Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:29:28.032Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE: THE CHU CI 楚辭 (VERSES OF CHU) AS RESPONSE TO THE SHI JING 詩經 (CLASSIC OF ODES)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2019

Michael Hunter
Michael Hunter*
Affiliation:
Michael Hunter, 胡明曉, Yale University; email: mick.hunter@yale.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Contra the consensus view of the Shi jing 詩經 (Classic of Odes) and Chu ci 楚辭 (Verses of Chu) as the products of two distinct literary cultures, one northern and one southern, this article argues on the basis of intertextual analysis that the Chu ci developed in direct response to the Shi jing. The foremost poem in the anthology, the “Li sao” 離騷 (Parting's Sorrow) emerges as a metadiscursive journey through various Shi jing archetypes, the goal of which is to authorize its hero to say farewell to his ruler and homeland—a possibility denied by Shi jing poetics. A final section explores the relationship between the oppositional poetics of the “Li sao” and the rest of the Chu ci. The article concludes with some reflections on the limitations of the north–south model for historians of early Chinese literature.

提要

傳統觀點認為，《詩經》與《楚辭》分別是中國北方和南方兩種迥異文化的產物。與此相反，本文以文本互涉分析為基礎，主張《楚辭》發展於對《詩經》的直接回應。作為《楚辭》中最重要的篇目，〈離騷〉對《詩經》的諸多原型話題進行衍生，其目的是賦予主人公與君王和故國告別的權利。而在《詩經》的詩學體系中，這一選擇是不存在的。本文最後一部分探討了〈離騷〉與《楚辭》其他篇章相反的詩學關係。在結論部分，本文反思了早期中國文學史研究領域傳統中南北模型的局限性。

Keywords

Shi jingOdespoetryChu ciChuintertextuality“Li sao”詩經楚辭離騷楚
Type
Articles
Information
Early China , Volume 42 , 2019 , pp. 111 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Study of Early China and Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

My deepest thanks to Lucas R. Bender for his invaluable feedback, to Martin Kern, Paul Kroll, Stephen Owen, and the graduate students who participated in a Chu ci workshop at Yale University in May 2018, to Shennan Song, and to the two anonymous readers for their comments and insights.

References

1 Kern, Martin, “Early Chinese Literature, Beginnings Through Western Han,” in Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, vol. 1, ed. Owen, Stephen, 1–115 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 76Google Scholar; Owen, Stephen, An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (New York: WW Norton, 1996), 155Google Scholar; Sukhu, Gopal, The Shaman and the Heresiarch (Albany: SUNY Press, 2012), 1–3Google Scholar; Yu, Pauline, The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 84Google Scholar; Ping, Wang and Williams, Nicholas, “Southland as Symbol,” in Southern Identity and Southern Estrangement in Medieval Chinese Poetry (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015), 1–18 (2–7)Google Scholar.

2 Xingpei, Yuan 袁行霈 (trans. White, Paul), An Outline of Chinese Literature I (New York: Routledge, 2018), 37–38Google Scholar.

3 Hawkes, David, The Songs of the South (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985), 15, 26Google Scholar.

4 Exceptions include Dongrun, Zhu 朱東潤, “Lisao di zuozhe” 離騷底作者, in Chu ci yanjiu lunwen ji 楚辭研究論文集, ed. bianjibu, Zuojia chubanshe, 368–71 (Beijing: Zuojia, 1957)Google Scholar, and Waters, Geoffrey, Three Elegies of Ch’u: An Introduction to the Traditional Interpretation of the Ch’u Tz’u (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 12–14Google Scholar.

5 For this debate, see especially Schimmelpfennig, Michael, “The Quest for a Classic: Wang Yi and the Exegetical Prehistory of his Commentary to the ‘Songs of Chu,’” Early China 29 (2004), 111–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Shi ji 史記 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959), 84.2482Google Scholar. For the identification of this passage as Liu An’s commentary, see Ban Gu’s 班固 (32–92) preface preserved in Xingzu, Hong 洪興祖, Chu ci buzhu 楚辭補注 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1983), 49Google Scholar.

7 Shi ji 130.3300.

8 Han shu 漢書 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1962), 3515–21Google Scholar: Yang Xiong “believed that if a noble man gets his chance he proceeds grandly, but if he doesn’t he [hides away like a] dragon or snake. Whether one meets with the proper time is a matter of fate—why did [Qu Yuan] have to drown himself?!?” (以為君子得時則大行，不得時則龍蛇，遇不遇命也，何必湛身哉). This section of Yang Xiong’s biography includes the text of his Fan Lisao 反離騷 (Counter Lisao), which draws a contrast between Qu Yuan and Kongzi 孔子 (Confucius): “Before when Zhongni left Lu, he left reluctantly to travel around [the Central States] but in the end turned back to his old capital. Why should he have [thrown himself in] the depths and roiling rapids of the Xiang [River]?” (昔仲尼之去魯兮，婓婓遲遲而周邁，終回復於舊都兮，何必湘淵與濤瀨).

9 Chu ci buzhu 1.49.

10 Wang Yi includes two examples in a postface to the “Li sao” (Chu ci buzhu 1.49) and a dozen more throughout his commentary, several of which are noted below.

11 Wang Yi in his commentary identifies only seven instances of Chu dialect throughout the whole of the “Li sao,” accounting for less than 0.4 percent of the text.

12 See below.

13 Walker, “Toward a Formal History of the Chu ci,” Ph.D. dissertation (Cornell University 1982), chap. 4. Walker nevertheless emphasized the differences between the Shi jing and Chu ci more than the similarities: “While the Chu ci shares this habit of repeating language with the Shi jing, the two texts do not share their stocks of repeated phrases and sentences. The repeated language of the two traditions form two distinct inventories. This as much as any other feature of the two marks the separateness of their traditions and strongly suggests the futility of joining the two together or attempting to derive the Chu ci tradition from the earlier Shi jing poetry” (116).

14 A recent study with a parallel conclusion is Pines, Yuri, “Chu Identity As Seen from its Manuscripts: A Reevaluation,” Journal of Chinese History 2 (2018), 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pines searches in vain for evidence of local Chu identity in various looted manuscripts from the region. But even for Pines, those parts of the Chu ci that “display a strongly pronounced Chu identity” (p. 24) stand in sharp contrast to the historical writings he considers in his study. On the difficulty of defining Chu, see Cook, Constance A. and Blakeley, Barry B., “Introduction,” in Defining Chu: Image and Reality in Ancient China, ed. Cook, Constance A. and Major, John S. (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999), 5Google Scholar. In her 1990 Ph.D. dissertation, “Auspicious Metals and Southern Spirits: An Analysis of the Chu Bronze Inscriptions” (University of California, Berkeley), Constance Cook showed that the ritual rhetoric preserved in Chu bronze inscriptions was directly related to that preserved on Western and Eastern sacrificial bronze vessels. Cf. Tian, Xiaofei, Beacon Fire and Shooting Star: The Literary Culture of the Liang (502–557) (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 313CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “[T]he construction of the North and South as two large cultural terms fundamentally began in the Northern and Southern Dynasties.”

15 Falkenhausen, Von, “The Waning of the Bronze Age: Material Culture and Social Developments, 770–481 B.C.,” in The Cambridge History of Ancient China, ed. Loewe, Michael and Shaughnessy, Edward L. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 450–544 (525)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also his Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000–250 BC): The Archaeological Evidence (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, 2006), 264–71Google Scholar, and “The Regionalist Paradigm in Chinese Archaelogy,” in Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology, ed. Kohl, Philip L. and Fawcett, Clare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), , 198–217Google Scholar, the latter of which discusses the modern institutional and political context for such views. For a parallel critique from a literary perspective, see Waters, Three Elegies of Ch’u, 12–13.

16 There is some confusion in the literature over what constitutes a “line” of sao poetry. Do we follow Walker (“Toward a Formal History of the Chu ci,” 118) and adopt Wang Li’s distinction between ju 句 (sentence) and hang 行 (line), with the former defined by meter and the latter by rhyme? See Li, Wang 王力, Hanyu shilüxue 漢語詩律學 (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu, 1962), 11, 17Google Scholar. If so, then a “Li sao” line consists of two hemistichs divided by xi 兮. Or do we follow the arrangement of Wang Yi’s commentary, which breaks the poem up into five- or six-character chunks? As I rely on the Chu ci buzhu edition in this paper, I have adopted the latter approach.

17 Shi ji 84.2481–91. This biography is notoriously problematic. See Hawkes, Songs of the South, 51–60; Walker, “Toward a Formal History of the Chu ci,” 75–108; and Kern, Martin, “The ‘Biography of Sima Xiangru’ and the Question of the Fu in Sima Qian’s Shiji,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 123.2 (2003), 303–16 (306–7)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Possible exceptions include the words jiao 椒 and lan 蘭, identified by Wang Yi as “Zilan, the Overseer of Horses and younger brother of King Huai” (懷王少弟司馬子蘭) and “Zijiao, the Chu grandee” (楚大夫子椒), two antagonists in the Qu Yuan legend; see Chu ci buzhu, 40–41.

19 Walker, “Toward a Formal History of the Chu ci,” 80: “This debate [over Qu Yuan’s historicity and authorship] is a hot-air balloon ride over whose direction we [outsiders] have no control, and since it quickly leaves the poetry behind, we must let it depart without us.”

20 Scholars who have dated the “Jiu ge” prior to the “Li sao” include Hu Shi 胡適, Lu Kanru 陸侃如, and You Guoen 游國恩. For the relevant citations and the most convincing version of the argument, see Walker, “Toward a Formal History of the Chu ci,” 134n7, and chaps. 3–4.

21 Sukhu, The Shaman and the Heresiarch, 78. This line of interpretation has a long history. See, e.g., Hawkes, “The Quest of the Goddess,” and Songs of the South, 42–51; Waley, Arthur, The Nine Songs: A Study of Shamanism in Ancient China (London: Allen & Unwin, 1955)Google Scholar; and the “Leipzig school” scholars August Conrady, Eduard Erkes, and Bruno Schindler discussed in Schimmelpfennig, “Qu Yuan’s Transformation from Realized Man to True Poet: The Han-Dynasty Commentary of Wang Yi to the ‘Lisao’ and the Songs of Chu,” Ph.D. dissertation (University of Heidelberg, 1999), 68–100.

22 Waters, Three Elegies of Ch’u, 19.

23 Chu ci buzhu 1.47. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

24 The controversy over the interpretation of the coda is long and convoluted; see Chu ci jijiao jishi 楚辭集校集釋 (Chu cixue wenku 楚辭學文庫, vol. 1), ed. Cui Fuzhang 崔富章 and Li Daming 李大明 (Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu, 2003), 699–708. Wang Yi identifies “Peng Xian” as a single figure, a Shang grandee who drowned himself after failing to earn his ruler’s trust (Chu ci buzhu 1.13). However, this idea is not attested prior to Wang Yi’s commentary. In the Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 (Annals of Lü Buwei), Shaman Peng 巫彭 and Shaman Xian 巫咸 appear as two different figures; see Qiyou, Chen 陳奇猷, Lüshi chunqiu xin jiaoshi 呂氏春秋新校釋 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2002), 17.4/p. 1088Google Scholar. For this argument, see also Sukhu, The Shaman and the Heresiarch, 103–4.

25 Chu ci buzhu 1.16. Contrast Shi jing 204/7.1–2: “Would that I were an eagle or a falcon / That I might soar to Heaven” (匪鶉匪鳶，翰飛戾天). For this and all subsequent Shi jing citations, see Mao Shi zhuzi suoyin 毛詩逐字索引, ICS Ancient Text Concordance Series, vol. 10 (Hong Kong: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2006)Google Scholar. “204/7.1–2” refers to ode #204, stanza 7, lines 1–2.

26 Chu ci buzhu 5.172. See also “Dong jun” 東君 (2.74), “Zun jia” 尊嘉 (15.275) “Li shi” 離世 (16.288), “Xi xian” 惜賢 (16.296), and “You ku” 憂苦 (16.301).

27 See Shi jing 3, 19, 31, 36, 40, 66, 68, 73, 110, 121, 156–57, 162–63, 167–69, 177–79, 181–82, 203, 205, 207, 227, 230, 232, 234, 260, 262, 263, and 299.

28 For these connections, also see the commentaries of Yu Yue 俞樾 and Shen Zumian 沈祖緜 at Chu ci jijiao jishi 698, including Yu Yue’s conclusion that “the verses of the sao poets were based on the Shi” (騷人之辭卽本之詩也).

29 These and all other Shi translations in this paper are adapted from Waley, Arthur, The Book of Songs, edited with additional translations by Joseph R. Allen (New York: Grove Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

30 The chi bi X 陟彼X (climb that X) formula appears in 13 stanzas across eight odes (3/1–3, 14/2–3, 54/4, 110/1–3, 169/3, 205/1, 218/4, 305/6).

31 Chu ci buzhu 2.59. For similar examples, see 14.262 and 17.315.

32 Chu ci buzhu 4.147, 14.261.

33 Chu ci buzhu 16.296, 302.

34 Chu ci buzhu 16.289, 292, 301, 306.

35 Hawkes, “The Quest of the Goddess,” reprinted in Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, ed. Birch, Cyril (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 42–68Google Scholar.

36 “The Quest of the Goddess,” 54. Hawkes revisited this problem in Songs of the South, 50, where he outlined four possible explanations.

37 Chu ci buzhu 1.20, 26.

38 Cf. Hawkes, “The Quest of the Goddess,” 62–63.

39 For a translation and study, see Knechtges, David R. and Swanson, Jerry, “Seven Stimuli for the Prince: The Ch’i-fa of Mei Cheng,” Monumenta Serica 29 (1970–71), 99–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Chen Hongtian 陳宏天 et al., Zhaoming Wenxuan yizhu 昭明文選譯注, vol. 4 (Changchun: Jilin wenshi, 1992), 90–117.

40 Shi jing 38/4.4–5 and 42/3.4. In the Shi as well, the term can apply to either gender.

41 Chu ci buzhu 1.7.

42 Shen Zumian (Chu ci jijiao jishi 698) notes the connection between the pufu here and at the end of the poem.

43 For the xianlu 先路/先輅, see Liji jijie 禮記集解, ed. Sun Xidan 孫希旦 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1989), 25.670.

44 Chu ci buzhu 1.8–9. Following in the “footsteps” (wu 武) of former kings is the theme of “Xia wu” 下武 (Footsteps Here Below, 243).

45 This poem appears in the “Yong feng” 鄘風 (Airs of Yong), an area eventually absorbed by the Wei 衛 state. The Mao commentary identifies this Chu as Chuqiu 楚丘 in modern-day Henan; see Mao Shi zhengyi 毛詩正義 (Beijing: Beijing daxue, 2000), 232Google Scholar. I see no reason not to trust the Mao commentary on this point. For my purposes, the name “Chu” need only have triggered an association with the Chu state. The other ode to mention Chu is “Yin wu” 殷武 (Warriors of Yin, 305/1.2 and 2.1), which celebrates a campaign against “Jing Chu” 荊楚. For this section of the “Li sao,” see Chu ci buzhu 1.3–7.

46 For these and all other Old Chinese reconstructions in this paper, see Schuessler, Axel, Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese: A Companion to “Grammata Serica Recensa” (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

47 Shi jing 197/7.1, 198/2.4, 219/1.4.

48 Chu ci buzhu 1.12–16.

49 Chu ci buzhu 1.18; for a parallel line, see 1.30.

50 For li bie, see Chu ci buzhu 1.10.

51 Chu ci buzhu 1.20.

52 See, e.g., “Hong fan” 洪範, “Da dao” 大誥, “Kang gao” 康誥 (Shang shu zhengyi 尚書正義 [Beijing: Beijing daxue, 1999], 308, 346, 359), and Mengzi 1B/5 (Xun, Jiao 焦循, Mengzi zhengyi 孟子正義 [Beijing: Zhonghua, 1987], 136Google Scholar), which quotes “Zheng yue.”

53 For xu 須 as “waiting,” see, e.g., Shi jing 34/4.4 and Chu ci buzhu 2.72.

54 Chu ci buzhu 1.20–23.

55 Chu ci buzhu 1.25, 46.

56 For long (“Li sao” ll. 337, 351, 359), see 128/2.5, 283/1.3, 300/3.7, 303/1.13; for luan (ll. 199, 344), see 127/3.3, 178/2.9, 260/7.6 & 8.2, 261/4.7, 291/1.6, 302/1.14.

57 Shi jing 47, 128, 167/5.6, 238/5.1–2.

58 Qi 旗 (ll. 347, 360) does not appear in the Shi jing, but qi 旂 (l. 349) is quite common: 168/3.4, 178/2.6, 182/3.5, 222/2.4–5, 262/2.7, 283/1.3, 299/1.4–5, 300/3.7, 303/1.13.

59 Shi jing 54/1.1, 115/1.6, 163/2–5.3, 254/8.4.

60 Shi jing 93/1.2–3, 104/1.4, 261/4.10.

61 Chu ci buzhu 1.30.

62 Chu ci buzhu 30–31.

63 For yi 貽, see Shi jing 42/2.2 and 3.4, 74/3.4, 137/3.4, and 275/1.5.

64 Shi jing 134/2.3–4 (for the giving of garnet pendants as gifts), 83/1.4 and 98/1–3.3 (for garnet pendants), and 82/3 (for the giving of pendants as gifts). On this connection between the “Li sao” and the Shi jing, see Zhu Ji’s 朱冀 commentary at Chu ci jijiao jishi 473.

65 Chu ci buzhu 1.31–34.

66 Chu ci buzhu 1.33.

67 For a close parallel, see “Fa ke” 伐柯 (Axe-Handle, 158/1).

68 See, e.g., Mengzi zhengyi 3B/3/p. 426, Guanzi jiaozhu 管子校注 2.45 (“A woman who acts as her own matchmaker is ugly and faithless” 自媒之女，醜而不信) and 64.1188, and “Fang ji” 坊記 (Liji jijie 50.1294).

69 Chu ci buzhu 4.139.

70 Chu ci buzhu 1.37–38.

71 Chu ci jijiao jishi 703–8.

72 Kern, Martin, “Excavated Manuscripts and their Socratic Pleasures: Newly Discovered Challenges in Reading the ‘Airs of the States,’” Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 61.3 (2007), 775–93Google Scholar.

73 For a discussion of the Chu ci’s early history, including the hypothesis that Liu Xiang 劉向 based his version on an earlier version compiled by Liu An, see Hawkes, Songs of the South, 28–41, and Kern, “Early Chinese Literature, Beginnings Through Western Han,” 76–77.

74 See, e.g., the commentary to “Li sao” l. 37 (Chu ci buzhu 9), which substitutes yu 聿 for yue 曰 in the Mao Shi version of “Mian” 綿 (Spreading, 237/9.4): 予曰有奔走，予曰有先後.

75 251/4–5.

76 Other examples include Shi jing 4, 191, 290.

77 Saussy, Haun, “Repetition, Rhyme, and Exchange in the Book of Odes,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 57.2 (1997), 519–42 (532)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 Owen, Stephen, “Reproduction in the Shi jing (Classic of Poetry),” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 61.2 (2001), 287–315 (288)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Nylan, Michael, The Five “Confucian” Classics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 117Google Scholar.

79 Adapted from Durrant, Stephen, Li, Wai-yee, and Schaberg, David, trans., Zuo Tradition (Zuo Zhuan): Commentary on the “Spring and Autumn Annals” (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016), vol. 3, 1425Google Scholar.

80 The lone exception may be “Shuo shu” 碩鼠 (Big Rat, 113/3): “Big rat, big rat / Do not eat our rice-shoots / Three years we have slaved for you / Yet you did nothing to reward us / At last we are going to leave you / And go to those happy borders / Happy borders, happy borders / Where no sad songs are sung” (碩鼠碩鼠，無食我苗。三歲貫女，莫我肯勞。逝將去女，適彼樂郊。樂郊樂郊，誰之永號).

81 A possible exception is “Wan liu” 菀柳 (Leafy Willow-Tree, 224/3), which seems to question the wisdom of advising a superior who might punish you: “There is a bird flying high / Yes, soars to Heaven / But that man’s heart / Never could it reach / Why should I rebuke him / Only to be cruelly slain?” (有鳥高飛，亦傅于天。彼人之心，于何其臻。曷予靖之，居以凶矜).

82 Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics, 84. See also Owen, “Reproduction in the Shi jing (Classic of Poetry),” 296.

83 For “Panhuaxia,” see Beecroft, Alexander, Authorship and Cultural Identity in Early Greece and China: Patterns of Literary Circulation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 8–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 Kern, “Early Chinese Literature, Beginnings Through Western Han,” 19.

85 For this use of ci 辭 in the Chu ci, see “Jiu ge”: “he comes in without speaking and leaves without saying goodbye” (入不言兮出不辭).

86 Chu ci buzhu 3.85.

87 Chu ci buzhu 7.180.

88 Chu ci buzhu 6.178.

89 Chu ci buzhu 8.196.

90 Wang Yi was the earliest commentator to acknowledge the heterogeneity of the “Jiu ge.” See Chu ci buzhu 1.55.

91 Walker, “Toward a Formal History of the Chu ci,” 138–39, 224–27.

92 Falkenhausen, Von, “Reflections on the Political Role of Spirit Mediums in Early China: The Wu officials in the Zhou li,” Early China 20 (1995), 279–300 (298)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

93 Von Falkenhausen, “Reflections,” 298–99.

94 Kern, Martin, “‘Shi jing’ Songs as Performance Texts: A Case Study of ‘Chu ci’ (Thorny Caltrop),” Early China 25 (2000), 49–111 (103–6)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95 Chu ci buzhu 2.58, 72.

96 Chu ci buzhu 2.59, 68.

97 Chu ci buzhu 2.83.

98 Chu ci buzhu 2.66. For zhu shi 築室, see also Shi jing 189/2.2, 195/4.6, and 237/3.6.

99 Chu ci buzhu 2.83.

100 Chu ci buzhu 2.57.

101 Von Falkenhausen, “Reflections,” 293, and Boileau, Gilles, “Wu and Shaman,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 65.2 (2002), 350–78 (361)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 Boileau, “Wu and Shaman,” 362.

103 Boileau, “Wu and Shaman,” 376. Cf. Chang, K.C., Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 48Google Scholar.

104 See especially Waters, Three Elegies of Ch’u, for his effort to read the “Jiu ge” against the Shi.

105 Walker, “Toward a Formal History of the Chu ci,” 415.

106 Shi jing 248.5.

107 Chu ci buzhu 2.74; see also 2.77, 2.80–81, 5.171, 16.288.

108 There is a hint of this dynamic in the Shi itself, in odes that lament the cruelty of Heaven in sending down droughts and other disasters; see, e.g., “Yun Han” 雲漢 (River of Stars, 258).

109 Year 24 of Duke Xi’s 僖公 reign, in Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu 春秋左傳注, ed. Yang Bojun 楊伯峻 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1981), vol. 1, 417–19.

110 Lüshi chunqiu xin jiaoshi 12.3/pp. 634–35. Shi ji 39.1662 includes another, rather different, version of the poem. In the Shuiyuan 說苑 version, the lone snake cuts meat out of his thigh to feed the starving dragon. See Shuiyuan jiaozheng 說苑校證, ed. Xiang Zonglu 向宗魯 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1987), 6.118–22.

111 See also 33/1–2.1, 181/1–3.1, 252/7–8.1, and 278/1.1.

112 Chu ci buzhu 1.12.

113 Chu ci buzhu 4.158, 5.163, 7.179 (where it is said of Qu Yuan himself), 15.276, 16.290, 16.295 (where it is combined with cui 悴, discussed above in relation to the pufu), 17.319.

114 A weaker connection is the phrase zhong ye 中野 (in the wilds), which appears at Chu ci buzhu 16.283 and 17.316.

115 Donald Holzman, “The Cold Food Festival in Early Medieval China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46.1 (1986), 51–79.

116 For fu, see Shi jing 192/9.4 (and above), 192/10.1, and 300/2.17; see also “Li sao” ll. 166, 296 (Chu ci buzhu 1.23, 1.38).

117 Several Chu ci pieces also refer to themselves as shi; see Chu ci buzhu 2.75, 4.157, 14.259, 15.279, and 16.295.

118 Although Shi ji 28.1378–1379 speaks of a wu 巫 tradition in Jin, that connection also seems irrelevant to the interpretation of the poem.

119 For references to Jie Zhitui in the Chu ci, see Chu ci buzhu 4.151, 4.161, and 16.297.

120 See the “‘Statutes on Abscondence’ (Wang lü 亡律)” in Barbieri-Low, Anthony J. and Yates, Robin D.S., Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China: A Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Legal Texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb no. 247 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), vol. 2, 574–93Google Scholar. For wang in the “Li sao,” see Chu ci buzhu 1.15 (where it follows liu 流, a legal term for refugees; see Barbieri-Low and Yates, 1411–12) and 1.19. For other instances in the Chu ci, see, e.g., 3.110, 3.115, 4.132, 4.138, 4.150–51, and 4.158.