Ｆｅｍａｌｅ Ｐｏｅｔ ａｎｄ Ｂｕｉｌｄｉｎｇ ｏｆ Ｅｉｇｈｔ Ｏｄｅｓ

Li Qingzhao， a leading poet of the Song Dynasty， fled to Jinhua in central Zhejiang when the ethnic people from north invaded and the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) collapsed. One poem she wrote during her stay in Jinhua was about the Pavilion of Eight Odes， an ancient building even then. She comments in the poem that the grand pavilion was built to signify the poetic charm of the eight odes but it now bears witness to the sorrow and distress of a lost dynasty.

I paid a visit to the pavilion in Jinhua in the early spring this year. My purpose was to conduct a field study for a series of television documentaries on Jinhua. The pavilion is in the southeastern part of the city. Standing on the pavilion， I looked southward. The boats moved on the Wu River just as what poets of the past saw.

The pavilion was built about 1，500 years ago by Shen Yue， a historian and poet of the Qi State of the Southern Dynasty (420-589). He served as magistrate of Dongyang and wrote a poem in commemoration of the pavilion after the building project was completed. Later he wrote another seven odes in praise of the landscape and emotional associations touched off by the pavilion. Because of the eight poems， the pavilion’s original name was later dropped and the name the “Pavilion of Eight Odes” has attached.

It was destroyed and restored several times in history. In 1187， the pavilion was expanded and Shen Yue’s eight odes were carved on a stone monument. The pavilion was brought down by a disastrous fire in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and the monument was destroyed. In 1372， a pavilion was built on the site in honor of the Jade Emperor， a legendary god in Chinese Buddhism and Taoism. The pavilion soon succumbed to another destruction. In 1573， the pavilion of the eight odes was restored again. The present pavilion is a structure rebuilt in the years from 1796 to 1820 and refurbished several times since then.

The current pavilion maintains the architectural style prior to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) although some impressions of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) can be detected here and there. In a hall in the back of the compound where the storied pavilion stands and faces the Wu River is a full-length statue of Li Qingzhao.

I learned from a friend with the bureau of culture in Jinhua that Li Qingzhao stayed in Jinhua twice. Her first sojourn was brief. She was following the royal family which fled south when the capital in the north was seized by the invading army. The royal family and refugees came and left like tides. She wrote the poem about the pavilion during her second visit.

Researchers are not sure why Li came to Jinhua again and how long her second sojourn lasted. There are several theories. One theory surmises that Li Qingzhao developed a relationship with Tang Zhonghua when she came to Taizhou in the south. Tang， then the magistrate of Taizhou， was a native of Jinhua. A scholar， text researcher and publisher， Tang was a founder member of the Wuzhou School of classic learning. Some scholars today think this theory is credible. Some try to figure out if Li Qingzhao died in Jinhua， if she was buried with Tang in the same tomb， and where she went after she left Jinhua.

The second theory connects Li Qingzhao with Lu Zuqian (1137-1181)， a native of Jinhua. In the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279)， scholars gravitated to Jinhua. As a scholar and philosopher， Lu Zuqian was regarded as one of the big three scholars in southeastern China during these years. In his last years， Lu and Tang Zengyou and Chen Liang jointly held a lecture forum in Jinhua. History says that during that time about 150 scholars were engaged in the studies of similar subjects. Experts therefore conjecture that Jinhua offered a scholastic charm to Li Qingzhao.

The third theory connects the poet’s sojourn in Jinhua with her passion for alcohol. Winery Lane where Li Qingzhao lived was downtown Jinhua at that time. In the difficult years when her life was hurtled into chaos， Li Qingzhao drank heavily and sometimes she got drunk and could not find her way back to her house.

Li Qingzhao wrote many a famous poem during her stay in Jinhua. She had lost her husband in the invasion， her peaceful and comfortable life， and her hometown in the north before she finally settled down in Jinhua. No wonder many of her poems written in Jinhua focus on her personal sorrows.

Today， the lonely poet is gone. The Pavilion of Eight Odes still stands in Jinhua， connecting her poems with history.#8194;□