Liu Bang was more comfortable seeking advantage on the open
battlefield, where one’s enemies can be clearly seen, rather than in
the shadowy court, where cunning counts for more than military
prowess.
This difference in setting between battlefield and court is what
complicates the idea of “spontaneity” that is at the core of the
outburst song. In a sense, the battlefield is the perfect ground for
spontaneity: there is a time and place for premeditated strategy, but
in the heat of hand-to-hand combat between individuals one must
act immediately and produce immediate results. The battlefield set-
ting for Xiang Yu’s “Song of Gaixia” contributes in large part to its
sense of immediacy. The idea of sitting down to compose a poem
—————
way into the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms 三國志 (Suzuki, Kan Gi shi no kenkyū, p. 12).
This content downloaded from 130.111.46.54 on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:34:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Baring the Soul
85
for performance does not agree with the picture of Xiang Yu as an
impulsive man of action and is at odds with the urgency of the bat-
tlefield. The sense of drama produced in the scene comes from its
narration, not the premeditated actions of Xiang Yu himself, who is
simply doing what occurs to him at the moment.
However, when Liu Bang sings “The Great Wind” in the Pei
Palace, or sings “The Wild Swan” to accompany Lady Qi’s dance, he
is the stage director. He had the time to assemble a choir, to play the
music, and to train the singers or request a dance before he “took
the stage” to perform his song. Premeditated military strategy for
the battlefield is converted into premeditated self-presentation be-
fore an audience in court. Simply put, Xiang Yu is too busy on the
battlefield to worry about how his song might be received by an
audience (during the singing of his song he may well have been
formulating his escape); Liu Bang, on the other hand, must worry
about how he strategizes his performance; he is thinking about his audience. The question of spontaneity becomes vexed under these
circumstances.
Many Chinese critics refer to Liu Bang’s songs as “spontaneous”
即興 compositions, but it is hard to see how this is tenable given
their narrative frames. The actual words for the song (the “poem”)
may have been spontaneously produced. Perhaps Liu Bang had no
idea what he was going to say until he said it, although this possi-
bility seems remote given his foreknowledge of the subject of his
songs in both cases. What is not spontaneous is the song perfor-
mance itself—he trains a choir for “The Great Wind” and provides
stage directions for his performance of “The Wild Swan.” The lack
of spontaneity in performance leaves its traces in the content of the
songs; both of them employ figurative language, which suggests
some measure of reflection went into choosing apposite figures (the
wind for Liu Bang’s military might and the swan for the ascending
heir apparent). The occasion for Xiang Yu’s performance, by con-
trast, takes him completely by surprise (the narrator says that he
was “astonished”), and his impromptu performance seems to result
directly from his “passionate feeling.” The content of his song cen-
ters on the concrete images of his favorite horse and concubine, the
immediate objects of his cares.
This content downloaded from 130.111.46.54 on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:34:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
86
Baring the Soul
Strategy is also a matter of when, where, how, and by whom a
song is performed, in addition to what is actually said through it.
Formulation of strategy in performance requires time: Xiang Yu
had little on the battlefield, while Liu Bang had much at court. If the
effort that goes into staging the variables of song performance is a
form of strategy, then the natural question is “what is to be gained
by that strategy?” In “The Great Wind,” Liu Bang specifically asks,
“Where will I find brave warriors to keep this vast land?” He won
the empire against great odds with the help of advisors who died
soon afterward, and worries that his “kind but weak” son will be
unable to maintain it without sound military advice. Liu Bang does
not seriously ask his question of the old men and children gathered
in Pei to hear his performance (he bestows upon them the honor of
maintaining his “bath town” and exempts them from taxes). The
question is a rhetorical one, posed to give an indication of the wor-
ries that come to his mind now that he has achieved his goals and
returned to the place from which he started. The strategy here is not
so much to achieve a concrete goal but simply to give public ex-
pression to his private concerns, to vent his feelings.
Who exactly is employing this venting strategy? Perhaps a com-
bination of lore and precedent led Liu Bang to believe that the
performance of an outburst song was simply what one was expected
to do in these circumstances and thus he staged it for maximum ef-
fect. Or, it could be the historian who felt that such a performance
appropriately provided a glimpse of Liu Bang’s state of mind at this
crucial point in the narrative. Both narrator and narratee are con-
ditioned by canonical principles and precedent—it is impossible at
this remove in time and place to extricate one from the other. This
story—stretched as it is between the poles of fact and fiction, be-
tween principle and practice—in turn persists as a model for later
protagonists who find themselves in similar situations.
If Liu Bang is venting publicly at Pei, then what is Liu Bang doing
at court in “The Wild Swan”? He tells Lady Qi in plain language
that the heir apparent’s position is unassailable and that she had best
resign herself to Empress Lü’s superior position. So why the song
and dance? When Liu Bang says to his weeping concubine, “Perform
a Chu dance for me and I will perform a Chu song for you,” he is
This content downloaded from 130.111.46.54 on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:34:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Baring the Soul
87
proposing a form of shared venting. His song and her dance work
together to articulate the frustration that they both feel. In per-
forming it several times through, they have a chance to savor their
pain, which reduces the concubine to pathetic sobs. When the
performance is done, the emperor rises and departs, drawing the
curtain on their defeat and providing them with some sense of
closure. The inclusion of the song at this point in the narrative al-
lows the narrator to show that Liu Bang is sympathetic to Lady Qi
even if he is powerless to help her. If there is any strategy employed
by Liu Bang here beyond venting, it may reside in the knowledge
that Empress Lü will hear of this performance, although it is hard to
> see how she could be anything but encouraged by its tone of resig-
nation.
And encouraged she was. When Liu Bang died later that year
(195 b.c.e.), Empress Lü saw her own son take the throne as Em-
peror Hui 惠帝 and moved swiftly to consolidate her power as the
empress dowager. One of her first acts was to have Lady Qi im-
prisoned. Lady Qi made the mistake of complaining through song,
leading to dire consequences for her son and herself.
When Gaozu died, Emperor Hui took the throne and Empress Lü became
the empress dowager. Thereupon, she ordered the palace discipline service to imprison Lady Qi, shave her head, chain her neck, dress her in the
scarlet robes of a convict, and have her pound rice husks. Lady Qi pounded while she sang:
The son is a prince,
the mother a prisoner.
All day I pound until dusk,
I serve as a constant companion of death. 22
Separated by three thousand li,
whom shall I send to tell you?
—————
22. Yan Shigu interprets this line to mean that she is the companion of criminals sentenced to death (see his commentary interpolated in Ban, Han shu). Yang Shuda disagrees, saying it means she could die at any time and that this usage of the character si 死 is closer to the abstract idea of a “spirit of death” ( Han shu kuiguan, juan 2, p. 767). Yang’s reading seems preferable because there are no parallel usages of si by itself referring to criminals that have been sentenced to death.
This content downloaded from 130.111.46.54 on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:34:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
88
Baring the Soul
The empress dowager heard of this and was greatly enraged, saying, “So,
you still look to your son, do you?” She then summoned the son, the
Prince of Zhao, in order to execute him. The envoys made three trips, but the administrator of Zhao, Zhou Chang, refused to dispatch him. The
empress dowager then summoned the administrator of Zhao himself, who
arrived in Chang’an in compliance with the summons. Then she sent
people to summon the prince once again and he came.
Emperor Hui was a kind and gentle person who knew that the empress
dowager was furious, so he went personally to greet the Prince of Zhao at Bashang23 and brought him into his own palace where he accompanied him in waking and sleeping, drinking and eating. A few months later, Emperor Hui went out one morning to hunt, but the Prince of Zhao was unable to
get up that early. The empress dowager was secretly informed that he was at home alone and sent someone with poisoned wine for him to drink.
When Emperor Hui returned, the Prince of Zhao was dead.
The empress dowager proceeded to cut off Lady Qi’s hands and feet,
gouge out her eyes, cauterize her ears, render her mute with poison, and have her placed in a cellar, calling her the “human swine.” After she had been there for a few months, the empress dowager summoned Emperor
Hui to see the “human swine.” He looked at her and had to ask before he
realized that it was Lady Qi, whereupon he cried out bitterly, fell ill as a result, and was unable to rise from his bed for more than a year. He sent someone to beg leave from the empress dowager, saying, “This was not the act of a human being. As I am the son of the empress dowager, I shall never be fit to rule the empire again!” And so he took to drinking everyday and indulged in wanton pleasures, refusing to listen to administrative affairs.
Seven years later, he died [in 188 b.c.e.]. 24
高祖崩。惠帝立。呂后為皇太后。乃令永巷囚戚夫人。髡鉗衣赭衣。令
舂。戚夫人舂且歌曰。
子為王
母為虜
終日舂薄暮
常與死為伍
相離三千里
當誰使告女
—————
23. An eastern suburb of Chang’an.
24. Ban, Han shu, juan 97a, p. 3937–38.
This content downloaded from 130.111.46.54 on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:34:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Baring the Soul
89
太后聞之大怒。曰。乃欲倚女子邪。乃召趙王誅之。使者三反。趙相周
昌不遣。太后召趙相。相徵至長安。使人復召趙王。王來。惠帝慈仁。
知太后怒。自迎趙王霸上。入宮。挾與起居飲食。數月。帝晨出射。趙
王不能蚤起。太后伺其獨居。使人持鴆飲之。遲帝還。趙王死。太后遂
斷戚夫人手足。去眼熏耳。飲瘖藥。使居鞠域中。名曰。人彘。居數月。
乃召惠帝視人彘。帝視而問知其戚夫人。乃大哭。因病。歲餘不能起。
使人請太后曰。此非人所為。臣為太后子。終不能復治天下。以此日飲
為淫樂。不聽政。七年而崩。
This song certainly qualifies as an outburst song; Lady Qi vents her
frustration at meeting with such precipitous injustice, but her
closing line—“Whom shall I send to tell you?”—suggests that there is
a measure of strategy at play in her performance. 25 The implication is that Lady Qi harbors some hope that her song will be a vehicle for
making her mistreatment known to her son, Prince Ruyi of Zhao,
who had been Liu Bang’s own choice for succession to the throne.
Unfortunately for Lady Qi, the song makes its way to the ears of
Empress Lü instead, who seizes on the final line of the song, saying,
“So, you look to your son, do you?” and does away with the song’s
intended audience by killing him. Her violent reaction to this song
is easily the most severe “reader response” one is likely to encounter,
and constitutes a deep perversion of the canonical model of poetic
production and reception. The proper response to hearing a song is
sympathy—usually expressed through tears or a matching song, as
can be seen in other passages—not intense antipathy. This whole
narrative has a gruesome circularity to it. It is Empress Lü who is
the author of Lady Qi’s woes, prompting her to burst forth in song.
She then becomes the audience for Lady Qi’s performance and in-
scribes her own outraged response upon Lady Qi’s very body.
Empress Lü literally strips away the external attributes—limbs,
sensory organs, voice—that make Lady Qi a human being in an at-
tempt to erase the interior revealed in her song. It is not enough
simply to kill her, for that would allow memory of her as a human
—————
25. The text of Lady Qi’s song does not appear in the Historical Records; it seems to have been interpolated in the Han History’s account of the incident, suggesting that the song might have been composed by a third party in the interim between the compilation of the two histories.
This content downloaded from 130.111.46.54 on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:34:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
90
Baring the Soul
being to remain pristine; it is far more effective to convert her into a
“human swine,” a base animal incapable of poetic expression.
Ironically, it is the empress herself who is deemed inhuman by her
own son, who says to her, “This was not the act of a human being.”
It is the act of a savage animal, not a civilized person, to respond to a poetic text with such brute physicality.
Over the subsequent course of the Han History, Empress Lü
emerges as
a sort of monstrous muse, single-handedly creating the
frustrating circumstances that lead her victims to vent their outrage
through outburst songs. When Prince You 友王 is sent to rule over
Zhao after Ruyi’s untimely demise, he too meets with the wrath of
Empress Lü.
“Captive” Prince You of Zhao was established as the prince of Huaiyang in 196 b.c.e. “Reclusive” Prince Ruyi of Zhao died, so during the first year of Emperor Hui’s reign (194 b.c.e.), You was transferred to rule over Zhao, where he held the throne for a total of fourteen years.
You took a woman from the Lü clan to be his princess, but he did not
love her, loving another concubine instead. The Lü woman left in a rage
and slandered him to the empress dowager, claiming, “The prince said,
‘Why should the Lü clan get [Liu] princes? After the empress dowager dies, we will certainly strike them down.’” The empress dowager was furious
and summoned the Prince of Zhao on a pretext. When he arrived, she had
him placed under house arrest without even granting him an audience,
posted guards around him, and did not permit him any food. When some
of his officers managed to smuggle him some food, they were immediately
arrested and sentenced. The Prince of Zhao was starving, so he sang the
following song:
The Lüs are in power,
the Lius are feeble;
They oppress the princes and marquises,
and force a wife upon me.
My wife was jealous and so
she maligned me with malice;
Slanderous women disrupt the kingdom,
but the emperor never wakes up to it.
I may be without my loyal ministers,
but what reason is that to abandon my kingdom?
This content downloaded from 130.111.46.54 on Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:34:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Baring the Soul
91
If I had finished myself off in the wilds, 26
gray heaven would have admitted my rectitude.
Alas! I cannot regret it now,
I should have killed myself early on.
For a prince who starves to death,
who shall feel pity?
The Lüs transgress all principles,
I trust in heaven to avenge me!
Then, he died alone in captivity. He was accorded the funeral rites of a commoner and buried as such in Chang’an. 27
Words Well Put Page 14