The triumphant speaker of Lǐ Bái’s “Departing from Báidì in the Morning” leaves behind these animals on each side of the river as his “swift boat passes tens of thousands of mountains.” For 10 points each:
[10m] Name these mammals whose “mournful” cries are a stock image in Classical Chinese poetry. These mammals “make sorrowful noise” in the poem “The River Merchant’s Wife.”
ANSWER: apes [accept monkeys; accept simians; accept gibbons; accept macaques; accept hóu; prompt on primates]
[10e] The “third call” of an ape moves the speaker to tears in this poet’s “Autumn Day in Kiu Prefecture.” This friend of Lǐ Bái wrote “Song of the Wagons.”
ANSWER: Dù Fú [or Tu Fu; or Dou Fu]
[10h] Like others in the Chǔ Cí (“choo tsih”), this Qū Yuán (“choo yoo-en”) poem about court exile includes the saddening image of apes. The speaker makes several spirit journeys in this poem, which inaugurated a namesake genre of irregular, morose fù.
ANSWER: “Lí Sāo” [or “Encountering Sorrow”; or “The Lament”; or “Meeting with Sorrow”; or “The Lament on Encountering Sorrows”; or “An Elegy on Encountering Sorrows”; or “The Sadness of Separation”; or “A Shaman’s Lament”; or “Confronting Grief”]
<World Literature>