巨流河 by 齊邦媛: a literary work

Knowing what I like to read, Mei-Yu and Cheng are very kind to let me borrow their book of 巨流河 written by Pang-yuan Chi (齊邦媛), the first Chinese book I ever read since I came to the States in 1971.

I am very impressed; if there were many Chinese books like this published in the last 50 years, then I don’t know how much or how many I have missed.

Throughout the book, I can see 齊邦媛 is well versed in both Chinese and English/American literature.  At the end of the chapter of the end of WWII, she uses Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain” poem beautifully; I cannot think of any better poem for this occasion: the mourning of the war (WWII), the leader (FDR’s death) and the death of her then “boyfriend”, 張大飛, a pilot in the “Flying Tiger (飛虎隊)” of General Chennault (陳納德).

The following is the excerpt from her book,

四個月之內， 羅斯福逝世， 陳納德解職， 張大飛戰死。 這一埸戰爭帶著無數人的憾恨落幕，惠特曼（啊，船長！ 我的船長） 那強而有力的詩句, 隔著太平洋呼應所有人對戦爭劰悲悼：

O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done;

啊 船長！ 我的船長！ 可怕的航程已抵達終點;

The ship has weather’d every rack,

我們的船渡過每一場風暴,

The prize we sought is won;

追求的勝利已經贏得;

The port is near. The bells I hear, the people all exulting,

港口近了， 聽啊那鐘聲， 人們歡欣鼓舞，

While follow eyes the steady keel / the vessel grim and daring;

所有的眼睛跟著我們的船平穏前進 / 它如此莊嚴和勇敢;

But O heart! heart! heart!

可是， 啊， 痛心！痛心！痛心！

O the bleeding drop of red,

啊， 鮮紅的血滴落,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

我的船長在甲板上躺下,

Fallen cold and dead

𣲙冷並且死亡。

This is no less poignant and touching than the lines of Longfellow used by FDR and Churchill.

At the end of his “Give us the tools” speech (Feb. 9, 1941, about 10 months before the Pearl Harbor attack), Churchill said (the speech ends with “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”)

“The other day, President Roosevelt gave his opponent in the late Presidential Election a letter of introduction to me, and in it he wrote out a verse, in his own handwriting, from Longfellow, which he said, applies to your people as it does to us.  Here is the verse:

. . . Sail on, O Ship of State!

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Churchill again mentioned it on his eulogy in the House of Commons when his comrade-in-arms, FDR, died.

If you understand how Lincoln perceived himself as the instrument of God to save the Union, it wouldn’t surprise you to learn that these same lines moved Lincoln to tears.