The Songs of Chu

by Gopal Sukhu

  43. Djou 紂 (usually “Zhou,” but here spelled differently to distinguish it from the Zhou dynasty) was the bad last king of the Shang dynasty, noted for his extravagance and complex debauchery. Before his predilections became entirely clear, one of his ministers noticed with some alarm that the king had had ivory chopsticks made for himself. The minister decided it was a sign of bad things to come. Djou’s palace building soon followed. The Han Feizi tells us, “In ancient times King Djou had ivory chopsticks made, causing fear in the heart of Viscount Ji [or 箕子]. He thought, ‘Ivory chopsticks would certainly not go with earthen soup cauldrons. Next will come cups made of rhino horn and jade. And with ivory chopsticks and cups of rhino horn and jade the king will certainly not eat bean soup; it will have to be meat of yaks, elephants, and leopard fetuses. And while eating those, one certainly cannot wear short cloth coats and eat under a thatched roof; he will have to have nine layers of embroidered cloth and broad mansions with high towers. I fear how it will end; therefore I have horror of the beginning.’ After five years Djou built the meat park, set up the roasting pillars, climbed the wine dreg hill to look down on the wine pool. As a consequence, Djou was destroyed. Thus the Viscount of Ji knew that calamity would come to the empire when he saw the ivory chopsticks. Thus they say, ‘Seeing the small is called knowing clearly.’ ” See the Sibu congkan edition of Han Feizi, “Yulao” 喻老, 21, p. 140, at the Chinese Text Project (http://ctext.org).

  44. Nü Wa 女媧 makes her first appearance in the extant ancient literature here. There are a number of later accounts as well. Guo Pu, in his comment on Shanhaijing (see the Sibu congkan edition of Shanhaijing, “Dahuang xijing,” 145, at the Chinese Text Project [http://ctext.org]), tells us that she became Lord of the Sky. In the Fengsu tongyi 風俗通義, she, along with Fuxi 伏羲 and Shen Nong 神農, constitute the Three Augusts (三皇 Sanhuang). “August” is there defined as “heavenly” or “celestial” sovereign; see the Sibu congkan edition of Fengsu tongyi, “Sanhuang,” 33, at the Chinese Text Project [http://ctext.org]). She is also credited with the creation of human beings. She began this project by molding people out of earth (of course), but, growing weary of the process, she finished the job by dragging ropes through the mud. The ones made of yellow earth became the upper classes, and the ones made of mud became the lower classes. See Birrell, Chinese Mythology, 35. The TW question here seems to imply that the questioner is concerned about the basic philosophical objection to theological creation stories—the problem of infinite regress. If Nü Wa created human bodies, who created hers (which the Shanhaijing describes as having a human head and the form of a snake from the waist down)?

  45. Elephant (象 Xiang), in league with his parents, mistreated his half brother, Shun, but Shun never wavered in his filiality and loyalty. See Yuan, Zhongguo shenhua chuanshuo cidian, 357, and Mencius, “Wangzhang shang,” Legge, The Chinese Classics, 2:346–48.

  46. Tai Bo 太伯 and Zhong Yong 仲雍 were two sons of the legendary founder of the Duchy (later the kingdom) of Zhou, Gugong Danfu 古公亶父, grandfather of one of the founders of the Zhou dynasty, King Wen. When they perceived that their father would hand the throne over to their younger brother, Ji Li 季歷, they fled south, where they tattooed their bodies and cut their hair after the manner of the tribes there. Adoption of such customs made both of them ineligible to become rulers of the Chinese. The people of the southern region, however, respected them, and Tai Bo was accepted as the ruler of the people of Wu, and his brother Zhong Yong succeeded him. See Sima Qian 司馬遷, Shiji 史記 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1992), “Wu Taibo shijia,” 31:1445–46.

  47. Despite the fact that the Shang royal house diligently offered sacrifices to Heaven, the throne went eventually to Jie, who brought the dynasty to ruin.

  48. (Refers also to next stanza.) Yi Yin 伊尹 was the chief minister of Tang, the founder of the Shang dynasty. When the kingdom of Shang was still under the suzerainty of Xia, Jie acceded to the Xia throne and proceeded to live a life of profligacy and rule by cruelty. Tang sent Yi Yin to advise King Jie to reform himself, but to no avail. Yi Yin in the end encouraged Tang to rebel. Tang, following this advice, led his armies against the Xia and defeated King Jie at a place called Mingtiao 鳴條 (Singing Tendrils). After that Jie was exiled to Nanchao, where he eventually died (Shiji, “Xia benji,” 2:88–89).

  49. Jiandi 簡狄 was one of the daughters of the mythical Lord of Yousong 有娀, who built a high tower to house, and isolate, her and her sister; see John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, trans., The Annals of Lü Buwei: A Complete Translation and Study (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001), 162. When she was already one of the wives of Di Ku, a black bird dropped an egg in front of her, which she swallowed, thereby becoming pregnant with Qi, the first hereditary ruler of the Xia dynasty; see Shiji, “Yin benji,” 3:91.

  50. According to the Shanhaijing, “Dahuang dongjing” (Yuan, Shanhaijing, 247), “There is a place called the Kingdom of Yinmin, where the royal surname is Gou and the primary food is millet. There is a person there named Wang Hai who holds in each hand a bird, each of whose heads he is in the process of eating. Wang Hai is the ruler of the Yin [or Shang] dynasty. At one time he entrusted his draft cattle to the ruler of the Youyi 有易 people and the River Earl.” The ruler of Youyi ends up killing Wang Hai because Wang Hai had had improper relations with the ruler’s wife. Wang Hai’s son and successor, Shangjia Wei 上甲微, attacks the Youyi to avenge the death of Wang Hai, inflicting heavy losses on them. The River Earl comes to their aid and helps the rulers of Youyi to escape and set up another kingdom elsewhere. Wang Guowei 王國維 found the name Wang Hai 王亥 (see Wang Guowei, Yin buci zhong suo jian xian gong xian wang kao 殷卜辭中所見先公先王考 [Shanghai: Cangsheng mingzhi daxue, 1916]) represented on the oracle bones and determined that he was a distant ancestor of the Shang royal house and recipient of many sacrifices. His father is called Ming 冥 in the Shiji etc., but Ji 季 in the oracle bones. Wang Hai seems to have consulted Ji in divination and offered him sacrifices. Wang Guowei concludes that the Ji of the oracle bones is the Ming of the received texts. Wang Guowei also cites Guo Pu’s commentary on the Bamboo Annals, which claims that Prince Hai wandered through a place called Youyi herding cattle and sheep and ended up staying there. Later because of some sexual misconduct (presumably with the ruler’s wife or daughter) he was killed by the ruler of Youyi, Mian Chen. Aside from being what some consider the first herdsman, he appears to be associated with the first use of oxen etc. for pulling wagons; see You, Tian wen zuanyi, 311–13.

  51. See Zuozhuan, Zhuanggong, 28th year (Legge, The Chinese Classics, 5:113–15), where it says, “The lingyin of Chu, Zi Yuan, wished to seduce Lady Wen, so he built a lodge next to her palace and performed the Wan dance.” The Wan is also known as the Shield Dance. Wen Yiduo thinks that Wang Hai is performing the Shield Dance for similar purposes vis-à-vis the wife (some say daughter) of the ruler of Youhu (which most scholars think is a miswriting for Youyi; see You, Tian wen zuanyi, 333–34). See also Jin, Dong, and Gao, Qu Yuan ji jiaozhu, 383. According to the Guo Pu’s comment on Shanhaijing, “Dahuang dongjing,” Wang Hai seduced the daughter or wife of the ruler of Youyi. For this reason, his son Shang Jiawei borrowed an army from the Earl of the Yellow River and attacked Youyi, which he destroyed and whose ruler, Mian Chen 緜臣, he killed; see the Sibu congkan edition of Shanhaijing, “Dahuang dongjing,” 130–31, at the Chinese Text Project (http://ctext.org).

  52. The Shanhaijing, “Haiwai dong jing,” refers to (Wang) Hai as Shu Hai 豎亥, i.e., Herd Boy Hai. I am following Tang Bingzheng’s very commonsensical approach in assuming that it was Hai who died and the woman (Mian Chen’s wife or daughter) who escaped here, and that the order to kill them came from Mian Chen, the ruler of Youyi (Tang et al., Chuci jinzhu, 107).

  53. Heng 恆 was a younger brother of Hai’s. During the Shang the younger brother often succeeded the older brother on the throne. After the death of Hai,
Heng may have ruled. We know little about him. Wang Guowei claims to have found Heng’s name in the oracle bone inscriptions; see You, Tian wen zuanyi, 333–34. See Tang et al., Chuci jinzhu, 107, and Jin, Dong, and Gao, Qu Yuan ji jiaozhu, 385, for why pu niu 僕牛 should be taken as fu niu 服牛, meaning “draft oxen.”

  54. Hun Wei (昏微, or “Twilight Wei”) was Shangjia Wei, Hai’s son. He borrowed the army of the River Earl to avenge his father; see Tang et al., Chuci jinzhu, 107. No one is sure about what the last two lines of the stanza refer to. They may be blaming the woman of Youyi for yielding to passion with his father and thus becoming the ultimate cause of Shangjia Wei’s destruction of her state. If the lines refer to her abandoning her child, they could support the idea that Hai had an affair with Lord Youyi’s wife. The birds perched in the brambles could refer to the real birds that might have witnessed their lovemaking, or, figuratively, to the people who might have found out about their affair and gossiped. Youdi 有狄 seems to be another version of Youyi 有易; di and yi were interchangeable characters in ancient times. See Jin, Dong, and Gao, Qu Yuan ji jiaozhu, 387.

  55. Scholars are in disagreement as to what this passage refers to. Shangjia Wei, though the son of the immoderate Hai and the nephew of just-as-bad Heng, seems to have extended the royal line that eventually blossomed into the Shang dynasty. The question that these stanzas seem to be asking is how could such bad ancestors produce such good descendants.

  56. According the Lüshi chunqiu, “Ben wei” (本味, or “Fundamental Tastes”), when Tang heard about the talents of Yi Yin, who was serving as royal cook in Youshen (有侁 or 莘), he sent an envoy to request that he be sent to him. The ruler of Youshen, however, would not permit it. Yi Yin himself wanted to serve Tang. Tang then requested a wife from Youshen, and the ruler offered his daughter and sent Yi Yin as part of the slave contingent in the bridal entourage. See Knoblock and Riegel, Annals of Lü Buwei, 307.

  57. According to the Lüshi chunqiu, “Ben wei” section (see note 56), when the princess of Youshen was picking mulberry leaves, she found a baby in the trunk of a mulberry tree. When she presented it to the ruler, the ruler ordered a cook to raise it. When they inquired to find out the reason that the baby found himself in a tree, someone said that the mother dwelled on the banks of the Yin River. When she became pregnant, she dreamed of a spirit who told her, “When water comes out of the mortar, go east and do not look back.” The next day she saw water come out of the mortar and she told her neighbors. She went east, running ten li, but then she looked back and saw that her town had disappeared underwater. She then changed into a mulberry tree. For this reason, Yi Yin was named Yin (meaning “officer”) of the Yi River. Wang Yi tells a different version of the story. When Yi Yin’s mother was pregnant, she dreamed that a spirit told her that when frogs grow in the mortar and stove to immediately leave and don’t look back. After a short time frogs began growing in the mortar and stove. So she left and ran east. When she looked back at her town, it was submerged in water. The mother drowned and became a mulberry tree. After the water receded, a small baby was heard crying on the shore. Someone took it and raised it; see Lüshi chunqiu, “Ben wei”; Knoblock and Riegel, Annals of Lü Buwei, 307.

  58. In the “Basic Annals of Xia” in the Shiji it says that Jie summoned Tang and imprisoned him in the Tower of Xia. Other sources have an evil minister putting Jie up to this. His desire to attack Jie arose from his perception of Jie’s general tyranny, but being imprisoned for no apparent reason seems to have been the last straw; see Shiji, “Xia benji,” 2:88. Double Spring may refer to the Tower of Xia. In the Shangshu, Tang calls the people together to attack Jie and tells them that he has been appointed by Heaven, which in effect means that he has recommended himself to Heaven for the task of replacing the evil Jie. See Legge, The Chinese Classics, 3:173–76.

  59. This appears to shift time to the Zhou dynasty. According to the “Basic Annals of the Zhou” in the Shiji, the various lords spontaneously assembled in the second month on the jiazi day in the morning to take an oath to follow King Wu to attack Djou, the evil last ruler of the Shang; see Shiji, “Zhou benji,” 4:122–23. The hawk imagery seems a poetical way to describe the army. The Shangshu also describes the unplanned convergence of eight hundred princes to fight and bring down Djou. See Legge, The Chinese Classics, 3:298.

  60. Shu Dan, or Uncle Dan, is the very virtuous Duke of Zhou. The “Zhou benji” and a number of other sources describe the cruelty with which King Wu (one of whose names is Fa) treated the body of Djou. Djou, seeing that his forces had turned against him, climbed up the Deer Tower, dressed himself in all his best jade, and immolated himself. King Wu, after declaring victory, shot three arrows into Djou’s corpse, hacked it with a sword, cut off its head with a battle-ax, and hung the head from a flagstaff. He did the same to Djou’s main consorts. See Shiji, “Zhou benji,” 4:124–25.

  61. Yin is another name for the Shang dynasty.

  62. These lines may refer to the Zhou forces attacking the forces of the last Shang king.

  63. In the Zuozhuan, Xigong, 4th year (Legge, The Chinese Classics, 5:139), King Zhao 昭 is said to have drowned in a defective boat that sank while crossing the Han River during a tour of the south. Shiji, “Zhou benji, zhengyi” (the “Corrected Meanings” [正義] commentary by Sima Zhen 司馬貞 [fl. 745]), 4:134–35, says the boatman hated him and had intentionally given him a defective boat. According to Mao Qiling 毛奇齡, quoting an unknown (except to him) passage of the Zhushu jinian, the people of Chu sent a message to King Zhao of Zhou telling him that they wished to give him a white pheasant. Zhao, believing them, went south but suffered harm. The harm was death by drowning; see You, Tian wen zuanyi, 376. In the extant Bamboo Annals, King Zhao is said to have died in the nineteenth year of his reign by drowning in the Han River while campaigning against the state of Chu. Just before he and his army sink into the river, the sky clouds over and the pheasants and rabbits manifest terror (Legge, The Chinese Classics, 5:149). This is the only extant text that associates pheasants and King Zhao and the south. The same text tells us that he had attacked Chu three years before and had encountered a large rhinoceros while crossing the Han River. This prompted Wen Yiduo to advise changing “pheasant” to “rhino” in TW. David Hawkes took the advice but ignored the adjective “white.” In the Sibu congkan edition of the Shangshu dazhuan 尚書大傳, juan 4, 56 (available online at the Chinese Text Project [http://ctext.org]), the presentation of the white pheasant is related. The people of Yueshang presented the pheasant, it appears, as a sign that they were pledging allegiance to Zhou because of the good rule of the Duke of Zhou and King Cheng. The TW text is probably not talking about Zhao receiving a pheasant but the Duke of Zhou and King Cheng receiving one for maintaining peace. Zhao, however, did not deserve one, and may have suffered drowning for waging war.

  64. King Mu 穆 was the son of King Zhao. He is reputed to have traveled widely and to have conducted many military campaigns. The histories tell that he had an expert charioteer named Zao Fu 造父. In mythology, such as in the Mu Tianzi zhuan 穆天子傳, he seeks to become an immortal by traveling to Mount Kunlun to visit the Queen Mother of the West.

  65. Shiji, “Zhou benji,” 4:147, tells us that King You 幽 of the Zhou wanted to make the son of Baosi 褒姒, his new favorite, the crown prince. To do this he would have to demote the current crown prince, his son by Empress Shen. The Grand Astrologer tried to dissuade him by relating a few things he knew about Baosi’s background. According to him, during the Xia dynasty two dragons appeared in the king’s court and announced that they were the incarnations of two previous rulers of the state of Bao. The nonplussed king called for a divination. The oracle advised that the king request that the dragons give him some of their saliva. After this was done, the dragons disappeared, but their saliva remained. It was gathered up, stored in a casket, and hidden away. After the downfall of the Xia, the casket was transferred to the rulers of Shang. After th
e Shang fell, it came into the possession of the rulers of Zhou. During all that time it was never reopened. At the end of the reign of King Li of the Zhou it was opened and out flowed the saliva onto the grounds of the palace, where it stuck and could not be removed. King Li 厲 ordered that his palace women strip naked and scream as loud as they could. Thereupon the saliva changed into a black lizard, which immediately crawled into the women’s quarters. A palace maid who was still a little girl encountered it, and by the time she was of marriageable age she became pregnant as a result. Though a virgin, she gave birth but abandoned the child in fear. In the time of King Xuan 宣 of Zhou there was a children’s song that had the line “Mulberry bows and quivers will surely destroy the kingdom of Zhou.” Someone informed King Xuan that there happened to be a couple selling these items in the market. The king dispatched his agents to arrest and execute them, but the couple fled to the state of Bao in fear. On the way they heard the cries of the little girl who had been abandoned. They took her and raised her. This was Baosi, who eventually became the queen of King You of Zhou. Her influence on the king led to his downfall. An alternative account has it that Baosi came to be the wife of King You another way. The Lord of Bao had committed a crime, and somehow he got the couple selling arrows and quivers to give the girl to King You to weaken his resolve to attack and punish the state of Bao. (For this and other accounts, see Yuan, Zhongguo shenhua chuanshuo cidian, 432–33.) She was famously morose, but one of the few things that made her smile was watching the army rush to the palace when the king sent out false alarms. On one such occasion the army did not respond to the king’s call, although the kingdom was in fact under attack. King You was thus defeated.