by Gopal Sukhu
9. Shen Baoxu 申包胥 was one of the great ministers of Chu, who served under King Zhao during the Spring and Autumn period. When the state of Wu, with the help of Wu Zixu, took Ying, the Chu capital, Shen Baoxu traveled on foot through rough terrain to Qin. There he stood in the Qin ducal court and wept for seven days and seven nights. That moved the Duke of Qin to send his army to drive the Wu army from Chu.
10. This is a phrase from Ode 112 of the Shijing. The full verse is as follows: 彼君子兮不素餐兮 bi junzi xi bu su can xi, “That nobleman is not one who does nothing but eat.”
11. Both these sage-kings abdicated in favor of talented, unrelated men rather than to their sons. Later advocates of strict adherence to hereditary succession criticized their behavior as unbefitting a father.
12. In the “Li sao” lotus leaves are held up as a symbol of purity maintained in difficult times or in immoral society because they grow out of mud and rise clean to the surface of the water. Here the lotus-leaf tunic may mean a false reputation for goodness, especially if it is accomplished by surrounding oneself with people of fine moral repute. In Chu rhetoric, especially florid in the “Li sao,” flora are often used as symbols or metaphors for types of people. Here the lotus-leaf tunic, representing people of moral integrity, is only a means to an end.
13. My interpretation of these lines is based on Hu Nianyi 胡念貽, Chuci xuanzhu ji kaozheng 楚辞选注及考证 (Changsha: Yueli chubanshe, 1984), 228 and 164.
14. Here again are legendary sage-kings (mentioned in note 11), now praised for their ability to recognize talented and virtuous people, regardless of social status, and put them to good use.
15. Here again are the legendary wonder horses Qi and Ji (mentioned in note 4), symbolic of talented ministers. Employed appropriately they allow the ruler to govern the state (represented by the chariot) easily.
16. Although a man of Wei, Ning Qi 甯戚 sought office in the court of Duke Huan of Qi but failed. He then worked as a traveling merchant and habitually sang near his oxcarts. One night Duke Huan was passing by and heard him. Mysteriously moved by the singing, he granted him a ministerial position; see John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, trans., The Annals of Lü Buwei: A Complete Translation and Study (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001), 507.
17. Bo Le 伯樂 was a legendary expert judge of horses.
18. This is the name of a mythological beast and a Chinese constellation, both associated with summer and the south.
19. This is both a mythological beast and a Chinese constellation, both associated with springtime and the east.
20. Feilian 飛廉 is the wind god.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Summoning the Soul”
招魂
“Zhao hun”
In ancient China when someone died, the family of the deceased would invite a shaman to call back the departed soul. The ritual consisted of climbing to the roof carrying outer garments the deceased used to wear, facing north, and calling out his or her name three times. The shaman would then climb down from the rooftop and lay the clothes on the corpse. The ritual was known as the Return (復 Fu), for people believed that it was possible to make the soul return to the body and bring the dead back to life. Accordingly, the Return was always performed before the funeral. At least, that is how the great Song scholar Zhu Xi describes it, based on his knowledge of the ancient ritual texts. He adds, however, that in Chu the same ritual could be performed for a living person.
The Song-dynasty poet Fan Chengda 范成大 (960–1279) describes the following version of the soul-summoning ritual for the living that was still popular in his day. When members of a family were on their way back from a long journey, they would stop thirty li from home, and the family would send a shaman out to welcome them with a basket. The travelers would then remove their undergarments and give them to the shaman, who would put them in the basket. Carrying that, he would lead them back home. It was believed that the shaman was thereby collecting their wandering souls. It appears that the purpose of performing the soul-summoning ceremony for the living was to comfort or reassure.1
There was disagreement about who wrote “Summoning the Soul” even as far back as the Han dynasty. Sima Qian was sure it was by Qu Yuan, whereas Liu Xiang and Wang Yi claimed it was by Song Yu 宋玉, supposedly a disciple of Qu Yuan. The question is still debated today, but modern scholars are equally concerned about the identity of the deceased in the poem—or whether in fact the soul addressed is that of a living person. Some think that the deceased was King Huai, who died in exile. Others prefer King Xiang. Still others say that it was Qu Yuan. There are even two Qing-dynasty scholars who think that it is Qu Yuan calling back his own soul as a means to console (no pun intended) himself.
The poem itself, however, tells us that its main speaker is Shaman Yang, a female shaman, and the way of life she describes to attract the soul back is extremely luxurious, if not extravagant, making it hard to avoid concluding that the deceased is an aristocrat, if not a king. Whether the poem was intended for use in an actual ritual summoning of the soul is an open question.
Summoning the Soul
In my youth I was pure and honest.
I clothed myself in a righteousness whose fragrance did not fade,
And I was secure in this great virtue.
But when the vulgar dragged me through their filth,
My sovereign had no way to see this great virtue,
And long were the troubles and bitter pain I endured …2
The Lord of the Skies told Shaman Yang:3
There is someone in the world below
Whom I wish to help.
His dark and bright souls4 have abandoned his body and scattered.
Find them with divining slips and bring them back.
Shaman Yang answered:
This is the responsibility of the Minister of Dreams.5
Your order is difficult for me to follow.
If you insist that I divine and bring his souls back …
[The lord interrupted her:6]
I fear that if we wait longer, his body shall have withered away
And returning his souls will be of no use to him.
So Shaman Yang descended into the world and called out:
Come home, bright soul!
You have left your body.
Why wander the four directions,
Leaving your place of enjoyment,
To encounter unlucky things?
Come home, come home!
In the east you will find no haven.
Giants are there, a thousand fathoms tall,
Who seek only souls to snare.
Ten suns rise together there
Making metal flow and boulders melt.
They are used to that there,
But you will surely fall apart.
Come home, come home,
You will find no haven there.
Come home, come home!
In the south you will find no haven.
They scarify foreheads there, and blacken teeth,
And sacrifice human flesh
And use the bones to make a sauce.
Vipers swarm there,
And giant foxes run a thousand miles,
And poison snakes have nine heads there
And move about at uncanny speed.
And the more people they eat the more they want.
Come home, come home!
That is no place to linger long.
Come home, bright soul!
These are the dangers of the west:
Sands flow there, a thousand miles,
And then whirl down into the Thundering Abyss,
Where everything is helplessly ground to dust.
And even if you manage to escape going in,
Outside is but broad, barren expanse,
Where red ants as big as elephants roam,
And black wasps the size of wine jugs fly.
The five grains do not
grow there.
And for food, only firewood and straw.
Don’t touch the soil there, for it rots the flesh.
Don’t look for water, for you’ll find there none.
You will wander with no shelter there,
In a vastness that never ends.
Come home, come home!
For I fear you’ll suffer injury there.
Bright soul, come home!
In the north you will find no haven.
Ice piles there, mountainously high.
And snow flies a thousand miles.
Come home, come home!
You will not last long there.
Bright soul, come home!
Do not ascend to the sky.
Nine gates are there, with tiger and leopard guards
That tear at the flesh with their teeth.
People have nine heads there
And strength to uproot nine thousand trees.
Jackals and wolves have vertical eyes there
And go about in packs.
They hang people for fun there,
And throw them into deep chasms.
And only after reporting to the Sky Lord,
Do they let you close your eyes.
Come home, come home!
You go there at your own risk, I fear.
Come home, bright soul!
Do not go down to the deep, dark city of the dead.
The Earl of the Earth is there with his nine tails,
And his horns are sharp as pikes.
And hump backed and bloody clawed,
He’ll come charging after you,
With his three eyes in his tiger’s head,
And his upper body shaped like an ox,
And his taste for human flesh.
Come home, bright soul!
You’re heading for disaster, I fear.
Come home, bright soul!
Enter the adorned gates.
A skilled shaman calls to you,
Walking backwards leading the way in,
Carrying a hamper from Qin,
Wrapped in the soft cloth of Zheng,
By its Qi-made cords.7
All the tools for bringing you back are here.
And we wail and shout without cease.
Come home, bright soul,
Back to your old abode.
Heaven and Earth and the Four Directions
Are full of harm and evil.
Imagine your residence—
Quiet, tranquil, safe,
With its high chambers,
And deep courtyards,
Its tiers of balustraded galleries,
Level on level of terraces and clustered belvederes,
Looking down from high hills,
Latticework doors with their linked swastikas,
Painted in red.
And the warm rooms for winter, deep within the mansion,
And the outer rooms cool in summer.
A stream turning and curving through the valley,
Water whispering as it flows.
Bright breezes eddy in the basil,
And scuffle in the thoroughwort patches.
And from the outer halls into the private chambers,
The ceilings and floor mats are all cinnabar red.
Kingfisher feather dusters to clean the rooms of polished tile
Hang from jasper hooks.
Bedspreads of halcyon feathers studded with pearls
Shimmer a hybrid light.
Colorful wall hangings of fine silk
Surround bed-curtains of drifting gauze,
With their red ties, motley stays, embroidered bands, and silk ropes
Weighted with half rings of jade.
And what is there to see in the bedroom?
More treasures and wonders:
By the light of candles of thoroughwort paste,
A roomful of beautiful faces,
In two rows of eight, to keep you company through the night—
A different one every night.
Fine women from princely houses,
With agile wits above the common run,
With full heads of luxurious hair, each in her own style.
Women such as these crowd your palace,
In complexion and form all of equal beauty,
Each yielding to the next till all have been with you.
Yet behind each soft face there is strong attachment—
How every one of them longs for you!
They of the lovely faces and adorned forms
Crowd your bedchamber.
Those with the moth’s eyebrows, adepts of the glance,
Whose eyes send you their galloping light.
The fine faces, radiant complexions,
And secret sidelong glances,
Under the great decorated tents of your pleasure palaces,
Wait on your leisure.
Curtains sewn with halcyon colors
Adorn the high-ceilinged room.
The walls are painted red,
The rafters embedded with black jade.
Look up and see the carved rafters,
Painted with dragons and serpents,
Under which you will sit leaning on a balustrade,
Looking out on a winding pool.
The lotuses are starting to open
Among the water-chestnut leaves,
And purple-stemmed floating heart
Make the waves flow in patterns.
Guards in eye-catching leopard-skin tunics
Patrol the banks and slopes.
And when the closed sleeping wagon arrives,
Foot soldiers and cavalry attend it in orderly rows.
Thoroughwort bushes front the gate,
Jasper bushes form circling hedges.
Come home, bright soul!
Why wander far away?
Once you’re home your whole family will honor you
With a feast of many dishes—
Rice, millet, the early- and late-ripening wheat,
Mixed with yellow millet,
The very bitter, the salty, and tart,
The hot, and the sweet flavors will all be used.
Tendons of fat cows
Cooked till tender and fragrant,
Mixed with vinegar and bitter herbs,
Served with Wu-style sweet-and-sour stews,
And boiled soft-shell crab and roast lamb,
With sugarcane sauces.
Swan cooked in vinegar and wild-duck casserole,
Panfried goose and gray crane,
Dried chicken and terrapin stew,
All strong flavors that never cloy.
Deep-fried honey balls and sweet cakes
Coated with malt,
Fine wines mixed with honey
Fill the winged wine cups.
Filtered wines drunk chilled,
Fine wines clear and cool.
When the sumptuous feast is laid out,
There will be fine wines.
Come home to your old abode
We will honor you with a feast—and why not?
Even before all the delicacies have come out,
Female musicians arrange themselves in rows.
Then strike the bells with force, in rhythm with the drums.
They have composed new songs:
“Cross the River” and “Pick the Water Chestnuts.”
But they open the show by singing in chorus “Raise the Lotus.”
And once the beauties are drunk,
Their faces flush red,
And turn on you the alluring glint of half-closed eyes,
Like sparkling ripples on water.
They are dressed in light embroidered silk,
Luxurious but not overly so.
Long hair glossily hangs to their shoulders,
Sensuously hanging.
Sixteen women dressed alike
Rise to dance to the music of Zheng,
Their overlong sleeves fly up and cross like
staves in a fight,
Then fall together on cue,
While the yu pipes and se strings wail,
And the drums thunder,
And the palace shakes,
As the chorus sings, “Rousing Chu,”
And the Wu songs and the Cai airs,
And the Great Lü Mode.
Women and men sitting side by side—
Now comes the orgy of no distinctions—
Clothes, sashes, and hat strings fall,
Mixing on the floor in colorful chaos.
Bewitching women of pleasure from Zheng and Wei
Are here to perform,
But the topknotted dancers of “Rousing Chu”
They cannot outdo.
Jade throwing rods and ivory tiles
For the liubo8 game come out.
People pair off and make their first moves
Forcing each other’s pieces into tight corners.
When each gets the “Owl” they are tied
Until one cries “Five Whites.”
The strategic pincering plays move slowly
Consuming the light of day.
Musicians strike the bells till the bell frames sway,
And play the strings of the catalpa-wood se.
Here the wine of revelry constantly flows.
Submerge yourself in it day and night,
By the light of the candles of thoroughwort paste,
In their intricate candlesticks of openwork bronze.
And some search their hearts to express their thoughts
In words as fragrant as thoroughwort,
Each as best he can.
Sympathetic hearts chanting their poems,
Fine the wine drunk and pleasures enjoyed
To delight our departed ancestor.
Come home, bright soul!
Back to your old abode.
Envoi
Spring opens, a new year enters.
We journey swiftly south.
Green duckweed spreads over slow water,
Angelica grows on the banks.
We pass over Lu River,
A long thicket to our left,
And from the pond,
Near the rice paddies,
We see vast flat marshland beyond.
And a thousand black-horsed quadrigas
File through the wilderness.
Flaming torches9 bobbing over bushes,
Black smoke filling the air.
Men on foot arrive where the speeding chariots
Rush to be first to draw the quarry out,
And, stopping the helter-skelter horse play,
They lead the chariots around to the right.