王自亮 ▍The Armillary Sphere [浑天仪：上] ▍百科诗派英文联展

Ⅰ. A mechanism of Time

1

In the dead of night, the whole land was overgrown with memories, desires and wild plants,

which matured and metamorphosed into destinations, explorations and indulgences.

Nian Gengyao [2] stood by the corner of the rampart, remained silent for a long time, watching for a astronomical sign, but then he sighed: “It is doomed.”

Blessed or doomed, sacrifices and rewards, perils and remedies--

everything should be taken in to taken into account in the astrological sense.

“The celestial signs reveal fate.” [3] Was it a revelation or a paraphrase?

The stars and the winds, were alternately seeking for understanding and sympathy from human race,

when the most outstanding intellectuals of human(almost all of whom had distinctive appearances) were busy interpreting those signs. Lao-Tzu was born with white hair and eyebrows 

--features of a hoary man; Wei Qing, on the contrary, a man of action, was valiant, dynamic and statuesque.

Lao-Tzu unveiled the nature of phenomena with reticence, while Wei Qing, turned the tables in history at one stroke.

“The armillary sphere was shaped like an egg.” [4]Notions were father to apparatus, thus were the celestial globes [5], and then the armillary sphere invented. 

Through the observing tube, facts and representations, conjectures and verifications, always demystified themselves.

Luoxia Hong [6] identified the terminator line and the mid-night constellation in the southern hemisphere,

And Geng Shouchang was led by divine revelations to his inventions of equatorial coordinate system and absolute longitude [7],

Zhang Heng [8] improved the sphere with horizon and meridian rings, united the armillary rings of his predecessors into the equatorial armillary sphere, and added to it spring & autumn equinoxes and constellations.

It was immense power, the discourse power in economics, dominance over an under-civilized world.

Chang’an, was like a giant eagle in a birds’ eye view; Luoyang—a petal in a lotus; Bianliang—a picturesque corridor; and Lin’an—a scroll of brocade.

Time was monopolized, while the essential things became state-operated, including salt trades and blacksmiths.

2

The needle of daylight, dived deep in the grooves of the vinyl records of night--

Memories, desires and wild plants were there, in the order established by music along with counterpoints and harmony.

Massive silence, as expressive as counterpoints themselves.

Indecision lay in the flesh of men, instead of lingering on rings on your fingers some idle afternoon, or wandering in shadows of trees.

Through geological faults of time, human shapes were torn apart, where the tea cup lid of history

has been covering the sizzling reality: a drug dealer roving about in Xi’an, or a comprador double-dealing in Shanghai.

“With his impeccable research into the yin-yang dualistic-monism, Zhang Heng solved mysteries of the armillary sphere mechanism.” [9] On the globe which stands for the day-and-night cycle,

The brass-carved tray-of-dews immortal and Xu Tu [10], both holding arrows in the left hand and pointing to the dial with the right:

Water drove the rings, the great vault moved forward and the whole empire rotated with it.

The armillary sphere is a garden, a prison and a monument too,

A post-modern device, located among memories, desires and wild plants,

Time was imprisoned within it during fathomless nights.

Ⅱ. Perishing Chang’an

An ideology perishes from history the way a horse disappears into vast Samarqand.

“The sun, the moon and the stars, floated above the void, driven merely by airflow”, [11], 

unattached to any celestial objects.

Unsheltered by the vault, disconnected from the land--

The situation is both the origin of our tragedy and its probable outcome.

“Memories of this land should be engraved into all human minds.”

A cello has saturated the land with dark melodies,

For the Hangu Pass [12], Lao-tzu and his water buffalo has long become symbols of sorrow. 

Should Chang’an be reduced to an assemblage of goat soup, marinated-meat buns and Qingqu Cross-talk Society?

From eyes of the Terracotta Warriors, run down tears of captives--

These earlier conquerors have been conquered now by harsh lights and noises, smell of greasy food.

Vocality has been added to reality, when the scroll of the world unfolded itself-- a new panorama since Divina Commedia

The rancid salty smell ebbed out, when the sea wasted away,

Chang’an had shrunk during its voyage before arriving here. 

Imagine generations of emperors, facing south in the imperial court [13].

Shadows ran across the sundial like horses, while bells tinkled under the eaves. There was a curtain-shaped fringe underneath,

Shrine tablets in the Imperial Ancestral Temple were a promise to their descendents: let the plumb line draw the boundaries of the realms!

When sounds of frolics and glint of sunglasses disturb the tranquility of the site of Weiyang Palace [14],

When death and anxiety no longer multiply during nights, and candle flames no longer cover up for coughs,

When the rain makes the ruins a hallucinatory bathtub,

We just cannot resist questioning: does tomorrow really deserve us?

The bluffing statues around public places are nothing but products of the impotent, 

Recuperative powers degenerate, cavities appear in the surface of the mind, like darker maria on the moon.

Wide sleeves of Tang and Pipa sleeves [15] of Han have been stuffed so they became scarecrows,

A lonely soul clutched at winds in various directions, but only snatched hesitation and vanity.

Only when you stand on White Deer Plain [16] would cool breezes run through your lungs.

Laughter of children, shine like red persimmons high in a tree. The loess plateau [17],

tinted by the sun, leaves on the canvas of mind touches of green.

White deer will saunter into sight, then start trotting.

The cherry garden has revived a city from senescence.

Chang’an loomed up in arguments, reconciliations and smiles of children, 

resurrected and reflected along the diagonals between the old walls, Drum Tower and archery figurines,

as well as in the breaths of Qin Opera.

(To be continued)

（Translated by Yin Xiaoyuan）

Notes:

[1] Armillary sphere: a model of celestial objects, consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centered on Earth or the Sun, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features, such as the ecliptic. As such, it differs from a celestial globe, which is a smooth sphere whose principal purpose is to map the constellations. It was invented separately in ancient Greece and ancient China, with later use in the Islamic world and Medieval Europe.

[2] After Nian Gengyao’s fall from grace with Emperor Yongzheng, a counselor of his advised him to orchestrate a rebellion. Nian remained silent for a long time, watching for astronomical signs, and then sighed: “It is doomed.” He started to behave and serve Yongzheng loyally since. (Anecdotes of Qing Dynasty, Volume 1, by Qiu Kuanglu)

[3] “The celestial signs reveal fate, auspicious or ominous, and the sages interpret them by divination; the Yellow River and Luo River provide their diagrams, and the sages construe them.”(I Ching: An Interpretation, Part I, by Confucius) The Yellow River Diagram (He Tu)and Nine Halls Diagram (Luo Shu) are important parts of the legacy of the most ancient Chinese mathematical and divinatory (I Ching) traditions.

[4] “The armillary sphere was shaped like an egg, with celestial objects as round as cannon balls around. The earth is like egg yolk within, when the heavens encircle the earth like egg shell and white.”(Illustration of the Armillary Sphere, Zhang Heng)

[5] In ancient China, astronomers created Celestial Globes (Hun Xiang) to assist the observation of the stars and map the constellations. Armillary sphere was invented later in aiding calendrical computations and calculations. 

[6] During the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC – 9 AD) additional developments made by the astronomers Luoxia Hong, Xiangyu Wangren, and Geng Shouchang advanced the use of the armillary in its early stage of evolution.

[7] Absolute longitude translates the zodiac degrees into the 360° of the zodiac circle and is used in many astrological calculations. 0 Aries is taken as the start of the circle and thus becomes zero degrees in absolute longitude. 18° Taurus becomes 48 degrees in absolute longitude - the 30 degrees covered by the sign of Aries, plus the 18 degrees of Taurus. 

[8] Zhang Heng (78-139 AD): educated in the capital cities of Luoyang and Chang'an, he achieved success as an astronomer, mathematician, scientist, engineer, inventor, geographer, cartographer, artist, poet, statesman, and literary scholar. Zhang applied his extensive knowledge of mechanics and gears in several of his inventions. He invented the world's first water-powered armillary sphere to assist astronomical observation.

[9] “With his impeccable research into the yin-yang dualistic-monism, Zhang Heng solved mysteries of the armillary sphere mechanism, and succeeded in invented a new generation of it. He also wrote The Spiritual Constitution of the Universe (Ling Xian) and and Suan Wang Lun and amplified his theories in them. ”(A Biography of Zhang Heng)

[10] Xu Tu: Xu and Tu are both officials in the palace chosen, to serve the emperor.(Rites of Zhou)

[11] The sun, the moon and the stars, floated above the void, driven merely by airflow. (History of Jin: Astronomical Events)

[12] Lao-Tzu lived in Zhou for decades, and then went away(on the back of a water buffalo), seeing signs of its decline. When he went through Hangu Pass, the guard Yin Xi said to him; Since you choose to live in seclusion, write me a book before you go. Lao-Tzu wrote the later famous Tao Te Ching, which included around 5,000 characters, left it to Yin Xi, and nobody had found his whereabouts since. (Records of the Grand Historian: Biographies of Lao-Tzu and Han Fei)

[13] In feudal times, “seat of honor” was always placed in the north, facing south. “The saints sit facing south, listens to voices from within the bounds of his realm.” (I Ching: Interpretation of Hexagrams) The central axis was designed north–south in the Forbidden City, 

[14] Weiyang Palace was the main imperial palace complex of Han Dynasty and many other dynasties, located in the city of Chang'an (now Xi'an). Built in 200 BC at the request of Emperor Han Gaozu, under the supervision of his Prime Minister Xiao He, it served as the administrative centre and imperial residence of the Western Han Dynasty, as well as the Western Jin dynasty and several other regimes during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The palace survived until the Tang dynasty when it was burnt down by marauding invaders en route to Tang Chang'an. This was the largest palace ever built on Earth, covering 4.8 km² (1,200 acres), which is 6.7 times the size of the current Forbidden City, or 11 times the size of the Vatican City.

[15] The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 26.

[16] White Deer Plain: Chen Zhongshi’s magnum opus novel published in 1993, for which he won the Mao Dun Literature Prize in 1997.

[17] The Loess Plateau, also known as the Huangtu Plateau, is a 640,000 km2 plateau located around the Wei River valley and the southern half of the Ordos Loop of the Yellow River in central China. It covers almost all of the provinces of Shaanxi and Shanxi and extends into parts of Gansu, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia. It was enormously important to Chinese history, as it formed one of the early cradle of Chinese civilization and its eroded silt is responsible for the great fertility of the North China Plain, along with the repeated and massively destructive floods of the Yellow River.

一 、时间装置

1

夜晚，大地滋生着记忆、欲望与植物，

而白昼是一种抵达，冒险，放纵。

年羹尧伫立城墙一角，默然久之，夜观天象，浩然长叹曰：“事不谐矣”。

谐与不谐，祭祀与报偿，险象与拯救，

这一切，都得纳入天象之列。

“天垂象”。究竟是启示，还是阐释？

星辰与风，在交替中寻求人的理解与同情。

诠释者，人中龙凤，老子生下来须眉皆白，

长者仪态；卫青擅长行动，英气勃发，俊朗。

老子以沉默揭示物象，卫青奋然扭转局势。

“浑天如鸡子”。观念成就工具，于是有了浑象与浑仪。

透过窥管的光，事实与表象，猜想与确认，逐一澄明。

于是，洛下闳看到了昼夜分界线，夜半中星，

耿寿昌得知神灵指示，赤道坐标与黄道经度，

张衡着手制造多层运转的圆，辨析南北极，赤黄道，节气与列宿。

此后，所有的天象解释权在握，世界的主动权在握。

长安如巨大的鹰，洛阳如莲花瓣，汴梁画栋，临安织锦。

时间被垄断。重要的事物纳入官营，如盐铁。

2

白昼的唱针，深入夜的黑胶唱片——

记忆、欲望和植物，乐音建立秩序，和声，对位。

巨大的沉默，获得复调的表现力。

纠结的是人，不是午后的指环，亦非影子与树木。

在时间的断层，人被撕裂，而历史就如茶杯盖子，

捂住蒸腾的现实，毒贩子在西安，如同买办在上海。

“妙尽璇玑之正”。站在代表昼夜的铜壶之上，

金铜仙人和胥徒，左手抱箭，右手指刻；

水推动圆圈：被劫持的天空转动，帝国转动。

浑天仪，园林、监狱与纪念碑。

浑天仪，后现代时间装置，坐落在记忆、欲望与植物之间。

因狂暴而被囚禁的时间，夜未央。

二、 失传的长安

一种观念失传，如同一匹骏马消失在撒马尔罕。

说的是：天无定形，日月星辰就浮生于虚空之中，

并不附着于“天体”。

如今，我们既不被天空覆盖，又没有落在大地上，

这就是悲剧的根源，也是可能的结局。

人类，需要培育“一种对大地的记忆能力”。

大提琴，将更多的黑暗植入大地，

函谷关那边，青牛和老子建立了双重忧伤。

不能想象长安由羊杂汤、肉夹馍和青曲社构成，

那些秦俑的眼中，流出了俘虏的泪水，

强光与喧哗，油腻的气味，征服了征服者。

现实获得了歌唱性，勾勒出神曲以来的新构造，

海上咸腥味大幅减退，大海消瘦，

长安在漂移中，失去了它的长度。

想象一下那些天子们，朝向太阳光线射入的南面，

眼前是日晷和骏马，微风中屋檐与铃铛，流苏如水，

太庙神位的允诺，让铅锤的影子记录疆域的范围。

当未央宫遗址上传来嬉笑和墨镜的反光，

当夜色不再繁殖死亡与忧虑，灯焰不再覆盖干咳，

当，废墟的轮廓被雨声敲打成想象中的浴缸，

那么，下一个黎明还值得守候吗？

公共场所虚张声势的雕塑是阳痿者的作品，

复原能力的退化，导致月球般的内心荒凉。

汉唐人物宽大的衣袍里塞满稻草般的意念，

灵魂抓不到任何方向的风，只有迟疑和虚空。

唯有站在白鹿原上，可以享受一阵清凉。

远处，孩子的欢笑像红色柿子高挂，那黄土堆积台原

被阳光所涂抹，足以保持想象力的斑驳。

一群白鹿陆续走进人的视线，开始疾驰，

今日樱桃园，令古老的生机一息尚存。

长安，在城郊孩子们的争执、和解和笑声中浮现，

长安在城墙、鼓楼和跪射俑的对角线中复活，

长安藏在秦腔的魂儿里。

（待续）

（英译：殷晓媛）

作者:王自亮

ISBN:9787537853675

出版：北岳文艺出版社

责编：畅浩

出版时间：2017年11月

定价：36.8元

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