her status as a wife, insults Pei Yan (her most powerful critic), and
subordinates her husband to her. This is no longer a world in which
a concerned official uses poetry to gently admonish a wayward ruler
for the good of the realm; this is a cynical attempt by a politically
savvy performer to advance his or her position at court by currying
favor with the de facto ruler. The poem does not rely on indirect
language but goes out of its way to directly insult. Any protection
afforded the performer stems not from patterned language but from
the audience’s approval, which is embodied in Empress Wei’s smug
expression and her material reward. To reward the performer with a
bolt of silk is not only to clearly affirm the poem’s sentiments, but is in itself a minor usurpation of the emperor’s power, for it is he who
should properly bestow such rewards. The narrative is obviously
meant as an implicit critique of Emperor Zhongzong’s weakness in
the face of his wife, but in making this critique it must acknowledge
that the production of poetic discourse can and does result from the
most cynical of motivations.
In these anecdotes, one finds an express acknowledgment that
any protection or advantage afforded by a poem is contingent upon
the appreciation of an authority figure with enough power to pro-
vide that protection. One can only use a poem to admonish or insult
a figure of authority with impunity when another figure of even
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Placing the Poem
215
higher authority appreciates that poem. If there is no such figure,
and if the target of one’s poem does not appreciate it, then no
amount of “patterned language” will afford protection. It is the
outward manifestation of appreciation in these last three anec-
dotes—the smile of Emperor Taizong, the laughter of Empress Wu,
the gift of Empress Wei—that shields one from harm. But what is
being appreciated in these cases? It is the “talent” or “wit” ( cai 才) of the poet, as demonstrated not only in the poem itself but also in the
competence with which the poet handles the circumstances of po-
etic production and reception. Despite Meng Qi’s traditional ref-
erence in his preface to the Mao prefaces of the Poems, in the world depicted by the narratives of Storied Poems, cai 才 has replaced wen 文 as the characteristic of poetry that determines its efficacy. Here it
is no longer the words themselves that hold power; rather, it is how
one handles the words that is of prime importance.
Storied
Poems
also contains anecdotes set in the Early Tang court
in which poetry serves to appeal, rather than attack—where one is
not criticizing a figure of authority so much as complaining about
circumstances that might be rectified by those in power. Both
models of poetic performance—the criticism and the complaint—are
at the core of ancient models of poetic production. Once again,
however, the efficacy promised by ancient models is undermined by
practice as it is depicted in these narratives.
In addition to being incompetent in comprehending poetry,
Empress Wu is also portrayed as being unable (or unwilling) to
appreciate a man’s character as it is expressed through his poetry.
Song Zhiwen [ca . 656–712], the vice director of the Bureau of Evaluations, sought the position of academician of the North Gate in the court
of Empress Wu Zetian. 17 He was not granted his wish, so he composed a piece entitled “The Milky Way” to manifest his feelings. The closing lines read:
—————
17. Academicians of the North Gate were responsible for drafting imperial pronouncements and composing literary works under imperial sponsorship. They were the precursors to scholars of the Hanlin Academy.
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Placing the Poem
I may gaze at the Milky Way but dare not draw near,
I long for a raft upon which to ride and ask of the ford. 18
I would take the Weaving Girl’s loom stone,
And return to visit the soothsayer of Chengdu. 19
When Empress Wu Zetian saw his poem, she said to Cui Rong [651–
705], “It is not that I am unaware of Zhiwen’s literary talents; it is just that he has bad breath.” In fact, Zhiwen did suffer from a dental malady and
often had bad breath as a result. He felt humiliated by this until the end of his days. (4.1)
宋考功天后朝求為北門學士。不許。作明河篇以見其意。末云。
明河可望不敢親
願得乘槎一問津
更將織女支機石
還訪成都賣卜人
則天見其詩。謂崔融曰。吾非不知之問有才調。但以其有口過。蓋以之
問患齒疾。口常臭故也。之問終身慚憤。
—————
18. The Account of Wide-Ranging Matters 博物志 ( juan 10), by Zhang Hua 張華
(232–300), contains the story of a man who noticed in the ocean a raft that would float by during the eighth month of every year. One year, he got onto the raft and rode it for more than ten days before arriving at a magical place where he met a weaving girl and herd boy. He asked them where he was, but the weaving girl replied that he must go to Shu and inquire of the soothsayer Yan Junping 嚴君平.
When he returned, the soothsayer informed him that a wandering star had traveled between the Weaving Girl and Herd Boy stars at the very time that he was on the raft. The Huainan zi 淮南子 tells us that these two stars are lovers, destined to be apart except for the seventh night of the seventh month 七夕 of every year, when a bridge of magpies allows them to cross the Milky Way to each other. The phrase
“ask of the ford” is usually associated with an entry in the Analects 論語 (18.6) that tells of Confucius sending one of his disciples to ask directions of two recluses plowing a field. They reply that Confucius should know the way himself and that it is better to shun the world altogether than to lead the peripatetic life of Confucius.
Confucius rejects this idea and says that he would rather associate with people and search for the Way in government.
19. The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign Period 太平御覽 ( j . 8), completed in 982, recounts the journey of a man in search of the source of the Yellow River 黃河 (believed to be the earthly counterpart to the Milky Way 天河). He came upon a maiden washing silk, who informed him that he had reached the Milky Way and gave him a stone to take back with him. When he returned and made inquiries of Yan Junping, the soothsayer of Chengdu, he found out that it was the stone used to support the loom of the Weaving Girl.
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Placing the Poem
217
The incongruous juxtaposition of Song’s elegant use of a time-
honored and highly allusive form of protest with the empress’s crass
reply highlights the debasement of an ideal model of poetic appre-
ciation. Granted, the entire anecdote was likely fabricated to cast
Empress Wu in a bad light, but the narrative insists upon its au-
thenticity by noting, “In fact, Zhiwen did suffer from a dental
malady and often had bad breath as a result.” The qi, or “spirit,” of Song’s poem is tainted by the malodorous quality of his bodily qi, or
“breath.” A poem, no matter how exquisitely patterned, will lose its
suasive power if the author’s chanting of it physically repulses the
audience. The term Empress Wu uses for “bad breath” ( kou guo)
literally means “a defect of the mouth,” and while such a defect does
not necessarily mean a defect in character or skill (the empress does
acknowledge his “literary talents”), it does compromise any verbal
manifestation of character or skill, and this is enough to disqualify
Song Zhiwen from service in an academy of letters. This is no
longer the world of the Zuo Tradition or Topical Tales, in which the narratives about poetic performance prove the efficacy of verbal
facility. It is not the world of the Han History, where passionate poetic outbursts leave a noble posterity. This is a world with a
cynical (some might say more realistic) outlook, where well-formed
protests fall on deaf ears and merit is denied because of poor dental
hygiene. In the Zuo Tradition, obtuseness in the royal listener was invariably punished. Song Zhiwen receives no such vindication, and
“felt humiliated by this until the end of his days.”
Another entry set during Emperor Zhongzong’s second reign,
when he regained the throne after Empress Wu’s death, comprises
two examples of poetic protest at court. The first part is about Shen
Quanqi 沈佺期 (ca. 656–713).
Shen Quanqi, who had been exiled for an offence, was returned to his post by the grace of the emperor, but did not have his crimson robes restored to him. Once, at a court banquet, the assembled officials were all singing
to the melody “Swirling Waves,” composing lyrics to it and rising to dance to it—many of them sought to advance themselves in this way. Quanqi’s
lyric read:
From the swirling waves, I, Quanqi,
Returned alive from my exile beyond the Ling mountains.
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Placing the Poem
My person and name have been granted employment,
But my gown and tablet are no longer crimson and ivory.
Emperor Zhongzong bestowed crimson robes and an insignia pouch upon
him forthwith. (7.6a)
沈佺期曾以罪謫。遇恩官還秩。朱紱未復。嘗內晏。群臣皆歌回波樂。
撰詞起舞。因是多求遷擢。佺期詞曰。
回波爾時佺期
流向嶺外生歸
身名已蒙齒錄
袍笏未復牙緋
中宗即以緋魚賜之。
The substitution of verbal facility instead of virtuous action as the
main criterion for judging the worthiness of a man, especially via
the imperial examinations, was regularly decried but never remedied
throughout the Tang. 20 In this case, Shen Quanqi’s request seems somewhat petty and self-interested when compared with the lofty
concerns of state that are the topic of poetry in canonical works
such as the Zuo Tradition or with the outbursts occasioned by suffering and sorrow in the Han History. The representation of Shen’s complaint in the form of a poem resulting in the emperor’s immediate rectification of his grievance exemplifies the maxim found in
the “Great Preface”: “When patterned language is paramount in
making a veiled admonishment, then he who speaks it is without
culpability and he who hears it will take sufficient warning.” The
exemplification is an unsatisfying one, however. The moral seri-
ousness attached to the theory of poetic protest articulated in the
“Great Preface” is debased in this instance of practice by the petti-
ness of Shen’s protest and the mediocrity of his poem.
The entry’s initial scenario is repeated in its second part, with
some significant variations.
Cui Riyong, who was vice censor-in-chief, had been granted permission to wear purple. At that time, it was necessary to enjoy exceptional imperial
—————
20. For copious documentation of this phenomenon, see McMullen, State and Scholars.
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Placing the Poem
219
favor in order to wear an insignia pouch. At a court banquet, Zhongzong
commanded the assembled officials to compose lyrics. Riyong’s lyric read: The rats within the palace should know it well,
Trusting their feet to leap from beams up to niches
in the wall.
They upset the lamp oil, soiling Zhang the Fifth,
Returning, they repay Han the Third by gnawing
through his sash.
Let us not speak rashly here,
But they are fit to be princes or ministers.
If every one must be granted a golden insignia pouch,
Then just sell the cat to reward them.
Zhongzong bestowed a golden insignia pouch upon him. (7.6b)
崔日用為御史中丞。賜紫。是時。佩魚須有特恩。內宴。中宗命群臣撰
詞。曰。
臺中鼠子直須諳
信足跳梁上壁龕
倚翻燈暗污張五
還來齧帶報韓三
莫浪語
直王相
大家必若賜金龜
賣卻貓兒相報上
中宗亦以金魚賜之。
The narrative, in stating that at the time “it was necessary to enjoy
exceptional imperial favor in order to wear an insignia pouch,” es-
tablishes the stakes of poetic production in this anecdote. Cui’s re-
action to these conditions is paradoxical: he uses a poem to chastise
the emperor for setting so trivial a task as improvising a poem to
win imperial favor. The emperor then rewards him with a golden
insignia pouch for engaging in the very activity that he has con-
demned. His remonstrance is framed in appropriately indirect
language, figuring slanderous officials as rats in the palace and the
emperor as the cat who keeps them in line. One may view this poem
as a sly and subversive use by Cui of a protected form of discourse to
reflexively criticize the practice of using this form of discourse as a
criterion for judging merit in officials. If everyone—even a “rat”—is
to receive imperial favor for poetic skill, then Cui attempts to pre-
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Placing the Poem
serve some measure of his scruples by making his contribution a
condemnation of the whole process. In making the protest directly
to the emperor, Cui is demonstrating the very quality of character
that actually does deserve reward. His poem—with regard to itself
and to the golden insignia pouch—is an attempt to restore value to
that which is in danger of becoming mere empty utterance. The
dangerous paradox that results is that in pointing out the debase-
ment of poetic discourse, he threatens the cogency of the very me-
dium through which he expresses his argument. It is only recuper-
ated by his instance of practicing it under a particular
set of
circumstances before a particular audience.
In these narratives, the reigns of Empress Wu and her son Em-
peror Zhongzong are depicted as problematic for the proper op-
eration of poetic discourse. The empress does not appreciate poetry
as she should, and the emperor is too facile both in calling for it and
in responding to it. These characteristics correspond with historical
evaluations of the empress (as a woman who flouted proper rules of
succession to arrogate power) and the emperor (as a weak man who
fell under the undue influence of his mother). How a ruler handles
poetic discourse becomes an index of the quality of his or her rule.
When poetry becomes the vehicle of crude jokes at court, when its
serious expression is denied, when its frivolous expression is re-
warded—these are the symptoms of a court that has let the morally
suasive power of poetry slip its grasp.
The court of Emperor Xuanzong 玄宗 (r. 712–756) provides a
clear counterpoint to the reigns of Wu Zetian and Zhongzong. It
should come as no surprise that in this golden era, poetry operates
just as it should.
During the Kaiyuan era there was a general of the guards in Youzhou by
the name of Zhang. 21 His wife was from the Kong clan and had given him five children when, unfortunately, she passed away. He took another
wife, a woman from the Li clan, who had a fierce temper and was brutally violent. She treated the five children cruelly, flogging them every day. The children could not bear their suffering; so they went to lament before their
—————
21. Youzhou is modern-day Beijing.
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Placing the Poem
221
mother’s grave. 22 The mother suddenly rose up from her tomb to soothe her children. She grieved for a time then wrote out a poem on her white
calico scarf to be given to Zhang. It read:
I cannot bear becoming a deceased wife, 23
I hide my face and weep endlessly into my scarf.
Now that we are separated in life and death,
There will never be a way to see each other again.
Words Well Put Page 33
