Love and War in Ancient China - Voices from the Shijing 9629372150, 9789629372156

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Love and War in Ancient China

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Love and War in Ancient China Voices from the Shijing   William S-Y. WANG

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The Illustrations are reproduced with kind permission of the following copyright holders: National Museum of China (Figure 1, p. 4; Figure 4, p. 18; Figure 5, p. 18; Figure 12, p. 48; Figure 13, p. 49);

Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica (Figure 11, p. 46)

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Figure 14, p. 55); Museum of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (Figure 15, p. 107);

Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University (Figure 16, p. 108). We have done our utmost to ensure the copyright of every picture and receive permission from copyright owners for this book. However, due to limitations, the copyright owners of some illustrations can hardly be confirmed. If copyright owners find any picture from this book in which the copyright of illustraion belongs to you, please contact us. We will immediately apply for your granting permission.

©2013 City University of Hong Kong All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, Internet or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the City University of Hong Kong Press. ISBN: 978-962-937-215-6 Published by City University of Hong Kong Press Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon, Hong Kong Website: www.cityu.edu.hk/upress E-mail: [email protected] Printed in Hong Kong

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C ont e nt s

About the Author

vii

Preface

ix

List of Illustrations

xiii

Introduction

xvii

Part 1 Chapter 1

A Magic Portal



Chapter 2

Battle of Muye

11

Chapter 3

Two Warriors: Fuhao and Shaohu

35

Chapter 4

Structure of the Shijing

53

Chapter 5

Legacy of the Shijing

65

Chapter 6

Love in the Shijing: Guan Ju

77

Chapter 7

Love Requited and Unrequited

85

Chapter 8

Injustice in Death

123

Chapter 9

Femmes Fatales and Miracle Births

127

3

Part 2

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Affairs of State: Praise, Complaint, and Admonishment

141

Across Time and Cultures

169

Glossary

179

References

197

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Abou t t he Aut hor

William S-Y. WANG 王士元 received his early education in China. After a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, he was Professor of Linguistics at the University of California in Berkeley for 30 years. He founded the Journal of Chinese Linguistics in 1973, and continues to serve as its editor. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as from centers of advanced studies at Stanford, Bellagio, and Kyoto. He was elected to the Academia Sinica in 1992, and appointed Honorary Professor of Peking University in 2009. Currently he is Research Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His recent publications include:《王士元语音学论文集》(2010). 北京：世界图书出版公司,《语言、演化、与大脑》(2011). 北 京：商务印书馆, and《演化语言学论集》(2013). 北京：商务印 书馆. Together with Dr. James W. Minett, he has edited Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics (2005), and Language, Evolution, and the Brain (2009), both published by the City University of Hong Kong Press.

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The photo below shows Wang chatting with a Pumi woman on a field trip to Yunnan in 2002, taken by Professor Chen Baoya 陈保 亚 of Peking University.

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Pre fa ce

By all accounts, the Chinese civilization is one of the great achievements of humanity, with numerous contributions to the arts and sciences over several millennia. However, a century and half ago, with foreign gun boats pointed at her cities and opium sapping her strength, China was falling to the edge of total disintegration. Yet miraculously, having weathered the worst ravages a civilization can endure over many dark decades, the Chinese people have risen again, from an abyss of humiliation, and are still rising. In looking at these people, one cannot but wonder who they were, where they came from, and what their cultural roots were. What were the Ancient Chinese like? These were the thoughts that led me to write this book. I am not formally trained in all of the diverse topics discussed here, but have learned them only as an amateur in sporadic fashion, prompted by a sense of curiosity, and an abiding love for my native heritage. The subjects are so intrinsically interesting that I am eager to share them, in spite of how little I know. The joy I derive from telling the story here is not unlike that radiating from the face of the man with a drum in Figure 1 (p. 4). I have tried to make these pages accessible to the general public, with no special expertise required, not even any training in the Chinese language. Chinese writing, what I call “sinograms” here, is put in footnotes at the bottom of each page so as not to intimidate readers not familiar with it. Putonghua and Hanyu Pinyin, as well as Sinogram traditional and simplified, are discussed

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in the Introduction. At the same time, however, I have supplied an extensive set of endnotes in the end of each chapter, presented at a more specialized level. Readers who wish to explore any of the topics covered here more deeply will find these endnotes helpful. Several friends much more expert than I were gracious enough to look at earlier drafts of these pages, and offered valuable advice. These include Matthew Chen 陈渊泉 of the University of California at San Diego, Ho Dah’an 何大安 of Academia Sinica, Geoffrey Sampson 散復生 of the University of South Africa, Sun Jingtao 孙 景涛 of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Takashima Kenichi 高嶋谦一 of the University of British Columbia. The suggestions from David Buckley 卜大伟 of the Oregon Health and Science University are invaluable for providing the viewpoint of a reader from another field. Edmund Chan 陈家扬 of the City University of Hong Kong Press has been an unfailing source of editorial support, as he has been for several other books I have been involved with. Finally, I am particularly fortunate to have much expert advice from Ed Shaughnessy 夏含夷 of the University of Chicago during the final stage of the manuscript, saving me from many embarrassing errors. I regret that it was too late in the book production to follow all his wise counsel. Above all, to Tsai Yaching 蔡雅菁 I owe not only the initial inspiration for this labor of love to explore our common heritage, but also the day-to-day intellectual and practical support over the many long months to see the project through. Many of the insights and observations gathered here actually came from her. All in all, one could not ask for a better muse! Despite much help I have received from them, and from many other generous friends, surely there are numerous inadequacies which remain. I can only hope that kind readers will point these out to me so that I can continue to learn.

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Preface

xi

There is a Chinese saying, pao zhuan yin yu 抛砖引玉, literally “throw brick attract jade.” It comes from a story in the Tang dynasty, in which someone tried to induce a famous poet to compose by starting a poem with some of his own lines. His wish came true when the famous poet came and added several more talented lines to polish off the poem. In publishing this little book, I am hoping that readers who are much more knowledgeable than I will continue to explore the wonderful world of Ancient China, and share their explorations with us.

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List of I llust r a t ions

Figures Chapter 1

Figure 1: Story Teller Beating Drum, p. 4



Figure 2: Ancient China around the Central Plain, p. 6

Chapter 2

Figure 3: Geographical Location of Ancient Polities, p. 14



Figure 4: Li Gui, p. 18



Figure 5: The Rubbing of the Inscription Inside and Its Modern Transcription, p. 18



Figure 6: Oracle Bone Inscription of the Ganzhi Cycle of 60, p. 27

Chapter 3

Figure 7: Jade Ornament Found in Fuhao’s Tomb, p. 36



Figure 8a: Oracle Bone Inscription about Fuhao’s Childbirth, p. 38



Figure 8b: Transcription from the Inscription into Modern Writing, p. 39



Figure 9: Fuhao’s Inscription, p. 42



Figure 10: The King and Queen of the Shang Dynasty, p. 44



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Figure 11: Deer Head Inscription, p. 46

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing



Figure 12: Shao Bo Hu Gui, p. 48



Figure 13: Shao Bo Hu Gui Inscription, p. 49

Chapter 4

Figure 14: Bronze Bell from Western Zhou Dynasty, p. 55

Chapter 7

Figure 15: Fuxi Holding Carpenter Square and Nvwa Holding Compass; A Chinese Creation Myth, p. 107



Figure 16: Qilin, p. 108

Tables (the numbers following the letter m- give the ordering of the poems according to the Mao edition of the Shijing)

Chapter 2

Table 1: Ganzhi Cycle, p. 20

Chapter 5

Table 2: Jing Ye Si, p. 71

Chapter 6

Table 3: Guan Ju (m1), p. 77



Table 4: Guan Ju in Putonghua, p. 80

Chapter 7

Table 5: Que Chao (m12), p. 85



Table 6: Qiang Zhongzi (m76), p. 89



Table 7: Ye You Si Jun (m23), p. 91



Table 8: Jian Jia (m129), p. 93



Table 9: Jian Jia in Modern Garb, p. 95



Table 10: Bo Xi (m62), p. 97



Table 11: Si Mu (m162), p. 100



Table 12: Nan Shan (m101), p. 103



Table 13: Nan Shan — Another Interpretation, p. 104



Table 14: Mu Gua (m64), p. 111

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List of Illustrations



Table 15: Zi Yi (m75), p. 113



Table 16: Ji Ming (m96), p. 115



Table 17: Meng (m58), p. 117

xv

Chapter   8 Table 18: Huang Niao (m131), p. 124 Chapter   9 Table 19: Xuan Niao (m303), p. 131

Table 20: Sheng Min (m245), p. 134

Chapter 10 Table 21: Mian (m237), p. 141

Table 22: Jiang Han (m262), p. 146



Table 23: Gan Tang (m16), p. 152



Table 24: Xiang Bo (m200), p. 153



Table 25: He Cao Bu Huang (m234), p. 156



Table 26: Yi (m256), p. 158

Chapter 11 Table 27: Chibi, p. 169

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I nt rod uct ion

In these pages we will explore the roots of Chinese culture, as they began to find expression some 3,000 years agoi. The book begins with a broad outline, discussing its geography and ancient inhabitants. Our primary knowledge in this area is based on inscriptions, preserved on bronze ware and on oracle bones, often confirming what ancient historians were to report centuries after these inscriptions were made. In fact, in the first part of the last century, there was a group of influential Chinese scholars who explicitly doubted accounts given by the ancient historiansii. Some of their doubts were dispelled when the inscriptions, mostly deciphered as late as mid-20th century, corroborated many of the accounts given in these ancient histories. We will see some inscriptions that concern famous events, such as the Battle of Muye1, in which the Zhou2 people conquered the Shang3, and some other inscriptions that concern ancient heroes, such as Fuhao4 and Shao Bo5. These discussions are supplemented by maps and illustrations. By far the majority of the oracle bone inscriptions, however, dealt with much less momentous topics, as the ancient Chinese sought information from supernatural forces in carrying out their affairs, such as hunting, childbirth, and various weather conditions for planting, for warfare, etc. The well-being of these agricultural people was critically influenced by natural forces. No rain brought draught, too much 1. 牧野　2. 周　3. 商　4. 妇好　5. 召伯

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rain would cause rivers to flood, strong winds destroy crops, as would swarms of locusts. Thunder, lightening, eclipses, were all interpreted superstitiously as signs from various divinities; such beliefs were not unlike the ancient Greeks, who associated thunder with Zeus, and the sun’s journey across the sky with Apollo’s chariot. At times the divinities had to be appropriately propitiated by various sacrifices — of animals, and even of humans. And often, in the continuous domains of legends and myths, evolving toward more articulate religions there were numerous divinities to propitiate — some everywhere, some more local; some formless, some anthropomorphic, etc. The cultural landscape of Ancient China has been characterized as one in which sheng su tong zai1; yin yang dui liu2; tian di wei fen3, i.e., “gods and humans were both present; yin and yang flowed into each other; heaven and earth have not yet separated.” No knowledge of Chinese writing is assumed in this book, though exploring the ancient inscriptions will surely give the reader a preliminary sense of what Chinese writing is like. We will also examine the ancient ganzhi4 system for reckoning time, which continues to be used today as the basis of the lunar calendar. The system is constructed from a set of 10 tian gan5 and 12 di zhi6, sometimes translated as “heavenly stems” and “earthly branches,” though the original meanings of these terms are not known. The gan were used to designate a 10 day week in Ancient China, called a xun7. In fact, one of the most frequent phrases to occur in the oracle bone inscriptions was xun wang huo8, which prognosticated that the 10 day week should be free from disasters.

1. 圣俗同在　2. 阴阳对流　3. 天地未分　4. 干支　5. 天干　6. 地支　7. 旬　8. 旬亡祸

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Introduction

xix

In Part 2 of this book, starting with Chapter 6, we will turn to the Shijing1, and the voices of the people preserved in this collection of ancient poems, voices that have played a fundamental role in shaping Chinese culture over these 3,000 years. Although the earliest poems in this collection date back to 1,000 BCE, many lines from Shijing are still used today in the modern language. People sang of their loves, lamented injustices, and suffered from wars then, much as we do now. However, they moved on a very different landscape, and lived in a very different mental world in which nature and supernatural played much more prominent roles. Confucius revered the collection and strongly urged people to study it. Over the millennia, the Shijing has had an overwhelming influence on Chinese culture, unrivaled by any other document. From a total of 305 poems in the collection, only 21 have been selected for discussion. Some of these are included because they reflect the everyday emotions and behavior of ordinary people. For instance, the first poem in the Shijing, Guan Ju2, is of a young man tossing and turning at night longing for his love, and hoping to win her over with music. Another one, Jian Jia3, is a lyrical description of the search for love along a river; this poem has reincarnated into a beautiful modern song, which is also included here for comparison. Some others are included because of the light they shed on aspects of cultural history. A recurrent theme about China’s first three dynasties Xia4, Shang, Zhou, is that each of their first ancestors was born under miraculous circumstances, a special credential from heaven for authority and leadership. The poem Xuan Niao5 is named after the black bird, whose egg was

1. 诗经　2. 关雎　3. 蒹葭　4.夏　5. 玄鸟

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swallowed by the woman who would give birth to the ancestor of the Shang dynasty. The poem Sheng Min1 describes the birth of Houji2, who as an infant was protected from harm by a variety of animals, and who grew up to teach people innovative ways of agriculture. Before we move to the inscriptions and poems, let us first go over some preliminary concepts. We will soon see that China is, and has always been, a mosaic of many diverse cultures and languages, a multi-ethnic plurality. As an initial step, however, it is useful to at least keep in mind the dates commonly used for the dynasties. The dynasties often overlap quite a bit, and many dates are debated among specialists. Nonetheless, here are some commonly used dates as given in the popular Xinhua Zidian3: Xia

21st century BCE to 16th century BCE

Shang

16th century BCE to 1046 BCE

Western Zhou

1046 BCE to 771 BCE

Eastern Zhou

770 BCE to 221 BCE

Qin

221 BCE to 206 BCE

Western Han

206 BCE to 23 CE

Eastern Han

25 CE to 220 CE

Turning now to languages, they may be approached in three dimensions, which may be referred to as the three S’s, i.e., Sound, Script, and Sense. Although our interest in these pages is Ancient China, our exploration of that distant landscape will need to be based on the modern language. In the remainder of this section, we will have a very brief introduction to each of these three dimensions

1. 生民　2. 后稷　3. 新华字典

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Introduction

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of modern Chinese, as represented by Putonghua1 iii. In particular, Sound will be spelled by Hanyu Pinyin2, Script will be written with simplified sinograms, and Sense will be conveyed by skeletal translations. The poems are given together with their modern pronunciation in Hanyu Pinyin, with all the riming syllables indicated iv. The language has changed a great deal, of course, over these 3,000 years, from how Fuhao may have spoken in the Shang dynasty to how a modern woman in Anyang3 now speaks Putonghua. Shijing is much more different from modern Chinese than Chaucer (14th century) is different from the English of today; the time depth of separation is many times greater. Nonetheless, with help from the Pinyin (if necessary), I urge you to sound these poems out loud. After all, these poems were originally songs, sung with or without accompanying instruments, though we no longer have their music. Hearing the words would make appreciating Chinese poetry a more complete experience, even if you have not studied the language before.

Hanyu Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin is a scheme for writing Putonghua in the Latin alphabet v. It was officially adopted by the National People’s Congress in Beijing4 in 1958. Previous to this, there were several other schemes for spelling Chinese, among them the widely used Wade-Giles system and the Zhuyin Fuhao5 system still used in Taiwan. The Pinyin system is all but universally accepted now, and is used in this book. We will consider briefly some aspects of pronunciation that an English speaker should note about the Pinyin system. For a fuller

1. 普通话　2. 汉语拼音　3. 安阳　4. 北京　5. 注音符号

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discussion as well as a CD to illustrate the sounds, the reader may consult Lin (2007). While our focus is on Putonghua, many of these aspects pertain to other Chinese dialects as well. Following the traditional order, we will begin with tones, proceed to consonants, to vowels, and to syllable structure. Chinese is a tone language in the sense that the words are constructed not only with consonants and vowels, as in all the languages of the world, but also with tones, realized by distinctive pitch contours. Although we cannot be sure at present, it is quite likely that tones have been in the Chinese sound system since ancient timesvi. In Putonghua these tones are typically numbered as 1= high, 2 = rising, 3 = low, and 4 = falling. Other dialects may differ in the number of tones they have and in how their tones are numbered. The tones in Putonghua may be illustrated with a set of words that differ only in tone, such as: 1 = mā, 妈 meaning “mother,” or shī, 诗 meaning “poetry,” 2 = má, 麻 meaning “hemp,” shí, 时 meaning “time,” 3 = mǎ, 马 meaning “horse,” shǐ, 史 meaning “history,” 4 = mà, 骂 meaning “to scold,” shì, 市 meaning “city.” Oftentimes, the diacritic in tone 1 is left out, and a syllable not marked with tone diacritics is understood to carry tone 1vii. Since tone 1 occurs with the highest frequency among the 4 tones, not marking it gives the page a cleaner look. However, when tone diacritics are left out altogether, many ambiguities arise. An inconvenient ambiguity that arises in this book is between Zhōu1, the name of a dynasty, and Zhòu2, the name of the last king of the Shang dynasty. Another ambiguity is between two names of provinces, Shānxi3 and Shǎnxi4. The conventional solution here is to write them respectively as Shanxi and Shaanxi viii. There are cases

1. 周　2. 纣　3. 山西　4. 陕西

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Introduction

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of true homophony as well, such as the names of two ethnic groups in China, both pronounced Yí. They are written distinctly of course: 夷 versus 彝. In general the letters for consonants in Pinyin have similar values as they have in English. The letter “g” before “e,” is always pronounced like in English “get” and never like English “gem.” The English r-sound is always pronounced with the lips rounded at the beginning of a word. In contrast, the Chinese “r” is pronounced with the lips rounded only before rounded vowels like “u,” like in ru1 “enter;” otherwise the lips are not rounded, like in re2 “hot.” The differences between Pinyin and English become greater in the case of the following consonants, arranged here according to their phonetic values. After each Pinyin letter, I have also provided its closest English equivalent. The relevant letters in the English words are underlined. Dental

Palatal

Retroflex

Unaspirated

z = bids

j = gin

zh = drew

Aspirated

c = bits

q = chin

ch = true

Fricative

s = sew

x = shin

sh = shrew

The consonants in the top two rows are called affricates; the aspirated ones are pronounced with a puff of air immediately following, while the unaspirated ones are not followed by such a puff of air. In the dental column, the sounds represented by Pinyin “z” and “c” do not occur as initial consonants in English. A good way to start practicing them is to put a word after them, such as “bids are” and “bits are,” and then suppress the “bi,” much as one removes scaffolding after it has served its purpose.

1. 入　2. 热

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The consonants in the retroflex column are perhaps the most unfamiliar and challenging to speakers of other languages. Their Pinyin spelling is unusual in that a sequence of two letters is used to spell single sounds, like the use in English of “th” for spelling the word “the.” They are called retroflex because they are pronounced with the tip of the tongue tilted slightly upward, as one can verify from x-ray photographs. We will see these consonants a lot in the pages to follow, since the name of both the Shang dynasty and Zhou dynasty begin with retroflex consonants in Putonghua. The consonant clusters in the English words in the table are similar in acoustic effect; nonetheless they are but an approximation to the Chinese retroflex consonants. However, it may be a comfort to some readers who are especially challenged here to know that many Chinese speakers coming from some dialect regions often speak Putonghua without these retroflexes. They are simply pronounced as dental consonants instead. It is useful to compare the Pinyin vowels with those in European languages where the spelling is more regular and simple, like Italian or Spanish. The situation with English is much more complicated because every vowel letter has several different pronunciations, depending on the word; for example the “i” in “five” and “fifth;” or the “e” in “me” and “met.” The only Pinyin vowel that the reader may find challenging is “i.” To discuss this vowel, let us return to the consonants we met in the previous table, except now they are followed by the Pinyin vowel “i.” Dental

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Palatal

Retroflex

Unaspirated

zi = 字 “character”

ji = 记 “record”

zhi = 志 “ambition”

Aspirated

ci = 次 “second”

qi = 气 “air”

chi = 翅 “wing”

Fricative

si = 四 “four”

xi = 细 “thin”

shi = 市 “city”

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For the palatal column, there should be no problem: Pinyin “ji” is like English “gee,” Pinyin “qi” is like English “chee,” and Pinyin “xi” is like English “she,” all pronounced with a falling tone. However, in the dental column Pinyin “i” is pronounced as an apical vowel; this is a sound most readers unfamiliar with Chinese would not have encountered. The sound has been described as a continuation of the preceding consonant but without the frication. The same description may be offered for pronouncing “i” after the retroflex consonants, except there should be “r”-coloring added as well. Of course, no amount of paper discussion on pronunciation can substitute for the benefits of just listening to some examples by a friendly native speaker. After all, the eye is no substitute for the ear. The nine words in the above table are selected to illustrate the phonetics just discussed, specifically the apical vowels and retroflex consonants. As if to make up for the problems that the tones, the retroflexes, and the apical vowel may cause the learner of the language, the syllable structure in modern Chinese is elegantly simple. A syllable begins with at most one consonant, which may or may not be followed by a glide. A syllable may end with at most one consonant. In the Pinyin system, a glide which begins a syllable is spelled “w” or “y.” However, when the glide is preceded by a consonant, it is spelled “u” or “i.” A syllable without consonants at the end is called “open;” otherwise it is “closed.” All 8 possible patterns are shown in the following table, with illustration for each pattern, all in tone 1. These 8 patterns may be summarized by a simple formula, i.e., (C) (G)V(C), where C is consonant, G is glide, and V is vowel, using parentheses to indicate optional elements ix.

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Open Syllable

Closed Syllable

1

V

a

阿 “prefix”

5

VC

an

安 “peace”

2

GV

wa

蛙 “frog”

6

GVC

wan

弯 “curve”

3

CV

ha

哈 “interjection”

7

CVC

han

憨 “honest”

4

CGV

hua

花 “flower”

8

CGVC

huan

欢 “happy”

Ambiguities may arise with certain sequences of consonants and vowels with respect to syllable boundaries. For such cases we use an apostrophe to indicate a syllable boundary. For instance, we write Xi’an1 for the disyllabic name of the famous city in the province of Shaanxi. Written without the apostrophe, xian2 is a single syllable that may mean “county.” Xi’an means “western peace.” In olden times, as in the Tang3 dynasty, the city was called Chang’an4, meaning “eternal peace.” Note however, without the apostrophe to mark the syllable boundary, the sequence could represent the two syllables chan and gan. One final comment on the scope of the syllable in Chinese. As mentioned earlier, there are three dimensions in language that may be called the three S’s: namely, Sound, Script, and Sense. The syllable is a unit of Sound, but in Chinese it always corresponds to a unit in Script, which is the zi5, or popularly called “Chinese character” which we will here interchangeably call “sinogram.” “Sinogram” is the direct translation of the Chinese term Hanzi 6. In turn, the sinogram almost always corresponds to a unit in Sense, which is the morpheme. Thus in Chinese there is the simple equation relating sound to script to sense: One syllable = One character = One morpheme x

1. 西安　2. 县　3. 唐　4. 长安　5. 字　6. 汉字

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Such an equation would not hold for an alphabetic language like English, where the unit in Script is the word, which may contain two or more syllables as well as two or more morphemes. In Chinese, words are not separated by spaces as in English. Here is an example to illustrate the difference. The Chinese sentence has 4 syllables, 4 sinograms, and 4 morphemes; the relations among the three dimensions are straightforward. In contrast, the corresponding English sentence with the same meaning has 4 syllables, the first syllable containing 2 morphemes, syllables 2 and 3 represent the third morpheme, and syllable 4 representing the fourth morpheme. The relations are therefore more complex. Chinese:

Ta de zhu shou. 他 的 助 手

English:

Hi-s assist-ant

Returning to my recommendation earlier that you pronounce the Pinyin out loud when you read the poems, the aim is not for great phonetic accuracy at this point. In fact, people from various dialect backgrounds all sound quite different when they speak Putonghua. Nobody knows for sure what the people really sounded like 3,000 years ago. Insofar as the rime patterns are reflected in Putonghua, they divide the stream of speech into convenient chunks, for the ear to enjoy and for the mind to remember. Furthermore, there is a certain charm when a Frenchman or an Italian pronounces English with a foreign accent — so in a sense we will be pronouncing Old Chinese with a Putonghua accent. The point simply is to enhance the enjoyment of these poems, to make the experience more complete, as we explore the world of Ancient China.

Sinograms, Traditional and Simplified Alphabetic spelling, of which Hanyu Pinyin is the latest version, came to China only since the 16th century. The script that has

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long been in use and continues to be used in China is based on the sinogram. The earliest specimens of sinograms currently available date back only some 3,000 years. We will be discussing such a specimen in the form of an oracle shell, which was inscribed in connection with Fuhao’s childbirth. Given the maturity of these specimens, it is almost certain that the earliest forms of this script date much further back than 3,000 years; presumably such ancient specimens are buried deep somewhere, waiting to be discovered in some future excavation. Zhou (2010) discusses some controversial specimens recently discovered at the archeological site of Liangzhu1; see Figure 2. The first sinograms were in all likelihood iconic in nature, in that their shapes are suggestive of some physical properties of the object represented — such as the head of a sheep 羊, or the branching of a tree 木, or the two sides of a door 門, now simplified to 门. To take another example, the sinogram for tiger was written 3,000 years ago, which is the ancestral form for the modern 虎. A particularly interesting iconic sinogram was 且, which is based on a phallic symbol, showing early awareness of the important role males play in reproduction, and of the father-child bond in addition to the mother-child bond xi. The emergence of this sinogram may be related to the early transition from matrilineal to patrilineal society in Ancient China. Before long, these simple sinograms were combined into more complex ones, such as putting two or three trees together 林, 森 to mean “forest,” or combining 日“sun” and 月 “moon” to mean “brightness” 明. The 且 became combined with another sinogram 示, which has to do with matters of the spirit; the complex sinogram which results is 祖 zu, meaning “ancestor,” a core concept in Chinese civilization. The 礻 on the left side of 祖 is a compressed

1. 良渚

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version of 示; such compression commonly occurs when simple sinograms are combined to form complex ones. However, by far the most productive principle in constructing sinograms is to combine a component having to do with sense with another component having to do with sound. This can be exemplified by 材, where the left component is the “tree” shown above, or more generally, “wood;” here it gives the approximate sense that the sinogram refers to the nature of the material some object is made from. The right component 才 is another simple sinogram, pronounced cai. Thus the complex sinogram is pronounced cai. Such sinograms are called “phonograms” in English, or xingsheng zi1 in Chinese, literally, “shape-sound writing.” The component that gives the approximate sense of the total phonogram is called a “radical.” Although it commonly occurs to the left, as in “spirit” in 祖 and “wood” in 材 above, it may also occur in other positions. Examples are: 鸽 “dove,” where the “bird” radical is to the right; 桌 “table,” where the “wood” radical is at the bottom; and 岗 “hillock,” where the “mountain” radical is on top. As Chinese civilization progressed over the millennia, the number of sinograms accumulated, so that large dictionaries list over 50,000 of them, including some whose shapes are extremely complex in terms of the number of strokes they contain. No one of course knows all of these sinograms, let alone use them on a daily basis. For ordinary usage, such as reading newspapers, some 3,000 or 4,000 would suffice. There have been several occasions when government stepped in to systematize the sinograms, to standardize usage, and to redesign some of them. An early occasion was during the time of the First Emperor, when the Qin2 conquered the other kingdoms and unified China into a single empire. The most recent occasion

1. 形声字　2. 秦

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of standardization for writing Chinese was in the 1950s, when the Hanyu Pinyin was officially adopted, and the first batch of Simplified Sinograms were introduced. This resulted in two systems of sinograms, the traditional sinograms called either Zhengti Zi1 or Fanti Zi2, and the simplified sinograms called Jianti Zi3. Mainland China and Singapore now use Jianti Zi; on the other hand, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan continue to use Zhengti Zi. The sinograms in these pages are typically in Jianti Zi. The sinograms used in Japan, called Kanji, which is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Hanzi, underwent some change after they were adopted, some of them well over a thousand years ago. Many of the Kanji have the same shape as both the Zhengti and the Jianti, as illustrated in the first line below. Or, all three sinograms may be different, illustrated in the second line. In line 3, the Kanji is the same as the Zhengti, while in line 4, the Kanji is the same as the Jianti. All four possibilities occur. Nonetheless, Chinese and Japanese readers can usually read texts in any of the three systems of sinograms, with varying degrees of difficulty. Kanji

Zhengti

Jianti

母

母

母

meaning “mother”

読

讀

读

meaning “to read”

車

車

车

meaning “vehicle”

体

體

体

meaning “body”

The following table illustrates the differences between the Zhengti Zi and the Jianti Zi in terms of three categories. As can be seen by comparing the leftmost pair of columns, many of the high frequency sinograms have not been affected — they are the same in 1. 正体字　2. 繁体字　3. 简体字

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both systems. In the second category in the middle pair of columns, however, the sinograms have been simplified quite a bit. The top sinogram 滅, for example, has 13 strokes while its simplified form 灭 has only 5 strokes. The reduction in the number of strokes in these sinograms is the most significant. Traditional and Simplified Sinograms Traditional

Simplified

Traditional

Simplified

Traditional

Simplified

十

十

滅

灭

詳

详

土

土

龍

龙

讀

读

水

水

夢

梦

銀

银

我

我

廣

广

鐵

铁

的

的

護

护

紅

红

家

家

農

农

線

线

金

金

葉

叶

財

财

笑

笑

塵

尘

賬

账

For the third category, illustrated in the last pair of columns in the table, the number of sinograms affected is the greatest. This is because the simplification is applied to the radicals, and each simplified radical affects dozens of sinograms which contain that radical, and from very early on, the great majority of sinograms are phonograms that contain radicals. For example, the radical 言 in the top sinogram 詳 has 7 strokes, while the simplified form of this radical in 详 has only 2 strokes. Thus this saving of 5 strokes applies to all sinograms which contain this radical. There are occasional exceptions to this generalization; examples are the 5th sinograms in the middle pair of columns. Here, the traditional form 護 “to protect” with the 言 “speech” radical has been simplified to 护, changing it into a phonogram with a new “hand” radical 扌 derived from 手, and a phonetic 户, pronounced hu. Moreover, to make the discussion here more complete, note

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also that in the even numbered sinograms in this rightmost pair of columns, the right component of the sinograms have been additionally simplified as well. Turning now to the dimension of Sense, since poems are the junction of Sound and Sense, here are a few thoughts on the meaning of the poems we will be reading. Ever since 1594, when Matteo Ricci started translating Chinese classics into Latin, there has been a steady stream of similar efforts by European scholars over the centuries. In providing the Shijing poems with English, I have consulted many works, especially Waley (1937), Karlgren (1950), Yu (1977), Xu and Jiang (1993). Often there are major differences in their interpretations of these poems and I am forced to choose among these authorities to minimize the confusion in my mind. Even though the literature on the Shijing is already extensive, it is clear there are numerous issues on which there is no consensus, simply because we do not know enough about Ancient China as yet. In contrast to all previous works, I have provided these poems with only very skeletal, bare-bone translations. Furthermore, as much as possible, each line has its own translation, so that the correspondence across the languages is more transparent. There are many reasons for this minimalist approach. One has to do with the difference between the grammars xii. While English grammar requires a much more complex grammatical infrastructure, of articles, tense, number, gender, etc., Chinese grammar has a minimum of these. In order to produce normal English from Chinese texts, translators sometimes supply information which is not in the original, such as whether the author was male or female. This is something I tried to avoid in these pages whenever possible. Another reason is that the unfamiliarity of a skeletal translation may better evoke a sense of Ancient China than normal English can. After all, the voices are from people living on the shores of the Yellow River 3,000 years ago, in a starkly different landscape. The

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less detail the translation supplies, the more you can engage your own imagination. Oftentimes we can enjoy reading a book more than watching a movie because our private imagination can fill in the details much more effectively.

Endnotes i. To refer to time, I will sometimes use the abbreviation BP (before present); but since the present is constantly receding into the past, this designation is of course only approximate. CE (common era) and BCE (before the common era) are also used. BCE corresponds to the earlier abbreviation BC (before Christ). and CE corresponds to the earlier abbreviation AD (Anno Domini = year of our Lord). The current abbreviations have the advantage of being freer from religious associations. Thus, 3,000 years ago is also roughly 1,000 BCE. ii. A major figure in the yigu 疑古 “doubt antiquity” movement was Gu Jiegang 顾颉刚. There is an excellent English translation of Gu’s autobiography by the sinologist A. W. Hummel. iii. Because of her long history and large territory, China is actually a large mosaic of diverse peoples, speaking a variety of languages and dialects. Nonetheless, beneath the surface differences, there are common roots in the cultures, many tracing back to the Han dynasty. There is an expression 汉化, i.e., “han-ization,” or “sinicization,” which reflects the historical prominence of this dynasty as well as the importance of the ethnic group named after it. The language adopted as a national medium of communication is largely based on the speech of Beijing, the nation’s capital for some 8 centuries. This language is called Putonghua, or Common Speech, which is the term we will use in these pages. Other terms that are in use include Modern Standard Chinese, Mandarin (translated from Guanhua 官话, “official speech,”) Hanyu (汉语, “Han language,”) Guoyu (国语, “national language,” used in Taiwan), Huayu (华语, “language of the Hua people,” used in Southeast Asia). iv. In a few poems, earlier pronunciations are given to be consistent with authorities on Shijing. Some examples are: 氓=meng, 解=xie, 倭=wei, 稽 =qi, 大=tai, instead of mang, jie, wo, ji, da.

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v. For a comparative discussion of Chinese writing and alphabetic writing, see Wang, William S-Y. & Yaching Tsai. 2011. “The alphabet and the sinogram: Setting the stage for a look across orthographies.” Dyslexia Across Languages: Orthography and the Brain–Gene–Behavior Link, ed. by P. McCardle, J. R. Lee, B. Miller & O. Tzeng, 1–16: Brookes Publishing. For a historical survey of literacy in China, see Wang, Feng, Yaching Tsai & W. S-Y. Wang. 2009. “Chinese literacy.” Cambridge Handbook on Literacy, ed. by D. Olson & N. Torrance, 386–417. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. vi. For the historical background of Chinese tones, see Wang, W. S-Y. & C. C. Cheng. 1987. “Middle Chinese tones in modern dialects.” In Honor of Ilse Lehiste,” ed. by R. Channon & L. Shockey, 513–23: Foris Publishers. It is very likely that Chinese had become a fully tonal language by the Han dynasty, though the tones were not explicitly discussed until several centuries later, presumably under the influence of Sanskrit writings. vii. To be more precise, unstressed syllables without tones are also unmarked with diacritics; however they can usually be distinguished by context. viii. Shaanxi is a generally used artificial spelling where the “aa” indicates the third tone, to distinguish it from the name of another province, Shanxi, which has the first tone. ix. In this formula, the V stands for vocalic nucleus, which includes simple vowels as well as diphthongs. x. There are few exceptions here, such as 葡萄, 玻璃, 蟋蟀, etc. xi. Ancient writings often spoke of the offspring knowing the mother but not the father, 知母不知父, which is a natural outcome of primitive biological scenarios. Ling (1959) is an authoritative study of various forms of worship in Ancient China. xii. A classic statement of Chinese grammar is by Chao (1968).

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Part 1

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C ha p t e r 1 A Magic Portal

Imagine a magic portal that takes us a long way back in time, to some 3,000 years ago. Not to the cold stones from crumbled temples of ages past, nor to the mute skulls and bones unearthed by an archeologist’s spade, though these are certainly helpful aids. Through this portal we can explore an ancient China, hear the voices of its diverse peoples, common folk as well as kings and lords — their worlds, their daily lives, many centuries before Buddha, a full millennium before Christ. These voices are preserved for us in the form of poems, odes, and songs, in a collection called the Shijingi 1. This slender volume tells the stories behind some of these voices. Story telling is a popular art in all cultures. It is always a source of delight, for the teller as well as for the audience. Figure 1 shows an archeological find from Ancient China: the teller was dancing during his story, and accompanying himself with a drum. The expression of pure joy on his face is timeless. Strictly speaking, China had not yet come into being that long ago. The word itself, “China,” derives from the name of the first empire, the Qin2, founded in 221 BCE by Ying Zheng3, who is also called Shi Huangdi4, or the First Emperor. The root Sin- as in Sinitic or Sino-Tibetan comes from the same source. Previous to the Qin unification, there were dozens of kingdoms, tribes, and clans, many of them clustered in the sprawling plains nourished by the 1. 诗经　2. 秦　3. 嬴政　4. 始皇帝　

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

Figure 1 Story Teller Beating Drum (击鼓艺人)

Story-telling is a popular art in all cultures. In this archeological find from Ancient China, the performer was accompanying his story with a drum. The expression of joy on his face is timeless.

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5

mighty Yellow River, Huanghe1. Temperature was several degrees higher 3,000 years ago; it was a very different and much greener landscape, rich in diverse fauna and flora, with roaming elephants, tigers and rhinoceroses. In the poems we will soon explore, both tigers and rhinoceroses are mentionedii, including drinking vessels made from rhinoceros horns. Elvin (2004) gives a detailed environmental history of China from early times. Li and Jin (2008) discusses the origin of the peoples from a genetic perspective. Figure 2 gives us a sketch of that ancient landscape, centered around the Central Plain, or Zhongyuan2 in Chineseiii. Broadly speaking, the Central Plain was relatively self-contained, with ocean to the east, mountains to the west, deserts to the north, and jungles to the southiv. Millennia before our story here, which begins around 3,000 years ago, the primary way of life in the Zhongyuan area was agriculture, especially with wheat in the north and rice in the south. This was in stark contrast to neighbors, especially to the north and northwest, who were pastoral nomads. This tension between two ways of life was a recurrent theme in much of Chinese prehistory and history. The Cultural Atlas of China by Blunden and Elvin (1998) is an accessible and comprehensive study of such issues. Let us first look at some of the rivers on this landscape since they provide the water which is the source of life. The Yellow River, or Huanghe, originates in the highlands of Qinghai3. It traces a path that is like the outline of a top hat, with its top segment hovering above 42 degrees North, until it bends sharply southward. In this southward course, it serves as the boundary between two modern provinces, Shaanxi4 to its west, and Shanxi5 to its east. Along this southward course it is joined by the Fenshui6. Further south, it is joined by the Weishui7, and at that junction makes another sharp angle eastward, this time separating Shanxi to its north and Henan8 to its south. From there, the River, or simply referred to as He9 in ancient times, courses to the northeast, to empty eventually in the Bohai10. 1. 黄河　2. 中原　3. 青海　4. 陕西　5. 山西　6. 汾水　7. 渭水　8. 河南　9. 河　10. 渤海

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Long River 長江

Jingman Chu 荊蠻 楚

湖北

Hubei

河南

漢水

Hanshui

Cai 蔡

Guan 管

Henan

Wei 衛

河北

Hebei

Shen 申

Luoyi 雒邑

Huo 霍

Tang 唐

Fenshui 汾水

山西

Shanxi

山東

渤海

Lu 魯 Tuyi 涂夷

Shandong

Qi 齊

Bohai

安徽

淮夷

Anhui Huaiyi

淮水

黃海

Yellow Ocean

浙江

Zhejiang

Wu 吳 Liangzhu 良渚 Yue 越

Song 宋 Jiangsu Chen 江蘇 陳 Huaishui

Yan 燕

Two great rivers, the Yellow River and the Long River, provide the water which is the major source of life for the cultures of early China.

Archeological sites

Early cultures of neighboring peoples

Capitals of Shang and Zhou

Polities

四川

Haojing 鎬京

陝西 Jingshui 涇水

Shaanxi

Sanxingdui 三星堆

Qin 秦

Weishui 渭水

Sichuan

Quanrong 犬戎

Xianyun 玁狁

Yellow River 黃河

Figure 2 Ancient China around the Central Plain

6 Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

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1. A Magic Portal

7

The other great river, the Long River, or Changjiang1, was also simply referred to as Jiang2. In modern times, segments of it also have other names, such as Jinshajiang3, and Yangzijiang4, the latter name sometimes appearing in English spelled as “Yangtze.” This great river originates in the far west flowing south. But in Yunnan5 its path was blocked by huge granite formations, and took a sharp turn eastward. From there it maintains a steady course eastward, hovering around 30 degrees North, crossing the breadth of China until it empties into the East China Sea, or Donghai6. Near the modern city of Wuhan7, it is joined by a famous tributary, the Hanshui8 or Hanjiang9. Although there are many other water systems, these two great rivers, Changjiang and Huanghe, or simply referred to as Jiang and He, have a special meaning for Chinese civilization. In addition to the water they provide, without which life is impossible, they are also the major arteries for communication and transport. Figure 2 also shows us some of the lesser known tribes on this landscape, lesser known because they appear mostly as outsiders, enemies, or “barbarians.” In the northwest shown in Figure 2, the Huanghe flows northward across the territories of the Xianyun10 and the Quanrong11 v. In the south, the Changjiang flows by the territory of the Jingman12. In the east we see the two tribes of Tuyi13 and Huaiyi14. The –rong15, –man16, and –yi17 in these names were generic labels given by ancient historians to refer to neighboring tribes to the west, south, and east respectively; the generic label not illustrated in Figure 2 is –di18, to refer to tribes in the north. The people of the Shang and Zhou saw their location as being in the middle; hence the term Zhongguo19, or “Middle Kingdom.”

1. 长江　2. 江　3. 金沙江　4. 扬子江　5. 云南　6. 东海　7. 武汉　8. 汉水　9. 汉江 10. 猃狁　11. 犬戎　12. 荆蛮　13. 涂夷　14. 淮夷　15. 戎　16. 蛮　17. 夷　18. 狄　 19. 中国

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

The attitude the Ancient Chinese held toward some of their neighbors can be seen in the characters they used to refer to them. For example, 狄 di is written with a left component 犬 quan that means “dog,”vi and 蛮 man is written with a bottom component 虫 chong that means “insect.” 戎 rong and 夷 yi fare a little better, their characters being constructed from components that mean weapons of war, namely 戈 ge “spear” and 弓 gong “bow”vii respectively. Another neighboring tribe often referred to in Ancient China was the qiang 羌, written with a character whose top component 羊 yang means “sheep.” These ethnic labels had to wait till the 20th century for some of them to be written with less discriminatory characters. See the last section of this book for more discussion on this development. Here is a passage from the Book of Rites or Liji1, one of the Five Classics in the Confucian tradition, which also reflects the same inhospitable attitude:viii “The tribes on the east were called Yi. They had their hair unbound, and tattooed their bodies. Some of them ate their food without its being cooked with fire. Those on the south were called Man. They tattooed their foreheads, and had their feet turned in toward each other. Some of them ate their food without its being cooked with fire. Those on the west were called Rong. They had their hair unbound, and wore skins. Some of them did not eat grain-food. Those on the north were called Di. They wore skins of animals and birds, and dwelt in caves. Some of them did not eat grain-food.” Two famous archeological sites are also shown in Figure 2. The remains from both sites reveal high levels of culture, as can be viewed in their respective museums. The Liangzhu culture, for instance, left behind finely worked jade, silk, ivory and lacquer 1. 礼记

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9

artifacts, many of these used at ritual burials. It has been dated to 5,500 to 4,000 BP, and ranged over much of the east coast, from Lake Tai or Taihu1 in the south extending northward all the way to Shandong2. The other archeological site in Figure 2 is Sanxingdui3, situated not far from the historical city of Chengdu4 in China’s southwest. Dating back some 3,000 years, it was contemporaneous with the first dynasties in the Central Plain, and there may have been limited interactions between the two regions. International exhibits from the Sanxingdui culture have thrilled viewers all over the world, with its impressive bronze statues, some standing over 2.6 meters tall. Also memorable are its many masks, some with grossly exaggerated facial features, including beak-like noses, ears extending laterally, and eyes protruding outward like antennas. Indeed, toward the end of the second millennium BCE, there were several archeological sites with bronze technology. In addition to Sanxingdui, they were found also in Zhouyuan5 in the Wei river valley, in Shilou6 in west-central Shanxi, at Sufutun7 in Shandong, at Ningxiang8 in Hunan9, at Xin’gan10 in Jiangxi11, etc. However, our attention will be focused on the Anyang site in Henan for the simple distinction that these people left behind an immense historical legacy in the form of oracle bone inscriptions. With these inscriptions from the Shang dynasty of over 3,000 years ago, China transitioned from the mist of legends and myths into a tradition of documented history. Combining the information in these inscriptions with the poems and songs composed around the same period, we can begin to piece together an ancient landscape of how people expressed their loves and waged their wars when the world was still relatively young. That is the landscape we will explore here. 1. 太湖　2. 山东　3. 三星堆　4. 成都　5. 周原　6. 石楼　7. 苏阜屯　8. 宁乡　9. 湖南　 10. 新干　11. 江西

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

Endnotes i. Following the usage on Mainland China, the system of spelling used here is the Hanyu Pinyin 汉语拼音, and the Chinese words are written in their simplified forms, called Jianti Zi 簡体字. For simpler appearance, the high level tone, or tone 1, is sometimes not marked with diacritics. Also to avoid diacritics, the letter “ü” is often replaced by “v”; e.g., “nü” by “nv”. Square brackets are used to indicate phonetic values, such as the use of [] to represent the single sound usually spelled with the two letters “ng.” ii. For instance in poem m234. iii. The names in Figures 2 and 3 of Chapter 3 are given in Traditional sinograms while Simplified sinograms are used in this book; see the earlier section Sinograms, Traditional and Simplified for discussion of the difference. As an example, note the Traditional sinogram 漢 han at approximately the 6 o’clock position in the figures, which labels the river flowing southeastward into the Changjiang. The corresponding Simplified sinogram is 汉. iv. The Central Plain is of course a large area, containing diverse topography from region to region. v. Authorities differ on whether the Xianyun and Quanrong were one tribe or two distinct tribes. vi. Some characters when used as components for other more complex characters change their shapes to more compressed forms; this is the case of 犬 as it is used as the left component in 狄. vii. Identifying part of 夷 as 弓 may be due to later developments of the sinograms in question; I thank Takashima Kenichi for this information. viii. Based on Poo 2005:65.

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C ha p t e r 2 Battle of Muye

Ancient China was covered by an elaborate quilt of numerous populations of diverse sociopolitical structures or polities — tribes, clans, and city-states. We may get a partial glimpse of the demography of that period from the writings of a Qing1 dynasty scholar, Gu Zuyu2. “According to Gu Zuyu there were 10,000 guo at the time of the Great Yu.”i The word guo in this quote corresponds to what we call “polity” here. This word is written with an interesting shape: its radicalii is 口 wei , which iconically suggests the walls of a city, built for defense. In its traditional form 國, it is a phonogram; the component inside is 或 huo, which is a phonetic suggesting an approximate pronunciation. In its simplified form, 国 is no longer a phonogram with the component inside replaced by 玉 yu, which means “jade.” The historical picture that this sinogram paints for us is a landscape dotted with walled-in polities, in the nature of numerous city-states; a few of these ancient city walls still stand today to remind us of the past. Gu’s number 10,000 is not to be taken literally, of course, but merely indicated that there were many such walled-in polities; the time was the founding of the Xia dynasty by Yu3, approximately 2,100 BCE. Several centuries later, at the founding of the Shang dynasty by Tang4, approximately 1,600 BCE, the number has reduced to 3,000 according to Gu. This simply means that many 1. 清　2. 顾祖禹　3. 禹　4. 汤

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

of the small polities have merged into larger ones, whether by conquest or by negotiation, resulting in larger and more powerful polities. As in many other parts of the ancient world, the people of the conquered polities often became slaves of their conquerors, adding to the stratification of the societyiii. As the ancient population grew and interactions among the polities became more frequent, this process of merging continued and became more frequent as well, ending in the grand unification of 221 BCE. When the Zhou1 dynasty was founded in 1046 BCE by Wuwang2, Gu calculated the number at 1,800. When the Zhou court moved east to Luoyang3 in 770 BCE, there were still 1,200 states. By the beginning of the Warring States Period, Zhanguo4 (475 BCE), the states of the feudal lords numbered little more than 100, of which only about 14 were major polities. The final coalescence was the grand unification by the Qin, when all these populations came under one sociopolitical structure. Most of the policies for unification and administration of the short-lived Qin (221–206 BCE) were followed by one of China’s most enduring dynasties, the Han5 (206 BCE–220 CE), approximately contemporaneous with the Roman Empire. Living under one sociopolitical structure does not mean there was no diversity, cultural and linguistic, regardless of the homogenizing tendencies government officials typically have. One official revealed such diversity during the Han dynasty when he lamented: “...every hundred li there are different manners; every thousand li there are different customs; households are differently regulated; people are differently clothed.” iv

1. 周　2. 武王　3. 洛阳　4. 战国　5. 汉

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In spite of the political unity on the surface, China was, from its very beginning and continuing to this day, a mosaic of many peoples and diverse local cultures. History books give a neat picture of the dynasties coming into the spotlight in orderly nonoverlapping succession. In actuality, there were always numerous regional loci of sociopolitical activity going on simultaneously, each contributing in its own way to the grand amalgamation that is China. Even in the present age of electronics, significant differences still exist both genetically and linguistically. When I was a school boy in Shanghai in the 1940s, we were taught that China was made up of five peoples: Han, Man, Meng, Hui, Zang1, with the Hans constituting the overwhelming majority, followed by Manchus, Mongolians, Moslems, and Tibetans. The government is now much more sensitive to the demographic diversity; yet it officially recognizes only 56 ethnic groups, foremost among them the Han. In actuality there are numerous other ethnic groups scattered in various less accessible parts of the country. This diversity is particularly visible in the Southwest, in provinces like Sichuan2 and Yunnan.v With the growing network of highways and electronic communication, many languages and cultures are disappearing. Much of China’s heritage comes from the diversity of her peoples, and the loss of this diversity is unfortunate. Returning to our landscape of 3,000 years ago, in Figure 3 the geographical locations of a few of the many polities that were active at various times in Ancient China are labeled. These polities had various degrees of political organization; they spoke languages from several distinct language families, sometimes with little mutual intelligibilityvi. Some of these polities are referred to in the

1. 汉满蒙回藏　2. 四川　

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Historic sites of Battle of Muye

Capitals of Shang and Zhou

Polities

Qin 秦

岐山

四川

Sichuan

Weishui 渭水

Long River 長江

Haojing 鎬京

陝西 Jingshui Qishan 涇水

Shaanxi

Yellow River 黃河

Chu 楚

湖北

Hubei

Cai 蔡

漢水

Hanshui

Shen 申

河南

Henan

Wei 衛 Guan 管

Tang 唐

河北

Hebei

Muye 牧野

Luoyi 雒邑

Huo 霍

Fenshui 汾水

山東

渤海

Lu 魯

Shandong

Qi 齊

Bohai

安徽

Anhui

淮水

Yue 越

Wu 吳

黃海

Yellow Ocean

浙江

Zhejiang

Song 宋 Jiangsu Chen 江蘇 陳 Huaishui

Yin 殷

Yan 燕

Figure 3 Geographical Location of Ancient Polities

14 Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

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poems of the collection we will discuss. The names in Figure 3 will surface again and again in later Chinese history, such as Tang1 and Song2, which were names of major dynasties as well as popular surnames. In fact, some of the most popular surnames in China have their historical sources in the names of these early polities. Not surprisingly, a common way of referring to someone is by the place he comes from. The history of surnames goes back at least 3,000 years. A popular collection written exclusively with surnames is the Bai Jia Xing3 “hundred family names,” arranged in 4-syllable lines. It begins with the surnames Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li4 because it was compiled during the Song dynasty (960–1279) when the emperor’s surname was Zhao. Perhaps it is due to that collection that the Chinese collective word for “ordinary citizen” is lao baixing5, where the lao is a prefix often used as a casual term of address, e.g., Lao Li for “Old Li.” Recent census figures show that “Li” is the most frequent surname in China, making up almost 8% of the total Han population. Presumably this is in part because “Li” was the surname of the emperor of the famous Tang dynasty (618–907). In actual fact, of course, there are many thousands of surnames registered in Chinavii, many of them polysyllabic among the non Han populations. There are some Han surnames as well which are disyllabic. The distribution of these surnames differs from region to region, reflecting a complex and extensive history of migrations over the millenniaviii. For instance the surname Chen6 ranks first in southeastern China, displacing Liix. In most of the ethnic traditions in China, surnames are transmitted from father to son, in a way that is similar to how genes in the Y-chromosome are transmitted along the patrilineal line. So one can easily get a first approximation of the genetics of China by merely looking at

1. 唐　2. 宋　3. 百家姓　4. 赵钱孙李　5. 老百姓　6. 陈　

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

a map of the distribution of surnames, without analysis of genetic samples. x Note the homeland of Qin in the west, on the shores of the Weishui. These people were destined to produce the man who would conquer all these polities to become the First Emperor in 221 BCE. 3,000 years ago, it was the Zhou people who dominated the landscape. Their early capital was also along the Weishui, called Haojing1 marked by a square in Figure 3; the syllable jing means “capital,” as in Beijing “northern capital” and Nanjing2 “southern capital.” Later it was moved to Luoyi 3, also marked by a square in Figure 3. Luoyi is also written 洛邑, it was situated near the modern city of Luoyang. The region near Haojing is of special historical significance, having housed the capital of China for extended periods. During the First Emperor’s time, the capital was called Xianyang4. During the great dynasties of Han and Tang, Xianyang was incorporated into a larger region called Chang’an. After the political center of the nation moved northeast to the area around Beijing, it is now called Xi’an. The people of Shang had a more eastern homeland. After moving their capital several times, they finally settled at Yin5 under the leadership of Pangeng6, shown near the center of Figure 3. It was at Yin, near the modern city of Anyang, that the abundance of oracle bone inscriptions were excavated, giving us the beginning of Chinese history. Around the year 1046 BCE (many dates have been proposed by scholars and there is no consensus so far), the forces of the Zhou and the Shang met in a historic battle. The battle was fought at Muye, on the shores of the Huanghe, marked by a star in Figure 3. The attacking forces, led by King Wu

1. 镐京　2. 南京　3. 雒邑　4. 咸阳　5. 殷　6. 盘庚

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of Zhou Wuwang1, scored a brilliant victory against King Zhou of Shang Zhouwang2. The battle was commemorated in a bronze ritual vessel, which was unearthed near the Zhou homeland in Shaanxi only recently in 1976. The vessel called Li Gui3 is shown in Figure 4. The rubbing of the inscription inside and its modern transcription are shown in Figure 5. Such writings on bronze ware are called jinwen4. The word jin means “gold” in its narrow sense; but broadly it used to mean “metal,” referring here to the bronze medium written upon. Ancient writing is mostly illegible without special training in paleography. Nonetheless, some resemblance can be detected upon closer scrutiny. For instance, we can recognize that the top character in the first column, counting from right to left, is a compound, designating Wuwang, 珷; now the two characters would be written separated as 武王. Similarly, the top character in the second column, meaning “caldron,” has a strong iconic resemblance to the object it depicts. As writing evolved over the centuries, the characters became less iconic as their shapes became increasingly conventionalized. For example, most curved lines have been replaced by straight lines, so the modern version of the character for “caldron” is 鼎 ding. The top character in the third line, meaning “king,” has not changed much, except the bottom stroke is no longer curved in its modern form, as in 王 wang. No one can know for sure, of course, the original meaning of every character at its creation. Furthermore, as characters change their shapes through the centuries, their original meanings become increasingly obscured. Therefore many popular etymologies should be taken as “just-so” stories, though they may reflect interesting aspects of folk culture.

1. 周武王　2. 纣王　3. 利簋　4. 金文　

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Figure 4 18

Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the(利簋) Shijing Li Gui

Bronze vessel commemorating the conquest of the Shang by the Zhou forces led by Wuwang. Discovered in Shaanxi in 1976, and kept in the Lintong County Museum. The historic conquest took place around 1046 BCE at the Battle of Muye; its location is shown in Figure 3. It is discussed in the poem Da Ming.

武王征商隹甲子朝嵗 鼎克聞夙又商辛未 王在闌 易又事利 金用乍旜公寶尊彝

Figure 5 The Rubbing of the Inscription Inside and Its Modern Transcription

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Rubbing from the bronze vessel, and its modern transcription. The top character in the rightmost column is a double character for Wuwang, the King Wu of Zhou, now written separately as 武王. An example of jinwen.

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A popular etymology of the character 王, for example, interprets the three horizontal lines as “heaven,” “man,” and “earth” respectively, and the king is the one who can mediate among these three dimensions. Such an interpretation matches well the concept of tianming1 behind the authority of a king, that is, the king governs according to a mandate from heavenxi. Along the same line of thought, the king or the emperor is also referred to as tianzi2, meaning “son of heaven,” ostensibly giving him divine status.xii On the other hand, it has also been proposed that originally the character 王 derived from the pictograph of an executioner’s ax.xiii The similarity would be more convincing when the bottom stroke is curved like the edge of an ax. The resemblance to the head of an ax is much more obvious in some oracle bone inscriptions, where the character is written without the top stroke and the vertical stroke has the form of a triangle. We will see 王 written this way later in Figure 8, when we meet the woman warrior Fuhao. Many characters have various representations in oracle bone inscriptions, and this is just one example. The word for “caldron,” ding, also has interesting associations here. In Ancient China, it took a major investment of resources from the society to cast bronze ware, especially very large heavy ritual vessels. The ding therefore became a special symbol of authority, and the king was the only one to own nine of them, nine being a symbol of great numerosity. Those of lesser rank in the government were allowed lesser numbers. So the expression “nine ding” or jiu ding3 came to refer to the king, representing the state. This expression can still be found in fixed phrases such as yi yan jiu ding4, literally, a word of nine ding, to refer to the value and absolute certainty of what is being said. Similarly, wen ding zhong yuan5 “request caldron of the Central Plain,” refers to an unrealistic ambition to take over the country.

1. 天命　2. 天子　3. 九鼎　4. 一言九鼎　5. 问鼎中原

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5

4

3

2

1

0

乙卯

yimao

甲寅

yisi

jiayin

乙巳

甲辰

jiachen

乙未

yiwei

甲午

jiawu

乙酉

yiyou

甲申

jiashen

乙亥

yihai

甲戌

jiaxu

乙丑

yichou

jiazi

2

甲子

1

bingchen

丙辰

bingwu

丙午

bingshen

丙申

bingxu

丙戌

bingzi

丙子

bingyin

丙寅

3

dingsi

丁巳

dingwei

丁未

dingyou

丁酉

dinghai

丁亥

dingchou

丁丑

dingmao

丁卯

4

wuwu

戊午

wushen

戊申

wuxu

戊戌

wuzi

戊子

wuyin

戊寅

wuchen

戊辰

5

Table 1 Ganzhi Cycle

jiwei

己未

jiyou

己酉

jihai

己亥

jichou

己丑

jimao

己卯

jisi

己巳

6

gengshen

庚申

gengxu

庚戌

gengzi

庚子

gengyin

庚寅

gengchen

庚辰

gengwu

庚午

7

xinyou

辛酉

xinhai

辛亥

xinchou

辛丑

xinmao

辛卯

xinsi

辛巳

xinwei

辛未

8

renxu

壬戌

renzi

壬子

renyin

壬寅

renchen

壬辰

renwu

壬午

renshen

壬申

9

guihai

癸亥

guichou

癸丑

guimao

癸卯

guisi

癸巳

guiwei

癸未

guiyou

癸酉

10

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21

Words change not only in their written shapes, as illustrated here with these characters, their meaning and usage also change with time. While ding started as a ritual object for royalty and nobility during China’s bronze age, it is no longer used in this way in modern societies. The word itself, however, lives on with a much humbler meaning in some Chinese dialects, namely a simple cooking pot found in every kitchen. In the Minnan1 dialect spoken in Taiwan, for instance, an ordinary cooking pot is called [diã]xiv, from ancient ding. In northern China, a new word, guo2 has come to be used for “cooking pot.” Interestingly, a cooking pot is called [wok] in Cantonese, and has found its way into English vocabulary; it is written with a different character, 镬. The 5th and 6th characters in the first column of the inscription in Figure 5 are of special interest because they reflect a unique system of counting in Ancient China, known as the ganzhi cyclexv. This system has been adopted in various forms in several other cultures in East Asia. As can be readily seen when we compare them with their modern transcriptions to the right, 甲子, their shapes have changed quite a bit. The pair 甲子 is pronounced jiazi, and is the first pair of a cycle of sixty. Sixty is a highly composite number that was used in Ancient Mesopotamia as well, which is the source of the modern division of hours into 60 minutes, and minutes into 60 seconds. The complete cycle is shown in Table 1.  The counting system is based on two seriesxvi, the gan3 and the zhi  ; they are also called tian gan, or “heavenly stems,” and di zhi, or “earthly branches.” The gan series has ten elements starting with jia, and continuing with yi, bing, ding, wu, ji, geng, xin, ren, gui. 4

The zhi series has twelve elements starting with zi, and continuing with chou, yin, mao, chen, si, wu, wei, shen, you, xu, hai. The twelve elements of the zhi series have been associated with

1. 闽南　2. 锅　3. 干　4. 支　

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

animals, namely mouse, cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig, respectively. It is generally believed that this association dates to the Han dynasty, though more recent studies may push this date to an earlier time. These twelve animals are called shengxiao1. A person born in a particular year in the zhi series is said to shu2, “belong to” the animal of that yearxvii, in a way that is reminiscent of astrological signs in Western culture. Thus the year 1974 falls on yin in the zhi series, which is associated with the tiger. A person born that year is said to shu hu3, or “belong to the tiger.” According to the full ganzhi system, the counting begins by pairing the first element of the gan series with the first element of the zhi series, resulting in the pair jiazi, which is the first pair in the cycle. The second pair of the cycle is constructed from the second element of the gan series with the second element of the zhi series, which is yichou; the third pair is bingyin; and so on. By this method of construction, even numbered elements pair only with even numbered elements and odd numbered elements pair only with odd numbered elements. Thus the cycle is composed of sixty distinct pairs before it repeats itself. In this terminology the term jiazi is also sometimes used to mean the number “sixty.” The first column of Figure 5 is telling us, therefore, that the Battle of Muye took place on a jiazi day, or the first day of a 60 day ganzhi cycle. Similarly, we may note the bottom two characters in the second column, which are xinwei4. Referring to the two series listed above, we can see from Table 1 that xinwei is actually the 8th day of the 60 day cycle. The inscription records that it was on the 8th day that Zhou Wuwang rewarded Minister Li with gold (probably bronze). The name Li is the bottom character in the third column. Hence the ritual vessel is called Li Gui. The gui5 was a bronze vessel for holding food at ceremonial occasions. 1. 生肖　2. 属　3. 属虎　4.辛未　5. 簋

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Given the wide expanse of time that has elapsed, it is difficult to know the exact meaning of the whole inscription; scholars have offered several conflicting interpretations.xviii A possible interpretation is as follows: “King Wu campaigned against Shang; it was the morning of a jiazi day. He sacrificed by sui and ding, and was able to make known that he had conquered Shang. On the xinwei day, the king was at the Jian Encampment and awarded Minister Li gold for casting this treasured sacrificial vessel for the Duke of Zhan.” The battle at Muye was also commemorated in a poem called Da Ming1, numbered m236 in the Shijing. Here are the last two stanzas of that poem, translated vividly into English by Arthur Waley: The armies of Yin and Shang — Their catapults were like the trees of a forest. They marshalled their forces at Muye A target set up for us. “God on high is watching you; Let no treachery be in your hearts.” The field of Muye spread far, The war chariots gleamed, The team of white-bellies was tough, The captain was Shang-fu; Like an eagle he uprose. Ah, that King Wu Swiftly fell upon Great Shang, Who before daybreak begged for a truce.

1. 大明

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

It is to the Shang that we owe the earliest specimens of the written Chinese extant today, dating back some two centuries before the battle of Muye, to around 3,200 years ago. It is almost certain that the Chinese started writing before these specimens, but there is so far no conclusive evidence on this point. In any case, these Chinese specimens are not the earliest writing in the world — Egyptian hieroglyphics and Sumerian cuneiform both date back further in time though both of these have fallen into disuse. Chinese writing is unique in that of all the writing systems used in the world today, it has the longest continuous history. The great scientist, Galileo Galilei, once wrote that writing was the greatest invention ever made. Indeed, it is fair to say that our humanity came with language and our civilization came with writing. However, Galileo in the 16th century was only aware of alphabetic writing, as we can see from these enthusiastic wordsxix: “But of all other stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind must have been his who conceived how to communicate his most secret thoughts to any other person, though very far distant, either in time or place? And with no greater difficulty than the various arrangement of two dozen little signs upon paper?” Galileo had no way of knowing during his time that there are other methods of writing language down, and different cultures may prefer different methods for a variety of reasons. In addition to alphabetic writing, for instance, one can also write in syllabaries, such as Japanese kana1, in which each basic symbol represents an entire syllable, not divisible into its component consonants and vowels.

1. 假名　

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The basic symbol in Chinese writing is the Hanzi1, or Han writing, where the “Han” refers to the first great dynasty, that we will encounter several more times later. Popularly, the Hanzi is also called “Chinese character” in English; but the term “sinogram” is a better choice. In contrast to the several dozen symbols in alphabets or syllabaries, there are thousands of sinograms in use today. Sinograms come in several categories, but the great majority of them are logosyllabic in structure, where one component of the sinogram suggests its meaning and the other component indicates its pronunciation as a syllable. One category of sinograms is clearly iconic — they are based on some physical properties of the concept or object they designate. Thus the simple sinogram for “sheep” is 羊 yang, suggesting the head of a sheep together with its horns. Yang becomes the right component of a complex sinogram 洋, meaning “ocean,” also pronounced yang. The left component of 洋, written as three dots, derives from yet another simple sinogram 水 shui, meaning “water.” Thus the complex sinogram 洋 is logosyllabic in that its left component, also called a semantic (or a radical), suggests an area of its meaning, in this case “water,” while its right component, also called a phonetic, gives its pronunciation as a syllable, in this case yang. In this particular case, the semantic is on the left of its host sinogram. While this left-right arrangement is the most prevalent, the semantic may also position on the right, on top, or below. Or, the semantic may wrap around the phonetic, or position within the phonetic. While alphabets and syllabaries have obvious advantages in leading the reader directly to the pronunciation of the written word, sinograms perform their functions differently. Their greater graphic complexity allows them to present the reader with both types of

1. 汉字　

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

information at once — the phonetic with the semantic. Considering that the goal of the reader is to access semantic information, such a combined approach may have distinct advantages not seen by Galileo. Intensive research has only recently begun on how different written languages are processed by the brain. Going back to Shang times, their inscriptions were carved some 3,200 years ago on turtle shells and bones of other animals to record the results of divination, the so-called Oracle Bone Inscriptions, or jiaguwen1. The jia refers to the shell of the turtle, especially the lower half called the plastron. The gu means “bone,” referring typically to the broad shoulder bone, or scapula, of cattle. The fortuitous circumstances surrounding the discovery of jiaguwen at the very end of the 19th century are ingredients for a fascinating story that has been often told by scholars of paleographyxx. These bones and shells lay hidden underground for millennia until 1899, when a Chinese scholar recognized their scientific value and started collecting them. Before that, farmers who dug them up by accident in their fields often sold them as “dragon bones” to stores that sold Chinese medicine because of the inscriptions they bore. These dragon bones were then ground into powder as a kind of traditional medicine. It is impossible to know how many pieces of this invaluable treasure of world civilization were lost forever this way. It was not until 1928 that the Academia Sinica started systematic excavations in Anyang, Henan, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, where the largest collection of jiaguwen was retrieved, giving us a precious window on Shang lifexxi. The next major discoveries of jiaguwen were not until 1972 at the southern region of Xiaotun2 and 1977 at Qishan3, Shaanxi, the original home base of the Zhou people, before they moved east to conquer

1. 甲骨文　2. 小屯　3. 岐山

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Figure 6 2. Battle of Muye Oracle Bone Inscription of the Ganzhi Cycle of 60

27

A calendar used over 3,000 years ago in Ancient China. An example of jiaguwen.

→己 →未 月← 一←

→庚

正←

→申

曰←

→辛

食←

→酉

麥←

→壬

甲←

→戌

子←

→癸

乙← 丑← 丙← 寅← 丁← 卯← 戊← 辰← 己←

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Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

the Shang, and established the Zhou dynasty. The breakthroughs at Anyang and at Qishan provide us with invaluable source materials for studying these two ancient rival peoples and for comparing them. Especially intriguing is the finding that in spite of the distance between Anyang and Qishan, which was a considerable stretch to travel in the landscape of 3,000 years ago, the oracle bone inscriptions unearthed at these two locations are remarkably similar both in their content and in the sinograms used. We have no secure knowledge at present of the various languages actually spoken by the Shang and Zhou peoples. The similarity in their oracle bone inscriptions, however, suggests the possibility that the shamans involved in the divinations may have constituted some kind of network that transcended national boundaries, and that the quasi-formulaic language of divination was also not restricted to particular localesxxii. Considered this way, the language of the oracle bone inscriptions is comparable with other sacred languages used for religious purposes in various parts of the world, which transcend the constraints of space and time. At present there are some 130,000 pieces of inscribed jiaguwen housed in various collections around the worldxxiii. Furthermore, new pieces of jiaguwen are continuously being discovered. But of the many thousands of graphs represented on these pieces, there are only 1,500 some characters that have been securely recognized by experts in paleography. A major difficulty lies in the fact that there are very few whole, complete pieces, preserved intact. All other pieces are fragments broken off from some larger piece. So the situation confronting paleography may be likened to a storehouse of pieces from numerous jigsaw puzzles, all scrambled together. While research continues in this difficult area, progress is inevitably slow, unless another breakthrough is in the offing. However it is immensely satisfying that jiaguwen scholarship has

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provided direct evidence to confirm many of the persons and events of 3,000 years ago, discussed earlier only in texts whose reliability has often been challenged. Figure 6 shows a scapula inscribed over 3,000 years ago, but unearthed only a century ago. It is referenced as item #24440 in a large collection of oracle bone inscriptions known as Heji1, compiled by Hu Houxuan2, under the editorship of Guo Moruo3. This inscription is of special interest to us here because it corresponds almost perfectly to the Table 1 we just discussed. It is an ancient calendar using the ganzhi cycle of 60 that has been preserved underground over three millennia. The left side of Figure 6 shows a replica of the original scapula with the inscription. The right side shows the inscription, transcribed more legibly with black strokes on a white background. In early Chinese writing, the columns may start from the right or from the left. In this case, the first column is on the left, proceeding to the right. The first character in this inscription is therefore the topmost one in the leftmost column; its modern descendent is 月 yue, which can mean “moon” or, in this case, “month.” Figure 6 also presents the leftmost column and the rightmost column transcribed in modern characters. Below the yue is the numeral 一 yi, which is just a horizontal stroke, in the inscription and in the transcription. In this case, yue yi means “the first month.” After the yi is a single character with a rectangle on top and a flower-like graph below. The two parts are quite separate and give the impression of two characters; the modern version of this character is 正 zheng. Without going into a detailed analysis here, we may translate the first 6 characters as roughly meaning: “In the first month we eat wheat.”

1. 合集　2. 胡厚宣　3. 郭沫若

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When we come to the 7th character in this column, we will recognize the cross-like graph as jia, the first character in the gan series. We met it earlier as the 5th character in the rightmost column in the Li Gui, in Figure 5. Similarly, the 8th character here, zi, is the same as the 6th character in the Li Gui. Here the writing is in jiaguwen, but in the Li Gui the writing is in jinwen. In Figure 6 the columns proceed from left to right; in the Li Gui the columns proceed from right to left. As we saw in Table 1, the jiazi is the first pair in the cycle. From there, the column goes to the pairs of yichou1, bingyin2, dingmao3, wuchen4, in their standard order. The next pair jisi5, however, is split up, with the si carried over to the next column to the right. And in this way, the calendar inscription proceeds from column to column. The last column is also transcribed in Figure 6. It begins with jiwei6, which is the 56th pair in Table 1. However, for some inexplicable reason, the inscription stops without finishing the last pair, or the 60th pair; we see only the last member of the gan series, gui7, but not the last member of the zhi series, which should be hai8.

1. 乙丑　2. 丙寅　3. 丁卯　4. 戊辰　5. 己巳　6. 己未　7. 癸　8. 亥

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Endnotes i. See Chang 1983:25. ii. There are two radicals shaped like a square. When it is written small, as in the left part of 唱 chang “to sing,” the radical is called kou “mouth.” When it is written big, as in 国, the radical is called wei “surround.” iii. Warfare was only one of several sources which provided slavery; others include prison. iv. The official was 王吉, commenting during the reign of 汉宣帝 (73–49 BCE); recorded in 班固, 汉书. See Keightley 2000:122. v. For example, see 王士元. 2002. 「语言是云南的文化宝藏」 “Linguistic treasures of Yunnan.” Scientific American 《科学人》 10.58–59. vi. Chinese is classified with other Tibeto-Burman languages in a large Sino-Tibetan Family. In addition, there were other languages spoken in Ancient China which belong to other families, such as Austro-Asiatic, Austronesian, etc. vii. There are of course many more personal names than surnames because personal names are typically constructed from two characters. Unlike the Christian tradition, where the personal names come from a small set, often distinguished by sex, in Chinese personal names the characters are freely chosen and combined. viii. These surnames are spelled in a great variety of ways, depending on the regional pronunciation as well as the spelling system used. For instance, the surname 徐 is Xu, Hsu, Tsui, Zee, and so on. ix. It may be that names like Li and Chen were favored as surnames because they connote fertility: 李 also means “plum,” which is a tree that grows many fruits, and 陈 also means “arrange in rows and columns” suggesting numerosity; both terms suggest proliferation. Takashima, Kenichi (personal communication, 20120326). x. A comparison of surnames and genes is reported in Mountain et. al. 1992. xi. Tianming 天命 is also used in a general sense, almost with the same meaning as “destiny” in English. Thus there is a famous passage from Confucius, in which a person’s life is marked by decades as follows: 「吾 十有五而志于学，三十而立，四十而不惑，五十而知天命，六十而耳顺，七十而 从心所欲，不逾矩」. He was saying of himself that by age 50, he knew his

personal destiny, i.e., his tianming.

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xii. Another symbolism associated with the king is that of the dragon long 龙, a mythological animal much more benign in Ancient China than in European legends. Perhaps memories of this sort were impressed upon ancient peoples in different parts of the world by similar dinosaur-like animals. The dragon symbolism has been extended recently to refer to the Chinese people in general, made famous by a popular song composed in the 1980s, long de chuan ren 龙的传人, meaning “the descendents of the dragon,” that is, descendents of dragon-kings. xiii. Chang 1983:37; based on a proposal by 林沄. xiv. The tilde diacritic mark over the vowel “a” indicates that the vowel is nasalized. xv. The ganzhi system of naming is still used for naming lunar years, as well as for some special dates. For instance, the revolution of 1911 which changed China into a republic is called Xinhai Geming 辛亥革命, where the Xinhai refers to the 48th year of the 60 year cycle. xvi. There is no scholarly consensus on the origin of the ganzhi terms; an interesting theory is that of Pulleyblank (1991), which proposed that they originated as phonograms, used for their phonetic values. So far this proposal has not gained consensus among scholars. xvii. Strictly speaking, the reckoning should be done with the lunar calendar, which is different from the Western Gregorian calendar in systematic ways. xviii. The various interpretations of the inscription on Li Gui have been discussed in detail in Shaughnessy 1991, 87–105. Here I will rely heavily on Shaughnessy’s interpretation. A later, different interpretation has been given in Takashima, Kenichi. 1996–7. “Some problematic aspects of the Li Kuei inscriptions.” 345–390 in Ancient Chinese and Southeastern Asian Bronze Age Cultures. Ed. F. David Bulbeck. Taibei: SMC Publishing, Inc. xix. Galileo Galilei. 1632. Dialog Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. xx. An early version in English is Creel, Herrlee G. 1936. The Birth of China. London. xxi. Among the brilliant scholars who early contributed to the research on jiaguwen were these four: 罗振玉、郭沫若、董作宾 and 王国维. These four are often mentioned together as 四堂 because, coincidentally, they share a character, 堂, in their courtesy names, which are 罗雪堂, 郭鼎堂, 董彦堂, and 王观堂.

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xxii. I am particularly grateful to Ho Dah’an for discussing this issue, and clarifying many of its aspects for me. xxiii. According to Takashima, to appear, “The quantity of inscribed oracle bones grew steadily to about 130,000 pieces, with an estimated total of about one million graphs, which, in turn, consists of about 4,000 different individual graphs. … It is estimated that about 1,000 of the 4,000 different graphs have so far been identified with the graphs that are historically continuous to the Han and thereafter. Although the identification of the oracle-bone graphs with known characters is the first step in reading OBI, it does not necessarily lead to decipherment.”

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C ha p t e r 3 Two Warriors: Fuhao and Shaohu

One of the illustrious ancestors of the defeated King Zhou at the Battle of Muye was Wuding1. Wuding’s consort, Fuhao2, was a remarkable woman who led military campaigns for the Shang. The discovery of her tomb in Anyang in 1976 was one of the most exciting breakthroughs in Chinese archeology. Many priceless treasures were retrieved from her tomb, helping us understand the China of her time, the Shang dynasty over 3,000 years ago. Among these treasures is a unique jade ornament shown in Figure 7. Jade was highly valued in Ancient China, with some varieties believed to have magical properties of enhancing health and fending off evil. The unique ornament found in Fuhao’s tomb stands only 11.3 cm tall. The bottom part in the design is a cloud; the middle part is a bird; the top part is a dragon. The bird’s beak and the dragon’s open mouth are both facing right. Presumably this unusual combination of three disparate objects had some cultural significance for the Shang people, something which is difficult for us to fathom now i. The ornament is kept at the Institute of Archeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. Even more illuminating of the past than such silent objects is the treasure of written language archeologists have discovered, especially the oracle bone inscription.

1. 武丁　2. 妇好

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Figure 7 Jade Ornament Found in Fuhao’s Tomb

Jade was highly valued in Ancient China. This unique ornament was found in Fuhao’s tomb, length 11.3 cm. The bottom part is a cloud; the middle part is a bird; the top part is a dragon. The bird’s beak and the dragon’s open mouth are both facing right. The ornament is kept at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

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Figure 8 shows a turtle plastron that was inscribed to record a divination regarding Fuhao’s childbirth. Keightly (1978) gives a lucid description of the complex processes involved in divination, including inscribing the sinograms, heating the plastron, interpreting the cracks, etc. Figure 8a is the rubbing from the inscription; while Figure 8b shows the transcription into modern writing. It requires extensive practice in paleography to read jiaguwen and jinwen, though the two scripts obviously have much in common. This similarity between them is to be expected since jinwen presumably evolved from jiaguwen, which must date earlier than the Shang and Zhou inscriptions we now have ii. Nonetheless, with the help of the modern transcription provided in Figure 8b we may explore at least some of the characters in this inscription. First, let us look at the character inscribed on the lower right of the plastron. It depicts a kneeling human figure, circling arms and facing to the right. This was the character for “female” or “woman,” and is now written 女 nü. This graph appears also on the upper left of the plastron, but as the left half of a character instead of a complete character by itself. The graph on the right half consists of a small square on top and a cross below. This graph by itself is the character 子 zi, having “son” as one of its meanings. Combining these two halves, the resulting character is 好 hăo, pronounced in Putonghua with a low tone, having “good” as one of its meanings. When this character is pronounced with a falling tone, i.e., hào, it has the meaning “to love,” thus reflecting the universal feeling that nothing is stronger than a mother’s love for her child. 好 also happens to be the second half of the name of our heroine, Fuhao. The first character of her name, pronounced fu, appears above. The modern version of this sinogram, as can be seen in the transcription in Figure 8b, is 婦, again with the 女 nü as the “woman” radical; the simplified version of 婦 is 妇. However, in the inscription in the right side of the figure 婦 is written with only the right half,

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Figure 8a Oracle Bone Inscription about Fuhao’s Childbirth

妇 fu 好  hao

甲 jia 申 shen 卜 bu

王 wang

女 nü

Fuhao was consort to King Wuding of the Shang dynasty; her tomb in Anyang was discovered in 1976. She was a remarkable woman, having led several military campaigns. The Shang made extensive use of divinations on oracle bones. Here we see a rubbing from the original turtle plastron, and the inscription transcribed in modern script, concerning Fuhao giving birth. Original specimen #247 in the Bing Bian Collection, dated to Period I of oracle bone inscriptions.

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Figure 8b Transcription from the Inscription into Modern Writing

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which now is the character 帚 zhou, meaning “broom;” it is not clear what 帚 meant 3,000 years ago although several archeologists have offered speculations iii. With the writing reform movement that took place in China, starting in the 1950s, 婦 has been simplified to 妇. Also of interest are the three characters bordering the upper right edge of the plastron in Figure 8, beginning at the top with the one that looks like a cross. These three characters are 甲申卜, pronounced jia shen bu. As we saw with Figure 5, the pair jiashen is a member of the ganzhi cycle of 60, used to count the calendar in Ancient China. The inscription on the plastron therefore tells us that the divination was initially made on the 21st day of the cycle. The third character, 卜 bu, is also very interesting. Roughly it meant to make cracks for divination in Ancient China. It refers to the crack on the plastron after heat has been applied to it during the divination. Note that in the inscription the short horizontal stroke is to the upper left of the long vertical stroke. The modern descendent, however, has the short stroke to the right. In either case, the graph is a pictorial representation of the crack. We know that in earlier times the character was pronounced with a “k” sound at the end of the syllable iv, something like the English word “puck,” like the sound of a bone cracking from heat. The character is therefore doubly iconic, i.e., both visually, shaped like a crack, and auditorily, imitating a cracking sound. The fourth character down along the upper right edge is the name of the person who made this divination, which is Que. Although this name occurs in numerous oracle bones, the character itself has no modern descendents. The fifth character down, with vertical lines on both sides, is the verb “to divine” in Ancient China; its modern form is 贞 zhen. The incomplete character near the

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bottom of the upper right edge, below the 王 written in the margin, is the lower part of Fu- 婦, the name of our heroine. The second character of her name, -hao, appears at the top of the column to the left. Let us examine one last character in this oracle bone inscription. Note the character 王 wang written in the margin along the right edge of the plastron. Its ancestral form is the graph that looks like a pup tent, second character to its left. Earlier we had discussed the etymology of 王, and the proposal that it derived from a representation of the executioner’s ax. Surely the tent-like graph inscribed on this plastron is a better approximation to an ax than its modern descendent. Finally, we can approach this inscription more as a whole to understand its messages v. Figure 9 presents a more detailed analysis of the upper part of the right half of the plastron, which constitutes a complete message of 35 characters. Although the divination starts in the upper right corner of the plastron and proceeds leftward in columns, the last part of the message is confusingly positioned. To help in the identification, the characters of the inscription are accompanied by numerals. The 35 characters of the message are copied into six lines in their original forms on the top right of Figure 9. Each row proceeds from right to left. You will recognize the name of our heroine, Fuhao, as characters 6 and 7 in the second row. The message is transcribed in modern characters at the bottom of Figure 9, chunked according to meaning. Again, all characters are marked with the numerals for ease of reference. Each row proceeds from left to right. Roughly, the three lines may be literally translated as:

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Figure 9 Fuhao’s Inscription 1

7

12

21 17

8

13

24 25

3 15

22

9

19 16

26 27 28

18

10

5

1

35

25

19

11

6

2

26

20

12

7

3

27

21

13

8

4

28

22

14

9

29

23

15

4

20

23

24

2

14

18

34

5 10 11

30 32 34

35

6

29 33

31

30

16

31

17

32 33

1

2

3

4

甲申卜 12

13

14

5

6

25

26

8

9

貞　婦好娩 15

16

27

28

18

17

曰其惟丁娩 24

7

19

10

11

　王 20

21

22

23

　其惟庚娩弘吉 29

30

31

32

三旬又一日甲寅娩不

33

34

35

　隹女

Modern characters of the inscription

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“Jiashen, crack-making, Que Divination: auspicious? King prognosticated.”

Fuhao

43

birth

As we saw earlier, jiashen is the 21st day in the ganzhi cycle. The king mentioned here may be assumed to be Wuding. “Said it is Ding birth auspicious. It is Geng birth extremely good.” “Three decades and one day, jiayin birth not auspicious. Is girl.” The first and fourth characters in the third line are the numbers 3 and 1 respectively. The second character 旬 xun counts by tens, whether for days or for years. So a xun of 10 days in Ancient China is a unit of time, somewhat like the 7-day week now. Jiayin was the 51st day in the cycle, the 31st day counting from the crack-making. It is not clear whether the birth was inauspicious because of the gender of the child, or that it was for some other reason. Fuhao and Wuding are still very much alive in the Chinese memory today. On March 25, 2012, I had the pleasure of attending a dance performance at the National Theater in Taipei, entitled “The King and Queen of the Shang Dynasty,” Yin Shang Wang Hou1. Figure 10, taken from the playbill, shows how modern artists envision this royal couple who lived over 3,000 years ago in Ancient China. I should confess that the Fuhao I had conjured up in my imagination, of a woman warrior who led an army to battle over 10,000 strong, was quite different from the elegant lady in the playbill.vi Wuding was the 23rd king of the Shang dynasty. During his long reign of several decades the dynasty was prosperous and strong.

1. 殷商王后　

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Figure 10 The King and Queen of the Shang Dynasty

Dance performance by the Han Tang Yuefu Music and Dance Ensemble, 汉唐乐

府 in Taipei in March 2012.

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However, the dynasty ended in the hands of his descendent, Di Xin1, also known as Zhouwang2. (Note: the 纣 zhou in Zhouwang is pronounced with a falling tone, i.e., zhòu; not to be confused with its near homophone 周 zhou, which is pronounced with a level tone, and is the name of the next dynasty after Shang.) In Chinese folk culture, Zhouwang was an arch villain that everyone loves to hate. He is seen as the worst tyrant in all of Chinese history — drunkard, womanizer, and perpetrator of the foulest and most cruel crimes on his subjects. We will meet him again late in the book in the section on “Femmes Fatales and Miracle Births,” where his failings are blamed on a scheming woman. Here we will simply look at another specimen of oracle bone inscription associated with Zhouwang. Oracle bone inscriptions survive not only on turtle plastrons, as in Figure 8, but also on various animal bones, as in Figure 6. As we can see in Figure 11, the inscription is on the head of a deer. To celebrate such hunting trophies is not unlike the displays of deer or moose, or bear or marlin that one finds hanging over fireplaces in men’s clubs in western culture. This specimen in Figure 11 has a special historical significance since it was made toward the end of the Shang dynasty. Because the inscription is incomplete, it is difficult to interpret in full. We can see in the right column that on the day of wuxu3 Zhouwang hunted at Hao4. In the second column from the left, there is mention of king Wenwuding5, Zhouwang’s grandfather, perhaps in connection with some military expedition vii. Now we move on to the other warrior we will meet in this section. At around the same time of the oracle bone inscriptions, the ancient people had discovered working with bronze, inventing

1. 帝辛　2. 纣王　3. 戊戌　4. 蒿　5. 文武丁

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Figure 11 Deer Head Inscription

Di Xin (帝辛), the last king of the Shang dynasty, dedicates this hunting trophy to his grandfather, King Wuding. In Chinese folk culture, Di Xin, also known as Zhouwang  ( 纣王) , is one of the most decadent kings in all of history. Original specimen #3940 in the Jia Bian Collection is dated to Period V of oracle bone inscriptions. 1. 帝辛　2. 纣王　3. 戊戌　4. 蒿　5. 文武丁

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a method of “piece mould” casting. This legacy is preserved in the numerous beautiful ritual vessels and weapons, often inscribed to commemorate various important occasions. We have just discussed one such vessel for the Battle of Muye, the Li Gui, discovered in 1976. Another gui was discovered in the same region of the Zhou homeland in Shaanxi, called the Shao Bo Hu Gui1 viii. Figure 12 shows this vessel, and Figure 13 shows the inscription inside this vessel. The gui was made to honor the family of a hero in the Zhou dynasty called Shao Bo Hu. This hero appears in poems m16 and m262 of the Shijing. We will have occasion to meet him later in our discussion of poem m262. Again we may compare some of the characters in the inscription with its transcription. The fourth character in the first column, counting from the right, has just four horizontal lines. It is the numeral “four,” written much more iconically than its modern descendent 四 si. Similarly, the character directly below means “moon,” and looks much more like its object than the modern 月 yue. The construction 四月 si yue, as we would expect, refers to the fourth month of the lunar year. We have met the two characters below 四月 in Figure 5 and Figure 6; they are 甲子 jia zi. We see that the Shao Bo Hu Gui was made on the first day of that 60 day cycle. The next character below 甲子 is one we have just discussed — the character for “king” — 王 wang. In many languages, this word is often also used as a surname, as in the American Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King. Wang 王 is one of the most widely used surnames in China, close in frequency to the leading surname Li2 (also spelled as Lee) in most parts of the country.

1. 召伯虎簋　2. 李

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Figure 12 Shao Bo Hu Gui

Another ritual vessel discovered at the Zhou homeland in Shaanxi. Shao Bo Hu was a hero of the Zhou dynasty, descended from a noble family. He appears in the poems Gan Tang and Jiang Han. The view shows the inscription inside the vessel.

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Figure 13 3. Two Warriors: Fuhao and Shaohu Shao Bo Hu Gui Inscription

享公宗伯曰典余又厥召唯 于嘗君氏 勿 告成稟伯六 宗殷其伯令敢慶亦貝虎年 　其休氏今封余我用告四 　萬用則余今以考獄曰月 　年作報既余邑幽諫余甲 　子朕璧一既訊伯為告子 　孫烈琱名訊有幽伯慶王 　寶祖生典有嗣姜有曰在 　用召對獻嗣余令祗公 　　　楊 　　　朕

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49

Rubbing from the bronze vessel, and its modern transcription. Another example of jinwen.

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The top three characters in the second column are the name of our hero, Shao Bo Hu. Hu is the word for “tiger;” it appears as the third character. The pictographic origin is much more apparent here when we turn the character one quadrant counter clockwise. The four legs of the animal as well as its tail can be readily seen. This character, as well as numerous others, has been simplified and conventionalized over the centuries; it is now written 虎. The inscribed texts on bronze ware, coupled with thousands of pieces of writing on animal bones for divination purposes, are the earliest specimens of the Chinese language we have today. As explained earlier, the inscriptions on bronze are called jinwen, while the oracle bone inscriptions on turtle plastrons and bovine scapulas are called jiaguwen. These documents signal China’s transition from a misty prehistoric past of legends and demigods to the beginnings of true history, with real people and datable events. By 841 BCE, some six centuries before the Qin created the first Chinese empire, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian1 was able to date the years of when various kings reigned with relative accuracy. By 771 BCE, when the Zhou dynasty was forced to move its capital eastward to Luoyang, history had become reliable knowledge. These early inscriptions are invaluable because they are the direct, first hand artifacts preserved with complete fidelity over time. Our knowledge of Ancient China rests on secure ground when we can discover congruent evidence from several independent sources — from the original inscriptions on bone and bronze, from accounts in the Shijing, and from accounts given by early historians. Above we have mentioned several such cases: the consort Fuhao of the Shang dynasty, the Battle of Muye between the Shang and the Zhou, and the hero Shao Bo Hu of the Zhou dynasty.

1. 司马迁

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The subject matter dealt with in the inscriptions, especially on bronzes, is largely restricted to specific formal purposes — mostly affairs of state. In contrast, the portal to the past which we will explore here, the Shijing, was passed on from generation to generation, copied from scribe to scribe. As such, it is subject to loss and recovery, and transmission error of many sorts. An example of loss is the traumatic event shortly after the Qin dynasty was founded in 221 BCE — a massive burning of books ix, ordered by the tyrant First Emperor himself. Some ancient texts escaped this terrible purge only because they were hidden in secret walls or mountain caves. Many had to be reconstructed from memory, after the Qin dynasty, which was mercifully short, 221–206 BCE. In spite of these vicissitudes, the Shijing is a treasure of information on a full panorama of ancient peoples and circumstances, presented in their own voices, giving us a unique view on early human civilization.

Endnotes i. The reader may wish to follow up on this archeological find by consulting the extensive set of volumes edited by Su Bingqi, 苏秉琦. 1987–1997. 《考 古学文化论集》：北京文物出版社. ii. Jinwen can only start of course when bronze technology is in place. There were regional varieties of jiaguwen, as discussed in Takashima, Kenichi. 2012. “Etymology and paleography of the Yellow River He,” Journal of Chinese Linguistics. 40. 269–306. iii. One proposal based on its shape is that it represented some objects made from large feathers that attendants hold upright behind persons of nobility; one sees this as a stage prop sometimes in Peking opera. The use is related to the function of the canopy in the west, and the 华盖 in royal processions. iv. This final –k sound is preserved in many modern dialects, including Cantonese, where the character is pronounced “buk.”

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v. Figure 9 and its discussion is based on 陈光宇. In press. 《商代甲骨中英读 本》. vi. A recent analysis of this remarkable woman is by 李宗焜. 2012. 妇好在武丁 王朝的角色.《古文字与古代史》 3. 79–106. 中央研究院历史语言研究所. vii. I thank Kenichi Takashima for help in interpreting this inscription. viii. This person has been variously referred to as Shaohu, Shao Bo, Shao Bo Hu. The gui has been variously called 六年琱生簋，周生簋 and 六年召伯虎 簋. It is the second of a pair of gui; the first one is called 五年琱生簋. After much controversy, the interpretation of the inscriptions on this pair of gui was clarified with the excavation of a pair of zun, called 琱生尊 in 2006. Current understanding of the inscriptions on the two guis is that they deal with a lawsuit concerning land, which was judiciously settled by Shao Bo Hu. 琱生 was a party in the lawsuit, as well as the maker of the vessels. I am grateful to Ho Dah’an for helping me understand the issues here. ix. Certain categories of books were exempt from the fire, including agriculture, divination, medicine.

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C ha p t e r 4 Structure of the Shijing

Many of the voices of these ancient peoples were gathered in one collection, called the Shijing. The compositions range from 11th century to 7th century BCE; the subjects they discussed extend from the Shang dynasty to the early part of the Zhou dynasty. We will get to hear about aspects of the founding of the dynasty from the ancient people themselves. The word shi in the title has been variously translated into English as “poetry,” “odes,” and “songs.” Indeed, all these translations are in part correct, since it is very likely most of these poems were sung, probably accompanied by early musical instruments. Incidentally, musical instruments go back a surprisingly long way in China; archeologists have discovered flutes in Henan i that were made from leg bones of the crane some 8,000 years ago! These flutes had different numbers of holes, and were played vertically, rather than horizontally like the western flute ii. Another instrument unearthed from Ancient China, though it was produced several millennia later than the bone flutes, is the clay ocarina, called tao xun1. As the ocarina developed, its number of holes increased to achieve more musical notes. Whereas flutes make use of the resonance of a cylindrical volume of air, the sound of ocarinas comes from a more spherical volume of air.

1. 陶埙　

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By the time of the Shijing, some 3,000 years ago, musical knowledge was already quite sophisticated. The most impressive archeological discoveries from this period are the bronze bells and chime stones, respectively called bian zhong1 and bian qing2. Sets of these instruments were arranged according to their musical tones, and hung side by side on massive wooden beams. Figure 14 shows a bronze bell from the Western Zhou dynasty, kept at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Washington D.C. It was decorated by pairs of tigers. Especially remarkable about the bronze bells is the fact that each can produce two distinct musical notes, separated by a musical interval of a major or minor third, depending on where it is struck. Modern acoustic analysis tells us that these instruments were fully capable of pentatonic and diatonic music, based on octaves of 12 notes. We can imagine that when Confucius came along in 551 BCE, he was able to enjoy a rich repertoire of music produced on wind and percussion instruments. The word jing3 in the title elevates the collection to a canonized status, comparable to sacred books in many cultures. The word is used, for instance, in referring to the Bible, which is Shengjing4 in Chinese. None other than Confucius himself, who lived some 2,500 years ago, revered the collection and repeatedly urged people to study it. According to him, those who have not read the Shijing do not know enough to speak iii. For instance, as he suggested, these poems can acquaint the student with names of numerous flora and fauna iv. All in all, he summed up the power of the Shijing in one phrase­—to keep from swerving from the right path v. This reverence for the collection has persisted in China through the three millennia, especially in the Confucian tradition. Some of its lines are still used occasionally in modern speech without consciously

1. 编钟　2. 编磬　3. 经　4. 圣经

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Figure 14 Bronze Bell from Western Zhou Dynasty

Bronze bell from Western Zhou period kept at the Freer Sackler Galleries in Washington D.C. It can produce two distinct musical notes depending on where it is struck.

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realizing the ancient source. More than any other text, the Shijing is a reflection of the historical and cultural soul of China. Through the centuries Chinese scholars have piled commentary upon commentary on the Shijing, filling up many library shelves. Unfortunately, in keeping with its revered status, many commentaries forced allegorical meanings on these poems, mostly quite irrelevant, using the collection as an instrument to preach various moralistic and political messages. However, the poems can be better enjoyed for their literary as well as historical value, without being distracted by such irrelevancies. The Shijing has been translated, in whole or in part, into many languages. The best known English versions are those by James Legge in the 19th century, and by the English sinologist Arthur Waley and by the American poet Ezra Pound in the 20th century. Of these, Pound’s translation is its own poetry, sometimes bearing only a vague resemblance to the Chinese original. This the reader can verify for himself later, in comparing his translation of the Guan Ju, the first poem of the collection. On the other hand, the reader may be particularly interested in pages x and xi of the Introduction in Pound’s volume, which discusses music for accompanying the songs, reproducing two pieces of music believed to have been composed in the Tang dynasty. The Shijing has also been studied in great depth by the Swedish philologist Bernhard Karlgren. In the first volume of his Glosses, published in 1942, he reviewed the major translations available at that time, and discussed the contributions of the Qing dynasty scholars, especially the philologist Ma Ruichen1. In turn, Karlgren’s Glosses was examined in detail by the modern Chinese linguist Dong Tonghe2, who suggested many modifications. For the

1. 马瑞辰　2. 董同龢　

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interpretation of the poems presented here, I have relied heavily on Karlgren’s judgement while also consulting other authorities. There are 305 poems in the Shijing, arranged in four groups, in the order of Guo Feng1, Xiao Ya2, Da Ya3, and Song4. Each group is further divided into sections; most sections consist of around 10 poems. The edition that is most used is called the Mao Heng5 edition from the Han dynasty; here we refer to the poems by their Mao numbers, i.e., m1, m2, ..., m305. The Guo Feng group is the largest, comprising 160 pieces, i.e., m1, m2, ..., m160, identified with 15 sections, named after political regions of Ancient China. The word guo in the first of the four groups refers to these ancient regions, though it now means “country” or “nation.” The word feng now means “wind” or “customs,” as in the compound fengsu6. In ancient times, people were much more vulnerable to natural forces, and wind was an especially potent one. There are many poems in the Guo Feng which refer to winds of various types. Perhaps we can trace some of the modern terms like shangfeng7 “to catch cold,” literally “harmed by wind;” and zhongfeng8 “to suffer a stroke,” literally “hit by wind” to those times, when people feared the destructive power of the wind. Feng also could have referred to a style of music at that time, much as English “air” or Italian “aria.” Thus, the group Guo Feng has 15 sections, divided according to ancient regions. The first section is called Zhou Nan9 and has 11 poems. The first poem in the Zhou Nan section is the Guan Ju. The word ya in Xiao Ya and Da Ya means “elegance;” the titles of the groups mean respectively “lesser elegance” and “greater elegance.” The word song for the last of the four groups has meanings of praise, celebration, hymn and glorification. The poems

1. 国风　2. 小雅　3. 大雅　4. 颂　5. 毛亨　6. 风俗　7. 伤风　8. 中风　9. 周南

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in these three groups, Xiao Ya, Da Ya and Song, are often much longer and have more historical and political content. Some of them take on a moralistic and sermonizing flavor. The authors of some of these poems can sometimes be identified with some certainty, whereas the authorship of most of the Shijing remains unknown vi. By careful philological studies, scholars have been able to date many of the poems of the Song 颂 group, containing only three sections. It is believed that the poems of the Zhou section of this group are the oldest, dating to the 11th to 9th century BCE. The poems of the Shang section were composed by people of the kingdom of Song 宋 vii, who were the descendents of the vanquished Shang dynasty; these date to the 8th and 7th century BCE. The Lu1 section was the latest, dating to the 7th century BCE, not much before Confucius was born into that kingdom in 551 BCE. As shown earlier in Figure 3, The Lu kingdom was situated in the modern province of Shandong. The Song kingdom was in the province of Henan, tracing back to the last Shang dynasty capital of Yin, which was situated in the modern city of Anyang. The Zhou kingdom started much to the west, in the modern province of Shaanxi. Its territory was much enlarged after it extended eastward and conquered the Shang dynasty in 1046 BCE in the Battle of Muye. Many of the poems in the first group, the Guo Feng, are the eternal voices of young love — boasting, complaining, entreating, pleading, taunting, etc. The first poem, m1 = Guan Ju, was singled out for praise by Confucius: “there is joy, but not too much to be wanton; there is sorrow, but not to the extent of injuring oneself.” viii As is well-known, Confucius always counseled moderation in all things, including love! Again, in praising a musical performance of the Guan Ju, he raved “how the sound fills the ear!” ix

1. 鲁

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In contrast, Confucius had harsh things to say about the poems from the Zheng region, the Zheng Feng1 m75 through m95, for reasons I for one cannot fathom. He detested these poems for their “corrupting of elegant music.” x Perhaps he was objecting to the accompanying music, which was lost long ago. But the texts of these poems are no more objectionable than those of the other regions, as the reader can verify for himself. We will discuss Qiang Zhongzi2, m76 later, which is a well-known poem from the Zheng region. In any case, societies are known to vary greatly in the value they place on different patterns of behavior, ranging from extreme prudishness at one end to blatant wantonness at the other. Victorian England is often noted as an example of prudery, where the word “leg” was not used in polite company, with the word “limb” substituted instead. According to some writers, even legs of tables and of pianos were covered from view as a consequence of exaggerated modesty. Society needs to have conventions of courtesy and ritual, ethics and morality, some of them explicit but most of them implicit. These conventions can inform its members what to expect when they interact with each other, especially on how to play their respective roles at special occasions like birth and death, courtship and marriage, etc., how to show love or hate, respect or disdain, etc. Such conventions vary across cultures and change over time. They code a wide range of social behaviors, such as, what you should wear when you go to a place of worship, what gifts you should give to whom, and whether you may marry your brother’s widow. The many ethnic groups in China differ greatly in how men and women behave toward each other. For instance, there are several

1. 郑风　2. 将仲子　

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societies in Yunnan which are matrilineal and matrilocal. It is probable that relations between men and women were mostly quite open in Ancient China, before Confucian values became dominant. Seen in the context of most modern societies, Confucian values tended to exaggerate modesty. This is reflected in a well-known saying in Mencius, Mengzi1 as the name is pronounced in Chinese, a leading philosopher of Confucian teachings: nan nü shou shou bu qin2, which states that men and women should not interact directly in person when giving or receiving objects. Sometimes this saying is also interpreted to mean that men and women should avoid physical contact in general. Some of the poems in the Shijing give us rare glimpses of the relations between men and women in Ancient China.

1. 孟子　2. 男女授受不亲

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Endnotes i. See Zhang et. al. 1999. “Oldest playable musical instruments found at Jiahu early Neolithic site in China.” Nature 401. 366–68. The paper points to a web address which contains audio files of the flutes being played by a modern musician. ii. Chinese flutes come in two major varieties. The xiao 箫 is played vertically, while the di 笛 is played horizontally. iii. The text of the Analects is specified by chapter and verse. XVI:13, 不学诗 无以言. iv. XVII:9, 多识鸟兽草木之名. v. II:2, 诗三百, 一言以蔽之, 曰: 思无邪. It is interesting that this last phrase about not swerving occurred in poem m297 of the Shijing, applied to the path of stallions and chariots. vi. There are diverse opinions among scholars on the authorship of the Shijing. See 李辰冬 1982 for one viewpoint. vii. Note in this paragraph the confusing homophony between the song 颂, which means “hymn,” and the song 宋, which is the name of a kingdom. viii. III:20, 乐而不淫，哀而不伤． ix. III:15, 洋洋乎盈耳哉. Translation into English by D. C. Lau. x. XVII:18, 恶郑声之乱雅乐也.

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Shijing_00_EC_final_04.indd 2

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Part 2

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C ha p t e r 5 Legacy of the Shijing

In the second part of the book, we have selected 21 Shijing poems out of a total of 305 poems in the collection for discussion. In this chapter, we will have an overview of the poems. The first poem, Guan Ju, m1, is by far the most famous in the collection. We will look at it in full shortly. We will compare it with two recent renditions of the poem, both translated into Putonghua. This will be followed by Que Chao1, m12, the lament of a woman displaced by another. After that, in the poem Qiang Zhongzi, m76, a girl pleads that her lover should not come too close to her home for fear of offending her parents. Next we will read Ye You Si Jun2, m23, about a girl’s secret meeting with her lover in the woods. The poem Jian Jia, m129, has elegant stanzas about the search for love along a stream. There is a modern version of this poem written by the popular Taiwan novelist Qiong Yao3, entitled Zai Shui Yi Fang4. The song version of Qiong Yao’s poem has been recorded by the legendary songstress Deng Lijun5, also known as Teresa Teng. After that, Bo Xi,6 m62, deals with the frustrations of a woman whose man has gone off to war and she is reluctant to pretty herself up. Next comes Si Mu7, m162, about the competing demands of loyalty to the king and filialty to the parents. The poem Nan Shan8, m101, is an admonishment directed at a man who continues to

1. 鹊巢 2. 野有死麇 3. 琼瑶 4. 在水一方 5. 邓丽君 6. 伯兮 7. 四牡 8. 南山

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pursue his lover even after she is married off to another country. This is followed by Mu Gua1, m64, a simple verse in which gifts of fruit are answered by gifts of jade. Next comes Zi Yi2, m75, which describes a woman caring for the clothing and meals of her man. The poem Ji Ming3, m96, is a comical dialog between a man who is reluctant to get out of bed and the urgings of his woman that he should not miss his duties. Meng4, m58, records an unsuccessful relationship which begins with courtship, marriage, and ends in abandonment. The account is matter-of-fact in telling, but nonetheless quite poignant. The next poem we will enjoy is also from the Guo Feng group, Huang Niao5 m131. Both Jian Jia and Huang Niao are from a section of the Guo Feng called Qin Feng6, consisting of ten poems. The Qins were the people that would produce the man who would unify all of China into her first empire in 221 BCE. Huang Niao is a poem indirectly referring to the death of Duke Mu of Qin, Qin Mugong7, who died four hundred years before the unification, in 621 BCE. This gives us a reliable date for the composition of the poem. The Qins at that time had the cruel custom of sacrificial burials, called xunzang8 in Chinese, whereby consorts and/or servants and slaves were buried alive with the dead, allegedly to accompany them in the afterlife. The custom can be traced back many centuries, to the Shang dynasty. Similar customs have existed at various times in different cultures. Perhaps the best known among these is the custom called “suttee” in India, where a widow is expected to sacrifice herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. When Qin Mugong’s death was accompanied by the live burial of good people, Huang Niao was a poem voiced in poignant

1. 木瓜 2. 缁衣 3. 鸡鸣　4. 氓　5. 黄鸟　6. 秦风　7. 秦穆公　8. 殉葬

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protest. Unfortunately the custom persisted at least several centuries after Mugong. The terracotta warriors of Xi’an are now well known throughout the world, as attendants to the First Emperor when he died in 210 BCE. Lesser known is the fact that many people were buried alive as well to accompany the tyrant to the netherworld. Some voices in the Guo Feng, as well as in the other groups, are of common folk praying for the return of their loved ones from war, or raised against the injustice of taxes or corrupt officials. Still other voices, especially in the Ya and Song groups, are often solemn incantations concerned with affairs of state, praising valiant kings and recounting battles. Xuan Niao1, m303, and Sheng Min2, m245 recount the miracle births of the ancestors of the Shang dynasty and Zhou dynasty respectively. Mian3, m237, describes the Zhou people in their search for a place to settle and in building their home city. Jiang Han4, m262, concerns a hero of the Zhou dynasty, revered by the people, as reflected in Gan Tang5, m16. Xiang Bo6, m200, sounds off the complaints of a eunuch, giving us a glimpse into court intrigue. Next comes He Cao Bu Huang7, m234, which concerns a conscripted soldier lamenting about the treatment he was receiving. Finally, as Haojing was sacked and the capital was relocated eastward to Luoyang, the Zhou dynasty declined precipitously; an old minister admonishes his king in Yi8, m256, warning him of even more dire consequences ahead if he does not rise up to his duties.

Notes that Help Analyzing the Poems Each of the lines to be discussed will be provided with an English translation. Mindful of the Italian injunction, traduttore, traditore,

1. 玄鸟 2. 生民 3. 绵 4. 江汉 5. 甘棠 6. 项伯 7. 何草不黄 8. 抑

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i.e., to translate is to betray, the translations are given with misgivings. On top of the huge cultural chasm separating us from 3,000 years ago, as well as that distinguishing the Chinese tradition from the European ones, there is the challenge posed by the languages themselves. Each language has its own set of grammatical requirements, such as tense, number, gender, aspect, modality, evidentiality, and so on. The mismatch between the two sets of requirements, between the source language and the target language, often poses severe if not insoluble problems for the translator. These difficulties arise whether the source text is in a special context of oracle bone divination i, as we have just seen, or in a general context of odes and songs like the Shijing, which we will turn to shortly. As an example, since the Chinese language does not differentiate gender ii, such as English “he” or “she,” often it is impossible to tell whether the poem is about a man or a woman, pining for “his” or “her” lover. Occasionally the ambiguity of gender can be resolved by context. In Ye You Si Jun, which we will see later in greater detail, the voice is obviously that of a woman, since its line 10 tells us that she was wearing a shui1, which was a kerchief worn at the girdle. Or, we know that the frequently used line zhi zi yu gui2 in many other poems refers to a woman in the context of her being about to be married. There are many cases, however, where context does not help, and resolution is not possible. Grammatical differences between Chinese and English are wellknown. Quite apart from these, there are the deep chasms between cultural words. The problem here has been cogently underscored in the following paragraph. Returning to the Italian injunction quoted above, to translate is to betray, but it can be a worthy enterprise, based on a justifiable faith.

1. 帨　2. 之子于归

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“Words such as nature, reason, science, religion, and freedom, which are deeply encrusted with countless layers of meaning on our own past, meet Chinese terms such as dao, li, and qi, which have as complex a history of their own within the Chinese tradition.... Instead of arguing whether a term like religion applies to China or whether dao may apply to the West, one must be as conscious as possible of one’s particular use of such words within particular contexts.... The faith which must animate an enterprise of this sort is the faith that comparative thought, reaching across the barriers of language, history, culture... is possible. It is a faith that assumes a common world of human experience.”  iii A poem is the coming together of two aspects: sound and sense. It moves the mind by its semantic content, at the same time pleasing the ear by its patterns of stresses and rimes. The translator cannot be completely faithful to either sound or sense, let alone both; so each must weigh one aspect against the other. Waley tried to capture some of the poetic quality of the Shijing, and yet not stray too far from the original sense. Pound, on the other hand, took the theme of the original poem, and essentially went his own way with the imagery. We will illustrate both of their approaches shortly with a concrete case. The skeletal or bare-bones approach I take here, shown in column 5 of the tables, may be likened to line drawings. There you will see a minimum of English grammar in terms of articles and inflections, since most of these are not used in Chinese constructions. You will not be supplied with all the literal details of the story or the scene. To fill out the sense of the poem, you must call on your own imagination, projecting yourself to an ancient time, unfamiliar landscape, and very different culture. Like the bones dug up of our ancestors by the archeologist’s spade, we

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need to provide the muscles, the skin, the hair, etc. within our own minds. In structure, by far the great majority of the poems consist of four syllable lines. This tradition of 4-syllable lines can still be seen in modern times. For instance, the National Anthem of the Republic of China adopted in 1937 is composed in the 4-syllable tradition. In fact one of the lines in the National Anthem, su ye fei xie1, meaning roughly “no rest day and night,” is taken directly from poem Zheng Min2 m260. Many other expressions from Shijing can be found in modern speech, including: ren yan ke wei3 “be careful of gossip” from Qiang Zhongzi m76, zi qiu duo fu4 “pray for blessings” from Wen Wang5 m235, and tian zuo zhi he6 “a match made in heaven” from Da Ming m236. The Chinese language is brimming with such expressions, presumably following the initial model of Shijing and accumulating over the many centuries since. They are called sizici7, “four syllable words,” which are a type of chengyu8, or “fixed expressions;” many dictionaries have been compiled to collect and organize them. These expressions have been “prefabricated,” so to speak, to help us use language more efficiently and effectively. Because they are easily accessible in the mind, they become patterns of habitual thought which help to shape personalities in the individual, and to determine cultural norms in societies. Most poems in the Shijing consist of 6 or 8 line stanzas, though there are several poems which are longer than 100 lines. In the tables to follow, the lines are numbered and successive stanzas are numbered with Roman numerals in the first column. With few exceptions, the final syllables rime according to various schemes

1. 夙夜匪解　2. 烝民　3. 人言可畏　4. 自求多福　5. 文王　6. 天作之合　7. 四字词　8. 成语

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within stanzas. This tradition of riming is among the earliest in the world’s literature. In the tables that follow, the riming syllables are underlined and italicized in their Pinyin spelling. When the final syllable is a special type, such as an exclamation or a grammatical particle, the preceding syllable carries the rime. Riming in Chinese typically means that the syllables share a tone as well as the nucleus and final consonant. This can be illustrated by a poem from the Tang dynasty, a period when Chinese poetry was at its greatest glory. Consider the immortal poem of Li Bo1 in Table 2 where its pronunciation in Putonghua is shown in the 4th column: Table 2 Jing Ye Si Li Bo

靜夜思

Jing Ye Si

Quiet Night Thoughts

1.

床前明月光

chuang qian ming yue guang

Moon light before my bed

2.

疑是地上霜

yi shi di shang shuang

Thought was frost on ground

3.

舉头望明月

ju tou wang ming yue

Raising head I look at moon

4.

低头思故鄉

di tou si gu xiang

Lowering head I think of home

In this poem the riming scheme may be indicated by AAxA, where the “A” represents a riming syllable and the “x” represents a non-riming syllable in a stanza. That is, the final syllables of lines 1, 2, and 4 rime. In these three syllables the nucleus is “a” and the final consonant is “ng,” which is a single consonant phonetically even though it is spelled with 2 letters in English iv. When a stanza

1. 李白　

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contains several different rimes, we may represent them with different capital letters, such as AABB, or ABAB. Furthermore, these riming syllables all have a high level tone in Putonghua, also known as tone 1, which is usually written without diacritic marks. The tones which are marked diacritically are the rising tone á, the low tone ǎ, and the falling tone à. These are known respectively as tones 2, 3, and 4. It is remarkable that lines that rimed in Li Bo’s time in the Tang dynasty, some 13 centuries ago, still rime today. The situation must have been a great deal more different during the time of the Shijing, some 30 centuries ago. There are of course many lines in Tang poems which no longer rime in Putonghua, though some may still rime in other Chinese dialects, such as Cantonese. Putonghua, often called Mandarin in English, is a lingua franca based on Beijing speech. Beijing served as the nation’s capital for most of the past millennium, much of it when China was governed by Mongols (Yuan dynasty) and Manchus (Qing dynasty). Since these northern peoples spoke Altaic languages, there were periods of intense language contact and rapid language change. It is not surprising therefore that Beijing speech and Putonghua are the most different from the language of the Tang dynasty in comparison with the local speech of other major cities, such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, or Taipei, which belong to the Yue1, Wu2, and Min3 dialects respectively. Since we are dealing with the poems of Shijing, some thirty centuries ago, the difference in language is of course much greater than those of the Tang dynasty, and fewer still of the original rimes would now work. No one can know for sure of course what the language actually sounded like 3,000 years ago, even if it had tones at all, or if words distinguished by tone now were kept 1. 粤　2. 吴　3. 闽

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apart by some other phonetic device. Many scholars have tried to reconstruct it by scientific methods, including Sweden’s Bernhard Karlgren mentioned earlier. For his reconstructions, Karlgren made extensive use of the philological work done by brilliant scholars in the Qing dynasty. Scholars call the language of the Shijing “Old Chinese,” where the adjective “Old” is usually used for the earliest period of a language for which there is written record v. A more up-to-date reconstruction is that by the American linguist, William Baxter, in his A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology vi. Here I follow Baxter’s identification of the riming syllables in the Shijing, even when they no longer rime in modern language. The scholarship in reconstructing ancient pronunciation began in China several centuries ago. The work is difficult and extensive, and has been admirably reviewed and discussed in the Handbook. The riming syllables are italicized and underlined in the tables here. Note, however, typically riming does not go across stanzas; furthermore, often longer stanzas make use of two or more riming schemes. Despite the great separation in time between the ancient and modern pronunciations, the reader can still get a better feel for the poems by pronouncing them out loud even in Putonghua. As illustrated in Li Bo’s poem, the pronunciation is given in Hanyu Pinyin in column 4 in the tables. Sounding them out will surely add to the enjoyment. After all, these poems were originally songs, sung with or without accompanying instruments, though we no longer have their music. Hearing the words would make appreciating Chinese poetry a more complete experience, even if you have not studied the language before. In addition to rime, the other most noticeable feature in the structure of Shijing is the abundance of reduplication at the word level and repetition at the phrase level — that is, the systematic use of redundancy for poetic effect. In English, we have examples of

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reduplication in songs such as “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” and “Row, row, row your boat.” English also has reduplicated words which suggest particular forms of motion in words such as “flipflop” and “zig-zag,” as well as those which imitate sounds such as “bow-wow,” “ding-dong” and “pitter-patter.” Repetition is also widely used in the varieties of songs all over the world, as chorus or as refrain. An example would be the repeated sentence “Like a bridge over troubled water” in the classic song of the American singer Paul Simon, popular in the 1970s. Sharing lines, in part or in whole, much as riming, helps define the structure of the poem, and enhances its sense of unity. In the Shijing both devices are widely used. As we will see in the poems to be discussed, lines are frequently repeated, sometimes verbatim, sometimes with single substitutions. In the first poem we will look at, the Guan Ju, the line “Lovely and good is the girl,” occurs in four of the five stanzas. In the poem Huang Niao, the second half of each stanza consists of the same six lines. Reduplication in Chinese is used much more extensively than in English. The Guan Ju begins with the two syllables “guan guan” which imitates the cry of a bird. Reduplicatives are used to qualify the lush growth of plants (cang cang, qi qi, and cai cai from m129); the proud prancing of stallions (fei fei from m162), the mistiness of fog (mang mang from Table 9), the ruggedness of a mountain (cui cui from m101), or the shedding of tear (lian lian from m58). This device continued to serve poets across the ensuing centuries. A striking example is the first line from Li Qingzhao1, China’s best known woman writer of the Song dynasty, who began her poem Sheng Sheng Man2 with a string of seven reduplicatives to suggest her feeling of loneliness and desolation on a cold wintry night. The words she used were: xunxun mimi lengleng qingqing qiqi cancan qiqi, or in written form: 寻寻 觅觅 冷冷 清清 凄凄 惨惨 戚戚.

1. 李清照　2. 声声慢

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Endnotes i. An in-depth discussion is Takashima, Kenichi’s “The nature of the language of Shang divination.” 2011. Paper presented at the colloquium held at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuernberg, 4 December. Based largely upon pp. 17–71, “The ‘Question’ question” in Introduction, Studies of Fascicle Three of Inscriptions from the Yin Ruins, Volume I: General Notes, Text and Translations. Taipei: Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 2010. Special Publications No. 107A. ii. However in the modern written language, “he, she, it” can be distinguished by “他, 她, 它” respectively. iii. Schwartz, Benjamin I. 1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Harvard University Press. pp. 12–13. See also Hansen, Chad. 1983. Language and Logic in Ancient China. University of Michigan Press. iv. The phonetic symbol for this velar nasal consonant is /ŋ/. v. Karlgren called the language of the Shijing “Archaic Chinese.” Many western scholars refer to this language as “Old Chinese,” and the language around 600 CE as “Middle Chinese.” The Chinese terms for these two periods are Shanggu Hanyu 上古汉语, and Zhonggu Hanyu 中古 汉语. vi. Baxter’s Handbook was reviewed in depth in Pulleyblank 1993, followed by a technical debate in later issues of the Journal of Chinese Linguistics. Baxter has updated his reconstruction of Old Chinese in collaborative work with the French linguist Laurent Sagart. These results are currently available at the web address: http://crlao.ehess.fr/document. php?id=1217.

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C ha p t e r 6 Love in the Shijing: Guan Ju

With the background discussed so far on content and structure, let us now turn to our first poem from the Shijing as given in the table below, and look at it in greater depth. Table 3 Guan Ju m1

1.

关关雎鸠

guān guān jū jiū

“Guan, guan” cry the ospreys

国风

2.

在河之洲

zài hé zhī zhōu

On the islet in the river

周南

3.

窈窕淑女

yǎo tiǎo shū nǚ

Lovely and good is the girl

关雎

4.

君子好逑

jūn zǐ hǎo qiú

Fitting mate for a gentleman

II

5.

参差荇菜

cēn cī xìng cài

Uneven length grows the water mallow

6.

左右流之

zuǒ yòu liú zhī

To left and right we catch it

7.

窈窕淑女

yǎo tiǎo shū nǚ

Lovely and good is the girl

8.

寤寐求之

wù mèi qiú zhī

Waking and sleeping he sought her

9.

求之不得

qiú zhī bù dé

Sought her and could not get her

10.

寤寐思服

wù mèi sī fú

Waking and sleeping he grieved

11.

悠哉悠哉

yōu zāi yōu zāi

Longing, longing

12.

辗转反侧

zhǎn zhuǎn fǎn cè

Tossing now on his back, now on his side

13.

参差荇菜

cēn cī xìng cài

Uneven length grows the water mallow

14.

左右采之

zuǒ yòu cǎi zhī

To left and right we gather it

15.

窈窕淑女

yǎo tiǎo shū nǚ

Lovely and good is the girl

16.

琴瑟友之

qín sè yǒu zhī

With lute and zither we befriend her

17.

参差荇菜

cēn cī xìng cài

Uneven length grows the water mallow

18.

左右芼之

zuǒ yòu mào zhī

To left and right we cull it

19.

窈窕淑女

yǎo tiǎo shū nǚ

Lovely and good is the girl

20.

钟鼓乐之

zhōng gǔ lè zhī

With bells and drums we cheer her

III

IV

V

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The table has a format of 5 columns. Going down the first column, the top cell gives the Mao number for the poem. The 2nd cell tells us that the poem belongs to the Guo Feng group of poems; the 3rd cell tells us the poem comes from the Zhounan region; the 4th cell gives the name of poem itself, which is Guan Ju. The first column also marks the number of the stanza; so the 2nd stanza starts on line 5, the 3rd stanza starts on line 9, and so on. This poem therefore has 5 stanzas, with 4 lines each. The 2nd column gives the line numbers. The 3rd column gives the poem written in Chinese in Simplified characters. The 4th column gives the spelling in Hanyu Pinyin. The 5th column gives a translation that is almost literally based on the Chinese text. This five column format will be used throughout this book. The 1st stanza and the 3rd stanza follow the AAxA riming scheme, as we saw earlier in the Tang poem by Li Bo. Again, the riming syllables are italicized and underlined in the table. While the rimes in the 1st stanza survive quite well when read in Putonghua (jiu, zhou, qiu), the rimes in the 3rd stanza are totally obscured by sound changes that took place (de, fu, ce). The three riming syllables in the 3rd stanza all ended in the final consonant /-k/, which is still preserved in modern Cantonese. However, these syllables no longer rime in Putonghua with the loss of the /-k/. The remaining three stanzas, the 2nd, 4th, and 5th, rime according to a different scheme, namely, xAxA. However, since the riming lines end in a grammatical word zhi, which is a pronoun, the rime is shifted to the preceding syllable. The subject of the poem is the girl introduced in line 3, the lovely and good girl, and she is repeated in lines 7, 15, and 19 as the dominant theme. The compound expression yaotiao refers to good appearance and nice character, a most desirable combination in a woman i. The line yao tiao shu nü1 has become a well-known phrase in Chinese for describing young women. When the popular 1. 窈窕淑女

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musical, My Fair Lady, was released by Hollywood, the title was immediately translated as yao tiao shu nü both on the Mainland and in Taiwan. Some years later, a Cantonese version of the play was performed in Hong Kong, again using this line from the Shijing as its title to attract its Chinese audience. Interestingly, in My Fair Lady the dialect of prestige was Received Pronunciation English while the stigmatized dialect was London Cockney; in the Hong Kong version the dialect of prestige was Hong Kong Cantonese while the stigmatized dialect was that speech of a nearby city, Taishan1. A poetic device one finds frequently in the Guan Ju is the use of flora and fauna, mixed in with the unfolding of the main theme. While the main theme obviously is the craving for the girl, the poem starts with the cry of a bird, and makes repeated mention of the water mallow. This device of bringing in suggestive scenery is used abundantly throughout the collection of poems, a device known in Chinese as jie jing shu qing2, literally “borrow scene express sentiment.” The Shijing is remarkable for its rich inventory of words for flora and fauna, noted by Confucius as mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, many of these flora and fauna are either extinct or little known now. As an example of the difficulties in translation, consider the jujiu bird in the first line, which is translated as “osprey” here following Waley’s tradition. Karlgren (1950) kept the Chinese syllables without seeking a translation, while Pound considered the bird a “fish-hawk.” Perhaps special consideration should be given to “kingfisher” in Chia (2008:2), given that the translator here is a professional zoologist. In addition to these more technical issues, there must have been cultural associations between flora and fauna in ancient times as metaphors related to the themes of the various poems, associations which are no longer salient or appropriate in our modern world.

1. 台山　2. 借景抒情

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Table 4 Guan Ju in Putonghua *m1

1.

关关雎鸠

水鸟儿闹闹嚷嚷

水鸟应合关关唱

国风

2.

在河之洲

在河心小小洲上

歌唱在那沙洲上

周南

3.

窈窕淑女

好姑娘苗苗条条

美丽善良的姑娘

关雎

4.

君子好逑

哥儿想和她成双

正是我的好对象

II

5.

参差荇菜

水荇菜长短不齐

短的长的水荇菜

6.

左右流之

采荇菜左右东西

向左向右把它采

7.

窈窕淑女

好姑娘苗苗条条

美丽善良的姑娘

III

IV

V

8.

寤寐求之

追求她直到梦里

睡里梦中使人想

9.

求之不得

追求她成了空想

空想总是不能得

10.

寤寐思服

睁眼想闭眼也想

梦寐之中想更切

11.

悠哉悠哉

夜长长相思不断

想她念她真难忘

12.

辗转反侧

仅翻身直到天光

翻来覆去天不亮

13.

参差荇菜

长和短水边荇菜

水荇菜来短又长

14.

左右采之

采荇人左采右采

左采右采在河旁

15.

窈窕淑女

好姑娘苗苗条条

美丽善良的姑娘

16.

琴瑟友之

弹琴瑟迎她过来

想用琴瑟供她赏

17.

参差荇菜

水荇菜长长短短

水荇长短不整齐

18.

左右芼之

采荇人左拣右拣

左边右边来摘取

19.

窈窕淑女

好姑娘苗苗条条

美丽善良的姑娘

20.

钟鼓乐之

娶她来钟鼓喧喧

想用钟鼓供欢娱

It is of interest to compare the Guan Ju with modern translations, also in rime. I use the notation *m1 in the table to indicate that the modern translations are based on m1. The version in the 4th column is from Yu 1977; the one in the 5th column is from Yuan & Tang 1991. Chia 2008 is another work well worth comparing; it provides translations into Putonghua and into English for all 160 poems of the Guo Feng section. The Putonghua versions are relatively faithful to the original line by line. Their lines rime better than in the original, as we would expect, since they are composed in the same language we are now reading. It is interesting that the 4-syllable lines of the original

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have been changed to 7-syllable lines in both modern versions. Presumably this change reflects the powerful influence of Tang dynasty poetry on the modern mind, where the best known poems are all composed in 5-syllable lines, an example of which we saw in Li Bo’s work earlier, and in 7-syllable lines. While both versions are excellent translations, much to be enjoyed, they differ in their interpretations. Yu’s translation preserves more of the flavor of old poetry by making extensive use of reduplications; it has 15 replicated forms in the 20 lines. The only reduplication in the translation by Yuan & Tang is the imitative syllables preserved from the 1st line of the original. In general, Yuan & Tang have preserved more aspects from the original. Another example of this is their translation of line 3 as meili1 “beautiful” and shanliang2 “good;” these were indeed the meanings of yao and tiao respectively in Old Chinese.

Waley and Pound Waley’s translation below is also largely based on the original, with only a few departures. For instance, the first two syllables in the original, guan guan, were imitative of the bird’s cry; that is, the poet’s intention was pure onomatopoeia. Waley, on the other hand, chose the words fair fair to describe the girl’s beauty, as reproduced below. For further discussion on these two syllables, see Xia (2012:14–16). “Fair, fair” cry the ospreys On the islet in the river. Lovely is this noble lady, Fit bride for our lord.

1. 美丽　2. 善良

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In patches grows the water mallow; To left and right one must seek it. Shy was this noble lady; Day and night he sought her. Sought her and could not get her; Day and night he grieved. Long thoughts, oh, long unhappy thoughts, Now on his back, now tossing on his side. In patches grows the water mallow; To left and right one must gather it. Shy is this noble lady; With great zithern and little we hearten her. In patches grows the water mallow; To left and right one must choose it. Shy is this noble lady; With gongs and drums we will gladden her. In sharp contrast to the three versions above, however, the translation of the Shijing by Ezra Pound is quite idiosyncratic ii. The following is his version of Guan Ju, reproduced here in his original format and spellings for comparison. It is useful for showing how these ancient poems may be given very diverse interpretations. “Hid! Hid!” the fish-hawk saith, by isle in Ho the fish-hawk saith: “Dark and clear, Dark and clear, So shall be the prince’s fere.” Clear as the stream her modesty; As neath dark boughs her secrecy, reed against reed tall on slight

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as the stream moves left and right, dark and clear, dark and clear. To seek and not find as a dream in his mind, think how her robe should be, distantly, to toss and turn, to toss and turn. High reed caught in ts’ai grass so keep her secrecy; lute sound in lute sound is caught, touching, passing, left and right. Bang the gong of her delight. An interesting problem lies in the translation of the term junzi1, which appears in line 4 of the poem. Pound renders it “prince,” and Waley and Karlgren use “lord.” However, these terms imply rank or title, which may not be appropriate generally. To my mind, a better match for junzi would be “gentleman,” though the correspondence is certainly not perfect. The Chinese term has a long history, and was used numerous times in Confucius’s Analects, or Lunyu2. In its present usage, junzi refers to a man of integrity that is educated and well behaved. It is reflected in sayings like junzi yiyan3, or “junzi’s word,” which is very much like “a gentleman’s word” in English, i.e., that it can be trusted absolutely. In Chinese usage, however, it is usually followed by another saying, si ma nan zhui4 which means something like “it cannot be retrieved even by a team of four horses.” The implication is that such words should not be given lightly since once given they cannot be retrieved, and that once given one should do everything possible to keep to them.

1. 君子　2. 论语　3. 君子一言　4. 驷马难追

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Guan Ju, by virtue of its being the first poem in the collection, is also the best known and most extensively discussed. In addition to the four interpretations given above, two in Chinese and two in English, there are numerous other interpretations in the mountain of literature on the Shijing. One more note may be added here on the first two syllables of the poem. In all of the four interpretations given above, guan guan1 is interpreted as imitating the sound of the osprey’s cry. However, a recent proposal is to interpret the syllables with a different character with the same pronunciation, namely 观观. The new interpretation would then render the first lines as: Watchful, watchful, the osprey, On the islet of the river. Accordingly, the poem takes on a new meaning in which the osprey is watching and waiting, presumably for the mate’s return iii.

Endnotes i. The compound 窈窕 has been used repeatedly in classical literature; for instance, by the Song poet 苏轼 in his famous 前赤壁赋 to refer to nice articles. In earlier stages of Chinese, there were numerous compounds formed by two syllables which rime, such as yaotiao 窈窕 here, or by two syllables which alliterate, such as the verb chouchu 踌躇 “to hesitate,” or the noun zhizhu 蜘蛛 “spider.” ii. There are indeed many more translations of Guan Ju that we do not include here. A particularly nice selection of love poems from the Shijing is Sampson 2006. iii. See the discussion in Bodde 1991:46. However, the two sinograms 关 and 观 were not homophones in Old Chinese, making this interpretation unsuitable. I thank Ho Dah’an for this observation. Furthermore, Ed Shaughnessy has alerted me to the fact that the sinogram 關, and its simplified form 关, appears in recently excavated archeological materials as 貫, which adds to the difficulties of interpreting this poem.

1. 关关

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C ha p t e r 7 Love Requited and Unrequited

After discussing the most famous poem Guan Ju of the collection in the previous chapter, we now have an overview of more Shijing poems.

Que Chao The riming scheme is straightforward, i.e., xAxA. Since the even numbered lines all end in the pronoun zhi, the rime falls on the preceding syllable. Table 5 Que Chao m12

  1.

维鹊有巢

wéi què yǒu cháo

Magpie has nest

国风

  2.

维鸠居之

wéi jiū jū zhī

Cuckoo lives in it

召南

  3.

之子于归

zhī zǐ yú guī

Girl to be married

鹊巢

  4.

百两御之

bǎi liǎng yù zhī

Hundred coaches meet her

II

  5.

维鹊有巢

wéi què yǒu cháo

Magpie has nest

  6.

维鸠方之

wéi jiū fāng zhī

Cuckoo makes home in it

  7.

之子于归

zhī zǐ yú guī

Girl to be married

  8.

百两将之

bǎi liǎng jiāng zhī

Hundred coaches escort her

  9.

维鹊有巢

wéi què yǒu cháo

Magpie has nest

10.

维鸠盈之

wéi jiū yíng zhī

Cuckoo fills it

11.

之子于归

zhī zǐ yú guī

Girl to be married

12.

百两成之

bǎi liǎng chéng zhī

Hundred coaches gird her

III

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Waley (1937:83) suspects that “magpie” might not be the proper translation for the host bird, que, and suggests it is some kind of sparrow, que1, that is intended in the poem. It could be, he suggests, a confusion due to homophony. In any case, the unusual behavior of the jiu has caught the attention of many writers. It lays its eggs in the nest of other birds, and its hatchling is raised by host birds, a biological oddity. This theme is reflected in the saying jiu zhan que chao2, literally “cuckoo occupies magpie’s nest.” Often the theme is used in stories for two competing women. The relation between the Boleyn sisters, Anne and Mary, was such a story, set in the England of Henry VIII. When the very successful movie, The Other Boleyn Girl, was translated into Chinese, jiu zhan que chao was used as its title. As promised earlier, we will now look at a selection from the Zheng Feng, the largest section of the Guo Feng group, with 21 poems instead of the average of 10 poems per section in the group. The poem is Qiang Zhongzi, which is a plea for someone named Zhongzi. The first syllable in the name Zhongzi is interesting because it is part of a traditional method of marking birth order of siblings. Seniority within and across generations has always played a fundamental role in Chinese society since the earliest times, and this is reflected in the vocabulary. For instance, there is no simple word meaning “brother,” as there is in English. In its place, there are the reduplicated forms of gege3 for older brother and didi4 for younger brother, which one uses instead of given names. Similarly, one uses jiejie5 for older sister and meimei6 for younger sister. For the one English word “cousin,” there are 8 corresponding terms in Chinese, according to whether the person addressed is male or female, older

1. 雀　2. 鸠占鹊巢　3. 哥哥　4. 弟弟　5. 姐姐　6.妹妹

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or younger, and whether related through the father or mother’s side. Often as a sign of solidarity or good will, one appends kinship terms to personal names. For instance, the Chinese name of the famous Hong Kong movie star in martial arts films, Jacky Chan, is Cheng Long1. Thus he is often called Long-ge2 by his friends, i.e., “Elder brother Long.” It follows a noble sentiment from the Analects of Confucius, that sihai zhi nei, jie xiongdi ye3, “within the four seas, we are all brothers.” In addressing someone of an older generation, the Chinese terms corresponding to “uncle” or “aunt” are used to show respect. In this connection, I have a most endearing memory, which dates back to 1973, when I first returned from California to China to give a series of lectures. Oftentimes, especially in the more rural areas where the children are more innocent and friendly, I was addressed as Ayi4, which means “auntie.” During those years of the Cultural Revolution, men and women did not differ much in what they wore. The children were obviously misled by longish hair, California style. The confusion would have been avoided had I grown some beard or mustache. In olden times in China, siblings used to be named in the order of bo, zhong, shu, and ji5. So the Zhong in the name of the poem tells us that the lover is the second in this order among his siblings. The syllable zhong is also used as a middle term in ordering other sequences, such as the meng, zhong, ji6 sequence for divisions within a season. Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, for instance, is translated as zhong xia ye zhi meng7, with morpheme for morpheme correspondence to the English original.

1. 成龙　2. 龙哥　3. 四海之内，皆兄弟也　4. 阿姨　5. 伯仲叔季　6. 孟仲季　7. 仲夏夜之梦

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Alongside of bo, which marks the first born among siblings, there is also the word meng used for a similar purpose. In poems m48 and m83, for instance, there is mention of a beautiful woman Meng Jiang1. Jiang was a popular surname during those times; so the woman was the eldest daughter in the Jiang family. Meng Jiang Nü2 was also the name of a woman, famous for her loyalty in Chinese folklore, who lost her husband as a conscripted laborer when the First Emperor was building the Great Wall, or Changcheng3. Beautiful folksongs have been composed about this heroine. As the story goes, she wept so bitterly at the side of the Wall that the heavens were moved by her tears; a section of the Wall then cracked open, returning her husband’s body which had been buried in it. To illustrate the use of the word meng on the male side, we may go to a historical figure of the Three Kingdoms Period, some four centuries after the First Emperor. Cao Cao4 was a prime minister at the end of the Han dynasty who is well known and highly vilified in popular culture because he usurped the Han emperor’s power i. His lesser known name was Cao Mengde5, again with the meng marking the fact he was the eldest son.

1. 孟姜　2. 孟姜女　3. 长城　4. 曹操　5. 曹孟德

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Qiang Zhongzi Each stanza here has the rime scheme of xAAxABxB. For the rime B the penultimate syllables carry the rime because the line ends in ye, which is a particle. From the last two lines of this poem comes a common saying on the power of gossip: ren yan ke wei1, counseling to be wary of what people might say. The theme reflects the usual conflict a young woman faces when the status of her affair is uncertain, vacillating between the illicit and the condoned. She would like to meet with her lover, Zhongzi. But she is also afraid of what others would say if they saw him, especially her family. Table 6 Qiang Zhongzi m76

  1.

将仲子兮

qiāng zhòng zǐ xī

Please, Zhongzi

国风

  2.

无逾我里

wú yú wǒ lǐ

Do not come to my village

郑风

  3.

无折我树杞

wú zhé wǒ shù qǐ

Do not break our willow trees

将仲子

  4.

岂敢爱之

qǐ gǎn ài zhī

Not that I care about them

  5.

畏我父母

wèi wǒ fù mǔ

I fear my father and mother

  6.

仲可怀也

zhòng kě huái yě

Zhong, you are worth loving

  7.

父母之言

fù mǔ zhī yán

The words of father and mother

  8.

亦可畏也

yì kě wèi yě

Are also worth fearing

  9.

将仲子兮

qiāng zhòng zǐ xī

Please, Zhongzi

10.

无逾我墙

wú yú wǒ qiáng

Do not come over my wall

11.

无折我树桑

wú zhé wǒ shù sāng

Do not break our mulberry trees

12.

岂敢爱之

qǐ gǎn ài zhī

Not that I care about them

II

1. 人言可畏

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III

13.

畏我诸兄

wèi wǒ zhū xiōng

I fear my big brothers

14.

仲可怀也

zhòng kě huái yě

Zhong, you are worth loving

15.

诸兄之言

zhū xiōng zhī yán

The words of my big brothers

16.

亦可畏也

yì kě wèi yě

Are also worth fearing

17.

将仲子兮

qiāng zhòng zǐ xī

Please, Zhongzi

18.

无逾我园

wú yú wǒ yuán

Do not come into my garden

19.

无折我树檀

wú zhé wǒ shù tán

Do not break our tan trees

20.

岂敢爱之

qǐ gǎn ài zhī

Not that I care about them

21.

畏人之多言

wèi rén zhī duō yán

I fear people will gossip

22.

仲可怀也

zhòng kě huái yě

Zhong, you are worth loving

23.

人之多言

rén zhī duō yán

People gossiping

24.

亦可畏也

yì kě wèi yě

Is also worth fearing

In the Chinese tradition, marriage is completely in the hands of the parents, often involving match-makers. Brides and grooms see each other for the first time on the night of the wedding. The thinking is that love will grow when the couple learn to live with each other. The potential conflict in the situation is the theme of numerous love stories in China. In the poem, the girl warns Zhongzi against coming to see her, while professing her feelings for him at the same time in each stanza.

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Ye You Si Jun We turn now to another poem in the Guo Feng group, m23=the Ye You Si Jun, presented in Table 7. Table 7 Ye You Si Jun m23

  1.

野有死麕

yě yǒu sǐ jūn

In the wilds a dead musk deer

国风

  2.

白茅包之

bái máo bāo zhī

White rushes wrap it

召南

  3.

有女怀春

yǒu nǚ huái chūn

Girl feels spring in her

野有死麕

  4.

吉士诱之

jí shì yòu zhī

Fine gentleman entices her

II

  5.

林有朴樕

lín yǒu pú sù

In the woods low shrubby trees

  6.

野有死鹿

yě yǒu sǐ lù

In the wilds a dead deer

  7.

白茅纯束

bái máo chún shù

Well bound with white rushes

  8.

有女如玉

yǒu nǚ rú yù

Girl fair as jade

  9.

舒而脱脱兮

shū ér tuì tuì xī

Slowly! be gentle

10.

无感我帨兮

wú gǎn wǒ shuì xī

Do not remove my kerchief

11.

无使尨也吠

wú shǐ máng yě fèi

Do not make dog bark

III

As can be seen from the underlined words, the riming scheme is different in the 3 stanzas. In the 1st stanza, the scheme is ABAB, with two pairs of riming syllables. Since lines 2 and 4 end in a grammatical word, zhi again as in Guan Ju, the rime is shifted to the preceding syllable. Similarly, since lines 9 and 10 end in a grammatical word, in this case it is the exclamation xi, the rime is shifted to the preceding syllable. Notice that in the 2nd stanza, the scheme is AAAA, and the rime is relatively well preserved in Putonghua in the 4 syllables. They all carry the falling tone. However, while the vowel in the first 3 rime syllables is /u/, the vowel in the 4th rime syllable is actually phonetically /ü/ in

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Putonghua, with a front rounded pronunciation, even though it is spelled with the letter “u.” In the 3rd stanza, the scheme is AAA, with the rime shifted as just noted. The jun1 mentioned in line 1 is an animal closely resembling the deer, sometimes called the “musk deer,” though it does not have horns. The modern word for the species is zhang2, now no longer commonly used, except in the saying zhang tou shu mu3 “musk deer head and rat eyed,” to refer to someone with scorn. The shui4 in line 10 is a type of kerchief girls wore in ancient times, apparently attached to some kind of girdle. The Chinese word for “dog” has changed several times. The ancient word mang5 in line 11 above is no longer used. An older word for “dog” is quan6, used in various compounds. The character 犬 has been stylized as 犭 to form the semantic radical of many animal names written on the left side, such as in the 獐 just mentioned, and also in 狼 lang “wolf,” 狐 hu “fox,” and others. Some scholars suspect that the phonetic form of quan has the same linguistic origin as English “hound” and Latin “canis;” this is interesting because the phonetic similarity may be a clue to contact among speakers of these languages in ancient times. The modern word for “dog” in Putonghua is 狗 gou, again written with the same semantic radical. The theme in this poem is the secret meeting of a young woman with her lover. The girl’s beauty is likened to jade, a precious stone that has always played an important role in Chinese culture, both for its radiant appearance, and for its alleged power to heal. See Figure 7 for a specimen. The meeting place is in the woods, presumably not too far from houses, since sounds they make may arouse nearby dogs, and perhaps her parents. The poem is unusual in its stark juxtaposition of death and sensual love, two of the defining events of life itself.

1. 麕　2. 獐　3. 獐头鼠目　4. 帨　5. 尨　6. 犬

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Jian Jia There are 3 stanzas in this poem, each with 8 lines. The riming scheme is AAxABABA. The B rime in fact consists of just the verb cong1, which occurs twice per stanza. The imagery of dew drops suggests the fragility of the search for her elusive “someone.” Table 8 Jian Jia m129

  1.

蒹葭苍苍

jiān jiā cāng cāng

Reeds and rushes green

国风

  2.

白露为霜

bái lù wéi shuāng

White dew turning into frost

秦风

  3.

所谓伊人

suǒ wèi yī rén

So-called ‘someone’

蒹葭

  4.

在水一方

zài shuǐ yī fāng

Somewhere near stream

  5.

溯洄从之

sù huí cóng zhī

I go up stream after him

  6.

道阻且长

dào zǔ qiě cháng

Road difficult and long

  7.

溯游从之

sù yóu cóng zhī

I go down stream after him

  8.

宛在水中央

wǎn zài shuǐ zhōng yāng

He may be at midst of stream

  9.

蒹葭萋萋

jiān jiā qī qī

Reeds and rushes luxuriant

10.

白露未晞

bái lù wèi xī

White dew has not yet dried

11.

所谓伊人

suǒ wèi yī rén

So-called ‘someone’

12.

在水之湄

zài shuǐ zhī méi

On bank of stream

13.

溯洄从之

sù huí cóng zhī

I go up stream after him

14.

道阻且跻

dào zǔ qiě jī

Road difficult and steep

15.

溯游从之

sù yóu cóng zhī

I go down stream after him

16.

宛在水中坻

wǎn zài shuǐ zhōng dǐ

He may be on islet in stream

17.

蒹葭采采

jiān jiā cǎi cǎi

Reeds and rushes colorful

18.

白露未已

bái lù wèi yǐ

White dew has not yet ceased

II

III

1. 从

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19.

所谓伊人

suǒ wèi yī rén

So-called ‘someone’

20.

在水之涘

zài shuǐ zhī sì

On bank of river

21.

溯洄从之

sù huí cóng zhī

I go up stream after him

22.

道阻且右

dào zǔ qiě yòu

Road difficult and turns right

23.

溯游从之

sù yóu cóng zhī

I go down stream after him

24.

宛在水中沚

wǎn zài shuǐ zhōng zhǐ

He eludes me to an islet in stream

Taking the theme of Jian Jia, the Taiwan novelist Qiong Yao has composed another poem which is reproduced below. Qiong Yao’s poem has been made into song, which was recorded by many artists, including the immensely popular Deng Lijun, known to her international fans as Teresa Teng. The notation *m129 in Table 9 is to show that the version is adapted from m129. The new poem has some changes, as is to be expected. In the original Jian Jia of Table 8, the gender of the author of the poem cannot be determined, and I interpreted it to mean a woman searching for a man, based on several other translations. Here, though, since Qiong Yao uses the character 她 as the object of the poem, written with a female radical on the left, 女, the interpretation must be a man searching for a woman. It presents an interesting case where the written language makes a grammatical distinction on gender, which is not expressed in the spoken language. All three 3rd person pronouns are pronounced ta, even though 他 is masculine, 她 is feminine, and 它 is neuter for objects and animals. Even more importantly for the mood of the poem, the dew in the original poem, lu1, has been changed to fog wu2 ii. Dew is something which vanishes quickly; as a metaphor for love it highlights an evanescent quality. In contrast, fog represents love’s elusiveness. The image projected by Qiong Yao’s translation is of a

1. 露 2. 雾

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Table 9 Jian Jia in Modern Garb *m129

  1.

绿草苍苍

lü cao cang cang

Green grass luxuriant

琼瑶

  2.

白雾茫茫

bai wu mang mang

White fog thick

  3.

有位佳人

you wei jia ren

A beautiful woman

  4.

在水一方

zai shui yi fang

Alongside stream

  5.

我愿逆流而上

wo yuan ni liu er shang

I want to go up stream

  6.

依偎在她身旁

yi wei zai ta shen pang

To be by her side

  7.

无奈前有险滩

wu nai qian you xian tan

But steep banks lie ahead

  8.

道路又远又长

dao lu you yuan you chang

The way is far and long

  9.

我愿顺流而下

wo yuan shun liu er xia I want to go down stream

10.

找寻她的方向

zhao xun ta de fang xiang

To search for her

11.

却见依稀仿佛

que jian yi xi fang fu

But she may be

12.

她在水的中央

ta zai shui de zhong yang

In middle of stream

13.

绿草萋萋

lü cao qi qi

Green grass is closely grown

14.

白雾迷离

bai wu mi li

White fog hard to see through

15.

有位佳人

you wei jia ren

A beautiful woman

16.

靠水而居

kao shui er ju

Lives by stream

17.

我愿逆流而上

wo yuan ni liu er shang I want to go up stream

18.

与她轻言细语

yu ta qing yan xi yu

To whisper softly in her ear

19.

无奈前有险滩

wu nai qian you xian tan

But steep banks lie ahead

20.

道路曲折无已

dao lu qu zhe wu yi

The way twists endlessly

21.

我愿顺流而下

wo yuan shun liu er xia I want to go down stream

22.

找寻她的足迹

zhao xun ta de zu ji

To search for her traces

23.

却见仿佛依稀

que jian fang fu yi xi

But she may be

24.

她在水中伫立

ta zai shui zhong zhu li

On an islet in middle

II

III

IV

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beautiful woman, partially obscured by the fog hovering above the flowing water. That the image does not vanish but endures is seen in the use of the poetic word wan1 “still,” in the final line of each of the three stanzas in the original version. The searched one remains there, even if the fog makes it difficult to see at times. Note that the new poem uses a different riming scheme which is more interesting, even though the total structure of 24 lines has been preserved. Whereas m129 repeats the same riming scheme for each of its three stanzas, *m129 divides the 24 lines into two parts. Within each part, there is a further division into two sections, with the first section consisting of four 4-syllable lines, and the second section consisting of eight 6-syllable lines. Thus there is a two-level hierarchy in its structure. Many poems in the Shijing are organized into two or more levels. The hierarchical organization of *m129 is shown in the chart below:

lines 1–4 part A lines 5–12

Poem *m129

lines 13–16 part B lines 17–24

1. 宛

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Bo Xi This poem is about the attitude of a woman separated from her lover. In the first stanza, the rimes are AABB, where the A shifted to an earlier syllable because the final syllable is the exclamation xi. The second stanza has AAxA. The next two stanzas have xAxA. Table 10 Bo Xi m62

  1.

伯兮朅兮

bó xī qiè xī

Oh Bo, oh brave one

国风

  2.

邦之桀兮

bāng zhī jié xī

Hero of the land

卫风

  3.

伯也执殳

bó yě zhí shū

Bo holding lance

伯兮

  4.

为王前驱

wéi wáng qián qū

Front rider of king

II

  5.

自伯之东

zì bó zhī dōng

Since Bo went east

  6.

首如飞蓬

shǒu rú fēi péng

Head like tumbleweed

  7.

岂无膏沐

qǐ wú gāo mù

Not that have no lotion to wash with

  8.

谁适为容

shuí shì wéi róng

Who should I look nice for

  9.

其雨其雨

qí yǔ qí yǔ

Come rain, come rain

10.

杲杲出日

gǎo gǎo chū rì

Sun shining brightly

11.

愿言思伯

yuàn yán sī bó

Longingly think of Bo

12.

甘心首疾

gān xīn shǒu jí

Heart weary, head aches

13.

焉得谖草

yān dé xuān cǎo

Where to get day-lily

14.

言树之背

yán shù zhī bèi

Plant back of house

15.

愿言思伯

yuàn yán sī bó

Longingly think of Bo

16.

使我心痗

shǐ wǒ xīn mèi

Brings pain to heart

III

IV

Just as Zhongzi in the previous poem is a second son, the Bo that is the hero in this poem is a number one son. It is a common theme, now as well as 3,000 years ago, that women lose their incentive for beauty when deprived of their lovers. There is a two

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part modern saying: shi wei zhi ji zhe si1 —“a man would die for one who appreciates him,” and nv wei yue ji zhe rong2 —“a woman would make herself beautiful for one who delights her.” In this case, the author has lost Bo to war, at least temporarily. She has lost the incentive to make herself pretty. For the xuan cao3 of line 13, also written 萱草, I have followed Waley in translating it as day-lilly. But its alleged magic is more transparently seen in the Chinese name wang you cao4, literally “forget troubles grass.” If one were to relax the strict correspondence line for line, one could also change some of the imagery. This was done by Chan Hong-mo (2011, p.  21) with excellent effect, as can be seen below, where the poem is renamed “Fluff-ball”: Oh my love, he is so big and strong, That he stood a head above the throng. And the way he boldly held his pike, As they marched before the King along! But to the East since now my love has gone, My poor, poor hair is like a fluff-ball grown. Lotions I have, of course, and unguents sweet, But what’s the sense, my trimming up, alone? We have been waiting, waiting for the rain, But we have got the scorching sun instead. And I’ve been longing, longing for my love, To end up just with aching heart and head.

1. 士为知己者死　2. 女为悦己者容　3. 谖草　4. 忘忧草

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Day lilies help one to forget, they say. So I’ll find some and plant them by the wall. For all this longing, longing for my love Has turned my once-sweet heart to bitter gall.

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Si Mu This poem is about the tension between loyalty and filialty. Since ancient times, personal virtues have been codified in various ways. A well-known version is called Ba De1, or “Eight Virtues,” which begins with zhong2, followed by xiao3. Zhong refers to loyalty, to people in general, but especially to the king during feudal times. It is significant that it is positioned at the beginning of the list of eight. Xiao refers to filialty, or filial piety, which is devotion to one’s parents. Both of these virtues are fundamental to the moral fabric of Chinese society. Table 11 Si Mu m162

  1.

四牡騑騑

sì mǔ fei fei

Four stallions gallop forward

小雅

  2.

周道倭迟

zhou dào wei chí

Zhou road winding and far

鹿鸣

  3.

岂不怀归

qǐ bù huái gui

Do I not long to return?

四牡

  4.

王事靡盬

wáng shì mí gǔ

King’s business must not have mistakes

  5.

我心伤悲

wǒ xin shang bei

My heart pained and sad

  6.

四牡騑騑

sì mǔ fei fei

Four stallions gallop forward

  7.

啴啴骆马

tan tan luò mǎ

Exhausted are black-maned white horses

  8.

岂不怀归

qǐ bù huái gui

Do I not long to return?

  9.

王事靡盬

wáng shì mí gǔ

King’s business must not have mistakes

10.

不遑启处

bù huáng qǐ chǔ

No leisure to tarry or stay

11.

翩翩者鵻

pian pian zhě zhui

Flying are those doves

12.

载飞载下

zài fei zài xià

Flying and landing

II

III

1. 八德　2. 忠　3. 孝

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V

13.

集于苞栩

jí yú bao xǔ

Settling on bushy oak

14.

王事靡盬

wáng shì mí gǔ

King’s business must not have mistakes

15.

不遑将父

bù huáng jiang fù

No leisure for father

16.

翩翩者鵻

pian pian zhě zhui

Flying are those doves

17.

载飞载止

zài fei zài zhǐ

Flying and landing

18.

集于苞杞

jí yú bao qǐ

Settling on bushy willow

19.

王事靡盬

wáng shì mí gǔ

King’s business must not have mistakes

20.

不遑将母

bù huáng jiang mǔ

No leisure for mother

21.

驾彼四骆

jià bǐ sì luò

I drive those four horses

22.

载骤骎骎

zài zhòu qin qin

Galloping swiftly

23.

岂不怀归

qǐ bù huái gui

Do I not long to return?

24.

是用作歌

shì yòng zuò ge

Therefore make this song

25.

将母来谂

jiang mǔ lái shěn

To tell how much I miss mother

101

Both of these virtues are reflected in the above poem, which describes the author hurrying along in service of the king; in this case it is warfare. Even though the doves flying overhead come to rest every now and then, first among the oaks then among the willows, the author drives on, exhausting his team of four stallions. He constantly reminds himself that the king’s business must be performed to perfection. At the same time, he makes clear his heart is heavy even in the first stanza. He is yearning to return to be with his parents. This dilemma is reflected in the saying, zhong xiao bu neng liang quan1, which laments the fact that oftentimes loyalty and filialty cannot be both satisfied. In the present poem the author has given priority to loyalty to his king. 

1. 忠孝不能两全

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Nan Shan The two ancient states, Qi1 and Lu2 were both situated in the modern province of Shandong. The Wenshui3 separates them, with Qi to the north and Lu to the south; see Figure 3. The poem begins by telling us that a lady from Qi is to marry someone in Lu. The theme is that since the marriage has followed all the conventional practices, there is no point in pursuing the lady any further. Of special interest here is the description of the customs and rites in Ancient China which accompany marriage: match-making through the parents (stanzas III and IV), and the various wedding gifts (stanza II). The fiber shoes mentioned in line 7 appear again in m107 and m203; apparently they are effective for walking in the snow. According to a well-known essay, Shuo Yuan4  iii, the practice of presenting such wedding gifts continued at least until the Han dynasty in some regions of China. Various suggestive symbolisms have been used in the poem. The southern mountain mentioned in the first stanza suggests the great power of the State of Lu. The fox may be alluding to the bridegroom who has succeeded in marrying the lady. Furrowing the acre in stanza III with its structure of columns and rows may be alluding to appropriate regulation of behavior. Splitting wood with an ax may be an allegory for extreme actions. The message of the poem is in the last two lines, repeated with variation at the end of each stanza: since she has married someone else according to proper procedures, why still pursue her? In Table 13, we have translations of the poem Nan Shan in Putonghua and in English. These translations differ substantially from the one offered in Table 12. Xu and Jiang follow the

1. 齐　2. 鲁　3. 汶水　4. 说苑

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Table 12 Nan Shan m101

  1.

南山崔崔

nán shān cuī cuī

Southern mountain rugged and high

国风

  2.

雄狐绥绥

xióng hú suí suí

Male fox walks slowly

齐风

  3.

鲁道有荡

lǔ dào yǒu dàng

Road to Lu broad and easy

南山

  4.

齐子由归

qí zǐ yóu guī

Lady from Qi to her new home

  5.

既曰归止

jì yuē guī zhǐ

Since she has new home

  6.

曷又怀止

hé yòu huái zhǐ

Why still yearn for her?

  7.

葛屦五两

gé jù wǔ liǎng

Fiber shoes five pairs

  8.

冠緌双止

guān ruí shuāng zhǐ

Cap pendant one pair

  9.

鲁道有荡

lǔ dào yǒu dàng

Road to Lu broad and easy

10.

齐子庸止

qí zǐ yōng zhǐ

Lady from Qi has used them

11.

既曰庸止

jì yuē yōng zhǐ

Since she has used them

12.

曷又从止

hé yòu cóng zhǐ

Why still follow her?

13.

蓺麻如之何

yì má rú zhī hé

To plant hemp, how is it done?

14.

衡从其亩

héng cóng qí mǔ

Make furrows on acre

15.

取妻如之何

qǔ qī rú zhī hé

To take wife, how is it done?

16.

必告父母

bì gào fù mǔ

Must announce to her father and mother

17.

既曰告止

jì yuē gào zhǐ

Since announcement is made

18.

曷又鞠止

hé yòu jú zhǐ

Why still continue fretting?

19.

析薪如之何

xī xīn rú zhī hé

To split wood, how it is done?

20.

匪斧不克

fěi fǔ bù kè

Without ax cannot do it

21.

取妻如之何

qǔ qī rú zhī hé

To take wife, how is it done?

22.

匪媒不得

fěi méi bù dé

Without match-maker cannot obtain her

23.

既曰得止

jì yuē dé zhǐ

Since she has been obtained

24.

曷又极止

hé yòu jí zhǐ

Why still go to extremes?

II

III

IV

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Table 13 Nan Shan — Another interpretation (Xu and Jiang 1993) m101

  1.

南山崔崔

巍巍南山高又大

The southern hill is great

国风

  2.

雄狐绥绥

雄狐步子慢慢跨

A male fox seeks his mate

齐风

  3.

鲁道有荡

鲁国大道平坦坦

The way to Lu is plain

南山

  4.

齐子由归

文姜由这去出嫁

Your sister with her train

  5.

既曰归止

既然她已嫁鲁侯

Goes to wed Duke of Lu

  6.

曷又怀止

为啥你还想着她

Why should you go there too?

  7.

葛屦五两

葛鞋两只双双放

The shoes are made in pairs

  8.

冠緌双止

帽带一对垂颈下

And strings of gems she wears

  9.

鲁道有荡

鲁国大道平坦坦

The way to Lu is plain

10.

齐子庸止

文姜由这去出嫁

Your sister goes to reign

11.

既曰庸止

既然她已嫁鲁侯

And wed with Duke of Lu

12.

曷又从止

为啥你又盯上她

Why should you follow her too?

13.

蓺麻如之何

农家怎么种大麻

For hemp the ground is ploughed and dressed

14.

衡从其亩

田垄横直有定法

From north to south, from east to west

15.

取妻如之何

青年怎么娶妻子

When a wife comes to your household

16.

必告父母

必定先要告爹妈

Your parents should be told

17.

既曰告止

告了爹妈娶妻子

If you told your father and mother

18.

曷又鞠止

为啥还要放纵她

Should your wife go back to her brother?

19.

析薪如之何

想劈木柴靠什么

How is the firewood split?

20.

匪斧不克

不用斧头没办法

An ax can sever it.

21.

取妻如之何

想娶妻子靠什么

How can a wife be won?

22.

匪媒不得

没有媒人别想她

With go-between it’s done

23.

既曰得止

既然妻子娶到手

To be your wife she’s vowed

24.

曷又极止

为啥让她到娘家

No incest is allowed.

II

III

IV

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traditional interpretation in identifying the bride with a historical figure, who was Wen Jiang1 in line 4 of the Putonghua translation. In fact, the title Xu and Jiang give to their translation is “Incest,” alleging an illicit affair between Wen Jiang and her brother Qi Xianggong2, Duke Xiang of Qi. The word is repeated in the last line of their English translation. However, according to Karlgren iv, the evidence is not sufficient for making such identifications. Waley does not mention incest either. The poem can certainly be appreciated without this additional layer of historical interpretation. The word “incest” can be analyzed etymologically as “unchaste.” While sex between members who are closely related genetically is stigmatized in most modern societies, there have been notable exceptions in history, such as with the Pharaohs in Ancient Egypt. Major religions all forbid such sex, though the details of their regulations differ. Nonetheless, that sex within the family is a potent force biologically can be seen in the abundant discussions of the Oedipus complex and the like in psychoanalytic literature. It is interesting to note nonetheless, that some very famous cases in mythologies are built on incest. A well-known one in the Western culture is that of Zeus, who seduced his sister Hera by appearing before her in the guise of a bedraggled, rain-soaked cuckoo. When Hera brought the bird to her bosom for warmth and recovery, Zeus returned to his original shape, ravished her, and later married her. An equally well-known myth in Chinese culture is that of Fuxi3, who married his sister Nvwa4. The god Fuxi is often credited with bringing agriculture to mankind. The goddess Nvwu is best known for rescuing the earth from celestial torrents by mending the sky and stemming the flood v. She is also often credited as having created the first humans, kneading them from wet clay; she

1. 文姜　2. 齐襄公　3. 伏羲　4. 女娲

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created the two sexes, so that the species could continue through procreation vi. Figure 15 is of a silk scroll from the Tang dynasty, and kept in the Museum of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in Urumqi. Nvwa is on the left, holding a pair of compasses, while Fuxi is on the right, holding a carpenter’s square. Above them is the sun, and below is the moon. The message here is the role this primeval couple played in regulating the universe. The most striking aspect of this depiction is that while their upper bodies look human their lower bodies have the form of snakes, coiled (or braided) repeatedly around each other. The motif of hybrid creatures half human and half beast is a prominent one in Greek mythology as well: centaurs and horses, satyrs and goats, mermaids and fish, etc. An image ubiquitously displayed throughout much of South Asia is that of the Hindu god Ganesha, adorned with the head of an elephant. Perhaps the best known of such chimeric figures in East Asia is the qilin1, a mythical creature pieced together from many parts, often with a dragon’s head, a body covered with scales, and hoofs on the feet vii. Figure 16 shows a qilin in the form of an incense burner. The appearance of qilin is believed to be auspicious, associated with the coming of saints or sages. For instance, it is said to have appeared at the birth of Confucius. The qilin has been taken to be the trademark of the popular Japanese beer, Kirin, according to its Japanese pronunciation. In China, archeologists were fascinated by an early find in the neolithic site at Banpo2 (ca. 4,000 BCE), where some colored pottery was decorated with designs of fish bodies with human

1. 麒麟　2. 半坡

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Figure 15 Fuxi Holding Carpenter Square and Nvwa Holding Compass; A Chinese Creation Myth

Silk scroll from Tang dynasty, original in Museum of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in Urumqi.

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Figure 16 Qilin

The Qilin is a hybrid creature in Chinese mythology believed to appear in highly auspicious occasions.

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faces. In Chinese folk culture, perhaps the most memorable hybrid creatures are the two disciples of Tangseng1, the Monk of the Tang dynasty, who went to India for Buddhist sutras on their Journey to the West, immortalized in the novel Xi You Ji2 viii (published in the Ming dynasty). One disciple, Sun Wukong3, is portrayed with the head of a monkey, and the other, Zhu Bajie4, with the head of a pig. In ancient worlds, man had a much stronger sense of affinity and continuity with the rest of the animal kingdom. In this particular case illustrated in Figure 15, the depiction is reminiscent of some monkeys who bond pairwise by dangling their long tails from a high tree branch, coiled (or braided) tightly around each other. We may also inject a modern symbolism here by noting the coiling of their lower bodies, suggestive of sexual union, is also reminiscent of the double helix scientists have only recently discovered in their quest to understand genetic reproduction! It is during the coiling together of DNA that the recipe for making new life is shared between the male and the female. In Ancient China, incest relates to the concept of lun5, which governs ethical behavior ix. Sex between close relatives is said to violate lun, that is bu lun6 or luan lun7, and was illegal at least since the Zhou dynasty. It was suspected even in ancient times that incestuous relations are infertile, and that they lead to birth defects x. There is the popular injunction, tong xing bu hun8, which says that couples who share the same surname should not marry. However, with the Chinese population having grown explosively, and the same name may be shared by millions of families, this injunction is increasingly ignored. Many mammal species avoid close inbreeding by instinct. With advances in knowledge of genetics, we now understand that

1. 唐僧　2. 西游记　3. 孙悟空　4. 猪八戒　5. 伦　6. 不伦　7. 乱伦　8. 同姓不婚

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sex between individuals with highly similar genomes increases the probability of deleterious recessive alleles to be expressed. In addition to spontaneous abortions, congenital abnormalities, and other maladies, now we also know that parents with highly similar immune systems produce children who are more vulnerable to infectious diseases. Living in close proximity as family members do often produces deep psychological affection, which may translate to sexual attraction. Yet such attraction produces bad consequences, even as the Chinese suspected in ancient times. With advances in the biological and social sciences xi, now we have a better understanding of the intrinsic tension surrounding the issue of incest.

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Mu Gua Following Karlgren, I have translated mugua in the first line as “quince;” but in current usage, the term refers to “papaya.” The gua in this line has become a general word in modern usage to refer to fruits and vegetables not grown on trees, such as xigua1 “watermelon,” donggua2 “winter-melon,” nangua3 “pumpkin,” etc., and sigua4 “gourd,” as we will see in Mian = m237.

Table 14 Mu Gua m64

  1.

投我以木瓜

tóu wǒ yǐ mù gua

Threw me a quince

国风

  2.

报之以琼琚

bào zhi yǐ qióng ju

Gave a gem of ju in return

卫风

  3.

匪报也

fěi bào yě

Not just a return gift

木瓜

  4.

永以为好也

yǒng yǐ wéi hǎo yě

But as love forever

II

  5.

投我以木桃

tóu wǒ yǐ mù táo

Threw me a peach

  6.

报之以琼瑶

bào zhi yǐ qióng yáo

Gave a gem of yao in return

  7.

匪报也

fěi bào yě

Not just a return gift

  8.

永以为好也

yǒng yǐ wéi hǎo yě

But as love forever

  9.

投我以木李

tóu wǒ yǐ mù lǐ

Threw me a plum

10.

报之以琼玖

bào zhi yǐ qióng jiǔ

Gave a gem of jiu in return

11.

匪报也

fěi bào yě

Not just a return gift

12.

永以为好也

yǒng yǐ wéi hǎo yě

But as love forever

III

1. 西瓜　2. 冬瓜　3. 南瓜　4. 丝瓜

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The poem dwells on the universal theme of giving more than receiving as a basis of love, trading precious stone for fruit. Although peaches and plums are common fruits now, they were highly regarded and often used as gifts in Ancient China. Another case is the poem Yi1 = m256, where they also were exchanged as gifts xii. The original text contains no explicit information about the gender of the two people involved. The assumption made in all the translations I have seen, which is probably correct, is that it was a girl who threw the fruit, and a boy who responded with a precious jade. Jade has been deemed a precious stone since ancient times in Chinese culture, and the three mentioned in the poem, ju, yao, and jiu, are some of its many varieties. Some types of jade are believed to have magical properties, fending off evil or enhancing health. See Figure 7 for a jade specimen from the Shang dynasty.

1. 抑

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Zi Yi Every line in this poem ends in the exclamation xi, therefore the rime falls on the penultimate syllable. The scheme is a simple one: within each stanza, line 1 rimes with 2, and 3 with 4. Table 15 Zi Yi m75

  1.

缁衣之宜兮

zī yī zhī yí xī

How well black robe fits

国风

  2.

敝予又改为兮

bì yú yòu gǎi wéi xī

When torn I will mend it

郑风

  3.

适子之馆兮

shì zǐ zhī guǎn xī

While you are away at office

缁衣

  4.

还予授子之粲兮

huán yú shòu zǐ zhī càn I will prepare food for xī when you return

II

  5.

缁衣之好兮

zī yī zhī hǎo xī

How nice black robe looks

  6.

敝予又改造兮

bì yú yòu gǎi zào xī

When torn I’ll remake it

  7.

适子之馆兮

shì zǐ zhī guǎn xī

While you are away at office

  8.

还予授子之粲兮

huán yú shòu zǐ zhī càn I will prepare food for xī when you return

  9.

缁衣之席兮

zī yī zhī xí xī

How comfortable black robe looks

10.

敝予又改作兮

bì yú yòu gǎi zuò xī

When torn I’ll repair it

11.

适子之馆兮

shì zǐ zhī guǎn xī

While you are away at office

12.

还予授子之粲兮

huán yú shòu zǐ zhī càn I will prepare food for xī when you return

III

Similarly, the theme is a simple one, presumably of a caring wife, showing concern for her man’s food and clothing. In many traditional societies, including Ancient China, the woman’s domain is the home she makes for the family. This is reflected in a formal

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term of address used when referring to one’s wife, which is neiren1, or “inside person.” This division of domain becomes less applicable as more and more women in modern societies join the workforce. Social relations and the associated language are therefore changing accordingly. It is significant that the poem makes a point of sewing. Sewing, and its derived art of embroidery, is traditionally called nv gong2, i.e., women’s skill. In traditional China, before education became generally available to women, skill in sewing was considered an important criterion in choosing a wife.

1. 内人　2. 女红

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Ji Ming The rime here falls on the last syllable on every line, except when the last syllable is the exclamation yi. The last stanza is different in having the scheme AAxA. Table 16 Ji Ming m96

  1.

鸡既鸣矣

jī jì míng yǐ

Cock has crowed

国风

  2.

朝既盈矣

cháo jì yíng yǐ

Court is full

齐风

  3.

匪鸡则鸣

fěi jī zé míng

Not cock that crowed

鸡鸣

  4.

苍蝇之声

cāng yíng zhī shēng

Flies were buzzing

II

  5.

东方明矣

dōng fāng míng yǐ

East is bright

  6.

朝既昌矣

cháo jì chāng yǐ

Court in full swing

  7.

匪东方则明

fěi dōng fāng zé míng

Not east is bright

  8.

月出之光

yuè chū zhī guāng

Light of rising moon

  9.

虫飞薨薨

chóng fēi hōng hōng

Insects are flying

10.

甘与子同梦

gān yǔ zǐ tóng mèng

Sweet to lie dreaming with you

11.

会且归矣

huì qiě guī yǐ

Court will adjourn soon

12.

无庶予子憎

wú shù yú zǐ zēng

Let us not be maligned

III

This poem is on a recurrent theme in Shijing, as well as in world literature, of lovers meeting under clandestine circumstances. We had a similar situation earlier in Table 7, Ye You Si Jun, where the lovers met in the woods. Here lines 1 & 2 and 5 & 6 are spoken by the woman, concerned that her man should report to work at court. The cock has crowed and the sun has risen, she says. As response, in lines 3 & 4 and 7 & 8, the man says the sound is due to flies buzzing and the light is due to the moon. Indeed, lolling in a warm bed is a sweet part of the morning. Finally, she urges him to return to work, else there would be gossip against them.

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An interesting case of homography here has led to very different interpretations of the poem. The first character in line 2, repeated in line 6, can be pronounced two different ways. Pronounced as zhao, it means “morning;” this has led Waley to translate line 2 as “It is full daylight.” However, pronounced as cháo, it has a more specialized meaning of referring to a court of official business, especially a court where the king meets his ministers. In Table 16, I have sided with Karlgren and several others to choose this latter interpretation.

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Meng The rime scheme in this long poem is complex and variable, and we will not analyze it in detail here. The first two stanzas each has its own single rime. In stanza 3, the rime syllables follow the pattern AABCCDCD. In stanza 4, AABBBBCC. Stanza 5 has only 5 riming syllables, according to AABBB. In the last stanza, the pattern is AAAAAAABB. Table 17 Meng m58

  1.

氓之蚩蚩

méng zhi chi chi

Simple and jolly man

国风

  2.

抱布贸丝

bào bù mào si

Brought cloth to barter for thread

卫风

  3.

匪来贸丝

fěi lái mào si

But you had not come for thread

氓

  4.

来即我谋

lái jí wǒ móu

You came with plans for me

  5.

送子涉淇

sòng zǐ shè qí

I saw you off across the Qi

  6.

至于顿丘

zhì yú dùn qiu

As far as Dun hill

  7.

匪我愆期

fěi wǒ qian qi

Not that I procrastinated

  8.

子无良媒

zǐ wú liáng méi

You had no match-maker

  9.

将子无怒

qiang zǐ wú nù

Please do not be angry

10.

秋以为期

qiu yǐ wéi qi

Let us wait till autumn

11.

乘彼垝垣

chéng bǐ guǐ yuán

Climbed up the old city wall

12.

以望复关

yǐ wàng fù guan

To wait for his return

13.

不见复关

bù jiàn fù guan

Could not see his return

14.

泣涕涟涟

qì tì lián lián

Tears gushed forth

15.

既见复关

jì jiàn fù guan

When I saw him return

16.

载笑载言

zài xiào zài yán

I laughed and chattered

17.

尔卜尔筮

ěr bǔ ěr shì

You divined with oracle bone and yarrow sticks

18.

体无咎言

tǐ wú jiù yán

They showed nothing inauspicious

II

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III

IV

V

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19.

以尔车来

yǐ ěr che lái

You came with carriage

20.

以我贿迁

yǐ wǒ huì qian

Carried away me and dowry

21.

桑之未落

sang zhi wèi luò

Mulberry trees not shed

22.

其叶沃若

qí yè wò ruò

How glossy their leaves

23.

于嗟鸠兮

yú jie jiu xi

Oh you doves

24.

无食桑葚

wú shí sang shèn

Do not eat the mulberries

25.

于嗟女兮

yú jie nǚ xi

Oh you women

26.

无与士耽

wú yǔ shì dan

Do not take pleasure with men

27.

士之耽兮

shì zhi dan xi

Men take their pleasures

28.

犹可说也

yóu kě shuo yě

Can be condoned

29.

女之耽兮

nǚ zhi dan xi

Women take their pleasures

30.

不可说也

bù kě shuo yě

Cannot be condoned

31.

桑之落矣

sang zhi luò yǐ

Mulberry trees have shed

32.

其黄而陨

qí huáng ér yǔn

Yellow and seared

33.

自我徂尔

zì wǒ cú ěr

Since I came to you

34.

三岁食贫

san suì shí pín

Three years I have eaten poverty

35.

淇水汤汤

qí shuǐ shang shang

Qi’s waters were high

36.

渐车帷裳

jiàn che wéi cháng

Wetted curtains of carriage

37.

女也不爽

nǚ yě bù shuǎng

Woman has not failed

38.

士贰其行

shì èr qí xíng

Man has changed ways

39.

士也罔极

shì yě wǎng jí

Man has been unfaithful

40.

二三其德

èr san qí dé

Casting about, this way and that

41.

三岁为妇

san suì wéi fù

Three years I was your wife

42.

靡室劳矣

mí shì láo yǐ

Never neglected my work

43.

夙兴夜寐

sù xing yè mèi

Rose early and retired late

44.

靡有朝矣

mí yǒu zhao yǐ

Never had a leisurely morning

45.

言既遂矣

yán jì suì yǐ

My words have been kept

46.

至于暴矣

zhì yú bào yǐ

But you treat me roughly

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47.

兄弟不知

xiong dì bù zhi

My brothers do not know this

48.

咥其笑矣

dié qí xiào yǐ

They jeer and laugh

49.

静言思之

jìng yán si zhi

Silently I brood over it

50.

躬自悼矣

gong zì dào yǐ

I grieve for myself

51.

及尔偕老

jí ěr xié lǎo

We were to grow old together

52.

老使我怨

lǎo shǐ wǒ yuàn

Growing old makes me resent

53.

淇则有岸

qí zé yǒu àn

Qi has its banks

54.

隰则有泮

xí zé yǒu pàn

Swamps have their shores

55.

总角之宴

zǒng jiǎo zhi yàn

When we were young

56.

言笑晏晏

yán xiào yàn yàn

We laughed and talked

57.

信誓旦旦

xìn shì dàn dàn

We promised to each other

58.

不思其反

bù si qí fǎn

Never thought it could be changed

59.

反是不思

fǎn shì bù si

Change I never thought of

60.

亦已焉哉

yì yǐ yan zai

Yet now it is all over

119

The poem is a narrative about a failed marriage from the viewpoint of a repudiated wife. It is poignant because of the matterof-fact way the phases are recounted, from courtship to wedding to life to poverty to dissolution and resignation. Even with the skeletal translation given above, it should be easy to follow the narrative. The poem is entitled meng, which is subject to a variety of interpretations. The character 氓 meng has a left component 亡 wang which indicated its pronunciation, and a right component 民 min which means “people.” In the modern language 氓 primarily is found in the compound liumang1, which means something like “drifter” or “hoodlum,” though the 氓 is pronounced with a different vowel. The phonetic component wang adds to the semantic effect of the compound, since 氓 itself means something 1. 流氓

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like “loss.” In this poem, 氓 refers to the husband, which could not have been very complimentary. The symbolism of mulberry trees in stanzas 3 and 4 is used in two ways. When they are lush and covered with glossy leaves, the image is a happy one corresponding to the beginning of the marriage. After the leaves have yellowed and fallen, the image is that of the marriage disintegrating. The doves are warned against eating the mulberries, which allegedly would intoxicate them. Disoriented birds often lose their ability to navigate and fly properly. This serves also as a warning that women should not be tempted by the pleasures of men, who may mistreat them and abandon them. It may be of interest to note that the word for “mulberry,” 桑, is homophonous with the word for “death,” 喪, which adds to the overall tragic effect. There were good omens in the beginning. In line 17, he consulted yarrow sticks and oracle bones, and all looked auspicious. This line tells us fortune-telling by oracle bones was not restricted to the royalty, such as its use concerning Fuhao’s childbirth we saw earlier, or its use concerning where to migrate to, as we will see in line 16 of Mian = m237. Another good omen is in lines 35 and 36: the river Qi had high waters which wetted the curtains of the carriage; this promises a fertile union. The last stanza makes a brief flashback to their days of innocent youth. Then she accepts the end in somber resignation. Though the poem was not written as a social protest, the inequality between man and woman comes through clearly as a message. Women warriors like Fuhao were presumably very much the exception. While both men and women change their partners, then as well as now, most societies give greater leeway to men in this regard.

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Endnotes i. The Han dynasty did not officially terminate however until his son Cao Pi 曹丕 took power and took over the throne. Cao Cao’s ancestry has recently been revealed by a genetic study of ancient DNA; see Wang, C-C. et al. 2013. “Ancient DNA of Emperor Cao Cao’s granduncle matches those of his present descendants: A commentary on present Y chromosomes reveal the ancestry of Emperor Cao Cao of 1800 years ago.” Journal of Human Genetics. Online publication February 14. ii. I thank Matthew Chen for discussing this point with me. iii. Shuo Yuan was compiled by Liu Xiang 刘向 during the Western Han. It is a valuable source of essays concerning ancient times. iv. Karlgren 1950:65. v. One source of this myth is 淮南子; many ancient myths can be traced to 山海经. vi. Another creation myth in China is of 盘古, who grew to immense size inside an egg and the universe was in chaos. When the egg cracked, its top became the sky and its bottom became the earth. See 王暉. 2002. 盘 古考源. 《历史研究》 2.3–19 for recent research on this myth. vii. The qilin was mentioned in Chinese texts several centuries BCE. When the great Ming navigator 郑和 brought back two giraffes from Somalia, there were efforts to identify these exotic animals with the qilin. In fact in Japanese and Korean, “giraffe” is still called kirin. Because of its mythical status, the qilin is also sometimes associated with the unicorn in the West. viii. An authoritative translation of Journey to the West has been published by Anthony C. Yu, University of Chicago Press. ix. In traditional ethics, lun pertains to 5 relationships: those between king/ minister, father/son, husband/wife, brothers, and friends. x. For examples, compare the following statements in ancient texts:「同姓不 婚，惧不殖也」in 《国语·晉语四》；and「男女同姓，其生不蕃」in 《左传·僖公 二十三年》. xi. For an interesting longitudinal study of this issue in Taiwan, see Wolf, Arthur P. 1995. Sexual Attraction and Childhood Association: A Chinese

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Brief for Edward Westermarck. Stanford University Press. The Finnish scholar Edvard Westermarck hypothesized that children who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives become desensitized to later sexual attraction. xii. Peaches and plums also occur together in the saying, 桃李满天下, as a compliment to teachers who have students all over the world.

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C ha p t e r 8 Injustice in Death

We now come to Huang Niaoi. As mentioned earlier this poem was voiced in protest to the sacrificial burial at the death of Qin Mugong, Duke Mu of Qin, mentioned repeatedly in lines 3, 15 and 27. Since Mugong’s death is recorded for the year 621 BCE, this gives us a rare opportunity to date the poem with some reliability. The three victims of the sacrifice, Yanxi, Zhonghang, and Qianhu, were all good men from the clan of Ziju, buried alive with over a hundred others unfortunates. The character 车 in the clan’s name, found in lines 4, 16, 28, is pronounced ju, although its modern pronunciation is che. This is an example of dual pronunciation, commonly referred to as wen bai yi du1 “literary colloquial different readings.” In this case, ju is the literary reading preserved from earlier times; in fact 车 is also the name of a piece in xiangqi2 or Chinese chess, where it also has the literary reading. Earlier in Table 1 we read the poem by the famous Li Bo. Bo again is a literary reading for the character 白, now pronounced bai. This phenomenon of dual pronunciation is especially prevalent among the southern dialects, where many literary readings are introduced from the north. As an example, in the Shanghai dialect, the word for “university” is 大学 [daɦᴐ], where the [da] is the literary pronunciation for 大 “big,”

1. 文白异读　2. 象棋

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and [ɦᴐ] 学 can mean “school.” So a university student is called 大学生, pronounced [daɦᴐsã]. On the other hand, the colloquial reading for 大 is [du] and the word for student is [ɦᴐsã]. Hence the same string of three characters 大学生 can also mean “big student.” So 大学生 can be read two ways. Pronounced [daɦᴐsã], it means “university student;” pronounced [duɦᴐsã] it means “big student.” Each of the three stanzas has a two part structure. The first part of the stanza identifies the victim, praising his outstanding qualities. It has the rime scheme of xAxAAA. The second part of each stanza is a lament to heaven. It is repeated verbatim. It has the rime scheme of BBCCxC. The yellow bird in the poem has sometimes been translated as “oriole.” Its symbolic use here is to contrast the freedom of the bird with the fate of the three victims, sacrificed due to a ghastly tradition. The expression liangren, in lines 10, 22, and 34, also has the meaning of “husband,” though it is not clear whether this meaning was intended in the above poem. Table 18 Huang Niao m131

1.

交交黄鸟

jiāo jiāo huáng niǎo Back and forth the yellow birds

国风

2.

止于棘

zhǐ yú jí

Settle on the jujube trees

秦风

3.

谁从穆公

shuí cóng mù gōng

Who follows Mugong

黄鸟

4.

子车奄息

zǐ jū yǎn xī

Yanxi from the Ziju clan

5.

维此奄息

wéi cǐ yǎn xī

Now this Yanxi

6.

百夫之特

bǎi fū zhī tè

Is the champion of a hundred men

7.

临其穴

lín qí xué

When approach the pit

8.

惴惴其栗

zhuì zhuì qí lì

Terrified is his trembling

9.

彼苍者天

bǐ cāng zhě ti ān

That blue heaven

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III

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10.

歼我良人

jiān wǒ liáng rén

It kills our good men

11.

如可赎兮

rú kě shú xī

If we could redeem him

12.

人百其身

rén bǎi qí shēn

His worth a hundred others

13.

交交黄鸟

jiāo jiāo huáng niǎo Back and forth the yellow birds

14.

止于桑

zhǐ yú sāng

Settle on the mulberry trees

15.

谁从穆公

shuí cóng mù gōng

Who follows Mugong

16.

子车仲行

zǐ jū zhòng háng

Zhonghang from the Ziju clan

17.

维此仲行

wéi cǐ zhòng háng

Now this Zhonghang

18.

百夫之防

bǎi fā zhī fáng

Is the match of a hundred men

19.

临其穴

lín qí xué

When approach the pit

20.

惴惴其栗

zhuì zhuì qí lì

Terrified is his trembling

21.

彼苍者天

bǐ cāng zhě tiān

That blue heaven

22.

歼我良人

jiān wǒ liáng rén

It kills our good men

23.

如可赎兮

rú kě shú xī

If we could redeem him

24.

人百其身

rén bǎi qí shēn

His worth a hundred others

25.

交交黄鸟

jiāo jiāo huáng niǎo Back and forth the yellow birds

26.

止于楚

zhǐ yú chǔ

Settle on the thorn trees

27.

谁从穆公

shuí cóng mù gōng

Who follows Mugong

28.

子车针虎

zǐ jū qiān hǔ

Qianhu from the Ziju clan

29.

维此针虎

wéi cǐ qiān hǔ

Now this Qianhu

30.

百夫之御

bǎi fū zhī yù

Is the sturdiest of a hundred men

31.

临其穴

lín qí xué

When approach the pit

32.

惴惴其栗

zhuì zhuì qí lì

Terrified is his trembling

33.

彼苍者天

bǐ cāng zhě tiān

That blue heaven

34.

歼我良人

jiān wǒ liáng rén

It kills our good men

35.

如可赎兮

rú kě shú xī

If we could redeem him

36.

人百其身

rén bǎi qí shēn

His worth a hundred others

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Endnote i.

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There is another poem with the same name in the Xiao Ya group, m187. It deals with a completely different theme.

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C ha p t e r 9 Femmes Fatales and Miracle Births

The period before the Qin unification is usually called the San Dai1, or three dynasties. These are the Xia, Shang, and Zhou. Knowledge of the Xia dynasty is yet uncertain, though many scholars believe its culture is associated with the archeological site of Erlitou2 in Henan. It is commonly accepted that the Xia dynasty dates from the 21st century BCE. Starting with the Shang we have an abundance of source materials, in the form of original inscriptions on bone and bronze, or in the form of transmitted texts, which mark the beginning of Chinese historiography some 3,000 years ago. So, although in the popular mind China dates back 5,000 years, written history started much later. History books traditionally simplify by presenting the central polities in one-line succession, such as with the San Dai of Xia > Shang > Zhou. But in actuality the typical situation was invariably much more complex, with many polities all simultaneously active in different parts of the broad Chinese landscape. This was especially true of the many preliterate peoples who did not have writing to record their activities. Communication and transportation among these polities were of course very limited in ancient times, and interaction was severely constrained by space and time. Therefore, the tradition of linear succession should be seen in this more complex and nuanced light.

1. 三代　2. 二里头　

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The first king of the Xia dynasty was Yu1, immortalized for his work in controlling the massive flooding of the Huanghe. It is interesting that massive flooding is a recurrent theme in many ancient cultures, whether due to river overflowing, or in the case of Bible, due to extended raining. Yu appears in many of the poems in the Shijing i, especially in the Song group. Many had failed in this task of flood control, including Gun2, Yu’s father, vainly trying to block the waters with ever higher sea walls. Yu succeeded by directing their flow by constructing channels at strategic places. Legend has it that Yu gained his kingdom by popular acclaim for his service to the people; but the heavenly mandate to govern was lost in the hands of his descendant Jie3, a debauching tyrant, some five centuries later. Loss of the mandate of heaven by immoral behavior on the part of the king and his woman is a recurrent theme in the change of Chinese dynasties. The undoing of the Xia dynasty was blamed on King Jie and his woman, Moxi4. The next dynasty, the Shang, was lost at the hands of King Zhou5 and his woman Daji6. Among the femmes fatales in Chinese history, Daji is probably the most notorious because her evil deeds have been told in great detail in the immensely popular novel, Feng Sheng Yan Yi7 (“Creation of the Gods,” a novel published in the Ming dynasty). Her true identity as a fox demon, hulijing8, which was able to assume human form, was finally revealed by one of the heroes of the novel, Jiang Ziya9, who was able to expose and kill her. The succeeding Zhou dynasty had its own femme fatale in Baosi10, who bewitched King You of Zhou, Youwang11. There is a story that King You tried to amuse Baosi by lighting the emergency beacons to trick the allies into sending in their armies, thinking the

1. 禹　2. 鲧　3. 桀　4. 妺喜　5. 紂　6. 妲己　7. 封神演义　8. 狐狸精　9. 姜子牙10. 褒姒　 11. 幽王

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Royal Court was under attack. The dynasty was so weakened by their immoral and irresponsible behavior that the capital could not defend itself against warring tribes from the west; the allies did not come to aid again, not wanting to be tricked again. The story is not unlike the western fable of “the little boy who cried wolf,” though on a much grander scale. The capital was sacked as a result and the Court had to re-locate to Luoyang. This date of 771 BCE is a useful landmark, before which the dynasty is called Western Zhou, and after which the dynasty is called Eastern Zhou. Although the Zhou dynasty limped on in name for several more centuries, the country was actually fragmented into many regional polities, each with its own militia, not to be united again until 221 BCE, by the First Emperor of Qin. In each of the three cases above from the San Dai, a major blame for the loss of the kingdom was placed on the femme fatale, depicted as a fox demon in Chinese mythology. It is interesting that attractive women are sometimes described as “foxy” in English as well. From such folk prejudices, based on little or no historical evidence, come such sayings as hong yan huo shui1, literally “rouged face disaster water,” to refer to the belief that women are often the source of the disaster. There is also the saying mei ren ji2, literally “beautiful person strategy,” to refer to a strategy of confusing the adversary by sending in a beautiful woman. Closely related is the saying ying xiong nan guo mei ren guan3; roughly translated, this means “even heroes have difficulty escaping the designs of beautiful women.” Alongside the femme fatale, another recurrent theme in each of the San Dai cultures has to do with supernatural events in connection with the birth of exceptional personages. This includes the ancestors of each of the three dynasties. The ancestor of the Xia

1. 红颜祸水　2. 美人计　3. 英雄难过美人关　

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dynasty was Yu, who was born from an egg embedded in stone ii. The stone was the petrified form of his father, Gun. Being born from stone is also the theme of a great novel, Journey to the West, or Xi You Ji. The hero of that much beloved novel is Monkey King, named Sun Wukong, who was also born from a huge slab of stone. In both cases the stone split and the hero emerged. The ancestors of the Shang dynasty and of the Zhou dynasty were also born under miraculous circumstances, as we will soon see in m303, Xuan Niao, and in m245, Sheng Min respectively. The ancestor of Shang, Xie1, is said to be born by Lady Jiandi2 after she swallowed an egg dropped by a black bird, after which the poem was named. Many generations later, it was a descendant of Xie, Tang3, who conquered the corrupt Jie and founded the Shang dynasty, commonly dated to 16th century to 11th century BCE. As the poem Sheng Min recounts, the ancestor of Zhou, Houji4, was born to Lady Jiangyuan5 after she unwittingly stepped on God’s footprint. We will return to this poem after we discuss Xuan Niao.

1. 契　2. 简狄　3. 汤　4. 后稷　5. 姜嫄

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Xuan Niao Poem m303 is entitled Xuan Niao, i.e., “black bird.” It begins with the concept of tianming, or mandate from heaven. The mandate is given to some leader of outstanding moral caliber, demonstrated by filial piety to parents and unswerving loyalty to friends, which qualifies him for popular acclaim, and is his justification for authority. The last ruler of a dynasty loses the mandate due to moral turpitude, and a new ruler comes to power upon gaining the mandate and becoming the “Son of Heaven.” Table 19 Xuan Niao m303

  1.

天命玄鸟

tian mìng xuán niǎo

Heaven bade black bird

商颂

  2.

降而生商

jiàng ér sheng shang

Descend and bear Shang

玄鸟

  3.

宅殷土芒芒

zhái yin tǔ máng máng

Dwelling in spacious land of Yin

  4.

古帝命武汤

gǔ dì mìng wǔ tang

Long ago god bade martial Tang

  5.

正域彼四方

zhèng yù bǐ sì fang

Rectify territory four directions

  6.

方命厥后

fang mìng jué hòu

Bade him to be lord

  7.

奄有九有

yǎn yǒu jiǔ yǒu

Govern nine spheres

  8.

商之先后

shang zhi xian hòu

Early lords of Shang

  9.

受命不殆

shòu mìng bù dài

Received mandate never end

10.

在武丁孙子

zài wǔ ding sun zǐ

Time of Wuding’s descendants

11.

武丁孙子

wǔ ding sun zǐ

Wuding’s grandsons and sons

12.

武王靡不胜

wǔ wáng mí bù shèng

Martial kings ever victorious

13.

龙旂十乘

lóng qí shí shèng

Dragon banners and ten chariots

II

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14.

大糦是承

dà chì shì chéng

Presented sacrificial grain

15.

邦畿千里

bang ji qian lǐ

Royal domain was a thousand li

16.

维民所止

wéi mín suǒ zhǐ

Where our people settled

17.

肇域彼四海

zhào yù bǐ sì hǎi

Boundaries were set at four seas

18.

四海来假

sì hǎi lái jiǎ

From four seas came

19.

来假祁祁

lái jiǎ qí qí

Came crowd upon crowd

20.

景员维河

jǐng yuán wéi hé

Their frontier was River

21.

殷受命咸宜

yin shòu mìng xián yí

Good that Yin received mandate

22.

百禄是何

bǎi lù shì hé

Hundred blessings Yin bore

The tian in line 1 of this poem has a physical meaning, “sky,” as in lantian1 meaning “blue sky.” It also has a commonly used metaphorical meaning, “heaven,” as in the informal expression tian laoye2 meaning “lord of heaven;” or in the saying tian xiaode3 equivalent to English “heaven knows.” As we saw earlier, tianming is often used as a compound noun, meaning “mandate from heaven,” giving some ruler a divine right to govern. But in line 1, as can be seen from the adjacent translation, tian ming is actually a subject verb construction, where the object is xuan niao, “black bird.” It has been suggested that the black bird was actually some kind of swallow, which is common in north and northeast China. The term tian is used interchangeably with di in Shijing. The deity in the Bible is translated into Chinese as Shangdi4, literally “emperor above.” However, as in line 4 above and line 16 in the next poem m245, di and shangdi are terms which have appeared many times in Shijing, indicating the deity in heaven.

1. 蓝天　2. 天老爷　3. 天晓得　4. 上帝

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The Shang is the first dynasty for which we have direct texts, in the form of inscribed animal bones which were used for divination. These are the jiaguwen discussed earlier in this book. From various sources, we learn that the capital was moved many times, finally settling in Anyang, Henan, under the leadership of Pangeng. As these inscriptions record, particularly notable among the Shang personages were King Wuding and his Royal Consort Fuhao, introduced earlier. Archeologists have discovered Fuhao’s tomb in Anyang, revealing her to have been a remarkable woman, who led several military campaigns. However, several generations after Wuding, the Shang also fell into disgrace with King Zhou, infamous for his decadent deeds. History then turned to the last dynasty of the San Dai, the Zhou. As mentioned briefly earlier, there is again a charming legend surrounding the birth of the ancestor of the Zhou dynasty, Houji, this time involving God’s footprint instead of a black bird. Houji was a farmer par excellence, as befitting the leader of a civilization built primarily on agriculture. Poem m245, entitled Sheng Min, discusses his birth and later contributions, which we will look at more fully shortly.

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Sheng Min Table 20 Sheng Min m245

  1.

厥初生民

jué chu sheng mín

The one who first bore our people

大雅

  2.

时维姜嫄

shí wéi jiang yuán

Was lady Yuan of Jiang

生民

  3.

生民如何

sheng mín rú hé

How did she bear the people

生民

  4.

克禋克祀

kè yin kè sì

She understood well to bring yin and si sacrifices

  5.

以弗无子

yǐ fú wú zǐ

That she might no longer be childless

  6.

履帝武敏歆

lǚ dì wǔ mǐn xin

She trod on the big toe of God's footprint

  7.

攸介攸止

you jiè you zhǐ

She became elated

  8.

载震载夙

zài zhèn zài sù

She was enriched

  9.

载生载育

zài sheng zài yù

She was blessed; and so she became pregnant

10.

时维后稷

shí wéi hòu jì

That was Houji

11.

诞弥厥月

dàn mí jué yuè

She fulfilled her months

12.

先生如达

xian sheng rú dá

And the first-born then came forth

13.

不坼不副

bù chè bù pì

There was no bursting, no rending

14.

无菑无害

wú zai wú hài

No injury, no harm

15.

以赫厥灵

yǐ hè jué líng

Thus manifesting the divine nature of it

16.

上帝不宁

shàng dì bù níng

Did God on High not give her ease

17.

不康禋祀

bù kang yin sì

Did he not enjoy (her) sacrifices

18.

居然生子

ju rán sheng zǐ

Tranquilly she bore her son

II

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IV

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19.

诞寘之隘巷

dàn zhì zhi ài xiàng

They laid him in a narrow lane

20.

牛羊腓字之

niú yáng féi zì zhi

The oxen and sheep nurtured him

21.

诞寘之平林

dàn zhì zhi píng lín

They laid him in a forest of the plain

22.

会伐平林

huì fá píng lín

He was found by those who cut the forest of the plain

23.

诞寘之寒冰

dàn zhì zhi hán bing

They laid him on cold ice

24.

鸟覆翼之

niǎo fù yì zhi

Birds covered and protected him

25.

鸟乃去矣

niǎo nǎi qù yǐ

Then the birds went away

26.

后稷呱矣

hòu jì gu yǐ

And Houji wailed

27.

实覃实訏

shí tán shí xu

It carried far, it was strong

28.

厥声载路

jué sheng zài lù

His voice then became loud

29.

诞实匍匐

dàn shí pú fú

And then he crawled, (then) he was able to (straddle =) stride

30.

克岐克嶷

kè qí kè yí

To stand firmly

31.

以就口食

yǐ jiù kǒu shí

And so he sought food for his mouth

32.

蓺之荏菽

yì zhi rěn shu

He planted the soil with large beans

33.

荏菽旆旆

rěn shu pèi pèi

The large beans were rankly-waving

34.

禾役穟穟

hé yì suì suì

The grain cultivated had plenty of ears

35.

麻麦幪幪

má mài měng měng

The hemp and wheat was thick

36.

瓜瓞唪唪

gua dié běng běng

The gourd stems bore ample fruit

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V

VI

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37.

诞后稷之穑

dàn hòu jì zhi sè

Houji's husbandry

38.

有相之道

yǒu xiang zhi dào

Had the method of helping the growth

39.

茀厥丰草

fú jué feng cǎo

He cleared away the rank grass

40.

种之黄茂

zhǒng zhi huáng mào

He sowed the ground with the yellow riches

41.

实方实苞

shí fang shí bao

It was of even growth and luxuriant

42.

实种实褎

shí zhǒng shí xiù

It was sown, it became tall

43.

实发实秀

shí fa shí xiù

It grew, it flowered and set ears

44.

实坚实好

shí jian shí hǎo

It became firm and fine

45.

实颖实栗

shí yǐng shí lì

It had ripe ears, it had solid kernels

46.

即有邰家室

jí yǒu tái jia shì

And then he had his house in Tai

47.

诞降嘉种

dàn jiàng jia zhǒng

He sent down (to the people) the fine cereals

48.

维秬维秠

wéi jù wéi pi

There was black millet, double-kernelled black millet

49.

维穈维芑

wéi mén wéi qǐ

Millet with red sprouts, with white sprouts

50.

恒之秬秠

héng zhi jù pi

He extended over it the black millet and the double-kernelled

51.

是获是亩

shì huò shì mǔ

He reaped it, he took it by acres

52.

恒之穈芑

héng zhi mén qǐ

He extended over it the millet with red sprouts and with white sprouts

53.

是任是负

shì rèn shì fù

He carried them on the shoulder, he carried them on the back

54.

以归肇祀

yǐ gui zhào sì

With them he went home and initiated a sacrifice

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VIII

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55.

诞我祀如何

dàn wǒ sì rú hé

Our sacrifice, what it is like

56.

或舂或揄

huò chong huò yóu

Some pound (the grain), some bale it out

57.

或簸或蹂

huò bò huò róu

Some sift it, some tread it

58.

释之叟叟

shì zhi sǒu sǒu

We wash it so as to become soaked

59.

烝之浮浮

zheng zhi fú fú

We steam it so as to become steamed through

60.

载谋载惟

zài móu zài wéi

And then we lay plans, we think it over

61.

取萧祭脂

qǔ xiao jì zhi

We take southernwood, we sacrifice fat

62.

取羝以軷

qǔ di yǐ bá

We take a ram to sacrifice to the Spirits of the road

63.

载燔载烈

zài fán zài liè

And then we roast, we broil

64.

以兴嗣岁

yǐ xing sì suì

In order to start the following year

65.

卬盛于豆

áng shèng yú dòu

We fill (food) in the dou vessels

66.

于豆于登

yú dòu yú deng

In the dou and the deng vessels

67.

其香始升

qí xiang shǐ sheng

As soon as the fragrance ascends

68.

上帝居歆

shàng dì ju xin

God on High placidly enjoys it

69.

胡臭亶时

hú chòu dǎn shí

The far-reaching fragrance is truly good

70.

后稷肇祀

hòu jì zhào sì

Houji initiated the sacrifice

71.

庶无罪悔

shù wú zuì huǐ

And the people has given no offence nor cause for regret

72.

以迄于今

yǐ qì yú jin

Unto the present day

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Extraordinary people should have extraordinary beginnings in ancient minds. Miracle births are found in many religions and mythologies, Christianity included. Houji’s introduction of methods of farming has a special significance in the evolution of Chinese culture, which was largely based on agriculture. Protection and nurturing by animals, as recounted in stanza 3 of the above poem, is in line with the philosophy of closer harmony between man and the animal world. The infant Houji was nurtured by oxen and sheep, and warmed by the wings of birds. The story is not unlike the foundation myth of Rome. Romulus and Remus were also fathered by a god, Mars, in one version of the story. As infants they were suckled by a she-wolf and fed by birds. There are also remarkable similarities between the birth stories of Yu, Xie, and Houji, ancestors of the San Dai dynasties, and that of Zhu Meng1, ancestor of the Fuyu2, an ancient Korean people on the northeastern coast of the Bohai (See Figure 2). The state founded by the Fuyu is called Gaogouli3. This word is the source of the Chinese word Gaoli4 and the English word “Korea.” In the chapter on the history of the Gaogouli, recorded in the Chinese history annal of the 6th century, the Wei Shu5, we find the following account iii. “Gaogouli was founded by the Fuyu, who called their ancestor Zhu Meng. Zhu Meng’s mother was a daughter of Hebo6. Imprisoned in a room by the king of Fuyu she was touched by the sun’s rays, which followed her whenever she moved. Soon she became pregnant and gave birth to a large egg. The king gave the egg to the dogs, who refused to eat it. It was given to the pigs, who also did not eat it. It was thrown out on the road, and cattle and horses walked away from it. It was thrown out

1. 朱蒙　2. 夫余　3. 高句丽, 고구려　4. 高丽　5. 魏书　6. 河伯

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into the wilderness, and the birds flew down to cover it with their feathers. The king of Fuyu tried to cut it with a knife, but could not. He finally returned it to the mother, who wrapped it and kept it in a warm place. Finally a baby boy broke the shell and emerged. After he grew up he was named Zhu Meng. iv” In the Shijing there are several poems discussing the descendants of Houji before the Zhou was finally established as a dynasty by Zhou Wuwang1. Poem m237, entitled Mian, recounts how one of Houji’s descendants, Danfu2, explored the region and decided to locate the clan near Qishan in Shaanxi, west of the modern city of Xi’an. Wuwang established the Zhou capital in Haojing, near modern Xi’an. Centuries later, Haojing was sacked by the neighboring Xianyun tribe, mentioned in several poems in the Xiao Ya groupv. As a consequence, the capital was moved east to Luoyang in 770 BCE, marking the beginning of Eastern Zhou. Soon after the move the House of Zhou lost its central control, and various regional kings vied for territory and supremacy. The Eastern Zhou is divided into two periods: the Spring and Autumn Period Chunqiu3 770–476, and the Warring States Period Zhanguo 475–221. These were periods of military competition and intellectual ferment, during which many prominent thinkers debated basic issues in philosophy, most notably Confucius and Laozi 4. The fragmentation was ended by the First Emperor in 221 BCE.

1. 周武王　2. 亶父　3. 春秋　4. 老子

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Endnotes i. m210, m244, m261, m300, m304, m305. ii. The myth is discussed in greater detail in Bodde 1961:399. An early statement of the birthplace of 禹 in Sichuan is 扬雄 『蜀王本纪』：「禹本汶 山郡广柔县人也，生於石纽 。」See Li (2011:63–76) for recent discovery of a bronze vessel and its implications on this question. iii. Adapted from Chang 1983:12. iv. There is a long, entertaining television series produced in Korea named 주 뭉, 朱蒙, or in English, Jumong~Prince of the Legend. In that series, China of the Han Dynasty is referred to as Tian Chao 天朝, and is portrayed as an imperial power not above taking advantage of her smaller neighbors in the northeast. v. m167, m168, m177, m178.

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C ha p t e r 1 0 Affairs of State: Praise, Complaint, and Admonishment

Mian Now we will examine the poem Mian. Table 21 Mian m237

  1.

绵绵瓜瓞

mián mián gua dié

Stretching out are branches of gourd

大雅

  2.

民之初生

mín zhi chu sheng

When our people were first born

文王

  3.

自土沮漆

zì tǔ jǔ qi

From River Tu to River Qi

绵

  4.

古公亶父

gǔ gong dǎn fù

Ancient Prince Danfu

  5.

陶复陶穴

táo fù táo xué

Built shelters and dug caves

  6.

未有家室

wèi yǒu jia shì

As yet they had no houses

  7.

古公亶父

gǔ gong dǎn fù

Ancient Prince Danfu

  8.

来朝走马

lái zhao zǒu mǎ

Galloped away at daybreak

  9.

率西水浒

shuài xi shuǐ hǔ

Followed bank of the western river

10.

至于岐下

zhì yú qí xià

Came to the foot of Mount Qi

11.

爰及姜女

yuán jí jiang nǚ

Together with Lady Jiang

12.

聿来胥宇

yù lái xu yǔ

They searched for a home

II

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III

IV

V

VI

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13.

周原膴膴

zhou yuán wǔ wǔ

Plain of Zhou ample and fertile

14.

堇荼如饴

jǐn tú rú yí

Its celery and sowthistle sweet as rice-cakes

15.

爰始爰谋

yuán shǐ yuán móu

He started and he planned

16.

爰契我龟

yuán qì wǒ gui

He notched the turtle

17.

曰止曰时

yue zhǐ yue shí

Stop, it said, it’s time

18.

筑室于兹

zhù shì yú zi

Build houses here

19.

乃慰乃止

nǎi wèi nǎi zhǐ

He became silent, he stopped

20.

乃左乃右

nǎi zuǒ nǎi yòu

He went left, he went right

21.

乃疆乃理

nǎi jiang nǎi lǐ

He made boundaries, he made divisions

22.

乃宣乃亩

nǎi xuan nǎi mǔ

He measured, he laid out acres

23.

自西徂东

zì xi cú dong

From west he went eastward

24.

周爰执事

zhou yuán zhí shì

Everywhere he performed his task

25.

乃召司空

nǎi zhào si kong

He summoned Master of Works

26.

乃召司徒

nǎi zhào si tú

He summoned Master of Lands

27.

俾立室家

bǐ lì shì jia

Ordered them build houses

28.

其绳则直

qí shéng zé zhí

Plumb lines were straight

29.

缩版以载

suo bǎn yǐ zài

Boards were lashed to pack earth

30.

作庙翼翼

zuò miào yì yì

Temple constructed with care

31.

捄之陾陾

jiù zhi réng réng

Collected in long rows

32.

度之薨薨

duó zhi hong hong

Measured in big piles

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VIII

IX

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33.

筑之登登

zhù zhi deng deng

Rammed it into high wall

34.

削屡冯冯

xiao lǚ píng píng

Scraped it again and again

35.

百堵皆兴

bǎi dǔ jie xing

Hundreds of walls all rose

36.

鼛鼓弗胜

gao gǔ fú shèng

Drums could not keep pace

37.

乃立皋门

nǎi lì gao mén

Raised the outer gate

38.

皋门有伉

gao mén yǒu kàng

Outer gate rose high

39.

乃立应门

nǎi lì ying mén

Raised the main gate

40.

应门将将

ying mén jiang jiang

Inner gate was grand

41.

乃立冢土

nǎi lì zhǒng tǔ

Raised the earth mound

42.

戎丑攸行

róng chǒu you xíng

From which great troops marched

43.

肆不殄厥愠

sì bù tiǎn jué yùn

Their wrath was unquenched

44.

亦不陨厥问

yì bù yǔn jué wèn

Their fame unblemished

45.

柞棫拔矣

zuò yù bá yǐ

Oaks were thinned

46.

行道兑矣

xíng dào duì yǐ

Roads were cleared

47.

混夷駾矣

hùn yí shuì yǐ

Hunyi fled

48.

维其喙矣

wéi qí huì yǐ

Panting along the way

49.

虞芮质厥成

yú ruì zhì jué chéng

Yu and Rui pledged peace

50.

文王蹶厥生

wén wáng jué jué sheng

Wenwang sacrificed animals

51.

予曰有疏附

yú yue yǒu shu fù

We had allies in distant regions

52.

予曰有先后

yú yue yǒu xian hòu

We had allies front and back

53.

予曰有奔奏

yú yue yǒu ben zòu

We had allies hasten to us

54.

予曰有御侮

yú yue yǒu yù wǔ

We had allies defend us against insults

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The title of the poem is taken from its first line, which likens the growth of the clan to the spreading branches of a gourd. The first stanza has the rime scheme of AxAxAA, where the 2nd and 4th lines do not rime. The stanzas II, III, VI and VIII rime completely, with AAAAAA. In lines 43 and 44, each line contains two rime syllables, which is an unusual construction. Note that in line 11 the woman comes from the family of Jiang1, whose women were often taken as wives by the Zhou leaders; in fact Houji’s mother, Jiangyuan also came from this family. Note also in line 16 Danfu notched a turtle shell for oracular guidance. This shows that divination by animal bones was not restricted to the Shang peoples at Anyang, though their divinations provided the bulk of the extant specimens. The House of Zhou has an illustrious lineage, praised in several poems in the Shijing. In Sheng Min m245, we have already met Houji, his miraculous birth, and his introduction of ways of agriculture to the Zhou people. Many generations later, Houji’s descendent, prince Danfu, led the people to settle at the foot of Mount Qi, Qishan. The poem describes Danfu’s dedication in his search for a new place to move to. Under his leadership, high walls made of rammed earth were put up by teams of his clansmen, working to the rhythmic beating of drums. We can imagine such settlements as early Chinese cities. Danfu was loved by his people, and was posthumously given the title of Zhou Taiwang.2 Again after many generations, the leadership passed to Zhou Wenwang3, mentioned in line 50. Around that time, King Zhòu of the Shang dynasty in Anyang was wary of the fast growing House of Zhou to its west, and put Wenwang in prison i. It was Wenwang’s

1. 姜 2. 周太王　3. 周文王

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son, Zhou Wuwang, who finally defeated King Zhòu, and founded the Zhou dynasty. As was the case throughout most of China’s history, there were frequent wars with neighboring peoples, such as the Hunyi mentioned in line 47, and the Yu and Rui in line 49. In fact, the terms Wen “scholarly” and Wu “martial,” as found in the titles of these two Zhou kings, occur frequently in the titles of emperors in Chinese dynasties. For instance, Han Wudi1, Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, was thus named because of the successful wars he waged against the western tribes. The son of Cao Cao, Cao Pi2, was titled Wei Wendi3, Emperor Wen of the Wei dynasty, thus named because of the literary fame that he shared with his father and with his brother Cao Zhi.4 In lines 25 and 26, we see the word si5 used in official titles. Some of these titles became surnames, much as Duke, Prince, King, etc. are surnames in English. Later we will see the surname Sima6 for the great historian of the Han dynasty, Sima Qian, compiler of the Shiji7. Si means “in charge of” and ma means “horse,” so the title goes with the job of minding horses. In fact, the Jin8 dynasty which followed the Three Kingdoms was founded by the Sima family.

1. 汉武帝　2. 曹丕　3. 魏文帝　4. 曹植　5. 司　6. 司马　7. 史记　8. 晋

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Jiang Han Table 22 Jiang Han m262

  1.

江汉浮浮

jiang hàn fú fú

Jiang and Han flowing full

大雅

  2.

武夫滔滔

wǔ fu tao tao

Warriors form a mighty torrent

荡

  3.

匪安匪游

fěi an fěi yóu

No rest, no pleasure

江汉

  4.

淮夷来求

huái yí lái qiú

Seek the Huaiyi tribes

  5.

既出我车

jì chu wǒ ju

We run chariots

  6.

既设我旟

jì shè wǒ yú

We raise banners

  7.

匪安匪舒

fěi an fěi shu

No rest no leisure

  8.

淮夷来铺

huái yí lái pu

Put down Huaiyi tribes

  9.

江汉汤汤

jiang hàn shang shang

Jiang and Han are flowing

10.

武夫洸洸

wǔ fu guang guang

Warriors are marching

11.

经营四方

jing yíng sì fang

Regulate four quarters

12.

告成于王

gào chéng yú wáng

Report to king

13.

四方既平

sì fang jì píng

Four quarters are settled

14.

王国庶定

wáng guó shù dìng

Kingdom at peace

15.

时靡有争

shí mí yǒu zheng

Since there is no conflict

16.

王心载宁

wáng xin zài níng

King’s heart is tranquil

17.

江汉之浒

jiang hàn zhi hǔ

On banks of Jiang and Han

18.

王命召虎

wáng mìng shào hǔ

King charged Shaohu

19.

式辟四方

shì bì sì fang

Pacify four quarters

20.

彻我疆土

chè wǒ jiang tǔ

Govern our territories

21.

匪疚匪棘

fěi jiù fěi jí

No distresses no discomfort

22.

王国来极

wáng guó lái jí

Use kingdom as example

23.

于疆于理

yú jiang yú lǐ

Bring order to the territories

24.

至于南海

zhì yú nán hǎi

As far as southern seas

II

III

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V.

VI

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25.

王命召虎

wáng mìng shào hǔ

King charged Shaohu

26.

来旬来宣

lái xún lái xuan

Go distribute my orders

27.

文武受命

wén wǔ shòu mìng

Wenwang and Wuwang had mandate

28.

召公维翰

shào gong wéi hàn

Duke of Shao was their support

29.

无曰予小子

wú yue yú xiǎo zǐ

Do not claim to be too young

30.

召公是似

shào gong shì sì

Duke of Shao can provide support

31.

肇敏戎公

zhào mǐn róng gong

Quickly face your challenge

32.

用锡尔祉

yòng xi ěr zhǐ

You will be honored

33.

厘尔圭瓒

lí ěr gui zàn

I give you tablet and ladle

34.

秬鬯一卣

jù chàng yi yǒu

You vessel of millet wine

35.

告于文人

gào yú wén rén

Report to ancestors

36.

锡山土田

xi shan tǔ tián

I give you hills and fields

37.

于周受命

yú zhou shòu mìng

You have a mandate from Zhou

38.

自召祖命

zì shào zǔ mìng

It continues from the charge to the Shao ancestors

39.

虎拜稽首

hǔ bài qĭ shǒu

Hu bowed and touched head to ground

40.

天子万年

tian zǐ wàn nián

Ten thousand years to Son of Heaven

41.

虎拜稽首

hǔ bài qĭ shǒu

Hu bowed and touched head to ground

42.

对扬王休

duì yáng wáng xiu

Praise be to king

43.

作召公考

zuò shào gong kǎo

Cast the urn for Duke of Shao

44.

天子万寿

tian zǐ wàn shòu

Ten thousand years to Son of Heaven

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45.

明明天子

míng míng tian zǐ

Wise Son of Heaven

46.

令闻不已

lìng wén bù yǐ

Glory for ever

47.

矢其文德

shǐ qí wén dé

Spreads his virtues

48.

洽此四国

qià cǐ sì guó

To all four quarters

This poem lauds the achievements of the Shao family. The name Shao refers to a region of the country around modern Shaanxi which was granted to the family for its important contributions to the Zhou since the foundation of the dynasty. Two members of this family were particularly famous, Shaoshi 1, also known as Kanggong 2, and Shaohu 3, also known as Mugong 4. While m262 Jiang Han specifically refers to Shaohu, the next poem, m16 Gan Tang, is believed to refer to Shaoshi. Since textual evidence is scarce, scholars continue to debate the exact genealogy of this distinguished family. This poem sings the praises of the Shao family, which is actually surnamed Ji 5 and also of royal lineage, as well as of the kings of the Zhou dynasty. The rime schemes in the 6 stanzas vary somewhat; they are respectively: 1. AAAA, BBBB, 2. AAAA, BBBB, 3. AAxA, BBCC, 4. xAxA, BBxB, 5. xxAA, AAxA, and 6. AAAA, BBCC. The first two stanzas of this poem set the stage on the plains of two major rivers. The Changjiang is a mighty river that runs through central China, hovering along latitude 30N; the Hanjiang or Hanshui is the longest tributary of the Changjiang, flowing into it at the historic city of Wuhan in Hubei 6. The word han is also very interesting in its own right. Its appearance in the Shijing as the name of a major river tells us the word has a very long history. It also occurs in the compound yunhan7, which means the Milky Way, literally “cloud” and han,

1. 召奭　2. 康公　3. 召虎　4. 穆公　5. 姬　6. 湖北　7. 云汉

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suggesting an image of the Han River in the sky. The word is also found in the name of the Han dynasty, a contemporary of the Roman Empire and just as important in the ancient world. The Han dynasty ruled China for four centuries and set the pattern of Chinese history over the next two millennia. Presumably this dynasty is also the source for the name of China’s majority ethnic group, the Hanzu1, and for the Chinese writing system, the Hanzi, which is pronounced kanji in Japanese, and hanja in Korean ii. It is said that the name Korea, Hanguo2, also traces back to the Han dynasty, although the two names are written differently and are pronounced with different tones. On the other hand, the former Chinese name of the capital city of Korea, Hancheng3, was written with the same character used in Hanzu. The present name Shou’er4 is a transliteration from the Korean name 서울 (Seoul). Intriguingly, the word han also occurs in Putonghua as a common noun, as in lao han5 “old man.” In other constructions, such as in nan zi han6, hao han7, or yi tiao han zi8, there is the added connotation of masculinity, courage and strength, such as in English “a real man,” though this may be a recent semantic extension. It is possible that the male aspect of the word’s semantic content developed later, and that the original meaning was simply “person” or “people.” If this was indeed the case, then a word which meant “people” can become specialized to refer to the particular ethnic group which uses the word in this way. Such developments have been found in the names of many early tribes in America and Asia. It would be an interesting hypothesis to explore. The history of Ancient China was full of warfare among contending tribes and regional polities. Traditionally the historian would refer to the nuclear area of the San Dai as Zhongguo9, as in

1. 汉族　2. 韩国　3. 汉城　4. 首尔　5. 老汉　6. 男子汉　7. 好汉　8. 一条汉子　9. 中国

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m253 iii, and generically to surrounding ethnic groups by the four directions; namely as Yi iv to the East, Man to the South, Rong to the West, and Di to the North, as mentioned in the beginning of the book. The usage is not always consistent; for instance, Mencius referred to Zhou Wenwang, the father of Wuwang, as someone from the Yi of the West v. The generic terms Hu1 is also used for the north and northwest, as in Wu Hu2, “five Hu,” and Yue3, as in Bai Yue4 “hundred Yue” for the south and southeast. The term hu occurs in compound nouns such as hujiao5 “pepper” and huqin6 “stringed musical instrument,” reflecting the western source of these cultural items. The term yue occurs in place names in the southwest, as in Yuenan7 “Vietnam,” where the Vietnamese form has preserved an older pronunciation. The short name for the province of Guangdong8, which is Yue9, may also trace back to that term, though it has a different written form vi. Yet another generic term referring to ethnic groups to the west is fan10, found in compounds like fanbang11, meaning “foreign land,” fanqie12, literally “foreign eggplant” used to refer to the tomato, and fanshu13, literally “foreign potato” to refer to yam. It was the Xianyun, also known as Quanrong vii, who drove the Zhou people away from their western home near Xi’an in Shaanxi to set up a new capital near Luoyang in Henan. The Huaiyi in line 4 of the poem was an ethnic group presumably warring from the east. Neither of these ethnic names survives among the populations today. Several other ethnic groups were mentioned as well, whose names have not survived. One name that has survived through the millennia is Qiang14, mentioned in the last poem, m305. It refers to a people, officially

1. 胡　2. 五胡　3. 越　4. 百越　5. 胡椒　6. 胡琴　7. 越南　8. 广东　9. 粤　10. 番　 11. 番邦　12. 番茄　13. 番薯　14. 羌

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recognized by Beijing as among the 55 minorities of China, distributed in Sichuan. However, there must have been numerous demographic changes over the intervening millennia, including extensive amounts of intermarriage and genetic mixing. So it is difficult to know to what extent the modern Qiang are indeed descendents of the ancient Qiang mentioned in the Shijing. The hero introduced in line 18, Shaohu, is also known as Shao Bo Hu1. In lines 28 and 38, there is reference to Shao Gong2 and Shao zu, recalling the illustrious ancestry of Shaohu. The term Gong “Duke” is a title of nobility bestowed by the king for military contributions the family made to the state; and Shao was the land bestowed with the title. Earlier we had discussed a vessel, called Shao Bo Hu Gui, and that it was discovered in Shaanxi, and is now kept in the National Historical Museum in Beijing; see Figures 12 and 13. This gui is actually the second of a pair of gui, also called respectively Wunian Diaosheng Gui3 and Liunian Diaosheng Gui4. Diaosheng was the maker of these vessels as well as a party in a lawsuit concerning land. A secure interpretation of the inscriptions on these vessels was difficult, though it was helped by new archeological discoveries made in 2006. Shao Bo Hu was honored in particular because he succeeded in resolving this lawsuit. The theme of the poem is the honor the Zhou kings have given to the family. The theme of the next short poem, Gan Tang, m16 in the Guo Feng group, centers on a pear tree. It exhorts people to treasure this particular tree because it was where the wise Shaoshi, also known as Kanggong, once sat to help people settle their disputes.

1. 召伯虎　2. 召公　3. 五年琱生簋　4. 六年琱生簋　

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Gan Tang Table 23 Gan Tang m16

1.

蔽芾甘棠

bì fèi gān táng

Young and tender is this sweet-pear tree

国风

2.

勿剪勿伐

wù jiǎn wù fá

Do not lop it or knock it

召南

3.

召伯所茇

shào bó suǒ bá

For the Lord of Shao took shelter under it

甘棠

4.

蔽芾甘棠

bì fèi gān táng

Young and tender is this sweet-pear tree

5.

勿剪勿败

wù jiǎn wù bài

Do not lop or harm it

6.

召伯所憩

shào bó suǒ qì

For the Lord of Shao rested under it

7.

蔽芾甘棠

bì fèi gān táng

Young and tender is this sweet-pear tree

8.

勿剪勿拜

wù jiǎn wù bài

Do not lop or uproot it

9.

召伯所说

shào bó suǒ shuì

For the Lord of Shao reposed beneath it

II

III

This poem is unusual in its structure in having just three lines per stanza, with lines 2 and 3 riming. It is a simple ode in praise of one the heroes of Western Zhou, Shaoshi. Through association with this hero, the tree had become a symbol of the man, and hence should be preserved as heritage for posterity. Apparently Shaoshi not only had the highest esteem from the Zhou kings, but had won the devotion of ordinary people as well.

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Xiang Bo  Table 24 Xiang Bo m200

  1.

萋兮斐兮

qi xi fěi xi

How rich, how ornate

小雅

  2.

成是贝锦

chéng shì bèi jǐn

Truly this shell brocade

节南山

  3.

彼谮人者

bǐ zèn rén zhě

Those slanderers

巷伯

  4.

亦已大甚

yì yǐ tài shèn

Indeed too much

II

  5.

哆兮侈兮

chǐ xi chǐ xi

How great, how expansive

  6.

成是南箕

chéng shì nán ji

Truly the Southern Fanviii

  7.

彼谮人者

bǐ zèn rén zhě

Those slanderers

  8.

谁适与谋

shuí shì yǔ móu

Who would take their side

  9.

缉缉翩翩

ji ji pian pian

Jabbering, tattling

10.

谋欲谮人

móu yù zèn rén

Plan to slander people

11.

慎尔言也

shèn ěr yán yě

Careful about your words

12.

谓尔不信

wèi ěr bù xìn

They say you are not trustworthy

13.

捷捷幡幡

jié jié fan fan

Gabbering, blathering

14.

谋欲谮言

móu yù zèn yán

Plan to speak slanderously

15.

岂不尔受

qǐ bù ěr shòu

You think they won’t get you

16.

既其女迁

jì qí rǔ qian

Already they move toward you

17.

骄人好好

jiao rén hǎo hǎo

The arrogant is complacent

18.

劳人草草

láo rén cǎo cǎo

The toiler is anxious

19.

苍天苍天

cang tian cang tian

Blue heaven, blue heaven

20.

视彼骄人

shì bǐ jiao rén

Look at the arrogant

21.

矜此劳人

jin cǐ láo rén

Pity the toiler

22.

彼谮人者

bǐ zèn rén zhě

Those slanderers

23.

谁适与谋

shuí shì yǔ móu

Who would take their side

III

IV

V

VI

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VII

24.

取彼谮人

qǔ bǐ zèn rén

Take those slanderers

25.

投畀豺虎

tóu bì chái hǔ

Throw them to jackals and tigers

26.

豺虎不食

chái hǔ bù shí

Jackals and tigers do not eat them

27.

投畀有北

tóu bì yǒu běi

Throw them to the Northern Region

28.

有北不受

yǒu běi bù shòu

Northern Region not accept them

29.

投畀有昊

tóu bì yǒu hào

Throw them to the Great Void

30.

杨园之道

yáng yuán zhi dào

Way of willow garden

31.

猗于亩丘

yǐ yú mǔ qiu

Close to acred hill

32.

寺人孟子

sì rén mèng zǐ

Eunuch Mengzi

33.

作为此诗

zuò wéi cǐ shi

Composed this poem

34.

凡百君子

fán bǎi jun zǐ

May all you gentlemen

35.

敬而听之

jìng ér ting zhi

Listen to it with care.

This poem records the complaint of a court eunuch against his slanderers. The riming scheme in this poem is quite irregular. In the first two stanzas, there are rimes internal in each of the two first lines. In the last stanza, the scheme is: xAxAxA. The nanji1 in line 6 is referring to celestial constellation in the southern sky. The special cultural interest of this poem lies in its author, identified in line 32 as Mengzi ix who is a si ren, or palace attendant. The character 寺 si probably was the same as the modern character 侍 shi, which means “to attend.” The usual interpretation here is that Mengzi  has been castrated and was a eunuch, as were most palace attendants. Castration as a procedure was widely found in many ancient cultures, in a variety of religious and social contexts.

1. 南箕

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It was typically performed on male attendants who served women in royal palaces or harems. In certain periods of Ancient China, castration was also a severe penalty, bordering on the death penalty. A famous victim of this cruel punishment was the historian Sima Qian of the Han dynasty, who angered Emperor Han Wudi by offering a different opinion. He endured the pain and humiliation of castration in order to finish his masterpiece of historiography, the Shiji. Another point of interest is the word bi1, which occurs in lines 25, 27, and 29. As often happens, many words in ancient texts no longer survive in the common speech originating in the north, which is now systematized as Putonghua. However, they are preserved better in the southern dialects. In this case 畀 is alive and well in Cantonese bei x, with the meaning of “to give,” then grammaticalized into “for” or “to.” These functions are all paralleled by the word gei2 in Putonghua.

1. 畀　2. 給

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He Cao Bu Huang Table 25 He Cao Bu Huang m234

  1.

何草不黄

hé cǎo bù huáng

What plant not wither

小雅

  2.

何日不行

hé rì bù xíng

What day not march

鱼藻

  3.

何人不将

hé rén bù jiang

Who not disposed

何草 不黄

  4. 

经营四方

jing yíng sì fang

Regulate four directions

II

  5.

何草不玄

hé cǎo bù xuán

What plant not blacken

  6.

何人不矝

hé rén bù qin

Who not to be pitied

  7.

哀我征夫

ai wǒ zheng fu

Alas we soldiers

  8.

独为匪民

dú wéi fěi mín

Treated not as people

  9.

匪兕匪虎

fěi sì fěi hǔ

Not rhinoceros, not tiger

10.

率彼旷野

shuài bǐ kuàng yě

Along wilderness

11.

哀我征夫

ai wǒ zheng fu

Alas we soldiers

12.

朝夕不暇

zhao xi bù xiá

Morning evening no rest

13.

有芃者狐

yǒu péng zhě hú

There is thick-furred fox

14.

率彼幽草

shuài bǐ you cǎo

Along dark grass

15.

有栈之车

yǒu zhàn zhi ju

There are boxed carriages

16.

行彼周道

xíng bǐ zhou dào

Marching on Zhou road

III

IV

This soldier’s lament was probably composed in the last years of Western Zhou, when the land was ravaged by warfare. Invading tribes were closing in on the Zhou capital from all sides. A central theme of the poem is that while plants must wither and blacken in natural cycles, people should be given more self-determination. People should not be treated as expendable animals by rulers. The soldiers were sent to the front in all directions against their will, destined to end their lives on the battle field. The complaint of helplessness and desperation voiced by a lone soldier has a poignancy that transcends space and time.

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An interesting point of grammar to note here is that huang and xuan in lines 1 and 5 are both used as intransitive verbs, in the sense of becoming withered and yellow and becoming black. On the other hand, huang occurs as an adjective in Table 18, as does xuan in Table 19. This fluidity of membership across these two grammatical categories has remained a feature of the Chinese language over the millennia. It distinguishes Chinese from many European languages where grammatical categories are marked by a host of obligatory affixes. Also of interest in this poem is the mention of the animals, rhinoceros, tiger, and fox. The rhinoceros has completely disappeared over the centuries in this part of the world; its sinogram, 兕 si, is recognized by very few readers today. Due to a higher mean temperature and lusher vegetation, coupled with much lower populations, the physical landscape of 3,000 years ago was dramatically different from what we see in Shaanxi and Henan today.

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Yi   The following poem, Yi, is the last one from Shijing we will examine in this book. It is also among the longest in the collection, with 114 lines. The longest poem in Shijing is Bi Gong1 in the Song section, with a record of 120 lines. Yi has received extensive discussion over the centuries in the ocean of literature on Shijing. The consensus that emerged is that its author is the Duke of Wei, Wei Wugong2, addressing the King of Zhou, Zhou Pingwang3, criticizing his indulgent behavior, and urging him to perform his kingly duties in a virtuous manner, following the noble examples set by the sage-kings of the past. The poem gives a valuable glimpse into the sad state that the Zhou dynasty has sunk to when it lost its western capital in 770 BCE. It describes how a worthy king should behave. Many of the values idealized in the poem are stated two centuries later in much more general terms in the writings of Confucius, and have become important elements of Chinese culture. The poem is also important from a linguistic viewpoint since it contains many sayings that have been preserved to this day, and continue to influence behavior in modern China. Table 26 Yi m256

  1.

抑抑威仪

yì yì wei yí

Dignified demeanor

大雅

  2.

维德之隅

wéi dé zhi yú

Reflects inner virtue

荡

  3.

人亦有言

rén yì yǒu yán

People say

抑

  4.

靡哲不愚

mí zhé bù yú

No sage without folly

  5.

庶人之愚

shù rén zhi yú

Folly of ordinary men

1. 閟宮　2. 卫武公　3. 周平王

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III

IV

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  6.

亦职维疾

yì zhí wéi jí

Simply natural defect

  7.

哲人之愚

zhé rén zhi yú

Folly of sage

  8.

亦维斯戾

yì wéi si lì

Deliberate offence

  9.

无竞维人

wú jìng wéi rén

He is indeed powerful

10.

四方其训之

sì fang qí xùn zhi

His teachings reach four quarters

11.

有觉德行

yǒu jué dé xíng

Moved by his virtuous conduct

12.

四国顺之

sì guó shùn zhi

Neighboring countries pay homage

13.

訏谟定命

xu mó dìng mìng

Great plans stabilize mandate

14.

远犹辰告

yuǎn yóu chén gào

Looking far ahead he speaks

15.

敬慎威仪

jìng shèn wei yí

Respectful and careful

16.

维民之则

wéi mín zhi zé

Model for people

17.

其在于今

qí zài yú jin

As for now

18.

兴迷乱于政

xing mí luàn yú zhèng

Disorder in government

19.

颠覆厥德

dian fù jué dé

Lacking in virtue

20.

荒湛于酒

huang dan yú jiǔ

Obsessed by wine

21.

女虽湛乐从

rǔ sui dan lè cóng

You indulge in nothing but pleasure

22.

弗念厥绍

fú niàn jué shào

You do not seek examples

23.

罔敷求先王

wǎng fu qiú xian wáng

Of former kings

24.

克共明刑

kè gòng míng xíng

Follow their enlightened laws

25.

肆皇天弗尚

sì huáng tian fú shàng

So heaven not approve of you

26.

如彼泉流

rú bǐ quán liú

As water flows down

27.

无沦胥以亡

wú lún xu yǐ wáng

May you not sink to ruin

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VI

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28.

夙兴夜寐

sù xing yè mèi

Rise early sleep late

29.

洒扫庭内

sǎ sǎo tíng nèi

Sprinkle and sweep courtyard

30.

维民之章

wéi mín zhi zhang

Be model to people

31.

修尔车马

xiu ěr che mǎ

Take good care of chariots and horses

32.

弓矢戎兵

gong shǐ róng bing

Bows and arrows, arms and weapons

33.

用戒戎作

yòng jiè róng zuò

Be ready for war

34.

用逷蛮方

yòng tì mán fang

Defend against Man tribes

35.

质尔人民

zhì ěr rén mín

Reassure people

36.

谨尔侯度

jǐn ěr hóu dù

Observe the feudal lords vigilantly

37.

用戒不虞

yòng jiè bù yú

Prepare for the unforeseen

38.

慎尔出话

shèn ěr chu huà

Careful in speech

39.

敬尔威仪

jìng ěr wei yí

Modest in demeanor

40.

无不柔嘉

wú bù róu jia

Gentle and good in all

41.

白圭之玷

bái gui zhi diàn

Flaw in white jade

42.

尚可磨也

shàng kě mó yě

Can be ground away

43.

斯言之玷

si yán zhi diàn

Flaw in your words

44.

不可为也

bù kě wéi yě

Cannot be undone

45.

无易由言

wú yì yóu yán

Do not speak lightly

46.

无曰苟矣

wú yue gǒu yǐ

Do not say you do not care

47.

莫扪朕舌

mò mén zhèn shé

No one hold my tongue

48.

言不可逝矣

yán bù kě shì yǐ

Words do not pass away

49.

无言不仇

wú yán bù chóu

No words without consequences

50.

无德不报

wú dé bù bào

No kindness unanswered

51.

惠于朋友

huì yú péng yǒu

Be kind to friends

52.

庶民小子

shù mín xiǎo zǐ

Treat ordinary folk as your own children

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VIII

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53.

子孙绳绳

zǐ sun shéng shéng

Your sons and grandsons will continue

54.

万民靡不承

wàn mín mí bù chéng

All people support you

55.

视尔友君子

shì ěr yǒu jun zǐ

With your friends superior people

56.

辑柔尔颜

jí róu ěr yán

Be gentle and friendly

57.

不遐有愆

bù xiá yǒu qian

With no chance of being at fault

58.

相在尔室

xiang zài ěr shì

Be vigilant at home

59.

尚不愧于屋 漏

shàng bù kuì yú wu lòu

Be free of fault there

60.

无曰不显

wú yue bù xiǎn

Do not say “not public”

61.

莫予云觏

mò yú yún gòu

Cannot see me here

62.

神之格思

shén zhi gé si

Arrival of gods

63.

不可度思

bù kě duó si

Cannot be comprehended

64.

矧可射思

shěn kě yì si

All the more not to be slighted

65.

辟尔为德

bì ěr wéi dé

Let your virtue

66.

俾臧俾嘉

bǐ zang bǐ jia

Be good and admirable

67.

淑慎尔止

shu shèn ěr zhǐ

Watch over your behavior

68.

不愆于仪

bù qian yú yí

Let nothing go wrong in your demeanor

69.

不僭不贼

bù jiàn bù zéi

No excesses, no dishonesty

70.

鲜不为则

xiǎn bù wéi zé

Few will not take you as example

71.

投我以桃

tóu wǒ yǐ táo

Throw me a peach

72.

报之以李

bào zhi yǐ lǐ

Return with a plum

73.

彼童而角

bǐ tóng ér jiǎo

Look for horns on young ram

74.

实虹小子

shí hóng xiǎo zǐ

Your sir

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IX

X

XI

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75.

荏染柔木

rěn rǎn róu mù

Soft and pliable wood

76.

言缗之丝

yán mín zhi si

Can be strung with silk

77.

温温恭人

wen wen gong rén

Mild and respectful person

78.

维德之基

wéi dé zhi ji

Foundation of virtue

79.

其维哲人

qí wéi zhé rén

To a wise person

80.

告之话言

gào zhi huà yán

Say good words

81.

顺德之行

shùn dé zhi xíng

Yield to virtuous behavior

82.

其维愚人

qí wéi yú rén

To a foolish person

83.

覆谓我僭

fù wèi wǒ jiàn

Respond I am excessive

84.

民各有心

mín gè yǒu xin

People all have their own minds

85.

于乎小子

wu hu xiǎo zǐ

Oh young sir

86.

未知臧否

wèi zhi zang pǐ

When you did not know good and bad

87.

匪手携之

fěi shǒu xié zhi

Did I not lead you by hand

88.

言示之事

yán shì zhi shì

Show you case by case

89.

匪面命之

fěi miàn mìng zhi

Did I not teach you in person

90.

言提其耳

yán tí qí ěr

Tell you by ear

91.  

借曰未知

jiè yue wèi zhi

You do not know

92.

亦既抱子

yì jì bào zǐ

Although hold the young

93.

民之靡盈

mín zhi mí yíng

People not self sufficient

94.

谁夙知而莫 成

shuí sù zhi ér mò chéng

Who knows all without training

95.

昊天孔昭

hào tian kǒng zhao

Heaven knows everything

96.

我生靡乐

wǒ sheng mí lè

My life no joy

97.

视尔梦梦

shì ěr mèng mèng

See you so vapid

98.

我心懆懆

wǒ xin cǎo cǎo

My heart in pain

99.

诲尔谆谆

huì ěr zhun zhun

Advise you tirelessly

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100.

听我藐藐

ting wǒ miǎo miǎo

You listen to me with contempt

101.

匪用为教

fěi yòng wéi jiào

Not use as teachings

102.

覆用为虐

fù yòng wéi nüè

But regard as irritants

103.

借曰未知

jiè yue wèi zhi

Excuse as not know

104.

亦聿既耄

yì yù jì máo

But you are already grown up

105.

于乎小子

wu hu xiǎo zǐ

Oh young sir

106.

告尔旧止

gào ěr jiù zhǐ

Told you old ways

107.

听用我谋

ting yòng wǒ móu

Hear and heed my advice

108.

庶无大悔

shù wú dà huǐ

Then no great regrets

109.

天方艰难

tian fang jian nán

Heaven is giving difficulties

110.

曰丧厥国

yue sàng jué guó

Destroying country

111.

取譬不远

qǔ pì bù yuǎn

My examples not remote

112.

昊天不忒

hào tian bù tè

Heaven makes no mistakes

113.

回遹其德

huí yù qí dé

Persist in losing virtue

114.

俾民大棘

bǐ mín dà jí

Bring people great distress

163

This long poem was constructed from 12 stanzas. The first 3 stanzas are 8 lines each, and the remaining 9 stanzas are 10 lines each, adding to the total of 114 lines. Thematically, the poem can be divided into 3 parts, each with 4 stanzas. One might wonder how dare a minister criticize his sovereign so directly and so harshly. But the Zhou kings have become very weak ever since the time of Zhou Youwang. We met him earlier in this book when we discussed the femmes fatales; Youwang’s downfall was allegedly triggered by Baosi. By the time the Zhou needed to retreat from the Quanrong, the court needed the military escort of its feudal vassals; Wei Wugong was one of these vassals. In fact,

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Wei Wugong had already served three Zhou kings before Zhou Pingwang. When he wrote this poem he was into his venerable eighties. So here was a minister with sterling credentials to insist on giving some fatherly advice, to bring a king in line. Such exhortations typically involve supernatural forces, in this case the reference is to heaven, since the authority of the king is based on heavenly mandate. This reference we find in lines 25 and 95, at the beginning of stanzas 4 and 11, as well as in line 62 in the middle of the poem, and in lines 109 and 112 at the end of the poem. Closer by, in line 23 reference is made to the sage-kings of the House of Zhou dynasty, i.e., the founding fathers of the dynasty, Zhou Wenwang and Zhou Wuwang. For negative examples in contrast, the dire consequences of destruction to self and to country are easy to illustrate, as warned in line 111, referring obliquely to Zhou Youwang a little earlier as well as to Zhou and Jie, the last kings of the Shang and Xia dynasties respectively. Both tyrants lost their kingdoms and were killed by invading forces. The exhortation also gets to a very practical level of cultivating good personal habits, such as rising early and going to sleep late in line 28, in order to get more work done. It is somewhat surprising though to find in the next line, 29, that the king was advised to sprinkle and sweep the court, unless it is used metaphorically — the usual image one associates with a king is that he has enough domestic helpers for such duties. The next lines recommend an ever-ready military, including archers and cavalry, to be constantly vigilant against the Man tribes mentioned in line 34. After all, it was the Quanrong tribes from the west that had just sacked the Zhou capital Haojing. The poem also gives detailed counsel on cultivating a gentle demeanor that inspires both affection and respect. It stresses the importance of always being in good company, and of constantly

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seeking help and support from talented advisors. This last point is immortalized in a classic story from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, i.e., San Guo Yan Yi1, the hero of which was the brilliant strategist Zhuge Kongming, also known as Zhuge Liang2. The story tells of the utter humility with which a descendant of the Han dynasty, Liu Bei3, repeatedly called on Zhuge to invite him to join his forces. As we will see shortly, Zhuge was the mastermind behind the famous Battle of Chibi4, which saved Liu Bei from being wiped out by the invasion from the north. From the viewpoint of language, the poem is also important in the number of expressions Wei Wugong used that have come down through the millennia to the present day in various forms. These include:   28

夙兴夜寐

sù xing yè mèi

Rise early sleep late

  41

白圭之玷

bái gui zhi diàn

Flaw in white jade

  71

投我以桃

tóu wǒ yǐ táo

Throw me a peach

  72

报之以李

bào zhi yǐ lǐ

Return with a plum

  89

匪面命之

fěi miàn mìng zhi

Did I not teach you in person

  90

言提其耳

yán tí qí ěr

Tell you by ear

  99

诲尔谆谆

huì ěr zhun zhun

Advise you tirelessly

100

听我藐藐

ting wǒ miǎo miǎo

You listen to me with contempt

The saying in line 28 has been discussed above, with it Wugong was urging Pingwang to work harder. The saying in line 41 refers to a flaw in a beautiful object, suggesting that even such a flaw can be remedied, whereas the damage done by wrong words cannot be repaired. Lines 71 and 72 are typically compressed in

1. 三国演义　2.诸葛孔明，诸葛亮　3. 刘备　4. 赤壁

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modern speech into tou tao bao li1, to suggest that kindnesses should always be returned in kind. Similarly for lines 89 and 90, the modern compressed counterpart is er ti mian ming2, to suggest that good advice is constantly available, constantly within earshot. Finally, from line 99 is derived the modern saying, zhun zhun jiao hui3, often used by appreciative students for the teacher’s tireless teaching. Also, there is the descriptive couple, yanzhe zhun zhun, tingzhe miao miao4, which means that while the speaker is earnest the listener is disdainful.

1. 投桃报李　2. 耳提面命　3. 谆谆教诲　4. 言者谆谆, 听者藐藐

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Endnotes i. Here again we have two syllables minimally distinguished by tone. The name of the last king of the Shang dynasty is Zhou 纣, pronounced with a falling tone. The next dynasty is Zhou 周, pronounced with a high level tone. ii. Japan has an indigenous script called kana, and Korea has an indigenous script called hangul. The graphic style of both of these indigenous scripts derives from the Chinese Hanzi. iii. Also m255 and m257, all in the Da Ya group. iv. The generic term 夷 used in the Shijing should not be confused with the more specific 彝, though the two words are completely homophonous. The 彝 people speak a Tibeto-Burman language and are distributed in Southwest China, with a population of several million. v. Mencius IVB.1 compares two sage-kings of old: Shun of the Yi to the East and Zhou Wenwang of the Yi to the West. Although these two were separated by great expanses of time and space, their wisdom led them to similar ways of government. vi. A fuller discussion of the Hundred Yue can be found in the paper by William Meacham, 1996. “Defining the Hundred Yue.” Bulletin of the IndoPacific Prehistory Association 15: 93–100. vii. For discussion on the relationship between these two ethnic labels, see Poo 2005:46. viii. The 箕 in Chinese refers to the shape of a dust pan, which in English has been compared to the shape of a fan in this translation. ix. Please note that Mengzi, the author of m200, is not to be confused with the famous philosopher Mencius of the Warring States period. The two names are written with the same characters. x. This word is also written 俾 in Cantonese. For detailed discussion of words specific to Cantonese, see Cheung, Kwan-hin & Robert Bauer. 2002. The Representation of Cantonese with Chinese Characters. Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph No. 18.

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C ha p t e r 1 1 Across Time and Cultures

In closing the book, let us enjoy one last poem, one of my favorites from the Tang dynasty. The poet is Du Mu1, and the poem is named after one of China’s most famous battles, Chibi . The broken lance buried in the sand, which Du Mu retrieved, evoked for him a world several centuries back. In contrast, the oracle bone inscriptions and the poems of Shijing provide for us a much richer portal through which to view a much more distant world. In the Battle of Muye, as we saw at the beginning of this book, Wuwang conquered the Shang and established the Zhou dynasty. In contrast, there was no change of dynasties with the Battle of Chibi, a story that has mesmerized the Chinese for centuries. Rather, the massive naval invasion from the north was thwarted by a brilliant strategy using wind and fire. Table 27 Chibi Du Mu

赤壁

Chibi

Red Cliffs

1.

折戟沉沙铁未销

zhe ji chen sha tie wei xiao

Broken lance buried in sand iron not rusted

2.

自将磨洗认前朝

zi jiang mo xi ren qian chao

I wash and clean it in recognition of earlier dynasty

3.

东风不与周郎便

dong feng bu yu zhou lang bian

East wind not come to Zhoulang’s aid

4.

铜雀春深锁二乔

tong que chun shen suo er qiao

Bronze Sparrow deep spring lock two Qiaos

1. 杜牧　

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Like the first poem by Li Bo we discussed in Table 1, which was from the Tang dynasty as well, Du Mu’s poem also has four lines, with the rime scheme of AAxA. The only structural difference is that Li’s poem has 5 syllable lines, whereas Du’s has 7 syllable lines, as opposed to the 4 syllable lines typical in the Shijing. A rough translation of the poem, line by line, might be as follows: “The iron on the broken lance, buried in the sand, has not rusted. I wash and clean it, and in it recognize an earlier dynasty. If the East Wind had not come to Zhoulang’s aid. The two Qiaos would have been locked at spring time at the Copper Sparrow Pavilion.” It was during the period of the Three Kingdoms i, some 14 centuries after the Battle of Muye. The Han empire was disintegrating, with the emperor barely clinging on to the throne. The power was in the hands of the Prime Minister, Cao Cao, whom we met briefly earlier in discussing Table 5. Cao was able to successively eliminate the various rival forces that arose when the empire was waning. To celebrate his victories, he constructed a lavish pavilion called Tongque Tai 1, for ceremonial occasions. This is the Copper Sparrow Pavilion mentioned in line 4 of Du’s poem. Cao’s ambition was to eliminate all the rival forces to unify the empire again. But two major rivals remained. In the southwest was the Shu2 kingdom of Liu Bei , who had a claim to the Han throne by his lineage — the dynasty was established in 206 BCE by his distant ancestor Liu Bang 3. Among Liu Bei’s many heroic supporters, two

1. 铜雀台　2. 蜀　3. 刘邦　

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have achieved legendary stature. One was the strategist Zhuge Kongming, who figures prominently in the poem we are discussing, and whom we met briefly in the last chapter. The other was a general called Guan Yu1, who has become a god in Chinese popular culture. Icons of Guan Yu are everywhere in traditional China, in temples, restaurants, shops, etc. — a red faced general with a long black beard, dressed in armor and often portrayed as reading a book. In the Southeast was the Wu2 kingdom of Sun Ce3, later succeeded by his brother Sun Quan4. The Wu kingdom was blessed with two beautiful women in the Qiao5 family, who were sisters. The older Qiao was married to Sun Ce himself. The younger Qiao was married to Sun’s most talented general, Zhou Yu6, who was the Zhoulang mentioned in line 3 of Du’s poem. The two sisters are mentioned in line 4. This tripartite division of Han, Shu, and Wu was roughly indicative of China’s cultural regions through much of her history — reminiscent of the ancient map we saw in Figure 2. Political power typically centered in the north, steep hills and forests in the southwest, tracing back to the culture of Sanxingdui, and coastal and maritime culture in the southeast, tracing back to the culture of Liangzhu. Cao gathered a massive army and marched southward, intending to crush the two kingdoms in the south ii. In response, Zhuge Kongming had persuaded Zhou Yu that their two kingdoms should join forces in defense, even though the northern forces still had a significant numerical superiority. Cao built a navy with the plan of sailing down the Changjiang eastward, conquering along the way. To counter this, Zhuge masterminded a two part war plan to stop Cao’s campaign at Chibi.

1. 关羽　2. 吴　3. 孙策　4. 孙权　5. 乔　6. 周瑜　

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The first part was to convince Cao to chain his naval fleet of wooden ships together. This was accomplished by a strategem known in Chinese as ku rou ji1 “bitter flesh strategem.” An officer would sacrifice himself to suffer harsh punishment and then fake defection to Cao, and suggest to him the idea of chaining the ships. The ostensible goal was that this would reduce the motion sickness among the soldiers, most of them from the north and not accustomed to the rocking of the ships. The actual purpose was to prevent the ships from separating to escape the burning fire. The second part of the war plan was to wait for a day when the winds were blowing strongly from the east, and to mount an all out attack on Cao’s fleet by setting it on fire with thousands of arrows carrying ignited heads. Zhuge’s plan worked with complete success. The burning of his fleet and the devastating defeat that immediately followed thoroughly discouraged Cao, who retreated back north, never to wage another southern campaign again. This Battle of Chibi, which took place in 208 CE in the middle stretch of the Changjiang in Hubei, is one of the most beloved stories in Chinese culture, partly because the larger than life heroes it recounts, and partly because it symbolizes the triumph of the underdog, for numerically the southern kingdoms were really no match for Cao’s massive army. Du Mu was some 5 centuries away from the Battle of Chibi, brought to his imagination by the broken lance he held in his hand. In contrast, these lines you have just read from the people of Shijing have crossed some 3 millennia of time. Nonetheless, the actual words of the Shang and Zhou people, translated bare bones style here, should provide a much richer basis than any material artifact to help us imagine how their world was in Ancient China.

1. 苦肉计　

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In some ways, love and war in Ancient China were not all that different from love and war now. A fundamental driving force in all of biology is the desire to reproduce, as popularized by the metaphor of “the selfish gene.” It operates in all forms of life. In humans, this primal force first manifests itself as the sexual attraction between man and woman. In Shijing we saw many expressions of this love, of the admiration the lovers showed each other, of the joy when they were bonded together, and of the pain and longing when they were forced apart. Indeed the theme of love is the fountainhead of much of the world’s artistic creations, of which music and poetry are only two of their dimensions. In contrast to other mammals, which are mostly solitary or live in nuclear family groups, humans have become social on a grand scale, at least since the beginning of agriculture some 10,000 years ago. As the genetic bonds, initiated by sexual attraction, extend to generations and generations of parents and children and their children, elaborate social networks of kinship result in the form of clans, or zu1 in Chinese. It is interesting to note that zu was related to the verb ju2 meaning “to gather” by having an additional suffix, –k iii. This morphological relation can be seen in modern Cantonese where 聚 is pronounced zeoi6 and 族 is pronounced zuk6 as represented in the Jyutping3 system for spelling Cantonese. The importance of the clan in Ancient China can be seen graphically in oracle bone forms of the character, which showed an unfurled flag above an up-pointing arrow iv, jointly suggesting the military importance of the clan. As society became more complex, the relations among its many members became more involved as well. On the positive side, love and care are generalized from the immediate family to members

1. 族　2. 聚　3. 粤拼　

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even when they are related quite distantly. A member gains affection and respect by caring for not only his parents and children, but the old and the young in general. As we saw earlier, such virtuous behavior in a leader pleases heaven, which may reward him with tianming “heaven’s mandate” to achieve a great destiny. Societies have progressed a great deal over these 3,000 years, especially in the dimension of human dignity and human rights. Two ghastly institutions we saw in the poems — live burial in Huang Niao and castration in Xiang Bo — were not unique to Ancient China, but plagued other peoples as well. For instance, both practices have been reported in Ancient Mesopotamia. One cannot help but wonder how it came about that civilizations widely separated in space and time should have developed these cruel violations of human rights. Another cruel institution was one that emerged in China much later, that of foot-binding. A girl’s foot is forcibly twisted out of shape early in her childhood to make it resemble a san cun jin lian1, literally a “three-inch-golden lotus.” This practice, called guojiao or chanzu2, ostensibly for erotic reasons, can be traced to the Song dynasty, and it persisted well into the 20th century. It is interesting to note that the current practice of wearing high heels produces a similar effect in the way the woman walks, though this practice is completely voluntary as well as adds height. Women in China now have unprecedented equality, reflected in a famous metaphor of Mao Zedong3, who said that fu nv yao ding ban bian tian4, meaning “women hold up half the sky.” Thankfully, the various inhumane practices at the individual level have all but been eradicated in modern societies today. At the ethnic level, there have been significant advances as well. The mentality of Ancient China was clearly centered around the Han majority, in so far as we can trace this ethnic group back in 1. 三寸金莲　2. 裹脚, 缠足　3. 毛泽东　4. 妇女要顶半边天

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time. Neighboring peoples were regarded as barbarians, especially when they were preliterate and pastoral instead of agricultural. Just as there was a distinctly Eurocentric mentality in the age of colonialism, the peoples of the Middle Kingdom wished to express its hegemony whenever possible, in an unmistakable form of Sinocentrism. Lamenting the ravages of war was a theme not only in Ancient China, but one that occurred time and time again in Chinese history. As we saw earlier, the sinograms used to name some of the neighboring peoples were written with offensive components which indicate animals, such as dog, cow, or sheep. With very few exceptions of courageous travelers v, driven by strong intellectual curiosity to explore, their cultures and languages were considered peripheral and largely ignored. It was only with the overthrow of dynasties in the early 20th century that more enlightened policies came into force. The offensive components in the ethnic names are now replaced, such as in the characters for Yao1, Zhuang2, Lahu3, etc. The world is getting smaller every day, with the immense growth of its population and numerous, intense multi-ethnic interactions. As people are driven to harness the latest technology and compete for the dwindling resources of our planet, an unfortunate consequence is that diverse cultures are becoming rapidly homogenized and reduced to some least common denominator. In this process, a great deal of humanistic value tracing back to different cultural roots is lost forever, much as many species of animals and plants have become extinct. Touching love songs like the Guan Ju, m1, sung by a village lad are supplanted by superstars blaring out vapid words over huge loudspeakers. Meandering rivers and streams to hide private rendez-vous like in Jian Jia, m129, have been channeled into mammoth hydrau-electric stations. The colorful landscape that 1. 瑶 from 猺　2. 壮 from 獞　3. 拉祜 from 拉牯

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was Ancient China is now crisscrossed by concrete expressways, connecting city to city with tall skyscrapers. Perhaps this juggernaut train, call it “progress” if you will, once we have boarded it, has no turning back. Nonetheless, it is vitally important that we do not lose sight altogether of our humble origins and individual heritage, whether it be on the central plains watered by the Huanghe and the Changjiang, or 100,000 years further back, on the open grasslands of Africa from which all humans come. In reflecting on the long journey our species has traveled, we will yet take to heart the lesson that the success of humanity is not measured by how tall our skyscrapers are or the range of our missiles, but by how graciously and wisely we can all share our common planet home.

Endnotes i. The three kingdoms are 魏, 蜀, and 吴, (Wei, Shu, and Wu) which are told in a famous novel called San Guo Yan Yi 三国演义. The official dates for the establishment of the kingdoms Wei, Shu and Wu are 220 CE, 221 CE and 229 CE, respectively. A full translation of this novel by Moss Roberts into English is called Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Together with the Journey to the West (see Endnote viii from Chapter 7), Romance of the Three Kingdoms are two of the Four Great Classical Novels in Chinese literature. The other two are Shui Hu Zhuan 水浒传 and Hong Lou Meng 红楼梦, with English translations titled Water Margin and Dream of the Red Chamber. ii. The account given here is largely based on the historical novel, San Guo Yan Yi, which is best known in the folk history of China. The account differs from authenticated accounts written by historians, such as the 資治 通鉴. iii. See Schuessler, Axel. 2007. ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. I thank Kenichi Takashima for calling my attention to this. iv. Many oracle bone inscriptions of 族 can be seen on Chang 1983:36. v. An outstanding example of an intrepid traveler is Xu Xiake 徐霞客 of the Ming dynasty.

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Glossary and References

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G lossa r y List of the Chinese terms first appear in the book

Anyang

安阳

The city where the abundance of oracle bone inscriptions were excavated

p. xxi

ba de

八德

Eight virtues

p. 100

Bai Jia Xing

百家姓

Literally “hundred family names,” a collection written exclusively with surnames composed in Song dynasty

Bai Yue

百越

The Hundred Yue, referring to tribes found in the south and southwest

p. 150

Banpo

半坡

A neolithic archeological site in Shaanxi

p. 106

Baosi

褒姒

Woman of Zhou Youwang

p. 128

Beijing

北京

Literally “northern capital,” now the capital of PRC

p. xxi

bi

畀

To give, also grammaticalized into “to”, used widely in Cantonese and written also as 俾

p. 154

Bi Gong

閟宮

The last poem in the Song group of Shijing and the longest poem in the collection

p. 158

bian qing

编磬

Chime stones, ancient Chinese musical instrument

p. 54

bian zhong

编钟

Bronze bells, ancient Chinese musical instrument

p. 54

bing

丙

The 3rd element in the Gan cycle

p. 20

Bo Xi

伯兮

Title of the poem m62 of Shijing

p. 65

bo zhong shu ji

伯仲叔季

Words chosen in personal names to mark the birth order (from the eldest to the youngest)

p. 87

Bohai

渤海

The innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea on the coast of Northeastern and North China

p. 5

bu

卜

To make cracks for divination

bu lun

不伦

Literally “to violate lun,” i.e., unethical

Cáo Cao

曹操

A prime minister at the end of Han dynasty famous in popular culture

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p. 15

p. 40 p.109 p. 88

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Cao Mengde

曹孟德

Secondary name of Cao Cao

Cao Pi

曹丕

Son of Cao Cao and founder of the Wei

Cao Zhi

曹植

Son of Cao Cao, famous for his poems

p. 145

Chang’an

长安

Literally meaning “eternal peace,” the old name for Xi’an

p. xxvi

Changcheng

长城

The Great Wall

Changjiang

长江

Literally “The Long River,” also know as the Yangtze River

chanzu

缠足

Foot-binding

chen

辰

The 5th element in the Zhi cycle

p. 20

Chen

陈

A common family name

p. 15

Chengdu

成都

The capital of Sichuan province

chengyu

成语

Fixed expressions

Chibi

赤壁

Name of a battle fought between Cao Cao and the southern Wu and Shu kingdoms

chong

虫

Insect

chou

丑

The 2nd element in the Zhi cycle

Chunqiu

春秋

Spring and Autumn Period

Da Ming

大明

Title of the poem m236 of Shijing which commemorates the Battle of Muye

p. 23

Da Ya

大雅

Literally “greater elegance,” one of the four major groups of poems from Shijing

p. 57

Daji

妲己

The woman of the Shang tyrant Zhou

p. 128

Danfu

亶父

Houji’s descendent who located the Zhou clan near Qishan

p. 139

Deng Lijun (Teresa Teng)

邓丽君

A legendary singer from Taiwan famous among the Chinese people and throughout East Asia

Dí

狄

A generic label given by ancient historians to refer to neighboring tribes to the north

dì

帝

Emperor

Di Xin

帝辛

Also known as Zhouwang, the king who lost the Shang dynasty

di zhi

地支

Earthly branches, a series of 12 elements used in calendar counting

p. xviii

Diaosheng

琱生

The name of the person who made the Shao Bo Hu Gui, and who was also a party involved in the lawsuit settled by Shao Bo Hu

p. 151

didi

弟弟

Younger brother

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p. 88 p. 145

p. 88 p. 7 p. 174

p. 9 p. 70 p. 165 p. 8 p. 20 p. 139

p. 65 p. 7 p. 3  p. 45

p. 86

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Glossary

ding

丁

The 4th element in the Gan cycle

p. 20

dǐng

鼎

Caldron

p. 17

Dong Tonghe

董同龢

A Chinese linguist famous for examining Karlgren’s Glosses

p. 56

donggua

冬瓜

Winter-melon

Donghai

东海

The East China Sea

Du Mu

杜牧

A famous Tang dynasty poet

p. 169

er ti mian ming

耳提面命

A phrase suggesting that good advice is constantly available, constantly within earshot

p. 166

Erlitou

二里头

An archeological site in Henan which is associated with Xia dynasty

p. 127

fan

番

Foreign

p. 150

fanbang

番邦

Foreign land

p. 150

fanqie

番茄

Literally “foreign eggplant,” i.e., tomato

p. 150

fanshu

番薯

Literally “foreign potato,” i.e., yam

p. 150

Fanti Zi

繁体字

Complex characters, the traditional sinograms

p. xxx

Feng

风

Wind, customs

Feng Shen Yan Yi

封神演义

“Creation of the Gods,” a novel published in the Ming dynasty

Fenshui

汾水

The second largest tributary of the Yellow River

fu nv yao ding ban bian tian

妇女要顶 半边天

Women hold up half the sky, a saying by Mao Zedong

p. 174

Fuhao

妇好

A consort and military commander of King Wuding

p. xvii

Fuxi

伏羲

The god credited with bringing agriculture to mankind

p. 105

Fuyu

夫余

An ancient Korean people

p. 138

gan

干

Also called heavenly stems, a series of 10 elements used in calendar counting

Gan Tang

甘棠

Title of the poem m16 of Shijing

ganzhi

干支

A system of a cycle of 60 used in calendar counting

Gaogouli

高句丽

The state founded by the ancient Korean people Fuyu

p. 138

Gaoli

高丽

The Chinese ancient name for Korea

p. 138

ge

戈

Spear

gege

哥哥

Older brother

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 181

181

p. 111 p. 7

p. 57 p. 128 p. 5

p. 21 p. 67 p. xviii

p. 8 p. 86

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gei

给

To give

geng

庚

The 7th element in the Gan cycle

gong

弓

Bow

p. 8

gou

狗

Dog

p. 92

Gu Zuyu

顾祖禹

A Qing dynasty scholar

Guan Ju

关雎

The 1st poem of the 1st section from the Guo Feng group, m1 of Shijing

p. xix

Guan Yu

关羽

General of Liu Bei who became immortalized as a god in popular culture

p. 171

Guangdong

广东

A province on the South China Sea coast

p. 150

gui

癸

The 10th element in the Gan cycle

p. 20

gui

簋

A bronze vessel for holding food at ceremonial occasions

p. 22

Gun

鲧

Yu’s father, who failed in flood control

guo

锅

Cooking pot

guó

国

Polity, state, nation

p. 11

Guo Feng

国风

One of the groups of poems from Shijing which contains 15 sections

p. 57

Guo Moruo

郭沫若

A Chinese author, poet, historian, archaeologist, and government official (1892–1978)

p. 29

guojiao

裹脚

Foot-binding

hai

亥

The 12th element in the Zhi cycle

p. 20

Han

汉

The dynasty between 206 BCE and 220 CE

p. 12

Han Wudi

汉武帝

The Han emperor famous for fighting against the northern nomads

p. 145

Hancheng

汉城

The former Chinese name for Seoul

p. 149

Hanguo

韩国

Korea

p. 149

Hanjiang

汉江

Also called Hanshui, the longest tributary of the Yangtze River

p. 7

Hanshui

汉水

Also called Hanjiang, the longest tributary of the Yangtze River

p. 7

Hanyu Pinyin

汉语拼音

The widely accepted scheme for spelling Chinese

p. xxi

Hanzi

汉字

The Chinese characters or sinograms, pronounced kanji in Japanese, and hanja in Korean

p. xxx

Hanzu

汉族

The largest ethnic group of China

p. 149

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 182

p. 155 p. 20

p. 11

p. 128 p. 21

p. 174

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Glossary

Hao

蒿

The place where Zhouwang hunted as recorded on a deer head inscription

hao han

好汉

A good man

Haojing

镐京

The capital of Eastern Zhou dynasty

He

河

A short name for the Yellow River

p. 5

He Cao Bu Huang

何草不黄

Title of the poem m234 of Shijing

p. 67

Hebo

河伯

The father of Zhu Meng’s mother

p. 138

Heji

合集

A large collection of Oracle Bone Inscriptions compiled by Hu Houxuan and edited by Guo Moruo

Henan

河南

The province to the south of the Yellow River

p. 5

hong yan huo shui

红颜祸水

Literally “rouged face disaster water,” to refer to women as the source of disasters

p. 129

Houji

后稷

Ancestor of Zhou born to lady Jiangyuan after she stepped on God’s footprint

p. 130

hu

狐

Fox

hu

胡

A generic term used for the north and northwest tribes

p. 150

Hu Houxuan

胡厚宣

The scholar who compiled a large collection of Oracle Bone Inscriptions

p. 29

Huaiyi

淮夷

Name of an ancient tribe in the east

p. 7

Huang Niao

黄鸟

Title of the poem m131 from Shijing

p. 66

Huanghe

黄河

The Yellow River

Hubei

湖北

A province in central China

hujiao

胡椒

Pepper

p. 150

hulijing

狐狸精

A fox demon, usually referring to evil women

p. 128

Hunan

湖南

A province in south-central China

huqin

胡琴

Chinese stringed instrument

p. 150

Ji

姬

Surname of the royal family of Zhou dynasty, also the surname of the Shao family who made important contributions to the Zhou dynasty

p. 148

jǐ

己

The 6th element in the Gan cycle

p. 20

Ji Ming

鸡鸣

Title of the poem m96 of Shijing

p. 66

jia

甲

The 1st element in the Gan cycle

p. 20

jiaguwen

甲骨文

Oracle Bone Inscription

p. 26

Jian Jia

蒹葭

Title of the poem m129 from Shijing

p. xix

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 183

183

p. 45 p. 149 p. 16

p. 29

p. 92

p. 5 p. 6

p. 9

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Jiandi

简狄

The woman who gave birth to Xie after swallowing the egg of a black bird

Jiang

江

A short name for the Yangtze River

p. 7

Jiang Han

江汉

Title of the poem m262 of Shijing

p. 67

Jiang Ziya

姜子牙

Hero of the novel Feng Shen Yan Yi who kills the fox demon Daji

Jiangxi

江西

A province in the southeast of China

Jiangyuan

姜嫄

The woman who gave birth to Houji after stepping on God’s footprint

p. 144

Jianti Zi

简体字

Simplified sinograms, used in Mainland China and Singapore

p. xxx

jiazi

甲子

The first pair of a ganzhi cycle of sixty

Jie

桀

A tyrant who lost the Xia dynasty

jie jing shu qing

借景抒情

Literally “borrow scene express sentiment,” a literary device of bringing in suggestive scenery in the unfolding of the main theme

Jin

晋

The dynasty that follows the Three Kingdoms period

jing

经

A name used in the title to refer to Chinese Classics or sacred books

p. 54

Jing Ye Si

静夜思

Literally “Quiet Night Thoughts,” the title of a poem written by Li Bo

p. 71

Jingman

荆蛮

Name of an ancient tribe in the south

p. 7

Jinshajiang

金沙江

The upper stream of the Yangtze River

p. 7

jinwen

金文

Bronze inscription

p. 17

jiu zhan que chao

鸠占鹊巢

Literally “cuckoo occupies magpie’s nest,” often used to refer to two competing women

p. 86

ju

聚

To collect, cognate of the noun zu “clan”

jun

麕

Ancient word for “musk deer”

p. 65

junzi

君子

Lord, prince, gentleman

p. 83

junzi yiyan

君子一言

A gentleman’s word, emphasizing the importance of keeping promises

p. 83

Jyutping

粤拼

A system for spelling Cantonese

kana

假名

A Japanese writing system in which each basic symbol represents an entire syllable

Kanggong

康公

A respectful name for Shaoshi

p. 148

ku rou ji

苦肉计

Literally "bitter flesh strategem," a strategem in which one suffers physical pain for a purpose

p. 172

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 184

p. 130

p. 128 p. 9

p. 20 p. 128 p. 79

p. 145

p. 173

p. 173 p. 24

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Glossary

Lahu

拉牯/ 拉祜

The Lahu minority

lang

狼

Wolf

lantian

蓝天

Blue sky

lao baixing

老百姓

Ordinary citizen

lao han

老汉

Old man

p. 149

Laozi

老子

A philosopher of Ancient China, usually considered to be the founder of philosophical Taoism

p. 139

Li

李

Plum; a family name

p. 47

Li Bo

李白

A major Tang dynasty poet

p. 71

Li Gui

利簋

A bronze ritual vessel cast by Minister Li to commemorate the Zhou victory against Shang

p. 17

Li Qingzhao

李清照

A famous female poet of the Song dynasty

p. 74

Liangzhu

良渚

An ancient culture in Zhejiang province which left behind finely worked jade, silk, ivory and lacquer artifacts

Liji

礼记

Book of Rites

Liu Bang

刘邦

Founder of the Han dynasty

p. 170

Liu Bei

刘备

Founder of the Shu kingdom

p. 165

liumang

流氓

Drifter, hoodlum

p. 119

Liunian Diaosheng Gui

六年琱 生簋

The second of the pair of vessels called Shao Bo Hu Gui

p. 151

Lu

鲁

Name of an ancient kingdom in the Shandong province; one of the three sections of the Song group of poems from Shijing

p. 58

luan lun

乱伦

Incest

p. 109

lun

伦

Relationship which governs ethical behavior

p. 109

Lunyu

论语

Analects (by Confucius)

p. 83

Luoyang

洛阳

A city in western Henan province

p. 12

Luoyi

雒邑/ 洛邑

The capital of Eastern Zhou

p. 16

Ma Ruichen

马瑞辰

A Chinese philologist

p. 56

Man

蛮

A generic label given by ancient historians to refer to neighboring tribes to the south

Mang

尨

Ancient word for “dog”

p. 91

mao

卯

The 4th element in the Zhi cycle

p. 20

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185

p. 175 p. 92 p. 132 p. 15

p. xxviii

p. 8

p. 7

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Mao Heng

毛亨

A Han scholar famous for his commentaries of Shijing

Mao Zedong

毛泽东

Former president of the PRC

p. 174

mei ren ji

美人计

Literally “beautiful person strategy,” the strategy of sending in a beautiful woman to confuse the adversary

p. 129

meili

美丽

Beautiful (appearance)

p. 81

Meng

氓

Title of the poem m58 of Shijing

p. 66

Meng Jiang

孟姜

A beautiful woman mentioned in poems m48 and m83 of Shijing

p. 88

Meng Jiang Nü

孟姜女

A woman in Chinese folklore who cried at the side of the Great Wall for her lost husband

p. 88

meng, zhong, ji

孟仲季

The sequence used to name the divisions within a season

p. 87

Mengzi

孟子

Mencius (the philosopher and the book); name of the eunuch identified as the author of the poem m200 from Shijing

p. 60

Mian

绵

Title of the poem m237 of Shijing

mín

民

People

Mǐn

闽

One of the 7 major dialect groups of the Chinese language where Taiwanese and Hokkien belong

p. 72

Minnan

闽南

The Southern Min dialect spoken in Fujian, Taiwan and Southeast Asia

p. 21

Moxi

妺喜

The woman of the Xia tyrant Jie

Mu Gua

木瓜

Title of the poem m64 of Shijing; papaya

Mugong

穆公

A respectful name for Shaohu

p. 148

Muye

牧野

Name of the battle in which Zhou conquered Shang

p. xvii

nan nü shou shou bu qin

男女授受 不亲

Men and women should not interact directly in person when giving or receiving objects

p. 60

Nan Shan

南山

Title of the poem m101 of Shijing

p. 65

nan zi han

男子汉

A masculine and courageous man

p. 149

nangua

南瓜

Pumpkin

p. 111

nanji

南箕

A celestial constellation in the southern sky

p. 154

Nanjing

南京

Literally “southern capital,” now the capital of Jiangsu province

neiren

内人

A formal term of address used when referring to one’s wife

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 186

p. 57

p. 67 p. 119

p. 128  p. 66 

p. 16 p. 114

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Glossary

Ningxiang

宁乡

An archeological site in Hunan

nü

女

Female, woman

nü gong

女红

Women’s skill in sewing and its derived art of embroidery

p. 114

nü wei yue ji zhe rong

女为悦己 者容

A woman would make herself beautiful for one who delights her

p. 98

Nüwa

女娲

The goddess best known for rescuing the earth from celestial torrents by mending the sky and stemming the flood

p. 105

Pangeng

盘庚

The king who led the Shang people to settle in Yin

p. 16

Putonghua

普通话

Literally “Common Speech,” also known as Mandarin, the language adopted as a national medium in China

p. ix

Qi

齐

One of the ancient polities before Qin unification, now also a family name

p. 102

Qi Xianggong

齐襄公

Duke Xiang of Qi, brother of Wen Jiang

p. 105

Qiang

羌

One of the 55 minorities in China

Qiang Zhongzi

将仲子

Title of the poem m76 from Shijing

Qiao

乔

A Chinese family name

p. 171

qilin

麒麟

A mythical hybrid creature believed to appear in highly auspicious occasions

p. 106

Qin

秦

The name of the first empire (221–206 BCE)

p. xxix

Qin Feng

秦风

One of the 15 sections of the Guo Feng group of poems from Shijing consisting of ten poems

p. 66

Qin Mugong

秦穆公

Duke Mu of Qin whose death was mentioned in the poem Huang Niao

p. 66

Qing

清

The last dynasty of China

p. 11

Qinghai

青海

A province in western China

Qiong Yao

琼瑶

Name of a famous Taiwanese novelist

p. 65

Qishan

岐山

Mountain of Qi, the site of the first capital of Zhou dynasty

p. 26

quan

犬

Another word for “dog” used often in compounds

p. 8

Quanrong

犬戎

The name of an ancient tribe to the west, probably the same tribe as Xianyun

p. 7

que

雀

Sparrow

p. 86

Que Chao

鹊巢

Title of the poem m12 of Shijing

p. 65

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187

p. 9 p. 37

p. 8 p. 59

p. 5

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ren

壬

The 9th element in the Gan cycle

p. 20

ren yan ke wei

人言可畏

Be careful of gossip

p. 70

Rong

戎

A generic label given by ancient historians to refer to neighboring tribes to the west

p. 7

san cun jin lian

三寸金莲

Three-inch golden lotus, used to describe the small bound feet of women

p. 174

San Dai

三代

Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang and Zhou)

p. 127 p. 165

San Guo Yan Yi

三国演义

Romance of the Three Kingdoms (a novel)

Sanxingdui

三星堆

An ancient culture near Chengdu which dates back some 3,000 years

p. 9

Shaanxi

陕西

The province to the west of the Yellow River

p. xxii

Shandong

山东

A coastal province in eastern China

Shang

商

The dynasty between 1600 to 1046 BCE; one of the three sections of the Song group of poems from Shijing

p. xvii

Shangdi

上帝

Literally “emperor above,” referring to heaven in Shijing

p. 132

shanliang

善良

Good character

Shanxi

山西

The province to the east and north of the Yellow River

Shao Bo Hu

召伯虎

The name of a hero early in the Zhou dynasty

p. 47

Shao Bo Hu Gui

召伯虎簋

A vessel made to honor the family of a hero early in the Zhou dynasty called Shao Bo Hu

p. 47

Shao Gong

召公

A respectful name to refer to Shao Bo Hu

p. 151

Shaohu

召虎

A shorter name for Shao Bo Hu

p. 148

Shaoshi

召奭

The hero praised in the poem Gan Tang

p. 148

shen

申

The 9th element in the Zhi cycle

p. 20

Sheng Min

生民

Title of the poem m245 of Shijing

p. xx

Sheng Sheng Man

声声慢

A famous poem composed by Li Qingzhao which begins with a string of seven reduplicatives

p. 74

shengjing

圣经

The Bible

p. 54

shengxiao

生肖

A collective name to refer to the 12 animals in Chinese zodiac

p. 22

shi

侍

To attend

Shi Huangdi

始皇帝

First Emperor

shi wei zhi ji zhe si

士为知己 者死

A man would die for one who appreciates him

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 188

p. 9

p. 81 p. xxii

p. 154 p. 3 p. 98

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Glossary

Shiji

史记

Literally “Historical records,” a book written by the great historian Sima Qian in Han dynasty

p. 145

Shijing

诗经

A collection of 305 poems in Ancient China

p. xix

Shilou

石楼

An archeological site in west-central Shanxi

p. 9

Shou’er

首尔

The capital of Korea

shu

属

To belong to

Shu

蜀

One of the Three Kingdoms led by Liu Bei

p. 170

shuhu

属虎

To belong to tiger, to be born in the Year of Tiger

p. 22

shui

帨

A kerchief girls wear at the girdle

Shuo Yuan

说苑

A book written by Liu Xiang of Han dynasty with historic stories, legends and author’s own comments

p. 102

si

司

Literally “in charge of,” used often in official titles

p. 145

sì

四

The number “four”

p. xxiv

sì

巳

The 6th element in the Zhi cycle

sì

寺

Temple

si ma nan zhui

驷马难追

Literally “cannot be retrieved even by a team of four horses,” emphasizing the importance of keeping promises

Si Mu

四牡

Title of the poem m162 of Shijing

si ren

寺人

Eunuch

sigua

絲瓜

Gourd

p. 111

Sima

司马

A family name; the official title of minding horses in Ancient China

p. 145

Sima Qian

司马迁

Name of a famous historian in Han dynasty who wrote Shiji

p. 50

sizici

四字词

Four syllable word

p. 70

Song

宋

The dynasty between 960 and 1279 CE, also a family name

p. 15

Song

颂

Praise, celebration, hymn and glorification, one of the four major groups of poems from Shijing

p. 57

su ye fei xie

夙夜匪解

No rest day and night

Sun Ce

孙策

Founder of the Wu kingdom who married the elder Qiao

p. 171

Sun Quan

孙权

Sun Ce’s little brother who succeeded the Wu kingdom

p. 171

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 189

189

p. 149 p. 22

p. 68

p. 20 p. 154 p. 83

p. 65 p. 154

p. 70

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Sun Wukong

孙悟空

Monkey King born out of a stone, hero of the novel Journey to the West

Sufutun

苏阜屯

An archeological site in the province of Shandong

Taihu

太湖

Name of a lake in Zhejiang province

Taishan

台山

A city near Hong Kong whose speech is stigmatized by speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese

p. 79

Tang

汤

Founder of the Shang dynasty

p. 11

Táng

唐

The dynasty between 618 and 907 CE, also a family name

p. 15

Tangseng

唐僧

The monk from the Novel Xi You Ji who went to India for Buddhist sutras

p. 109

tao xun

陶埙

Clay ocarina

tian

天

Heaven sky

p. xviii

tian gan

天干

Heavenly stems, a series of 10 elements used in calendar counting

p. xviii

tian laoye

天老爷

Lord of heaven

p. 132

tian xiaode

天晓得

Heaven knows

p. 132

tian zuo zhi he

天作之合

A match made in heaven

p. 70

tianming

天命

A mandate from heaven

p. 19

tianzi

天子

Son of heaven, ie. the emperor

tong xing bu hun

同姓不婚

Couples who share the same surname should not marry

p. 109

Tongque Tai

铜雀台

A lavish pavilion built by Cao Cao for ceremonial occasions

p. 170

tou tao bao li

投桃报李

Literally “throw a peach and return a plum,” suggesting that kindnesses should always be returned in kind

p. 166

Tuyi

涂夷

Name of an ancient tribe in the east

wang/Wang

王

King, a family name

p. 17

wang you cao

忘忧草

Literally “forget troubles grass,” i.e., day-lilly

p. 98

wei

未

The 8th element in the Zhi cycle

p. 20

Wei Shu

魏书

A Chinese history annal of the 6th century

p. 138

Wei Wendi

魏文帝

Founder of the Wei, ie. Cao Pi

p. 145

Wei Wugong

卫武公

Duke Wu of Wei, the author of poem m256 in Shijing

p. 158

Weishui

渭水

The largest tributary of the Yellow River

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 190

p. 109 p. 9 p. 9

p. 53

p. 19

p. 7

p. 5

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Glossary

wen bai yi du

文白异读

Different literary and colloquial readings

wen ding zhong yuan

問鼎中原

Literally “to request caldron of the Central Plain,” referring to an unrealistic ambition to take over the country

Wen Jiang

文姜

A historical figure who had an illicit affair with her brother

Wen Wang

文王

Title of the poem m235 of Shijing

Wenshui

汶水

The river that separates the two ancient states Qi and Lu

Wenwuding

文武丁

Zhouwang’s grandfather

p. 45

Wú

吴

One of the 7 major dialect groups of the Chinese language where Shanghainese belongs, also one of the Three Kingdoms, founded by Sun Ce

p. 72

wǔ

午

The 7th element in the Zhi cycle

p. 20

wù

戊

The 5th element in the Gan cycle

p. 20

Wu Hu

五胡

The five Hu, the five tribes found in the north and northwest

Wuding

武丁

The 23rd king of Shang dynasty

Wuhan

武汉

The capital of Hubei province, the city where the Hanshui joins the Yangtze River

p. 7

Wunian Diaosheng Gui

五年琱生 簋

The first of the pair of vessels called Shao Bo Hu Gui

p. 151

Xi You Ji

西游记

Journey to the West (a novel)

p. 109

Xia

夏

The first of the Three Dynasties founded by Yu

Xi’an

西安

The capital of the Shaanxi province

Xiang Bo

巷伯

Title of the poem m200 of Shijing

xiangqi

象棋

Chinese chess

Xianyang

咸阳

The capital of Qin dynasty, now a prefecturelevel city part of Xi’an

Xianyun

猃狁

The name of an ancient tribe to the west, probably the same tribe as Quanrong

xiao

孝

Filialty, or filial piety; devotion to one’s parents

Xiao Ya

小雅

Literally “lesser elegance,” one of the four major groups of poems from Shijing

p. 57

Xiaotun

小屯

An archeological site in Henan where a large collection of jiaguwen was excavated

p. 26

Xie

契

Ancestor of Shang born by Lady Jiandi after she swallowed an egg dropped by a black bird

p. 130

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191

p. 123 p. 19

p. 105 p. 70 p. 102

p. 150 p. 35

p. xix p. xxvi p. 67 p. 123 p. 16 p. 7 p. 100

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xigua

西瓜

Watermelon

xin

辛

The 8th element in the Gan cycle

Xin’gan

新干

An archeological site in Jiangxi

xingsheng zi

形声字

Literally “shape-sound writing,” meaning “phonograms”

p.111  p. 20 p. 9 p. xxix

Xinhua Zidian

新华字典

A dictionary widely used in its pocket form

p. xx

xu

戌

The 11th element in the Zhi cycle

p. 20

xuan cao

谖草/萱 草

Day-lilly

p. 98

Xuan Niao

玄鸟

Title of the poem m303 of Shijing

p. 67

Xun

旬

A unit that counts by tens for days or years

xunzang

殉葬

Sacrificial burials

yang

羊

Sheep

Yangzijiang

扬子江

The lower stream of the Long (Yangtze) River, also used to refer to the whole River

yanzhe zhun zhun, tingzhe miao miao

言者谆 谆,听者 藐藐

While the speaker is earnest the listener is disdainful

p. 166

Yao

猺/瑶

The Yao minority

p. 175

yao tiao shu nü

窈窕淑女

A line from the poem Guan Ju; Chinese title of the musical My Fair Lady

Ye You Si Jun

野有死麇

Title of the poem m23 from Shijing

Yí

彝

One of the 55 ethnic minorities in southwest China, Tibeto-Burman speaking

p. xxiii

Yí

夷

A generic label given by ancient historians to refer to neighboring tribes to the esst

p. xxiii

yǐ

乙

The 2nd element in the Gan cycle

p. 20

Yì

抑

Title of the poem m256 of Shijing

p. 67

yi tiao han zi

一条汉子

A real man, with connotation of masculinity and courage

yi yan jiu ding

一言九鼎

Literally “a word of nine ding,” to refer to the value and absolute certainty of what is being said

p. 19

Yin

殷

The capital where the Shang people finally settled down

p. 14

yǐn

寅

The 3rd element in the Zhi cycle

p. 20

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 192

p. xviii p. 66 p. xxviii p. 7

p. 78 p. 65

p. 149

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Glossary

Yin Shang Wang Hou

殷商王后

The King and Queen of the Shang Dynasty, the title of a performance by the Han Tang Yuefu Music and Dance Ensemble of Taiwan

yin xiong nan guo mei ren guan

英雄难过 美人关

Even heroes have difficulty escaping the designs of beautiful women

Ying Zheng

嬴政

The name of the First Emperor

you

酉

The 10th element in the Zhi cycle

p. 20

Yu

禹

Founder of the Xia dynasty, famous for successful flood control

p. 11

yue

月

Moon, month

p. 29

yue

越

A generic term used for the south and southeast tribe

p. 150

Yue

粤

One of the 7 major dialect groups of the Chinese language where Cantonese belongs, also a short name for the province of Guangdong

p. 150

Yuenan

越南

Vietnam

p. 150

yunhan

云汉

The Milky Way

p. 148

Yunnan

云南

A province in southwestern China

Zai Shui Yi Fang

在水一方

Title of a popular song written by Qiong Yao

p. 65

zhang

獐

Musk deer

p. 92

zhang tou shu mu

獐头鼠目

Literally “musk deer head and rat eyed,” expression used to refer to someone with scorn

p. 92

Zhanguo

战国

The Warring States Period

p. 12

Zhao Qian Sun Li

赵钱孙李

The four family names which begin the Bai Jia Xing

p. 15

zhen

贞

To divine (in Ancient China)

p. 40

Zheng Feng

郑风

One of the 15 sections of the Guo Feng group of poems from Shijing which Confucius disliked

p. 59

Zheng Min

烝民

Title of the poem m260 from Shijing

p. 70

Zhengti Zi

正体字

Traditional sinograms, used in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan

p. xxx

Zhi

支

Also called earthly branches, a series of 12 elements used in calendar counting

p. 21

zhi zi yu gui

之子于归

Referring to a woman in the context of her being about to be married

p. 68

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 193

193

p. 43

p. 129

p. 3

p. 7

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194

Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing

zhong

忠

Loyalty, to people in general, but especially to the king during feudal times

p. 100

Zhong Xia Ye Zhi Meng

仲夏夜之 梦

Midsummer Night’s Dream (by Shakespeare)

p. 87

zhong xiao bu neng liang quan

忠孝不能 两全

Loyalty and filialty cannot be both satisfied

Zhongguo

中国

Literally “Middle Kingdom,” i.e., China

p. 7

zhongyuan

中原

The Central Plain

p. 5

Zhou

周

The dynasty between 1046 to 256 BCE; one of the three sections of the Song group of poems from Shijing

zhǒu

帚

Broom

Zhòu

纣

Name of the tyrant who lost the Shang dynasty

Zhou Nan

周南

The 1st section of the Guo Feng group of poems from Shijing

Zhou Pingwang

周平王

The king to whom Wei Wugong gave admonishment in the poem m256

p. 158

Zhou Taiwang

周太王

Named Danfu, who located the Zhou clan near Qishan

p. 144

Zhou Wenwang

周文王

Father of Zhou Wuwang

p. 144

Zhou Wuwang

周武王

The king who conquered Shang and founded the Zhou dynasty in 1046 BCE

p. 17

Zhou Youwang

周幽王

The king who caused the end of the Western Zhou

p. 163

Zhou Yu

周瑜

General of Sun Quan who married the younger Qiao

p. 171

Zhouwang

纣王

King Zhou who lost the Shang dynasty

Zhouyuan

周原

An archeological site in the Wei river valley

Zhu Bajie

猪八戒

The disciple of the monk in Xi You Ji with the head of a pig

p. 109

Zhu Meng

朱蒙

Ancestor of the Fuyu who founded the Gaogouli

p. 138

Zhuang

獞/壮

The Zhuang minority

p. 175

Zhuge Kongming/ Liang

诸葛 孔明/亮

Strategist of Liu Bei famous for his outstanding wisdom

p. 165

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 194

p. 101

p. xvii

p. 40 p. xxii p. 57

p. 17 p. 9

2013/4/5 10:19:45 AM

Glossary

zhun zhun jiao hui

谆谆教诲

A phrase used often by appreciative students for the teacher’s tireless teaching

p. 166

Zhuyin Fuhao

注音符号

A system for spelling Chinese, still used in Taiwan

p. xxi

zi

子

The 1st element in the Zhi cycle; son

p. 20

zi qiu duo fu

自求多福

To pray for blessings

p. 70

Zi Yi

缁衣

Title of the poem m75 of Shijing

p. 66

zu

族

Clan, nationality

Shijing_12_Glossary_OK.indd 195

195

p. 173

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R e fe re nce s

In Chinese Chen. In press. 陈光宇。《商代甲骨中英读本》。 Chia 2008. 贾福相。《诗经国风：英文白话新译》“Airs of the States” from the Shi Jing. 台北：书林。 Dong 1960. 董同龢、高本汉。《诗经注释（上下）》。台北：中华丛书编审委 员会。 Gao 1980. 高亨。《诗经今注》。上海古籍出版社。 Gu 1995. 顾祖禹1624–1680。《读史方輿紀要》。130卷。上海：上海古籍出 版。 Guo 1979–82. 郭沫若。《甲骨文合集》。13冊。中华书局。 Jiang 1981. 蔣立甫。《诗经选注》。北京：北京出版社。 Li 1982. 李辰冬。《诗经研究方法论》。台北：水牛大学丛书39。 Li 2007. 李玉良。《诗经英译研究》。齐鲁书社。 Li 2011. 李学勤。《李学勤说先秦》。上海科学技术文献出版社。 Li & Jin 2008. 李辉、金力。〈重建东亚人类的族谱〉。台北：科学人 8.35– 39。 Lin 1965. 林沄。〈说“王”〉。考古6.311–2。 Ling 1959. 凌纯声。〈中国古代神主与阴阳性器崇拜〉。《中央研究院民族学 研究所集刊8》。 Ma 1971. 马持盈。《诗经今注今译》。台北：商务印书馆。 Ma 1995. 马瑞辰1777–1853。《毛诗传箋通释》。32卷。上海：上海古籍出 版社。 Qu 1980. 屈万里。《诗经释义》。台北：中国文化大学出版社。 Su 1987–1997. 苏秉琦。《考古学文化论集》。北京：文物出版社。

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Wang 1968. 王国维。《王观堂先生全集》。台北。 Wang 2012. 王力主编。《中国古代文化常识》。商务印书馆。 Wen 2005. 闻一多。《闻一多诗经讲义》。天津：古籍出版社。 Xia 2012. 夏含夷 (Edward Shaughnessy)。《兴与象：中国古代文化史论集》。 上海古籍出版社。 Xu & Jiang 1993. 许渊冲、姜胜章。《诗经》。湖南：湖南出版社。 Yu 1977. 余冠英。《诗经选译》。香港：中流出版社。 Yuan & Tang 1991. 袁愈荌译诗、唐莫尧注释。《诗经全译》。第2版。贵阳： 贵州人民出版社。 Zhou 2010. 周膺。《良渚文化与中国文明的起源》。浙江大学出版社。

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