you are an ancient chinese poet at the neo-orchid pavilion

Like any good poet, I’m on my way to fail an imperial exam. Since there’s so many ways to fail, in essence it acts as a personality test: which failure will you become? To determine, you select an opening image, align perhaps with one of four pitched philosophies, then align perhaps with one of two pitched politicies. Probably there’s some condensing method, the 23 offered endings don’t totally itemize the factorials.

Wandering the imperial gardens to formulate a poem grants more domain for inspiration than for Cao Zhi, as any ambition ought to be tested to an elusive qualia. To the game’s credit, the poems you can craft from the compilations genuinely resound in the mood: “Loose on stormy waves, dancers tread on air, / Mountain peaks standing tall, above human desires, / As pure as the constant moon, / Grief for the past drowned by joy of the future” has an infinity within it, should you grant it some fraction of that consideration. Why not let’s indulge another, surely the treasury affords its like: “Caged by circumstance, twisted shapes flourish, / Swimming fishes surge to meet the sporting waves, / Sudden winds scattering clouds, parting for truth, / Fresh kinds of grief may yet bring the same sadness.”

In the combinatoric condensery of poetry can we calibrate the multitude to meter, alas as always the incitidents prove more prosaic. The philosophies presented are sometimes silly. When this merely means we’re not arguing points of Confucian but some binary more imaginative, the silliness almost seems intentional. Shall we pluck the plum? “You would simply lie there underneath the plum, and hope that it dropped into your mouth. You should want and desire nothing, only receiving what nature has given you. In society, that means a strict order of things, listening to your elders, following the laws of the community as decided together, rejecting freedom in order to live.” We must imagine Tantalus happy. Sadly, sometimes we drop the pretense of elegance, and so the consequence clatters: ““Exactly!” the man in blue claps. “Our focus on the human body, the body parts we each find beautiful, to the point where we immortalize them in transcendent words of poetry.” / “Why not just write about that without having to concoct such elaborate schemes and performances?” / “The scene is what makes the poem. The excitement of spying from afar, the pain of unrequited love, all simulated in a form that hurts nobody!” / You raise an eyebrow. This seems perfectly fine on the surface, but… / “Is this some kind of fetish?” you ask.” It’s hard to imagine that last sentence punctuated by other than a literal clunk. At least within the silliness we sometimes source a joke, as per the plum previously: “a few people actually begin to grind ink to write down a poem in honour of the plum, using their tears to wet their inkstones.”

One assumes some fatemaker might martial forth the jade seal pleasing the Emperor with whatever our heavens may mandate, but in the absence of his satisfaction our various endings also languish. The general wins, and this is sort of bad, or the princess wins, and this is sort of bad, or nothing really happens, but someday this will be sort of bad. Stuck in this loop, we yet pleasure in the riches votive to our vocation: “Each day passes much like the other, as you read and idly write poetry to fill the hours that yawn before you.”