The Songs of Chu

by Gopal Sukhu

  If readers today find little in the “Li sao” that deserves Ban Gu’s vehement criticism, it is because Wang Yi removed the offending parts—not by deleting them from the text but by explaining them away. His main method was to read the figurative as historical—not by taking it literally but by deflecting attention away from its logical referents altogether through pseudophilological maneuvers. He thus tore holes in the narrative fabric of “Li sao” allegory, rendering the poem incoherent.

  For example, where the poem tells us in the beginning that the main persona of the poem descends from the sky, Wang Yi intervenes to tell us that the verb “descend” means “to be born.” Of course the image of someone descending from the sky could be a figurative representation of a birth, a “coming into the world,” but even that moribund metaphor had to be neutralized, because in the context of Han political discourse it could be interpreted as Qu Yuan’s literally claiming to be a god and thus challenging the quasi-divine authority of the ruler. Neither Deng Sui nor anyone else serving the Han dynasty could afford to claim as moral model a person using such an image, no matter how much the exegete pleaded its figurative or fictional nature.

  Accordingly, other signs of supernatural origins, such as the main persona’s ascent into the heavens accompanied by an entourage of spirits and his decision to seek out shaman ancestors had to be explained away as mere fantasies of the earthbound Qu Yuan preliminary to his resolution to drown himself in the Miluo River.22 The “Li sao” was thus transformed from an allegorical story involving spirits and shamans into a rhetorically convoluted and barely comprehensible way of stating what is more plainly, and less dangerously, set forth in Sima Qian’s biography of Qu Yuan.

  This transformation of the “Li sao” helped canonize Qu Yuan as patron saint of the Chinese intellectual, especially the disgruntled intellectuals, but it was soon institutionalized by the very authoritarianism it was meant to fight. Passed down from teacher to student, incoherent reading engendered ever more incoherent reading, always to achieve the same thematic goal, with few scholars attempting to swim against the current. Some of the few who have, such as He Tianxing, Hu Shi, David Hawkes, Pauline Yu, Galal Walker, and Dong Chuping, have emboldened me to reject the basic exegetical assumptions of Wang Yi, while using his sometimes very useful glosses cautiously, and read the “Li sao” and other poems in the Chuci without the filter of Han politics and ideology in order to find out what they tell us about Warring States Chu. This approach is made easier to a certain degree by recent archaeological discoveries, but because the study of that material is still for the most part in the preliminary stages, the references that I make to it in this book will be tantalizingly few.

  Wang Yi claimed that the Chuci manuscript he found in the Imperial Library was a compilation by the Han scholar-official Liu Xiang 劉向 (77–76 B.C.E.), who had won fame for his bibliographical work two centuries before. In his catalogue of the books in the Imperial Library, recorded in Ban Gu’s Hanshu 漢書 (History of the Former Han dynasty), Liu Xiang sets the number of works attributable to Qu Yuan at twenty-five, without listing titles. Wang Yi seems to have followed Liu Xiang, for the number of works he unequivocally attributes to Qu Yuan also amounts to twenty-five. They are “Li sao,” Nine Songs (eleven pieces), “Ask the Sky,” Nine Cantos (九章 Jiu zhang, nine pieces), “Wandering Far Away” (遠遊 “Yuan you”), “The Diviner” (卜居 “Bu ju”), and “The Fisherman” (漁夫 “Yufu”). (One other work, “The Great Summoning” [大招 “Da zhao”], he was not sure about.) Of these the “The Diviner” and “The Fisherman” and “Wandering Far Away” are now not generally attributed to Qu Yuan—“Wandering Far Away,” for being too redolent of Han Daoism and for its similarity to the work of the great Han poet Sima Xiangru, and “The Diviner” and “The Fisherman,” for being obvious works of fiction that contribute to the Qu Yuan legend. A somewhat different group emerges when we list all the works of Qu Yuan mentioned by Sima Qian: “Li sao,” “Ask the Sky,” “Mourning Ying” (哀郢 “Ai Ying”), “A Bosom Full of Sand,” and “Summoning the Soul” (招魂 “Zhao hun”). “Mourning Ying” and “A Bosom Full of Sand” are both individual titles in the Nine Cantos section, which suggests that the Nine Cantos were not originally a set. Many believe it was Liu Xiang who put the nine poems together into a series. “Summoning the Soul” was later ascribed to the Chu poet Song Yu 宋玉 by Wang Yi. Neither the Han scholar-poet Jia Yi賈誼 (200–169 B.C.E.) in his poems nor the Prince of Huainan in his commentary on the “Li sao” mention any work other than the “Li sao” in connection with Qu Yuan. Clearly more works were added, most of them implausibly, as time went on.

  Where did they come from? It is difficult to say, but we should bear in mind that the most important poetic form during the Han dynasty, the fu 賦, or “rhapsody,” was traceable back to Chu. Chu hymn forms and music were preferred in state ritual. And in the southern princedoms, such as Huainan, which were in the former domains of Chu, poets were still writing in various Chu verse forms. Chu literature did not die with the fall of Chu.

  The Chuci anthology, despite its name, is mainly a showcase for the work of Qu Yuan, poetry in his style, and poetry about him. It is a Chu anthology only insofar as its core is writing from the last time Chu was still a functioning kingdom. The Chu-derived rhapsody was a kind of court poetry, patronized by emperors and often used as a vehicle for directing praise at the imperial house, especially Emperor Wu, with mostly token gestures of moral instruction or criticism.

  The imperial house, in fact, was originally from Chu, a place to be ashamed of in northern eyes. Nevertheless, as Han glory increased, Chu received the reflected light, and Qu Yuan became the symbol of an acceptable, prideworthy, though tragic, Chu. It seems that originally he was known for the “Li sao” only, but the list of his poetical works lengthened with his increasing prestige. Thus many works that had enough “Li sao”–like characteristics, and were not already pinned down to the name of another author, were added to the list of Qu Yuan’s works. Imitating the work of Qu Yuan at the same time provided safe cover for those who wished to express dissatisfaction with the vicissitudes of life at the Han court. In this way, the compilers of the Chuci were building a small boat of dolorous complaint to sail against the strong current of rhapsodic praise.

  Poets used the Chu past in allegorical criticism of the Han present. The Han politician and poet Jia Yi seems to have begun the practice when Emperor Wen exiled him to the same region where Qu Yuan was supposed to have been exiled. In writing “Mourning Qu Yuan” (吊屈原 “Diao Qu Yuan”) he was in fact complaining about his own punishment at the hands of Emperor Wen. His poem is the first recorded mention of Qu Yuan, and it is possible that he came to know about the poet for the first time during his exile in the south. If he was the first to bear the lore of Qu Yuan to the north, that might explain why Sima Qian paired his biography with that of Qu Yuan in the Records of the Grand Historian. Sima Qian’s writings show that after he himself was unjustly punished (with castration) by Emperor Wu for supporting a Han general condemned for having been captured by the Xiongnu tribe, he found his moral analogue and consolation in the figure of Qu Yuan. Liu An, Prince of Huainan, may well also have been using the image of Qu Yuan to justify and defend himself when he wrote his commentary on the “Li sao” at the command of Emperor Wu, who may at the time have suspected him of treasonous activities. We do not have the full text of the Prince of Huainan’s commentary. What remains, however, is impassioned praise of a man of integrity who was treated unjustly by his king, a description that might also have fit persons who had been treated unjustly by Emperor Wu, such as the prince himself.

  It appears that evoking Qu Yuan for such purposes was a safe practice. The emperor in fact was so interested in Qu Yuan’s poetry that aside from commissioning Liu An’s commentary on the “Li sao,” he invited another expert from the south, one Zhu Maichen 朱買臣, to come to court to chant and explain the songs of Chu. His performance, around 125
B.C.E., marks the first recorded occurrence of the term Chuci. We do not know whether he introduced “Ask the Sky,” “Mourning Ying,” “A Bosom Full of Sand,” and “Summoning the Soul,” but it is only after his visit that evidence emerges, in the writings of Sima Qian, indicating that those titles had been added to the list of the poet’s works.

  The Chu craze during the reign of Emperor Wu was replayed not long afterward. Around 70 B.C.E., a Mr. Pi 被 was invited to the court of Emperor Xuan (91–49 B.C.E.) to perform the Chuci. Some decades later, as mentioned, Liu Xiang attributes twenty-five works to Qu Yuan. Whether these works were brought to light by Mr. Pi or came from the library of the Prince of Huainan, which Liu Xiang inherited, is hard to say. But by the time the contents of the anthology were finally fixed about two centuries later under the editorship of Wang Yi some twenty-five pieces are ascribed to Qu Yuan. Besides these, a number of poems attributed to Song Yu, Jing Cuo, supposedly disciples of Qu Yuan, and a few Han poets, among them Liu Xiang and Wang Yi himself, were anthologized in the Chuci.

  During the Song dynasty, Hong Xingzu 洪興祖 (1090–1155 C.E.) added supplementary notes (known as 楚辭補注 Chuci buzhu) to Wang Yi’s edition, correcting only the more egregious claims of Wang Yi while leaving the biographical interpretation intact, and adding valuable philological information.

  The great Song-dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) also made an edition of the Chuci. His approach was only slightly more radical than that of Hong Xingzu. He removed the works of Liu Xiang (“Nine Sighs,” 九歎 “Jiu tan”), Wang Yi (“Nine Yearnings,” 九思 “Jiu si”), and two other Han sections, “Nine Longings” (九懷 “Jiu huai”), by Wang Bao 王褒, and “Seven Remonstrations” (七諫 “Qi jian”), attributed by some to Dongfang Shuo 東方朔, replacing them with two works, “Mourning Qu Yuan” (弔屈原 “Diao Qu Yuan”) and “The Owl Rhapsody” (服賦 “Fu fu”), by Jia Yi. He also added his “Appendix to the Chuci” (楚辭後語 “Chuci houyu”), which includes about fifty poems in the Chu style starting in the pre-Qin period and extending into his own time. His edition, minus the appendix, is the basis of most modern Chinese editions of the Chuci as well as my translation.

  When specialists in Chinese literature these days talk about the influence of the Chuci on the development of Chinese literature they usually begin by declaring that Qu Yuan was China’s great patriotic poet. Patriotism is of course admirable, but in politics the label often hides a host of sins. This is especially the case when Communist Chinese critics apply the term to Qu Yuan. Qu Yuan for various reasons might be considered a paragon of loyalty, but loyalty to whom? He was a member of the Chu royal clan. Remaining loyal to the King of Chu was at the very least loyalty to his family and at most loyalty to the feudal system the Communists so ardently urge their followers to despise. It was also loyalty to the expansionist ambitions of Chu—in a word, imperialism—to be equally, if not more, despised.

  Another modern cliché about Qu Yuan is that he was “the people’s poet.” This judgment is based on few and far between passages from the various works attributed to him that express a sentiment that has nothing to do with a revolutionary or even a democratic agenda; it is the same noblesse oblige that we find articulated more extensively and eloquently in the works of a number of Warring States philosophers, most notably the great Confucian Mencius.

  Many of the same critics also argue that Qu Yuan merits the title “people’s poet” because he based the form of his poetical outpourings on the “primitive” songs of the common people. Here again is a hidden paradox. The works in question are the Nine Songs, and even if we accept the idea that they are based on hymns sung in rural worship, we must also accept the idea that they are part of religion, which through most of its reign the party has labeled as superstition and has done its utmost to suppress. If Qu Yuan is admirable for improving the style of the people’s worship, then he is by the same token guilty of encouraging one of their most reactionary habits.

  The party, of course, was not unaware of these “contradictions” in Qu Yuan’s case; these and many more were debated, mostly out of public view, before his image was simplified with the anachronistic label “patriot.” The reasons were complex. He had always been the patron saint of intellectuals; and the intellectuals who were day by day refining the revolution by discarding the heroes of the past, like Confucius, were still in the habit of looking to Qu Yuan, even when they, as often happened, lost favor. Another reason was that the process of discarding the heroes of the past was rapidly emptying the cultural display case, leaving the impression that the Chinese had no figures who had contributed to world civilization. This proved embarrassing at large festivals of the international socialist movement, when other countries, like Italy or East Germany, indulged nationalist leanings by wheeling out unshattered their own cultural icons, such as Copernicus or Beethoven.

  In rescuing Qu Yuan from the dustbin of history the regime was admitting that the revolution could not dispense with its intellectuals, even its literary intellectuals. And the intellectuals in supporting the regime’s image of Qu Yuan as patriot were pledging to make common cause with the party, if not on the basis of ideological purity (whatever that at any moment happened to mean) then, at the very least, on the basis of nationalist pride.

  The postrevolutionary period was not the first time Qu Yuan was enlisted to serve both sides of the minister-ruler (or, in this case, party-intellectual) divide. After the Han scholar-poet Jia Yi initiated Han literati into the habit of exploiting Chuci imagery in their poetical criticisms of their princes, the Han court poet Sima Xiangru (179–117 B.C.E.) used some of the imagery to praise one of the most dictatorial emperors in Chinese history—Emperor Wu of the Han—in a poem called “Rhapsody on the Great Man” (大人賦 “Da ren fu”), which begins,

  世有大人兮, 在于中州。

  宅彌萬里兮, 曾不足以少留。

  悲世俗之迫隘兮, 朅輕舉而遠游。

  乘絳幡之素蜺兮, 載雲氣而上浮。

  In these times there is a great man

  Who lives in the central region,

  Who though his residence occupied a thousand square li,

  It was not enough to keep him there even a short time,

  For he lamented being hemmed in by the common run.

  Why not, he said to himself,

  Lightly rise and wander far away?

  So he rode a white rainbow ornamented with a red banner

  And carrying nothing but wisps of clouds he floated up.

  Then in the manner of the Nine Songs the vehicle gathers various adornments, then transforms. Now the Great Man is

  駕應龍象輿之蠖 略逶 麗兮,

  驂赤螭青虬之虫幽蟉蜿蜒。

  Driving an ivory chariot drawn by flying dragons

  Undulating like long inchworms,

  And red serpents and hornless green dragons

  Slithering like snakes.

  Soon he is surrounded by a celestial procession modeled on that in the “Li sao,” which he describes, speaking in the first person,

  屯余車其萬乘兮,

  綷雲蓋而樹華旗。

  使勾芒其將行兮,

  吾欲往乎南嬉。

  歷唐堯于崇山兮,

  過虞舜于九疑。

  紛湛湛其差錯兮,

  雜遝胶葛以方馳。

  I mustered my ten thousand chariots,

  And gaily colored banners rose above wagon covers of multicolored clouds.

  I ordered Goumang to lead the retinue,

  For I wished to go south for amusement.

  We passed by Chong Mountain, Yao’s grave,

  And saw Nine Doubts Mountain, the tomb of Shun.

  We surged forward in a jostling mass,

  Galloping side by side in a motley horde.

  With his celestial entourage the Great Man travels the universe experiencing many pleasurable adventures until he finds himself face-to-face with the
Queen Mother of the West, one of the greatest xian, or immortals. Intrigued but unimpressed by her immortal status he then sets forth to find a place or a state that surpasses even her realm. To do this he abandons his entourage and proceeds alone, eventually finding himself in a place very similar to the final destination reached in the “Wandering Far Away” section of the Chuci. In fact the words are almost exactly the same:

  下峥嵘而無地兮,

  上寥廓而無天。

  視眩眠而無見兮,

  聽惝恍而無聞。

  乘虚無而上遐兮,

  超無有而獨存。

  Below him was a precipitous fall but to no earth,

  Above him was endless space, but no sky.

  What he saw was a blurry nothing at all,

  What he heard was a muffled nothing at all,

  And he rode nothingness higher and higher,

  Until he passed beyond the Formless to abide alone.

  The irony of this piece is that it uses the imagery of transcendent flight derived from Chuci poems where such flight is an escape from a world made intolerable by the reign of benighted rulers, in which category many counted Emperor Wu himself. It features the “Li sao”–like flying chariot but with the sad main persona of “Li sao” (taken by many to represent Qu Yuan himself) replaced by the Great Man, who represents Emperor Wu, on his quest to become an immortal.

  There were those who no doubt saw the poem as less flattery than satire, but how the emperor read the poem is indicated by the fact that Sima Xiangru remained his quasi-personal poet for the rest of his life.

  A countergenre was meanwhile developing on the basis of the same Chuci sources. This was the poetic genre known as youxian 游仙, which can mean either wandering as an immortal or wandering among the immortals. The xian are people who manage through yogic, dietary, or alchemical practice to become immortal. Youxian poetry describes the magical worlds where the immortals live. Those worlds tend to be located on high mountains, in heaven, or on the moon. At the same time the youxian genre expresses the poet’s desire to become a xian. The genre was practiced by devout aspirants to xian-hood and by uncommitted littérateurs alike.