Asking of Heaven, a lament composed during the Taiping rebellion?

This song laments a dark and bloody time during which the government was ineffective, the troops unfed, bandits proliferated, and neither the gods nor the buddhas would respond to calls for help.

It echoes the same themes as the Lament on the State of the Times, and while neither song mentions anything concrete that relates to a specific time period, there are a number of hints that suggest (to me, anyway) that this refers to the Taiping rebellion, one of the bloodiest civil wars in history. For example:

• There is a clear feeling of betrayed religious faith the poem, daring to ask Heaven to explain itself, complaining that the gods are useless and the buddhas don’t care. It seems this could reflect the poet’s emotional response to the military successes of the alien religion of the Taiping rebellion.
• This lament begs Heaven to “let the proper places of father and mother be in true balance,” which seems like it could be a response to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom’s declaration that the sexes were equal.
• This lament asks “Where are goods and property now?” This seems like it could be a response to the Taiping abolition of private property.

	abka de fonjire ucun [問天歌]		A Song Asking of Heaven
	Staatsbibliothek 4.4 (View Online)
	abkai gūnin be dacilara.		I  will inquire of Heaven’s mind,
	ai turgun be muten ala.		empower me by telling me the reason.
	banjirede amuran.		The love of life
	abka na-i giyan giyangga,		is the proper order of Heaven and Earth.
5	tumen jaka serengge,		The myriad things
	abka na-i juse dasu,		are the children of Heaven and Earth.
	abka na oci		Heaven and Earth are
	tumen jaka-i ama aja,		the mother and father of the myriad things,
	geren ergengge-i wesihungge,		they raised up the many living beings,
	niyalmai teile dabala,		not only us human beings,
10	urunderahū seme,		but they fear that we should become hungry,
	tuttu banjiha jeku bele fulu,		so there are grains and food in plenty,
	beyeburahū seme,		and fear that we might freeze,
	tuttu mutuha kubun kima niša,		so there are cotton and hemp in profusion,
	eture hacin,		and things to wear:
15	jodon hiyaban cece ceri		garments of grass, hemp, gauze, netting,
	boso suje-i adu,		cloth and silk.
	jetere jaka		and things to eat:
	handu šušu turi		rice, sorghum, beans,
	maise ira mere-i buda,		wheat, millet and buckwheat.
	fusu fasa tugi aga,		Clouds and rain rush by,
	kete kata šun biya,		the sun and moon roll on,
20	šahūrun halhūn-i ujire,		nurturing us through cold and heat,
	edun akjan-i hūwašara,		raising us through wind and thunder.
	aikan faikan jilaka,		They adored us as adorable things,
	uttu tuttu gosiha,		this way and that way they loved us.
	te oci ajaja,		But now, oh,
25	ai uttu gūwaliyaka,		how things have changed.
	mujakū oshon,		Truly cruel,
	umesi kiriba,		very barbaric.
	ehengge,		Evil
	kesingge,		is treated as a blessing,
30	saingge,		Good
	suingga,		is treated as harmful.
	hūlha holo yendengge,		Robbers and thieves are on the rise,
	nomhon sain susaka,		honesty and goodness perish.
	boigon hethe te aibi,		Where are goods and property now?
35	beye ergen bai waliya,		Cast away our bodies and lives,
	usin yafan šuwe akū.		the fields and gardens are utterly gone.
	menggun jiha ne aba,		Where are silver and cash now?
	haha hehe,		Men and women,
	asiha sakda,		children and the elderly,
40	fifaka fosoko,		are scattered hither and thither,
	jailaha ukaka,		they have hidden and they have fled.
	senggi eyepi,		Blood has flowed
	giran iktaka,		and corpses piled up.
	tumen boo-i ehe [凶] so [兆],		Evil omens on ten thousand households,
45	tanggū ba-i wahūn wa,		a foul stench for a hundred miles,
	geren irgen ai weile,		but what crime did the people commit?
	sui akū de sui mangga,		It is an injustice on those who did no harm.
	jiyanggiyūn amban coohai dade,		Among the generals, officials and soldiers,
	arga bodon eden tongga,		plans and calculations are poor and few.
50	coohai baitalan,		Implements of war
	dembei ambula,		are great in number,
	namun funtuhun,		but the storehouses are empty,
	caliyan wajiha,		and the provisions are finished.
	tule edede,		Freezing on the outside,
55	dolo gosime,		hungry on the inside,
	dain de tuhekei,		they are falling in battle,
	jeyen de wabuhai,		they are being slain by the blade,
	dube ai, wajin ya		and what is the end of it? What is the finish of it?
	enduri baitakū,		The gods are no use.
60	fucihi wei guwanta,		The buddhas don’t care.
	ba bade gelecuke,		Every region is frightened,
	boo tome akacuka,		each home is full of grief.
	genggiyen ejen ai baliya,		Oh enlightened lord! Alas!
	abka ya,		Oh Heaven!
65	abka ya,		Oh Heaven!
	dutu doko ai waka,		Who could blame the deaf and blind?
	šan waliya,		Discard your ears.
	yasa de,		How can your eyes
	uttungge ai jempi,		tolerate this kind of thing?
70	uttungge ai tusa,		What benefit is there to this kind of thing?
	g'alab ton okini,		Let the end of the world come!
	šar sere gūnin ainara,		What would a sympathetic mind do?
	jobolon be aitubu,		Revive sorrow,
	jobocun be sucina,		and redeem grief.
75	gashan be wasifi,		Descend upon the calamity,
	hūlha sabe hūdun wa,		quickly kill the bandits,
	taifin de forgošo,		restore the peace,
	necin de dahūna,		and return tranquility.
	ama emei teisu giyan,		Let the proper places of father and mother
80	teherere mujangga,		be in true balance.
	uttu akū ohode,		Since it has not been thus,
	turgun gūnin yamaka,		there must be some reason for it.
	gisun wacihiya,		Complete my words,
	jorin hafukiya,		inform me in detail.
85	aide uttu babe,		How can it be like this?
	getuken-i alara.		Clearly tell.

Translation Notes

dutu doko ai waka. From context it is clear that doko is the same as dogo, “blind.”

g'alab ton okini. A similar line appeared in the Lament on the State of the Times, where the poet said g'alab ton esi giyan, and Jakdan used similar expressions a couple of times. I think the idea is that times have become so bad that the poet calls for the end of the kalpa and the dissolution of the world.

enduri baitakū, fucihi wei guwanta. Alternately, it seems like this might read “no one resorts to the gods, no one cares about the Buddhas.” Jakdan has a very similar couplet in his Ballad in a Drunken Ramble, where he says enduri wei guwanta, fucihi bai bodon.

Poetic departures

Manchu grammar is usually fairly structured and predictable. In poetry, many departures from the usual rules appear to be permissible.

In my last post I translated an anonymous Lament on the State of the Times, and here I want to look at two of the cases of poetic usage I had to deal with.

Missing genitive marker

It is not normally permissible to drop the genitive marker in Manchu, except under specific circumstances. In Old Manchu, for example, it was permissible to drop the genitive marker -i after words ending in -i, but not in other cases.

In the Lament, there are at least three clear cases where the genitive appears to have been dropped after a word ending in -n, and some other cases that could be read that way. This was probably metrically motivated, since the genitive marker would have added an extra syllable after a word ending in -n.

The clearest cases are the following phrases:

taifin fon, "season of peace", for taifin-i fon
irgen ergen, "the spirit of the people", for irgen-i ergen

irgen banin, "the state of the people", for irgen-i banin

Wistful ya

The word ya can be found in ordinary literary Manchu, where it has the meaning of “which? what?”. However, this reading is often awkward in poetry, where the word ya occurs much more frequently.

The Lament uses it twice, and based on this usage I am inclined to understand it as a wistful or despondent exclamation.

1) dasarangge weke ya

Norman defines weke as “hey you! (word used for calling people whose name is unknown or forgotten)”. Presumably this is somehow related to the word we, “who?”. I suppose we could read dasarangge weke as “Hey you, repairer!” But then what do we do with the ya?

The line occurs in a context describing how the country is in disorder, and the feeling of the poem suggests that the speaker longs for a repairer who is not there. A despondent exclamation would fit the feeling of this line.

2) mergen jiyanggiyūn ya waci

The heart of this phrase is mergen jiyanggiyūn waci, “if the heroes and generals kill’, but normally that expression cannot stand on its own in Manchu because the conditional -ci is a converb, not a finite form.

I think the poet is using ellipsis here, and leaving the remainder of the phrase unspoken. “If the heroes and generals would kill [them, then we wouldn't have so much trouble].” We do the same thing in English when we say “If only the heroes and generals would kill them!” I think the ya in this phrase serves a similar adverbial function to the “only” in the English phrase, expressing a wish that the proposition of the sentence were true.

A lament on the state of the times

This is an anonymous poem included in Staatsbibliothek 34981 Fascicle 4. The title, Doo cing cy ninggun meyen (道情詞), seems like it might be an allusion to another work, but the only other Dao qing ci that I have found is a reference in chapter 44 of 西遊記:

手敲著漁鼓，口唱著道情詞，近城門，迎著兩個道士

Hand striking the bamboo fish, mouth singing the Dao qing ci, he entered the city gates and met the two Daoist priests. 

From context, it looks like the original may have been a Daoist hymn, but the Manchu poem is clearly a different creation, being a mournful lament on the affairs of the day (erin-i baita de nasarangge).

The poem consists of six stanzas of three quatrains each. The metrical scheme of each stanza is 3/3/3/3 7/7/7/7 3/4/3/4, and the rhyme scheme is AAxA AxAA xxxA. The only inconsistency in this scheme is that the last line of the fifth stanza (ai mohon) should be the first line of the sixth stanza in terms of meter, but belongs with the fifth stanza in terms of rhyme.

I
agu tuwa,	Look, brother
ainara,	what should we do?
ededei,	(shivers)
faijuma,	This is serious.
jobocuka ambula,	Very worrisome,
gurun forgon icakū,	the nation and the times are tense,
niyalmai gūnin gūwaliyaka,	the people's minds have changed.
dasarangge weke ya?	Who can fix it?
ai teišun,	Whatever bronze
jiha eden,	and cash is gone.
on kafi,	When you go on an errand
bele aba?	where is the rice?
II
agu suwe,	Brothers, you
jai bodo,	reckon again.
facuhūn,	Where does
ai dube,	the trouble end?
jalan baita ehe,	Worldly affairs are wicked,
menggun seci ekiyehun,	and the silver? Gone.
caliyan dembei oyonggo,	Provisions are important!
aini cooha ujire,	How can we maintain the army?
yadahūn	Poor
gurun ejen,	are the rulers and nations.
etenggi,	Powerful
hūlha holo,	the robbers and thieves.
III
agu si,	Brother, you
gūniki,	think!
taifin fon,	When has there been
atanggi,	a season of peace?
yala yala akambi,	So we grieve on.
irgen ergen gukuhei,	The vitality of the people is extinguished,
hūlhai songko jalupi,	the tracks of the bandits proliferate.
mergen jiyangjiyūn ya waci,	If only the heroes and generals would kill them.
oyonggo	We value
menggun jiha,	silver and cash,
weihuken,	and count for little
ejen kesi.	the grace of our rulers.
IV
ai agu,	Oh, brother,
gelesu,	timid
ambasa	officials
baitakū,	are useless.
yasa tuwahai hūi uttu,	Look now with your eyes,
gurun baitalan eden,	the government is empty of useful people,
booi baitalan fulu,	households are full of useful people,
tucibure jai akū,	no one is appointed anymore.
yamaka	Apparently
gūnin tondo,	correct thinking
biretei	is exclusively
beyei cisu.	for personal benefit.
V
g'alab ton,	The reckoning of ages
esi giyan,	of course is proper,
ergengge	and living things
jilakan,	are pitiful.
gūnihakū jobolon,	Mindless suffering.
cooha ai uttu niyere,	Why is the army weak like this?
bata ai tuttu kiyangkiyan,	Why are the enemies powerful like that?
jiyangiyūn data ai bodon?	What plan do the generals and leaders have?
bi jeke,	I have eaten.
caliyan fulun bi waliya,	Let me abandon provisions and salary.
golo hoton,	The district and town,
ai mohon.	such depletion.
VI
akacun,	Sorrow.
ai jempi	How can one bear
mujilen	these thoughts?
wei ondoho facuhūn,	Foolishness brings disaster,
irgen banin kokima,	the state of the people is poor,
gurun ulin ekiyehun,	the coffers of the state are empty,
yala jobocuka ten.	so suffering is extreme.
ban akū,	Without troops
coohai jiyangiyūn,	are the army generals,
sui akū,	without guilt
niyalmai ergen.	the people's spirits.