The Poetics of Sovereignty
Page 36
the imperial hunt was not far from the truth; the Chinese imperial hunt
was more like a military operation with squadrons of armed troops than
an English-style hunting party.124 What is significant is Taizong’s insis-
tence on the public aspect of the hunt, and his sustained denial of any per-
sonal pleasure—a rhetorical move that may be said to pervade Taizong’s
poetry to the point that it becomes a kind of signature motif.
The poem goes on to describe the tactics of the hunt and the appear-
ance of the emperor’s forces. The emperor calls for his troops to form a
“three-sided battu” ( sanqu 三驅), which demonstrates his imperial virtue by allowing some of the game to escape slaughter, but perhaps more importantly, recalls the usage of the same term in Ban Gu’s rhapsody on
Chang’an and Luoyang. As with Zhou Mingdi, Taizong seeks to appro-
priate the political significance of the previous dynasties by filiating his
acts with those of past sovereigns, or with sovereigns as represented in lit-
erature. Taizong’s interest in the political genealogy is less pressing, per-
haps, than in a literary genealogy, one that holds fast to the “correct” lan-
guage of a Confucian poetics. Therefore, whereas a poem in the southern
courtly style might introduce visual color through a floral couplet, Tai-
zong cleaves to a martial aesthetic with the lines: “In cold fields the frosty
vapors are white, / On the level plain the burning fires are red.” There is
no suggestion of vitality or luxuriant growth here; rather, the poem pre-
sents a rather ominous autumn-winter scene that recalls the bleak land-
scape of the frontier.
In the closing couplet, Taizong returns to the theme first broached in
lines 3–4: “What I do is to eliminate the people’s banes; / It is not to de-
light in wood and grove.” Taizong claims that he is killing vermin for the
protection of the commoners, rather than hunting for his own pleasure. It
is the question of his private pleasure ( yue 悅) that Taizong seeks to an-
swer by claiming that he is performing a deed for the public good. After
all, the central criticism of the imperial hunt revolves around the ideologi-
cal distinction between the public and the private—that is, the use of
public land and the expenditure of public funds for the sovereign’s private
pleasure. Taizong’s defense dovetails nicely with the desolation of the
—————
124. See Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China, pp. 17–18, 177–78.
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The Writing of Imperial Poetry in Medieval China
201
frontier-like opening scene, since autumn and winter were the ritual sea-
sons for punishment and sanctioned killing.125 He returns to the conven-
tional assertion of sovereign virtue by the end, having first allowed himself
to explore, and ultimately reject, the poetic conventions of pleasure in the
hunt.
Taizong concludes this poem with a denial of what may seem to be
selfish intentions. Yet with all acts of denial, the underlying desire re-
mains discernable beneath the words; indeed, it is brought into sharper
focus by the effort of his protestations. Here we return to the matter of
apophasis, which encapsulates an essential problem of rhetoric, and of lan-
guage in general—the speaker may seek to control the meaning of the
words, but it is simply not possible to completely fix the signification of
language according to intention. There is little question that neither Tai-
zong’s denial of pleasure nor his attempt at justification is particularly
convincing, especially since they appear rather abruptly in the last couplet.
Still, in terms of rhetorical strategy, we have already seen its antecedent in
Cao Pi. The crucial difference is that, whereas Cao Pi refused the pleasure
of Daoist ecstatic experience, Taizong does not reject the imperial hunt
itself. Instead what concerns Taizong is the hunt’s interpretation; his in-
sight is that acts have meaning only within interpretive frameworks, and
that to control the interpretation of the act is to control the act itself.
Two Visits to Qingshan Palace
Like Zhou Mingdi, Taizong filiates his actions and deeds with those of
Han Gaozu, whom he viewed as the model for his own fledging dynasty.
In the following two poems, written shortly after Taizong’s accession to
the throne, one finds the familiar themes of dynasty founding, orthodox
lineage, and sagely rulership. Significantly, the two works are also poems
on the topic of returning to one’s birthplace, and the emperor’s reflec-
tions on his new august status.126 The first of the two poems reads:
—————
125. See Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China, pp. 138–46.
126. For a comparison between Gaozu and Taizong on this theme, see Ren Bantang, Tang sheng shi, p. 280.
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The Writing of Imperial Poetry in Medieval China
On Visiting Qingshan Palace at Wugong 幸武功慶善宮127
At Longlife Hill, I think upon former traces,
壽丘惟舊跡，128
The city of Feng was indeed the ancestor’s base.
酆邑乃前基。129
O, I have inherited the legacies of sages!
粵予承累聖，
As for hanging the single bow, indeed it was here.
懸孤亦在茲。130
At a young age, I met with a change in the cycle,
弱齡逢運改，
Raising my sword, I rushed to order the age.
提劍鬱匡時。
I took command: the eight wastes were settled,
指麾八荒定，131
My heart held mercy: the myriad states were pacified. 懷柔萬國夷。
Scaling the mountains, they all submit with sincerity, 梯山咸入款，
Riding the waves of the sea, they also come to us.
駕海亦來思。132
The shanyu accompanies the armory tent,
單于陪武帳，
The rizhu guards the ornamented roof beams.
日逐衛文
。133
The south-facing screen receives the Four Peaks,
端扆朝四岳，134
—————
127. Texts for this poem may be found in the following sources: Tang huiyao, 33.614; Yuefu shiji, 56.815; Quan Tang shi, 1.4; and Tang Taizong quanji jiaozhu, pp. 21–23.
128. “Longlife Hill” 壽丘 is the site of two legends that relate to the sage-kings. First, it is the supposed birthplace of the Yellow Thearch. See Huangfu Mi 皇甫謐 (215–82), Diwang shiji jicun, 1.17. Second, it is the place where Shun created “various implements” ( shi qi 什器), as recounted in Shi ji, 1.32.
129. There are two possible references for Feng 酆: (1) the capital established by King Wen of Zhou, and (2) the birth-city of Han Gaozu.
130. When a son was born, the parents would hang a bow to the left of the house’s main door. See Li ji xunzuan, 12.435. The exact phrase of xuangu 懸孤 is found in the Xin shu 新書 by Jia Yi 賈誼 (200–168 bc). See Xin shu jiaozhu, 10.391.
131. Compare this line to the following line in Shi ji, 56
.2055, spoken by Chen Ping 陳平 to the future Han Gaozu about Gaozu’s rivalry with Xiang Yu 項羽 (232-202 bc): “If you two each could truly rid yourselves of your respective shortcomings and conform to your
strengths, then the command of the world would already be settled” 誠各去其兩短，襲
其長，天下指麾則定矣.
132. The phrase lai si 來思 is found several times in the Classic of Poetry. The si is a vocative particle without specific meaning.
133. The titles shanyu and rizhu were originally used in Han times to refer to Xiongnu leaders. Here, they describe the subjugation of nomadic tribes by the Tang empire. The “armory tent” was the area in the imperial palace complex where weapons were kept. As Wilhelm and Knechtges point out, the unsuccessful contrast between the “armory tent” (martial imagery) and the “ornamented eaves” (aesthetic imagery) draws on the “Rhapsody on the Ornate Sable” 華貂賦 by Jiang Zong 江總 (519–94). See Wilhelm and Knechtges, “T’ang T’ai-tsung’s
Poetry,” pp. 11–12, n 50. For the originating line in Jiang Zong’s fu, see Yiwen leiju, 67.1185.
134. The “south-facing screen” 端扆 refers to the screen that is located behind the emperor in his audience hall. The word duan 端 here is used in the same way as the “south-facing This content downloaded from 129.174.21.5 on Sat, 20 Jul 2019 13:01:45 UTC
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The Writing of Imperial Poetry in Medieval China
203
Not acting, I assign the hundred offices.
無為任百司。
The frost season illuminates the autumn scene,
霜節明秋景，
A thin ice forms at the water’s margins.
輕冰結水湄。
Deep yellow spreads over the plains and marshes,
芸黃遍原隰，135
Ears of grain are piled up like mounds and isles.
禾穎積京坁。136
Sharing their joy, I feast upon returning home,
共樂還鄉宴，
My delight compares to “The Great Wind” poem.
歡比大風詩。137
In the sixth year of his reign, Taizong returned to visit his birthplace, the
Qingshan Palace at Wugong, and composed the poem shortly after-
wards.138 The general argument is that Taizong, like Han Gaozu, has re-
unified the empire and now celebrates what will be a long reign of peace.
Of course, the problem with this analogy is that Taizong’s father, Tang
Gaozu, was the actual founder of the Tang dynasty. A more troubling
problem is that Taizong, who was not even the crown prince, deposed his
father in a coup d’état. Nevertheless, poetry offers Taizong a space in
which he may imagine himself as other than he is—as well as a space in
which the sovereign may reinvent historical memory. In this way, the
compromised biographical truth of Taizong’s life may be displaced by a
more ideal rhetorical image.
The hermeneutical consciousness displayed in Zhou Mingdi’s poem is
present to an even more elaborate extent in Taizong’s poem. The opening
couplet of “Visiting Qingshan Palace” constructs a parallelism between
—————
door” ( duanmen 端門). The “Four Peaks” 四岳 refer here to the “lords of the Four Regions” ( sifang zhuhou 四方諸侯), a phrasing borrowed from the “Canon of Yao” chapter of the Classic of Documents. See Shang shu zhengyi, 3.14c, in Shisanjing zhushu, p. 126.
135. This line borrows from two xiaoya 小雅 poems of the Classic of Poetry: “How Splendid the Flowers” 裳裳者華 (Poem 214) and “Flowers on the Trumpet Vine” 苕之華 (Po-
em 233). Both of these poems contain the following line: “Deep has its yellow become” 芸
其黃矣. The reading of yun 芸 as “deep” follows Kong Yingda’s subcommentary, in which he writes, “yun is the appearance of intense yellow” 芸為極黃之貌, meaning that the flower has yellowed and withered, implying the end of summer. This matches the autumn scene depicted in Taizong’s poem. See Mao Shi zhengyi, 14.2.211c–12a, 15.3.232c–33b, in Shisanjing zhushu, pp. 479–80, 500–501.
136. This is an allusion to the lesser ode “Vast Fields” 甫田 (Poem 211) in the Classic of Poetry, which has the line: “The great-grandson’s grain stacks / Will be like isles, like mounds!” 曾
孫之庾，如坻如京. See Mao Shi zhengyi, 14.1.207c, in Shisanjing zhushu, p. 475.
137. This is a reference to Han Gaozu’s “The Great Wind.”
138. Hu Kexian dates this poem to 632 in his “Tang Taizong shige kaobian,” p. 64.
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The Writing of Imperial Poetry in Medieval China
Longlife Hill and Feng, both of which convey multiple allusions to the
legends and history of sovereignty in early China. The pairing of the two
sites also maintains a division of temporalities, as Longlife Hill belongs to
the legendary past of sagely antiquity and Feng to the historical past of the
two last great dynasties. Taizong then merges the two temporalities in the
next couplet, which also introduces him as lyric subject and the single end
point of the history of sovereignty. His figurative infancy—he is the most
recent sovereign to ascend the throne—becomes the scene of his own
birth, as he gestures to “here” ( zai zi 在茲), the purely deictic site where the bow was hung to announce a newborn son. In the space of the next
two couplets, the young Taizong grows up and conquers the empire. We
are given a compressed account of his early years: barely has the young
prince become aware that the dynastic cycle was passing from one house
to another then he has brought peace to the world through his martial
prowess and natural authority.
The next four lines describe the universality of Taizong’s kingship.
The submissive Hun rulers and chieftains are presented as evidence of
sagely rule of the Tang, though they also point to the violent reality that
makes sovereignty possible. As this is ostensibly a panegyric to the new
Tang peace, Taizong moves quickly from military to ritual imagery: in the
seventh couplet, he embraces ritual government, facing south and enact-
ing the wuwei ideal. Here, he is reperforming Shun, the sage-king who
ruled through moral exemplarity and who was known for this, rather than
any technological or political innovations. A more overtly aesthetic sensi-
bility is also introduced with this transition, as Taizong describes the late
autumn season’s cold and pastoral images of the completed harvest. That
the harvest scene is rendered in the language of the Classic of Poetry is not insignificant, since Taizong is overlaying the exalted language of canonical
texts onto the everyday landscapes of his empire. He concludes the poem
with his evocation of Han Gaozu’s “The Great Wind”—the rhetorical
reperformance of which (as with Zhou Mingdi) establishes Taizong’s fili-
ation to the legacy of the Han.
Yet the issue of the interwoven legendary and historical temporalities
is also important, as Taizong constantly moves between comparisons to
the sage-kings and the Han emperors. Unlike the Xianbei ruler, Taizong
wants not only to represent himself within history, but more ambitiously,
to transcend all historical comparisons. The time of sagehood is what
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The Writing of Imperial Poetry in Medieval China
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haunts Taizong, perhaps to an even greater extent than the age of the Han
rulers. Let me now turn to Taizong’s second poem on the palace at Wu-
gong, which echoes the first in many ways but also seeks to outdo it. This
poem, according to Hu Kexian, can be dated to 642, ten years after the
first poem on Wugong.139 The poem reads:
On Revisiting Wugong 重幸武功140
The Dai horse leans into the northern gusts,
代馬依朔吹，
Startled birds sorrow over their former grove.
驚禽愁昔藂。141
But how much more do I, inheriting sagely virtue?
況茲承睿德，
I think on my former life, moved deeply inside.
懷舊感深衷。
Having accumulated merit, I enjoy abundant grace,
積善忻餘慶，142
Extending martial might, I celebrate successful deeds. 暢武悅成功。
With robes hanging slack, the empire is ordered,
垂衣天下治，143
Upright, hands folded—carts and script are uniform. 端拱車書同。144
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139. See “Tang Taizong shige kaobian,” pp. 65–66.
140. For sources, see Chuxue ji, 12.331–32; Wenyuan yinghua, 170.821; Tang Taizong huangdi ji, rpt. in Tang wushi jia shiji, 3a; Quan Tang shi, 1.4; and Tang Taizong quanji jiaozhu, pp. 23–25.
141. These two lines are poetic commonplaces. An earlier example of a horse leaning into the northern wind, coupled with birds longing for their former home, may be found in the first of the “Nineteen Old Poems” 古詩十九首: “A Hu horse leans into the northern wind /
The Yue bird roosts on the southern branch” 胡馬依北風，越鳥巢南枝. See Wen xuan,
29.1343; Yutai xinyong, 1.18–19; Yiwen leiju, 29.513; and Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, p. 329.
142. This alludes to the following passage in the hexagram “Kun” 坤 of the Classic of Changes: “Households that have accumulated merit will have a surplus of felicity; households without merit will have an excess of misfortune” 積善之家，必有餘慶；不善之