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Baring the Soul
105
In the Yellow Springs below in the dark depths,
is where all human life must end,
so why should one worry over it so?
How does one find happiness but in what delights the heart?
Yet I come and go in this joyless state with only a glimpse
of happiness.
We are summoned to the Mountain of Death inspected
at the gates,
the dead cannot send substitutes in their place,
it is we ourselves who must go.
One after another, all those in attendance toasted him with tears in their eyes. The banquet lasted until cockcrow. Then Xu told the heir apparent
Ba, “The emperor treated me with generosity, but now I have betrayed
him deeply. When I die it is only fitting that my bones be left unburied, but if I am fortunate enough to be granted a funeral, you should make it spare without extravagance.” He then hanged himself with his seal cord and died.
Then Consort Guo Zhaojun and the other woman both killed themselves.
The emperor showed extraordinary mercy and granted amnesty to the
prince’s sons, allowing them to live as commoners. He then bestowed the
posthumous title of Cruel Prince upon Prince Xu. He had held his position for sixty-four years before he was sentenced to death and his kingdom was abrogated. 37
胥既見使者還。置酒顯陽殿。召太子霸及子女董訾胡生等夜飲。使所幸
八子郭昭君家人子趙左君等鼓瑟歌舞。王自歌曰。
欲久生兮無終
長不樂兮安窮
奉天期兮不得須臾
千里馬兮駐待路
黃泉下兮幽深
人生要死
何為苦心
何用為樂心所喜
出入無悰為樂亟
蒿里召兮郭門閱
死不得取代庸
身自逝
—————
37. Ban, Han shu, juan 63, p. 2762.
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Baring the Soul
左右悉更涕泣奏酒。至雞鳴時罷。胥謂太子霸曰。上遇我厚。今負之甚。
我死。骸骨當暴。幸而得葬。薄之。無厚也。即以綬自絞死。及八子郭
昭君等二人皆自殺。天子加恩。赦王諸子皆為庶人。賜諡曰厲王。立六
十四年而誅。國除。
The sorrow expressed in the song seems genuine enough, but after
the performance is over and the audience has shed the requisite tears,
the wine continues to flow and the banquet does not break up until
dawn. The song itself, rather than an outburst on the verge of death,
becomes merely another item on the agenda of the last feast. 38 A far cry from spontaneity, a sense of rote ritual pervades the song performance, just as it does the suicide that follows it. Prince Xu’s final words to the heir apparent suggest that his song performance and
suicide are all part of a strategy of expressing contrition, whereby
the prince hopes to shape his treatment and remembrance after his
death. His strategy seems successful, as his sons are spared death and
the prince himself is granted a posthumous title.
IV
Several passages discussed above indicate that the poetry appearing
in the Han History is of questionable historical veracity. Poems seem to fall into the same camp as the dramatic dialogues frequently
employed by Sima Qian and Ban Gu: these are the historian’s
re-creation of what these people probably said (or should have said) in given circumstances. The inclusion of poetry among the putative
words of famous figures in history is perfectly compatible with Han
conceptions of biographical writing, for the biography is meant to
construct a coherent narrative of historical events along the thread
of an individual’s life, thereby highlighting, preserving, and trans-
mitting that person’s historical significance to later ages. When
strong emotion threatens to invade the coherency of that narrative,
the historian channels it through song, the natural mode of expres-
—————
38. Note the absence of the ubiquitous emotional tag phrase (“with sorrow,”
“with passion,” and the like) prior to the performance.
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Baring the Soul
107
sion for such feelings. 39 As a verbal form that “puts a state of mind into words,” a poem is able to encapsulate the emotional impact felt
by a certain person at a certain point in history, thus providing a
window into that person’s inner nature, and, by extension, into the
entire age—poetry is the interior of history, allowing the historian
to write a comprehensive biography, recording not only actions and
words of his subjects, but their thoughts and feelings as well. Be-
cause judgments of moral character are based on intention, rather
than action, a poem allows the reader to judge the quality of a
person’s character even if that person has failed to act. 40 A poem is the perfect vehicle to show that though historical figures may not
always have been able to carry out their intentions, their hearts were
in the right place.
A narrative frame around a poem creates a space in which the
variables of poetic performance (and their exploitation) can be dis-
played. Many of the individuals in these narratives are depicted as
approaching the production of poetry in a very purposeful and
self-conscious way—as though they are aware of earlier exemplars
and know that this is the way one is supposed to have a poetic outburst. The frequency with which poetic utterance is staged and
contrived in these accounts suggests that either the subjects of the
biographies or the historians (most likely a combination of both)
have been conditioned by an ideal vision of the composition of
poetry as spontaneous reaction to particular circumstances. The
historical biography provides the perfect ground on which to work
out such a vision—the particular circumstances are already at hand
in the account, and if tradition is kind enough to provide a song,
then a perfect match can be made. Of course, once a person recog-
nizes that he or she is meant to be spontaneous in a particular
—————
39. There is a remarkably consistent division of labor across all genres of poem-bearing narratives in premodern Chinese literature: narrative describes the exterior; poetry inscribes the interior. The direct depiction of an interior psycho-logical state in narrative prose is exceedingly rare; the use of free indirect discourse, in which the voice of the narrator takes on the characteristics of a character’s interior monologue, is unknown.
40. See Sima Qian’s “Grand Historian’s Self-Explication” 太史公自序 ( Shi ji, juan 130, p. 3290).
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Baring the Soul
situation, that possibility is precluded. The opportunity to strate-
gize poetic pe
rformance then creeps into these narratives, which
themselves become potent exemplars for later generations.
The
Zuo Tradition and other pre-Qin texts show quotations from
the Poems readily pressed into service to make a persuasive argument or an oblique proposition, becoming the cornerstone of rhe-
torical and diplomatic strategies. Pre-Qin texts do not seek to ex-
plain the production of the Poems in the past as much as they do to demonstrate the apt quotation of them in the present. The emphasis
during the Han dynasty shifted from quotation to production: the
“Great Preface” and the “Lesser Prefaces” reframe the Poems not as a rhetorical resource, but as the result of spontaneous and genuine
outbursts by “the people” and various figures in Zhou history.
Under this model, the suasive power of poetry stems less from
skilful deployment than from genuine feeling guaranteed by spon-
taneity. In fact, the pre-Qin practices of offering and citing the
Poems and the Han depiction of poetic production are all supported by the canonical definition found in the Documents: “poems articulate intent.” In the pre-Qin case, an extant poem is quoted to
communicate a particular intent, usually to persuade one’s inter-
locutor of a certain point of view, to bolster an argument, or to
make a proposition. In the Han case, a new poem is spontaneously produced to give verbal form to the mind’s emotional state. 41 The first case involves premeditated articulation through quotation to
achieve a certain goal; the second emphasizes spontaneous articula-
tion through production to vent one’s feelings.
What these narratives from the Han History show, however, is
that a residue of purposefulness left over from the pre-Qin use of
poetry still clings to song performance in the Han. The production
of a poem may be a spontaneous matter, but the variables of song
performance can still be controlled. It is possible to produce and use a poem for suasive effect. However, even though performance of
poetry in these Han narratives is frequently staged, the suasive effect
is usually incidental, often minimal, and in some cases, even horri-
—————
41. The “Great Preface” explicitly introduces the sentimental element with its use of the term “feelings” ( qing 情).
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Baring the Soul
109
bly counterproductive. These narratives are largely free of any ex-
pectation that a poem will actually accomplish anything—it is more
a venting mechanism than a persuasive tool. This lack of efficacy
may be explained in part by the “cult of impotence” started by Sima
Qian, which holds that noble intentions, when thwarted in the
present, will find their way into literary expression and thus be
preserved for later ages. Writing well—or, in these cases drawn from
the Han History, singing well and then having someone write about it in a book destined to be read for centuries—is the best revenge
from the standpoint of posterity.
In
the
Han History, the individual is subsumed into the larger
sweep of history by the placement of his or her biography within
the context of the larger historical work. The poem within the biog-
raphy is the product of an individual reacting to specific circum-
stances: a window into the heart of one person and thus into the
entire age that he or she inhabits. 42 This ultimately explains the lack of efficacy in these poetic performances. These protagonists are not
displaying poetic “talent” 才 for a particular end; 43 they are invariably on a political stage, and thus are inextricably “bound” 繫 to
the picture of the age being painted by the historian. Their poems
cannot be portrayed as effective because they themselves were in-
effective political agents. They were trapped by larger forces, against
which their poems rail in vain. Only with the collapse of a stable
political stage in the four centuries of disunion following the Han
dynasty was it possible to sever this bond and to portray individuals
using poetic performance for personal ends, disassociated from a
larger political picture.
The net result of these narratives in the Han History is to show the possibility of strategizing personal poetic production and performance, even if such strategies prove ineffective. The canonical
—————
42. This principle is found in the “Great Preface” in its explanation of the “Airs of the Kingdoms” 國風: “Thus, when the affairs of an entire kingdom are bound to the root of one person’s [experience], then it is called an ‘Air’ ” 是以一國之事。繫
一人之本。謂之風.
43. Western Han literary figures, Sima Xiangru 司馬相如 (179–117 b.c.e.) being the most notable, usually chose to display their poetic talent through composing long, ornate pieces of rhyming prose known as “poetic expositions” ( fu 賦).
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Baring the Soul
model cannot address this possibility, since, as an attempt to pre-
scribe the theory of poetic production, it fails to take into account
the variables of time, person, and voice that are opened up in the
reality of poetic practice. A narrative frame for a poem says the
unsayable. It shows, rather than tells, an abiding truth: no human
utterance, not even a poem, is innocent.
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Z three Y
Playing the Game
I
In broad terms, the Zuo Tradition deals with individuals as instruments of competition between states, while the Han History deals with competition between individual members of the nobility to
consolidate and maintain imperial power on behalf of their clans.
Both forms of competition are closely tied to violence or the threat
of violence. The utterance of poetry complements or results from
these violent struggles—the competent performance of poetry is not
an end in itself.
In the case of the Zuo Tradition, it is the working out of the relationships between the vying states of the Eastern Zhou that is
paramount. Performance and citation of selections from the Poems
are only one tool used by the culturally competent to establish,
maintain, and evaluate these relationships and to advise superiors on
how to manage them. The poetic performance is used diplomati-
cally to avoid violence; but when violence cannot be avoided
and states go to war, the Poems are used to strike alliances, declare aggression, and offer strategic advice. The Poems are even used
to negotiate the terms of victory and defeat after a battle has
concluded.
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Playing the Game
In
the
Han History, the struggle between states gives way to
struggle between clan-based political factions. Once Liu Bang deci-
sively def
eats Xiang Yu and establishes imperial rule—both events
marked by songs—an interminable competition for power begins
between positions occupied by the emperor, the empress and her
clan (the Lüs being the most notorious), and the enfeoffed princes of
the empire. This competition often culminates in the ruthless use of
force, and thus the outburst songs found in the Han History
are invariably occasioned by either the threat or the experience of
violence.
The Six Dynasties era (220–589 c.e.) that followed the dissolution
of the Han dynasty was marked by the violent disintegration of a
vast and long-lived empire, but was shaped even more profoundly
by the memory of that empire: a memory that certainly persisted in the ambitions of the successive ruling houses of the Wei (220–265),
Jin (265–420), and Southern Dynasties (420–589). 1 The rulers of these miniature empires were acutely aware that their influence now extended over a much smaller region than that of the once glorious
Han dynasty, the culture of which they sought to preserve and
emulate. The political stage shrank drastically, producing liberating
effects on cultural expression in general and poetic competence in
particular. Simply put: the stakes were smaller, which allowed the
individual to loom larger. States still engaged in war, and clans still
vied for imperial power, but the records of the age also tell stories of individuals competing for nothing more than elevated status in the
eyes of fellow members of the elite ruling classes. Struggle through
cultural means is portrayed as a viable, and often more effective,
alternative to physical violence.
The one compilation of records that most insistently depicts
the power of cultural competence is Topical Tales: A New Edition
世說新語, a work commissioned by the Liu Song prince, Liu
Y-qing 劉義慶 (403–444), containing an extensive commentary,
drawing upon contemporary works, by Liu Jun 劉 峻 (462–
—————
1. For an extensive study on this topic, see Holcombe, In the Shadow of the Han: Literati Thought and Society at the Beginning of the Southern Dynasties.
Words Well Put Page 17
