All products of modernity aside, the Tang didn’t have, well, let’s count: in the Tang there wasn’t this, in the Tang there wasn’t that, uh, in the Tang there weren’t any Thinkers! In the Tang there were emperors and beautiful ladies and palaces and armies and officials, there were astrologers and the moon and the clouds and poets and minstrels and dancers, there were drunkards and hookers and revolts and stray dogs and wilderness and ice storms, there were the poor and the illiterate and national exams and nepotism... but in the Tang there were no Thinkers. How could that be? With no Thinkers, there could be jade and gold splendors; without Thinkers, everyone was worry free, especially the Emperor. Free to play. In the Tang, they played up the great Tang, poets played up their great poems (only after the middle of the dynasty did poets start to furrow their brows). There were so many poets in the Tang, it was like there hadn’t been any before the Tang! Not that in the Tang they thought that poets could take the place of Thinkers, but just that in the Tang there really weren’t any Thinkers. For anyone now who dreams of taking us back, let me just warn you: prepare your thoughts — either give us a second Tang dynasty without any Thinkers, or else give us something that isn’t the Tang.
So in the Tang there were no Thinkers, which shows in the eyes of Han Yu, who loved to rack his brains — well, Han Yu got himself all worked up. Han Yu considered himself some kind of Transmitter of the Great Moral Way, but he was envied by no one, because in the Tang they just didn’t think there was anything great in ranking as a Thinker. Let him go make his noises, let him build up his cerebral cortex, while we build up our lower bodies! But Han Yu was so serious. Han Yu supposed, perhaps there is a Creator, else how could the mountains and waters embody the majesty of their logic? Han Yu supposed, bugs being the outcome of rotten fruit, that humans must then have crawled from the rupture of Yin and Yang’s cosmic order. But hearing Han Yu spout his nonsense, no one didn’t burst out laughing. Just leave him be. Leave him be. Han Yu opposed the reception of the Buddha’s finger bone, so why shouldn’t Han Yu just leave the capital? Han Yu went to the Chaozhou riverside, where ten crocodiles mocked him and called him stupid. In his rage, Han Yu posted this warning by the river: Within seven days all you crocodiles must pack up and return to the sea, and anyone who dares disobey shall be killed without a further word! The crocodiles stuck out their tongues and dispersed in a huff, leaving Han Yu just a little bit more relaxed.
– from Thirty Historical Reflections
唐朝所没有的
除了一切现代的产物，唐朝所没有的，让我们数一数:唐朝没有这, 唐朝没有那, 嗯, 唐朝没有思想家!唐朝有皇帝有美人儿有宫殿有军队有官员，有星象学家有月亮有云彩有 诗人有歌唱家有舞蹈演员，有酒鬼有妓女有战乱有野狗有旷野有冰雪，有穷人有目不识丁 的人有国家考试有裙带关系......，但是唐朝没有思想家。— — 怎么样?没有思想家，唐朝照样金碧辉煌;没有思想家，人人省心，皇帝更省心。玩吧。 唐朝玩出大唐，诗人玩出大诗(中唐以后才有诗人眉头紧锁)。唐朝诗人出得太多，好 唐朝以前没出过诗人!唐朝人并不以为诗人可以代替思想家，但唐朝的确没出过思想家。 后代人中梦回唐朝的人，我警告你们，必须做好思想准备:要么弄出一个没有思想家的第 二唐朝，要么弄出一个不是唐朝的什么朝。
唐朝没有思想家呀，这事看在好动脑筋的韩愈眼里，韩愈就急了。韩愈就自称圣道传人， 倒也没人嫉妒他，因为唐朝人实在也没觉得占个思想家的头衔有什么好处。让他闹吧，让 他发展他的大脑吧，我们要发展我们的下半身!但韩愈是严肃的。韩愈猜想，也许有一个 造物主吧，否则山水如何才能这样恰到好处地呈现其雄伟的逻辑。韩愈猜想，瓜果坏了必 生虫，所以人，肯定是从阴阳秩序崩坏的大地中爬出来的吧。别人听到韩愈的奇谈怪论无 不一脸坏笑。让他闹吧。让他闹吧。韩愈闹到了反对迎佛骨，韩愈就该离开长安了。韩愈 走到潮州的江边，十条鳄鱼笑话他蠢。韩愈一怒之下在江边贴出告示:限你们这些鳄鱼七 天之内带上你们的家眷滚到大海里去，如有违命者，格杀勿论!鳄鱼们吐吐舌头，一哄而 散，韩愈稍显释然。
选自《鉴史三十章》
Xi Chuan 西川 (penname of Liu Jun 刘军) was born in Jiangsu in 1963 but grew up in Beijing, where he still lives. One of contemporary China’s most celebrated poets, having won the Lu Xun Prize for Literature (2001) and the Zhuang Zhongwen Prize (2003), he is also one of its most hyphenated littérateurs—teacher-essayist-translator-editor-poet, and has been described by American writer Eliot Weinberger as a “polymath, equally at home discussing the latest American poetry or Shang Dynasty numismatics.” A graduate of the English department of Beijing University, where his thesis was on Ezra Pound’s Chinese translations, he is currently professor Creative Writing at Beijing Normal University. He was recently awarded Sweden’s Cikada Prize.
Lucas Klein is a father, writer, and translator, as well as assistant professor in the School of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. His translation Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems of Xi Chuan (New Directions) won the 2013 Lucien Stryk Prize, and his scholarship and criticism has appeared in Comparative Literature Studies, LARB, Jacket, CLEAR, PMLA, and other venues. Other publications include October Dedications, his translations of the poetry of Mang Ke (Zephyr and Chinese University Press, 2018), and contributions to Li Shangyin (New York Review Books, 2018), as well as the monograph The Organization of Distance: Poetry, Translation, Chineseness (Brill, 2018). His translations of the poetry of Duo Duo, forthcoming from Yale University Press, recently won a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant.