THE LITTLE RAIN

by TU FU
Translated by L. Crammer-Byung

Oh, she is good, the little rain! and well

she knows our need
Who cometh in the time of spring to aid
the sun-drawn seed;
She waders with a friendly wind through
silent nights unseen,
The furrows feel her happy tears,
and lo! the land is green.
Last night cloud-shadows gloomed
the path that winds to my adobe,
And the torches of the river boats
like angry meteors glowed.
Today fresh colors break the soil, and butterflies take wing
Down broidered lawns all bright with
pearls in the garden of the King.

Analysis:
Chinese poetry is much different than its Western counterpart. Each Chinese character is a word/picture. Because the
characters have remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years, each holds an emotional charge and racial
memory. The characters cascade down the page, each painting a picture, evoking an emotion. Each character builds
on the last and acts as a foundation for the next. As you gaze upon the poem, you see the symbol for river. In the
column next to the symbol for river is a snowy egret feeding among the rushes. As you enter deeper into the
maze/poem, you hear the clatter of oxcart wheels on hard-packed dirt and smell the sweat of the animals as they
pass. You see the sorrowful faces of conscripts trudging behind the cart. The quality of the authors brushstroke
imparts a nuance of meaning that is further enhanced by the quality of ink used, and the paper itself creates a subtext
of thought. Chinese poetry is a three dimensional living thing that leaps off the page and enrobes you in its images
and textures, leaving the reader with a memory that will be built upon by future poets.

Arguably, the master of this type of writing was Tu Fu. Born to a literary family in the Hunan Province of China in
712, his familys social position assured Tu Fu a traditional Confucian education. Perhaps through intrigue, or
because of his radical views, Tu Fu failed an Imperial test in 736, which, if he had passed, would have guaranteed
him a civil service post and a life of relative security. After failing the test, he traveled throughout China and earned
a reputation as a humanistic poet well grounded in reality. It was during this time that he met his idol, the poet Li Po,
a Taoist who celebrated the virtues of love, wine, and nature. The two traveled together for a while and Tu Fu
dabbled in Taoism, but was unable to balance the world he lived in with the disassociation of Taoism, and soon
returned to the capital and Confucianism.

Tu Fu was well regarded during the 740s, even though he held no official position, had no money, and failed a
second Imperial examination. In the mid 750s he sought and attained Imperial recognition in the form of a minor
appointment, married, and acquired some land.
In 755 the An Lu-shan Rebellion, which would eventually overthrow the fading Tang dynasty, threw Tu Fus life
into turmoil. The rebels took the capital city of Changan and held him there for some time, separating him from his
pregnant wife and children.
Tu Fu escaped the rebel forces in 757, the same year Advent of Spring was written, and joined the exiled
government as a censor. Some of his suggestions to the emperor were not welcomed, possibly because he presented
them with a complete lack of tact, and he was relieved of his post. Several of Tu Fus children died of starvation
during the separation. Tu Fu was essentially homeless the rest of his life, traveling the countryside and starving a
great deal of the time. He was said to have been stranded on a sand bar during a flood, and after many days he was
saved and taken to his rescuers house to recuperate where he was recognized and honored. Legend has it that he
consumed too much food and drink and died suddenly from overindulgence.
Tu Fus work is tinged with sadness and loss, longing and outrage, but also a deep understanding and appreciation of
life despite its hardships.

The Top 20 Figures of Speech

*Alliteration
The repetition of an initial consonant sound.
*Anaphora
The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses. (Contrast
with epiphora and epistrophe.)
* Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
* Apostrophe
Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a
nonexistent character.
*Assonance
Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.
* Chiasmus
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts
reversed.
*Euphemism
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
* Hyperbole
An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.
* Irony

The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning
is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.
* Litotes
A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its
opposite.
* Metaphor
An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.
* Metonymy
A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it's closely associated;
also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.
* Onomatopoeia
The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
* Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.
* Paradox
A statement that appears to contradict itself.
* Personification
A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
*Pun
A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or
sound of different words.
*Simile
A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that
have certain qualities in common.
*Synecdoche
A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole (for example, ABCs for alphabet) or the
whole for a part ("England won the World Cup in 1966").
*Understatement
A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious
than it is.
Identify the Tone of the poem:
I think it's suppose to give off a peaceful vibe. The poet is celebrating the gentle rain which falls and revives all in the
world. This rain aids the blossoming flowers of Spring and brings beauty and hope back into the world. The night before
this gentle rain the world did not seem as cheerful and the poet is edgy as the clouds loom but the morning brings the
result of the night's rains and the Spring flowers have set.