu, I wrote this fu.3 Its words say,
From the district of the capital,
I was returning to my eastern fief.4
I put Yique behind me,
Crossed Huanyuan,
Passed through Tong Valley,
Ascended Mount Jing.5
The sun was already leaning to the west,
The carriage was in peril and the horses were tired.
So then
I halted my rig by a marsh of asarum,
Fed my team in a field of mushrooms.6
Lingering leisurely in a sunny grove
I cast a glance at the River Luo.
Thereupon,
My being was shaken and my spirit agitated,
Suddenly my thoughts were muddled,
Looking down, I yet spied nothing;
Looking up, I beheld a rare vision.
I glimpsed a beautiful woman
By the edge of a cliff.
Then I pulled my driver over and entreated of him, ''Have you seen that over there? Who is that, that she be as ravishing as this?'' The driver replied, ''I have heard the goddess of the River Luo is named Fu Fei, so it is possible that the one milord sees is she? What is her appearance like? I would like to hear of it.'' I told him, ''As to her outer form,
She is lightsome as a startled swan-goose,
As graceful as a roaming dragon;
Her lovely complexion outshines the autumn chrysanthemum,
Her radiance surpasses the springtime pine.
She is as nebulous as the moon concealed in light clouds,
Gracefully gliding, as snow spun by a flowing wind.
Gazing at her from afar,
She shines like the sun rising above the rosy mists of dawn;
Observing her close by,
She is as luminous as a lotus emerging from clear ripplets.
She fits the ideal between shapely and thin;
She matches the standard 'twixt tall and short.
Her shoulders are as though sculpted,
Her waist is like bound silk.
On her long neck and exquisite nape,
The gleaming flesh openly shows.
She does not apply fragrant oils,
She does not use ceruse powder.
Her cloud chignon is tall and upswept,
Her long eyebrows gently curve
Her cinnabar lips shine without,
Her gleaming teeth are brilliant within.
Her bright pupils are adept at sidelong glances,
Dimples caress her cheeks.
Her marvelous appearance is gorgeous and elegant,
Her demeanor is calm and her body composed.
With tender feelings and mild manner,
She charms by means of spoken words.
Her rare clothing is unique in our time,
The shape of her bone structure matches the portraits.
She is clad in the gleam and glitter of a gossamer gown,
Dangles ornate earrings of chalcedony and prase,
Wears hair ornaments of gold and kingfisher plumes,
Is studded with bright pearls to make herself sparkle.
She treads in Far Roaming patterned shoes,
Trails a light skirt of misty gauze.
Concealed by a fragrant lushness of thoroughwort,
She paces hesitatingly by a mountain nook.
Thereupon,
Suddenly she becomes less reserved,
Thereby to ramble, thereby to frolic.
On the left, she leans on a colorful yak-tail pennant,
On the right she is shaded by a cassia banner.
She extends a gleaming wrist on the divine riverbank,
Picks the dark mushrooms of the racing rapids.
I passionately rejoice in her chaste beauty,
But my heart is agitated and I am not content.
Without a good matchmaker to unite us in pleasure,
I trust to small wavelets to convey my words.
Wanting my sincere feelings to be conveyed in advance,
I remove a jade pendant to make her a pledge.
O, excellent indeed is the fair one!
She is versed in ritual and understands poetry.7
She holds out a fine gem to requite me,
Points to the sunken depths as our trysting place.
The affection I hold is heartfelt and true,
But I fear this spirit's deceiving me.
Aware of the broken promise made to Jiaofu,8
Dejected, I am hesitant and doubtful.
Adopting an agreeable expression, I calm my mind,
And deploy the strictures of propriety to contain myself.
Thereupon,
The Luo divinity is touched by this,
She moves back and forth, paces to and fro.
Her divine aura scatters and reunites,
First dark, then light.
Stretching her light body, she stands crane-like.
As though about to fly but yet soar aloft.
She treads the redolence of a pepper-scented path,
Paces a patch of asarum, spreading its aroma.
Dispirited, long she sighs with eternal yearning,
The sound, mournful and piercing, lingers long.
And then,
Thronging spirits, a teeming mass,
Call to companions, whistle to peers,
Some frolic in the clear stream,
Some soar about a sacred holm,
Some gather bright pearls,
Some collect kingfisher feathers.
She accompanies the two consorts from the southerly Xiang,
Leads the roaming nymphs from the banks of the Han by the hand.9
She sighs that Gourd lacks a mate,
Keens o'er Oxherd's living alone.10
Her light mantle fanned out, riffles in the wind;
Shaded by her long sleeve, she stands craning her neck.
Her body is as swift as a duck in flight,
Gliding quickly, godlike.
With steps as delicate as skimming upon waves
Her silk gauze stockings stir up dust.
Her movements have no fixed pattern:
Now unsettled, now at ease.
Her advances and halts are hard to foresee:
Now she leaves, now returns.
Turning her glance and casting her eyes,
Bright and lustrous her fair complexion.
She holds in her words, not yet pouring them out,
But her breath is like hidden thoroughwort.
Her lovely appearance, graceful, and delicate,
Makes me forget to eat.
Thereupon,
Pingyi stops the wind,
River Lord stills the waves,
Ping Yi sounds the drum,
And Nüwa sings melodiously.11
Striped flying fish leap to clear the way for her carriage;
Jade simurgh bells ring as all depart together.
The six dragon steeds neatly lift their heads together,
Convey her cloud carriage slowly and serenely.
Whales breach alongside her wheel hubs,
Water fowl soar and form her guard.
Thereupon,
They transcend a northern islet,
Pass a southerly ridge,
She twists her white neck,
Turns her clear brow.
Moving vermilion lips, she speaks slowly,
Laying out the essential role of intimate relations.
She regrets that the paths of humans and spirits are different,
Resents that in her prime she has no mate.
She lifts a gauze sleeve to hide her weeping;
Teardrops run streaming down her lapels.
She laments that our consummate union is forever finished,
Mourns that once we part, we shall be in different realms.
''I shall not show my love with slight affection
But offer you a bright earring from south of the Yangzi.
Although I live submerged in the Great Yin,
I forever entrust my heart to you, my prince.''
Suddenly I do not know where she has gone,
And regret that the goddess has vanished and conceals her light.
Thereupon,
Turning my back on the lowlands, I climb up high;
Though my feet advance, my spirit remains behind.
With abiding affection, I dwell on her image;
Gazing back, I am full of sorrow.
Hoping that her divine person might reappear,
I ply a skiff to go upstream.
Adrift on the long stream, I forget to return;
Thoughts unrelenting, unabating increase my yearning.
At night I am restless and do not sleep;
I arrive at dawn wet with heavy frost.
I order the driver to ready the equipage,
For I am going to return to the eastern road.
He takes up the traces and raises the whip,
But I linger in desolation and cannot leave.
FOOTNOTES:
2 Fu Fei, the deity of the Luo River, was believed by some to have been the daughter of the legendary culture hero Fu Xi (or Pao Xi), who is credited with creating the eight trigrams that form the sixty-four hexagrams of the Classic of Changes.
3 Cao Zhi is referring to the encounter between a king of Chu and the goddess of Wushan (Shaman Mountain) related in ''Fu on the Goddess,'' attributed to Song Yu, a figure of the third century BCE. Cao Zhi's piece does in places echo the language and imagery of ''Fu on the Goddess''.
4 Depending on the date of the poem, ''eastern fief'' here would mean either Juancheng or Yongqiu.
5 Yique (''Gate-towers of the Yi'') was south of Luoyang and was named for two mountains that stood like gate-towers on opposite sides of the river Yi. The Huanyuan Mountains are southeast of modern Yanshi county in He'nan province. Tong Valley, south of Luoyang, is mentioned under its other name, Da Gu in 4.20. Mount Jing also lay south of Yanshi county.
6 It is possible that this is a place name. A Mushroom Field Township (Zhitian zhen) is located forty li southwest of modern Gong xian, He'nan. ''Mushroom'' here has been taken as a reference to divine (or numinous) mushrooms (lingzhi), objects related to the quest for longevity or immortality and also employed as symbolic of virtue.
7 This might also be understood to mean that she was versed in canonical ritual texts, like the Record of Rites as well as the Classic of Poetry.
8 A parable about a man named Zheng Jiaofu says that one day he encountered two young women by the Han River. Not realizing they were river goddesses, he told his driver that he was going to ask for a pendant gem as a love token. After a brief exchange of banter, he was given a gem, which he happily tucked into his clothing, near his heart. After going just ten paces he went to look at it and found that it had disappeared, and when he looked back to see the women, they suddenly vanished.
9 The Xiang consorts of line 95 are Ehuang and Nüying, goddesses of the Xiang River who were said to be the daughters of the legendary sovereign Yao and the wives of Yao's successor Shun. The women in line 96 are the deities mentioned in the note to line 75 above.
10 The asterism Gourd (made up of five stars in the constellation Delphinus) is also mentioned with the legend of Oxherd and Weaving Maid in a contemporaneous fu by Ruan Yu. However, the tradition behind the reference to Gourd's lack of a mate was already lost by Tang times. Oxherd (Altair) and Weaving Made (Vega) were constellations separated by the Milky Way, astral lovers who could meet only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month.
11 Pingyi was a wind god. River Lord might refer to Hebo (River Earl), the god of the Yellow River, but Ping Yi is also identified with River Earl, so there is some uncertainty about these traditions, Cao Zhi has an ''Encomium on Nü Wa'', in which he speaks of her invention of the syrinx and the fact that, as is sen in representations of her, some people depicted her with a human head and serpent's body.
