The Poetics of Sovereignty
Page 65
ion to enjoy the night air. The scene that he proceeds to describe is one
replete with the kind of literary ornamentation and idle pleasures associ-
ated with the palace-style. Even when Taizong mentions the pleasure of
reading, he does so in an utterly nonserious manner: “Pulling up the
screen we toy with zither and books.” Moreover, unlike in the previous
poem, Taizong does not even offer a justification of his leisure in the clos-
ing lines, ending instead with what Stephen Owen notes is an echo of
Chen Houzhu.114 When Taizong writes, “A clear wind shakes the jade
trees,” we find an allusion to Chen Houzhu’s song, “Jade Trees, Flowers
in the Rear Courtyard.” To end with such an allusion suggests that Tai-
zong has become enrapt in the seduction of poetry, that in fact Taizong
has been “led astray” ( mi 迷).
Though Taizong frames the poem-cycle with a discussion of moral se-
riousness in poetry, we see that the progress through the palace environs
has led to the kind of rhetorical pleasures he had previously condemned in
theory, yet found himself unable to escape in poetry. This problematic
course reaches its apogee in the next two poems:
—————
111. Bi 碧 refers to “Bihe” 碧河, or “Jade River,” which is another name for the Milky Way.
112. The phrase qingsu 輕素 refers to the moonlight.
113. The line “A clear wind shakes the jade trees” is an allusion to the (in)famous poem composed by Chen Houzhu. This is discussed in Chapter 4.
114. See Owen, “Difficulty of Pleasure,” p. 18.
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On “The Imperial Capital Poems”
371
Poem Eight
Such happiness and joy is hard to find again,
歡樂難再逢，
The fragrant morning truly is worth regret.
芳辰良可惜。
Jade wine spills over cloud-patterned jars,
玉酒泛雲罍，
Aromatic dishes are spread on woven-silk mats.
蘭殽陳綺席。
The thousand flagons accord with Yao and Yu,
千鍾合堯禹，
The hundred beasts move with the bells and chimes. 百獸諧玉石。115
Reaching my aims, I begrudge every second of time, 得志重寸陰，
Forgetting cares, I look lightly on a foot of jade.
忘懷輕尺碧。116
Poem Nine
In Jianzhang Palace we enjoy the evening,
建章歡賞夕，117
Two rows of eights, all utterly bewitching.
二八盡妖妍。118
Gauzes and silks from Zhaoyang Palace,
羅綺昭陽殿，119
Scents and fragrances before the hawksbill mats.
芬芳玳瑁筵。
Pendants sway at the moment the stars move,
珮移星正動，
Fans conceal the moon just as it becomes full.
扇掩月初圓。
Don’t bother climbing to the Hanging Gardens,
無勞上懸圃，120
It is here that you face the gods and immortals.
即此對神仙。
—————
115. Wilhelm and Knechtges note that the line, “The thousand flagons accord with Yao and Yu,” is a reference to the Kong congzi 孔叢子 ( Kong Family Masters’ Anthology, in Yoav Ariel’s translation), in which Yao and Shun limit their drinking to a thousand flagons. Taizong substitutes Yu for Shun. Wilhelm and Knechtges also note that the line,
“The hundred beasts move with the bells and chimes” 百獸諧玉石 is a reference to the
Classic of Documents, in which the musician Kui says that he can make a hundred animals dance in time to his music. See Wilhelm and Knechtges, “T’ang T’ai-tsung’s Poetry,” p. 20.
On the Kong congzi, see Ariel, K’ung-Ts’ung-Tzu.
116. These two lines allude to the Huainanzi: “For this reason, the sages did not esteem a foot of jade, but begrudged a second of time; time is hard to get and easy to lose” 故聖人
不貴尺之碧，而重寸之陰. See Huainan honglie jijie, 1.27.
117. Jianzhang Palace was constructed during the reign of Han Wudi, after a fire destroyed another of his buildings. Geomancers advised him that it would be more auspicious to rebuild on a grander scale in order to overcome evil influences from the prior disaster. Accordingly, Jianzhang Palace was a massive structure. See Shi ji, 12.482, 28.1402.
118. Dances in ancient China were sometimes choreographed in two rows of eight dancers.
119. Zhaoyang Palace is where Han Empress Zhao 趙皇后, consort of Han Chengdi 漢成
帝, resided. Here, Taizong is using it to refer to the women’s quarters or the imperial harem.
120. “Hanging Garden” 懸圃 refers to the dwelling place of immortals (and one of the
peaks of the Kunlun Mountains) as described in Huainan honglie jijie, 4.133–34.
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372
On “The Imperial Capital Poems”
These two poems celebrate the imperial body in all its carnality. The
eighth poem takes up an extravagant banquet, spilling over with wine, fra-
grant dishes, music, and dancing animals. The use of “aims” ( zhi) is sig-
nificant, though precisely because Taizong uses it in a non-significant way,
to express the mere satisfaction of bodily appetites. The “elegant aims” of
the preface now refer to the utter carnality of a full belly—imperial
though it may be. Yet, as with banquet poems in general, what the poet
becomes conscious of is the passing of time; in the midst of his happiness,
he knows that the spring day is almost over, instilling in him a deep sense
of regret and sadness.
The ninth poem shifts the scene to the harem or women’s quarters,
where the prior sadness of the feast is forgotten in a veritable orgy of
dance, silk, perfume, and beautiful girls. It is sexual pleasure that Taizong
seeks here, and the scene is as replete (in its own way) as the prior feasting
scene had been. The use of Han palace names here is significant insofar as
Jianzhang Hall was a palace built on a monumental scale, following the
advice of Han Wudi’s magicians. As such, it symbolizes both imperial
wastefulness and superstition, hardly a fitting allusion for an emperor
who continually castigates Wudi for having performed the Feng and Shan,
as well as for being self-indulgent and reckless. That the theme of union
with goddesses returns at the end of the ninth poem is then not surprising,
since Taizong already had Han Wudi on the mind and the convenient
comparison of harem women to goddesses at hand. Taizong concludes
with an apophatic gesture to signal that what he is enjoying is a domestic
pleasure, even if it is dressed up in a more transcendental rhetoric.
This is the apogee of the cycle, as in the tenth poem Taizong abruptly re-
jects the sensuous world that had occupied the emperor from the moment
he left the music quarters in the fourth poem and entered into the park.
Over the course of the poem-cycle, this immersion in sensuous gratifica-
tion had intensified. The fifth, sixth, and seventh poems, in which Taizong
had, in turn, first toured the park, then gone boating on the lake, and finally
ended
by resting at the evening pavilion, were all concerned with aesthetic
pleasures. This gradual procession towards the satisfaction of physical de-
sire was realized in the eighth and ninth poems, where Taizong enjoyed
himself at the banquet and in the harem. Yet in the tenth poem, Taizong
returns to the moral argument of his preface. Here is the last poem:
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On “The Imperial Capital Poems”
373
Poem Ten
With this, my roaming and touring reaches its limit, 以茲遊觀極，
Remote and alone I am lost in thought.
悠然獨長想。
Unrolling scrolls, I inspect former traces,
披卷覽前蹤，
Patting my chest, I pursue the past.
撫躬尋既往。
Gazing at antiquity: their thatched huts were modest, 望古茅茨約，
Looking at the present: my elegant halls are broad.
瞻今蘭殿廣。
Human nature abhors precipitous heights,
人道惡高危，
The empty mind restrains licentiousness.
虛心戒盈蕩。
I serve Heaven, devoting all sincerity and respect,
奉天竭誠敬，
Guard the people, thinking on kindness and nurture. 臨民思惠養。
I receive good men and study loyal criticism,
納善察忠諫，
Clarify laws and begrudge reward and punishment.
明科慎刑賞。
The six and five truly are hard to continue,
六五誠難繼，
The four and three are not easy to emulate.
四三非易仰。121
I await the broad enactment of the pure teachings,
廣待淳化敷，
And then we will inherit the Yun and Ting echoes.
方嗣云亭響。122
This closing poem—a double-length poem of sixteen lines, in fact—
brings the emperor back into his residence proper. The first half begins
with Taizong alone, perusing the past through texts, roaming only in the
act of reading and not traversing physical space and enjoying its sensuous
pleasures. Here, too, he admits the distance between the frugality of the
sage-kings and his own tendencies towards extravagance. In the fifth line,
“Gazing at antiquity: their thatched huts were modest,” Taizong invokes
the image of Yu, who lived in modest accommodations, recalling also the
discourse of sovereign askēsis that Taizong had forgotten in the course of
his pursuit of pleasure.
The logic of askēsis is brought to its conclusion with the emptying of
the body and its desires. Taizong ends the first part of the poem with a
—————
121. The “six and five” refer to the liuwang 六王, or “Six Kings of Antiquity” (Qi of the Xia 夏啟, Tang of the Shang, and from the Zhou, Kings Wu, Cheng, Kang, and Mu) and
to the “Five Thearchs” (Yellow Thearch, Zhuanxu, Ku, Yao, and Shun), while the “four and three” refer to the sidai 四代, or “Four Ages” (Yu 虞, Xia 夏, Shang 商, and Zhou 周) and the “Three Augusts” (Fuxi, Shennong, Yellow Thearch). Some members of these sets vary, depending upon the source.
122. Again, as mentioned in Chapter 5, note 105, “Yun” 云 is “Yunyun” 云云 and “Ting”
亭 is “Tingting” 亭亭, both peaks in the vicinity of Mount Tai.
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374
On “The Imperial Capital Poems”
moment of enlightenment: “The empty mind restrains licentiousness.” In
the second half, Taizong attempts to write the kind of poem that the po-
etics of moral significance demanded of the ritually correct sovereign. He
begins with the statement that “I serve Heaven, devoting all sincerity and
respect,” a declaration of the absolute public-mindedness of the ruler. He
no longer represents a flawed, human body with carnal and aesthetic de-
sires, but a sovereign body, one that is public without reserve. Taizong
goes on to describe how he shepherds the people, invites worthies to serve
him and accepts their criticism, makes clear the law and refrains from the
use of punishment. This is the image of Taizong that was celebrated in
the Zhenguan zhengyao, the image of a monarch who was humble before
his ministers and unstinting in his efforts to govern the empire. Taizong
discusses the difficulty of matching the achievements of the sagely rulers
of antiquity, again modestly proclaiming his own unworthiness as the one
who would continue their great legacy.
Yet, in the closing couplet, Taizong places himself within the legacy of
the sage-kings by making a reference back to the Feng and Shan sacrifices.
This is a somewhat oblique allusion, as he only mentions “the Yun and
Ting echoes.” As Sima Qian relates in the “Treatise on the Feng and
Shan,” Yunyun and Tingting were smaller peaks in the vicinity of Mount
Tai where sovereigns of high antiquity performed the Feng and Shan an-
nouncements to Heaven. In this way, Taizong effectively sidesteps the
legacy of Qin Shihuang’s tainted sacrifice, since the First Emperor had
performed his sacrifice at Mount Tai and Liangfu. Moreover, Taizong
does not say that he himself will perform the ritual there, as even the dec-
laration of intent to perform these rites was no light matter. All that he
states is that the echoes of past ritual announcements to Heaven will be
inherited in his reign. Therefore, no one can charge Taizong for having
committed an act of hubris that would have ruined the rhetoric of public-
mindedness that runs through the last poem. If Taizong was not worthy
to perform the rites himself, he may still merit inheriting the blessings of
past performances by those who truly deserved to make the announce-
ment to Heaven.
“The Imperial Capital Poems,” which had wrestled throughout with
the problems of the imperial body with its seductions and expenditures,
now conclude with an echo of the ideal past, one that is free from the
problem of Qin Shihuang’s and Han Wudi’s quests for personal immor-
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On “The Imperial Capital Poems”
375
tality. In its own way, this also is a moment of sovereign auxesis, as Tai-
zong claims passage from the mortal body of desires to a body that is tran-
scendent in its own way, a body that exemplifies the virtues of the past.
Taizong’s sovereign representations are constantly inflected by ambiva-
lence, the continual dialectic between bodily pleasures and economic
abstinence. Yet in the tenth poem, Taizong ends the work by negating his
human corporeality. His transfiguration is perfectly represented in the so-
lemn, ritual diction that portrays the emperor as the ritual vessel of moral
history, a body that has passed through the seductions of pleasure to re-
emerge as something that is pure and without flaw.
•
The orthodox literary representation of sovereignty is clear, as its princi-
ples
are enumerated in the writings of the Confucian canon and the poet-
ics of significance which inherited these concerns. From this perspective,
literature should be a vehicle of moral teaching, and as such, stand at the
symbolic heart of the political discursive realm. Yet literature is not with-
out its own rules and principles, its intertextual echoes and histories. For
Taizong to attempt to write on the imperial capital, even limiting his
work to the part of the capital where his own residence and parks are lo-
cated, is to enter into a web of prior poetic works and literary references.
Whatever the ambivalences of the preface may be, they still clearly align
Taizong with a moralistic conception of literature and poetry. It is Tai-
zong’s own poems that say otherwise, revealing complexities and hesita-
tions in his tropological echoes of Han Wudi and Sui Yangdi, or his liter-
ary borrowings from Liang Jianwendi and Chen Houzhu.
Yet, for all this, poetry is the true representation of the self, not just because of how the Chinese literary tradition has interpreted it, but because
poetry allows for the articulation of the ambivalences that underlie self-
hood. When Taizong represents himself as tempted by a desire that he
then overcomes, it is not only the virtuous triumph of imperial duty that
is captured in the poem, but also, more interestingly, the possibility of
temptation. In this way, poem and self work at divergent ends. Whereas
the self aspires to an unproblematic and idealized unity, in the end forget-
ting its inherent contradictions, the poem preserves the dialectical process
by which that unity is achieved. Li Shimin sought to become the ideal so-
vereign that would be later celebrated as Tang Taizong, erasing the prob-
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376
On “The Imperial Capital Poems”
lematic acts of violence and moral flaws from his official records, and thus
eliding the space between his personal and institutional identities. His
poetry, however, emphasizes what he tries to deny—the seductions, temp-