by Gopal Sukhu
76. The tijue 鵜鴂, or “cuckoo.” Some say that its cry announces the end of spring; others say it announces the beginning of fall. See You, Li sao zuanyi, 405–11.
77. The word xiu 羞 indicates a sacrificial offering of meat. Ling Fen is in effect performing a ritual sacrifice to Ling Jun.
78. Bells hung from the horse’s bit were often in the shape of the fabulous luan 鸞 bird.
79. The Tian Jin 天津, Celestial Ford, is a group of nine stars in Cygnus near the middle of the Milky Way (the Tian He 天河, or “Sky River” in Chinese).
80. The Xiji 西極, or Western Limit, is the western edge of the world.
81. There is much controversy surrounding 承旂; the solutions of Liu Mengpeng and Zhu Ji are tempting (see especially You, Li sao zuanyi, 456–57). I will not introduce the various other theories here, as the specialist will already be familiar with them. Suffice it to say that I tentatively take cheng 承 as a substitute for cheng 丞, as it is used in, e.g., Zuozhuan, Aigong, 18th year, meaning “assistant commander” or “lieutenant.” See Chunqiu Zuozhuan, Aigong, 18th year, in Ruan, Shisanjing zhushu, 1:2180.
82. Liusha 流沙, or Flowing Sands, is a riverlike desert on the verge of which the Kunlun Mountains rise. There are other places called Flowing Sands as well. See Yuan, Zhongguo shenhua chuanshuo cidian, 333.
83. The 赤水, or Red Waters, flow from the southeast of the Kunlun Mountains, then meander. Zhuangzi in the “Tiandi” 天地 chapter mentions them when he recounts the Yellow Emperor’s trip to the Kunlun Mountains (north of the Red Waters), during which he lost his xuan zhu 玄珠, or “dark pearl.” See ibid., 193–94. See also Shanhaijing, “Hainei xijing.”
84. Xi Huang 西皇, the August One of the West, is usually identified as the legendary sage-king Shao Hao 少皞. See Yuan, Zhongguo shenhua chuanshuo cidian, 78.
85. Buzhou Shan 不周山, or Imperfect Mountain, is located to the northwest of the Kunlun Mountains. Its peak was lopped off during a battle between Zhuan Xu and Gonggong, who were fighting for the rulership of Heaven. Gonggong angrily rammed into one of the pillars holding up the sky, damaging it—that pillar was the mountain that would afterward be called Buzhou. The force of Gonggong’s impact moved the ground in such a way that the southeastern sector of China lost ground to the northwest, causing the rivers to flow southeast. See ibid., 53–54. See also Huainanzi, 35.
86. The Xi Hai 西海, or Western Sea, is mentioned often in the Shanhaijing. One passage from the “Dahuang xijing” section of that work clarifies somewhat the geography in this passage. It says, “South of the Western Sea, on the verge of the Flowing Sands, and after the Red Waters, but before the Black Waters, there are tall mountains called the Kunlun Mountains.” The general direction of the journey is from southeast to northwest. See the discussion in You, Li sao zuanyi, 478–80. See also the discussion of this passage (on which my interpretation is based) in Jin, Dong, and Gao, Qu Yuan ji jiaozhu, 1:173–74.
87. My interpretation is influenced by the interpretations of Chen Benli 陳本禮 and Bi Dachen 畢大琛, who see this flying spirit episode as part of a dream. They, like most traditional commentators, recognize no distinction between the persona of the poem and Qu Yuan but at least can conceive of a nonfigurative interpretation of the sudden occurrence of the word shen 神. I believe, however, that here the shaman and the possessing spirit are momentarily somewhat at odds. See You, Li sao zuanyi, 485.
88. Reading 媮 as 偷, not as 愉. See Jiang, Chuci tonggu, 1:627–28.
89. Hexi 赫戲 means “blazing” or “effulgent,” but I think that the use of xi 戲 (play) in place of the usual xi 曦 is not accidental; it is another “Li sao” pun.
90. The word luan 亂, which usually means “to confuse,” could also be translated as “envoi,” a kind of poetic epilogue. Some scholars think it can mean “to clear up confusion” or “summarize the main point.” I have followed that idea only here in my translation. See Wang Yi’s and Hong Xingzu’s explanations in Hong, Chuci buzhu, 47.
91. The phrase guo wu ren 國無人 (there are no [states]men in the state) was frequently used in Warring States political discourse. For example, in the Guanzi 管子, “Mingfa” 明法 chapter, it says “The loyal minister is executed though not a criminal, but the evil minister rises though having no merit. Thus, to be someone’s minister is to consider what pertains to the private individual important and to consider what pertains to one’s ruler trivial. Ten will arrive at the door of the private individual, but no one will arrive at court. One hundred will concern themselves with their families, but not one will plan for the state. Though the number of those attached to him will be legion, it will not be because they honor the ruler. Though one has a complete staff of officials, it will not be because they carry the burden of the state. This is what is called having no men in the state. Having no men in the state is not a matter of the weakness of courtly ministers. Family benefits family, but they make no effort to honor their ruler. Great minister enriches great minister, but they do not carry the burden of the state. The minor ministers use their emoluments to cultivate connections and do not see their official positions as service. Thus officialdom loses its power” (Dai Wang 戴望, Guanzi jiaozheng 管子校正, vol. 5 of Zhuzi jicheng, 259). See also the quotation of this passage in Tang Bingzheng, Chuci leigao, 234–36.
92. Mo wo zhi 莫我知 may be an allusion to Lunyu, “Xian wen,” 35, where Confucius says the same thing. See Lunyu zhushu 論語注疏, in Ruan, Shisanjing zhushu, 2513.
93. To abandon the royal city is to leave it to the depredations of another spirit, who will surely destroy it.
94. Wu Peng 巫彭 and Wu Xian 巫咸 reside in the Kunlun Mountains according to the Shanhaijing. This may also refer to any place where the ritualists who consider them their ancestors are active and honored.
CHAPTER THREE
“Ask the Sky”
天問
“Tian wen”
Sima Qian placed “Tian wen” after the “Li sao” on his list of Qu Yuan’s works. Of all the canonical works of ancient Chinese poetry, it is indeed second only to the “Li sao”—in strangeness. One reason for this is that the poem is made up almost entirely of questions. There are about one hundred seventy of them, in fact, on topics ranging from the origin of the universe, the sky, the earth, the myths associated with them, early dynastic history, right down to the political situation in Warring States Chu. There is a note of skepticism, if not irony, that runs through the poem, for while some of the questions appear to be riddles with possible answers, many of the questions are either unanswerable or invite logical answers that would render self-contradictory or absurd traditional lore. As Lu Xun put it, the poem “speaks without restraint or fear saying things the ancients never dared to say” (“Molo shili shuo,” quoted in Tang Zhangping and Lu Yongpin, Chuci lunxi [Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1990], 136).
In the course of its attempt at a comprehensive questioning of received wisdom, the poem alludes to many myths and legends that were forgotten by the later tradition. It is therefore one of the most valuable sources for the study of early Chinese religion, folklore, and history.
Wang Yi explained the title in terms that Hawkes and others found ludicrous: the word order, he tells us, should be “Wen tian” which means “ask the sky,” but the word order was changed because Heaven is too exalted to have the verb placed in front of it, so the verb was placed behind it. This may sound absurd, but it is only a Han schoolman’s way of extracting a Confucian homily from a mere case of inversion, where the object is placed before the verb for emphasis—a common maneuver in classical Chinese. Despite his odd exegesis, I follow Wang Yi’s reading and translate “Tian wen” as “Ask the Sky” or “Ask the Sky,” a version of the almost universal response to unanswerable questions: only Heaven knows.
His account of the origin of the poem is another matter, for it involves making up yet another story about Qu Yuan. According to
it, the poet, while in exile, used to wander about the countryside in a state of anguish, resting from time to time in aristocratic ancestral temples, on the walls of which were painted pictures illustrating ancient legend and history. Lacking anything else to do, he wrote inscriptions on the murals. These were later collected and arranged into the text of “Tian wen” that we still have today. This is at best a clumsy attempt to explain a poem whose combination of structure, content, and length seemed odd even to Han-dynasty readers.
It was thought that a poem composed almost exclusively of questions was unique in the history of Chinese literature until the relatively recent publication of a text, Fan wu liu xing 凡物流形, which is one of a group of Chu bamboo manuscripts discovered in 1994 and now housed in the Shanghai Museum. Part of that text consists of a long list of questions in verse, for example:
If all things are flowing form,
How does it take shape?
If flowing form becomes bodies,
How is it that it does not die?
Once it takes shape and is born,
How does it look about and how does it make a sound?
Fan wu liu xing covers much of the same territory as “Ask the Sky,” in the opinion of some scholars from a Daoist point of view. It also includes a section consisting of what appear to be answers. In the confused state of the text (written on bamboo slips that got mixed up), however, it is still difficult to determine which questions go with which answers. In any event, “Ask the Sky” is now no longer considered unique. Yet the same questions asked about it are asked about Fan wu liu xing: who wrote it, in what context, and why compose a poem consisting primarily of questions?
Ask the Sky
We ask:
Deep in the past, at the very beginning of everything,
who was there to tell us what it was like?
If up and down had not yet formed,
from what position could one observe it?1
In the blear dusk before the parting of darkness and light,
who could find beginning or end?
If no phenomenon was other than simmering chaos,
through what sense did one experience it?2
Dawn breaks, night falls.
But consider time: what is that?
There are three mixtures of yin and yang.
Which is the original? Which are variants?3
Nine nested spheres is the sky.
Who designed it?
What work that must have been.
Who began it?4
Where is the rope attached that turns it?
In what hub is the Pole inserted?
At what points do the eight pillars uphold it?
Why is there a gap in the southeast horizon?5
If each of the Nine Regions has its own sky,
How do the skies fit together,
With their complex jagged edges
And who knows how many junctures?6
Where does the sky meet the land?
Why is it divided by twelve?
How did the sun and moon find their places
and the fixed stars their positions?7
If you rise from the Valley of Dawn
and stop for the night at the Dimming Stream,
from dawn to dusk
how many miles have you traveled?8
Night’s brightest light has what power
that after it dies it is reborn?
And what does it gain
by rearing a rabbit in its belly?9
If Our Lady of Forked Paths had nothing to do with men,
where did she get her nine sons?
Where dwells the Earl of Violence?
Where are his kinder airs?10
Night falls when what doors close?
Dawn breaks when what doors open?
Before the Horn Stars call for light,
where does the effulgent spirit hide?11
If Gun lacked the wherewithal to stem the flood,
why did the multitude recommend him,
all of them saying, “What is there to fear?
Why not to let him try?”?12
Each biting the tail ahead, owls and tortoises formed a chain.
Why did Gun take them as his guide?
He’d have finished the work just as everyone wished—
why did the Sky Lord punish him?13
Gun was stopped for good on Feather Mountain.
Why was he not cut open for three years?
Elder Yu emerged from his belly.
What caused the miracle and metamorphosis?14
Succeeding his father, Yu shouldered the task
and successfully completed the mission.
How did he continue his father’s work
with a different plan of action?15
If the deepest depths hid the source of the flood,
how did he stop the flow?
He divided the earth into the Nine Regions.
How did he surround them with earth walls?
Why did the winged dragon score the earth?
Why do rivers pass to the sea?16
What parts of the work were Gun’s planning?
What parts were Yu’s work?
When Kang Hui raged,
why did the earth sink in the southeast?17
How were the Nine Regions plotted?
How were streams and valleys hollowed out?
Rivers run east to the sea, but it never overflows:
Does anyone know why?
East to west or south to north,
Which is farther?
If the world is an oval, longer from south to north,
How much longer?
On what sit the Hovering Gardens
of Mount Kunlun?
How many miles high are the storied walls
In nine layers around them?18
On Kunlun there are gates in all directions:
Who goes through them?
When the gate in the northwest is open
What wind comes through it?19
In what place does the sun not shine?
How does the lamp dragon illuminate it?
Before Xihe lifts her child the sun,
How do hibiscus blossoms shed light?20
Where is winter hot?
Where is summer cold?
Where is the forest of stone?
What animal can talk?21
Where did the hornless dragon go wandering
with a bear on its back?22
The nine-headed poisonous snake
is fast but where does it dwell?23
Where is the land where no one dies?
What places have a guardian giant?24
When duckweed spread to the nine crossroads,
Where did the red blooming cannabis find a home?
How big must a snake be
To swallow an elephant?25
Where are the Black Waters, the Black Toe Peak,
and Three Danger mountain,
places to go to never die?
But where go the deathless to end their lives?26
Where is the fish with a human face?
Where do the monster sparrows live?
Why did Yi shoot arrows at the suns?
Why did the ravens shed their feathers?27
Yu devoted his energy to the task,
but, when he came down to inspect all under the sky,
how did he happen to meet the daughter of Mud Hill
and mate with her under the Towering Mulberries?28
Though he loved her and made her his wife
to continue his family’s line,
how is it his tastes so differed from most
that he was content with but a morning’s satisfaction?
Qi displaced Yee and became king,
but found himself in sudden trouble.
How did Qi free himself from prison
by simply worrying?29
The warriors all laid down their arms,
refusing to harm his
person.
Why was Yee’s kingship stripped from him
while the seed of Yu prospered?30
The Nine Songs and the dance of the Nine Variations
Were Qi’s prize for his many visits to the Sky Lord.
Why did the Lord help the son but slaughter the mother,
scattering her body in shards on the ground?31
Then the Sky sent Yi the barbarian archer down
To save the people of Xia from calamity.
Why did he shoot the Yellow River Earl
and carry away his Lady of the Lo?32
Thumb ring on, he drew to the full the nacreous bow,
and pierced with arrows the giant boar.
When he offered up this fattest of meats,
why did the Sky Lord ignore him?
Zhuo took Madame Pure Fox,
the benighting wife of Yi, with whom he plotted.
How was Yi, who could shoot through layers of thickest leather,
consumed by so many mouths?33
Badlands cut off Gun’s westward escape.
How did he jump the cliffs?
He changed into a golden-haired bear.
How did the shamans revive him?34
He had everyone plant black millet
once they cleared away the reeds.
Why then did they cast Gun out
hating him utterly and forever?35
A white nimbus encircled and veiled.
What did it do in Cui Wenzi’s house?
How did he come by the long-life elixir?
And why could he not keep it secure?36
Alternating opposites is the way of heaven.
When yang departs the body dies.
Why did the great bird call,
and how did it lose its original form?
Ping calls and the rain comes down.
How does he make it rise?
How does a deer stomach
Being part bird?37
How do big turtles balance mountains on their heads
While clapping their flippers
If the Big Turtle left his “boat” to walk on land,
How could he keep his mountain from floating away?38
Big Turtle was at the door.
What did he want from his sister-in-law?
How is it that Shao Kang went hunting with dogs,
while Big Turtle lost his head?39
