趙幽王友。十一年立為淮陽王。趙隱王如意死。孝惠元年。徙友王趙。
凡立十四年。友以諸呂女為后。不愛。愛它姬。諸呂女怒去。讒之於太
后曰。王曰。呂氏安得王。太后百歲後。吾必擊之。太后怒。以故召趙
王。趙王至。置邸不見。令衛圍守之。不得食。其群臣或竊饋之。輒捕
論之。趙王餓。乃歌曰。
諸呂用事兮劉氏微
迫脅王侯兮彊授我妃
我妃既妒兮誣我以惡
讒女亂國兮上曾不寤
我無忠臣兮何故棄國
自快中野兮蒼天與直
于嗟不可悔兮寧早自賊
為王餓死兮誰者憐之
呂氏絕理兮託天報仇
遂幽死。以民禮葬之長安。
Prince You’s “Captivity Song” seems to be a true outburst song,
performed on the verge of death and in isolation, without any ex-
pectation of an audience, save for that of “gray heaven.” And yet the
words of the song somehow managed to be preserved in the Han
History. This passage more than any other strains the claim of veracity implied in official histories. Prince You was kept under close
guard and forbidden any visitors; so there should not have been
anyone present to hear this song. Certainly no one in the Lü faction
would want to see this song preserved or transmitted, so how did it
—————
26. I have followed Yang Shuda ( juan 2, p. 303), who suspects kuai 快 to be a scribal error for jue 絕, which is the variant found in Shi ji.
27. Ban, Han shu, juan 38, p. 1989.
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Baring the Soul
end up here? The song itself provides an answer. While it may be
read as an expression of the prince’s immediate feelings, it can also be read as a bald piece of propaganda directed against the Lü clan.
History—written and transmitted by men loyal to the Liu clan—was
not kind to Empress Lü, who is invariably portrayed as a grasping,
unprincipled woman rising above her station by ruthlessly usurping
power from young, weak emperors. The historian cannot deny the
basic facts: Empress Lü did manage to wrest power away from weak
Liu princes and rule in their stead. The “good guys” lost in the world
of cold, hard externals. The only recourse the historian has to recu-
perate the reputation of the losers is to make them victors in the
more pliable (and enduring) world of the represented interior. The
text of a song may be preserved and transmitted in the crucible of
historical narrative, persisting for centuries after the disintegration
of Empress Lü’s bones. She may have briefly enjoyed her absolute
power, but song gives her victims the last word. Thus, the per-
formance of an outburst song acts as a release valve for two parties:
the frustrated historical figure who needs to get something off of his
or her chest at the time, and the frustrated historian who may not
rewrite the main plot of his narrative, but who may use songs to
show the “goodness” of his characters even if they were powerless to
act on their intentions. The historian takes the place of the “gray
heaven” upon whom Prince You called, endowing the memories of
those who have been wronged with a measure of justice and revenge.
Empress Lü, as the Han History tells it, was unrelenting in her
persecution of the Liu princes. Prince You’s successor in Zhao,
Prince Hui 恢, was the next in line to suffer at her hands, in 181
b.c.e.:
When the “Captive” Prince of Zhao died, Empress Lü transferred Prince
Hui to rule over the kingdom of Zhao and he grew despondent in his heart.
The empress dowager sent a daughter of Lü Chan to be his wife. 28 All of her attendant officials were also members of the Lü clan; they appropriated power within the palace and spied on the prince until he no longer had a life of his own. The prince had a concubine whom he doted upon, but his
—————
28. Lü Chan 呂產, a relative of Empress Lü, was enfeoffed as the Prince of Liang and served as prime minister.
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Baring the Soul
93
wife sent someone to assassinate her with poison. The prince then com-
posed four stanzas of song verse and bid the musicians sing them. He was grieved with longing and took his own life in the sixth month [of 181 b.c.e.].
When the Empress Dowager heard of this, she disposed of his heirs, be-
cause the prince had killed himself on account of this woman without re-
gard for the proper rites of the royal ancestral shrine. 29
趙幽王死。呂后徙恢王趙。恢心不樂。太后以呂產女為趙王后。王后從
官皆諸呂也。內擅權。微司趙王。王不得自恣。王有愛姬。王后鴆殺之。
王乃為歌詩四章。令樂人歌之。王悲思。六月自殺。太后聞之。以為用
婦人故自殺。無思奉宗廟禮。廢其嗣。
This passage is notable for its depiction of song composition prior to
performance. In every other case of an outburst song, the compo-
sition or production of the song is portrayed as simultaneous with
its initial performance, even if that performance has a contrived
quality to it. Here, the narrator explicitly states, “The prince then
composed four stanzas of song verse and bid the musicians sing
them.” An interval between composition and performance has been
introduced, and one might suspect that the song verses were first
written down by the prince, then forwarded to the court musicians to be set to music and performed. 30 The lack of an initial composition/performance outburst may help to explain why the narrator
does not choose to quote the text of the song at the time of its
composition. Prince Hui seems to be imitating the example of Liu
Bang and “The Great Wind” in casting himself as the audience for
his own song. The sequence of events in the narrative suggests that
listening to the song contributed to the prince’s grief and eventual
suicide, through a sort of “feedback loop” in which both the sym-
pathetic audience and the creative source of the expressed sorrow
were one and the same person.
The disjunction introduced here between composition and per-
formance is significant. Liu Bang may have opened the door with
—————
29. Ban, Han shu, j. 38, p. 1990.
30. A similar case is found in the famous “Biography of Lady Li” 李夫人傳, in which Emperor Wu 武帝 is so moved by a ghostly vision of his deceased lover that he pens a poem about her, then bids the court musicians to set it to music (Ban, Han shu, j. 67a, p. 3952).
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Baring the Soul
“The Great Wind,” but his composition of the song is still depicted
as being simultaneous with its initial performance; only after his own performance does he bid the choir sing it back to him. In this
passage, P
rince Hui seems to compose his song specifically for an
initial performance by others at a later time. There are really two
types of disjunction at play here, both of which violate the canonical
unities of an outburst song: the first separates the time of composi-
tion from the time of performance, the second divides the person
who produces the song from the person who performs it. These
discrepancies in time and person open up intervals that accommo-
date the possibility of strategy in performance, although Prince Hui
does not seem interested in exploiting them, preferring to wallow in
self-pity instead.
There is one unity left to be violated in the canonical model, and
that is the unity of voice, which holds that the voice that speaks in a
song is the voice of the person who produced that song. If one were
to compose a song to express the sorrow of another person and then
have that very person perform the song, a bizarre ventriloquism
would violate all three unities of the canonical model. The Han
History contains just such a bizarre case: the story, set in 144 b.c.e., of Prince Qu 去王 of Guangchuan, his jealous wife Zhaoxin 昭信, and
his unfortunate concubines:
Later, Prince Qu established Zhaoxin as his principal wife and appointed his favored concubine, Tao Wangqing, as Lady Xiumi in charge of textiles, and appointed his favored concubine, Cui Xiucheng, as Lady Mingzhen in
charge of the palace discipline service. Zhaoxin repeatedly slandered
Wangqing, saying, “She is very discourteous to me, her clothes are always flashier than mine, and she hoards all of the best silks to make the palace women beg for them.” Qu replied, “You may malign Wangqing repeatedly, but you cannot diminish my love for her. Now, if I were to hear that she had been wanton, then I would boil her alive.”
After that Zhaoxin told Qu, “Earlier, when the painters were painting
Wangqing’s quarters, she bared her back and shoulders and powdered her-
self right beside them. She also went in and out of the south gate several times to sneak glances at the attendants and clerks, and I suspect there may have been some illicit affairs.” Qu replied, “Keep a close eye on her.” Because of this, he grew to love Wangqing less and less.
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Baring the Soul
95
Later, when he was drinking with Zhaoxin and the others, and all the
concubines were in attendance, he composed a song for Wangqing:
You have turned your back on your parents-in-law,
have been careless in your wantonness.
You have plotted perversities,
given rise to your own end.
You have gadded about,
produced your own woes.
There is no hope for trust,
now, who shall you blame?
He had his beauties sing it in concert. Qu said: “One of you should rec-
ognize yourself in this.”
Zhaoxin knew that Qu was already angry and accused Wangqing of
repeatedly pointing out the sleeping quarters of the attendants and clerks and knowing all those in charge. She also said that one attendant had ordered a brocade quilt from Wangqing and that she suspected there had been an illicit affair. Qu then went with Zhaoxin and the other concubines to Wangqing’s rooms, where they stripped her naked and took turns beating
her. Then he ordered the concubines to each take a branding iron and
brand Wangqing together. Wangqing ran away and threw herself into a
well where she died. Zhaoxin took her body out, pounded a wooden stake
into her vagina, sliced off her nose and lips, and cut out her tongue. Then she told Qu, “Earlier, when I killed Zhaoping, 31 she came back to haunt me, so now I want to pulverize Wangqing, making it impossible for her to turn into a spirit.” She and Qu dismembered the body, placed it in a huge cauldron, stewed it with peach lime and poison, and called all the concubines to watch over it day and night until it had completely dissolved.
They also killed Wangqing’s younger sister, Du.
Afterwards, Qu called for concubine Rong Ai several times and drank
with her, so Zhaoxin slandered her, saying: “Concubine Rong looks smug
and has a base manner; I suspect she may be having a secret affair.” Qu took a shirt, the collar of which Ai had been embroidering at the time, and
burned it. Ai was terrified and threw herself into a well. When they pulled her out she was still alive, so they whipped her and interrogated her until she admitted falsely that she had had an illicit affair with the physician. Qu bound her up and tied her to a pillar, burned her eyes out with a hot knife,
—————
31. Zhaoping was another one of Zhaoxin’s unfortunate victims, who appeared to Zhaoxin in her dreams after she had been murdered.
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Baring the Soul
cut her legs off at the thigh while she was still alive, and poured molten lead into her mouth. Ai died and they dismembered her, burying her under a
pile of thorny brambles. Of all the concubines who were in Qu’s favor,
Zhaoxin managed to kill every one of them with her slander. A total of
fourteen people were buried under Longevity Palace, the dwelling of the
prince’s mother. The palace women dreaded Zhaoxin and none dared to
cross her.
Zhaoxin wanted to monopolize favor for herself, and said: “Your maj-
esty put Lady Mingzhen in charge of the concubines, but she was unable to check the unruly lewdness. I ask that you lock up the doors to all the
concubines’ quarters and not let them out to take their leisure.” She made her senior maidservant the acting supervisor in charge of the palace discipline service, who then locked up all their quarters and gave the key to Zhaoxin. Except for when they were summoned to large banquets, the
concubines were not to be seen. Qu pitied them and composed a song
which said,
No sorrow is more sorrowful,
than to live in such despair.
My heart is in knots,
my feelings strangled.
Inside I am choking,
my grief and sadness pile up.
I cannot see the sky above,
what good is living anymore?
The day is lost,
the time will not come again.
I long to cast off my body,
and to die without regret.
He ordered Zhaoxin to sound the drums for the rhythm and instructed all
of the concubines in singing it. When the song was over, each one of them returned forthwith to the long halls and sealed their doors. Only Zhaoxin’s niece, Chu, Lady Chenghua, was permitted an audience day or night.
Zhaoxin gave over ten slaves to Qu to accompany him in playing games,
drinking, and relaxing. 32
後去立昭信為后。幸姬陶望卿為脩靡夫人。主繒帛。崔脩成為明貞夫
人。主永巷。昭信復譖望卿曰。與我無禮。衣服常鮮於我。取善繒諸宮
人。去曰。若數惡望卿。不能減我愛。設聞其淫。我亨之矣。後昭信謂
—————
32. Ban, Han shu, juan 53, pp. 2429–31.
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去曰。前畫工畫望卿舍。望卿袒裼傅粉其傍。又數出入南戶窺郎吏。疑
有姦。去曰。善司之。以故益不愛望卿。後與昭信等飲。諸姬皆侍。去
為望卿作歌曰。
背尊章
嫖以忽
謀屈奇
起自絕
行周流
自生患
諒非望
今誰怨
使美人相和歌之。去曰。是中當有自知者。昭信知去已怒。即誣言望卿
歷指郎吏臥處。具知其主名。又言郎中令錦被。疑有姦。去即與昭信從
諸姬至望卿所。臝其身。更擊之。令諸姬各持燒鐵共灼望卿。望卿走。
自投井死。昭信出之。椓杙其陰中。割其鼻脣。斷其舌。謂去曰。前殺
昭平。反來畏我。今欲靡爛望卿。使不能神。與去共支解。置大鑊中。
取桃灰毒藥并煮之。召諸姬皆臨觀。連日夜靡盡。復共殺其女弟都。
後去數召姬榮愛與飲。昭信復譖之。曰。榮姬視瞻。意態不善。疑
有私。時愛為去刺方領繡。去取燒之。愛恐。自投井。出之未死。笞問
愛。自誣與醫姦。去縛繫柱。燒刀灼潰兩目。生割兩股。銷鈆灌其口中。
愛死。支解以棘埋之。諸幸於去者。昭信輒譖殺之。凡十四人。皆埋太
后所居長壽宮中。宮人畏之。莫敢復迕。
昭信欲擅愛。曰。王使明貞夫人主諸姬。淫亂難禁。請閉諸姬舍門。
無令出敖。使其大婢為僕射。主永巷。盡封閉諸舍。上籥於后。非大置
酒召。不得見。去憐之。為作歌曰。
愁莫愁
居無聊
心重結
意不舒
內茀鬱
憂哀積
上不見天
生何益
日崔隤
時不再
願棄軀
死無悔
令昭信聲鼓為節。以教諸姬歌之。歌罷輒歸永巷。封門。獨昭信兄子初
為乘華夫人。得朝夕見。昭信與去從十餘奴博飲游敖。
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Zhaoxin seems to have taken a page from Empress Lü’s book in her
Words Well Put Page 15