Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry 0674012194, 9780674012196

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M etam orphosis o f the P rivate Sphere Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry

X ia o s h a n Y ang

Published by th e H a rv a rd U niversity A sia C en ter and d istrib u ted by H arv ard U niversity Press C am bridge (M assachusetts) an d L ondon 2003

© 2〇〇3 by the President and Fellows o f Harvard College

Printed in the United States ofAmerica The Harvard University Asia Center publishes a monograph series and, in coordination with the Fairbank Center for Bast Asian Research, the Korea Institute, the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and other faculties and institutes, administers research projects desired to further scholarly understanding of China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, and other Asian countries. The Center also sponsors projects addressing multidisciplinaiy and regional issues in Asia. Library of Congress Gitaloging-in^Publication Data Yang» Xiaoshan, 1959Metamorphosis of the private sphei

ad objects in Tang-Song poctiy /

Xiaoshan Yang* p. cm. isb n

(Harvara East Asian monograpns; 225)

0-674*01219^4 (alk. paper)

1. Chinese poctry«Tang dynasty, 618-907—History and criticism. 2, Chinese

poctry«Song dynasty, 690-1279—History and cricicism. I. Title: Gardens and objects in Tang^Song poetry. II. Title. IIL Series. PL2321.Y39 2003

895.1r309364—dc2i Index by the author ©

Printed on acid-free paper

Last figure below indicates year of this printing 13 12 11 to 09 08 07 06 〇s 04 〇 3

2003049903

T o m y wife, Chengxu, and my son, Peter

Acknowledgments

T o Stephen Owen I express my most profound gratitude. H e taught me how to read classical Chinese poetry and has provided un&iling guidance and encouragement over the years. In writing this book, I have benefited from his advice every step of the way* I am deeply indebted to Ronald Egan, James Hargett, and Paul Kroll; each read the entire manuscript with scru­ pulous care and offered detailed comments and suggestions. Thanks also go to Richard Mather and Joanna Handlin Smith for carefully reading an ear­ lier version o f Chapter i and giving much appreciated help in matters o f style as well as substance* An early version o f Chapter 2 was presented at the 1996 Center for Chinese Studies Annual Symposium "Landscape, Culture, and Power in Chinese Society,” University of California at Berkeley; an early version of Chapter 3 was presented at the 1997 W estern Conference of the Association for Asian Studies and at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies; an early version of Chapter 斗was presented at the 1999 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Conference on Asian Adairs and at the 2000 Annual Meeting o f the Association for Asian Studies; an early version of Chapter 5 was presented at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Con­ ference on Asian Aftairs. T o those who raised questions and made suggest tions on my presentations, I extend my thanks.

viii

Acknowkdgments

Portions o f Chapters i, 2, and 3 were presented in two talks that I gave at a thrcc-day conference on Chinese writings on gardens at Harvard Univer­ sity in 2003. 1 thank the two discussants o f my presentation, Robert Harrist and W ilt Idema, for their valuable comments and su^escions. I learned a great deal from the observations by other participants o f the conference, in^ eluding Peter Bol, Michel Conan, Stanislaus Fung, Antoine Gournay, Ali^ son Hardie, Ken Harmmond, David Knechtges, Georges Metailic, M artin Powers, David Sensabaugh, Richard Strassbcrg, Jan Stuart, Stephen W est, Yinong Xu, and H ui Zou* Colleagues in the Department o f East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Center for Asian Studies at the University o f N otre Dame, too many to be listed here> have provided intellectual stimulation and personal mendship during the time this book was written. T o them I express my warm appreciation* I also want to take advantage of this opportunity to thank my former colleagues at the Universi^ of M o i^ n a of my work* I thank John R* Ziemer o f the Harvard University Asia Center for his help in getting this work published. I take great pleasure in acknowledging financial support from a number o f institutions^ Both the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation awarded me a grant to cany out the research for this book* The Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts o f the Uni­ versity of N otre Dame provided two summer research travel grants* The D eans Office of the College o f Arts and Letters of the University o f N otre Dame granted me a iully paid sabbatical leave o f three semesters to finish the manuscript o f this book* Material for Chapter 1 first appeared in M Having It Both Ways: Manors and Manners in Bai Juyis Poetry" Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 6 (i996)： 123-49, and is reprinted here with permission o f the editors. X ♦ふ Y,

Abbreviations Introduction 1 Having It Both Ways: Manors and Manners in Bai Juyi s Poetry T h e Estate and the State 11/ H ow to Possess a Garden 21/ T he Middling H erm it 36 2 T he Poetics o f Space: Presence and Mediation A Gated Space 51/ Naturalizing the Garden 56/ N ature Framed, N ature Reflected 61/ Southern Landscapes in N orthern Gardens 73 3 Fetishism and Its Anxiety: A Poetic Biography o f Fantastic Rocks Obsession and Fetishism in the Chinese Tradition 91/ T he Rock Topos in Pre-Tang Poetry 94/ T he Ugly, the Grotesque, and the Useless 98/ N iu Sengru s Petromania 106/ From Apologia to Satire 109/ T he Philosophical Critique in the N orthern Song 118/ Redefining the Ugly, the Grotesque, and the Useless 129/ Reconciling Theory and Practice 138/

Contents

X

4 W ords and Things: T he Exchange of Poetry and the Poetiy of Exchange

149

A Talc o f Two Cranes 149/ A Beloved Concubine in Exchange for a Horse 160/ Spontaneous Artistry and calculated Exchanges 167/ Three Poems, Two Rocks, One Painting 179 5 Old Men at Home: T he Rhetorics of Joy and Leisure

197

The Transcendence o f Sorrow and the Theme o f Joy 197/ Glorifying the Community o f Joyful Elders 202/ (Dis)Contcnt with Leisure 213/ Back to Gardens 220 Postscript; Reflections on the Private Sphere

243

Reference Matter Works Cited

257

Index o f Titles

271

Subject Index

295

Abbreviations

T h 【&U〇 wing abbreviations are used in the text and notes. See the W orks Cited, pp. 257-70, for complete publication information. デjt

BJXJ

Bai juyi,

Q SGSD

Quart Shanggu Sandai Qin Han Sanguo Liuchao wen

QSS

Quan Songsbi

m

Quart Songwm

Q TS

Quan Tangshi

Q TW

Quart Tangwen

SSSJ

Su Shi, Su Shi shjji

SSW J

Su Shi, Su Shi weriji

XQHW J

Xian Qin Han W ei Jin Nanbdchao shi

Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry

Introduction

If you observe where a man lives and how he enjoys himself, then you know clearly whether he is talented or not wanfodo 2¢ 〇 «• feczfcf 睹居處 玩 4 則才不才了 然可 知 ). 一Oujrang Zhan 歐 陽 詹 (78ダ-827?)

T he Chinese garden as a topic of scholarly inquiry has been explored from a variety of angles* Much has been written about its structural features as well as its cosmological, religious, philosophical, moral, ana aesthetic unaerpinnuiffs. More recently, attention nas also been called to the oztaen as a site o f economic production and consumption, ih e coverage of studies on the garden in Chinese literature ranges from an individual work or author" to a group o f authors3 to a historical periocu This book deals with the poetic configurations of the urban private garden from the mid-Tang to the N orthern Song (aoproximately from the ninth to the eleventh ccnep ig rap h : Pre^cc to tfOn the Pavilion at Administrative Assistant Hua the Twelfth^ Rcsi^ denceinRuzhou"題 華 十 二 判 官 汝 州 宅 内 亭 ， gTS ， 349.3907.

1. E.g., Joanna F. Handlin Smith, ^Gardens in Ch'i Piao-chia's Social World'*; and Clunas, Fruitful Sites. 2. E*gv Westbrook, "Landscape Description in the Lyric Poetry and Tuh on Dwelling in the Mountains* of Shieh Lmg-yunH; Plaks, Archetype and Afleg〇 7； Xiaoshan Yang, ^Having It Both WaysM ; Chi Xiao, Tbc Cbi”e5e Garden 似Lyric 3. E.g., Owen, T h e Formation of the Tang Estate Pocm.M 4. E.g.#Hou Naihui, Shiqingyu youjing; Lin Jizhong, Tangshi yu zhttangyuan wenhua.

2

Introduction

tury) in relation to the development o f the private sphere in Chinese literati culture* I follow Stephen Owen s use o f the term 'private sphere" in reference to literary culture to mean wa cluster o f objects, experiences, and activities that belong to a subject apart from the social whole, whether state or family* This abstract 'sphere requires a space/ which, 'above all, was the garden."5 There were certainly components o f the private sphere other than those as­ sociated with gardens, and some o f them are brought to bear on my investi­ gation. Ultimately, however, my treatment o f the private sphere is meant to be illustrative rather than inclusive; to be more specific, it concentrates on what Ouyang Zhan caiilcdjuchu wanhao withjuchu understood as referring to gardens and wanhao to the finer things in life enjoyed for their aesthetic appeal* I hasten to emphasize here that I am not offering a survey o f gardens as a poetic topic Indeed, this book, as indicated by its subtitle, is not even exclu­ sively about the garden. Nonetheless, all the major issues raised in the course o f my discussion arc linked directly or indirccdy to aspects o f garden culture, whose shifting significance was in turn caught up in larger cultural changes from the mid-Tang onward. My goal is to describe and interpret some of the new values and new rhetorics that were rooted in and helped to shape the process o f self-culcivation and self-imaging o f the Chinese literati in a given historical period. I will leave it to readers to judge whether the issues that I raise have wider implications and applicability; the task that I set myself is to reveal the correlation between the evolution of the private sphere and the conscious efforts of Tang-Song literati to search for alternatives when con­ ventional values, whether political, moral, or aesthetic, were found to be in­ applicable or inadequate. Chronologically, Chapters i and 2 of this book draw on examples from tKc mid-Tang; Chapters 3 and 4 straddle the mid-Tang and the N orthern Song; Chapter 5 focuses on the N orthern Song. Thematically, the first two chapters deal with the garden in its function as the physical space o f a poeti­ cally construaed private sphere; the next two examine the modes in which certain cultural arti&cts moved to arid across diflferent private spaces; the last chapter investigates the rhetorics of joy (k 樂 ） and leisure (泊•伽 閑 ） that dominated the poetic representations o f the life o f the elderly as it was an­ chored in gardens^ 5. Owen, The End of the Chinese ^Middle Ages* p. 88.

Introduction

3

The garden as a poetic fixture is as old as Chinese poetry itself* T he pri­ vate pleasure garden, however, did not receive extensive treatment as a poetic topic until the W estern Jin (265-317), when it became associated with the theme of reclusion, with an emphasis on the gardens separation from the city and its proximity to nature. In the mid-Tang, the would-be hermit found a new and more desirable space in the urban (rather than rural or suburban) private garden. Chapter I focuses on Bai Juyi 白 居 易 （ フ フ 2-846) because, in one way or another, he set or pointed to the general direction in which all the major themes explored in this book would develop and evolve* I begin by ejeamining Bai Juyis satirical poetry on urban manorial gardens, which works against the literary conventions infbrmine and governing earlier poetic de­ scriptions o f the royal and aristocratic estates in the suburbs or countryside. Morally, his poems on the extravagant urban maiisions criticized the exces­ sive lifescyk of the degenerate aristocrats; politically, he saw in the vicissi­ tudes o f some of the best-known gardens not only a reflection of the changing status o f their owners but also a powerful symbol for the well-being of the state; philosophically, he illustrated the fickleness o f human fortunes and the benighted vanity of the wish for permanent possessions* In contrast, Bai Juyi s poetic descriptions of his personal life repeatedly ex­ pressed pride in his ownership o f his own garden-estate in Luoyang. Upon this ownership was predicated his profound sense of joy in, and contentment with, ms life in retirement* Merely owning a garden was not all that mattered, however; for Bai Juyi as for many of nis contemporaries, true possession re­ quired an aesthetic scnsitiviiy capable of appreciating the garden and the abil­ ity or opportunity to give full plaj^ to that sensitivity. Behind the idea that one could possess a garden aesthetically without actually owning it was the phe« nomenon o f absenteeism rampant among metropolitan garden owners* As a possessed space, the urban private garden functioned as a hermitage in the city and provided the central arena for staging the life o f what Bai Juyi 中 隱 )♦Tm s way of life contrasted, on called the "middlinff hermit” the one hand, with that of the "great hermit (daグ 大 隱 ) , who remained spiritually aloof while holding high o(Bce, and, on the other hand, with that of the petty hermitw(xtaoyin who escaped to the wilderness to pre­ serve his integrity* In the figure of the middling hermit securely ensconced in his urban private garden, a compromise, if not synthesis, was acmeved be­ tween opposing impulses in the Chinese eremitic tradition: the country was

4

Introduction

reconciled with the city, spiritual integrity with material comfort； and social responsibility with individual freedom* T o maintain the garden as a plot o f ones own both physically and spiri­ tually! boundaries had to be set up. Chapter 2 begins by discussing the poetic imaging o f the front gate in relation to the urge to set the private space of the urban garden apart from its immediate surroundings. Shutting the gate was a conventional gesture of withdrawing from the world* In earlier poetry, this gesture tended to be accompanied by statements about the transcendence of the subjective mind as the ultimate guarantor of reclusion* In the mid-Tang, greacer emphasis was laid on the physicality o f the front gate as a line of demarcation; entering the gate became a symbolic act, a spiritual rite of passage into a lofty world o f disengagement* W hereas the intrusion o f the human world was vigorously resisted, the presence of the natural world wa$ eagerly embraced and methodically manufaccured in the urban garden* Although essentially an artificial construct se­ verely limited in space；the garden aspired to evoke, approximate, or even duplicate (albeit on a reduced scale) nature in its fullness and grandeur* One effective way o f enlarging the gardenscape was to co-opt visually and aurally the magniHcent sights and sounds o f nature such as mountains and rivers* However, naturalizing the garden did not mean letdng nature take over; on the contraiy, constructing a garden was a rigorous process of subjective con^ trol and selection. Careful deliberations determined what to preserve and what to eliminate^ Two major forms o f control arc treated in Chapter 2. The first operated in the construction o f the space inside the garden itself, pri^ marily in the pruning of dense trees and plants so that they did not block the view o f what lay beyond the confines o f the garden. I f the first form o f control effected a visual expansion o f the garden space, then the second aimed at framing, delimiting, and mediating the grander forms o f nature as a visual presence in the garden. O f particular importance in this regard were certain fissures in the physical structure of the garden* Through windows and wall openings, for example, distant vis­ tas could be framed as a picturesque view for the poets leisurely contem^ pladon. In the transfixing gaze o f the poet, crevices in the ground such as wells and ponds not only framed nature with their limited dimensions but also reflected it in their waters. The &scination with the miniature pond in mid^Tang poetry was generated at least in part by its function of double mediatioiu T he visual integration o f the win- here* and the wou レthere” was a

Introduction

5

reciprocal process, through which nature was ardficialized even as the gar­ den was naturalizecL The visual enrichment o f the garden space was not limited to borrowing scenery that was dirccd^ accessible from the vantage point o f the garden. As the last section o f Chapter 2 demonstrates, in the mid-Tang poetics of space, the south, especially the area known as Jiangnan, figured as an aesthetic^ landscape enthusiastically emulated in the northern urban gardens* A fre­ quent topic of poetic celebration, the presence o f southern scenery in north­ ern gardens was not just a figment of the poet#s imagination; certain representacive objects indigenous to Jiangnan were transported to the north and were a common feature o f urban gardens. The garden as a spatial entity was constituted o f individual physical ob­ jects, prominent among which were various types o f fantastic rocks* Both as a decorative component o f the garden and as independent aesthetic artifacts, these rocks attracted much poetic attention in the ninth ccntuiy* Chapter 3 treats the phenomenon o f petrophilia as a form o f fetishism and obsession. Mid^Tang poetiy built up a basic repertoire of images and moti& by valor­ izing the categories of the ugly (chou SI), the grotesque (guai and the useless (w“メ 無 益 or グ onj 無 ]^)♦ Norchein Song poetiy, while articu r aesthetic sensibility, was informed by a heightened moral, and historical reflectivity in its critique of petrophilia. T o set up the distinct issues associated with petrophilia from the tnid« Tang onward, I first offer a brief historical survey o f the usage of shi ^ and pi 0 , two terms that come closest in Chinese to carrying the iaea o f reashism and obsession. Next, I discuss the rock topos in pre-Tang poetiy with a view to highlighting the novelties— both thematically and rhetorically— that emerged in the ninthrcentuiy description o f rocks* These novelties crystallized in die poetic configuration and transfigura>tion o f the Lake Tai rock (Taihushi 太 湖 石 )， wherein the ugly and the grotesque were aestheticized and the useless was endorsed* The evolution of the Lake 1 ai rock from an incidental curiosity to an eagerly sought cottecti^ blc item provides the background against which I explore the tensions be­ tween the aesthetic fetishism and the acute moral anxiety felt by rock lovers since the mid^ninch century* A major source of this anxiety was the (ab)use of human labor in transporting gigantic rocks from their indigenous locales in the south to private urban gardens in the north. Bai Juyi s prose account of the vast collection o f rocks in N iu Sengrtfs 牛 備 儒 （ 780-848) garden

6

Introduction

serves

as a key

te x t

exem plifying th e efforts ro strike a balance betw een th e

relentless p u rsu it o f aesthetic grad ficatio n an d th e preservation o f m o ral in^ tegrity. W i th th e T a n g dynasty o n th e b rin k o f collapse in th e late n in th ccntuty, che la te n t anxiety o f th e first g en eratio n o f p etro p h iles developed in to plicit m o ral condem nations^ A t a tim e o f devastating social tu rm o il, th e fad o f p etro p h ilia w as perceived to b e indicative o f th e ruling class s lack o f conscience* T h e obsession w ith fantastic rocks proved incom patible w ith th e m aintenance o f che larger sociopolitical order* By th e N o rth e r n Song, h isto ry h a d provided pow erful exam ples o f th e negative aspects o f petrophilia. W h ile in h eritin g th e m o ral consciotisness o f th e ir predecessors in th e T an g , N o rth e r n S ong literati d eepened th e critique 〇£ p etro p h ilia along philosophical lines* A m o n g ocher things, th is critique

entailed d e-norm alizing th e categories o f th e ugly, th e grotesque, a n d th e useless* A t th e sam e tim e, a p ro fo u n d irony revealed itse lf in th e fact th a t m any o f th e m o st eloquent N o rth e rn S o n g critics o f p e tro m an ia w ere obses^ sive ro ck fanciers themselves^ In light o f th is paradox, I exam ine th e endeav­ ors o f m any p etrophiles to ju stify th e ir love o f rocks by p o sitio n in g th e m ­ selves o n a m oral a n d philosophical h igh g r o u n d C h a p te r 3 ends w ith a series o f exam ples highlighting th e tran sfig u ratio n o f th e fantastic rocks from an aesthetic object in th e private sp h ere to a sym ­ bol o f m oral degradation in th e public domain* In stitu tio n alize d in th e infa­ m ous F leet o f Flow ers an d R ocks (H u a sh ig a n g

ifl), such lu m in o u s

specim ens as L ake T a i rocks played a co n spicuous role in th e co n stru c tio n o f th e im perial p ark called N o rth e a s t M a rc h m o u n t (G en jaic

f i

tra d itio n ­

ally believed to have precip itated a n d even caused th e dow nfall o f th e N o rth e rn S ong a t th e han d s o f th e Ju rch en s. T h e b o u n d a iy betw een th e private a n d th e public dissolved in a d ram atic fashion w h en th e aesthetic passions o f one individual ；E m p ero r H u iz o n g

^

(r. 1100-1126), culm i­

n ated in a ho rre n d o u s natio n al as well as dynastic tragedy. T h e tran sp o rta tio n o f L ake T a i rocks to n o rth e rn cities like C h an g 'an an d L uoyang po in ts to th e m obility o f th in g s q u in tessen tial to th e co n stru c­ tio n o f th e garden ；In C h a p te r 4, a difFerent dim en sio n o f th is p o rtab ility is explored in th e exchangeability o f th e o rn am e n ts o f literati culture. Focusing o n a series o f playful stories a n d anecdotes ab o u t tran sa ctio n s involving such objects across different private spaces ；th is ch a p te r dissects th e in tricate nexus betw een th e exchange o f p o c tiy a n d th e p o c tiy o f exchange. T o be

I n tr o d u c tio n

7

m o re specific, it describes ways in w h ich p o etic exchanges n o t only reco rd ed a n d in te rp re ted m aterial exchanges b u t also actively p articip a ted in them*

The first stoiy centers on Pei Du’ s 裴 度 （765-8於 ）requesting of a pair of cranes from Bai Juyi on the grounds that his garden would provide a bet^ ter sancmaiy for the birds than Bai Juyi's, This request generated an in­ triguing series of poetic exchanges among Pei Du, Bai Ju}ri, ana Liu Yuxi« (772-842), who mediated the transaction* Whereas the poems themselves jocularly debated the relative suitability of the two gardens, the social reianonsiups among the three determined the posmon each took in the poetic exchanges as well as the result of the exchanges. T h e m ain characters in th e second scoiy are th e sam e as in th e first o n ef a n d so are tttcir respective rolcs« T h e in c id en t w as to u c h e d ofF w h en P ei D u , in response to Bai J u y is req u est fo r a h o rse fro m h im , p ro p o sed th a t B ai Ju y i su rre n d e r his beloved concubine in exchange* T h e en su in g p o etic exchanges actualized th e m o tif o f

beloved con cu b k ie in exchange fo r a h o rsew ( a tq t e

mVhere is the governor?一 he is in Jiangdong. T he willows by the pond a yellow-green and the aprio Whenever I am in the mood I come over, and whenever coining over I stay overW ho can tell who the owner is?

Thc poem was written sometime in 828, when Bai Juyi traveled from Ghang'an to Luoyang on an unknown and probably unimportant mission* One cannot help being struck by the irony that he himself belonged to the cat^oiy of absentee landlords at the time he wrote the poem, since between 825 and 829 he was away from his own Ludao house most of the time*

Having It Both Ways

3i

T he are obvious similarities both thematically and structurally between Bai Jujri's two quatrains and W u Yuanheng's 武 元 衡 (758-81$) T layfii% Presented to W ang Zhongzhou, upon H earing T h at Peonies W ere Blossoming at H is Place” 聞 王 仲 周 所 居 牡 丹 花 發 因 戲 趙 （gT S ， 317*3577): 聞説庭花發暮春 長安才子看須頻 花閉花落無人見 借問何人是主人

I hear that flowers are blossoming in your yard m lace sonng; Chang an s talents should be watching them otten. Flowers blossom, flowers tall, but not>ne secs them; May I ask wrnch person would be the owner?

For heuristic purposes, we m ay classify absenteeism as described in these poems into two tjrpes: empincai (as in the case o f D ou Xiang) and aesthetic (as in the cases o f W ang 01 and W ang ZhongzKou). W hat is described in Zhang Ji’s ’’G athering at the G arden o f M r. Li in Sanyuan” 三 原 李 氏 園 晏 集 （ QTS, 383,4均 5) belongs to the first category: 圓中有草堂 池引涇水泉 開户西北望 遠見嵯峨山 借問主人翁 北州佐戎軒 僕夫守舊宅 爲客侍華筵

There is a cottage m the middle or the garden; W ater is channeled into the pond from the fountain or the j niff River. A window is opened with a view to the northwest: Jagged mountains appear in che distance* If you want to know where the owner is. H e is assisting the military in a northern prefecture. His servants keep his old house. W aiting upon che guests at a splendid dinner.

Tw o things stand out here. T he first is the remarkable phenomenon o f a large gathering in a garden in che absence o t its owner* T he second is that, although Z hang Ji broached the familiar m otif o f die dichotomy between the absent ow ncr/host (zhuren i A .) and the present guest (fee ^ ) , he re­ trained from the familiar assertion th at the guest has a more privileged rela­ tionship w ith the garden. Indeed, the expected question of the aesthetic owner o f the garden is not even raised W hereas in Z hang Jis poem the owner is absent on seemingly legitimate business ("assisting the m ibtaiy in a northern prefecturc#,), pure greed for power and success is che reason & r the ahsence in Zheng G u’s 鄭 谷 （851?9io?) "V isiting the W ooded V illa of a N oble M arquis South o f the Cityw 遊 女 侯 城 南 林 墅

(ftT S ,7 6 4 ,7919 ):

3a 韋杜八九月 亭臺高下風 獨來新霽後 間步澹煙中 荷密連池綠 柿繁和葉紅

主人贪贵達 清境屬鄰翁

Having It Both Ways In the great noble house, beewixt the et^itk and the ninth month. AVmd blows down rrom the high terrace. I alone came after the rain had just stopped. Scrolling in leisure among the light misty haze. Dense locus leaves spread green all over the pond; Countless persimmons mix with the red leaves. The owner hankers after status and success; This limpid scene belongs to the old man from the neig|ikochood

As in Yuan Z hen s poemf there is a tone o f m oral satire in Z heng G u s re f­ erence to the anonymous owner too absorbed w ith worldly pursuits to enjoy his own garden* Like Bai Juyi, Zheng G u assumes the aesthetic ownership o f the garden as a visitor* A ll the poems cited thus are observations o f absenteeism in Chang*an, w ith the exception o f Bai Juyis poem on D ou X iangs waterside pavilion, which points to a similar phenomenon in Luoyang* In faa, absenteeism was no less ram pant in Luoyang than it was in Chang'an* A good indication o f this is given in Bai Juyi’s "W ritten on M ansions in Luoyang” 題 洛 中 宅 第

(BJYJ, 25*1745)： 水木誰家宅 門高占地寬 懸漁掛音瓷 行馬護朱攔 春榭揉煙煖 秋庭瑣月寒 松膠粘琥珀 筠粉撲螂圩 試問池臺主 多爲將相官 終身不曾到 唯展宅圈看

^Vhose mansions are tnose with woods and waters Their gates are tali and tneir grounds wide. Hanging Rsh pendants dm gto the blue gables; Running horse ngures protect the vermilion fences. Their arbors envelop the warmth of the mist in spring; Their yards lock in the chill of the moonlight in The pines are oozing pitch as if pasted with amber; llie bamboos are powdery# as if spread with pead^likejade. Who might be the owners of the ponds and terraces^ Most of them are generals and ministers. Never having been here throughout their lives, They can only roll open their estate maps to take a look.

T he ^estate maps in the last line may be defined as "functional pictures^ Somewhere between paintings and schemata, these picture-m aps had aes-

Having It Bod) W ays

33

thetic as well as pragmatic value.40 O n a m ore positive note, the absentee property owners could claim chat they were engaging in a kind o f imagina^ tiVe "journey o f the mincT (ibcwjrcw 神 遊 ）or "journey while couching" (woグ〇“ 队 遊 )， as Z ong Bing 宗 柄 （ 375-443) did when， too old to climb femous mountains, he painted some cloudy peaks and gazed on the picture as a compensation for not being able to view the real scenery*41

Bai Juyis poem, however, obviously satirizes a morally reprehensible phenomenon among generals and ministers^ Such satire was brought to its fallest in Guanxiu’ s 貫 休 （832-912) poem て )n the Mansipn of Lord Soand-S〇M趣 某 公 宅 (gTS，837.9437): 宅成天下借圈看 始笑平生眼力慳 地占百灣多是水 樓無一面不當山

W hen his mansion was completed, the world vied to borrow its map ror a look; i nen people began to lau ^i at themselves for having seen so htde m their whole lives* Fidl of waters, its land occupies hundreds of beiuis; N ot a single side or its cower does not have a mountain view.

40. The earliest reference to an estate map seems to be that by Wang Xizhi (303-61) in one of his brief letters (tie ft), in Quan Jinwen$26.2b (QSGSD, p. 1605k). By the Tang, the estate maps were already commonplace. On the basis of such maps, Bai Juyi composed two "accounts" (Ji 16,), ^An Account of the Meditation Tcmpk of Motuic Wozhouw 沃 洲 山 禪 院 記 （ BJX/, 68.3684-85) and wAn Account of Five Pavilions on the White Duckweed IsletM白 蘋 洲 五 亭 記 （ BJYJ，71， 3798-99). For more citations of references in Tang poetry to estate maps and a discussion of their possible influence on the development of Cnmese landscape painting in general and gvden painting in particular, see Hou Naihrn, Shiqitt^yu yoking, pp. 550-60. In the eleventh century, there apparendy existed a map of the site of Bai Jayi's estate in Luoyai^ since Li Gefei referred to it in his Luoyang mingyuan ji (p« 14), a work written in 1095* In the twelfth century, fiai juyis Ludao house seems to have become a frequent topic of painting. Yu Choa ^ {jtnshi 1163) referred to a ^map/jMcturc of the Liidao house” (Li山 oz^ai ¢11履 道 宅 明 ) in ^Hearing About the Completion of the Construedon of Qiis Chamber on the Fifteenth Day of the Sixth Month, I Sent Two Quatrains to Himw 聞 六 月 十 五 日 廳 屋 以 ニ 絶 句 寄 衢 （ QSS, 2465»2857〇. Wang D ayou 汪 大 猷 (mo-1200) admired Bai Juyi so much chat he had a painting of the Ludao house drawn on a screen; see Lou Yao#^Biography of Reverend Wang, Academician of the Hall for Diffusion of Literature, Grand Master for Court Service^ Granted the Title of Lord Specially Advanced After He RctirecT敷 文 閣 學 士 宣 奉 大 夫 致 仕 鰌 特 進 汪 公 行 狀 , り U 84205• 41ノ Pre^ice to Landscape Painting"畫 山 水 序 ， in 办 伽 Sn»|u肌 2〇.Sb-9b (QSGSD, pp< 2 5 4 5 1 We may mention isere the example of My Mountain Villa in Longmian Moun如”龍 取 山 在 圈 ， a painting by Li Gon或n 李 公 麟 (1049- 1146) of his own villa on Longmian Mountain ^in modem Anhui), done while ne was imng in Kairene.

34 荷深似入苕溪路 石怪疑行雁蕩間 只恐中原方肅沸 天心未遣主人間

Having It Both Ways Among the dense lotus flowers there seems to be a road to the liaoxi ureek; Amidst che grotesque rocks one seems to be strollinp I am afraid chat when me central land is in the middle of turmoil. Heaven does not intend (or its owner to enjoy his leisure.

Behind the populariiy o f the estate maps as paintings, a moral lethargy is exposed in die fa rin g contradiction between the construction o f the private warden and th e deterioration o f public order in the tum ultuous Late Tang. Bai Juyi was not alone in his observations on absenteeism in Luoyang, In "Strolling in the East o f the City* 城 東 閑 遊 (QTS，357.4 〇^ 〇)，Liu iiu d de­ scribed the same phenomenon, but w ithout Bai’s overt moralizing: 借問池臺主

Mav I ask where che owner ot the pond and

多居要路津

Most ot the nine he is positioned at che tord to high o&iaalaom. W ith thousands or ^old he purenased suen

千金買绝境 永曰屬間人 竹徑縈紆入 花林委曲巡 斜场眾客散 空鎖一因春

Only to lec it belong to men of leisure all day long. Zigza^ing, they enter che bamboo paths; Winding, they tour the flower bushes. At sunsec, che guests disperse. W ith spring scenery pointlessly locked up in the garden.

As in the poem by Bai Juyi ju st quoted, the owner here is laentified as one •positioned at the ford to high officialdom/’ Like Zhang Ji’s “G athering at liet Gairden o f Mir, Li in SanytiaiC here wc have a party in a garden whose mascer is absent* T he idea o f ^excellent sccnciywbelonging to wmcn o f leisurcw is a perennial m otif in poems on absenteeism. Liu Y u3qs treatm ent, however, has a hidden tw ist. T he garden here lacks a perm anent aesthetic owner* Even though wmcn o f leisure*' enjoy it wall day long,*" the dispersal o f the ^ e s ts ^ at sunset s^nals the beginning o f a long night o f unappreciated oblivion for the 'spring sccneiy,wT he poem begins w ith a question about the 42* For a similar reference to the estate maps, see Du Xunhe 杜 $ 鶴 （ 846~9〇4 ) , 〇n the 丁emp】e of Mount YuekT 題 擻 麓 寺 ,]gTS, 691*7931.

Having It Both Ways

35

whereabouts o f the owner o f the pond and the tcrracew and ends w ith a scene devoid o f hum an presence. by now it should be clear th at there was an incom patibility between be­ ing an active ofBaal and being the true owner o f a garden* In a poem by Z hang Ji on a garden estate o f Li Jiang 李 鋒 （ 764-830) in Pingquan th at had originally belonged to Linghu C hu 令 狐 楚 （ 766-83フ),43 the usual praise o f the fine scenery is followed by the following comment a t the end o f the poem: 此處堪長往 遊人早共傳 各當恩寄重 歸臥恐無緣

This place is worth frequenting; Visitors have lone calked aoout it am on^t themselves. Yet eacn of you has been ravored witti heavy duties; I a m a fr a id n e ith e r w i ll h a v e t h e Iu c k t o r e t u r n a n d c o u c h here*

T he contrast between visitors and owners is conventional enough, but there is some出ing dram atic in the &ct th at absenteeism remains constant despite the change o f legal ownership o f the garden estate* T here is also som ething uncanny in Zhang Jis inauspiaous prediction th at Li Jiang would not M have the luck to return and couch here* i,i Jiang, who never had much leisure to enjoy his villa, died in a m ilitaiy m utiny

At the risk of tediousnessj I cite one more example, Wei Zhuanビs 韋 莊 (836-910) poem “ Sent to the Owner of the Garden”寄 固 林 主 人 （ QTS， 696.8012): 主人常不在 春物爲誰開 桃鲢紅將落 梨華雪又摧 曉鶯間自囀 遊客暮空回

l h e o w n e r is c o n s t a n t ly a b s e n t; r o r w h o m d o t h in g s in s p n n c b lo s s o m ?

Just as the D in k oetals or charming peach trees are about co rail. The snow-white flowers of luxuriant pear trees press forward. At dawn the orioles chirp in leisure; At dusk the sightseeing guest leaves alone.

43. This was one of a half-dozen villas owned by high officials at Pingquan, mentioned by on Magic Spring** 重 泉 此 g 1 W, 697.3171* 44. ^Harmonizing with Minister Ling^us 'My Eastern Estate at Pinequan/ The Estate Had Until Recently Bdonged to Vice Director Li of the Department of State Afl^irs* I Hereby Sent a Poem of Ten Couplets• • 和 令 狐 尚 書 平 泉 東 莊 近 屬 李 撲 射 因 寄 十 韻 , gTS，384»43a8. 45* SeeJiu Tan^hu, 164*4291; Xin Tangshu, 152.4844.

Li Deyu in the pre&ce to his

36 尚有餘若在 猶堪载酒來

Having It Both Ways There are still flowers remaining here: Those are sdll worth a trip back with wine.

Sim ilar to uuaniau s poem in winch the owner is simply identified as X o rd So^and^So, here the anonymity o f the owner points to the prevalence o f ab­ senteeism as a social phenomenon. Although the contrast between the ab­ sent owner and the sightseeing visitor is ^m iliar! W ei Z huang achieves isome variety, if n o t novelty, by refraining from laying claim to the garden as an aesthetic space* N onetheless, he establishes a more enduring relationship to the garden at the end o f the poem* A t the moment when the garden, w ith the disappearance o f th e visitor, is about to &de into the emptiness o f the night (as it does in Liu Y uxis poem), he promises to come back. Just as the owner is *constandy ab sen t/ so W ei Zhuang s experience is repeatable* T his repeatability is lim ited (the days o f the remaining flowers are numbered); nonetheless, it p ro lo n g the life o f the garden as an appreciated space.

The M iddling Herm it Tw o main reasons accounted for Bai Juyi#s intense concern w ith the issue o f ownership. First, as dem onstrated in his social satincal poetry^ mansions or m anorial gardens provided a powerful symbol not only for the status o f their owners but abo for the welfare o f the state. Second, in a more personal sense, Bai Juvi conceived o f a garden w ith stable ownership as the necessary and sufBcienc space for realizing a wa^ o f life* T he guiding ideology for such a life was the notion o f "hermitage in officialdom” 吏 隱 ) , a term th at seems to have onginated in the late seventh or early eighth centuiy to refer to the achievement o f a detached state o f m ind while filling an official post and enjoying all the benefits th at came w ith it*46 T he idea chat one could spm tually absent oneself from the hubbub o f the hum an world while physically remaining in its vortex has a long histoiy.

46. Por early examples of its usage， see Song Zhiwen 宋 之 問 （ d. 712), Mountain Villa at Lantian” 藍田山莊, QTS，52.636; and Li Qiao 李 崎 （ 645^-714?), ^Harmonizing with *Thc Country House for My Off Days* by My Colleague Libationcr IT 和同府 李 祭 酒 休 沐 田 居 ,]2TS, 57•抑7.

47*Writings on the subject of reclusion in traditional China are legion. For a onef but erudite discussion, see Qian Zhongshu, Guanzhui bian, pp. 910-14. An earlyr study in English is Li Chi 手 折 ,*T he Changing Concept of the Recluse in Chinese Literature^ Berkowitz has written extensively on the subject; see his " i ne Moral H ero/ ^Reclusion in Traditional

Having It Both Ways

37

T he 现 “伽 扣 莊 子 m etaphorica% describes a Xiong Yiliao 熊 宜 僚 as someone V h o can submerge [him self as if into water] while on the gcoimd9' (fcefee似k 陸 沈 者 ）because, although he lives among the people, he "is against the vulgar, and his mind does not deign tx> mingle w ith thcm .w4S T he same m etaphor found its way into Dong&ng Shuo's 東 方 辦 （ z iu i 。 B*c*) self-portrayal, inspired by a h e a v ^ dose o f wine at a palace p a r t y ： 陸沉於俗

H iding 3.W1Yfrom the vulgar while witn them, as if submerging imto water] while on the ground,

避世金馬門

I escape from the w orla inside the Golden H orse Gate;

宮殿中可以避世全身

In halls and palaces one can escape from th e world and keep ones body whole— W hy does one have to hide in the deep mountains A nd under the thatch o f weeds and reedsr

何 必 深 山 之 中 蒿 蘆 之 下

Tm s intoxicated lyricism contains a v ertat pattern th at w oidd ^ again and again in the self-representations o f urban herm its or later genera­ tions: the interrogative phrase hebi ^ C*Why does one have to ♦♦♦ in­ troduces a favorite rhetorical question— W hy, if rednsion can be found here, docs one have to look elsewhere^ In the fourth century, W ang Kangju JL % made a terminological con­ tribution to the poetic discourse on hermitage w ith a memorable taxonomy in his ^Poem Against Summoning the Recluse" 反 招 隱 詩 (XQHWJ，p. 953): 小隱隱陵數 大隱隱朝や

T he petty hermits hide in the hills and marshes; T h e great hermits hide in the court and marketplace.

T he petty herm its were usually ajudged an interior breed in comparison w ith the great herm its, although there were occasional exceptions. Among pre-Tang poets, Xie Tiao anticipated m ost fully Bai Juyis ver­ sion o f hermitage in ofncialdom. Xie T iaos appointm ent as magistrate o f Xuanchcng in 495 was a turning point in his life, for Xuancheng "would be

C hina/ "Topos and Entclcchy in the Ethos of Reclusion in China/* and Patterns oj Disengagem nt 48. S^e 2%“af> |zijW ， ％ yangM則味， p. 49» Shiji, 126.3205* For discussion of the same theme in Dong^ing Shuo s Toem Admon^ ishting My Children” 誠 子 詩 ， see Li Chi, "The Changing Concept of the Recluse in Chinese Literature/ p . 242. 50. See, e,g„ the introduction to the biographies of the hermits in Lianphu, 5i*73i~3^

3»

Having It Both Ways

an ideal place for him to both serve and retire at the same time, a perfect compromise.1^51 In his prefectural post, he seemed to have achieved the best o f both worlds (UA Poem W ritten on M y W ay to Xuancheng Prefecture, as I Came O u t o f X inlinpu and Faced the Plank Bridge* 之 宣 城 出 新 林 浦 向 板 橋 , X gH W J, p. I429): 庚!權懷祿情

Both enjoyii^ th e salary o f an appoincment

復 换 涂 '洲趣

A nd harmonizing with th e mood o f se^usion.

H ere, rather than contrasting great herm its and petty hermits, Xie Tiao m apped ou t a middle ground, where the spintual transcendence o f a herm it and the m aterial benefits o f an o&icial can be reconciled and syndiesized* Xie 1 lao s search for and attainm ent o f a synthesis was an inspirational model for Bai Juyi, whose own version o f hermitage in officialdom was formulaced in the notion o f the ^middling h e rm it/ a term th at he coined for the 2 2 afteH iis re ta n rto Luoyang:52 大隱住朝市 小隱入丘樊 丘樊太冷落 朝市太嚣喧 不如作中隱 隱在留司官

u re a t hermits resiae m th e capital; Pecty hermits so into th e mountains. In the mountains it is too desolate; In the aLmtal it 丨 s too boisterous* It would be better to be a middling hermit: H iding in the Regency in th e Bastem C apital

不勞心輿力

As if in office, as if in seclusion. N either busy, nor idle. You don t exert your mind or body?

又免饑與寒

Yec you are spared hunger and cold.

终歲無公事

There is no offiaal business all year round, Yec there is salary eveiy sm 系e month* If you arc fond o f cUmbing, There is A utum n M ountain south o f the dty;

似出復似處 非忙亦非閑

随月有俸錢 君 若 好 登 ft 城南有秋山

5i* Kang-i Sun Chang, Six Dymstiet Poetry, p. 133. 52* For an attempc to explore the social, political, and cultural backgrounds for the emer* gence of the idea of the midciliiig hermit m connection with the garden life of scholar-officials in the Wiid-Tang, see Wang Yif Yuanlin yu Thongguo wenhua, pp. 227-38. For possible influence of Chan Buddhism on Bai Juyi in tms regard, see Ren Xiaohong, Chanyu Zhongguo yuan* Un, pp. 51-54; and Jia Jinhua, M I probablび pn’ t be able to recurn to die mountains. So I just moved spring and rocks over toward my body.

If Bai Juyi cannot go to the mountains, he can certainly have the moun­ tains come to him, in a diminished but concentrated form* The ardfidal gully may be a second-best choice for him in old age and sickness; sdl^ it signals the power o f art to replace sufBciendy, it not totally triumph over, nature* Even as an artificial construct, the garden is more natural than other forms o f human artificeJ h a t is the underlymgifaemfc ot^BaiJujos Sounds of Shoals”灘 聲 (BJYJ, 36.2518): 碧 玉 斑 斑 沙 1歷 歷 清流決決響汾冷 自從造得游聲後 玉管朱餘可要聽

Like spotted emeraldjade, sands shine and gttter; The rushing dear stream tinkles on and o i l Since I created the sounds of shoals， Have I ever wanted to listen to jade pipes and vermilion strings?

The last couplet here calls to mind one from Zuo ^is "Summoning the Reduse”招 隱 士 p，734): 何必絲與竹 山水有清音

(JL ol 306)

Why do there have to be strings and pipes? Mountains and waters have cheir own clear sounds*

There is, however, a telling difference* Zuo Si posed a classical opposiaon between nature and art; with Bai Juyi, on the other hand, the contrast is between two forms of human artifice一-the sounds of the shoals built as a replica of nature versus the w jadc pipes and the vermilion strings." Occasionally, however, the desire for the real tiling was intense that the replica was telt to be inadequate* When H; Yu wrote about an artificial mountsdn in Pei Dus garden, he began his poem widi tnis commena 公乎眞愛山 看山旦連夕

MilorA you really love your mountain， Looking at it firom dawn till dusk

The Poetics of Space 猫嫌山在眼 木得著脚麼

75

Still you regret that the mountain exists only in your eyes So that you cannot wander in it on your feet.22

As a constant but vicarious presence, the replica can only offer a visual pos^ session (zaiyan unable to satisfy the garden masters desire to walk For a man wich Pei Dus resources, there was a drastic remedy. After purchasing a magnificent mansion once owned by Li Guinian ^ S t ^ favorite musician at Emperor Xuanzong’ s 玄 宗 （r. 712-756) court, Pei Du had it removed from its original site in the Tongyuan ward in the northeast comer of Luoyang to Wuqiao, just south of the Setting Up the Tripod Gate (Dingdingmen 定 痛 門 ）and named it Green Meadow Hall (Lftyetang 綠 野 堂 )^23 Pei Du left no explicit written account of his rea­ sons for such a marvelous feat of civil engineering, but a clear clue can be 痴^

Sueam”溪 居 ^

335,375句厂

extant poem on the Green Meadow Hall: 門徑俯清溪 茅簷古木齊 紅塵飆不到 時有水禽啼

The cateway overlooks the dear stream; The thatch eaves nse on par with anaent trees. Red dust does not g/st to swirl here. Where water birds warble trom time to time.

Pei Du already had a splendid manorial garden in the jixian ward of Luoyang, which commanded the best scenery in the city. The Green Meadow Hall was apparently built as a suburban getaway* Upon its com­ pletion, Pci Du wrote a poem of twenty lines (no longer extant) in celebra­ tion and asked Bai Juyi, Liu fuxi, and Yao He to write companion pieces* As can be expected, all three underscored the theme of redusion. In Bai juyis poem, Pci Du is portrayed niedy in the mode o f the middling hermit: 巢許终身穩 薷曹到老忙

Chao and Xu spent their whole lives inredusion; Xiao and Cao were busy until oldage*25

22. "Eleven couplets Harmonizing with "Arriuoal Mountain#by Vice Director Pei the Minister Duke” 和 無 僕 射 相 公 假 山 H---- 額 , gTS, 34M837. 23. See Zheng Cnuhui, M in ^ ) m n g z d u , 2^7. 24* Chao is Chaofii 巢 父 and Xu is Xu You 許 由 ; both were hermits during the time of the legendaiy ruler fsL〇 ; see Huangtu Mi, G a osh i d fitan , i.u-i4* 25 Xiao is Xiao He 萧 何 (d 193 b.c*), and Cao is Cao Shen 曹 麥 (d. 190 b.c.); both were capable counselors>m), reinforced botn m the name of the girl and the boat she paddles* Second, the presence of Jiangnan is evoked not only by the white lotus flowers that Bai Juyi brought from Suzhou but also by the transformation of a domesticated concubine into an elusive, free-moving nymph that was the stereotype of southern belles in the yuefu tradition. Litde Peach becomes an actress in the mini-drama playing out in front of and for the sake of the garden master, even as the white lotus flowers turn into a 44. Owen, The End of the Chinese "Middle Agu,up. 96. 45. The creation of the music for "Song for Picking Lotuses" was attributed to Emperor \Vudi 武 帝 (n 502-49) of the Liang; see Atji, 50.726. l*ang poems with this title are too numerous to enumerate here. An example is Bai Juyis wSong for Picking Lotuses 採 蓮 曲 , BJYJ, 19.1303.

88

The Poetics ofSpaa

piece of stage property. Third, the garden pond is not just a miniaturized re­ creation of the real waterscape of Jiangnan; it is also a negation of the latter because of its ^terrible wind and waves^ As the mention of the ^terrible wind and wavesMof Jiangnan reminds us, the element of danger is completely ab^ sent in traditional wSongs for Picking Lotuses**; here it is injected for the po­ etic purpose of stressing the superiority of the Jiangnan-siyle pond as a safer space than the natural Jiangnan. Hence the twist that even though every detail in the poem purports to evoke Jiangnan, the poet can smugly declare chat his pond is M not like Jiangnan/' The pseudo-Jiangnan has triumphed over the authentic Jiangnan. As the articles from Jiangnan were translocated from their indigenous settings to northern garden, they were integrated into a possessed space. This sense of possession was yet another factor in the superiority of the Jiangnan-style garden over the geographical Jiangnan. In wLotns Flowers and Rocks,Mwhile envisioning the beautjr of his garden enhanced with articles from Suzhou, Bai Juyf expressed an intense desire M to return to my home­ land^ Indeed, althou^i the sights and sounds of Jiangnan were a constant source of jo ^ they also prompted a melancholy homesickness. "Hearing the Cicada on the Night of the Third Day of* tile Sixth Month”六 月 三 日 夜 聞 蟬 （ BJYJ, 24.1670) was written in 826, while Bai Juyi was prefect of Suzhou:

不知池上月

Lotus flowers emit rra^ance as clear dew drops; Willow cwig^ flutter as 2. tine breeze rises. Under the crescent moon on cne ernrd day of the montn; A young cicada chirps for the first time. Upon hearing it, the sojourner from the north is saddened; Listening in silence, he recalls the Eastern Capital. There I have a house with bamboos and trees; Ic has been the second time cicadas chirped since I left it. I wonder, under the moonlight, on the pond.

誰撥小船行

W ho is paddling my small boat.

荷香清露墜 柳動好.風生 微月初三夜 新蟬第一聲 乍聞愁北客 犛 聽 憶 東京 我有竹林宅 别來蟬再鳴

The poem is structured in the 'stimulus-response^ (ganwu ^ mode, with the chirping of a cicada inciting Bai Juyi s thoughts o f his garden in Luoyang. In and or itself, this transition from sight to vision is a familiar po-

The Poetics of Space

89

ctic device, but the direction of the shift here is noteworthy. In contrast to his typical garden poems in which the beauiy of Jiangnan is constantly evoked, here the poem moves from a real scene in the south to a northern garden chat is meant to reduplicate the landscape of Jiangnan* Such a shift is informed with a sense of the difference between Jiangnan as a purely aes^ thetic sight/site and the Jiangnan^style garden as both an aesthetic and a possessed space. Presenting himself as only a ##sojoumerwin Suzhou, Bai Jup conceived of his permanent identity in connection with, the whousc with bamboos and trees*" that he owned in the north. When he wonders wwho is paddling my small boacwon his pond, one can also sense the anxiety of an ab^ sentee garden owner who has been highly critical of absenteeism among his contemporaries. The same theme of homesickness appears in another poem written while Bai Juyi was in Suzhouパ Remembering My Residence in Luoyang”憶 洛 中 所 居

(BJYJ,25.i7 〇2 ):

忽憶洛中宅 春來事宛然 雲销行經哀 水上队房前 嚴綠栽黄竹 嫌 紅種白蓮 醉教鶯送酒 閑遣鶴看船 幸是林固主 愧爲食祿牵 官猜薄似紙 歸思急於絃 直合姑蘇守 歸休更何年

Suddenly I recall my residence in Luoyang; Its spring scenery comes so vividly to mind. Clouds disperse along the footpath; W ater rises up in front o f the bedroom. Sick o f the green, I planted beige bamboos; T ired o f the pink, I grew white lotuses. In drunkenness, I asked the orioles to get me wine; In leisure, I sent th e cranes co look after the boat. Fortunately, I am the master o f the garden; Shamefully, I am tied up in emolument. My attachment co ofBce is as thin as paper; My desire to return is as urgent as an arrow on the bowstring. H ow can it be fit for me to govern G usu [Le., Suzhou]? W hen will th e time come for me to go hom e to retirement^

fhe ironjr remains the same as in the previous poem: Bai Juyis remem­ brance of his garden m the nortn took place while ne was living in Jiangnan. Imbedded in this act of remembrance is the same difrcrcntiation between tne geographical Jiangnan as an alien land and the [iangnan-style garden as a

9〇

The Poetics of Space

piece of owned property. Corresponding to this diflferentiation is the con­ trast between Bai Juyis temporary position as the 'prefect of GusuMand his permanent identity as the 'master of the garden/* The poetized urban garden in the mid-Tang negotiated between art and nature through a process of selective inclusion and exclusion in creating a personal space of reclusion. The central issue in the poetics of space was the adjustment and coordination of the relationship between the 'm-here** and the wout-thcrc/#The focus on the front gate revealed the urge to set apart the private space of the garden from the public realm of the city* At the same time, the spatial limitations of the garden were overcome with the expansion of the visual horizons, through horticultural control and, more important, through fissures and crevices such as doors, windows, ponds, and wells. The front gate as a boundary: still hinged on the legality of the ownership of the garden as landed property. Cutting tall trees and pruning bamboo bushes helped to give the right juxtaposition and proportion to diflferent forms of nature as they appeared in the garden* The framing of nature and its reflections in water or a mirror were essentially a function of poetic or^ ganization in establishing a passage whereby nature came to the garden un­ der the control of the transfixing gaze of the poet. Framing was a way of seeing and controlling things. Nature M as is could be chaotic and disorderly threatening to expand and dissipate in too many directions. The poetic gaze, however, was able to extract the significant elements of nature and coordi­ nate them into an ordered and unified entity. Pared down to its essence, nature became not only concentrated, focalized, andtneaning^laden but ako controllable and possessable. Ic was ultimateljr the sense of control and pos­ session, both empirical and poetic, that determined the garden as a construct superior to nature, even though paradoxically the accomplishment of the garden was measured by the degree to which it succeeded in reduplicating； ciulating, and evoking nature.

Fetishism and Its Anxiety: A Poetic Biography of Fantastic Rocks

Obsession and Fetishism in the Chinese Tradition In many ways, the phenomenon of petrophilia as revealed in Tang-Song poetry may be treated as a form of fetishism* M Fetishism in a broad sense of extravagant devotion to or irrational indulgence in particular types of things brings to mind a number of words in Chinese, such as sfct•嗜 ,ft•癖 ，m 愛 ， Imo 好 , and even 病♦ O f those, the first two deserve a brief discussion here not onl^ because they come closest to conveying the idea of obsession associated with fetishism but also because they appeared frequently in the language of and about the poec^petrophiles. in its original meaning, shi refers to the enjoyment of comestibles. A ShiM poem (no. 209) uses it to refer to the love of the ancestral spirits for food and drink (如 》sfci 丨 • 神 , 飲 食 )♦ Classical writings are fiill of admonitions against shi as a form of indulgence in sensual pleasures in gen^ In the 尚 書 , for instance, the legcndaty ruler Yu is said to hive rumed “ love of wine and fondness for music”(识 ” メ“ふ(yin 甘 酒 嗜 音 ） among the things that surely lead to the downfall of a ruler.1However, from early on, the usage o f shi was extended to describe a passion for more noble, ifttellectual activities. One example can be found in the L(/i 禮 記 ，where

i.

zfcewが ,**Wu zi zhi ge 五 子 之 歌 ,"p. 157a*

92

Fetishism and Its Anxiety

Confucius is quoted as praising a few of his disciples for their tfpassion for learning” 嗜 學 ).2 As in the case of shi, the term pi tended to appear in morally cautionaiy discourse in ancient times* The earliest example that I know of is in the Yawzi Aimが“晏 子 春 秋 * In enumerating the accomplishments and virtues of Duke Huan of Qi, Yanzi mentions that he ^did not do harm to the wealth of the people with his own predilection for food and drink** (bu yi yin^ zfefが lww_min決 i dwi 不 以 飲 食 之 辟 害 民 之 財 )• Yanri advises Duke Jing, who wants to follow the example of his illustrious ancestor, wnot to harm the people by indulging in your predilections and not to incur the re­ sentment of various lords with your addictions and enjoyment of thingsM(wu メ pi 震{fixing メ sbか“ グ zfcofcoa 無 以 多 辟 傷 百 姓 無 以 嗜 欲 玩 好 怨 諸 侯 ).4 Whereas in its early uses, pi, like shi, primarily referred to human physical cravings gravitating toward moral disorder, the Jin period saw an expansion or its meaning to describe ccccntnc individuals with obsessive behavior driven by fetishism. In the official biography of Du Yu 杜 預 (222-84), we read: W ang Ji knew how to judge the worth o f a horse through its physiognomy* H e was also enamored o f horses. H e Qiao, on the other hand, hoarded great wealth. [Du] Yu would often say, ^ an obsession (pi 0 ) with horses and Qiao with money/' U pon hearing that, Emperor W u asked Yu, ^W hat obsession do you have?MD u Yu replied, *Tour minister has an obsession with the Zuozhuan

Some characteristics of pi as a form of obsession or fetishism can be gleaned from this account. First, pi may manifest itself as a byproduct of incense in^ tellectual pursuit asivell as a fixation on material objects* Second, the person with a pi may, as in the case of Wang Ji, be a connoisseur as well as a wor2. L伊zfcenが， *Tangong 檁弓（ A),wp. 1283c. 3. 11le usage of pi as a medical term dates to as early as the second centuiy b.c. In the wetア叹, Tingshu”重 榧 ,**Shuifb** 水 服 ,p. 1025c, the term refers to die accumulation or blockage of harmful qi in the intestines that causes appenaicitis. Reference is made to fewが 痰 癖 ,the acaimulation or blockage of phlegm, in Ge Hon多jPoo/wzf wielw•伽jiawk, 5.113, ‘ Y卿 i cfc«nが“j• む 3.189. According to Liu Shipei 劉 師 培 （ 1884ィ抑)* 辟 here is a variant for 0 (see ibid., p, 191). $.Jinshu, 34.1031. The source of this anecdote is Pci Qi*s jjt ^ (fl. 36a) Yulin as quotred in one of Liu Xiaobiao’ s 割孝標（ 462-521) notes to Liu Yiqing^ Sfcfsfctt。xi” ブ 《jidrwk 20.704.

Fetishism and Its Anxiety

93

shiper of the object of his pi.67Third, pi, as in the case of He Qiao, may be a driving force for hoarding or collecting, the motivation of which is not the practical function or commercial value of what is collected but an obses^ sion with collection itself* Fourth, difFerenc kinds of pi may be evaluated morally in a hierarchical order in accordance with their specific targets/ Fi­ nally, thou^i compulsive, pi can be deliberately flaunted as a form of self-* expression, as in Du Yus proud admission of his preoccupation with the Zfwzhuan* Pi has become an expressive as well as judgmental term. During the Tang, the term pi found its way into the language of poetry.8 Not surprisingly, an obsession with poeoy いbipt 詩 癖 ) became a favorite motif in poetic self-representations.91 0In "Chanting Alone in the Mountains'* 山 中 獨 吟 (BJXf, 7,407)，Baijuyi characterized himself as follows: 人各有一癖 我癖在章句

£ach man has his own obsession. Mine is with stanzas and lines.

By denning vt as a universal trait of the human psyche, Bai Juyi sugges­ ted chat the unique ldenniy ot an individual is to be located in the obiect of his pu

6. Note that Wang Ji s obsession with horses is includca m the "Knowledge of Tech­ niques" ( # f^ ) chapter of the Shishuo xinyu. The connection between obsession and connoisseurship can already be seen here. 7. Du Yus obsession is obviously superior to He Qiao's. In the Shishuo xinyu. He Qiaos obsession with money is presented as the only stain on an otherwise immaculate charaaer. 8. One of the earliest examples is Cui Bizhi’s 崔 日 知 ( 凡 728〉^While Si^itseeing at the ’ North Creek at Mount Longmen, Libationer Wei Thought of His Villa in Motuic Li, So He Wrote to Express What Was in His Heart. He Showed His Poem to His Brother Shu and Also Presented It to His Ulustrious Colleagues. Respectfully I Wrote a Companion P i« ¥ 奉 酬 韋 祭 酒 偶 游 龍 門 北 溪 忽 懷 驪 山 别 棄 因 以 詠 志 示 弟 淑 并 呈 諸 大 QTS, 391*989# in which he mentioned an obsession with mountains and waters (如 mWpt• 山 水 •)• An earlier example is Xiao Gang H M (5〇3~5i)# who daimed to have formed a lifetime obs^sion with poetty (dnpi at the ag^ ot seven; see Lianpbu, 4*i〇9；ana Nanshi, 8*233* 10. Bai Juyi's references to his obsession {pi # ) with poetry can also be found in M At F6rty-Five" 四 十 五 , BJXJ,丨 6.I〇I〇; "Phyfo% Addressed to foungsters Sitting Around Me at the Table"皮 中 戲 呈 諸 少 年 , BJXJ，2^*1985; and ^Another Poem Presented to Htiishu in D runkcnncs,醉 後 重 贈 海 叔 , BJXJ, 28J996. For examples firom other Tang poets, see Qian Qi, Owe HtWred! BaMi W油otrt Ttflw 如 River 江 行 無 題 一 百 首 ，no« 19, gTS, 桃ユ678.; Meng Jiao, ^"Exhortation to Goodness” 勸 善 吟 ,gTS, 对9*4189; and Zhang Hu 張祜（ フ 92?-妨3?)， “Five Poems Written While Living in Retirement"閑 居 作 五 首 , no. I, in Quan Tangshi buyi, 8.178.

94

Fetishism and Its Anxiety A noteworthy phenomenon emerging in the mid-Tang was the practice

o f ad o p tin g a so b riq u et according to one’s 833 )，

C u i X u an lian g 崔 玄 秦 （ 768-

for exam ple, called h im se lf O ld M a n w ith T h re e O bsessions 三 癖 翁

because o f his obsession w ith p oetry, th e zither, a n d w ine.11 T h e idiosyncratic p o e t L u T o n g 盧 全 （ フフダ-835) surpassed everyone else w ith th e grandiose ep ith e t L o rd o f E ccentricities 癖 王 .12

At this juncture, we can make a few general observations, to be elaborated in greater detail below, on the distinct issues surrounding pecrophilia as a form of shi or pi after the mid-Tang, First, compared with other forms o f ob­ session or recishism, petrophilia involved a degree of connoisseurship that was predicated on certain aesthetic standards formalized in the early ninth ccntuiy* Second, in coQecting various specimens of £intasdc rocks, petrophiles, especially those who were also high-ranking ofBcials, often found themselves in a morally vulnerable position, since the collecting often imposed heavy bur­ dens on the populace* Third, although onginally confined to a small group of connoisseurs, petrophilia soon turned into a hA, spreading across a wide spectrum of society* The rise of a collective obsession with fentastic rocks threatened to weaken or undermine the claim by the elite poet-connoisseurs to moral and aesthetic inaividuality. With these observations in mind, let us turn to the representation of the rock as a poetic topic before the Tang.

The Rock Topos in Pre-Tang Poetry Mention of garden rocks in Cninesc literature dates to the Han rhapsodic fu,13 However, the appearance of the rock as a poetic topic was a much later phenomenon. Originally a byproduct or poetiy on objects1' (yongwushi 坏 物 詩 ),poems tocusing on the description of rocks do not seem to have n. See Liu Yuxi, "Director Cui of Huzhou Sent Me His Poem on Three Obsessions/ in Which He Spoke of His Obsession with Poetry, the Zither, and Wine. His Words Arc Transcendent and Lofty, and I Could Not Chant Them Enou^i. In the Past, Wang Rong Transcribed on a White Round Fan Liu Wuxing's Lines on Tin^ao and Longshou. There^ fore I Responded with a Poem of Four Couplets• 湖 州 崔 郎 中 會 長 卑 三 # 詩 ！ I t 癖 在詩輿琴酒其詞逸而高吟詠不足普柳吳興亭皋隴首之句王融書之白困 扇 故 爲 四 韻 以 謝 之 , fiTS，357*4〇i8-i9. For the allusion to Liu Yun3 柳 惲 （style name

'Wuxlng* 465-匁7) poem， see his biography in 21.331; and38.988， 12. Lu Tong» Three Poems About Myself* 自 祙 三 首 ，no, 3, jJTS, 3874370. For a convenient reference to various types ofp toccthcr with citanons or thar usages, see Pawen yunfu, 99.399oa-b. 13. Sec Schafer, Tu Wans Stone Catalogue of Qoudy Forest, p. 4.

Fetishism and Its Anxiety

95

been written regularly until the sixth century*14Depending on the occasions on which they were written, these poems can be divided roughly into two types. The first consisted of those written on or for social gatherings, in which a rock or rocks might be one of the assigned topics for poetic compositions. Xiao Tui’ s蕭 推 （ cL 548) W A Poem on the Topic o f’ Azure Roci/ Composed in Compliance with a Command”職 得 翠 石 應 令 詩 (XQHWJ, p. 1857) was obviously produced on one such occasion: 依峰形似鏡 構嶺勢如蓮 映林同綠柳 臨池亂百川 碧苔終不落 丹字本難傳 有邁東明上 来 遊 皆羽你

Leaning on the peaK, its shape resembles a mirror; Forming ndges, its contours look like a lotus flower. Reflecting against the grove, it merges wich the green willows; Standing in the pona, it disrupts hundreds of water courses. Green mosses never fidl from it; Red characters are always hard to read. Transcendent, on Dongming Mountain, 15 All visitors are immortals wich feathered wings.

Elegant diction and conventional sentiments characterize much of the yongwu poetry on rocks. The outward form of Xiao Tuis poem— the pentasyllabic octavemakes it necessary to limit the descriptions to a few snap­ shots of the physical attributes of the rock* No matter how skillfully exe^ cuted the descriptive part of the poem may be, the generic rock here lacks any specificity both as a physical object and in its relationship to the poet who sings its praises* Instead, a shared Daoist lore is introduced chroi^h a series of easily decipherable images: the red streaks on the rock chat look like the scripts of Daoist writings, the allusion to Dongming—a mountain on ^three poems on rocks written from the sixth to the ninth century are convex niendy grouped together in Wcnyuan yin^jua, 161.8a-iab (pp. 768a-7〇a). T w e lv e pieces on rocks arc ako anthologized in the Wenyuan yin^jua, 3iia-9b (pp. i39b-43b). For a quick gfimpse of Ctiinese rock lore, see Yiwen lajut 6.107-9；Tailing yulan, 5i.ia-7b (pp. 248a-5ia), S； 2.ia-8a (pp. 252a_55b); latpm 丨 398.3184-95; Gujin sちtu/enがVhom I have received several times for vour sake.

By inviting Liu Yuxi and Bai Juyi to join him in his poetic celebration, Niu Sengru made the rocks accessible to a select peer group. This accessibility both guaranteed and was guaranteed by a shared system of aesthetic and spiritual values* Niu Sengru could place ms confidence in his fellow connois­ seurs, with their "finesse of appreciation^ to understand his seemingly ec^ centric attitude toward the rocks. A sharp in-group sense insulated the cote­ rie of rock^lovers comfortably againsc the misgivings of die unenlightened outsiders*

From Apologia to Satire When the rock^fanciers had to address a larger audience, however, their confidence became, so co speak, less than rock solid. A most illustrative apologia is Bai Juyi’ s“ Account of the Lake Tai Rock"太 湖 石 記 • The text

F e tis h is m a n d I t s A n x i e t y

109

is w o rth q u o tin g a t so m e len g th because it provides som e in sig h t in to th e la ten t anxieties o f th e petro p h iles in th e early decades o f th e n in th ce n tu ry a n d reveals som e o f th e ir strategies to ju stify th e ir obsession* T h e a c co u n t begins w ith th e conventional device o f persu asio n — references to h isto rical p f 鄉 dents:41 All the wise men of ancient times had things to which they were addicted (sbi Master Xuanyan was addicted to books, C ounier Ji to zither. M aster Jingjie to wine.42In the present time, Duke Qizhang, counsdor-in-chief, is addicted to rocks. Different from those three things, rocks have no patterns or sound or smell or taste. W hy is it that H is Lordsmp is addicted to them? Everybody feels it to be odd, b u t I alone understand it. In the past, my old friend M aster Li, named Yue, once said, *Tf a thing suits my mind, then its use is great/' W h at he said is really true. I t is nothing but a maccer o f suiting ones mind (shtyt From tm s one can understand D uke Qizhang s addiction. (BJYJ, waiji, 3.3936) A s w e have seen, in MC h a n d n g A lo n e in th e M o u n ta in s^ Bai J u p advanced th e idea th a t obsession

( p i) is

a universal tra it o f th e h u m a n psyche. H e r e h e

w en t one step fu rth e r to co n ten d th a t a n ad d ictio n to a p articu lar ob ject is th e hallm ark o f being wise, th e re b y purposefully polem icizing ag ain st th e conventional n o tio n o f w isdom

(d a

as th e ability to tran sc en d any obses^

$ion w ith o r addiction to external things* W ith h is sw eeping generalization, Bfd Juyi p u t th e issue o f a a a ic tio n

p e r se

u n d e r th e rug a n d focused in stea d

on defending N iu S en g ru s ad d ictio n to rocks as co m pared w ith th e ad d ic­ tio n to such trad itio n al gentlem anly insignias as tx>oks, th e zith er, a n d wine* Bai J u y is to n e tu rn e d m u ch less m agisterial, how ever, as he, o n th e au th o rity o f a little kn o w n co ntem porary, argued th a t th e object o f one's a d ­ diction is less im p o rta n t th a n th e reason for o n e s addiction* U n d e rm in in g th is line o f argum ent is his aw areness th a t th e object does maccer. A crucial difference betw een N iu S en g ru a n d his alleged predecessors is th a t his ad^

e, Kong Chuan 孔 傳 (& 12th c*) 4i»In his introduction (dated 11^3) to Du Wan s cat nowned for their pasLfigures renowns adopted the same device by referring to a series of hisi sionate love of a particular kind of objects. He afBrmed the love of rocks with the &mous statement by his 1110sc illustrious suicescor (It*, Confucius) chat HThe humane person takes delight in mountains/' For translation and discussion of the excerpt from Kong Chuan, see Hay, Kernels o f Energy, pp* 3^-39. 41 Xuanyan was the style name of Huangfb Mi 皇 甫 鍵 （ M5-82); Courtier Ji was Ji Kang; Jingjie was che style name of Tao Qian.

no

Fetishism and Its Anxiety

diction to rocks entails collecting, an d it is th e process o f collecting th a t gen­ erates m uch o f th e anxiety in Bai Juyi s acco u n t*3 T ry in g to "suit o n e s m in d wm ay b e a lofiy reason fo r th e p u rsu it o f a p ri­ vate hobby, b u t N iu S en g ru s h o b b y h ad a ripple effect. R ocks o f consider­ able size such as th o se fro m Lake T a i w ere difficult to harvest from th e ir n a tu ra l settin g — a

nvcry

toilsom e business,0 as D u W a n to ld us* F u rth e r­

m o re— a n d th is is so m e th in g th a t Bai

w o u ld k n o w firsth a n d — th e dif­

ficulties w ere even g reater in tran sp o rtin g th o se heavy ro ck s from th e ir in ­ digenous locale to th e d ista n t n o rth e rn cities like L uoyang,44 T h e tension betw een private obsession a n d public ethics can be felt even in N iu S e n g ru s ow n rap tu ro u s celebration o f his newly gained rocks 珍重姑蘇守 相憐懶慢情 爲探湖襄物 不怕浪中黥

利涉餘千里

(Q TS, 466*5291):

I t was kind of the prefect o f Gusu, T o appreciate lazy and relaxed indinacion. in order to search for the thing in the lake H e did not tear wnaies m the waves. Traveling assiduously over waters for more than a thousand nuies,

山河僅百程

They made only a hunared stops across mountains and nvets.

T here is a strong, c h o u ^ i u n in te n d ed , irony in th e ta ct th a t th e satisfaction o f in m S e n g ru s la zy a n d relaxed inclination is m ade possible dv tn e intense lab o r required ro r hauling th e rock fro m th e b o tto m or liaKe l a i a n d crans^ p o rtin g it all th e w ay (wto r m o re th a n a th o u sa n d miles ) to L.uovang. In th e ir respective com panion pieces to N iu S en g ru s poem , b o th Bai J u y i an d lux

Y uxi m ade sim ilar references, aloeit in th e m o st euphem istic language,

to th e tran sp o rta tio n o f th e rock.46

.43* Judith Zeidin has pointed out that, in the Chmese tradition^ wit was not untii the ninth centiuy that obsession was mated with connoisseurship and coUecting" (T h e Petrified Hearth p. 4)* Zdclin (ibid.#pp. 4-5) drew on certain passages in Zhang Yanyuans i t (9th c.) Litiai メ 麼 代 名 畫 記 as a prime 口:ample of the collector’s apologia in the ninth century, as dia V^ai-yee u in HThe Collector, the Connoisseur, and Late^Ming Sensi^ bility," pp. 269-71. 44•入s seen in ^Lotuses and Rocks”蓮 石 , BJYJ, 24J671, while in Sushou, Bai Juyi had specimois of the Lake Tai rock sent to his residence in Luoyang. 45,1 read 力 for 利 . 46. See Bai Juyi, "Minister Duke Sian Showed Me His Twenty Couplets on the Match* less Strange Shape of the Lake Tai Rocks Sent by Prefect Li of Suzhou. I Respectfully Wrote a Poem to Harmonize with His and Also to Present to MengdeM奉 和 思 ！!'相 公 以

Fetishism and Its Anxiety Fully aware o f the objections chat could be raised against the abuse o f human labor necessitated by the collecting o f rocks, Bai Jujd took the pre­ emptive step o f characterizing N iu Sengru as a loft^ recluse with odicrw isc

In his capacity as minister o f education, Duke Q izhang offidares as the protector o f Luoyang. For maintaining his household, he has no valuable property; for nourish­ ing his body he has no superfluous things (z h a n g w u ^ ) , 47 except for a house chat he set up in the eastern part o f th e city and a villa th at he built south of th e city wall, where he carefiilly keeps his houses and prudently chooses his guests. H e does not force himself to be fiiendly and lives constantly w ithout socializing* W h e n in Leisure, he keeps company with the rocks. Rocks have separate genealogies* T hose o f Lake T ai are first-rate, second to them are those of Luofii and Tianzhu* W h a t H is Lordship is addicted to are the firstィace rocks.

洲む•い*3936-37)

W h en confined to the dom estic space o f a recluse, petrophilia may well be a harmless hobby. N iu Sengru s addiction to rocks is made morally m ore palatable because o f his lack o f interest in ocher mundane things* T h e refer­ ence to his various official tides, however, inevitably calls to m ind his status as a powerfid member o f the political elite* As a result, such a seemingly simple pleasure as collecting and appreciating rocks becom es morally com ­ plicated, Bai Juyi might try to downplay, but could not totally ignore, the public dirnensions o f N iu Sengru’ s private hobby, as he narrated h ow the rocks were coUected. Earlier, many o f the subordinates of H is Lordship were in charge o f r^ io n s with rivers and lakes, and all o f them knew that the heart o f Duke Quduuig was sec on nothing but rocks. Therefore they gathered rocks from the deep and che far-away and presented him with the mosc splendid and fantastic specimens. In four or five years, piles of rocks arrived. For che sake of integrity, these were the only things

李 蘇 州 所 寄 太 湖 石 奇 狀 絶 倫 因 題 二 十 頦 見 示 兼 呈 夢 得 ， BJYJ, 34ュ349; Liu Yuxii "Harmonizing with the Poem by Minister Duke Niu on the Lake Tai Rocks Sent from Gusu; Also Sent to Prefect Li of SuzhouM 和 牛 相 公 题 姑 蘇 所 寄 太 湖 石 兼 寄 丰 蘇 州 ，QJS ，扣3*4〇99. For a reading of the satirical element in Liu Yuxi’s poem, see Bian Xiaoxuan and Bian Mm#Liu fuxt pin^zhuan, p. 111. 47. For the idea of eliminating zhangwu as a precondition of leisure^ see also Bai Juyi, ^PossessingNo Superfluous Things 無 長 物 ，BJXJ, 33.2265- 64. 48. It appears that Bai Juyi was referring to the time span between 838, when Li Daoshu presented Niu Sengru with some Lake Tai rocks, and 843, the year in which the present piece was written.

F e tis h is m a n d I t s A n x i e t y

that H is Lordship would not decline* H e arranged them in columns in his eastern house and southern villa.

(B J Y J , w a iji,

3.3937)

T h e n arratio n contains a th in ly veiled criticism o f N iu S c n g ru s zealous su b ­ o rdinates. F u rth e rm o re , in accepting th ese gifts, N iu S en g ru risk ed com« p rom ising his ow n

( li o n

I t is n o t difBcult to im agine th e k in d

o f d istu rb an ce infUctcd o n th e "regions w ith rivers a n d la k e s/' T h e re arc in ­ dications th a t, so o n after th e y cam e in to fashion in th e early decades o f th e n in th century. L ake T a i rocks becam e a ra th e r expensive com m odiiy,49 N iu S engru, how ever, w as ap p a ren tly able to bu ild u p h is collccrion w ith o u t ever having to pay fo r th e p rize d rocks— except p erhaps w ith h is political capital as a h ig h-ranking ofBciaL In g ra tia tio n w ith u lterio r m otive, if n o t d o w n rig h t bribeiy, lu rk s b en eath th e in n o c en t surface o f these p resen tatio n s.50 Bai Juyi, h im self a rock^fancier, w as always aw are o f th e p o te n tia l co n ­ flict betw een th e gratification o f a personal inclinadon a n d th e fulfillm ent o f public m o ral responsibility; w itness his ow n reflections o n tw o rocks he to o k hom e w ith h im after com pleting his three-year te n u re in H a n g z h o u in 824: 三年爲刺史 飲水復食蘗 唯向天竺山 取得石兩片 此抵有千金 無乃傷清白

In my three years as the prefect I drank water and ace rice-malt. Only rrom Tianzhu Mouncain Did 1 take two slates of rocks. They are as dear as a thousand gold, But wouldn^t they do harm to my impeccable purity^

T h e re is a striking sim ilarity betw een Bai Ju)d’s self-p o rtrait here a n d his characterization o f N iu S engru. In b o th cases, th e collecting o f rocks is ju x -49. Sec Yao He, "Buying a Lake Tai Rockw 買 太 湖 石 , gTS, 499.5676. 】 Lake Tai rocks as purchasable commodities are also found in Wuke A (fl. early 9th c.), M On the Wooded Pavilion of Commandant-Escort CuT 题 丧 駙 馬 林 亭 , gTS ，814,9164; and Huang Tao 黄 潜 （ b. 840?), wOn the New Residence of Attendant Censor ChenM 練侍御新居， gTS, 7〇 4， &〇 〇 . 50. For reasons that would be interesting to speculate, Bai Juyi n^ected to mention an* ocher fact chat mi^it compromise Hiu Sengru s integrity namely, a significant portion of Niu s collection had been obtained by Niu mmself while serving in Huainan (see Jiu Tang472). Niu Sengrus behavior in Huaman is certainly not unlike whac Bai Juyi did in Suzhou and Hangzhou. 51.1read 藥 for 蘗 here. 52. "Three Years as the Prefect”三 年 爲 刺 史 , no. a, M47.

Fetishism and Its Anxiety

113

tネ posed with, if not justified by, the rock-fender’ s lack o f other worldly ac_ cumulations* Even so, there is a palpable anxiety over the potential risk o f the moral integrity o f the collector. A t the same time, one can see a signifi­ cant difference between Bai Ju^i and N iu Sengru as rock collectors. Bai Juyis collecting was primarily oriented toward sampling; he constandy em^ phasized the small numbers— usually one or tw o— o f the rocks he obtained. N iu Sengru s collection^ on the other hand, aimed at completeness *535 4 A s if realizing that his defense o f N iu Sengru s petromania on stricdy moral grounds is headed toward a dead end, Bai Juyi ventured into che realm o f metaphysics. After describing N iu Sengru s collection o f rocks as a m icro­ cosm, both awesome and graceful, Bai Juyi tapped what may be called the teleology o f rocks: O nce H is Lordship and I examined them d o sd y and then, as we looked ac each other in wonder, I said, wAren t these things in which the Fashioner-of-Things re­ vealed his intention^ O r were they formed by chance as they naturally congealed into cneir current shapes from their primordial casts? Yet we done know how many tens of thousands o f years have passed since they took their immutable forms. Some of them have been located in the comers o f che seas; others have £dlen into the bot­ tom of the lakes. T he tall ones are only dozens o f feet high; the heavy ones w ei^i almost a thousand pounds. Once thej^ came without being whipped and arrived w ithout legs, they showed ofiFtheir oddness and displayed their grotesqueness^ all becoming things in the eyes o f Your Lordship* T hen Your Lordship received them as distinguished guests, regarded them as sages, treasured them precious jade, and loved them as sons and grandsons. I wonder if they were summoned by ^our delib­ erate intentionf O r were those superb creatures (youwu i t simply returning to their proper place? H ow could they have come for nothing^ There must have been a purpose." (BJYJ, waiji, 3-3937)

53. O f course, the completeness is counterbalanced Niu Sengru s single-minded devo^ tion to Lake Tai rocks to the exclusion of other types of ^uitastic rocks. 54. There are two allusions here. The first is to the legend that the n rst Emperor 4 of Qin (r. 221-aio b.c.) once built a stone bridge in order to cross the ocean to sec where the sun rose. Helping the emperor was a magician who could drive stones into the sea. If the stones did not go fiist enough, he would whip them so that they would bleed and turned red (Yiwen leiju, 79«i347# quoting San^/ The second allusion is to Kong Rong’s 孔 躲 （ 153-ぬ 8) W A Letter Discussing the Case of Sheng Xiaozhang" 检 益 孝 fT Wenxuan, 41.1874-75：T h e reason why pearls and jade can arrive without legs is be­ cause people love them. Not to mention worthy people who do have lcgsf

114

Fetishism and Its Anxiety

T eleological speculations about rocks o f curious shapes were com m on in the ninth centuiy*

H ere the suggestion o f a higher purpose in the forma-

tion o f those rocks b y the Fashioner-of-Things appears to endow N iu Sengru^s addiction with a metaphysical significance, superseding Bai Juyis initial definition o f it as an activity to #suit on es mind.w O n closer exami^ nation, however, the indmidating invocation o f the larger scheme o f things turns out to be rather hollow rhetoric. AJtcr all the tantalizing questions about the mystery surrounding the genesis, transformation, and transloca­ tion o f the rocks, wc arc left with nothing but a vague assertion that M therc m ust have been a purpose0 for their final gath贫ing in N iu Sengru’ s garden, w ithout any clarification as to what exaedy that reason is* Furthermore, the reference to the sm ooth process whereby the rocks "came without being w hipped and arrived without legs sounds almost sarcastic, since it has already been made abundantly clear earlier in the text that the process o f transporting the rocks to N iu s garden was not only physically laborious but also morally questionable* T h e classification o f N iu Scngru s rocks that follows in Bai Juyis account is reminiscent o f the hierarchical structure o f bureaucratic personnel in im­ perial China, with the ranking o f the rocks as a symbol o f the sociopolitical order in the human world: wT h e size o f the rocks varies. They are divided in four classes, graded as Class A, Class B, Class C, and Class D. Each class is further divided into Rank 1, Rank 2, and Rank 3* T h e dark side o f each rock is inscribed with its grading, such as *Nius rock；Class A Rank 1, Class C Rank a, and Class B Rank 3 w (BJYJ, waiji, 3*3937)* N iu Scngrus poem had resorted to the e 3cplicit parallelism between the grading o f rocks and the ranking o f humans

(Q TSf 66.5292):

嫂人當綺培

Compared to humans, they would be like Q i the H oary Head;

視秩即公卿

Evaluated for ranks, they would be among lords and nuniscers.

#， T h c purpose o f categorizing and ranking things/ as Wai-yee Li comm ents collecting and connoisseurship in the Lace Ming, M is to 5

55. The best-known example is perhaps Liu Zongjruan, wAn Account of the City of Little Rock Mount” 小 石 山 城 記 ， 并丨*260丨 .

115

F e tis h is m a n d I t s A n x i e t y

distill definitions o f aesthetic o r aestheticised objects w ith w hich th e litera­ tu s assem bles his w o rld /'56 A t th e e n d o f his account, Bai Juyi reiterates th a t his in te n tio n is to m ake kno w n w h a t was unknown* Ju st as N iu S en g ru h as b ro u g h t to lig h t rocks th a t have scattered an d h id d en a ro u n d th e realm , so Bai Juyi in ten d s to clar^ ify

N iu S engru s addictio n to th em . In investing N iu S en g ru s aesthetic p u r­

su it w ith m o ral a n d spiritual significance, Bai Ju y i is n o t only valorizing his friend s addiction b u t also justifying his wrelishingwo f rocks: Alas! After tens of thousands o f years, these rocks scattered dll over the world, moving around unknown. W ho would have known them? I w ant co make sure chat lacecomers who have the same relish as I do understand where H is Lordships ad« diction to rocks comes from as they look at chose rocks and read what is written on them. W ritten on the juicbou day o f the fifbh m onth o f che third year o f the Huichang era [June 26,843]. (BJYJ, waiji, 3.3937) In th e end, Bai Juyi fo u n d n o b e tte r w ay o f ju stify in g p etro p h ilia th a n re­ so rtin g to th e ^ m ilia r parallelism betw een che ap p reciatio n o f rocks a n d th e abiUty to discern a n d p ro m o te unrecognized h u m a n talen t. E atlier, Bai Juyi h a d w ritten o f th e L ake T a i rocks given to N iu S en g ru

by

L i D a o sh u

(B J Y J ,

3 4 .2 3 4 9):

在世爲尤物 如 人 負 異 才

In this world they are superb creatures,57 Like men with extraordinaiy talent.

T h e effectiveness o f th e physico-m oral analogy w ore o u t, however, w ith its repeated use in th e rock-fancier s discourse. 56. Wai-ycc LA, T h e Collector, the Connoisseur, and Latc-Ming Sensibility, p. 277. An in&mous example of such rock ranking is Emperor Huizongs enfeofBng as Marquis of Pangu (p肋四ちou 磐 固 侯 ） a gigantic Lake Tai rock, which took a thousand men to cany to the imperial palace (Fang Shao, Pozhai bian [yjuan ben], 3.82). In Tieweishan con^tan, 6.116, v-ai Tao mentioned a huge Lake Tai rock with che grandiose tide Rock of Divine Transporta^ tion and IUuscdous Accomplishment^ (Shenyun zhaogong shi 神 運 昭 功 石 )• See also 客shi, 470*13685. 57* As in the case ot Bai Juyis prose account, the term youwu ^ carries some unin­ tended but sinister irony. As used in the Zuozhuan9 youwu refers to beautiful women who in­ cite dangerous passions: M A superb creature can lead a man astray. IF the man is not virtuous Zhaogong ^ 28/ and righteous, he will surely meet disaster* (Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhengyi, M p. 2118k). A £unous use of tke term in Bai Juyi’s dme is in the "Story of Ylng^ingM鶯 鶯 傳 by Yuan Zhcn (see Wang Pijiang, Tangrtn xiaoshuo, p. 167). At the same time, youwu was increasin^y used to refer to the object of ones obsession, with the su^estion that a thing of beauty was a danger for ever.

Il6

F e tis h is m a n d I t s A n x i e t y

I n discussing Y u an H o n g d a o ’s

袁 宏 道 （1568-1610)

desciription o f a

(lower^lover, J u d ith Z e itlin h as ab stracted som e o f th e general principles o f obsession* T h e se ab stractio n s appl)r to N iu S en g ru s ad d ictio n co rocks: MFirst! obsession describes a fixation o n a certain object o r aaiv ii chan o n a p articu lar person, a n d it is particularly associated w ith < a n d com ioisseurship. S econ a, it m u st be excessive a n a single-minded* T h ird , it is a deliberately unconventio n al a n d eccentric pose*^58 I n th e cu ltu ral m ilieu o f th e late M ing, obsession w as elevated as an ideal o f unsw erving com m it^ m e n t a n d geniune integrity incom patible w ith w orldly success***59 N in th c e n tu iy petro p h iles fo u n d them selves on m u c h m o re ten tativ e ground; a degree o f m o ral anxiety lurk ed even in som e o f th e m o st enthusiastic celebra­ tio n s o f fantastic rocks, such as B a iju y is account o f N iu S en g ru s collection. H ow ever, p etrophiles in th e early decades o f th e n in th cen tu ry m anaged to dilu te th eir anxiety, som etim es by tu rn in g th e physical actributes o f rocks in to sym bols o f m o ral qualities, som etim es

by

playing w ith speculations

a b o u t th e in te n tio n o f th e F ash io n cr-o f-T h in g s in endow ing rocks w ith w o n d ro u s shapes. W e have to w ait u n til th e seco n d h a lf o f th e c e n tu iy be^ fore overt criticism o f pecrom ania can be heard, su ch as th a t voiced by Pi R ixiu 皮 曰 休 (83V -83?) in “T h e L ake T a i R ocks: A P ro d u c t fro m th e T o p o f S e a -T u rd e M o u n ta in " 太 湖 石 出 金 山 頭 (g T S , 6io,7 〇4 i-4 2 )t 兹山有石岸 抵浪如受屠 雪陣千萬戰 蘚巌高下刳 乃是天詭怪 信非人工夫 白丁 一 云 取 難堪網珊瑚 厥狀復若何 鬼エ不可圈

This mountain has a bank o f rodcs# Beaten by che waves as if thejr were being slaughcerea* of thousands ot atcadcs by the snow-white battle formations, Scraping che moss^covered difFfrom top co bottom* T h e rocks must be th e crafty cricks o f Heaven; T ruly they cannot be the ingenuity of humans. For the able-bodied men co gather the rocks, Is more difficult chan to nec che corals* W h at do they look like?一 Even a painter with demonic skills could not L ens

或蹲如虎軀

picture them* Some curve like reptiles; O thers squat like dgers.

連絡若鉤鎖

Intertwining like interlocked hooks.

或拳若虺蜴

58. Zeitlin, *Thc Petrified Heart/* p. 4. 59* Ibid, pp. 3-4.

Fetishism and Its Anxiety 重 *如 萼 附 或若巨人骼 或如太帝符

Overlapping like calyx attached to each other. Some look like the bones ot a ciant;

胯肛凜箸筍

O thers look like the tallies o f the Supreme God. Swelling, like bamboo shoots o f Yundang M ountain,

格磔琅矸株

Ting^ng» like beads o f be

斷處露海眼

W here they break, the mouth of a spring is exposed;

移來和沙鬚 求之煩耄恍

As they are removed, they still carry beards o f sand* People young and old are mobilized to find them ; Boats big and small are deployed to carry them. O ne look by the grand marquises. A nd their value surpassed the pearl under th e chin o f th e black dragon. W ith rich reward for these treasures, T heytravel all the way to the distant capital. T o th e earth mountains of thfe Five Marquises You are wanted to add to diiB and caves. I f they find what suits their mind in what they

载之勞舳艫 通侯ー以眄 贵卻鹱龍珠 厚賜以麻寶 遠去窮京都 五侯土山下 要爾添崴齬 玩赏若稱意 爵祿行斯須 苟有王佐士 崛起於太湖 試間欲西笑 得如茲石無

117

play with. Ranks and salary are awarded on th e spot. Should there be noblemen coming to the emperors rescue Rising firom th e district o f Lake 1 ai, They would, la u g h in g toward the west, ask: wW ould we get to be treated the same as the rocks?"

O n e o f a group o f twenty poem s written during or shortly after an official tour Pi Rixiu took o f the Lake Tai region, the poem is unprecedented in of­ fering a firsthand report o f the sufferings inflicted on com m oners (''people old and youngw) by the craze for the Lake T ai rocks in high society *6 061 T h e fkmiliar imageiy o f the grotesque and the ugjy is now framed within a cri-

60. The most precious pearl is said to lie in the deepest water under the chin of a black dragon; see Z 2購呼:丨 i e YukouM列 禦 慈 ,p. 1061. 61. Mention is also made of a quan了 in Li He 李 贺 （790-816)， Song of Master Yang’ s Purple Inkstone with Blue Flowers"揚 生 青 花 紫 石 現 歌 》 fiTS，矽 2*4420-2i»but there the work site exists only in the poet's imagination. Li He was simply following the yongwu convention (especialiy in the fu form) in tracing the indigenous locale of an artwork and the process ot its formation.

ii8

Fetishism and Its Anxiety

tiquc of the human misappropriation of human labor itself as well as natures wonders.62 As in Bai Juyis HA Pair of Rocks,wthe Lake Tai rocks in Pi Rixius poem are not just static objects but are caught up in a process of translocation* There is, however, a iundamental difference. In Bai Juyi, this process termi^ nates in a private space where the rocks become an object of gentlemanly ap­ preciation; in Pi Rixiu, on the other hand, the process correlates with che collapse of public order on a national scale near the end of the Tang« The transportation of the rocks to the gardens of the rich and the pow­ erful in Chang^ bears some resemblance to the same process through which rocks were collected and brought to Niu Sengru s garden in Luoyang: the driving force in both cases was tdic relentless pursuit of what 'suits ones mind”（如 メ 適 意 in Bai Juyi’ s account and 稱 意 in Pi Rixiu's poem)* However, whereas for Bai Juyi this pursuit justifies Niu Sengru s ad­ diction to rocks, with Pi Kixiu it portends a national disaster, living at a time when the Tang empire was ravaged, by widespread rebellions, Pi Rixiu must have felt acutely the incompatibility between rock collecting as a (otm of conspicuous consumption and the welfare of the state* In satirizing the degenerate hedonism of ChangWs aristocrats, he was obviously sounding an age-old warning: wHc who plays with things loses his aspiradonw(wanwu •san於 fci玩 物 喪 志 ) ， 63 At tbe end of the poem, Pi Rixiu gave a poignant twist to the &miliar motif of the correspondence between appreciating the values of the rocks and rec­ ognizing human talents: the fanatic zeal with which the Lake Tai rocks were gathered is juxtaposed with the neglect of those who were willing (and, they hoped, able) to rescue the 7 ang empire from its imminent collapse.

The Philosophical Critique in the Northern Song The panegyric and cnticai treatments of Lake Tai rocks in the ninth century provided two basic modeb for Northern Song poetiy#althou^i individual works might have a mixture of botn* fhere was no lack of poems (especially those of shorter length) describing Lake Tai rocks with seemingly litdc

62. In later times, the rocks from Turtle Mouncain were put to other uses, and demand was so high chat eventually the mountain looked as it it had been M skinnedw(Fan Chengda, Wujun zhi, 15.138}.

63.

が， “ Jin teng 金 縢 , p. 195a*

Fetishism and Its A nxiety

119

moral discomfort* The conventional association between the sight of fantas^ tic rocks and the rise of a reclusive mood, for example, cements the descrip­ tive and the reflective parts of Su Songs (1020-1101) poem wAfter Leaving the Ministry Early in the Morning, as I Passed with My Colleagues the Western Pavilion of Tan Wensi，I Sang of the Lake Tai Rock”省 中 早 出 舆 同 僚 過 譚 文 思 西 軒 詠 太 湖 石 (fiSS, 52l 6327): 洞庭山連震澤水 怪石巉嚴出波底 誰言行遠莫置之 好事經瞢俄致此 愛君小軒才袤丈 滿地新芳雜紅紫 偶來憑檻見奇峰 便有江湖秋思起

Mount Dongtmg merces with the water o f Zhenze; Precipitous, a grotesque rock comes out rrom beneath the waves. W ho said it could not be had occause it was too far away? With your passion for wonders, you got it here in no time. I love your small verandah, only a dozen feet long; Fresh flowers cover the ground, red mixing with purple. As I chance to lean on the rail and watch the fantastic peak, thoughts o f rivers and lakes in autumn arise.

The reference in the second couplet to the transportation of the rock over a great distance from Lake Tai to the capital city shows no awareness of moral implications. Instead, passion for wonders is the very stuff out of which a private space is constructed, in which busy officials can fantasize about bvmg near rivers and lakes.w A poem like Han Q^s 轉 埼 (1008-75广 A Pair of RocksV雙 石 （QSS, 328,4057) makes some reflective gestures, but the poet could still resist the temptation to moralize explicitly: 雙石唐餘物 來茲孰記年 嵌空危砌下 怪醜好花前 名氏坳猶刻 藤蕹穴任穿 最宜秋後看 班较蘚痕圓

This pair or rocks are relics from the 1 ang; W ho can count how many years they nave been here? Depressed and hollow, under the steep steps. Grotesque and u^y, m front o f rair flowers. Names remain inscribed on the comers; Wisteria fredy creeps through the holes. It is best to ioolc at them in late fall, When spots o f mosses are round.

Unlike cneir mid-Tang precedents for whom rocks were often a raw product of nature, the Northern Song poets tended to read a human histoiy in the

120

Fetishism and Its A nxiety

inanimate objects. T h e tide o f H an Q i s poem was probabty inspired b y Bai Juyis W A Pair o f Rocks.wO n e w ould expect that, facing wthc relics from the Tangwwith names still inscribed on them,646 5H an Q i w ould devote, in accor­ dance with xhcyongw u convention! the last two lines o f his poem to a moral/ historical reflection, but he chose instead to position him self squarely within the aesthetic framework o f the

and the grotesque and end his descrip^

tion by zoom in g in on a minute detail o f the rocks. Even when a pecrophile diagnosed his obsession as a disease (bing ^ ) , he could d o so with light-hearted self-ridicule, without evidencing any serious self-doubt，as H u Su 胡 宿 （ 995-1067) did in "The Lake T ai Rockw 太 湖 石

(QSS，182.2102):

海岱鉛松妄得石 洞庭山脚失寒瓊 漱成一片孤雲勢 費盡千年白浪聲 誰想機邊逢織女 直疑嚴.下見初平 年来賞物多成病 曰繞蒼苔幾遍行

Lead, pine trees, and scones from Omgzhou would be obtained in vain, If the cold jade from the root of Dongctng Mountain were missing. Shaped by the gurg^ng water inco a solitary cloud. Exhausting the sound of white waves over a thousand years. Who，ould expect to meet the Weaver uirl by her loon oomミ 1felc as if I were seeing Chuping under the mountain clifFs* Over the years my appreciation of this object has turned into a disease. Unaware how man^ times aday I walk around the green moss.

T h e tranquil setting o f tdic urban private gardens stood at one end o f the spectrum o f the poetic configurations o f the aesthetic rock. At the other end,

64. Shao Bo wrote of garden rocks in tweltth^century Luoyai adays#among the rocks in the gardens of lords and miniscers in Luoyang, those with the inscription #Qizhang 0 tbelong used co —to Sengra, and those with Tingquan' to DeyuM(Shaoshi wenjian houlu, p. 212). werewere among t the tributes presented to the Great Yu from Qingzhou, which lay 65..These These among betweeh the sea and Mount Tai (i， e”Dai 你 ) ⑶ 狀 が “zbenが ,"Tu gong 禹供ゾ p* 148a). 的• At the age of fifteen, Huang Chuping 黄 （ or 皇 ）初 平 ，a shepherd，met a Daoist priest, who led him to a stone house in the mountain. Years later, Huang Chuping mastered the Daoist techniques, among which was his ability to turn white rocks into sheep; see Ge Hong, Shenxian zhuan (Congshujichengchubian), 2,9-10.

Fetishism and Its A nxiety we find the tumultuous work site of rock production, as described in Wei Xiang’ s 韋 讓 （1033-1105ド Observing the Cleaving of Rocks”觀 劈 石 OJSS， 7 2 7 .841 4)：

藍舆遠冒西山色

O n a bamDoo sedan I w ent tow ard the colors or W est

宛轉羊腸踏寒碧

Stepping on tne cold green narrow footpath, twisnng

N iountam m th e distance.

嚴 崖 深 處 屢 騰 聲 何事晴雲多霹靂 尋聲迤邐過枯木 始 見 群 ェ 劈 山 石 斧 斤 鋒 刃 奚 足 云

鐵楔縱橫乃爲刀 随文察理移段致 大或尋長小盈尺

and meandering Deep m the cliflFs noise surged up constantly; Why were there so many thunders from clouds on a fine daパ Following the noise, I zigzagged passing che withered woods. And then saw a crowd o f artisanscleaving mountain rocks. Sharp edges ot axes alone were surely not enough; Cleavers were applied after iron chiseb crisscrossed the rocks. Followinc the veins and observing the patterns, they removed whole pieces; The Dig ones were a dozen feet tall, the small ones over a foot.

心冥手應出自然 不啻庖丁操駱砉 間其勤苦將何爲 驅車運致希酬直 牛山濯濯罹采伐 萌蘗悄如無夜息 此山遭値甚牛山 攻擊何年可終極

Minds comprehending, hands executing, both following nature, Just like the hissing and thudding made by Butcher Ding in dissecting an ox. T o r what are you working so hardf I a^ked. ^We drive carts to transport them and hope to fetch a rair price.'1 Ox Mountain became barren because it was lopped, Though the trees there germinated and sprouted silently ceaseless even at nidit. The lot of this mountain is even worse chan that o f Ox Mountain; When will all these attacks reach their end?

67* Having grasped che Way of carving oxen. Butcher Ding is able to cleave thousands of them with che same knife without blunting its edge (Zhuanzi jishi, wYangsheng zhuw pp. 117-19).

122

Fetishism and Its A nxiety

石頑人智其奈何

Rocks are dumb and humans intelligent, so what? The intelligent and the skillful only harm heaven

智巧反爲天地賊

A s indicated by its title, the poem is about the prod u aion o f the rocks as a social process rather than rocks as an object o f private appreciation一 there is virtually no physical description o f the rocks* A s the setting shifts from the private space o f the garden to the social domain o f com m odity production, the connoisseurs o f rocks fade away into the background and the stone arti­ sans take center stage. Sympathy for the w orkm ens hardship and admira­ tion for their skills are significantly diminished when mention is made o f their monecaiy motivations* It is mghly ironical chat the artisans effect great harm to nature (wheaven and earth11), even as they are following the natural principles o f thin纪 （ zinm 自 然 ）in cleaving the rocks from the mountain. T h e allusion to O x Mountain com es from the Mencius ^

Originally

covered with lim iriant trees and plants that term in ated and sprouted silendy, ceaseless even at night/' O x Mountain became barren because the trees were constantly lopped by axes and the cattle and sheep came to graze on the new shoots. T h e point o f the parable is that even a bad man is origi­ nally endowed wich moral inclinations (just as the mountain used to be cov­ ered with trees)*68 Discarding the allegorical baggage o f the original parable, W e i Xiirng used the fate o f O x Mountain to articulate an idea n ot unlike those o f m odem ecological environmentalism*69 H is unreserved sympathy lay with the mountain, which had nothing to gain and everything to lose in the frenzy o f a commercial market driven b y an aesthetic craze* T h e same conflict or interests between man and nature in the process o f rock production dominates W e i X iang s much shorter poem wSplendid Rocks”‘ 石 (QSS, 732.8578): 振嚴觸石聳溪灣 腹削构人手不間

Splendid rocks on the cliflfe tower over the bend of the stream, Scraping and cutdngr the hands of the stone artisans never rest.

坤• Mend“ 5, ii»8. 69. Attention is drawn to the story of Ox Mountain in two recent essays in a volume on ecolo^r and the Confiician tradition; see Ivanhoe, M Early G>nfudanism and Environmental Echksr p. 68; and Berthrong; "Motife for a New Confiidaii Ecological Vision/ p. 257.

Fetishism and Its A nxiety 落 在 深 郊 猶 及 此 斧 斤 何 必 味 牛 山

123

Even what lies in the distant suburbs cannot escape, W hy would Ox M ountain lament at axes and hatches?

Like Pi Rixiu, Wei Xiang was an eyewitnesses to the production of the rocks as a commodity* However, Pi Rixiu s report progressed trom the quany at Lake Tai to the gardens in Chang'an and his primaiy target of cnticism was the moral decay of the ruling class at the end of the Tang. In contrast, W ci Xiang s poem concentrates almost exclusively on the work site and his concern is not so much with the moral issues as with che philosopmcal question of mans relacionship to nature* Wei Xiang s poems represented one strand of che philosophical entique of pecromania in the Northern Song* More typically, however, the satirical edge was cut against the vanity of human collections^ Perhaps no one articulated the theme more forcefully than S11Shi, During his short tenure in Dingzhou in 1093, Su Shi obtained a rock with natural designs that loolced like snow waves* He named it wSnow Waves Rock" (Xuelan纪 hi 雪 浪 石 ） and wrote two poems with that tide. In the first poem, he described how the rock reminded him of the topography of his native land and how the sight of the rock provided relief for his constant homesickness. The first part of the second poem continues his expression of joy at getting the rock* A critical turn of thought appears in the second part (SSSJ, 37.1999-2000): 履道笔■池雖可致 玉 川 卷 地 若 爲 收

For sure they could be brought to the pond opened in the Ludao wara; T he M aster o f the Jade River took eveiything as if rolling up che turf.70

70. The reference is to Bai Juyis garden in Luoyang. 7h The reference is to "The 6ucst Responding to the Well” 客 謝 井 ， in "Twenty Poems Addressed to One Another by the Several Youn逆ters in the Residence of Xiao" 蕭 宅 二 三 子 贈 答 詩 二 十 首 , QTS, 387*4375, by Lu Tong^ whose sobriquet was Master of the Jade River 玉 川 子 • In the pfe£w:e to the scries, QJS, 387*4373, L11 丁ong described the ciiv cumstances that led to this set. While he was traveling in Yangzhou, he stayed at the house of Xiao Qmgzhong 薄 慶 中 . Xiao was about to move to Luoyang and wanted to sell his house. Before he could sdl it, Xiao went away on business. As Lu Tong was abo about to leave for Luoyang, he went to say goodbye to the "several youngsters" under the stepSi who turned out to be three or four rodcs, a grove of bamboos, a well, some iris planes, ^id some frogs. All those "youngsters** wanted to follow him to Luoyang lest they fell into the hands of strangers. Each of them presented its case to him. In his response to the request by the well, Lu Tong expressed the fear that the ^vicious people of Yangzhou" would accuse him of *rolling up the tu rr should he take the wcU with him.

124

Fetishism and Its Anxiety

洛 陽 泉 石 今 誰 主

But who are the owners o f springs and rocks in Luoyang today? 一

莫學疾人李與牛

D on't follow the examples o f maniacs like Li and Niu*

Apparently, Shi s enjoyment of his rock was accompanied by a somewhat unsettling awareness of the examples ot the ^in)famous 1 ang petropniles. In characterizing Li Deyu and Niu Sengru as M maniacs/Vhe administered a dose of sel&admomcion against an extreme attachment to rocks, based on his philosophical belief in the importance of maintaining a proper distance from things outside oneself, although, as we shall have occasion to demonstrate his own practice as a collector was not always the best implementation of" The philosophical undertone in Su Shi was often mingled with direct or indirect moral criticism, as, for example, in his poem on Liu Chang’ s割敵 (1019-68) collection of rocks, wMatcning Metropolitan Governor Liu s Poem on Rock Forest Pavilion. Originally Objeas in Tang Gardens, the Rocks Had Scattered Among the Common People and Were Purchased and Obtained by Liu”次 韻 劉 京 兆 石 林 亭 之 作 石 本 唐 苑 中 物 散 流 民 間 割 購 得 之

(SSSJ，3.9 7 - 9 9 ):

都城曰荒廢 往日不可還 唯餘古苑石 漂散尚人間 公來始購蓄 不 憚 道 里 難

忽從塵埃中 來對冰雪顏 痩骨拔凜凜 蒼根漱潺潺 唐人唯奇聿 好石古莫攀 盡令屬牛氏 刻 鑿 紛 斑 斑 嗟 此 本 何 常

T he capital city is wasted day by day; O ld times cannoc De returned Only these rocks rrom the anaent garaens Are still scattered m the human realm. Only after your arrival were they bought and preserved. W ithout worrying about the hardships in getting them all the way here. Suddenly from dust and dirt They came to foce your countenance ot ice and snow. T heir chin bones jutting out in majesty. T heir blue roots washed by murmuring water. In the Tang there was the Duke o f Qizhang W hose relish o f rocks was unsurpassed H e wanted all o f them to belong to the N iu family, Carving and chiseling ms name all over them. Alas! H ow natural it is

Fetishism and Its A nxiety 聚散實循環

For them to garner and scatter m cycles.

人失亦人得

One mans loss is another man's sain.

要不出區寰

As long as they do noc disappear from the human realm. Witness the end o f the houses o f Liu andLi,

君看劉李末 不能保河關 沉此百株石 轉 毛 於 泰 .山. 但當對石钦 萬事付等閑

125

When even the rivers and passes could not be protected. The himdred rocks were to those What a li^ic feather is to 1 ai Mountain. One shoula just drink racing these rocks. Treating myriad things as crifles.

The poem falls into what Ji Yun 紀 均 （1724-1805) called the "mode of cufsing the topic" 炉 焉 題 格 )in his comment on Su Shi’ s wShi Cang备 hu*s Drunken Ink Hall”石 蒼 4 醉 墨 堂 .72 Liu ChangV "Newly Built Stone Forest Pavilion”新 作 石 林 亭 had characterized the pavilion as 21 middle ground between the court and the mountains, where he coula lead the life of a hermit-official* Instead of affirming Liu Chang s moral selfcomplacency, Su Shi reminded hun of the example of Niu Sengru to sound a warning against petromania as a dangerous passion* The reference to the fail of M the houses of Liu and lai carries a particularly pungent sting, because ia.c the dme Liu Chang was stationed in Chang'an, the capital of both Han and Tang dynasties* The element of political satire in Su Shis poem is subsumed in the philo­ sophical premise of the equation between the gain and loss of external things. The allusion in lines 15-18is to the following story: King Gong o f Chu went hunting and lose a bow. When his attendants asked per^ mission co look for it, the King said: Teave it! A bow lost by a man of Chu will be found by another man o f Chu* Why bother looking for it?1*Confucius heard about it and said: M What a pity that he was not great enough. H e could have said4A bow 7

72. See Ji Yun, Sw 忍 メ 蘇 文 忠 公 詩 記 , in 撕 z佑〇 〇k 法 丨 an, p, 1870. The applicability of Ji Yuns comment to Su Shi's poem co Liu Chang is suggested by Michael Fuller in the Road to East Slope, p. i〇4« 73« QSSt 47〇iu Yuxi in Lianzhou.(in m odem Guangdong) instead.

Liu

Y uxis return to Chang#an first as vice minister o f the Bureau o f Rites 禮 部 侍 郎 and then as an auxiliary academician in the Academy o f Scho レ ady W orthies 集 賢 直 學 士 , was a direct result o f Pei D u，s recommendations.

28

T he relationships, as sketched above, among the three parties help to ex­ plain why jliu fu xi, although appreciative o f Bai Juyi s rcluaancc, unequivoi^Jtu

15.465.

24. Pei Du was reappointed co this position in 826. In 827, in collaboration with powerfol

eunuchs, he helped Emperor Wcnzong to the throne and was thereafter rewarded with new cities. 25. See Wang Shiyi, Bai Juyi zhuan, pp. 230-31; Qu Taiyuan, Liu Yuxijizhuan, p» 1578.* Zhu Jincheng, Bai Juyi nianpu, p. 173. In Bai Juyi nian^u jianbian (p. 4033), Zhu Jinchcng further strengthens this hypothesis by pointing to the faa that Bai Juyi returned to the capital with­ out finishing his term in Suzhou. His early return probably had to do with the fact chat Pei Du had just returned to power at court. 26. Yang Yingzong, Bai Juyi yanjiu, p. 101, 27. Sec >

15452,160.42丨 1,160.4214; Xiw

168.5129. Pei Du's willingness

to help Liu Yuxi had much to do with his friendship with Liu Yuxis relatives on his mother s side. 28. Xin Tan^m, 168.5131.

i6o

W ords and Things

cally sided with Pci Du* O f coursei Bai Juyi himself would have known bet­ ter than to keep the cranes at the risk of potentiallyjeopardizing his budding friendship with the most powerful man at court* The necessity of maintain* ing a smooth relationship with Pei Du certainly carried more than enough weight to break Bai Juyi s physical, if not emotional, tie to these birds* The determining factor in the transaction was, therefore, neither the relative su^ perioriiy of the two gardens as avian sanctuaries nor the relationship be­ tween the birds and their master, but the sociopolitical relationships among Pci Du, Bai Juyi, and Liu YuxL29

A Beloved Concubine in Exchange for a Horse The stoiy of Bai Juyi s cranes is also related to the culcure of gardening and collecting that developed from the mid-Tang onward. As we have seen, northern urban gardens were routinely decorated with collectible items such as exotic birds#rocks, and plants transported from Jiangnan.30 The portabil^ ity of chose objects was reflected not only in their transportation over great distances but also in their transferability in the network of social relation­ ships. This transferability points to the replaceability and, more important! exchangeability of the ornaments of literati culture* With the exchange of poetry caught up in the exchange of material objects, the rhetoric of equiva^ lence or exchange value intruded into and sometimes even dominated poetic language itself* In 838, while in Taiyuan as regent of the Northern Capital 北 都 留 守 , Pei Du sent a horse to Bai Juyi in Luoyang as a gift, probably in response to a request from BaL Together with the horse came a poem, of which only two lines are extant: 君若有心求逸足

As you have your heart on my fast-

恭邊留意在名姝

IhaveinmindyourfkmousbeUe*

29. In "The Celebrated Cranes of Po Chu-f (p. 13), Spring notes the importance of Pci Dus patronage as a decermining ^ctor in the position Liu Yuxi cook. Due consideration should also be given to the relationship between Pci Du and BaiJuyi.

30, By his own account in the Trcfacc to 'On the Pona, it was during his years in Hangzhou that Bai Juyi seemed to become a collector. Furthermore, virtually everything he collected from then on was for the purpose of decorating his garden in Luoyang.

Words and Things

161

This couplet is quoted in a note by Bai Juyi to his poem M In Reply to Minister Pei's Jest in Offering Me a Horse”酬 装 令 公 贈 馬 相 戲 （BJYJ, 34.2334 )： 安石風流無奈何 欲將赤填換青俄 不辭便送東山去 臨老何人與唱歌

What can be done about your gallant manners like Anshi! * You want to exchange your Scarlet Charger for my Blue Moth.3132 I would have sent her to East Mountain without saying goodbye; But who would sing to me as I fece old age?

丁he "gallant manners”of Xie

An 謝 安 (3 2 0 -8 5 , style name Anshi) refer to his frequent outings in the company of singing girls while he was in retire­ ment in cast Mountain* Xie Ans pleasure crips, although raising many prudish eyebrows, received a positive response irom umpcror Tianwen ^ X. (r. 371-73)1who made the following acute prediction: "Anshi is sure to come out of his retirement: If he can share joy with others, he cannot but share their worry/^ 2 The analogy here seems to be that, just as Xie An eventually c of his retirement in East Mountain, Pci Du is to return to court i provincial post in Taiyuan, rnendship aside, Pei Dus political prospects should have been sufficient to encourage Bai Juyi to comply with his request* However, in the poem itself, as was his wont, Bat Juyi appears noncommittal as he tninks aloud who would entertain him in nis oia age it he is deprived of his concubine. Upon receipt of Bai Juyi s reply, Pei Du wrote yet another quatrain, in winch he apparently laughed at Bai Juyis closefisted gesture. Instead of sending the poem directly to Bai Juyi, however, Pei Du addressed ic to Liu Yuxi, who was also resiaing in Luoyang at the time. It is not quite certain whether this detour was guided by Fei Dus expectation that Liu Yuxi, who had played an important role in resolving the case of the cranes, would

31. “Scarlet Charg〇rM(Chiyi 赤 旗 ） is one of the eight magic horses of King Mu; see Mm Some of the horses have different names in Ltezt jtshi, 3*94-95；ana m Zhang Hua, B ow u zhi, 6.6a. "Blue MothMis a synecdoche for beautiful girls because their moth-shaped eyebrows are dyed dark blue. Here it refers to Bai Juyi s concubine. 32. Liu I tqing, Shishuo xinyujumshu, 7*403. T ia n z i zhuan, 4^1.

162

W ords and Things

smooth things over again this time. In any case, Liu Yuxi took it upon him­ self to arbitrate again一 predictably in Pci Dus favor,33 The poem that Pei Du wrote to Bai Juyi but sent to Liu Yuxi is no longer extant* Nonetheless, important clues can be gathered from the poem Liu Yuxi wrote in response, "Minister Duke Pei Showed Me His Quatrain Poking Fun of Lctian About Sending the Servant to Pay for the Horse, in Harmony with Which I Merrily Wrote a Poem, Also to Joke with Lerian” 裴 令 幺 見 示 誚 樂 天 寄 奴 買 馬 絶 句 斐 然 仰 和 且 戲 樂 天 (Q T S , 365.41^4)： 常 奴 安 得 似方甶 爭望追風絶足來 若把翠蛾酬綠耳

How could an ordinary servant compare with Fanghui?34 How else could the unsurpassed hooves of Wind-Chaser be expected to come?35 Only when Turquoise Moth is paid for ureen Ears,36

33. Wang Shiyi (Bai Juyi shen^>uo xinian, p. 276) interprets Liu Yuxis poem as diplomatic advice to Bai JuyL 34. The allusion here is found inJfwlw, 75.1991:

Chi Yin had a servant who had a knack for discerning good writing. [Wang] Xizhi liked him a lot and would often praise him in front of [Liu] Dan. Dan said, "How does he compare with Fanghui [style name of Chi Yin]^ Xizhi said, *He is a lowly person. How can he com^ pare with Lord Chi^ Dan said, *lf he is not as good as Fanghui, then he is just an ordinaiy servant 常 奴 )." 35. Wind-Chaser was one of the seven steeds of the First Emperor of (^n; see Cui Bao# Gdjb zbw, 2.12*In a conversation with King Zhao 眧 of Yan (r. 311-279 B.C.)f Guo Kui 郭 陳 tells the following parable; In ancient times there was a ruler who wanted to buy a horse that could run a thousand miles a day, but for three years he was unable to get one. So he sent an envoy with a thousand gold to ssx. one in another state* Before the envoy got there, the horse died. So the envoy bought the head of the dead horse for five hundred gold and returned with it. The ruler was cmcmcly angry and was about to put the envoy to death. The envoy said# ul i you are willing to buy a dead horse, how much more willing will you be to buy a live horse? The whole world will know what you like. The horses will soon In a year three horses arrived that could run a thousand miles a day (Zhanguo cejiaozhu, 9A 〇s)* The term wunsur^ passed hoovesMcomes from Kong Rongs allusion to this parable in M A Letter Discussing the Gise of Sheng Xiaozhang," Wenxuan, 41.1874: T h e King of Yan bought the bones of a [dead] steed not to ride on the hi^iway but to attract horses with unsurpassed hooves'" (Yanjun ffct jimm« zfci jw /ct\y« > ふ 町 dooli nai ム％ メ dw。 jaezw y 燕 君 市 联 馬 之 骨 非 欲 以 骋 道 里 乃 當 以 招 绝 足 也 ). 36. Green Ears was one of the ei^it steeds of King Mu. ^Turquoise Moth is the same concubine as ^Bluc Moth" in Bai Jayis poem.

Words and Things 始知天下有奇才

163

W ill the extraordinary talents in the world be appreciated.

Notcworthy ncre is the difference in the phraseology the three tnends used to acscribe the transaction. Whereas the tide of Bai Tuyis poem leads one to believe that the horse was a free gift (zeng 0 ) with no strings attached, the first couplet of that poem points to Pci Dus ulterior motive for an ex­ change (huan W c have no way of determining ir Liu Yuxi was para­ phrasing or quoting verbatim the title or Pci Dus poem here* Either way, his wording made it clear that the horse was a prepayment for the concubine (ji 似 mm* m 長 物 )， which were，by definition, disposable. Later in his life, Bai Juyi sent all the singing girls back to Hangzhou*50* The similar expendabilities of a horse and a concubine are further exem^ plified in Bai Juyi's ''Chanting, with a Preface, of Being Unable to Forget My Feelinダ 不 能 忘 情 吟 并 序 . After suffering a stroke, Bai Juyi decided to take account of household matters! consolidate expenses, and let go of super^ fluous things*" In implementing mis decision, he sold his horse (which was classified as a "superfluous thing” ) and let go ofhis &mous and favorite entertainer Fan Su ^ ^ (listed as an M expenseM )»As if aware of her functional re­ semblance to the horse, Fan Su, in a &rewell song, compared her service co her master to that rendered b y his fevorite horse (BJYJ, 71.3810-11y 1 Shortly after Bai Juyi sold his horse, an old mena sent him a horse as a gift. His thank^ou note has che following couplet ("Minister uongchui Sent Me a White Horse with Shining, Clean Hair and a Steady, comfortable Ride. I V/rite a Poem to Thank Him”公 垂 尚 書 以 白 馬 見 寄 光 潔 穩 善 以 詩 謝 之 ,BJYJ, 34.237 9 ): 免將妾換漸來處

I was spared of the shame of having co exchange it with a concubine. As I ordered a servant to lead it here for me to try to mount.

The reference to the horse-concubme exchange assumes greater personal relevance here, given Bai Jujas experience with Pei Du a year or so before* Several things are noteworthy in the two transactions between Bai Juyi and Pei Du. First, the garden figures as a crucial, though not exclusive, space, where poetic and material exchanges intersect. Although che physical space of che garden is more or less stable and demarcated, some of its con^ sdtuent parts are portable, transferable, ana exchangeable. Consequently, die material makeup of the garden itself is fluid rather than fixed Second, the civility and playfulness of the language in those exchanges are mformed with an awareness of the power relationships between the parties involved. Such power structures could cither determine the outcome of the 50. Q^an Yi, E45. See also Liu Yuxi, "Letian Sent Me His •Remembering Sightseeing in the Past’; I Wrote ‘Answering Lord Bai* in Reply” 樂 天 寄 憶 舊 遊 因 作 報 白 君 以 答 , gTS, 356*4〇〇3. 5^ The tcrm/wi客放 Zto let go,” used by Bai Juyi in connection with his disposal of Fan Su, was often used for setting free caged or domesticated pet birds.

W ords and Things

167

transaction or, as we shall sec in the case of Su Shis twin rocksf serve as a standard poetic motif when an object was about to change hands against the will of its owner. Third, the figure of the mediator, with his role in either diluting or, as will be shown again in the case of Su Shis rocks, incensifying the tension between the parties of exchange, gready enhances the theatrics of the trans­ action* The necessiiy of mediation indicates the degree to which the contest over the physical objects o f exchange came to dominate the poetic exchanges, replacing the more conventional motif of material exchanges as a medium of reciprocating goodwill. Fourth, caught up in the circulation of objects, poetic exchanges not only record and interpret material transactions buc also actively participate in them—disputing, bargaining, negotiating, stonewalling, and mediating, all in a vocabulaiy of barter exchange* At work here is the fundamental premise chat what is collectible is transferable, exchangeable, and replaceable. Finally, the poetic accounts of material transactions are characterized by the use of explanatoiy language, whether in the form of a note, a lengthy, txr plicatoiy title, or a verbatim quotation from (or a loose reference to) one an­ other s poems. Such acts of explanation are motivated not only by fear of misunderstanding but also by the need to #expose* the other party and to defend ones own position.

Spontaneous Artistry and Calculated Exchanges To varying degrees, all these observations can be applied to the interactions between poetic and material exchanges in the Northern Song* Much more so than their mid-Tang predecessors, leading Northern Song poets such as Ouyang Xiu, Mei Yaochen, Su Shi, and Hiiang Tingjian 黄 庭 整 （10451105) routinely composed poems on the occasions of giving or receiving gifts*52These gifts may be divided roughly into two types: (1) goods of daily consumption such as tea, wine, and fish; (2) collectible aesthetic artifacts of a more enduring quality like paintings, mkstoncs, swords, incense oumers, and exotic rocks. An examination of some of Su Shi s writings that pre­ sented, asked for, initiated an exchange between, or responded to a request 52. See Gdyama, M Zdtdhin ni kansuru shi ni arawareta oodai bunjin no shumiceki kdyu scikatsu.MFor discussion of two sets of poems by Huang Tingjian writt«i upon receiving gifts of incense, see Sargent, M Huang 1 mg-chien s incense of Awareness.

168

W ords and Things

for, objects of the second type reveals both continuation of motifs and rheto­ ric &miliar in mid-Tang poetiy and variation on them* What distinguished Su Shi from mid-Tang poets was his tendency to moralize and philosophize in his poetiy. A view he expressed consistently and constantly is that one should enj〇}r the objects of ones £ m c y , but at die same dme maintain a transcendent attitude toward them. An illustrative poem in this regard is wZhang Jin Jizhong Had an Oval Inkscone from Dragon Tail Mountain, for Which I Exchanged My Bronze SwonT 張 近 幾 仲 有 龍 尾 子 石 硯 以 銅 劍 易 之 (SSSJ,叫 237 - 38): 我家銅到如赤蛇 君家石硯蒼璧橢而窪 君持我劍向何許 大明宮裡玉佩噙衝牙 我得君硯亦安用 雪堂窗下爾雅箋蟲蝦 ニ物與人初不異 親落高下隨風花 蒯缑玉具皆外物 視草草玄無等差

T ne bronze sword at my home is litce a purple snake; Tne mkstone at your home is like blue jade, oval and concave. W here would you go with my swora in your hands? In the Darning Palace, where it will jingle against tooth^shaped jade pendants* To whac use would I put your inkscone when I get it?— B^- the window of Snow Hall#to annotate on insects in the B r y a P The two things are no different from the fortunes of men: Like flowers wafting up and down in the wind. Reed Tassels and Jade Implement are both things outside oneself;5354 PoUshing imperial decrees is hardly different &om drafting G r a n d M y stery ,55

53. N Snow Haliwis a studio Su Shi built in Huangzhou. For the significance of the name of the studiof see Egan, Word, Image, and Deed in (he Life of Su Shi, p. 238. The Erya is a leidcographical work of unknown authorship* probably compiled between the third and the second century B.C.

54. Feng Huan 爲 雄 ，a house guest of Lord Mengchang 至 嘗 君 ，was so impoverished that his only worldly possession was a sword with tassds made of reeds (kmihou 1^) (Shtjt, 75^359).Jade Implement (yuju 3 . JI-) was the name ofa precious sword. It was usually worn by emperors, although officials ofthe highest rank (jfi pin 一 ) were also entitled to wear it. 55. Emperor Wudi 武 帝 of the Han (n 140-87) hdd tremendous respect for Liu An ¢ 14c (179-122 B.C.). Before he sent any communication to Liu An, he would have it polished (shicao by writers like Sima Xiangru (H am hu, 44.2145). Here and in the line above about annotating the £17^ Su Shi was probably alluding loosely to the opening couplet of Liu Yuxis "Cultivated Talent Tang Presented Me with a Purple Inkstone from Duanzhou. I Thanked Him with a PocmM唐 秀 才 贘 端 州 紫 石 硯 以 詩 答 之 , gTS, 3594051:

W ords and Things 君不見

Don’ t you see.

秦趙城易璧

In the exchange o f Zhaos jade disk for Qin s cities.

指圖睨柱相矜誇

The standoff between the one pointing at the map and the other glaring at the column? Don't you also see.

又不見

169

ニ生妾換馬

When the two gallants exchanged the concubine for the horse,

驕鳴啜泣思其家

The horse neighed, the concubine sobbed, each miss­ ing their home? It would be better to cive to each other things without attachment, For lasting love, Like a peach and a plum in return for an opal and a ruby.

不如無情兩相與 永以爲好 譬之桃李與瓊華

Su Sms description of the shapes and. functions of the inkstone and the sword ill prepares us for the somewhat abrupt and almost anticlimaaic dec­ laration that they belong among wtnings outside oneself#after all Since in philosophical terms it hardly matters to whom they belong, it becomes im^ perativc for Su Shi to justify why he initiated the exchange in the first place* To do so, he cites three instances from the lore of exchanges. The first is the exchange of ajade disk for fifteen cities between the states of Zhao and Qin. Whcsa King Zhao of Qin (r. 295-251 b,c.) heard that King Huiwen 惠 文 of Zhao (r. 298-266 3*c.) had obtained Mr. He's Jade Disk,56 he expressed a wish to exchange fifteen walled cities for the disk* King Huiwen and nis councilors were in a quandaiy. If they presented the jade to Qin, they might not get the emes in return; if they refused Qin s re­ quest, they might &ce its formidable army* Before Lin Xiangru 'jb? left for Qin, he promised that he would cither get the fifteen cities ot v^in or bring back the jade disk* When Lin presented the jade disk to King Zhao, he realized thac Qin had no intention of living up to its end of the deal« With a ruse, he persuaded the king to hand che jade disk to him for a mo­ ment. Then he berated the king for his bad taith and threatened to smash che jade disK (and his own head) against a column in the palace* As Lin Xiangru held the jade disk in his hand with his eyes fixed on the column, the

端 州 石 现 人 間 重 / I t 我 因 知 正 草 玄 "The inkstone from Duanzhou is valued by the world; / You gave one to me because I know how to emendate che draft of T a ix u a n ." S6. For Mr. He s Jade Disk, sec note 19, p. 97.

i7 〇

Words and Things

anxious king pointed on a map to the fifteen cities that would go to Zhao. The jade disk was eventually brought back to Zhao safe and sound.57In Su Shis reinterpretation, a high-stakes conflict was reduced to the inability of two monarchs to transcend the desire to keep or acquire a single jade disk一 whatever symbolic power may have been invested in it. In the stor^r of the horse^concubine exchange, what falls under Su Shi s philosophical scrutiny is not the seeming frivolity of the two young gallants but the unenlightened behavior of the exchanged objects. The horse in its neighing and the concubine in her sobbing are enjoined to follow the exam^ pics of the flowers wafting in wind so that the emotional attachment each has toward its/hcr former master may be severed* Su Shi s third example comes from a poem in the Shtjtng (no* 64): 投我以木瓜 報之以瓊琚 匪報也 永以爲好也 投我以木桃 報之以瓊瑤 匪報也 永以爲好也 投我以木李 報之以瓊玖 匪報也 永以爲好也

She tossed me a quince; 丄repaid het with a fine gamec* It was not just ror repayment, It was ror our love to last. She tossed me a peach; I repaid her with afine opaL It was not just for repayment. It was for our love to last forever* Dhe tnrew me aplum. I repaid her with afine ruby. It was not just for repayment. It was for our love to last forever*

In this classical case of material exchange as a means of emotional reciproc­ ity, Su Sm seems to have found the perfect model for his own exchange of a sword for an inkstone. At the same time, he underscores the importance of being without feeling (wuqing toward physical objects. Feeling though valued, in human relationships, is not to be extended to things. However, as Su Sh i confessed in a postscript to the poem, his acquisition o f the inkstone was precisely an instance o f succumDing to the allurement o f things:

When I was young, I had a passion for things like calligraphy paintings/ wnting brushes, and mkstones, jusc as one would love lewd songs and pretty women. As I encered my prime, I was gradually enli^itened. I would smile at myself for never 57. See Shijh 81.2439-41.

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171

having a relapse up to my old age. Yesterday, when I saw Mr, Zhangs egg-shaped inkstone, my old passion was revived again? therefore I exchanged a sword for it. After I got it, it did me no good. Thereupon I understood that old habits die hard.58

From his own writings as well as those of his contemporaries, wc know Su Shi to be an avid connoisseur and collector of inkstoncs/9And he never totally overcame the passion for them. A very revealing example is the fol­ lowing note by Mi Fu: Su Zizhan cook away m y purple^golden inkstone and bade his son to place it in his coffin [after his death]* Today I got it back so that it would not be encoffincd. H ow can such an object, which has been passed on for generacions, go away with a person with fixll attainment in purity, innate subtle enlightenment, and true and constant nature?60

Peter Sturman posits three possible interpretations of Mi Fu s note. First, the inkstone was simply too valuable for Mi Fiu61Second, wMi Fu s ungencrosity may also have been prompted by Su Shis public criticism of Mi Fus excessive collecting/ The note ##may represent a last laugh at Su Shi s hypoc­ risy/' Third, Mi Fus intent was to argue for wthe lastingness of objectsw— a controversial theme that was directly against the conventional view as ex­ pressed by Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi*62One may also wonder if Su Shi was following the act of Emperor Taizong of the Tang, whose sole request (shortly before he died) to his son (Emperor Gaozong) was that a treasured calligraphy by Wang Xizhi 王 羲 之 (303-61) be buried with him.63What­ ever the case may have been, S11 Shi’ s wish to remain in possession of a beloved inkstone even in death is a powerful reminder of how difficult it is to be#without attachmcntwto things of ones fancy*

58. See Gao Sisun, Y anjtan 2.7b. As early as his Huangzhou years (i〇7i-73)»Su Shi de­ clared that he had come to consider paintings, calligraphies, and curios to be as worthless as dung; see M A Note to Pu ChuanzhengM輿 蒲 傳 正 ,SS\^7, 60• 血 9, For an English translation, see Egan, **SuShih's Notes, p. 571. 59. Twenty-seven inscriptions {m tng li) and sixteen notes (shu ♦) on various inkscones are collected in S S W J t i9»548-57and 70^237-42, respectively. 60. Mi Fu, "An Account of the Purple-Golden Inkstone”書 紫 金 現 事 , Ba。Jiti プiw容 ，餅わ丨， **Buyiw捕 遣 ， p.フ2. 61. For an indication of how much Mi Fu valued this inkstone, see Mi Fu, B a o Jin yingiu a n g ji, 8.6$,

62. Sturman, Mi Fut pp. 196-98. 63. See Zhang Yanyuan, Fashu yaolu, 3.57b-58a.

172

Words and Things

Su Shi s acquisition of inkstones was effected through a variety of means, including gifts, purchases, and trades. In addition to the sort of barter ex­ change recorded in the above poem, he had at his disposal a readily available and seemingly inexhaustible kind of currency of exchange—his poetry. The way in which he acquired another inkstone, also made of rock from Dragon Tail Mountain, illustrates this particular function of his poetry. The circum* stances arc documented in the preface to his ^Song of the Inkstone from Dragon Tail Mountain”龍 尾 现 歌 (SSSJ，23.1235): I once composed an inscription on the Inkstone Made o f the Rock from Phoenix Beak Mountain^ in which there are the following lines: 蘇子一見名風味 坐令龍尾羞牛後

Once Master Su got a look at thefkmed Phoenix Beak, Dragon fail was made to reel inrenor to a cows tail.64

Shortly thereafter, I was trying to obtain a Dragon Tail inkstone m Sne* 1he people o f She said, 1l ou already nave your Pnoemx Beak. Why would you want somechine like this one now^ T h ^ said so probably because they were upset at what I had written. Yang Yande, remonstrant to the throne, had a big Dragon Tail inkstone that was extremely remarkable* tie told me that, ir 1 could compose a poem somehow to recant what I had written before, he would give it to me. Therefore I wrote the following poem.

In its effect, Su Shi s praise of the Phoenix Beak inkstone was not unlike the endorsements of commercial products by modem cclebnties. Given his status as a cultural figure whose judgments on the finer tnings in life were widely circulated and accepted, his remark must have had a devastating, though probably unintendea, impact on the prestige the Dragon 1 ail inkstone had enjoyed, thereby hurting the pockets as well as the pride of the people of She.65

64.

The couplet is from 'Inscription on the Inkstone from Phoenix Beak MountainM

藏 咮 現 銘 ,SS胃 , 19.550. More detailed accounts of this famous inkstone can be found in “ Inscription on the Inkstone from Phoenix Beak Mountain, with a Prefece" 風 咮 硯 銘 井 序 , SSWJ, 19.550, and ^Written About the Inkstone from Phoenix Beak Mountain" ‘ 威 咮 視 ,SSWJ, 70.2237.

05. Su Shi's offiiand disparaging remark on the Dragon Tail inkstone was probably prompted by the association of ideas on the basis of the names of the two mountains where the two types of inkstones were made: the mythical M phocnix,*jumposes with the flying **dragon, and the "beak0contrasts with the

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173

Desperate situations obviously called for desperate measures. In com­ posingthe poem on the Dragon Tail inkstone at the request of Yang Yande, Su Shi showed no qualms about stooping to humor the indignant people of She; he not only praised their product in the most extravagant terms but also admitted^ in a jovially self-deprecating manner, to being a wgrecdy fellow” 貪 夫 ). It is possible that Su Shi saw nothing more than an amusing anecdote in his acquisition of an extraordinaiy inkstone through the composition of a poem* The incident itself, however, is powerful testimony to the popularity of his poetiy. In addition^ his works in calligraphy and painting contributed to and enhanced nis status as a cultural icon during his own lifetime.66 Those, coo! were hot items in the market of culturai consumption* Although Su Shi as a calligrapher was not without his ennes, eager collectors of his autograph scripts were found in all walks of society. Consequently, his calligraphies acquired a certain ^market value,**which would increase with time. In a letter to Su Shi, for example, Wang Shen professed that he had been tiying ceaselessly day and night to collect examples of Su Shis calligraphy* On a recent occasion, he had had to exchange three pieces of silk for two pieces of paper with Su Sni s wntmg on them*68Although at times Su Shi would pretend not to know why his calligraphies were so eagerly sought af« 66* Responses to requests by mends for Su Shis calligraphic works and paintings can be readily found in his personal notes (chidu For some of the examples, see "Notes to Wang Dinguo• ’與 王 定 國 ，nos. 12 and 13, 52.1520-21; "Notes to Cheng Zhengfii** 舆 程 正 輔 ，no. 19, SS胃 , 54.1596, and no. 28, 54.1599; "Notes to Cultivated Talent Huang Dong”與 黄 调 秀 才 ，no. 1，SSWJ, 57.1729; "Notes to Zhu Kangshuw與 朱 康 叔 》 no. h, 59.1788; and "Notes to Shen Liaozf 與 參 寥 子 ,no.成 SSWJ, 61， 1865. In those letters, Su Shi frequently mentioned chat his works were taken away by others as soon as they were done. Fuller suggests that Su Shi's reputation as a calligrapher was established in the late 1060s and early 1070s. Fuller gives the following statistics: ^In Fengxiang ... he wrote ten 3rose pieces一 either accounts or colophons一 for his hosts at various occasions. In Hangzhou, he wrote thirty-four pieces, including prefaces, inscriptions, and appreciations. In Hangzhou, moreover, he responded to nine requests for compositions in his handw(T h e R o o d to E ast Slope, p. 334»i7). 67. For a defense of Su Shis brushwork against cnticisms that it did not conform co an^ cient standards^ see Huang Tingjian, Tost&ce to Dongpo^s *Water and Land Encomium 跋東坡水陸赞， が 5.43-44. For translation and discussion of Huang Tingjiai^s colophon, see Egan, M Ou-yang Hsiu and Su Shih on GJligraphy/ pp. 414-16. 68. Lin Yutang, T h e G a y Genius, p* 278. The commercial value of Su Shi s artwork was such that a calligraphic inscription he did at a Buddhist temple became the target of a thief (Luo Dajing, H elin yulu, "Yi bian/ 3»i7〇).

Words and Things

174

ter,69 he was always aware of their popularity, and he did not hesitate to capitalize on their value, as, for example, when he wrote several sheets of #cursive script1" in payment for some potent medicine he received from a Daoist priest.70 As in the case of his calligraphy, the appreciation and valuation of Su Shis paintings were often conditioned and enhanced by the perception of the intoxicated abandon with which he drew them.71 In Huang Tingjians poem “ On Su Zizhan’ s Painting of Bamboos and Rocks”題 子 瞻 畫 竹 石 (QSS, 993*n4i7)» we have a stereotypical representation of Su Shi s artistic spontaneity: 風枝雨葉瘠土竹

Branches in wind, leaves in ram, and bamboo on barrel soil;

龍蹲虎踩蒼蘚石

Dragons squamng, tic^rs hunkenng. rocKs with dark green mosses*

東坡老人翰林公

The O ld Man o f Eastern Slope, a scholar in the Hanbn Academy,

醉時吐出胸中墨

Vomits out the ink from his chest when he is drank*

The image of Su Shi as an impulsive painter was invented by himself. In fact, Huang Tingians poem was inspired by Su Shis account of the same painting in a poem titled AIn Drunkenness I Painted Bamboo and Rocks on a Screen at the Home of Guo Xiangzheng. He Wrote Two Poems to Thank Me and Also Presented Me with a Pair of Ancient Bronze Swords”郭 祥 正 家 醉 畫 竹 石 壁 上 郭 作 詩 爲 謝 且 遺 ニ 古 銅 劍

(SSSJ，23 .1234 - 35 ):

空腸得酒芒角出

Awns and eag^s came out as my emocy intestines

肝肺槎牙生竹石 养然欲作不可回

BamDoo and rocks grew m mvr mtted liver and lungs* Swelling within, about to take snape, tney could not be held back; Onto the snow-white screen in your home I vomited them out.

吐向君家雷色壁

69: Sec, c.gゾShi Canが m*s Hall of Drunken Ink* 石 蒼 舒 醉 墨 堂 ,SSSJ, 6.236. 70. ^Notes to Daoist Master Hu* 舆 胡 道 卿 ， no. I, SSU7,60.1852* 71. Huang Tingjian reported seeing Su Shi doing calligraphy in a state of intoxication In ^Poscface to D ongas Scripts** 題 東 坡 字 後 , tik，443. For discussion of Su Shi's calligraphic act wtule drunk, see Lin Y utang. The Gay Genius, p. 277.

Words and Things

175

平生好詩仍好畫

Throughout my life I have had a passion for painring as well as for poetry.

畫錶涴璧長遭罵

Constantly scolded for scribbling on walls and

不瑱不罵喜有餘

tainting screens* Neither staring nor scolding, you are overjoyed insteaa—

世間誰復如君者 一雙銅劍秋水光 兩首新詩爭劍鋩 劍在床頭詩在手 不知誰作蛟龍吼

W ho else in tiie world can be like A pair of bronsse swords shining like autumn waters; Two new poems as sharp as the edge o f swords. With the swords at the head o f bed and the poems in m y hands, I wonder which is making the roaring sound o f

in both poems, tne process of du Shis artistic creation is compared to a physiological phenomenon: spontaneous vomiting— tu The word tu can also mean spitting. Whereas vomiting is an impukive physical reaction to the consumption of wine, spitting, as a conscious act^ has a sense of direc­ tion. The double meaning of the word reinforces the sense of interplay be­ tween spontaneity and design in Su Shi s act of painting* In Su Shis version, the purposive spontaneity of his creative cncrgjr har­ monizes with the cosmic process itself. The term zuo which he uses in the third line to describe the gestation of his artistic creativity^ calk to mind, among other things, the following passage of commentaiy in the letjing M When heaven and earth relieve diemselves, thunder and rain arise [zuo). When tnunder and rain arise, the seed vessels of a]l fruits, plants, and trees break open, The parallel between Su Shi’ s body and the universe is no less comic than it is cosmic: ir hss mtestinesMare a microcosm of wheaven and eardiw(with wine as the catalyst for the former and thunder and rain1* for the latter), then his M vomitecT painting resembles the cosmic release re> suiting in the luxuriant vegetation* The first two couplets of Su Shis poem are often cited to illustrate the ideal of artistic creation as a spontaneous movement from the inner co the outer. There was, however, another side to his painting as it emerged trom, or rather became submerged in, the lab)rrinth of poetic and material cx-

72*

zfcenが ， sun”解 損 ，P. 52a.

73* See, e,g,. Fuller, Pursuing the Complete Bamboo in the Breast" pp. 9-10；and Egan, Word, Im agt, a n d D eed in the Ldfe o f Su Shi, p. 292.

176

Words and Things

changes* Once the painting materialized, his unconstrained and irrepressible creativity was immediately swirled into a c^cle of calculated exchanges* It may have been drawn in a state of intoxication, but the purpose or motive of his artistic aa went beyond simply releasing his creative energy, for the ished produa also functioned as a repayment for Guo Xiangzhengs hospi^ tality. The friendly exchange continued as Guo Xiangzheng composed two poems in return for the painting. Yet this verbal expression of apprecia­ tion alone was apparently inadequate, since two swords were thrown in to balance the trade. (We do not know if Su Shi, apparently a connoisseur of swords, had indicated his liking for the swords, but it would not be sur^ prising if he had done so,) Finally, Su Shis own poem wrapped up the transaction by celebrating his creative artistic energy, appreciating Guo s appreciation of that energy, and ultimately blending poetic and material exchanges* 丁he 壁 on which Su Shi drew his painting was a screen at Guo 3Ciang_ zhengs home and not the wall of the house,74This minor detail is worth noting: incorporated with the screen, the painting became part of a mobile object able to participate in endless cycles of exchange* Had the painting been done on the wall, its portability as an item of exchange would have been severely limited, Guo Xiangzheng was certainly appreciative of the enhanced aesthetic value of the screen as a result of Su Shi s painting: he took such good care of the screen that it was apparendy still in excellent condition some twenty-eight years later, in 1102, when Huang Tingjian wrote a poem "On Dongpo’ s Painting of Bamboo on Guo Gongfii’ s Screen”書 東 坡 畫 部 功 父 壁 上 異 竹 ぬ S& 39ぶ 6〇1), Although Guo Xiangzheng may have kept the screen primarily for its sentimental value, there is no doubt that, in the booming market of cultural consumption, a n tin g that came from Su Shis hands had considerable commercial value* du Shi 1111nselr was well aware or this maricet, as can De seen in the following account of his gifb of 21painting to Jia ohou 賈 收 （fi. 1068-86): Today I was idle in a boat* I felt as if a mallec were hanging on each of my ten gers* It so happened that someone had presented me with some excellent wine. So I

74. This pomt can be corroborated with Guo Xiangzheng, Tosc&ce c〇Huang Luzhis Poem on "Don^oi Ink Painting of Bamboo on the Screesぐ 跋 黄 魯 直 書 東 坡 所 畫壁上墨竹詩， G«。JCiseize what I desire? Why would you l want co keep the rocks but sigh over my weakness like chat of Zhao, So Fd rather give them up and suffer Qin s wrong.

he was obWously comparing chose ^mountain peaks'* to M che peaks of the two Hua Moun« tarns" and the "cave in it extending to its back* to the grotto in the IxHy of the three Mao Mountains. 89. This couplet apparently describes the other rock, described as immaculately white so that it can be usal as a mirrorMin Su Shi's pre&ce to Twin Rocks." 90. The couplet alludes to the following conversation between King Huiwen of Zhao and Lin Xiangra over Qn's proposal fbr exchanging Mr. He's Jade Disk for fifteen cities (Smji, 81.2440)： [King Huiwen] asked: HThe king of Q n asked to exchange fifteen cities for mjr jade disk. Should I give it to him广 Xiangru said, nQ n is stronger and Zhao is weaker. You cannot refused The king said: 'What if he takes my jade disk and does not give me his cities?" Xiangru said, wIf Qrn offers fifteen cities for the jade disk and Zhao refuses, then wrong will be on Zhao's side (今 tt zm' 曲 在 超 );if Zhao presents the jade disk and Qin does not give Zhao the aties in return, then wrong will be on Q n s side" (qu za i Q in A & 4^)*

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183

傳觏慎勿許

Please done agree if you are asked to pass them on for others to view;

間道歸應速

The road for chem co return should be fast.

f h c hyperoolc in the tiac about the rocks as wthc rarest treasures o f all dm esMforeshadows Su S h is reluctance to part with them and sets up the stage for die dramatic conflict between tw o rock^ianciers. W a n g S h en s M in^ tendon”in "borrowing** the rocks, Su Shi acutely observed, was to ’ S eize”

(duo them* Su ^his suspicion was definitely not unfounded* Wang Shen was known to be an unscrupulous ##borrower/#On one occasion, he borrowed from, but never returned to, Mi Fu a painting of two stalks of bamboo, a withered tree, and a grotesque rock done by Su Shi on a piece of Guanyin paper.91On an­ other occasion, he borrowed a calligraphic piece by Wang Xizhi, for which Mi Fu had exchanged ten gems. Before returning it to Mi Fu, however, he cut ofF the old colophons on it*92On yet another occasion, Wang Shen ru^ ined Mi ru s day witn the belated return of an inkstone. Mi Fu had struck a deal with Liu Jisun 割 季 孫 （ca»1033-92), whose vast collection of calligraphies and paintings included a scroll with calligraphic scripts b y Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi 王 獻 之 （344-86)*93For this prized piece. Mi Fu offered to trade the following items: two callせraphies by Ouyang Xun 欧 昧 掏 （ 557-641)， a set of six snowscapcs by Wang Wei, a translucent belt made of rninoceros horn, an inkstone in the shape of a mountain, and a coral on a jade stand. However, the deal was aborted because Wang ohen, who had borrowed the inkstone, did not return it until two days after Liu Jisun ltft for nis post as prefect of Zezhou* Plans to complete the transaction at 91. Mi Fu, Huosm, p. 42. The painting was done by Su Shi when he was drunk and given co Mi Fu as a gift at their first meeting in 1081* Mi Fu himself was quite unscrupulous as an act collector. Traditional sources—some of them quite reliable-—record numerous anecdotes about his tricks and pranks in obtaining paintings and calligraphies. For translations of a few ofthose anecdotes, see Sturman, Mi Fu, pp. 220-24. 92. Mi Fu, Tostface to the Calligraphy of 'Gearing Up After a Sudden Blizzard*M 跋 快 雷 時 晴 枯 ， J丨 n 避_ ^ ji ，7*58-59* For an En^ish translation of this colophon, see Ledderose, Mi F u and the C lassical T ra d ition o f C h inese C alligraphy, p , 106. For a similar esca^ pade of Wang Shen, sec Mi Fu, "Postfece to the Thirteen Pieces of Calligraphy by the Worthies of the Jin*1跋 晉 賢 十 三 枯 , BooJin メnjgwfl呼ji，7.61. m 93* Liu Jisun was apparently a reckless collector. According to Su Shi in w An Account of liu Jingwen’s Poetry” 記 割 景 文 詩 , SS^7, 68.2巧3: "On the day he [Liu Jisun] died, there was not a single penny in his household except three thousand scrolls of calligraphies and hundreds of paintings.”

184

W ords and Things

their n e x t m eeting also feilcd# because Liu Jisun died* T h e scroll was lacer sold by Liu Jisun s son to som eone eke for twenty thousand cash— twenty times the price his father had paid for it,94 By describing him self as not daring to reject W an g Shen s request, Su Shi appears as the weaker party. T h e ffweakness#, o f Su Shi is reinforced when he, though about the same age as W an g Shen, speaks o f him self as an ^old manw and W a n g Shen as a "gallant young noble” 一 presumably because o f ^W ang’ s marriage to the second daughter o f Emperor Y ingzong 英 宗 （ !： •

1064-68).95T h e apparent imbalance o f power generated by W an g Shen s tic with the royal family seems to anticipate Su ^ n i s eventual compliance with his request. A t the same time, however, the allusion, near the end o f the poem, to the intrigue over the jade disk between Q in and Z h a o hints at a diflferent outcom e o f the conflict, with the weaker triumpnmg over the stronger. Indeed, as wc shall see, Su Shi was to outmancuver W an g Shen with his poetic juggling. T h e first twenty lines o f Su Shi s poem not only describe in greater detail the shapes and contours o f the rocks but also emphasize ms receiving them as a gift in connection with tneir transportation from their onginal location in Lingnan to Yangzhou* H is acquisition o f the rocks as the result o f volun­ tary gift giving (kuixiang

contrasts with W an g Shen^s violent inten­

tion to wseizewthem from him. S om e o f the motifs that we have seen in Bai Juyis poetic account o f his tropm es from Jiangnan resurface in Su S h is poem* Just as Bai Jujris choice o f a dwelling place was guided, if not exclusively controlled, by his consid^ eration ot his cranes and rocks^ so Su Shi, while negligent about his own dwelling place, cook great care to setde the rocks, as he put them in a copper basin and surrounded them with jade-like pebbles from W endcng *96 94< Mi Fu, Shu^)i, p. For a complete translation of the passage in question* see Ledderose, M i F u an d dje C lassical T rad ition o f C h inese Calligraphy, pp. 106-7* Wang Shen, who wanted to keep the inkstone to himself, purposefully waited until Liu Jisun had left before he returned it to Mi Fu so as to sabotage the deal. This particular inkstone was obviously quite a treasure, for Su Shi also asked tor it but was rejected; see Mi Fu, B oo J in y in ggu an gji, 8.67. 95. Wang Shen s wife died in io8o#a year after he was «dled By the 1090s, he no longer held much political dout. 96. Su Shi collected those pebbles in 1085, while he was in Wendeng. In 1090, he apparendy still had quite a number of them with him, some of which he gave away as gifts. Sec ^ the Ocean in Wendeng I Got Several Liters of White Pebbles* Thqr Looked Like the Seeds o iE u ry a le fa ro x and Could Be Used to StuflFa Pillow. I Heard That the Reverend Mei Had an Addiction to Stones, So I Sent Them to His Son Academidan Ziming. Ziming Wrote

W ords and Things

185

By his own account, Su Shi invented the practice o f putting pebbles in a basin to make a miniature scenery* Earlier, in 1082, while he was in Huangzhou, Su Shi was attracted to the beautiful pebbles o f the < ^ #an River and traded pancakes for them with the local kids w ho swam in the river. Over time he collea ed 298 o f them. O n e o f them that looked like a tiger, with mouth, nose, and eyes, was made the commander. Placing 250 pebbles in an ancient copper basin (which he purchased from a rustic w ho go t it from inside a tom b filled with water), he offered them to the Buddhist m onk Foyin

i$

o f M oun t Lu in the hope that future visitors to- Foym s temple

might put clean water in the basin as an offering if they could not afford to donate food, clothing, or utensils.97 b y decorating his Q iu Lake rocks with the W endeng pebbles, Su Shi makes o f them an object that is at once playfiil and devotional Like Bai Juyi, who described the cranes as companions in his old age, Su Shi the old man defined his relationship with the rocks in human terms, with an allusion to a passage in the

Y ijin g

^

nA gentleman does not

cringe in dealing with his superiors or show contempt in dealing with his inferiors^

( J u n z i s h a n g jia o b u c h a n x ia jia o b y d u

M^

9

"F 3C.

不 溃 ) 严 In the poetic exchange between Bai Juyi and Pei D u over the cranes, the contest was ostensibly couched in terms o f die relative suitability o f their gardens as a bird sanctuary. Su S h is quarrel with W a n g Shen, on the other hand, was presented as a direct clash o f desires. Paradoxically the legitimacy o f Su S h is desire was based on his possession o f tw o miniature mountains against W an g Shen s erstwhile grand, though only visual, posses­ sion o f numerous real mountains in Wudang* T h e reference to W a n g Shen's exile in W udang is somewhat uncanny in the present context, for it Me a Poem. I Wrote One Back to Harmonize with His”始 於 文 登 海 上 得 白 石 數 升 如 芡 實 可 作 枕 聞 梅 丈 嗜 石 故 以 遺 其 子 子 明 學 士 子 明 有 詩 次 韻 ， SSSJ,

31*1650, and "Under the Pcngjai Pavilion of Wendeng, There Were Stone Clifl& of a Thou­ sand Fathoms. Assaulted by the Ocean Waves, Chips Broke Oft After Being Washed for Ages, They Became Round and Smooth in a Lovcdy Way. Locals Call Them Pellet Nests, I Coliectecl Hundreds of Them to Spread Around My Stone Calamus. I Also Wrote a Poem to Present to the Old Man of Charity H alT 文 登 蓬 菜 閣 下 石 壁 千 丈 爲 海 浪 所 戰時有碎裂淘* 歲久皆圓熟可愛土人謂此彈子渦也取數百牧以養石菖 蒲且作詩遺垂慈堂老人， SSSJ, 31.1651- 5念. 97. Sec て)flferings of Grotesque Pebbles"怪 石 供 ,S S ^ , 64.1986-87; *The Second Piece on Oflferin识 of Grotesque Pebbles， ，後 怪 石 供 ，SSWJ; 64,1987, "G紅hi on Jade Stones” 玉 石 揭 , SSU7, 22私 4; and "Notes to FoykT 與 佛 印 , n〇•もSSWJ, 61.1868-69,

Z fo o w y i が，**X ici"繫 辭 (B), p. 88b.

186

W ords and Things

was his financial, social, artistic, and literary ties with Su Shi that led to W a n g S h en s exile following the famous Poeciy Case o f the Black Ravens 丁enrace (Wutai shi丨 an 烏 臺 詩 案

),99C ou ld it “ that Su Shi was sending a

warning, albeit playfully, o f the wdangcrswo f their farther involvement in gift exchanges? A t the end o f the poem, Su Shi laid dow n two conditions: no further cir­ culation o f the rocks and their expedicious return. O n e wonders if Su Shi, in demanding the timely return o f his rocks, had in m ind the fate o f M i Fu s inkstone* In any case, tnis miserly gesture is a &r ciy irom Su S h is usual grandiloquence about transcending attachments to M tnings outside oneself/' It also differs significantly, as we shall see, from the posm ons and postures he took in the next tw o poems* A s in the standoff between Bai Ju y i and Pci Du, third parties, in the per­ sons o f Q ian Xie, W an g Qrnchcn, and Jiang Zm qi, soon got involved* A l­ though none o f the poem s by the three is eictant, the gist o f their arguments is recorded in the extremely lengthy tide o f Su Shi*s second poem, °Wang Jinqing Show ed M e H is Poem, Intending to Seize M y Rocks. Qian Mufii, W a n g Zhongzhi, and Jiang Yingsbu All W rote Poem s in the Same Rhyme Scheme, Lords M u and Z h i T hought That I Should N o t Agree. O nly Yingshu T hought Otherwise. T oday Yingshu Paid a Visit to Me, and upon Seeing for H im self the Marvel o f the Rocks, Regretted W h at H e Had. Said* But I T h ough t Jinqing W as N o t the Kind o f Person W h ose Request C ou ld Be Denied for Long. I W ou ld Give the Rocks to H im I f H e C ou ld Ex­ change for T hem with a Painting o f T w o Loose H orses by H an Gan.

Therefore I Wrote Another Poem in the Same Rhyme Scheme as the Previous Onビ 王 晉 卿 示 詩 欲 奪 海 石 錢 穆 父 王 仲 至 蔣 潁 叔 皆 次 韻 穆 至 ニ 公 以 爲 不 可 許 獨 潁 叔 不 然 今 日 潁 叔 見 訪 親 睹 此 石 之 妙 遂 悔 前 言 僕 以 爲 晉 卿 豈 可 終 閉 不 予 者 若 能 以 韓 幹 ニ 散 馬 可 許 也 復 次 前 韻 相如有家山 縹緲在眉綠 誰云千里遠 寄此ー顰足

(SSSJ, 36 ,1945 - 4 7 ): haa indoor m o u n ta in s : Distant and h23y on the green eyebrows. Who said they are a thousand miles away? One knitting of the eyebrows movea them here.

A ia n g r u

99. Su Shi himself referred to his implicating Wang Shcn in "Postface to Wang Jinqings Poems” 趣 王 普 詩 後 , SSW7, 68.2137. For an in-depth discussion of the trial, sec Hartman, "Poetry and Politics in i〇79.wFor ocher accounts in English of the case, see Word, Im agtt an d D eed in the L ife o f Su Shi, pp. 46-53; and Lin Yutang, T h e G ay G enius, pp. 187-204.

W ords and Things

187

早歲藜莧腹

For his whole life he had a heart tor intricate things, Althou^i rrom early on ms stomach had nothing but coarse vegetables.

從敎四璧空

Even though he h eed emoty walls.

未遣兩峰蹙 吾今沉衰病 義不忘樵牧 逝將仇池石

H e would not let go o f ms twin peaks. Now as I am weak and ill, I wont forget the principles of rustic life. Eventually I will take the Qiu Lake rocks. T o return with me to Min Mountain. Not greedy o f other treasures, I only guard you T o keep intact my impeccable jade.100 Two old mends admonished me in their poems; I adored their marvelous words. Another one argued differently, But 1rollowed the guidance of two divinations out of three. In your home there are numerous paintings. On wmch herds of heavenly horses chase one other. Their windy bristles sweep across the plains and fields;

平生錦输腸

歸泝岷山溃 守子不贪寶 完我無瑕玉 故人詩相戒 妙語予所伏 ー篇獨異論 三占從兩卜 君家畫可數 天驥紛相逐 風騣掠原野 電尾捎澗谷 君如許相易 是亦我所欲 今朝安西守 來聽味關曲 勸我留此峰 他日來不速

Their li^icning tails whisk over valleys and vales. If you were willing to exchange, That would also be what I desire. Today the commander o f Anxi Came to listen to the parting song The Yang Pass/' wThe day^ o f their return wouldnt be too soon."

During the shore period or time that had elapsed since Su ^ h is first p o­ etic response, a consensus am ong all the parties must have been reached that W an g S h cn s ^borrowing was tantamount to 'seizing. T h e situation be­ came m ore dramatic when the would-be mediators, instead o f speaking in a unified voice, disagreed as to whether Su Shi should com ply with W an g Shcn s request. A t the end o f the second poem, however, it becom es clear that the disagreement was resolved, at least temporarily, when Jiang Zhiqi,

100. This is yet another allusion to the intrigue between Qin and Zhao over the jade disk, which, as mentioned above, was returned to Zhao without any damage.

188

W ords and Things

after seeing the marvelous rocks with his own eyes, changed his opinion and urged S u Shi not to let g o o f the rocks. T h e allusion to the story o f Sim a Xiangru 司 馬 相 如 （ 179- 118b x . ) and his wife, Z h u o W enjun 卓 文 君 ，in the first eight lines o f the poem has two primary sources* O n e describes Z h u o W enjun as having ^delicate appearanccs. T h e color o f her eyebrows was like that o f mountains viewed from a&b her ikee had a constant g lo y like a lotus and sm ooth like lard.

and her skin was soft

In another source, alluded to here in line 7, it is

said that, after Sima Xiangru and Z h u o W enjun eloped/they were m such dire straits that "their house had only empty walls.**102 As the images o f and a beautiful woman becom e mutually referential, a hom ology emerges: this rocks are to Su Shi what Z h u o W enjun was to Sima Xiangru *103 However, the husband-wife metaphor that Su Sm employed to define his relationship with the rocks soon turns out to be crippled. For, in their femi­ nized transfiguration, the rocks are more like a concubine than a wife. As noted above, a concubine, unlike a wife, was a transferable or exchangeable item. H ere Su Shi handled the rocks precisely as such. D espite his wellarticulated and forcefiilly reiterated position to Tceep intact m y impeccable jadcwwithout being greedy o f other treasures/ he proved only too ready to deal, as he made a m ore practical counteroffer to exchange the rocks for a painting o f two horses by H an Gan (d* 780) in W an g Shen s coflection .104It may be .a pure coincidence^ but somewhere in the background one hears faint echoes o f the story o f the horse-concubine exchange to which Su Shi alluded in his poem to Zh an g Jin*105 T h e twist here is that the real horse is replaced by its pictorial representations and the concubine by her look-

101. Liu Xin, Xijing zaji, 2.82, loi. Shiji, u 7.3000. 103. A native of Shu himself) Su Sm obviously felt an affinity with oima Xiangru, the first influential poet from the area* For a case study of the sdf-representation of Chine しtunese poe^s from Shu after the model of Sima Xiangru^ see Farmer, "Passages. 104.It is tempting to read, as Schafer did in T«Wans Stone Catalogue of Cloudy Forest, p. 7, &er ニ 我 馬 in the tide of Su Shi’ s second poem as meaning “ a pair of horse paintings0by Han Gan. In that case, there would be a nice symmetry between two rocks and two paintings. But I believe Su Shi was referring to one painting with two horses on it. 105. Su Shi made the same allusion in "Two Quatrains to Poke Fun at Zhou Zhcngruw

戲周正孩ニ絶， SSSJ， 28.1474.

W ords and Things

189

alikcs—the rocks have been compared to wgrcen oth eyebrows,wa hackncyed synecdoche for a beautiful woman. Horse paintings were collectible items in Su Shis time, especially those believed to be from the hands of such cighth-centuiy painters as Wei Yan 韋 偃 (fl late seventh c.-early eighth c.), Cao Ba 曹 衾 (fl. 713-41), and Han Gan, although it was often diflScult to tell forgeries from the originals* Among half a dozen authentic specimens seen by Mi Fu was one owned by Wang Shen, on which were painted two horses nuzzling each other. There is a strong possibility that this was the painting for which Su Shi of­ fered co trade nis rocks* The intricate ties of art, poetry, friendship, and politics are evidenced in the ciraimstances surrounding the composition of Su Shi’ s poem Inscription on Han Gan*s Painting of Pasturing Horses”書 轉 幹 牧 馬 圖 （SSSJ, i5«72i-23)* In 1069, during a brief visit to the capital, Wang Shen invited Su Shi for a meeting (their first one) outside the city* (The location says some­ thing about the poutically charged atmosphere at the time,) The next day, Wang Shen sent Su Shi a painting of twelve horses by Han Gan (in six scrolls) and asked him to write a colophon for it. During the trial of the Poetry Case of the Black Ravens Terrace, a couplet from Su Shis verse colo­ phon was cited as an escample of his vicious attacks on those in power.1 107* 6 0 Given the history of the relationship between Su Shi and Wang Shen and the role played by Han Gan s horse painting in chat relationshipj one cannot but wonder if, in proposing the exchange between his rocks for Wang Shen s painting, Su Sm had in mind the persecution he had suffered more than a decade before* It is possible that Su Shi's proposed exchange was a genuine proposition. The exchange of aesthetic artifacts was a common practice among collec­ tors. Trading such ardfkccs was more acceptable than buying and selling them for money. Wang Shen himself once exchanged a horse painting by Han vjan for a piece of calligraphy in Mi Fus colleaion. Wang Shen oridnally obtained the painting by trading a rock for it*109In the market of cul­ tural consumption, there were ample precedents for trading a fantastic rock and a prestigious horse painting as items of equal value. 106. Later the painting was cut into two and sold separately; see Mi Fu, Huashi, pp. n>i2. 107.For a discussion, see Hartman, “ Poetry and Politics in 1079广p. 34.

See Lcddeeose, Mi 109, Mi Fu,

知 i, p, io.

and the Oassiail Tradition ofChinese Calligraphy, p* 46.

190

W ords and Things

On the other hand, Su Shi s counterproposal could have been a tactic to frustrate Wang Sheni an avid and even ejetravagant collector of paintings. Su Shi knew that it would be hard for Wang Shen to part with his treasured horse painting* In his seemingly reasonable proposal, Su Shi was furtively giving Wang Shen a dose of his own medicine* His message is subtle but clean Don t take from me what you wouldn't give away y〇ursd£ Interest^ ingly enough, it was in a commemorative essay about Wang Shen s collet don o f paintings and call^raphies, written some sixteen years earlier, in 1077, that Su Shi made one of his best^known statements about the dangers asso^ ciated with the possessiveness of the collector and the need to cultivate the ability to enjoy aesthetic objects without becoming engrossed in or obsessed with them*110In the present casc#however, both Su ohi and Wang Sheri seem to be mired in the intellectual sin against which Su Shi had so eloquendy warned If Su Shi's counterofier was meant as a ploy, then the ruse certainly worked* As the title of his third poem clearly indicates, the proposed ex­ change was flatly rejected by Wang Shen and the deal apparendy went nowhere* Thereupon the third parties stepped in again. Qian Xie offered the whimsical su^estion that he himself take both the rocks and the painting Jiang Zhiqi! on the other hand, came up with the extreme proposal that the painting be burned and the rocks broken to resolve the case once ind for all* Su Shi s response came in Hl Wanted to Exchange M y Rocks for a Painting, Jinqing Blamed Me for That. Mufii Wanted to Take Both the Rocks and the Painting. Yingshu Wanted co Bum the Painting and Break the Rocks* Therefore I Wrote a Poem in the Same Rhyme Scheme to Explain the Meaning of My Previous Two Poems”軟 欲 以 石 易 畫 晉 卿 難 之 穆 父 欲 兼 取 ニ 物 潁 叔 欲 焚 畫 碎 石 乃 復 次 前 韻 幷 解 ニ 詩 之 意

(SSSJ, 36 .1947 - 4 8 )： 春 冰 無 眞

B

霜葉失故綠 鸚疑鵬萬里

Ice m spnng does not have true nrmness; Leaves in trost lose tnetr ongmal green. The quail wonders about the Pengs flying ten thousand miles;111

ho. *An Account of the Hall of Trca叫red Paintings”寶 綠 堂 記 , 2 »3 5 6 _ 5 フ，Sec also note 98, p. 139， hi. The Peng is a legendary bird that can soar ninety thousand miles upward into the sky. The quail, content with flying up and down within a small space, laughs at the Peng and con*

191

W ords and Things

炫笑夔一足 袂 腹臺变 攘捧無用 爭一既何 豪生銳瓶 ニ先明淨

The centipede laughs at the Kui for having only one foot,112 As two valiants roll up their sleeves in argument, One eider burses Kis sides with laughter. If the bri^it mirror has no pedestal,113 Why should the pitcher with hand^cleaning water need to be kicked over?114

not understand where the Peng is going with its soaring flight (Zhuanga jishi, ^iaoyao youM 逍遙遊， p.i4).

112. This is a loose allusion to a dialogue between the Kui if (a legendary animal with only one foot) and the Xian i s (a worm with a myriad of feet), in Zhuangd jishi, "QuishuT 秋 水 ,p.592-93:

The Kui said, *1hop around with one ibot. Walking does not get simpler than in m y case. Now you have ten thousand feet to employ. How do you manage?" The Xian said, fTou are mistaken* Don t you see the one ejecting saliva. What it spurts out may be as big as a pearl or as small as the particles of mist, a]l filing down mixed in in­ numerable drops. How I just use my natural endowment without knowing how I manage." 113.Hongren 仏 忍 （ 602-75), the fifth しhan patriarch, once aslced each of his disciples to compose a gatha and told them that the author of the ^.tha chat revealed true wisdom woald be his successor. Shenxiu 706),who. was considered the bri^icest by the more than seven hundred disciples and who was to become the founder of the Northern School of Chan Buddhism, wrote one on the wall: 身是菩提樹 心如明銳臺 時時勤拂拭 莫遣有塵埃

The body is a bodhi tree; The mind is like the ( Be diugenc to brush it t Lest there is any dust.

of a bright e

Upon hearing Shenxiu s unanimously admired piece* Huineng ^ (63^-713)# who at the time held the menial job of pounding rice but who was to become the sixth patriarch, com« mented that it left something to be desired and wrote a gatha of his own: 菩提本非樹 明鏡亦非臺 本来無一物 何假拂塵埃

Bodhi is no tree; Neither does the bri^it mirror need a pedestal. It there is not a sin^e object there in the first place. Why is there need to brush oft dust^

$ee Daoyuan, Jingde cbmndeng lu, 3.5260-270. Su Shis line is a rewriting of the second line here. 114. When Chan Master Huaihai 懷海（ 720-814) of Baidiang Nfountain in Hongzhou (in modem Jiangxi) was about to send Lingyou 重 佑 （ 771-853) to Wei Mountain (in modem Hunan) to be the abbot there, Hualin 華林 was upset because he thought he himself would be the best candidate. Huaihai said that the one who could make an apt response to ms question would be ^ven the job. Pointing at a pitcher with hand^deaning water (Jinjgping 淨漱 ie”a pitcher chat is constantly filled with water for cleaning one's hands), Huaihai

192 盆山不可隱 畫馬無由牧 聊將置庭宇 何必棄溝瀆

焚寶眞愛寶 碎 玉 未 忘 玉

久知公子賢 出語耆年伏 欲觀轉物妙 故以求馬卜 維摩既復捨 天女還相逐 授之無盡燈 照此 久 蟲 谷 定心無一物 法樂勝五欲

W ords and Things

Mountains in a.basin cannoc be a hermitage; Horses in a painting cannot be herded. I mayjust as well place the rocks m my courtyard; Why do I nave to abandon them to ditches and gutters? He who wants to burn the treasure really loves the treasure; He who wants to breakthejade cannot forget about thejade. I have long known you to be wise; In my old age I admire what ^ou uttered. I meant to observe the miracle of turning objects around; Therefore I tried to find it out by asking for the horses. Vitnalaldti had given them up yet again. But the heavenly maidens kept pressing. He taught them about the Inexhaustible Lamp; Sheading light on this eternal dark valley. A serene mind does not fix on a sin^e object; The delight in the Dharma is superior to that in five worldly desires.115

asked, *Tf you are not allowed to call it #pitchcr with hand^deaning water/ what would you call itf1Hualin replied, I f I could not call it pitcher with handdeprecation with self-assertion, self-doubt with self-assurance* T h e solicaiy joy Mwas after all a situation forced on him during his retirement in Luoyang, when he found him self ou t o f tunc with the rest o f the world. Rem oved jfrom the center o f political power, he was n o longer in a position to bring joy to the whole world*

Dima Guangs admirers, however, were eager to stress that he had nor lost sight of the welfare of the people even in his garden. In Zong Ze s 宗 澤 （ 1059-1128) poem wO n the Garden of Solitary Joド 題 獨 樂 国 （ QSS, 1206.13667), for example^ we read: 范公之樂後天下 維師溫公乃獨樂 ニ老致意出處間 殊途同歸兩不惡

DuKe Fan w ould not enjoy him self until th e whole w orld is joyful; Yet th e Reverend D uke o f W en enjoyed him self m solitude. In th eir whence and w nither, the two elders are A t one, reaching th e same designation by

T h e comparison o f Sima Guang to Fan Z h o n g p n is noteworthy* In his “ A ccount o f the Y u e p n g T ow er”岳 陽 樓 記 ，Fan Zhongjran articulated in the m ost memorable manner a moral principle that w ould resonate with

75. Discussions that incorporate traditional comments on the significance of the name of Sima Guangs garden can be found in Song Yanshen* S im a G u a n g zhuan, pp. 246-47；and Cheng Yingliu, S im a G u a n g x in zhuan, p. X29.

23〇

Old Men at Home

generations of Confucian scholars: "To worry before the whole world wor­ ries and to enjoy after the whole world cnjoysw(gSW, 9:386,776), Elsewhere, in a poem with less personal intensity， he wrote: 君 子 不 獨 樂 superior man does not enjoy himself in solitude.f, 76 Fan Zhong^an late in his life chose to establish a charitable estate for his clan rather than to build a gar­ den for himself in Luoyang.7 6 77Thus he seemed to represent the opposite of Sima uuang in his Luoyang ye^xs* By idendfymg Sima Guang with Fan Zhongy^an in terms of their Vhcnce and whither/ however, Zong Ze force­ fully readjusted Sima Guangs pursuit or solicaiy joy" in his garden along the more orthodox Confucian line* In general, Dima Guangs poems, like his prose account, give the impres­ sion that he was contented and felt quite at ease with his leisurely life in the Garden of Solitary Joy. There are, however, moments in his poetry that in­ dicate that his political aspirations were alive and well. In the poem M Reading HalT 讀 書 堂 （QSS，500.6057), for example, we are led to believe that the garden functioned only as a temporaiy respite from active politics, to which he would return with a vengeance: 吾愛董仲舒 窮經守幽獨 所居雖有圓 三年不遊目 邪説遠去耳 聖言免充機 發策登漢庭 百家始消伏

1 adm ire D ong Z h o i^sh u, Keeping to his solicude while m astering th e classics* A lthough there was a garden w here he uvea. For three years his eyes did not w ander there. H e kepc devious doccnnes far awav from his eats. A nd digested the words o f th e sages like a hungiy maiL W hen he ascended th e court o f H an to prom ulgate policies. T h e hundred schools o f thought began to subside.

This is the first of -Seven Inscriptions on the Garden of Solitaiy Joy” 獨 樂 囷 七 起 * In each of them, Sima Guang claimed a spiritual affinity with a well-known figure in history, such as Dong Zhongshu 董 仲 舒 (179i〇4 bx.). Before he entered government service, Dong Zhongshu was so de­ voted to his study that he did not even glance ac his garden (that is, he ab­ stained from what would be considered the pleasurable activities of life)* Once he gained the favor of the emperor, he turned into a great statesman, 76. wOn the Hall of Literary Gatherings of Gentleman for Attendance Tcng of Hailing* 書 海 陵 滕 從 事 文 會 堂 , 2SS, 164.1861.

77. Lou Yao,

Wwzfcewigo”欠

p. 85.

Old M en at Home

231

whose grand achievement was to elevate Confucianism to be the state ideol^ ogjr and to abolish all other schools of thought/ 8 Sima Guang probably saw a parallel on two levels. First, like Dong Zhongshu, he, as he wrote of his Reading Hall in the prose account, ^investigates the origin of humaneness and ri^iteousness and explores the principles of rites and music.wSecond, and more imporcant, in Dong Zhongshu s fortunes he saw a potential model for his own political coftleback, at which time he would sweep away the heresies of the reformers. Sima Guang may not have realized how prophetic his poem was, but, when he did return to court, he proved to be most re­ lentless in abolishing the New Policies. As noted in Chapter 2, the choice of plantations was one means of marking individuality. Sima Guang s self-image as a garden master of M solilikewise reinforced through horticultural individuation, esperwith regard to his Plot for Picking Herbs* "In Reply to a Poem by Vice Minister Zhao on My Plot of Herbs”酬 趙 少 拜 禁 園 見 赠 （JJSS, 501.6066) exemplifies the way in which he oscillated between literalism and allegory in constructing such a self-image: 郵性苦迂僻 有困名獨樂 滿城爭種花 治地惟種禁 栽培親荷鍤 購買屢傾橐 縱橫百余區 所識恨不博 身病尚未攻 何論療民瘼

My humble disposition is stubbornly impractical and eccentric; My garden 1named Solitary Joy. The whole city vies to grow flowers; T o cultivate m y land, I grow only herbs. Personally shoulderit^ a hoe, I transplant them; Frequently emptying my money bag, I purchase them. With over a hundred plots crisscrossing. I regrec my kno^dedge is noc vast. When I cannot yet cure the diseases of my own body, H ow can I calk about； remedying the ailment o f the people?

Sima Guang s ^impractical and cccentnc disposition is reflected not only in the name he gave to his garden but also in what he cultivated there* In con-7 8

78. Shiji, 121.3127; H anshu, 56.2495, 2525. See Freeman, Lo-yang and the Opposition to Wang An-shih,wpp. 46-47; and idem, wFrom Adept to Worthy," p. 485. The idea of the “ victor/’ of Confbdanistn in tkie course of Emperor W udi’ s reign in the Han has been challenged and rigbcfii% so»See Nylan,A Problematic Modd/* What matters for our purposes hare, however, is Sima Guangs perception of Dong Zhon^skus accomplishment as a Confii-

232

Old M en at Home

trast to the common flower gardens of Luoyang, the Plot for Picking Herbs emerges as a moral space, in which the garden master, while immersed in his 'solitary joy, is mindful of the ^ailment of the peopled In other words, planting herbs is a morally symbolic act as well as an aesthetic pursuit* It would not be too far-fetched to read Sima Guang*s search for a cure for the disease of the physical body as an explicit metaphor for his desire to rid the body politic of the maladies inflicted by the New Policies. The Plot for Picking Herbs seems to have occasioned more poetic com­ positions by Sima Guang than saiy of the other six scenic spots in the Gar­ den of Solitary Joy. Two reasons can be mentioned First, the plot, although an empirical space, lent itself most conveniently to allegorical treatment. Second, this particular site played a significant role in Sima Guangs social and poetic exchanges with friends in Luoyang, as evidenced in the fact that many of his poems on the plot were written as response poems* wTwo Quatrains in Reply to Anzhi Thanking Me for My Herb Transplants”酬 安 之 謝 獺 栽 ニ ♦ (QSS，5〇i.6o6i) can be cited as an example: No. I 洛人栽花不栽藥 吾屬好尚何其偏 服之雖能已百病 愛間成癖無由痊

The residents o f Luayanc plant flowers, not herbs; H ow idiosyncratic is the partiality o f men or our type* AlchougH caking nerbs can stop hundreds o f illnesses. N ot to be cured is the disease o f our love o f leisure. No. 2

護根帶土我親移

With earth protecting their roots, I personally moved chem;

荷 鍤 级 泉 君 _ 種

Carrying a hoe and channeling the spring water, you

悦目寧將惡草除 扶危或比兼金重

personally planted chemu T o please die eye, we should eradicate the evil weeds; Supporting the endangered, we treasure them more chant

The major theme of these two quatrains is essentially the same as in the pre­ vious poem on the Plot for Picking Herbs* There is the same distinction between Sima Guang and men of our type" on the one hand and the common residents of Luoyang^ on the other*79The cultivation of herbs repre79* In “Asking for Flute BambooM乞 笛 竹 ，QSS，367*4520, Shao Yo叫 too, distinguished himself as a horticulturist with a predilection for bamboo from residents of LuoyangM (Lumren A.) with their love of flowers. His allegoryr, however, developed along a different

Old M en at Home

233

sents the same quest for the cure of ^hundreds of illnesses/' both bodily and moral. The "evil wcedswis a coded reference to wicked people, and the de­ termination to eradicate them wt〇 please the ty t expresses the desire to maintain or, rather, to restore proper moral ana political order. In a word, gardening becomes a metaphor for governing. The moral symbolism associated with the scenic spots in Sima Guang s gardtti was a source of inspiration for his admirers* Taking his cue from Sima Guang s own poems, Z 〇ng Z c ended wOn the Garden of Solitary Joyw with references to the Plot for Picking Herbs, the Pavilion for Watering Flowers, and the Terrace for Viewing Mountains (QS5 ,1206， 13667): 種禁作峰醫國手

Planting a plot o f herbs are the hands that doctor

澆花成林膏澤大 見山臺上飛嵩高

the country; Powerftd is the nectar that douses bushes o f flowers* From the Terrace for Viewing Mountains soars

高山仰止如欠在

Mount Song; Looking up to the high mountain, I fe d you are scill

Sima Guang s imaging o f the garden as a grand metapnor for cne body politic is his wH ^ m o n iz m g witn Junkiungs P oem on the eastern Estate or the D uke o f Lu”和 者 脱 題 路 公 東 莊 (QSS, 5〇9.6i92):

伊浦低臨一片天

H i^ i peaks m tne distance overlap with a thousand miles ot snow; A patch ot sky lowers down to the banks ot the

百頃平皋連别館

Yi River, A hundred acres o f level fidd emends from

兩行蘇柳#清泉

your villa, Two lines o f sparse willow trees brush the

高峰遠

4

千里雪

國須柱石扶丕構 人待樓航濟巨川

dear spring. The country wanes a rock pillar to prop its colossal struccure; The people need a towering ship to cross a

line. He saw in bamboo a m oad not only of constancy but also of self-preservation: whereas flowers can blossom for only ten days, bamboo is green the year round. Although both may benefit from rain and dew, only bamboo is exempt from the destructive force of frost and snow, $〇 • The phrase が似らa”ア 4» が丨•高山仰止 is taken from no. 218.

Old Men at Home

234 蕭相方如左右手 且於窮僻置閑田

You, like Prime Minister Xiao, the right hand of the emperor, Settled on the idle land in a desolate and remote soot.

lypiiying Sima Guang's tendency to alternate between utcralism ana allcgonzation, the poem breaks into two distinct pares. As it moves rrom the scenic description in the first half to the expressive statement in the secoad half, Wen YanWs (Lc., the Duke of Lu) garden is metamorphosed from a physical to an allegorical space. Struccurally, the third couplet not only corresponds with but also transforms the first couplet* Just as the image of high peaks of Mount Song in line i turns into a metaphor for the **rock pillarwof the colossal structure of the state in line 5, the Yi River in line 2 becomes a metaphor for the political currents of the reform movement—to cross them, a steady lowering ship is needed* A similar relationship of mutual reference and reinforcement exists between the second couplet and the fourth, in which a parallel is established between the estates of Wen Yanbo and Xiao He 镛 何 (A 193b.c.)* The third couplet contains two aQusions to the Shanfshu* As a metaphor for the state, the phrase colossal structure (peifou 2 ^|) originated in a speech by the Duke of Zhou to the lords of various states m d court ministers hesitant to embarlc on an expedition against rebels in the ne^ly conquered Shang territories in the east. One of the metaphors with which the duke describes their unwillingness to cariy out King Wen s plan reads: wIt is like when a son is not willing to lay die foundations for a house planned by his deceased hxhet, how much less will he be willing to build the roofT (mo feoo jwwfc* ji > fern fem名 ifccw fecn 炉 m 若 考 作 室 既 底 法 敬 子 乃 弗 肯 堂 知 肯 構 ).81The second allusion takes us fiirther back in time. During the first three years after he became the king of Miang, Wuding 武 j remained silent, even after the period of mourning for his father was over* When his ministers urged him to issue orders about the af&irs of the state, Wuding explained that he did not speak out because he was unsure of his virtues as a ruler. However, as he was thinking about the aflairs of the state, he had a dream in which a god granted him a capable minister who would speak on Wudings behal£ He described what he had seen in the dream, and a portrait was drawn. After a search was conducted

8i.

M Da gao•大誥,p* 199c.

Old M en at H ome

235

throughout the land, Yuc 説 , a convict laborer w ho was m olding clay in the field o f Fuyan 傅 嚴 , was found to fit the portrait exactly and made chief minister. T h e first instruction W u din g gave to Yue (known as Fu Yue) was: "Please ofler your advice mornings and evenings to help m e cultivate my virtues* It is like using you as a whetstone when there is a metal insorument, like using you as the oar o f a snip when there is a grand river to cross (ruoji 伽グcm震ra zJwwjt• 若 濟 巨 川用汝作舟辑)广ぬ If Wen Yanbo s accomplishments in office were as great as those of the Duke of Zhou and Fu Yue^ then his present situation is comparable to that of another historical luminaiy, Xiao He* As the right hand#, to l ,iu Bang, Aiao He was instrumental in the founding of the Han dynastv. However, his great accomplishments and tame caused his colleagues and eventually the emperor himself to become jealous* When advised to buy a vast expanse of land to indulge in material pleasures as well as to dispel any suspicion that he might harbor thoughts of usurpation, Xiao He chose the most desolate spot he could find and built a house m the most simple manner, saying, uI f my descendants are worthy, thejr will tollow my example of frugality; if not, my property will be seized by other powerfbl fkmilies.’ "83Likewise, Wen Yanbo had served with merit since the days of bmperor Renzong 仁 宗 （r. 102364) but because of his opposition to the New Policies, he was forced out of office and had to settle in ms garden in Luoyang* To oima Guang^ the displacement of the pillars of the state like Wen Yanbo from the political cen­ ter to M the idle land in a desolate and remote spotMis obviously an acrid comment.

In the seemingly gloom y days o f their retirement, members o f the conser­ vative circle in Luoyang almost unanimously placed their hopes o f a political comeback on Sima Guang. Again and again, they reminded him that all was not lost. U pon his deatfabied, for example, Lii H u i 呂 誨 (1014-71) uttered these last words: #T h c af&irs o f the state can still be m anaged D o the best you can, Junshi.

M ore often；however, the pushing and goading took the

m ore subde form o f garden poems« After he purchased a villa at the Stream o f Piling Rocks, Sim a G uang wrote a poem to invite his friend Fan Z h cn to join him there, as the latter

82* Ibidゾ Shuo ming” 説 命 , p •口4c. Sec also Sbiji, 3joa. 83. Shtji, 53.2018-19. 84. Shao Bowen, Shaoshi wenjian lu, 10.107-8.

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Old M en at H om e

had promised.85Fan Zhcn s "Hannonizing with Junshi s Poem ^Purchasing the Estate at the Stream of Piling Rocks*”和 君 實 新 買 秦 石 溪 莊 (QSS, 346.4262) carries a message essentially the same as Lu Hui s deathbed wish: 畫處始 知 蛇 足 剩

Only when painted wiQ the foot o f a snake

管中那識豹文斑

Throu^i the hole o f a pipe how can the stripes of a leopard be fully recognized? Those who possess the Way should always help the world;

be known as superfluous;

從 來 有 道 須 康 世 未省升平卻住山 學富名高難自誨 眼昏心悸始能閑 計君疊山溪邊景 不得從容歲月間

I do not understand why you live in the mountains in this time o f peace. With your profotuid learning and widespread tame, it is difficult for you to hide; Only a man like myself, with eyes S z z y and heart puinping, can get to be idle. I figure that yon, taang the scenery by the stream in Die Mountain, Would not be able to idle away days o f your life.

even as he described hunselr as an inept old man entided to true leisure, Fan Zhen was dead serious about dissuading Sima uuans from his intention to spend the days of your life m leisure* The rercrence to tnis time of peace* adds to his persuasion the wei^it or a fundamental ^onfiician tenet: when the times are good, a scholar should devote himself to government service. The stakes are simply too high for Sima Guang to indulge in the fantasy of leading a leisurely life ih retirement. In the last couplet, Fan Zhen turned into a political prophet predicting Sima Giiangs eventual return to power. Indeed, during Sinia Guang s fifteen years in Luoyang, the whole countiy looked on him as the wtrue grana councilor 一 at least the conservatives would have liked to tnink so. It was therefore incumbent on mm not to settle for a quiet iite of political disengagemenc* Su Shis M Sima Junshi s Gar« den of Solitary Joy”司 馬 君 實 獨 樂 囷 (SSSJ, 15*733) is yet another exam­ ple of the use of a garden poem to cany a moral and political message* Su Sm wrote the poem upon receiving from ^ima Guang a copy of''Account of 85. See Sima Guang, '1 Recently B oi^it a Villa at the Stream of Piling Rocks. To Invite Jingren, I Write Another Poem Using the Same Rhyme as in My Previous Poem to Him斩 買 * 石 溪 莊 再 用 前 額 招 景 仁 , 2SS, 509*6脱 . 86.Songshi, 336»i〇767.

Old Men at Home

237

the Garden of Solitary Joy.MPartly because he had never visited the garden,87 his descriptive lines are rather perfunctory: 音山在屋上 流水在屋下 中有五畝囷 花竹秀而野 花香襲杖履 竹色侵杯罕 樽酒樂餘春 棋局消長夏

AD〇ve your house there are green mountains; Below your house there are flowing rivers. Inside there is a garden of hvc mt/. Where flowers and bamboo are both decant and wild. l he fragrance of the flowers assails ^our cane and shoes; The color of the bamboo invades your cup and flagon. With goblecs of wine j^ou enjojr the late spring; With chess games you spend the long summer.

From these broad touches of the garden and tbe insouciant life of its master, Su Shi moved to the larger environment of Luoyang with its many gentle­ men, lofty customs, and clubs of ciders: 洛陽古多士 風俗猶爾雅 先生臥不出 冠蓋傾洛社 雖云與眾樂 中有獨樂者 才全德不形 所贵知我寡

Luoyang nas seen many gentlemen since anaenc times; Its customs remain lotty coday. \ ou. Sir, lie at home and do not go out, Yec you attract all those in caps and canopies from the clubs of Luoyang* Although you share jrour joy with everybody cbe. There is something in you chat takes joy in solitude. Your talent is perfect, but your virtues are noc shown outside; You take pride in your being known by few.

With his typical predilection for rhetorical twists and turns, Su Shi affirmed Sima Guangs solitaiy joy by first pointing out that his joy was not entirely solitary: the garden m wnxch ^ima Guang shuts himself seethes with social aaivmes, as members of the various clubs of elders (still with the trappings of officialdom in their wcaps and carriage canopies") come to visit him,88The 87. See Su Shi, "Letter to Duke Sima of Wen”舆 司 馬 溢 公

書,

50， 1441.

88. In Su Chビs 蘇 轍 (1039-11x2) M Sima Junshi Duanming's Garden ofSolitaiy Joダ•司馬 君 實 端 明 獨 樂 困 ，QSS，855,99〇7, it was Sima Guang who was presented as frequenting the gardens of M dukes and marquises" in Luoyang. Visitors to dima Guangs garden were not limitea to the dice of Luoyang. In nuxeveiy year in sprmg^ the garden would be transrormea into a tourist spot (because of the high esteem in which its owner was held). When visitors

238

Old Men at Home

last couplet here contains two allusions, both employed to praise Sima Guang in His M solitude«tf The first is to a passage in the Zhuangcu In the state of Wei, there was a man with no wealth or power but with repelling physical appearances* And yet men liked to associate with him, and women wanted to many him. Duke Ai of Lu^ after knowing him for less than a year^ tried to relegate che duties of the state to him. What made him so atcracdve was that M his talent is all perfect and yet his virtue is not shown in his appearances1" (〇« • c r x t % 才 全 ^&德 不 形 ).89The second allusioil is to an axiom in the Laozi: T f I am known by few, then I am valuable1*(zhiwozhe xi, ze woが , 知 我 者 希 則 我 贵 矣

) ^90

However, Su Shi immediately stressed that Sima Guang s virtues were by no means known just wby fcww; on the contrary, they were admired by the whole country： 先生獨何事 四海望构冶 兒童誦君實 走卒知司馬 持此欲安歸 造物不我捨 名聲逐吾輩 此病天所豬 振掌笑先生 年来效痔艰

Why ^re you, Sir, calking about being solitary?一 The four seas look to you for ediheadon* Children sing of Junshi; Footmen know about Sima. Where would you turn with all this? The Fashioncr-of-Thmgs wouldn't let you ga. Fame chases the likes of us一 Such is the penalty infliaed by Heaven. Clapping my hands, I laugh at you, Dir, For imitating the deaf and the mute for years*

came, thejr would, in accoraance with the custom of the city, leave a small fee as M cea money" 今 茶 湯 錢 ) to the garden keeper, who would split the earning? with his master. One day, afber collecting ten thousand casn, L& Zhi, lceeper of the Garden of S< came to hand in the money to Dima Guang and was told to keep it for himself. Having f with his earnest and repeated pleas for hi$ master to accept the mone)rt Lu Zhi \ised it to build a pavilion over the well m the garden from which water was drawn to quench die thirst of the touriists. For tiiac noble act, the servant was praised by the master (see Ma Yongqing, Yuancheng yulu 2.i5a-b). The Garden of Solitaiy Joy was not alone in being able to generate income. Another well-known example is the grand garden of Wei Renpu 魏 仁 浦 （or 溥 《 911-69), fiuned for its showy, dark red peony flowers, which were known as the Wei £unily flowers (Weihua 4^ During the peony season, £ower viewers flocked to the garden and had to pay dozens in cash before rhe)r were allowed to take a boat to cross a lake to where the flowers were blossoming* The W ei household was able to gamer over ten thousand cash every day in that manner (see Ouyang Xin, "An Account of the Peonies of LuoyangM 洛味牡丹記,743.164), メふ“ ^"Dediong 德 充 符 , p* 210， 90. Laozi daodejing, 70.8*

Old M en at Home

239

As the focus of Su Shi#s poem shifts or rather expands from the Garden of Solitary Joy to the city of Luoyang and then to "the four seas/' Sima Guang is transformed from a solitary garden master to a leader of the community of the elders and finally to a beacon of virtues for the whole nation* Into this moral geography, Su dhi could not resist the temptation to insert himself, as he identified with Sima Guang (M the likes of us ) in being chased b y fame. The depiction of Sima Guangs fame as "the penalty inflicted bj^ Heavcnw m ay be an example of Su Shi s teleological wittidsm; at the same time, it was part of the rhetorical repertoire for characterizing the situation of the con­ servatives during the reform period* In 1080, Wen Yanbo was summoned to the capital to administer the court rituals performed at the Hall of Enlight­ ened Rule (Mingtang Shordy thereafter he was appointed superin^ tendent o f the Western Capital in his capacity as defender in chief* In send^ ing him back to Luoyang, Emperor Shenzong composed a poem, which contains the following couplea 西都舊 士女

白首イ宁瞻公

The venerable gendemen and ladies of the Western Capital Are waiting with intense gaze for you with their white hair.

Inspired by Shenzong s compliment, the people of Luoyang built the Hall of Waiting with Intense Gaze (Zhuzhantang ィ 宁 瞻 堂 )with a portrait of Wen Yanbo in it. Sima ouang was persuaded to accept the task of writing a commemorative piece. Without mentioning a single physical detail of the hall itselr, he focused on the virtues of the venerable statesman and made the following observation on his inability* to escape tame: mEven though he runs away from favor, favor will not let go of him; even as he avoids &mer fame constantly accompanies him« Su Shis poem ends with a reference to Sima Guangs silence* Sima Guang was widely known never to have ^talked about the af&irs of the state" after he retired to Luoyang*9 92 Su Shi, however, saw this silence as acting. 1 With ^the four seas looiong to you for edification, Sima Guang would一 at least Su Shi hoped—eventually speak out,93It was no wonder that this ap-

91. "An Account of the Hall for Waiting with Intense GazeM仔 祿 堂 記 ，jJSW，28: 1224.587.

92. Songshi, 336.10766* 93. See Huang Che, Gonexi shihua, 2.350.

24〇

Old M en at H om e

parent political message was eventually used as a major piece of evidence when Su Shi was indicted for slandering the government.94 The Garden of Solitary Joy has rightfully received much attention as an important aspea of Sima Guangs iite in Luoyang. However, his use of gar­ dening as a form of self-expression predated the construction of this cele­ brated garden* Upon his initial arrival in Luoyang, he opened up a small garden to the cast of his official residence* Instead of the usual pavilions or terraces, he built a trellis with wood and bamboo and planted roseleaf rasp­ berry, rugosa roses, morning glory, and hyacinth beans* Covered with those plants, the trellis looked like a building structure, to which he gave the name Flower Hut (Hauan 花 疮 ).95In "Sitting Alone in the Flower Hut” 花 庵 獨 作 （ QSS，$08.6175)，Sima Guang depicted himself as a gardenmaster oblivious to the outside world:96 荒圓才ー畝 意足以爲多 雖不居丘墊 常如隱薜蘿 忘機林烏下 極目塞鴻過 爲問朝市客 紅 塵 深 幾 何

A aesoiate garden, on a mere mu of land With my mind content, I still consider it too much. Aithoueh not living m hills and valleys, I constantly reel i am hiain? among fig leaves and rabbit floss. As I have forgotten about machinations, birds come down from the woods; When I look into the distance, wild geese fly by toward the frontier. To che ^ esc from court and market, I ask. How chicic is the red dust out there?

In many wa^s, this is a rather conventional poem on the garden as a hermit* age in the city* Many fiuniliar motifs are present here: the smallness of the garden4the feeling of contentment, and above all the ability to attain reclu^ sion without living in whills and valleys/* The imageiy of birds coming down from che woods is an objective correlative for Sima uuang s reciusiye state of mind, in contrast to che situation in ^Walking Alone, As I Reached

94- Peng Jiuwan, Dongpo Wutai p. 24. 95. “A Poem on the Flower H ut, Sent to Shao Yaofo” 花 鳥 詩 寄 邵 堯 夫 ，QSS, 500.6052-53* This is the first of several poems by Sima Guang on che hut, and he sent it Co SKao Yong. For a discussion of some of che poems Sima Guang wrote on the Flower H ut, see Yaiig Hongjie and W u Maihuang, Sima Guang djuan, pp. 194-95. 96. The motif of bong alone or solitary (du was to crystallize in the name Sima

Old Men at Home

241

th e B ank o f th e L uo R iv er/#w here th e w h ite gulls 'w o u ld n o t believe I have long forgotten a b o u t m ach m atio n s/, S ynonym s fo r th e o u tfit o f a h erm it, th e Mfig leaves* an d Mrab b it flossw in line 4 are a c o n d en satio n o f th e second line from wT h e M o u n ta in S p irit” 山 鬼 in th e Clwd 楚 辭 ： 若有人兮山之阿 披蔚蕊兮帶女蘿

There seems to be someone in the fold of che mountain In a coat of fig leaves with a rabbit-floss girdle .97

A m o n g ^ im a G u a n g s friends in Luoyang, S hao Y ong proved to be th e first to appreciate th e sym bolism in his gardening. In M M acching Ju n sh i D uan^ m in g V S ittin g A lone in th e Flow er H u t ' 〃 和 君 實 端 明 花 庵 獨 坐 （ QSS， 369*4535)/ S hao Y ong confirm ed Sim a G u a n g s disengagem ent an d serenity: 靜坐養天和

Sitting quietly you nourish your innate harmony,

其來所得多

From whence much is attained. Deep and cavernous, it is like a grand edifice.

耽耽同廈宇 密密引藤蘿 忘去貴臣度

Dense are the wisterias it draws. Forgetting about the manners o f a noble minister,

蘩時休戚重

You can accommodate a rustic guest passing by. Heavy are the weal and woe o f th e tim e tied up

终不道如何

with you, A nd yet you would never talk about how yon fed.

能容野客過

T h e opening couplet m o st likely alludes to a passage in th e Zhuangzi, in w hich an apocryphal Y an H u i has tn is to say a b o u t h is tra n sc e n d e n t sta te o f m ind: HI have d ro p p e d m y arm s a n d legs, let g o o f m y h earin g a n d sight, tak en leave o f shape a n d ab an d o n ed cognition, a n d fused w ith che g reat W a y — th a t is w h a t I m ean t by sittin g a n d being obhyious* (zuowang 坐 忘 )，

o im a G u an g m ay be said to have achieved a sim ilar k in d o f tran scen d en ce as he, sittin g alone, becom es obkvious to th e d istin ctio n betw een wa noble m inister” a n a a rustic guest.0 H ow ever, his resem blance to Y an H u i th e D a o ist a d ep t is rath e r lim ited. F or even in such a p rivate activity as th e n o u rish in g o f his in n ate h arm ony, he rem ained tied w ith th e V e a l a n d w oe o f th e tim e.w C orrespondingly, th e hu m b le Flow er H u t (occupying wa m ere

97. Wenxuan, 334524；En^ish cransiaaon from Hawkes, The Songs of South, p. 115* 98. This line is lifted iiom Zhang Heng's 張 衡 (78-139) description of*the imperial palace in Fw。 ” 知 Wcjtem C呼ito!西 京 賦 , Wcnxoaル2.54. 9 9 . )祕丨，“DazongshT 大 宗 坏 ，p .28冬

242

Old M en at Home

m u o f land*") is transformed into a morally emblematic "grand edifice/ to which the people fw isteriasw) arc attracted and attached H erein lies the key to understanding the moral potency o f Sima Guang s garden. Li G efei s en­ try on the Garden o f Solitary Joy reads as follows:

In Luoyang^ Duke ISimaof Wen called himself ^Impractical Oldster”and named his garden "Garden of Solitary Joy.MThe garden is humble and small and cannot com­ pare with other gardens. What he called Reading Hall is nothing but a room with several dozen rafters; the so-called Pavilion for Watering Flowers is even smaller; the Verandah for Playing with Water and Studio for Planting Bamboo arc even smaller still; the Terrace for Viewing Mountains is only between a xun and a zhang [between eight and ten み J m height; what he called Fishing Hut and Plot for Picking Herbs were built with nothing but bamboo sticks tied with vines. The Duke of Wen himself wrote an account of it. His poems on the various pavflions r. The reason why it has been admired and terrs ;in the garde by che world does not lie in the garden itself.

100. Li Gefei,レ”伽发

pp. 14-15.

POSTSCRIPT

Reflections on the Private Sphere

The use of the term ^private sphere" in the tide of this book rbks opening the floodgate of conceptual confusions. I have deliberately avoided dwelling on the term in the belief that critical reflections are better positioned after, rather than before, the textual sources to which the term is applied as an analytical framework* To close this book, therefore, I first disentangle the term from notions of wprivateMas opposed to ^public in the West and chose of si as opposed to gong ^ in early Chinese thought*1 The public/private distinction has been one of the grand dichotomies in Western discourse. In the plethora of monographs appearing in the past rs or so, one can discern four areas in which the distinction figures prominently：first, the liberal^economistic model, operative largely in ^public policy** analysis and in everyday legal and political debate, in which the pub­ lic/private distinction is understood primarily as one between state admin­ istration and the market economy; second, the discourse of civil engagement, which approaches the fpublic1"realm (or "public spherew) from the perspec­ tive of political community and citizenship, analytically distinct from both the markec and the administrative state; third, the conception of che M publicM i. The Chinese distinction between g o n g and si has a long and convoluted history. To t a gage in even the most cursory survey of such a hiscoiy would require more space than can be given here. What I ofier below is a brief classification of the three areas of discourse in which such a distinction is oftem made in the pre^Han period. Such a classification provides an analytical framework for examining later developments in the discourse on this subject.

Postscript realm as a sphere o f fluid an d p o ly m o rp h o u s sociability, different b o th from th e stru ctu re s o f form al organ izatio n an d fro m th e

Hp riy2 L te H dom ains

o f in ­

tim acy a n d dom esticity; an d fo u rth , th e treatm en t, pervasive in fem inist sc h o k rsh ip , o f th e d istinctio n betw een

Hp n v ^ t t

a n d ^public#as one betw een

th e fam ily an d th e larger econom ic an d political o rd er 一 w ith th e m a rk e t econom y o ften becom ing th e paradigm atic ^public realm .2 T h e C hinese d istinction betw een

gong

and

si

in th e p re -H a n p erio d ap ­

pears prim arily in fi) m oral p h ilosophy a n d political th o u g h t, (2) th e dis^ course o n socioeconom ic activities, a n d (3) form ulations o f ritu al pro p riety .3 In m o ral philosophy an d political th o u g h t, th e basic m eaning o f g > n q is raim ess, im partialiiy, an d public-m indedness, w hereas

si

m eans partiality,

p ersonal predilection, person al interest, a n d selfishness* S uch a concept o f 卯n欠is m o st frequently applied to ru lersh ip o r sta te c ra ft T h e follow ing is a

fairly typical example: In the past, the sage^kings put fiurness (gong) first in governing the world. With fairness there is peace in che world Peace derives from fairness. If we look at the rec­ ords from antiquity, we tmd that there were many who gained the world* The gain always resulted firom fairness; the loss always resulted from partiality、户 偏 )• The world does not belong to one person; it belongs to all the people in the world. The harmony o f yin 2nd yam does not just promote one type; sweet dew and seasonal rain do not show partiality for one thing (bu st yx wu ^ 一 物 )； the lord of myriad of people docs not favor one person.4 T h e idea th a t th e ruler sh o u ld d o his u tm o st to care for all his subjects w ith o u t favoring one particu lar g ro u p o r individual is exem plihed in ideals ized antiquity. F urtherm ore, it is ostensibly predicated on th e n atu ra l o rd er o f things. S u ch a cosm ological conception o f |im 艺is often fo rm u lated negativcly as

w u si

(im partiality, or, literally, w ith o u t partiality):

2. These four major organizing types of pubiic/private distinction are formulated and elaborated by Wcmtraub, T'hc Theory and Politics of the Public/Privatc Distinction.M 3. The second aspect ot the gong/si distinction in the context of the development of the so­ cial structure in the Song is addressed at some length in Hymcs and Schirokauer, "Introduce tion,** pp. 52-54. Mary Rankin (Elite Activism and Politictd Transformation in China, pp. 12-21) has argued that in late Qmg discourse there emerged a notion of the "public** whose sphere** or “activity* lay between what was “private" (si) and what was "officiaT 官 )• Hymes and Schirokauer (p. 52) trace the emergence of this notion of •public" to the Southern Song.

4*

#Gui gong1*贵 公 ,p. 631a.

245

P o s ts c r ip t

Zixia asked, M The virtues o f the Three Kings arc modeled on Heaven and Earth. May I ask what it is like to be modeled on Heaven and Garchr Confiidus replied, "To work for the whole world with the principle o f the Three Zixia asked, I ask whac is meant by the Three Impardaliciesr Confucius replied, M Heaven is impartial in covering all; Earth is impartial in sup­ porting all; the sun and the moon are impartial in shining upon all. T o follow these three in working for the whole world is called the Three Impartialities/ 5 S tate m e n ts sim ilar to th is can be fo u n d in a n u m b e r o f p re -H a n t e r n . 6 G o n g in th e sense o f fairness is also often u sed to describe

w oys

in w hich appoint^

m e n ts o r recom m endations for ap p o in tm e n ts sh o u ld be m ade in th e political stru c tu re o f th e state.789 W h e n u sed to describe socioeconom ic activities,

gong

and

tw o difierenc areas o f life o r p a rts o f th e social structure* H e re ciated w ith th e interests o f th e sta te o r th e ru le r a n d

si

si

designate

gong

is asso­

w ith th o se o f ofH^

cials o r th e com m oners. T w o m odels exist for tre a tin g th e relatio n sh ip betw een

gong

an d

si:

th e sequential a n d th e dichotom ous* In th e sequential

m odel, th e relationship is hierarchical b u t com patible, as is exem plified in th e d escription o f th e well-field system (j•丨 ’ぜ丨’咖 并 田 ） by M e n d u s: し O n e square

li

o f la n d form s a field in th e shape o f th e ch aracter for well"

■Jf-), w hich occupies n in e h u n d re d

m u.

th e cen ter o f th e field is public la n d each h o ld a p lo t o f o n e h u n d re d

mu

T h e p lo t o f o n e h u n d re d

in

w hile eig h t familie

( g o n g tia n

as private

(jin g

mu

(s i

la n d T h e y share in

cultivating th e public land. O n ly w h en th e ir public d u ty is fin ish ed dare they take care o f th e ir private m a tte r s ^ In M e n c iu ss vision o f th e well-

5. Liji zfecwが ，ICongzi xianjuw孔 子 間 居 , p, 1617b. 6. See，c»g.，G«