Senses of the City: Perceptions of Hangzhou and Southern Song China, 1127-1279 9789629967864, 9629967863

Table of contents :
Half Title Page
Full Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Figures
Contributors
Introduction
1. Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring
2. Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World in Early Southern Song China
3. Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry
4. Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation
5. The Pains of Pleasure
6. Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin'an Stories in Yijian zhi
7. Nature's Capital
8. How Does an Ojective Correlative Objectify?
9. A City of Substance
Notes
Indes

Citation preview

SENSES OF THE CITY

SENSES of the CITY perceptions of hangzhou and southern song china, 1127–1279

Edited by Joseph S. C. Lam, Shuen-fu Lin, Christian de Pee, and Martin Powers

The Chinese University Press

This anthology is published with a grant from the Confucius Institute at the University of Michigan.

Senses of the City: Perceptions of Hangzhou and Southern Song China, 1127–1279   Edited by Joseph S. C. Lam, Shuen-fu Lin, Christian de Pee, and Martin Powers © The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. ISBN: 978-962-996-786-4 The Chinese University Press The Chinese University of Hong Kong Sha Tin, N.T., Hong Kong Fax: +852 2603 7355 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.chineseupress.com Printed in Hong Kong

Contents

vii ix xiii

Figures Contributors Introduction 1 

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring: Entertainment and Its Enemies in Song History and Historiography 1

   Beverly Bossler 2 

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World in Early Southern Song China

25

   Joseph S. C. L am 3 

Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry

55

   M artin Powers 4 

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation: Jiang Kui’s “Poems on Past Travels” and the Urban Culture of Hangzhou in the Southern Song 73

   Z hang Hongsheng (Translated

by

Gang L iu)

5 

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng

109

   Stephen H. West 6 

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories  in Yijian zhi

149

   Ronald E gan 7 

Nature’s Capital: The City as Garden in The Splendid Scenery of the Capital (Ducheng jisheng, 1235)

   C hristian 8 

de

179

P ee

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify? West Lake as the Site for Patriotic Sentiment in Southern Song Lyrics

205

   X inda L ian 9 

A City of Substance: Regional Custom and the Political Landscape of Shaoxing in a Southern Song Rhapsody

235

   Benjamin R idgway Notes Index

255 343

Figures

2.1   Map of Lin’an

35

2.2   Lyrics and Musical Notation for Zhang Xiaoxiang’s State    Sacrificial Songs in ZXLS 38 2.3   Zhang Xiaoxiang’s State Sacrificial Songs in Staff Notation 41 3.1   Attributed to Li Cheng, Chinese (919–967 ce), A Solitary    Temple Amid Clearing Peaks (detail), Northern Song    Dynasty (960–1127)

57

3.2   Qiao Zhongchang (active late 11th–early 12th century),   Illustration to the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff    (section), Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127)

60

3.3   Ma Yuan, Chinese (1190–1235), Bare willows and distant   mountains, Southern Song dynasty, end of 12th century 61 3.4   Xia Gui, Chinese (active 1180–after 1224), Twelve Views of    Landscape (section), Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279) 64 3.5   Attributed to Liu Cai, Chinese, active c.1080–1120, Fish   Swimming amid Falling Flowers (detail), 12th century

65

9.1   A Map of Kuaiji from “Three Rhapsodies of Kuaiji” (Kuaiji 237    sanfu 會稽三賦 ), printed between 1465 and 1620

Contributors

Beverly Bossler is Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on China in the High Imperial period including the Tang, Song, and Yuan Dynasties (618–1368), especially on the social, intellectual, and gender histories of this period. Her latest monograph is Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity in China, 1000–1400 (Harvard University Press, 2013). Ronald Egan is Professor of Chinese Literature at Stanford University. His research areas include Chinese poetry, Song dynasty poetry, and literati culture. His latest monograph is The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China (Harvard University Press, 2006). Joseph S. C. Lam is Professor of Musicology at the University of Michigan. His publications include: Kunqu, the Classical Opera of Globalized China (forthcoming), Songdai yinyueshi lunwenji: lilun yu miaoshu (Historical Studies on Song Dynasty Music: Theories and Narratives, 2012), and State Sacrifices and Music in Ming China: Orthodoxy, Creativity, and Expressiveness (SUNY Press, 1998).

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Contributors

Xinda Lian is Professor of Chinese at Denison University. His research interests include Song dynasty poetry, Song dynasty literati culture, and the stylistic analysis of the Zhuangzi text. He is the author of The Wild and Arrogant: Expression of Self in Xin Qiji’s Song Lyrics (Peter Lang, 1999), as well as a variety of book chapters and articles on Song dynasty literature and the study of the Zhuangzi. Shuen-fu Lin is Professor of Chinese Literature, Emeritus, at the University of Michigan, author of The Transformation of Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’uei and Southern Sung Tz’u Poetry (Princeton University Press, 1978) and Through a Window of Dreams: Selected Essays on Premodern Chinese Literature, Aesthetics, and Literary Theory (in Chinese), and contributor to The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature. Gang Liu is Associate Teaching Professor of Chinese Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, specializing in classical Chinese poetry and teaching Chinese as a foreign language. He is the author of “The Loss of Purity: Changes and Persistence in the Cultural Memory of the Cold Spring Pavilion,” published in the journal Frontiers of Literary Studies in China. Christian de Pee is Associate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Writing of Weddings in Middle-Period China: Text and Ritual Practice in the Eighth through Fourteenth Centuries (SUNY Press, 2007), and of articles about cities, gender, historiography, ritual archaism, and archaeology. Martin Powers is Sally Michelson Davidson Professor at the University of Michigan. Two of his books, Art and Political Expression in Early China (Yale University Press, 1992) and Pattern and Person: Ornament, Society, and Self in Classical China (Harvard University Press, 2006) received the Levenson Prize for best book in pre-twentieth century Chinese Studies. Benjamin Ridgway is Assistant Professor of Chinese literature and language at Grinnell College. His research interests are classical Chinese poetry, word and image relationships in Chinese poetry and painting, and eighteenth century fiction.

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Stephen H. West is Foundation Professor of Chinese, School of International Letters and Culture at Arizona State University. A sinologist, philologist, and translator, he has published extensively on Chinese literature, culture, and history. Zhang Hongsheng is Chair Professor of the Department of Chinese at Hong Kong Baptist University. His Chinese-language publications include A Study of the Rivers and Lakes Poetry School, Song Poetry: Amalgamation and Expansion and Construction of Studies on Qing Dynasty Song Lyrics.

Introduction Christian de Pee and Joseph Lam

according to its admirers, the temporary capital of the Song at Hangzhou surpassed the Eastern Capital at Kaifeng ten times, a hundred times. Its residents lived during the night as they did during the day, purchasing wares, visiting wine houses and theaters, and eating at restaurants under the lanterns of the night markets, until officials rode to court at dawn and shopkeepers opened the morning stalls. This urban culture extended to the water and the scenic spots of West Lake, where the population made outings in all seasons, at all hours. Ringed by hills and gardens, the lake reflected the earth and the sky, and all endeavors of man: imperial outings and illicit trysts, puppet plays and official banquets, accomplished music and practiced crime, poetic competitions and vulgar commerce, weddings and funerals. After the Song court had fled the armies of the Yuan and the night was foreclosed by curfew, this temporary capital was remembered as though it had been a dream. And even when it flourished, the city had to some seemed ephemeral, “almost like a dream” 殆如夢寐, a mirage in the waves of West Lake—“that we might well doubt,” as John Ruskin (1819–1900) wrote of another dreamlike city at a water’s edge, “which was the City, and which the Shadow.”1 From its first designation as temporary capital in 1138, the city of Hangzhou (then called Lin’an) was deemed representative of the

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diminished empire of the Song (960–1279), in all its contradictory aspects. The exquisite beauty of the city confirmed its destiny to become an imperial residence, but it also portended its fatal corruption. The wealth and ease of Hangzhou epitomized the vigor of the southern empire as well as its oblivious decadence. The city was paramount and feeble, awe-inspiring and threatened, the most admired city in the civilized world and a disgrace to the dynastic founders. Rather than perpetuating the debate about the merit of these polemical judgments, the contributors to the present volume treat them as expressions of their historical moment, revealing of ideological conviction or aesthetic preference, rather than of historical truth. Indeed, many of the essays reveal the misconceptions produced and reiterated by the received opinions of loyalist critics during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), of righteous scholars during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1636–1912), and of bitter nationalists during the twentieth century. By reading the sources as expressions of individual experience and political conviction, rather than as general records of universal conditions, the contributors defy the impassioned rhetoric of past generations in order to recover the solid ground of historical evidence. As they relate changes in literary convention to shifts in territorial boundaries, and analyze writing, painting, dance, and music as means by which individual literati placed themselves in time and space, the contributors re-establish the historical connections between writing and meaningful action, between text and world, between the sources and their own words, between the page and the senses.

The City Material Historical studies of cities in the Tang (618–907) and Song dynasties have generally taken a materialist approach to their subject, using evidence from a wide variety of texts to reconstruct the physical layout and social structure of cities, and presenting these reconstructed cities as evidence of broad economic and social developments.2 The first urban histories of the Tang and Song were written by Japanese scholars during the 1930s and 1940s, to illustrate and to elaborate the profound historical transformations of the ninth through the eleventh century that Naitō Konan 內藤湖南 (Naitō Torajirō 內藤虎次郎, 1866–1934) had identified as the beginning of the modern period in Chinese history.3 Naitō argued that the destruction of the aristocracy by the Military Commissioners of the

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late Tang and by the rulers of the Five Dynasties led to a series of structural changes—the institutionalization of imperial autocracy, the recruitment of officials through competitive examinations, the prominent role of commoners in politics and culture, the monetization of the economy—that together inaugurated a new stage in the life cycle of Chinese civilization, comparable to the wise old age of a human being.4 This notion, and its development by Naitō’s contemporaries, was not innocent of its political moment. By emphasizing the brittle senescence of Chinese civilization, scholarly publications of this period provided justification for the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the eventual occupation of the Republic of China.5 Sogabe Shizuo’s 曾我部靜雄 study of Kaifeng and Hangzhou (Kaifū to Kōshū 開封と杭州, 1940), for example, appeared in a series on Chinese historical geography created to provide knowledge sorely wanted under “the current emergency” (konji jihen 今 次事變) to rid the country of detrimental Western influences and to implement instead a congenial East Asian system.6 If these wartime studies offered the cities of the Tang and Song as evidence of a unique Chinese trajectory toward modernity, Japanese scholars during the 1950s and 1960s debated the nature of the Tang and Song urban economy to determine whether the economic relations of the time should be characterized as modern or as medieval.7 Starting in the 1970s, Shiba Yoshinobu 斯波義信 and younger historians such as Hirata Shigeki 平田茂樹, Ihara Hiroshi 伊原弘, and Umehara Kaoru 梅原郁 abandoned these debates about the general nature of Chinese civilization to place the cities of the Song within regional networks that developed and declined by an individual rhythm, each evolving away from the Tang pattern in a different manner.8 Historians in Europe, the United States, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China gradually took up these topics and debates. Étienne Balazs emphasized the importance of social and economic history for the study of Chinese civilization—and the importance of Chinese economic history for the study of Western civilization—in his studies of fairs, towns, and “the birth of capitalism in China” during the Song dynasty.9 Mark Elvin made the ideas and achievements of Japanese historians accessible by translation and by paraphrase in his rendition of Shiba Yoshinobu’s Commerce and Society in Sung China and in his Pattern of the Chinese Past.10 In the United States, scholars examined the cities of the Song dynasty as evidence of the “extraordinary growth of commerce” during

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that period,11 and as the cores of macroregions that prospered and declined by independent developmental cycles.12 More recently, formal studies of Chang’an, Luoyang, Kaifeng, and Suzhou have treated the architecture of those cities as an expression of Tang and Song economic development.13 In Taiwan, Liang Keng-yao has written with great erudition about the economic development and social structure of cities and commercial towns during the Song.14 The study of urban history in the People’s Republic of China began in the 1980s in conjunction and, indeed, in dialogue with the rapid urbanization and economic reforms during that era. After being listed among the main themes for historical research in the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1981– 85), urban history became a “national key social-science research project” in the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1986–90).15 During the early 1980s, urban histories of the Song dynasty helped justify economic reforms and “socialism with Chinese characteristics” by offering proof of an indigenous market economy and a long-standing tradition of maritime trade.16 Urban histories of the mid-1980s through the 1990s examined the cities of the Song for lessons in urban “management” (guanli 管理), hygiene, exercise, and the creation of green space.17 In more recent years, historians have upheld the flourishing cities of the Song as models of economic precocity and technological innovation, reminding readers that the Song Empire surpassed all its contemporaries in the size of its cities, in the volume of its economy, and in the sophistication of its material culture. In the editorial preface to a series of forty-four monographs on Hangzhou and the Southern Song, for example, Wang Guoping 王國平 writes: In this present moment of profound transformation of ideological concepts, profound reform of the economic system, profound change in the social structure, profound adjustment in the structure of interests, and mutual agitation of different cultures and ideologies at the national and the international level, Hangzhou must not only unearth and revive the Southern Song humanistic characteristics of “exquisite elegance” and “pluralistic openness” so as to allow a mergence of traditional characteristics with the contemporary spirit, but must also use the urban humanistic spirit of “refined harmony and an open atmosphere” to strengthen the sense of pride, self-confidence, initiative, and sublimation power of the people of Hangzhou, and to renew the city’s historical luster by setting even higher standards and

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demands, by adopting an even broader mindset and vision, by affecting even greater boldness and literary style, and by displaying even stronger determination and dynamism.18 在思想觀念深刻變化，經濟體制深刻變革，社會結構深刻變動，利益格 局深刻調整，國內外各種思想文化相互激盪的今天，杭州不僅要挖掘， 重振南宋「精緻精美」、「多元開放」的人文特色，使傳統特色與時代 精神有機結合，而且要用「精緻和諧、大氣開放」的城市人文精神來增 強杭州人的自豪感、自信心、進取心、凝聚力，以更高的標準和要求、 更寬的胸懷和視野、更大的氣魄和手筆、更強的決心和力度，再創歷史 的新輝煌。

The materialist approach to Song urban history has been effective in reconstructing the extensive infrastructures that sustained the cities of the Song Empire, filling gaps in the textual record with reliable inferences from calculation and from comparative studies, whether about the yield of agricultural production, the proliferation of market towns, the efficiency of roads and waterways, the adjustment of monetary systems, the location of workshops and industries, the size of urban populations, or the revenue from commercial taxes. The materialist approach has been less successful, however, in recovering a living sense of urban space, which is a matter of individual, sensory experience rather than abstracted, numerical generalization.19 Most of the scholarship thus far has preferred the general to the particular, and has used individual accounts to create composite, conjectural reconstructions of generic cities, rather than to analyze unique, fragmentary itineraries through specific places.20 A unique text such as A Dream of Paradise in the Eastern Capital 東京夢華錄 (1148), for example, has afforded material detail for reconstructions of Northern Song Kaifeng or for general studies of Song urban life, rather than being read as the recollections of one man, remembering his individual paths through the lost metropolis of a particular class, during a distinct historical period.21 This isolation of material fact from literary form reduces the historical substance of urban analysis, not only by generalizing what may have been unique or individual, but by severing the historical connection between the layout of the text and the layout of the city, between writing and walking, and thereby eliminating the resistance of the text to preconceived notions and tautological interpretations. The creation of the cities of the Song in the shifting image of the political present, whether it be the

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essentialist generalizations of Japanese imperialist publications or the patriotic pride of recent Chinese studies, illustrates this tendency toward tautology. The preference for the discovery of general trends to the analysis of individual texts has also led to the widespread reproduction of mistaken assumptions, such as the assumption that walled wards (fang 坊) were common to all cities in the Tang Empire, and that these walls were leveled by empire-wide economic and social changes during the transition from the Tang to the Song.22

The City Sensible Most of the contributors to this volume, by contrast, concentrate on one text, one author, or one genre, seeking to restore the physical, historical connection between the text and the city, between writing and urban experience, so as to recover an authentic, substantive, historical urban space. By their attention to sensory perception and to generic conventions, the authors of necessity reflect on text as an historical mediation of urban experience.23 Their efforts to retrieve the sounds, sights, and smells of Hangzhou from Southern Song texts thus replicate, in reverse direction, the attempts of twelfth- and thirteenth-century authors to devise effective tropes and suitable genres that would preserve their living impressions of the city in writing.24

Hearing The essays by Beverly Bossler and Joseph Lam both seek to recover the soundscapes of the Southern Song and urge fellow scholars to listen more intently to their sources. In her essay, “Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring,” Bossler warns that Southern Song literati culture was silenced only belatedly, by scholars of the Ming and Qing dynasties, who hearkened to Neo-Confucian protests against sensuous entertainments and who therefore deleted banquet songs and other musical pieces from Song-dynasty collected works. What fragments of Song musical culture have survived, moreover, have lain undiscovered and unheard in the crevices between twentieth-century disciplinary divisions, as social historians, intellectual historians, art historians, and literary scholars have largely neglected the study of music and dance. Bossler argues, however, that music and dance were central to literati

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identity during the Southern Song, especially in the metropolitan culture of Hangzhou, and that the Neo-Confucian protests against literati entertainments should be taken as evidence of the importance of music and dance during the Song, rather than as proof of declining interest. The recovery of Song musical culture therefore will not only restore an essential, forgotten part of literati life, but it will help correct the misleading representation of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as a period dominated by Neo-Confucian righteousness—a representation created in later centuries by the selective transmission of Song sources, and long accepted as authentic by modern scholars. Bossler finds evidence of elaborate musical entertainments at the imperial court and in regional government offices, in commercial courtesan quarters and in private households. The thorough commodification of Song society provided wealthy households with an array of indentured girls and women who could be taught to dance and to play instruments in emulation of fashionable courtesans. Although moralists condemned the corrupting effects of such indulgence, Song literati yet wrote “erotic appreciations of their friends’ entertainer concubines” and “the fad for female entertainment—and especially entertainer concubines—spread to a broader sector of the population over the course of the Song.”25 Joseph Lam’s essay, “Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World in Early Southern Song China,” gathers ritual songs, conventional poems, song lyrics, and posthumous anecdotes to reconstruct the musical practices and aural sensibilities of one Southern Song literatus. In conformity with Beverly Bossler’s general description of Song literati, Lam shows Zhang Xiaoxiang 張孝祥 (1132–1169) as a man of varied musical tastes and active musical patronage. Zhang wrote sacrificial hymns for the imperial court, recorded natural and social sounds in his poems, and made music with friends and courtesans as well as by himself. By expanding the musical world of the Southern Song beyond notated scores and staged performances, Lam opens up a wider range of sources for musical analysis and recovers the importance of music as “a fundamental discourse for the scholar-officials” in the negotiation of individual identity and communal ideals.26 Although Zhang Xiaoxiang was probably a more proficient musician than most, and although his extant writings ignore theatrical and narrative music, his works are both representative and distinctive, preserving a “microcosm of a complex and dynamic musical culture.”27 Together, the essays by Bossler and Lam encourage readers to

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put their ears to the page, and to listen for the rustle of floating sleeves, the tentative strains of domestic apprentices, the trained voices of courtesans above the noise of hoofs and wheels, and the temple bells and work songs that surrounded urban dwellers and rural travelers but that have been absent from too many studies of Southern Song culture.

Sight The delicate landscapes of Ma Yuan 馬遠 (fl. 1190–1230) and Xia Gui 夏珪 (fl. 1200) have long been recognized as emblems of the refined peace of the Southern Song court. In “Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry,” however, Martin Powers discerns in the subtle washes of Southern Song Academy painting a broader historical significance: the representation of a new sense of time. If landscape painters of the Northern Song departed from the timeless, static scenes of Tang court painting by their careful depiction of seasonal change and by their discordant juxtaposition of art-historical references, artists of the Southern Song Imperial Painting Academy “fully mastered the fleeting effects of the moment: the fragile glow of the setting sun, or the flick of a fish tail in water.”28 Combining Tang-dynasty poetic tropes with the illusionistic techniques of Northern Song court painting, painters of the Academy in Southern Song Hangzhou used serial repetition and fading washes to suggest deep space, and the gradual passage of time within that receding landscape. Zhang Hongsheng’s essay examines a similar layering of landscape and historical time through allusive juxtapositions. After settling in Hangzhou, Jiang Kui 姜夔 (ca. 1155–1221) in 1201 wrote a series of poems entitled “Poems on Past Travels” 昔游詩, in which he commemorated his travels in Hunan and the Jiang-Huai region between 1176 and 1186. In its form, style, and contents, and even in its title, Jiang Kui’s ancient-style linked verse mimicked Du Fu’s travel poems, such as “Travels in the Past” 昔游 and “Travel in My Youth” 壯游. But by drawing on Du Fu’s work to render these remembered sites, Jiang only emphasizes how different the southern landscape appeared to him than it had to Du Fu some four hundred years earlier. Whereas for poets of the Tang, the Yangzi River marked the southern border of civilization, beyond which lived people of incomprehensible speech and offensive customs, by the Southern Song that same river had become a northern border and a reminder of the

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violent, cunning enemy that ruled the lost territory on the opposite bank. By remembering his travels along this battlefront, Jiang Kui expressed anxiety about the precariousness of his cultured life in elegant Hangzhou. Jiang Kui moreover paid closer attention to the southern waterways than Du Fu had done, and added to the layering of visual and temporal perspectives by juxtaposing sharply different moods in a single composition, by introducing the perceptions of companions in addition to his own, and by adding self-conscious retrospective reflections. If the essays by Bossler and Lam show that sound during the Southern Song was used as a medium of political expression, the essays by Powers and Zhang argue that sight could be a faculty of historical perception. In the landscape, as in painting, the eye of the literatus discerned not only physical features but also temporal relations of continuity and difference.

Smell, Taste, and Touch In their contributions to the volume, Stephen H. West and Ronald Egan endeavor to make sensible the physical experience of Song urban life by regarding generic conventions and generic boundaries as historical remnants of social and cultural divisions. In “The Pains of Pleasure,” West proposes to read Southern Song recollections of New Year’s celebrations in Kaifeng by “a form of textual archaeology, seeing the older capital as a space of intersecting interests, needs, and desires, and work[ing] down through palimpsests of time and text to recover the social and cultural energies as well as the ritual and bureaucratic templates that produced the majority of written and visual representations.”29 By analyzing the individual treatment of generic conventions in A Dream of Paradise in the Eastern Capital and in a set of lyrics entitled “Lyrics on the First Prime” 上元詞, West places the two anonymous authors in their community of nostalgic refugees and follows them on their remembered journeys through a partial, private, sensual geography of the lost capital, “smelling the food, seeing clothes, tasting wine, holding the hands of [their] friends as they wander through the streets of Bianliang.”30 In his “Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi” Ronald Egan demonstrates that, in order to recover the physical sense of danger in Southern Song Hangzhou, one must leave the broad, clean thoroughfares of conventional representation and enter the disheveled alleyways of informal tales, where confidence artists look for gullible

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victims and where criminals hide in the anonymous multitude. In these crooked streets, a Buddhist nun may act as a bawd, the elegant mansion of a powerful official may turn out to be a shell for deception, and a street peddler may confess to being a ghost. The anonymity of the vast metropolis raises fears about identity and appearance, truth and deception. How can one determine that a stranger is sincere and that the object he offers to sell is authentic? Time and again, intimate social relations turn out to be only unequal commercial exchanges, monetary obligations the unwanted but irrefutable bond. Then again, commodities can offer unexpected proof of individual identity, such as the soft-shelled turtle served at a banquet that a man recognizes as the signature dish of his abducted wife.

Text and Genre Conventions of genre indicate to the practiced reader how a text is to be read and used, and thereby orient the reader in time and space.31 Thus, although genre does not constitute one of the senses, it helps connect written texts to a physical, sensible world and to correct the universalizing, disembodied notions of urban life generated by the conjectural cities of materialist interpretation. In “Nature’s Capital” Christian de Pee observes, “It is not a given that cities should be represented in writing.”32 His essay demonstrates that the commercial cityscape emerged into writing only gradually, as the geographic orientation of inherited genres transformed to make a place for the city in writing and as eleventh-century literati invented new genres to accommodate discourses on commodities and consumption. The famous urban texts composed in Southern Song Hangzhou—A Dream of Paradise in the Eastern Capital, The Splendid Scenery of the Capital 都城 紀勝 (1235), Record of Luxuriant Scenery by the Old Man of West Lake 西湖老人繁勝錄 (ca. 1240s), and Former Matters of Wulin 武林舊事 (ca. 1280)—took up the tropes and conventions developed during the eleventh century, which represented the city as a living organism.33 Stores opened at dawn and closed at dusk, traffic ebbed and flowed, money and goods circulated through the streets to sustain the health of the body politic, and the life of the city flourished and withered with the succession of the seasons. The confusing maze of the overwhelming city, however, always exceeded the limitations of written expression, so that “only by the

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juxtaposition and alternation of generic conventions, which included lists of transcribed commodities, could authors replicate the powerful sense of disorientation in the beautiful, expansive metropolis.”34 Xinda Lian’s “How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?” traces attempts to transform the literary associations of one particular site within the city of Hangzhou. West Lake had long been the subject of a subgenre of shi 詩 and ci 詞 poetry, as a consummate collaboration of natural beauty and human embellishment. When poets of the Southern Song endeavored to encompass this emblem of civilized refinement into a rhetoric of aggressive irredentism, they found the inherited associations of West Lake (its “objective correlative”) arrayed against them. “On West Lake Tavern” 詠西湖酒樓, for example, written by Chen Renjie 陳人傑 (1218–1243) to the tune of Qinyuan chun 沁園春 (Spring in Qin’s Garden), opens with a strident condemnation of the peaceful scenery of West Lake, which distracts from the war that “is raging between the North and the South.”35 But the lyric quickly becomes distracted by its own description of that quiet scenery, and ends with a denunciation of luxurious extravagance, rather than returning to the theme of war. According to Wen Jiweng 文及翁 (fl. 1253–75), West Lake was too small and too delicate—a mere “ladle” of water—to accommodate fierce military sentiments.36 Lian finds that poets could cite West Lake in the irredentist cause if they placed it in a more extensive historical landscape, but that the salient omission of West Lake may have produced a more striking effect, as it did in the lyrics of Li Qingzhao 李清照 (1084–1155). In “A City of Substance,” finally, Benjamin Ridgway analyzes Wang Shipeng’s 王十朋 (1112–71) appropriation of the genre of the grand rhapsody 大賦 to critique two conventional characteristics of that genre, namely hyperbolic expression and the assertion of an absolute geo-political hierarchy centered on the imperial capital. Wang’s “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji” 會稽風俗賦 (1158) asserts political authority by rejecting the emptiness 虛 of excessive rhetoric and by insisting instead on the substance 實 of historical evidence. The textual and material traces of great men in Kuaiji—the Sage Emperors Shun and Yu, the heroic hegemon Gou Jian—offer proof of the constant excellence of the region since antiquity, an excellence which fits Kuaiji not only for its designated function as the subsidiary to the new capital at Hangzhou, but also as an alternative to it. Wang Shipeng thus inverts the conventional geo-political orientation of the grand rhapsody in order to “restore Kuaiji’s ancient cultural

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Introduction

identity and to elevate the importance of regions in national policy-making decisions.”37 Like Zhang Hongsheng and Xinda Lian, Ridgway finds that the loss of the northern territories and the establishment of a new capital in the South led to a reconfiguration of the geographic orientation of inherited genres. Not coincidentally, Wang Shipeng’s “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji” was quoted extensively in subsequent local gazetteers of the region. The Southern Song local gazetteer shared with Wang’s rhapsody not only its emphasis on substantive evidence, but also its recent transformation from an instrument of centralized governance into a monument to local pride.

Senses of the City Recovered To frame their findings within a broader scholarly literature, materialist histories of Chinese cities have often cited Max Weber’s (1864–1920) essay The City (Die Stadt, 1921), either to confirm that Chinese cities were not urban communities in Weber’s sense or to argue that Chinese cities with independent civic institutions did in fact exist, thus refuting Weber’s judgments while affirming his terms of analysis. 38 Weber conceived his essay on the city in response to Georg Simmel’s (1858–1918) sociology of the metropolis, which Weber deemed too limited by its confinement to industrial cities and capitalist economies, and by its neglect of historical development and cultural difference.39 Yet, although Weber introduced references to Asian cities in order to expand the application of his urban sociology, he effectively pre-empted a sustained dynamic historical and cultural comparison by defining “the city” as an “urban community” (Stadtgemeinde) characterized by the institutions of medieval European feudalism.40 As a result, when Asian cities resemble European cities, they confirm the universality of European urban characteristics, but when Asian cities differ from European cities, they prove the non-universality of Asian urban institutions. Paradoxically, Simmel’s more narrowly focused sociology of the modern metropolis, with its formal cultural analysis, fits Song-dynasty Kaifeng and Hangzhou much better than do Weber’s universalist historical categories. Whereas application of Weber’s categories would require the disarticulation of Zhang Xiaoxiang’s brothel poems, Meng Yuanlao’s Dream of Paradise, or Hong Mai’s 洪邁 (1123–1202) Records of Yijian 夷堅志 (1161–after 1198) into isolated economic and institutional data,

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interpretation of those same texts through Simmel’s reflections on the overburdening of the senses in the metropolis, on boundaries and the multiplicity of space, on the dialectic between anonymity and individualism, on the stranger, and on the replacement of social relations with monetary transactions would yield apt, coherent, stimulating readings.41 This does not mean that urban historians of China should abandon Weber for Simmel, or that they should study late imperial cities as modernist metropolises rather than as medieval urban communities, but that they should prefer an open-ended, dialectical reading of texts to the imposition of absolute categories derived from a universalized European experience. The essays in the present volume make an effort to retain the multiplicity and simultaneity of Southern Song urban culture. Rather than perceiving the wealth and beauty of Hangzhou as portents of imminent destruction or as evidence of progress toward proto-capitalist rationality, the contributors to this volume treat the dance, music, painting, and literature of Southern Song literati as forms of cultural expression that replicated and preserved their engagement with the urban environment, that bestowed individual meanings upon time and space, and that created their own past and their own future. It was precisely by his refusal to submit his insistent, cosmopolitan curiosity to a closed system that Georg Simmel distinguished himself from his contemporaries, just as Walter Benjamin’s (1892–1940) rejection of a strict Marxist interpretation in favor of a creative literary criticism has secured the interest of his work for recent generations of urban historians.42 It is for this reason that Stephen H. West’s invocation of Benjamin’s flâneur, for example, helps reveal the private geographies of Kaifeng in Southern Song texts, for by following the roamer 游人 through the remembered alleyways of twelfth-century memoirs and songs he connects the text to the city, and writing to walking, just as Benjamin followed the flâneur through the boulevards and arcades of nineteenth-century Parisian texts in the Bibliothèque nationale.43 Ronald Egan’s careful attention to the geographic orientation of Southern Song literary genres similarly ignores the phantom categories of Max Weber to accost instead the ghosts of Lin’an itself: “In the city of Lin’an today, three people out of every ten are my kind” says a spectral seller of baked ducks in one of Hong Mai’s stories, “Some are officials, some Buddhist monks, some Daoist priests, some merchants, some singsong girls.”44

one

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring: Entertainment and Its Enemies in Song History and Historiography Beverly Bossler

when historians of China list the important cultural developments of the Song dynasty, they tend to mention the examination system, the development of ci poetry, literati painting with its emphasis on pastoral scenery, and the new emphasis on moral self-cultivation associated with Neo-Confucianism. Notably, none of these developments was or is especially associated with the Southern Song capital of Hangzhou. Although Hangzhou was undeniably the political and cultural center of the Southern Song, few scholars have ascribed long-term significance to the cultural delights so readily available in that bustling metropolis, with its theaters, tea houses, and wine shops.1 In recent research, I have argued that performance, and especially music and dance, were central features of Song literati culture, with broad implications for many other aspects of social and even political life.2 That we do not immediately associate the Song with the flourishing of performing arts is due to a variety of factors. One of these is certainly the ephemeral nature of performance itself: dance and song are difficult to capture in text and thus tend to be less visible in the historical record than other social or cultural phenomena. But in fact we do have written descriptions of performances from the Song. Far more important to our lack of awareness, I think, were (and are) cultural biases that have led authors to downplay the presence of performance in Song literati society.

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These biases include some that were already expressed in Song, but even more important were those introduced after the Song, both during the late imperial era and in modern scholarship. Joseph Lam has described how, from early times in China, attitudes toward ritual and popular performances were strictly bifurcated: ritual music was admired and praised while performance for entertainment, especially that featuring women, was regarded as morally dubious.3 We shall see below that, over the course of the Song, music and dance entertainments became increasingly prevalent in social life (not least, though not exclusively, in Hangzhou). As a result, concerns about the moral implications of such performance also intensified. In the centuries that followed, efforts to portray the Song as a time of moral rejuvenation (as the period when Neo-Confucianism was founded) contributed to further erasure of the evidence for Song entertainments. More recently, modern scholarship has not only continued to be influenced by a desire to associate the Song with moral learning, it has also absorbed biases inherent in the structure and categorization of Western academic disciplines. As a result, not only have historians mostly failed to recognize the significance of surviving materials on Song entertainments, even Song writings on ritual music and dance (which were generally valued by traditional scholars and thus survive in copious amounts in the sources) have been largely ignored.4 This chapter reviews the evidence for the ubiquity and significance of dance and music performance, and especially entertainment performances, in the lives of Song literati and especially in Hangzhou. It then presents a case study of the Song phenomenon of banquet writings (yueyu 樂語, zhiyu 致語) to show how ambivalent attitudes toward the performing arts during and after the Song, combined with the later construction of the Song as an era of Confucian revival, systematically disguised the importance of that period’s entertainment culture. Recognizing the importance of performance, and understanding why we have hitherto overlooked its significance, provides us with new perspectives on Song history and historiography.

Music and Dance in the Song To the extent that the performing arts of the Song have been studied to date, the subject has largely been the purview of historians of Chinese

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   3 dance and theater.5 While acknowledging the Tang as the period when Chinese music and dance traditions began to incorporate many foreign elements, and when dance as a performing art became particularly popular, dance historians point to the Song as a time when these elements became fully assimilated into Chinese music and dance styles, and created a foundation for a distinctly “Chinese” form of musical theater. Most of our technical knowledge of Song music and dance comes from musical treatises and descriptions of court ceremonies. Based on such texts, in combination with literati collected works and nostalgic urban accounts, dance historians have traced innovation in Song dance styles, and especially the increased popularity of formally structured group dances (duiwu 隊舞) at court ceremonies. They point out that such group dances were integral to Song versions of the proto-theatrical form, the “great songs” (daqu 大麯), song suites with a unified theme or musical mode.6 Although the daqu form had existed in the Tang, over the course of the Song it was increasingly associated with narrative content, and theater historians see this Song transition as a critical step in the development of the dramatic form we call Chinese opera.7 Theater historians also point to the Song as a time when dance and music performances (in accord with the development of theater arts more broadly) moved out of the court and became part of urban life.8 Dance was integral to the amusements available in the markets and entertainment districts of Song cities. Meng Yuanlao (fl. 1126–47), the author of a nostalgic account of the Northern Song capital Kaifeng, describes how, at the turn of the twelfth century, the capital’s entertainment districts already featured performers of all stripes, from singers to dancers to comedy players. At New Year’s, special dance and song venues were set up and the performances held there were attended even by the women of noble families.9 Such entertainments were even more ubiquitous in Hangzhou, as we shall see below. The fact that theater arts underwent such profound development in the Song already hints at their importance in Song cultural life, but the significance of music and dance in the Song period went well beyond mere aesthetic experience.10 To begin with, entertainment became an important element in political life, not least because of the extensive sponsorship of entertainment by the Song government. Imperial birthdays and other holidays were celebrated with elaborate banquets to which court officials were invited. These banquets demonstrated the court’s grandeur

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by featuring spectacular presentations involving hundreds of performers drawn from the Court Entertainment Bureau (Jiao fang 教坊).11 The music, dance, and other theatrical vignettes performed on these occasions punctuated the multiple rounds of wine that were presented by order of rank to the attending officials.12 A surviving description of one such banquet, held during the reign of the emperor Huizong (徽宗, r. 1100–26), reveals that they tended to be all-day affairs: After entering the court and making proper obeisance, the officials took their seats. Several dozen lovely female musicians, exquisitely costumed, were arrayed at the south end of the palace. As the first rounds of wine were circulated, they began to sing. Their song performance was followed by dance sequences and comedy sketches, bracketed by congratulatory exchanges between the emperor and his officials. On the particular occasion commemorated in this description, in the late afternoon the emperor graciously invited his guests to ascend a palace tower from which distant peaks and the surrounding countryside could be seen. This outing was followed in the early evening by an excursion to view the lanterns, which our interlocutor tells us “filled the landscape without end, like stars hanging in space.” The assemblage then repaired to yet another palace where every kind of delicacy was set out in antique vessels. Taking his seat, the emperor personally urged his officials to eat and drink while palace women played music for their enjoyment. The gathering finally broke up about midnight, and as the officials returned home townspeople thronged around them to gawk.13 To be sure, only officials of court rank were privileged to attend imperial banquets in the palace; but similar entertainments were extended to officials outside the court, with government-registered entertainers attached to every prefectural (and by the Southern Song even county) yamen for the express purpose of providing music and dance entertainment at regularly held official banquets.14 At court, newly minted degree holders were welcomed into officialdom with banquets, replete with musical entertainment, given in their honor; in the prefectures, students who had passed the preliminary examinations were similarly celebrated.15 Thus well before achieving official status, those who had had a modicum of success in the examinations were familiar with music and dance entertainment in the context of official banqueting. The association of banquet performances with official life assured that such performances evoked status and social cachet.

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   5 But in fact one did not have to be an official to enjoy such performances. Over the course of the late Tang and Five Dynasties periods, music and dance entertainments had become available to anyone who had the financial means to visit the commercial courtesan quarters that flourished in every major regional city. Nor were such commercial entertainments the only option, for well-to-do men of the Song perpetuated the Tang practice of taking women with entertainment skills into their homes, as maids or quasi-concubines. Keeping troupes of entertainers in one’s household had been a mark of elite status since early times in China, but a number of factors contributed to the unprecedented spread of this phenomenon from the late Tang into the Song. One notable shift was the Song government’s abandonment of sumptuary regulations that in earlier dynasties had at least nominally tied the number of concubines a man could have—as well as the number of musician-slaves he could keep—to his official rank.16 The government’s disinclination to impose such sumptuary regulations was in turn undoubtedly related to the growing and increasingly commercialized economy of the Tang-Song transition. Economic growth created a significantly larger elite class, which meant that many more men could afford concubines and other dependent servants. At the same time, the commercializing economy meant that new forms of indentured labor were becoming common, and female labor of all types was becoming widely available for purchase or hire. Accordingly, household entertainers (in this period generally called “household courtesans” jiaji 家妓 or, more politely, “household charmers” jiaji 家姬) came to be conspicuous presences in the households of noble and high-ranking official families in the Northern Song. By the Southern Song, the fashion for keeping entertainer-concubines (jiqie 妓妾/姬妾) had spread throughout literati society, and entertainment had come to be an important element in contemporary understandings of a concubine’s role.17 In contrast to the performers of the Entertainment Bureau and in the commercial entertainment districts, the women who entertained in Song households were usually not professional entertainers so much as servants who were taught a variety of skills, some related to entertainment. They were frequently indentured at very young ages and instructed within the masters’ households, and often they seem to have been expected to do household and other chores as well as entertain. Our sources suggest that, like their professional counterparts, young women brought in as entertainer-concubines might specialize in any of a wide variety of musical

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skills. The instruments they played ranged from simple clappers to drums, flutes, pipa, and even qin. Some were known for their abilities to sing or dance, and often both. The ubiquity of such entertainers in the households of Song elites is evident from the volume of anecdotal literature involving them. To cite one example, a humorous anecdote describes how Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101) attended a party at the home of a powerful literatus (haoshi 豪士) who had ten or more “attendant charmers” (shiji 侍姬), all very lovely and skillful. One of the women, particularly favored by her master, was very good at dancing and singing (shan gewu 善歌舞). Although she was quite beautiful, she was rather hefty. When her master ordered her to solicit a poem from Su, he responded by writing: The dancing sleeves twist and writhe; the shadows shake, the thousandfoot dragon and snake move. The singing throat warbles; the sound shakes half of heaven. 18

舞袖蹁躚，影搖千尺龍蛇動，歌喉宛轉，聲撼半天風雨寒。

The humiliated entertainer beat a hasty retreat. Another anecdote describes in passing how Shao Bowen 邵伯溫 (1057–1134) was frequently entertained at the home of a general who kept several “serving maids” (shibi 侍婢). After the general’s death, his widow had a birthday and ordered her sons to invite Shao to a banquet. She sent one of the former maids (jiubi 舊婢) out to dance. Slightly tipsy and thinking of former days, Shao composed a poem that concluded, Flying and fluttering, the embroidered sleeves above the red chemise; the dancing charmer still has her old spirit. In the midst of the party don’t blame me for not enjoying myself; the general and I were old friends. 翻翻繡袖上紅裀；舞姬猶是舊精神。坐中莫怪無歡意；我與將軍是 19 故人。

Although these anecdotes suggest that some dancers were adult women, dance in particular often seems to have been a specialty of pre-pubescent girls, called “little chignons” (xiao huan 小鬟) for their

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   7 distinctive hairstyle of paired chignons. Huang Tingjian 黃庭堅 (1045– 1105) opens one ci poem with the phrase “The dancing huan is lovely” (舞鬟娟好) and goes on to contrast her youth with his own old age.20 In a poem describing a friend’s pavilion, the Southern Song author Sun Yingshi 孫應時 (1154–1206) relates, “When guests come he calls for wine and has them stay to drink; the marvelous dances of the xiao huan aid in raising the cup” (客來呼酒徑留飲；小鬟妙舞工持觴).21 In the preface to a teasing poem Zhao Dingchen 趙鼎臣 (b. 1070) wrote for a friend, Zhao notes that the friend had “recently bought a dancing huan who was very beautiful but still immature” (新買舞鬟甚麗而尚稚).22 Yang Zemin 楊澤民 (n.d.) prefaces a ci poem by explaining that at a banquet he directed one “Little Spring” to dance and adds the note, “Little Spring is a young entertainer in my household” (小春乃吾家小妓也).23 We should also observe that in two pictorial images of entertainers we have from the Song, “The Night Revels of Han Xizai” (Han Xizai yeyan tu 韓熙載夜宴圖) and “Palace Orchestra Rehearsal” (Geyue tujuan 歌樂圖卷), the figures shown dancing are dramatically smaller in size than the other women, and the dancer in “Night Revels” seems to wear the xiao huan hairstyle. Xiao huan were by no means exclusively dancers: We also see them described as engaging in other activities such as playing musical instruments. But descriptions of individual dancers in Song poetry do often focus on xiao huan. We might speculate that Song dance, which emphasized twisting, turning, and backbends, was most easily mastered by young bodies. In sum, a wide variety of sources demonstrate that music and dance entertainments were a central feature of Song literati social life, from official banquets at court to private gatherings at home. Why, then, has this phenomenon not been more remarked upon?

Ambivalent Attitudes One factor was undoubtedly the reticence of Song men themselves with respect to the prominent place of entertainment in their lives. That reticence reflected a longstanding cultural ambivalence toward music and dance. As Joseph Lam has pointed out, on the one hand, the earliest classical ritual texts treated music and dance as central elements in the solemn rituals necessary for governance, and also as natural expressions of the human spirit that were essential aspects of a gentleman’s education.24 The importance of music in the Chinese classical tradition

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has led one expert to declare, “Among all the countries of the world, there is probably no other that has held music in such high esteem [as China has].”25 On the other hand, from the classical period on, music and dance—especially when performed by women for the entertainment of men—were also associated with licentiousness, decadence, and failed governments. By the beginning of the imperial period, the phrase “the sounds of Zheng and Wei” (鄭衛之聲) was commonly used to refer to “licentious” music that could endanger public and private morality alike.26 In other words, educated men in the Song well understood that the right kind of music and dance were essential elements of the rituals that were fundamental to proper ethical rulership, and could be important components of individual self-cultivation. At the same time, they were aware that the wrong kind of music and dance was inimical to moral cultivation, personal integrity, and to good government. Against this background, some Song men took an academic or historical interest in the subject of performance. The eleventh-century scholar Liu Bin 劉攽 (1023–89) was struck by the fact that his peers did not routinely participate in singing and dancing themselves. Liu observed that where men of the past had danced together at drinking parties, in his own day dancers were expected to be able to bend and twirl in extraordinary ways and required specialized training. He also noted that in his day respectable people did not want to imitate professional performers (who still bore the social taint of their slave-status predecessors). As a result, he concluded, gentlemen no longer got up and danced.27 In about the same period, the renowned polymath Shen Kuo 沈括 (1031–95), famous for his broad curiosity on any number of topics, included music and dance among his wide-ranging studies. Shen focused mostly on the history of various musical modes, but in passing he commented on the dances performed to those modes. After noting that a number of old tunes for the “Mulberry Branch” (shizhi 柘枝) song suite were no longer extant, Shen observed that the early Song minister Kou Zhun 寇准 (961–1023) had had a fondness for the Mulberry Branch Dance (shizhi wu 柘枝舞); whenever he had guests he would have it performed, with the performances lasting an entire day. Shen added, Today in Fengxiang there is an old nun who was one of the performers in Lord [Kou]’s day. She said, “In those days ‘Mulberry Branch’ still had more than ten sections (bian 遍); the ‘Mulberry

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   9 Branch’ they dance today, compared with that time, doesn’t have more than two or three.” The old nun can still sing the tune: busybodies frequently pass it on.28 今鳳翔有一老尼，猶萊公時柘枝妓。 雲：「 當 時《 柘 枝 》 尚 有 數 十 遍 今 日 所 舞《 柘 枝 》 比 當 時 十 不 得 二三。」老尼尚能歌其曲好事者往往傳之。

In the mid-twelfth century, the scholar-official Ge Lifang 葛立方 (d. 1164) likewise wrote about the vicissitudes of various dance forms, including the Mulberry Branch Dance. Ge hypothesized that the dance had come to China from various countries to the south (nanman zhu guo 南蠻諸國), and had flourished in the Tang.29 Quoting from earlier poets, he observed that the dance had traditionally been accompanied by drum and song, and he added that this remained the case his own day. But Ge went on to show that earlier poets had described the dance as involving variously one or two performers. He then pointed out, “Today, some use five [dancers]; this is rather different from the ancients” (今或用五人， 與古小異矣).30 And finally, toward the end of the Southern Song, Zhou Mi turned a scholarly eye on the government-sponsored dances of his day, observing: When banquets are bestowed on the prefectures on the occasion of imperial birthdays, they direct dozens of groups of vulgar courtesans to dance in the courtyard, forming the words “All Under Heaven at Peace.” 州郡遇聖節錫宴，率命猥妓數十羣舞於庭，作天下太平字。

Zhou remarks that this practice is “quite uncanonical” (shu wei bujing 殊為不經), but then quotes evidence from Tang texts to show that this type of dance, using performers’ bodies to spell out auspicious messages, had a long history before the Song.31 All of these authors were clearly aware that music and dance had changed irrevocably since classical times. Like many of their contemporaries, they recognized the Tang, in particular, as a period that had seen tremendous expansion of the number and variety of music and dance forms. But where Liu, Shen, Ge, and Zhou expressed an essentially neutral attitude toward these developments, others saw the changes of the

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Tang—and by extension, the state of music and dance in their own day— as cause for grave concern. The court official Fan Zuyu 范祖禹 (1041–98) pointed to the example of the Tang Emperor Xuanzong 玄宗 (r. 712–56), whose court was renowned for spectacular entertainments but who had nearly lost his empire in the An Lushan Rebellion, to emphasize the dangers posed to good governance by inappropriate court music.32 The Northern Song music theorist Chen Yang 陳暘 (ca. 1055–ca. 1122), while meticulously describing the elaborate dances inherited from the Tang, repeatedly inveighed against them and urged Emperor Huizong to excise female entertainers from court performances: Having female performers from the inner palace join hands [lit. join sleeves] and sing of their troubles in order to extend the pleasure of your officials, is this not almost the same as lord and minister playing around together? This was certainly a contributing factor to the Tang’s decline and collapse. How can one not take heed?! 以禁中女伶連袂歌怨以盡臣下之懽，豈不幾於君臣相謔邪？唐之所以衰 33 亂不振者，彼誠有以召之也。可不戒哉！

In the face of these anxieties about the moral status of contemporary music, the Northern Song court carried out a nearly continuous series of efforts to reform music and restore it to ritual purity. Over a century of such efforts culminated in the extraordinary 1104 decision to use the length of Emperor Huizong’s fingers as the basis for creating standardized pitch pipes.34 While the court theorists sought to reform music and dance as a foundation for governing, scholars debated their usefulness for personal cultivation. Some argued for a continued place for music and dance in the education of upper-class men. Thus Sima Guang 司馬光 (1019–86), in his Precepts for Family Life (Jiafan 家範), stipulated that boys who reached the age of thirteen should begin to study music, recite poetry, and dance the shao (a dance mentioned in the Book of Ritual).35 But, as evident in Liu Bin’s comments above, many other Song men seem to have felt that participation in dance and music was no longer a desirable or even appropriate activity for scholars. Sima Guang’s contemporary Zhang Zai 張載 (1020–77) warned that, in his own day, even the music of the classical qin was “not far from [the sounds] of Zheng and Wei.”36 Likewise, the

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   11 Confucian moralists Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032–85) and Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107) argued that because the Dao no longer prevailed as it had in classical times, music and dance were no longer effective vehicles of self-cultivation: The ancients had singing and chanting to cultivate their spirits and emotions, sounds and tones to cultivate their ears, and dance to cultivate their bodies [lit. blood and circulation]. Today these are all gone, and therefore it is not possible to complete oneself in music. Of old it was easy to develop talent; today it is difficult. 古人有歌詠以養其性情，聲音以養其耳，舞蹈以養其血脈。今皆無之， 是不得成於樂也。古之人成材也易，今之人成材也難。

The Cheng brothers concluded that scholars of their own day had to rely solely on righteousness and principle (yili 義理) for moral selfcultivation.37 In spite of such views, Song literati continued to participate in both music and dance. Playing music on the qin remained an acceptable pastime for a literatus, and Song court officials extending ritual greetings to the emperor at semi-monthly ceremonies regularly performed a ritual movement sequence called simply “dance steps” (wudao 舞蹈).38 But the larger point here is that if active participation in the performing arts was by Song times being questioned as an element of literati practice, the passive appreciation of music and dance entertainments was even more morally suspect.39 This was especially the case when (as was usual in the Song context) the performers were female, and the pleasures of watching them verged on the erotic.40 As many authors have described, the late Tang saw the dramatic development of entertainment districts in urban areas, and the confluence of banqueting, music, dance, and erotic entertainment had been much celebrated by renowned writers of the period, such that even now the late Tang is widely recognized for its flourishing courtesan culture.41 The continued association of music and dance with courtesan culture in the post-Tang period, and continued literati participation therein, is evident in the general development of ci 詞 (song lyric) poetry from the late Tang into the Song, and especially in the erotic ci poetry of the (in)famous Liu Yong 柳永 (1034 jinshi) in the Northern Song.42 Although Liu Yong is

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often regarded as something of an aberration in the Song, in fact many other Northern Song poets frankly acknowledged and even celebrated the erotic pleasures of music and especially dance entertainments. Moreover, where Liu Yong’s poetry focused on denizens of the commercial courtesan quarters, other Song men were writing erotic appreciations of their friends’ entertainer-concubines. To cite but one example, several anecdotalists repeated a story involving Chao Buzhi 晁補之 (1053–1110) and the poet Chen Shidao 陳師道 (1053–1101). When Chen visited him, Chao brought out his “little chignon” to dance while the two men drank. In response, Chen composed a ci poem that startled Chao by its frank appreciation: 娉娉裊裊， Delicate and slender, 芍藥梢頭紅樣小。 The tips of the peony just begin to show pink. 舞袖低回， The dancing sleeves dip and return, 心到郎邊客己知。 The guest knows her heart is already at a

young man’s side. 金樽玉酒， With gold cup and jade wine, 勸我花前千萬壽。 She wishes me long life among the flowers. 莫莫休休， No, stop! 白髮簪花我自羞。 I am embarrassed to pin a flower in this white hair!43

Not all Song poetry written for friends’ entertainer-concubines was this explicit, but such poetry seldom hesitated to comment on the subjects’ lovely features: we read of entertainers’ “glistening makeup,” their “lotus steps,” their “slender waists,” “sparkling white teeth,” and their “fragrant sweat.”44 This kind of public expression of erotic appreciation offended Confucian values even when it was directed at professional entertainers. When it focused on entertainer-concubines—women who might end up as the mothers of other literati—it became an abomination.45 We see, then, that on the one hand references to entertainment were far from absent in the writings of men of the Song, especially the Northern Song. On the other hand, as the fad for female entertainers— and especially entertainer-concubines—spread to a broader sector of the population over the course of the Song, moralist voices condemning the dangerous effects of such entertainment grew more strident.46 This was all

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   13 the more the case because the traumatic fall of the Northern Song was blamed in part on Emperor Huizong’s profligate indulgence in the appreciation of music and dance. As a result, Southern Song literati grew increasingly reticent about the opulence of performances in their own day. The contradiction between the flourishing of entertainments and literati rhetoric about them was nowhere more evident than in the city of Hangzhou.

Music and Dance in Hangzhou Already a prosperous city in the Northern Song, Hangzhou in the Southern Song became the dynasty’s political and cultural center; and the capital’s culture prominently included musical and dance performances. Nostalgic accounts written after the dynasty’s fall provide an extensive catalogue of the myriad entertainments, catering to a wide variety of tastes and budgets, available in Hangzhou. Such accounts show that dancers were active participants in virtually all of the city’s seasonal festivals: Zhou Mi 周密 (1232–98) remarks that at New Year several tens of dance troupes would show up in the capital city, waiting to be hired by wealthy and powerful families.47 Wu Zimu 吳自牧 (fl. ca. 1270) likewise suggests that if the weather was nice in the days leading up to the New Year’s holidays, friends would begin their celebrations early, strolling the streets in the evening to watch the dance troupes perform.48 Zhou Mi also describes the ubiquitous presence of singers and dancers at banquets held by university students or associations of scholar-officials, at private parties, and at both government-owned and private wine shops.49 The proliferation of entertainers in the capital was at least in part due to new attitudes and policies at court. In the beleaguered early days of the Southern Song, a depressed Emperor Gaozong had dissolved the Court Entertainment Bureau, sending performers to make their living on the street.50 Over the succeeding decades, the Bureau was several times reconstituted and then—usually at the urging of moralist officials—again disbanded. Since emperors were seldom willing to give up their entertainments for very long, however, the end result of disbanding the Entertainment Bureau was that court entertainments came to be provided by a combination of performers attached to various court offices, on the one hand, and free-lance entertainers hired from the city, on the other. The mutual influence of court fashion and urban entertainments only increased.51

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The continued interest of court officials in music and dance performance—and changing attitudes toward such performances—are strikingly evident in the collected works of the eminent early Southern Song minister Shi Hao 史浩 (1145 jinshi). Shi Hao’s opus contains two chapters that record both song lyrics and descriptions of the general framework for a number of different “great song” song and dance suites: the Lotus-Picking Dance (cailian wu 採蓮舞); the Heavenly Abode Dance (taiqing wu 太清舞), the Mulberry Branch Dance (zhezhi wu 柘枝舞), the Flower Dance (hua wu 花舞), the Sword Dance (jian wu 劍舞); the Fisherman’s Dance (yufu wu 漁父舞).52 Although Shi Hao does not explain why he recorded this information, his accounts are presumably based on court performances he witnessed and for which he supplied poetry and song lyrics. His account of the Lotus-Picking Dance, for example, begins as follows: Lotus-Picking Dance Five people in a straight line stand facing the hall. The Master of Ceremonies declaims: With the pure strumming at the banquet, the sounds of regulating the world are calmed in music. Rainbow clouds stream color, green glistens and red glows. The sound of tinkling pendants [signals the approach of?] a troupe of graceful immortals. In the morning they gather in the Golden Palace, assembling for a banquet at Yao pond [the abode of Xiwang mu]. They sing a boat-floating song, attempting to assist the Whirlwind dance. It is appropriate to invite excellent companions to accord with the immortal sounds. The female companions are about to appear: let the lotus-picking troupe enter! When the invocation is complete, the back row [of musicians] blows the song “Double-headed Lotus”; the dancers enter and array themselves in the five directions.

Shi Hao’s description continues, quoting the auspicious poems that punctuate the action and detailing the action itself: the dancers come back into a line to join in singing the “Lotus-Picking Song,” then return to their original places. The Master of Ceremonies invites the lead dancer (lit. the “flower bud” hua xin 花心) to approach the dais, where she exchanges polite phrases with him and, at his direction, calls for the dance to

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   15 continue. During the climactic (po) section of the dance, the dancers take turns performing solos, each first declaiming a poem that identifies the character she is performing and then “picks a flower” (zhe hua 摺花)— whether the dancers mimed this action or danced with actual flowers is unclear. After the solos, the dancers join for another set of group dances and songs, until at last the Master of Ceremonies dismisses them, and they exit the hall to the sound of beating drums. Although Shi Hao’s account bespeaks considerable knowledge of and interest in dance performance, the differences between his description and that of the Northern Song banquet discussed above are revealing. Unlike the Northern Song account, Shi Hao’s report is not personal: he does not emphasize the luxuriousness of the occasion or his own participation in the event. Indeed, the emperor and his officials, whose interactions were a central feature of the Northern Song account, are completely absent from that of Shi Hao. Shi’s descriptions of court dances are far more detailed and technical than any we have from Northern Song, but they are also far more disembodied. In this period, dance could be respectably written about only if its social context—men enjoying the display of female bodies—was downplayed. As an entertainment center, Hangzhou was also a place where entertainer-concubines could be acquired. The Grand-Councilor Zhou Bida purchased a young woman there, whom he modestly described as “somewhat able to make the new music” (po neng wei xin sheng 頗能為新聲).53 In the early thirteenth century the literatus Yao Mian 姚勉 (1216–1262) bewailed Hangzhou’s market in female entertainers in his “Qiantang Lament” (Qiantang being the ancient name for Hangzhou): 錢塘家家重生女， In Qiantang every family values the birth of a daughter; 自小無人識機杼。 From the time they are small, not one of them is familiar with the loom. 教成歌舞十二三， They teach them how to dance and sing, and by the age of twelve or thirteen 花燕身材栁鶯語。 Their bodies are graceful like swallows, their voices like the warbling of orioles. 去年學得琵琶成， Last year she mastered the pipa; 今年學得彈秦箏。 This year she learns how to pluck the [Shaanxi zither].

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In the second stanza of the poem, Yao Mian describes the girl’s departure from home: as her emotional parents pour a parting libation and her grandmother weeps, the feckless girl, lacking any filial sentiments, delightedly mounts her sedan chair and sets out without a backward glance.55 Both Yao Mian’s poems and Shi Hao’s descriptions are of a piece with other Southern Song writings on entertainers. Like numerous other Southern Song texts, these accounts reveal the continued centrality of entertainers in Song social life (both in and outside the home), but the interactions of literati with those entertainers are far less explicitly portrayed than in Northern Song accounts. In the Southern Song we see far fewer poems in which eminent writers celebrate the talents of female musicians and dancers, and far more texts that praise men for eschewing visits to the courtesan quarters or for marrying off their household courtesans.56 Paradoxically, the increasing prevalence of performance in the Southern Song and after seems to have led to greater reluctance to acknowledge such performances.57 But if the erasure of Song performance culture was already underway in the Southern Song, an even more important contributing factor in that erasure was the late and post-Song inclination to promote the Song as the era of Neo-Confucianism. We are only beginning to understand how the history of the Song came to be seen as an ineluctable trajectory leading to the triumph of a particular form of Confucian learning.58 Surely the efforts of Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) in the Southern Song were central to that development, as were the efforts of Yuan and early Ming writers who sought to portray themselves as heirs to Zhu’s learning. The focus of the late Song, Yuan, and Ming examination systems on Zhu Xi’s version of Confucianism, as well as the proselytizing efforts of Yuan and later scholars who identified with Neo-Confucian learning, meant that the writings of Song authors associated with the Neo-Confucian movement have survived in disproportionate numbers. The Song came to be understood as a time when Neo-Confucian ideals held sway, and the evidence for cultural developments that were not in accord with their rise—such as

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   17 the elaboration and development of theater arts—were often ignored or even deliberately suppressed.59 The importance of music and dance in the Song, the growing ambivalence towards them, and the systematic downplaying or even active disguising of that importance in the late Song and after, are all strikingly evident in the phenomenon of banquet writings (yueyu 樂語 [lit. music words, or “words to go with music,”] and its associated sub-genre of zhiyu 致語 [presentation words]). A significant new genre of literati writing that emerged in the Song, yueyu was both descriptive of banquet entertainments and part of the entertainment itself.

Yueyu and zhiyu The yueyu genre was initially associated with performances at the Song imperial court.60 As noted above, the format of those performances involved a variety of different acts performed in between rounds of drinking. The performances were punctuated by a series of verbal announcements or exchanges, all of which fell into the category of yueyu. These included the zhiyu which consisted of a congratulatory pronouncement to open the event (or section of the performances); introductions (gou 勾) for the various groups of performers; interrogations or queries (wen 問) of their intent; words of dismissal (fang 放); and so forth.61 In the early years of the Song dynasty, the texts of these various announcements and exchanges were composed by members of the Entertainment Bureau; but in 1019, after what was deemed an embarrassingly inappropriate performance in front of foreign diplomats, Emperor Zhenzong 真宗 (r. 997–1022) ruled that henceforth “presentation words” should be composed by officials in the Document Drafting Office (Sheren yuan 舍人院) and the Historiography Office (Zhi guan 直館).62 Accordingly, we find sets of zhiyu and related texts for imperial banquets in the collected works of any number of Song officials, from Su Song 蘇頌 (1020–1101) and Su Shi in the Northern Song to Zhou Bida 周必大 (1126–1204) and Zhen Dexiu 真德修 (1178–1235) in the Southern Song. As was often the case, precedents established at court soon became fashionable in broader elite society, and before long literati were writing zhiyu for a wide variety of banquet occasions. Our sources contain numerous examples composed for prefectural banquets welcoming or sending off other officials, or for “Deer Cry” (lu ming 鹿鳴) banquets

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celebrating the success of prefectural degree candidates.63 A particularly rich collection of zhiyu is preserved in the collected works of Shi Hao: It includes texts for entertainments at wedding banquets, a sister’s birthday banquet, a banquet celebrating an individual who passed the examinations, and so forth.64 Sometimes men composed banquet prose on behalf of others, or were asked to do so by patrons or superiors; thus we see examples along the lines of “Zhiyu written for Xia Junfu’s banquet for someone” (dai Xia Junfu yan ren zhiyu 代夏均甫宴人致語), or “Yueyu written [for someone] to send off the Western Capital Commissioner” (dai song jingxi yunshi yueyu 代送京西運使樂語) or even “Zhiyu written for someone’s family banquet on taking a son-in-law” (dai ren naxu qinhui zhiyu 代人納壻親會 65 致語). As early as the late Northern Song, banquet writings had attracted recognition and appreciation as a literary genre. The late eleventh century author of the Moke hui xi described how Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–1072) had personally composed a set of zhiyu pronouncements for the performers at a prefectural banquet to which he was invited. Characterizing Ouyang’s text as “lofty and brilliant,” the author noted that officials of the day discussed it approvingly (jinshen yiwei mei tan 縉紳以為美談).66 Slightly later, Zhang Bangji 張邦基 (fl. twelfth century) articulated literary standards for “banquet writing” (youci yueyu 優詞樂語), arguing that although some scholars considered such writing to be outside the realm of regular literary composition, few were actually able to master the form. After admiringly quoting several apt lines composed by Wang Anzhong 王安中 (1075–1134), Zhang added, “It is not necessary that yueyu be classically elegant; if it is entertaining when spoken aloud, then it is excellent.” He continued by citing phrases from Su Shi, though he acknowledged that few could hope to attain Su’s brilliance. Zhang then observed, “If the yueyu contains a comic couplet or two, when the performers come forward to announce it one feels it is particularly worth watching and exciting.” From our current vantage point, the humor in the lines Zhang cites (presumably based on puns and contemporary double entendre) is no longer always obvious, but he clearly regarded banquet writing as a worthy object of discussion, evaluation, and admiration. 67 Wang Mingqing 王明清 (fl. twelfth century) in the same era likewise quoted and commented on the zhiyu of two other scholars, pointing out that they incorporated lines drawn directly from well-known works of other

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   19 writers. Here Wang treats zhiyu as grist for erudite or amusing observations, very much in the manner of the shihua 詩話 (notes on poetry) genre popular at the time.68 If the genre of banquet writing had thus achieved a certain level of social and literary recognition, it also had a political dimension. At least two Northern Song officials had their careers temporarily derailed when their banqueting lines were deemed careless or inappropriate: The court official Li Bing 李邴 (1085–1146) had been greatly favored by Emperor Huizong for his facility in composing congratulatory essays honoring the auspicious signs that were incessantly reported to the court in that reign.69 But Li found himself suddenly sent away from court after a zhiyu he composed was criticized for excessively praising the emperor’s ritual jade tablet.70 Likewise, the Hanlin scholar Liu Zhengfu 劉正夫 (1062–1119) was abruptly demoted when a zhiyu he wrote was deemed crude and improperly rhymed.71 The evidence on the composition of zhiyu in the Song provides further confirmation that the performing arts were an important aspect of Song social life. By the same token, an examination of the way these banquet writings were regarded in the late Song and after helps to reveal how the significance of such arts came to be disregarded.

The Moral Ambiguity of Banquet Writings Even as a majority of Song authors were creating banquet writings for official or private occasions, some were registering ambivalence about the process. That ambivalence is clearly expressed in an anecdote recorded by Hong Mai 洪邁 (1123–1202) in his Rongzhai suibi (容齋隨筆). Here Hong first observes that: In the prefectures, it is common for the task of drafting memorials and letters to be delegated to Instructors (jiaoshou 教授), who are compensated [for their efforts] with money and wine. When I was an official in Fuzhou, I did indeed write public letters of thanks, as well as prayers or expressions of gratitude for rain, but I never wrote private ceremonial letters or notes. Still, on the occasion of imperial birthdays I sometimes composed “music words” (yueyu), and then wrote two or three additional pieces for other uses—always feeling ashamed of myself.

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Hong then relates a story involving the Northern Song upright official Zou Hao 鄒浩 (1060–1111), explaining that once while serving as an instructor, Zou was asked by his superior Fan Chunren 範純仁 (1027–1101) to compose “banquet words” for an imperial birthday celebration.72 Zou refused, leading Fan to expostulate, “[But] even Hanlin Academicians write them!” Zou replied, “For Hanlin Academicians it is permissible, but for the Libationer [jijiou 祭酒, the head of the Imperial University] and the Director of Studies [siye 司業] it is not.” At this, Hong tells us, Fan became deeply apologetic.73 Hong Mai (and Zou Hao’s) point here is that the composition of banquet writings was not a proper activity for those in positions devoted to moral education such as instructors in the prefectures or educational officials at court. In fact, an imperial edict of 1115 had already acknowledged this point, explicitly ordering that instructors should not be asked to write letters or yueyu on behalf of other people, so they would have more time to devote themselves to their proper duties of transmitting Confucian learning.74 Although the edict did not explicitly characterize banquet writings as immoral, it implied that there was a tension between such writings and proper Confucian values. Hong Mai’s story goes further, intimating that by the mid-Southern Song if not before, the composing of banquet writings was beginning to be regarded as something of which a man of integrity might be rather ashamed. The ambivalence Hong expressed appears with increasing frequency in later Southern Song texts, despite the fact that many if not most Southern Song officials continued compose yueyu. A late Southern Song encyclopedia, in its section on local officials, carefully included both the 1115 edict stipulating that instructors should not write letters or banquet writings, and the story of Zou Hao’s refusal to write banquet prose.75 That story clearly circulated widely in Southern Song, for it is mentioned as well in a funerary inscription composed by Liu Kezhuang 劉克莊 (1187–1269) (who also wrote many yueyu) for the official Lin Gui 林瓌 (1154–1243). Liu relates that when someone assigned Lin to write yueyu for a banquet, he replied, “This is something that Zou Hao was unwilling to do. However, because it involves ministers praying for their lord, I dare not refuse.”76 A more stinging rejection of the genre came from the court minister Cheng Bi 程珌 (1164–1242), in his comments on the anthology of literary models, Mirror of Composition from our August Dynasty (Huangchao wenjian 皇朝文鑑), collated by Lü Zuqian 呂祖謙 (1137–81).77

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   21 Lü had included in his anthology an entire chapter devoted to the genre, but Cheng Bi took issue with Lü’s selections. Insisting that the proper purpose of writing was to illuminate the dao, assist in governance, help explicate the classics and histories, and preserve models for future scholars, Cheng declared, “Ornate expressions like the jokes and romantic phrases of the Entertainment Bureau banquet writings should be entirely expunged.”78 In the Yuan, a few court officials continued to compose zhiyu to introduce imperial and other banquets, and at least one author took pains to record in his miscellaneous jottings yueyu that he particularly admired.79 But—at least judging from surviving texts—no Yuan author composed complete sets of writing for the various sections of a banquet, as Song authors had frequently done. Concerns about the legitimacy of such writing continued to be expressed. The late Song-early Yuan official Wang Yishan 王義山 (1214–87), included a number of banquet writings in his collected works, but he put them at the very end of the last chapter and prefaced them by remarking: Literary composition (wenzhang 文章) is a minor art, and composing parallel prose (pian ci pai yu 駢辭徘[俳]語) is even more inconsequential.80 Sima Guang himself said he was unable to write “4–6” [parallel style prose], Ouyang Xiu was unwilling to write 4–6 [prose] for people, and Zou [Hao] would not compose yueyu. Yet [here] I am contravening all of them. So I am sticking these at the very end of the volume, for the moment preserving them as a record of the trivial ceremonial prose of the era.81

Here, punning on the dual meaning of pai yu (joking words/matched words), Wang Yishan assigns banquet writing to the more general category of ornamental parallel prose, suggesting in standard Neo-Confucian fashion that concern for literary elegance is a trivial and less-than-admirable pursuit for a gentleman (who ought more properly to be devoting his energies to moral self-cultivation). Meanwhile, the Yuan dynasty compilers of the Songshi prominently featured Zou Hao’s refusal in their laudatory biography of his career, while subtly condemning Zou’s contemporary, the “debauched official” (jianchen 姦臣) Cai Que 蔡確 (1037–93), by observing that he had risen to power in part through his facility in composing banquet prose.82

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In the Ming, the reluctance of self-styled Confucian officials to be associated with theatrical performances intensified, culminating in a dramatic court confrontation. In 1467 the newly minted Hanlin official Huang Zhongzhao 黃仲昭 (1435–1508) refused to write zhiyu for the emperor’s Lantern Festival banquet. With two other colleagues, Huang submitted a memorial urging the emperor to abandon the practice of asking court officials to compose such “lowly and uncanonical writing” (louli bujing zhi ci 鄙俚不經之辭).83 In response, the furious Emperor Xianzong 憲宗 (r. 1465–87) had all three flogged in open court.84 In spite of the emperor’s reaction, however, this incident apparently did have some effect on the composition of banquet writings at the Ming court. In a preface written for a friend who was about to join the Hanlin, Qiu Jun 邱浚 (1421–95) explicitly contrasted the Song period, when Hanlin officials had been expected almost daily to compose “even trivial texts like Daoist and Buddhist prayers, pronouncements, and zhiyu,” with the situation his own day. Qiu claimed that the Ming dynasty had “completely gotten rid of extraneous writing” (yiqie bingqu fuwen 一切屏去浮文) and “rarely had affairs like prayers and banquets.”85 Qiu’s assessment is supported by the comments of the later court official Yang Shen 楊愼 (1488–1559), who, ironically, complained bitterly about the new state of affairs. Yang claimed that ever since Huang Zhongzhao had made a name for himself by submitting his memorial about the Lantern Festival, when the court needed ceremonial writing it turned to sycophants from the inner quarters who then obtained privileges and poisoned the government. Yang argued emphatically that banquet writings should be composed by upright men of the outer court, noting that in the Song, lines from scholars like Ouyang Xiu had served as remonstrance as much as praise. He ended his diatribe by wondering archly whether the opposition of some scholars to composing banquet writings stemmed from their lack of training in the rules of poetic composition.86 Although Yang Shen attempted to rehabilitate banquet writings by claiming a moral purpose for them, his attitude was not widely shared, and one result of the late imperial animus against banquet texts is that they were frequently omitted when the works of Song scholars were republished. Thus the editors of the Siku quanshu observe that, according to an old table of contents, Lou Yue’s 樓鑰 Gong kui ji 攻媿集 had originally contained fifteen congratulatory zhiyu for banquets (as well as other ceremonial texts), all of which were lost.87 Similarly, the editors note that

Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring   23 a text of Ouyang Xiu’s ci poetry had once contained yueyu and been divided into three chapters; since the only surviving text in their own day was comprised of one chapter, they surmise that a Ming editor had expunged the yueyu and made a selection of the remaining poems.88 Even worse, if some banquet texts were thus lost before the Qing, even more were threatened during the Qing. In particular, the Siku editors were under considerable pressure from the Qianlong Emperor to expunge banquet writings—as well as other texts the emperor deemed harmful to public morality—from all the works that came into their hands. In several cases the emperor explicitly forbade the inclusion of such materials, although he grudgingly allowed that one “could not avoid” (bu fang 不妨) preserving the manuscript copies for the time being.89 In short, the case of Song banquet writings reveals that at least part of the reason for our limited awareness of the importance of performance in Song society and culture was the deliberate expunging from surviving Song texts of evidence about such performances. The fate of banquet writings in the collected works of Song authors is symptomatic of broader historiographical biases, biases that, from at least the Yuan on, have led to a tendency to ignore evidence that did not match the image of the Song as a period devoted to the revival of Confucian learning. To be sure, developments in Chinese literary and art history may also have contributed to the relative neglect of performance in the Song. Tang chuanqi tales focusing on female entertainers have long been regarded as literary masterpieces and widely celebrated, enhancing the view of the late Tang as an era of flourishing entertainment; by contrast, tales on similar topics from the Song lacked the literary merit of their predecessors and have been mostly ignored.90 In the realm of material arts as well, the Song development of literati painting, and perhaps changes in burial practices, seem to have directed the focus of art historians away from evidence of entertainment. Although a few surviving paintings (most notably “Night Revels of Han Xizai” and “Palace Orchestra Rehearsal”) document Song performances, the exquisite figurines of musicians and dancers so emblematic of Tang tomb art seem to disappear in the Song. Why this was the case must await further research by specialists in art history, but I would suggest that, paradoxically, part of the reason may be the spread of entertainment from the households of the aristocracy in the Tang to a much broader sector of the population in the Song. The Song elite household was not in a position to command the level of artisanship that had

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been at the disposal of the much more exclusive Tang aristocratic families, and images of entertainers had become less a symbol of exclusivity. The developing markets for Song porcelains, which encouraged production of exquisite bowls and plates rather than figurines, may have also been a factor. Whatever the reasons, images of dancers and musicians on surviving Song artifacts are much rarer than on those of the Tang, and the investigation here suggests that historians need to be particularly critical and careful when evaluating the received record about the Song.91 As scholars of other aspects of Song history have also begun to argue, the tendency— dominant as early as the Yuan—to characterize the Song as the era of Neo-Confucianism has too often served to obscure, rather than enhance, our understanding of Song history. More generally, by looking past the formal Confucian rhetoric and paying more attention to culture and the arts (and to the frequently lower class and female producers of those arts) we may develop a more nuanced—and ultimately more persuasive— understanding of Song society.

t wo

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World in Early Southern Song China Joseph S. C. Lam

Hills beyond hills, and mansions beyond mansions, The singing and dancing by West Lake—when will they ever end? The warm breezes make the revelers drunk, To the point of taking Hangzhou for [the capital] Bianzhou! 1 山外青山樓外樓，西湖歌舞幾時休？ 暖風熏得遊人醉，直把杭州作汴州。

Introduction2 did southern song Chinese sing and dance as indulgently as the poem above describes? If they did, what music and dance did they actually perform, hear, see, understand, and critique and why? Did they use music to forget their defeat by the Jurchens or to soundtrack their rapidly commercializing and urbanizing world? How did their musical world shape subsequent developments in imperial China? Musicologists and historians have suggested some possible answers, but a comprehensive and realistic view of Southern Song music culture has yet to be formulated. Towards that goal, I present a case study of Zhang Xiaoxiang 張孝祥 (1132–69) and his musical world, interpreting it as a microcosm of the complex and dynamic musical culture in early Southern Song China.

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To formulate the case study, I read Zhang’s literary writings on music as informative and reliable records of poetic, musical, and social-historical data of his time. To organize and interpret the data, I heuristically approach music as performance and discourse through which people negotiate their every-day and expressive lives. Judging from what the data tells, I posit that Southern Song Chinese music culture was both more complex and more integrated than what current accounts have suggested.3 A more comprehensive and realistic narrative is urgently needed to detail the ways Southern Song people produced and consumed music and dance. Literary writings constitute fundamental sources on Southern Song music and music culture. Other than these sources, there are only a small number of historical notated scores, technical treatises, paintings, and material evidences from the period. Only by reading the preserved literary works as factual, intelligible, and reliable sources, gaps in current understanding of Southern Song music and musical culture can be filled. Reading and interpreting literary writings for musical evidence are, however, daunting tasks; they require theoretical justifications and practical strategies. Thus, I read Zhang’s literary writings for historical and/or poetic data about music. The data are considered historical when they specifically describe music details in contexts of established chronology, identified agents, and other documented facts that Southern Song performers and musicians would know. Needless to say, the more specific the data are described, the more musically and historically informative they are, and the more readily they can be used as evidence for reconstructing and understanding musical Southern Song China. A revealing specimen of historical poem about music is Fan Chengda’s 范成大 (1126–1193) celebrated work about the Zhending dances 真定舞 that he observed as a Southern Song diplomat traveling to the north in 1170.4 An equally revealing example is Wang Yuanliang’s 汪元量 (1241–ca.1317) narrative poem entitled “Playing the Qin on a Moonlit Night” 月夜彈琴.5 Musical data in Southern Song literary writings are poetic if they describe music without adequately specifying its performance, technical features, content, chronology, agents, and other contextual elements. A fascinating example is Jiang Kui’s (1155–1221) “Apricot Blossom and Heavenly Shadows” 杏花天影, for which the poet specified the context of his composition with a preface, and described, in the lyrics, his experience of hearing orioles singing and seeing swallows dancing along the road to Nanjing. The poem projects a beautiful and sonic vista, but what it

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   27 reports on singing and dancing is non-specific.6 Thus the musical data the song provides is poetic. Southern Song authors wrote about music poetically, and sketchily, for several obvious reasons. Music cannot be comprehensively described by words—as performed and heard, music is ephemeral; its elocutionary and emotive expressions resist verbal description. Southern Song musical-literary texts are often written by and for contemporary readers who knew the genres and styles of period music, their cultural-social meanings, and performance contexts. In other words, writers did not need to spell out all the musical details; they only needed to allude to the right titles or key features of the music referenced. Their informed readers would readily decode poetic references, and find the messages being communicated. A wealth of historical and poetic information about Southern Song music is preserved in the Song History which includes chronicles of court musical events and collected lyrics of state sacrificial songs, biographies and collected works of individual Southern Song authors, sketchy but technical descriptions about music genres, styles, and instruments, and other formal and informal writings. For example, a reference to the playing (tan 彈) of a pipa 琵琶 (four stringed lute) would suggest the plucking of a lute with four strings and four frets, producing tunes with a total of sixteen stopped pitches.7 In other words, literary descriptions of Southern Song music can be unexpectedly informative. When read in their cultural, historical, and musical contexts, the descriptions would vividly tell how Southern Song elite and commoners individually and collectively produced and consumed a diversity of music, sacred and secular, in private and public sites for aesthetic and practical reasons. The descriptions are informative because they are anchored by a long Chinese tradition of describing and discussing music with words. As a matter of fact, Chinese word and music are so inseparably intertwined that they mutually and readily inform on one another.8 A ci poem, for example, evokes not only the preexistent and relatively fixed melody (cipai 詞牌) to which poetic words are set and sung, but also implies the composition and performance processes by which its literary-musical features and cultural-social meanings are produced, communicated, and negotiated. Reading ci poems and other Southern Song literary texts as musical sources is thus an analytical and interpretive practice in line with historical/traditional/native approaches to Chinese literature and music.

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To meaningfully read Southern Song literary writings as musical and historical sources, one cannot understand historical Chinese music in contemporary and rigid terms—that it exists as expressively autonomous and structurally definitive compositions knowable through notated scores and directly transmitted performance practices. One needs to approach historical Chinese music more broadly and flexibly: it constitutes a sonic phenomenon in which cultural-social-political expressions, performances, and negotiations can be fruitfully examined, even when its actual sounds are no longer performable and audible. Moreover, examination of historical Chinese music should engage with indigenous, contemporaneous, and documented perspectives and practices, in addition to present-day theories and meta-narratives of music and music history. Southern Song people’s distinctive aesthetic and interactive approach to music becomes apparent if one analyzes Zhang’s musical activities and reports using the following three musicological tools. They are: firstly, the concepts of sound culture, musical world, and soundscape; secondly, the hypotheses of musikscape and musiking; and thirdly, theories on music as a social-political performance/discourse for personal and communal desires and needs.9 A “sound culture” is a sonic phenomenon that manifests itself in a historically, intellectually, materially, and institutionally particularized site over a defined and substantive period of time. The naturally or humanly produced sounds audible in a sound culture are all consumed, interpreted, and institutionalized by human agents. Thus, a sound culture operates in conjunction with the intellectual and material aspects of specific times and places, when and where individual agents operate. A sound culture unfolds as the constituent part of a “musical world,” the inclusive reality of sounds and non-sounds that individuals and communities construct and experience in their everyday lives, the past, present, and future of which are interactively connected. The geographical or physical boundaries of sound cultures and musical worlds are flexible and penetrable. For example, the sound culture found in Lin’an, the Southern Song capital, was sonically marked by ci songs sung by courtesans, state sacrificial music performed by court musicians, and other genres created and performed by professional musicians operating in the city during Southern Song China. Such a sound culture was a part of the Southern Song musical world, the temporal, spatial, and musical boundaries of which cannot be rigidly fixed. It neither began in 1127 when the Southern Song as a Chinese imperial era

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   29 was launched, nor ended in 1279 when it was officially terminated. The Southern Song musical world continued many musical theories and practices from earlier times, and its own institutions influenced music and musical practices in subsequent periods of Chinese history. At any specific moment and place, a sound culture or musical world manifests itself as a “soundscape” in which natural and man-made sounds are simultaneously and randomly heard by human agents. Discursively they interpret and manipulate what they hear to advance their personal and communal agendas. A soundscape extends as far as its human agents move in time and space, whenever and wherever they auditorily and/or intellectually engage with the natural or man-made sounds that they hear. Such sounds may or may not interrelate with one another by themselves. They only interrelate when human agents choose to engage with some of the sounds, ignoring others, and creating a human matrix in which the sounds can be humanly connected and interpreted. With such connections and interpretations, the sounds constitute a “musikscape.” A constituent dimension of a soundscape, it only accommodates the sounds/music that human agents selectively hear at particular times and sites, and strategically embrace as something aesthetic, desirable, meaningful, and functional in their cultural and social lives. All other sounds and meanings that the agents reject or suppress are artificially and conceptually erased from the scene—even if they exist in the actual soundscape. A musikscape can be intellectually and artificially separated from its contextualizing soundscape—a process that people in the twenty-first century can easily accomplish by wearing noise-cancelling earphones! In sonic terms, musikscapes and soundscapes cannot be simplistically separated—noises or undesired sounds can hardy be totally blocked or erased. For analytically convenience, however, musikscapes will be analyzed as stand-alone phenomena. A musikscape results from people “musiking.”10 When they “music,” they interactively negotiate with targeted and interested partners by manipulating music as a mutually understood and negotiable object, site, and process. “Music objects” physically exist in diverse forms, ranging from audible sounds to collectible musical instruments that make expressive sounds. Musiking sites emerge when human agents manipulate specific music objects in times and places defined by historical and contemporary features and functions. In other words, musiking sites contextualize and are contextualized by the music objects manipulated

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and the process of their being manipulated there and then. For example, should a scholar-official sing a Confucian ritual song in an entertainment quarter, the secular associations and functions of the place might overpower the learned messages he tries to evoke. However, should the scholar-official want to secularize the ritual music, mocking its socialpolitical messages, the entertainment site would clarify his actions with contextual and secular elements that he and his audience understand. Musiking is thus an interactive and pragmatic negotiation by active agents. Their discursive vocabularies, strategies, and goals interactively define one another in their particularized times and places. Approaching Southern Song dynasty music and music culture as a musiking phenomenon is to trace the ways its agents pragmatically manipulate musical objects, sites, and processes into meaningful dialogues that performatively constituted musikscapes, soundscapes, sound culture, and musical worlds of the time. With the passing of time, the dialogues and their musiking realities have vanished, leaving fragmented traces which are preserved as words, notated scores, and other visual and material representations. Studying such traces to find out what the dialogues broadly discussed is like eavesdropping conservations, and trying to weave what is heard piecemeal into revealing summaries. With this kind of eavesdropping, this essay reads Zhang Xiaoxiang’s literary writings as telling records of Southern Song Chinese music and musical culture.

Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Biography and Musical Activities There are five reasons why Zhang Xiaoxiang’s literary writings project a revealing and representative microcosm of musical Southern Song China. 11 First, Zhang’s musical life was not only reported by his contemporaries but also culturally mythologized by Yuan and Ming authors. This is because Zhang’s biography is, on the one hand, distinctive and thus worthy of being remembered and discussed, and on the other hand, representative and thus culturally, historically, and sociopolitically meaningful. To be sure, Zhang was not the only musically active Southern Song personality. Shi Hao 史浩 (1106–1194), Fan Chengda, Zhu Xi (1130–1200), and others also lived musically.12 The musical facts in their biographies, however, are sketchy and unremarkable, compared to Zhang’s, which are detailed and revealing.

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   31 Second, Zhang was musically active in the early Southern Song, a transitional time when musical echoes from the Northern Song still rang, innovative institutions took shape, and foundations for subsequent musical developments in Yuan, Ming, and Qing China laid. For example, if court and ritual music in Southern Song China continued traditions from Tang and earlier times, contemporary entertainment and theatrical music transformed in prosperous and urbanized Lin’an, creating models for subsequent eras. Being musically active in the early Southern Song and a talented author to boot, Zhang regularly and revealingly wrote about music of his time. He wrote, for example, many shi and ci poems that relay the musical knowledge, activities, intentions, and imaginations he shared with his contemporaries. In addition, he even authored the lyrics for the twelve ritual songs sung at the Southern Song state sacrifice honoring Qingdi (青帝), a heavenly deity, and Taihao (太昊), a progenitor of the Han Chinese.13 Third, Zhang made music with a variety of Southern Song citizens and in a diversity of situations. Zhang’s musical partners included not only leading scholar-officials, but also Buddhist monks, Daoist priests, talented courtesans, and socially marginalized commoners. In his role as a government official assigned to different local posts, he actively engaged with regional clerks and commoners, observing their musical activities directly and reporting them revealingly. As Zhang’s musiking acts are authentic and representative, his descriptions on different genres of Southern Song music are realistic and informative. Fourth, Zhang’s biographical and musical world was not limited to Lin’an, the capital and the nexus of the Southern Song culture. As Zhang traversed in and out of Lin’an, he musiked differently, demonstrating the dynamic interrelationships among Southern Song China’s musical agents, activities, objects, sites, and processes. By referencing music in and outside Lin’an, Zhang’s writings illuminate what was and was not distinctive about the city’s sound culture, and how it was and was not representative of the whole Southern Song. Fifth, Zhang left behind a relatively small collection of literary works, many of which clearly and meaningfully describe music, providing data that can be readily organized into coherent and realistic narratives on musical Southern Song. Zhang lived a short but eventful life (1132–69).14 Born in Yin County 鄞縣 (present-day Ningbo 寧波), in Zhejiang Province, he was the

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precocious son of an impoverished literati family. When he was ten years old, his family moved to Huhu 蕪湖 in Anhui Province, which he would call his hometown for the rest of his life. As he grew up, he read the classics and Neo-Confucian writings, and formulated lofty aspirations. He also developed his literary and calligraphic skills by studying and emulating the works of Tao Yuanming, Du Fu, Shu Shi, and other esteemed authors and artists. As an adult, Zhang frequently traveled between Huhu, Xuancheng, Nanjing, and Lin’an, conducting personal and official business, and socializing with family and official partners. Zhang was a talented scholar-official, admired for his exquisite poetry, captivating calligraphy, heroic patriotism, authentic moral integrity, indulgent temperament, and effective administrative skills. His literary and scholarly talents were noted early in his life. In 1147, at the tender age of sixteen, Zhang had already passed the local examinations. In 1153, at twenty-two, he passed the capital examinations in Lin’an. In March of the following year (1154), he earned the top scholar (zhuangyuan 狀元) place in the palace examinations. Emperor Gaozong (r. 1127–1162) personally ranked him above Qin Xun 秦塤, Qin Gui’s 秦檜 (1090–1155) grandson, whom the examiners had ranked highest. Gaozong promoted Zhang for his innovative ideas in his examination essay; the emperor marked down Qin Xun for having presented clichéd arguments that the grandfather and his cronies had concocted. Gaozong also admired Zhang’s calligraphy and poetry. Despite being valorized by the ruling emperor, Zhang did not have a long and successful career at the Southern Song court. In fact, he only spent five years there, from November 1154 to August 1159. Zhang’s patriotic opposition to the signing of humiliating treaties with the Jurchens and public call for continuing military action to reclaim lost lands in the North invited political attacks on his personhood and career. His socializing with both Zhang Jun 張浚 (1097–1164) and Tang Situi 湯思退 (1117–64), two rivaling senior officials of the time, not only cast doubt on his character and motives, but also led to political entanglements that eventually torpedoed his court career. Zhang Jun represented the hawks, while Tang, a former supporter of Qin Gui, personified the doves, who wanted peace with the Jurchens at any cost. Zhang had to socialize with Tang who had officiated at the palace examinations that Zhang aced; following social conventions of his time, Zhang honored Tang as his mentor.

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   33 Until his court career was cut short, Zhang was rapidly promoted through a series of increasingly important positions. 15 However, by August of 1159, Zhang was attacked as an “evil and corrupted” official and then banished to a series of local positions outside the capital.16 In the last ten years of his life, Zhang served as an effective and benevolent local official,17 winning his subjects’ respect and love, who celebrated him with ritual honors, praises, songs, and dances. Zhang’s family and emotional life was complicated. He married Ms. Shi, his cousin, who bore him a son and two daughters. His affections, nevertheless, remained focused on another woman, one banished from his life. Around the time Zhang passed the local examinations in 1147, he had been involved with a Ms. Li, who bore him a son. For reasons that have yet to be ascertained, she was sent away soon after Zhang passed the examinations and found a platform to launch a career as a scholarofficial. Some of Zhang’s most touching ci poems allude to his yearning for a lost lover, who had to be Ms. Li.18 The son born out of wedlock was never formally accepted into Zhang’s family genealogy. Named Zhang Tongzhi 張同之, his existence and identity was only confirmed in 1971, when his tomb was excavated, revealing irrefutable evidence of his pedigree.19 Zhang was a patriotic and righteous man who boldly and passionately spoke his mind, enjoyed wine, and frolicked with courtesans. Gaozong once asked Zhang what vices he had; he declared that he lived indulgently, but took no bribes. Zhang cherished his life musically, a fact that three contemporary reports and one posthumous story vividly suggest. According to Ye Shaoweng 葉紹翁 (1194?–?), Zhang sailed on Lake Dongting in the autumn of 1166,20 and found the beautiful scenery there inspiring. Thus he improvised new lyrics on the spot, and then asked the musicians in his company to sing them. To share his joy and to show his joviality, he had wine and food sent to the servants traveling with him. According to Wu Zeng 吳曾 (fl. 1140–70s), Zhang acted out what he harbored in his heart.21 Once he attended a party in Tanzhou 潭州 (1162?), and witnessed courtesans performing a song that described a court official’s nervous acceptance of a toast of wine from the emperor. Responding to what he heard and understood, Zhang unconsciously shook his head/ headwear a few times, revealing his personal memories of receiving imperial toasts, Wu reports. Zhang’s bodily movement appeared to be a natural and improvised action, and that was why it caught the courtesans’

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attention. As such, Zhang’s action not only demonstrated his understanding of the music performed but also revealed how it triggered his memory of personal experiences with Gaozong. According to Zhou Mi 周密 (1232–98), Zhang publicly and lavishly spent on courtesans, a fact that points to his enjoyment of feminine companionship and musical entertainment.22 He was offered a cash payment of 200 liang 兩, which he declined and instead asked for one hundred rolls (pi 匹) of red silk cloth. With his price settled, he produced the calligraphy, and celebrated its completion by partying with courtesans. On the spot he creatively improvised new lyrics, freely drank wine with the ladies, and playfully had them sing his new lyrics. To reward the courtesans for their companionship and musical performance, he generously gifted them with the red silk.

Zhang’s Musical World and Musikscape Judging from his autobiographical writings and reports by his contemporaries, Zhang lived a musical life. He composed ci songs, authored lyrics for state sacrificial music, and presented memorials to promote yayue 雅樂 (civil and civilizing music) at court. Collectively, these texts show how Zhang musiked, making soundscapes and musikscapes in the Southern Song musical world to intersect with one another comprehensively or tangentially. As documented, Southern Song China took its yayue soundscape as the most fundamental phenomenon in its musical world. It was what Southern Song rulers and elites like Gaozong and Zhang regularly and vigorously promoted in Lin’an, manipulating mutually understood acts of state sacrifices, their material objects, natural and man-made sounds, and formal and informal words. This yayue soundscape manifested itself most comprehensively during times when the Southern Song court performed its state sacrifices, generating all kinds of sounds audible inside and outside sacred and imperial sites. For example, during the three-day period when the court performed the state sacrifice to Heaven and its preparatory ceremonials, that soundscape extended all over Lin’an. 23 Spatially, it was anchored by the round-mound altar (yuanqiu 圓丘) in the city’s southern suburb, the grand temple of the imperial ancestors (taimiao 太廟) built just to the north of the imperial palace, and the temple of the

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   35 spectacular numina 景靈宮 built at the northeastern end of the capital city (see Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 Map of Lin’an. Note: Overview of Lin’an: a. the suburban round mound altar; b. the palace; c. the imperial main street; d. the grand ancestral temple; e. the northern part of the city (not shown), where the temple of spectacular numina was located. NanSong jingcheng Hangzhou, ed. Zhou Feng (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe), back matter, n.p. The map originally appears in a historical gazette, the Xianchun Lin’an zhi (Lin’an of the Xianchun reign [1265–1275]).

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As the preparatory and proper rituals of the state sacrifice to Heaven were performed, the emperor and his large entourage shuttled between these sacred sites, traveling along the city’s imperial main street (yujie 御街) escorted by state processional music, vernacular and entertainment music, and all kinds of natural and man-made sounds. Natural sounds ranged from that of the wind blowing to chariot wheels squeaking. The man-made sounds included, but were not limited to, noises people made as they traveled along the street, calls or ditties that peddlers performed to attract customers from among the crowds observing the imperial procession, patrolling guards’ whistling of security calls, and, of course, the state sacrificial music. Performed inside the walled compounds of imperial altars and temples, the ritual music was heard and understood as the most beautiful and perfect sonorities (jinshan jinmei 盡善盡美) of the time. It featured male vocal singing and instrumental accompaniment played by two large orchestras of chime-bells, chime-stones and other ancient and imperial musical instruments, none of which Lin’an commoners could play or own in their homes. As distinctive sonorities, the vocal and instrumental music performed constituted a ritual and sonic presence of the imperial ruler, one that his subjects could hardly challenge. Zhang and his fellow scholar-officials experienced this polyphonic soundscape as a harmonious and inspiring musikscape, one in which the civilized and civilizing sonorities of state sacrificial music drowned out all other sounds, including those of the state processional and banquet music that court musicians also performed in Lin’an during the ritual time of worshipping Heaven. Sonically distinctive and rich in cultural and symbolic meanings, the yayue musikscape intellectually connected Southern Song elite’s cultural and musical present with the past of Han Chinese dynastic history, court institutions, Confucian ideals, and various cultural-expressive practices. Zhang’s Southern Song yayue musikscape was the time and site when and where Zhang musically interacted with his ruler and fellow scholar-officials and citizens: the ruler would act and sound benevolent and wise; Zhang and his colleagues, loyal and patriotic; and their subjects, law-abiding and submissive. Zhang’s yayue musikscape emerges vividly from his writings. As a grateful and loyal official, Zhang once petitioned Gaozong to correct mistakes and imperfections in the state sacrificial music of his time.24 Translated, his memorial reads as follows:

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   37 Respectfully, I observe that Your Majesty has sincerely fasted before performing state sacrifices at the suburban round-mound altar and the imperial temples, and had the sacrificial jade and silk carefully prepared to please the hundreds of deities ritually honored. Nevertheless, I noticed that musical songs performed to honor the deities did not clearly demonstrate Your Majesty’s intentions and virtues. With hesitation, I examined the musical compositions prepared by the Court of Ceremonials, and found that lyrics of the songs had unconventionally short or long phrases. Upon checking their literary meanings, I noticed that they projected conflicts and dissonances. These songs are currently performed at both the grand sacrifices that are held once every three years and the seasonal rituals that are regularly offered throughout the year. Officials responsible for performing the music have learned it from their masters, but are complacent with what the songs express. They do not discuss the music they perform and its usage. This is a problem that I find worrisome. . . . I, your uniformed servant, request that Your Majesty kindly and knowingly order available officials to examine the compositions, adjust their features, expunge inappropriate details, and present the revised results to court. I also request that, when resting from administering the myriad of affairs of the empire, Your Majesty take time to learn from the ancestors’ acts and words, and exercise your pen to promptly produce state sacrificial lyrics that reveal your wisdom. Once set to music, these imperial lyrics would then be performed in the grand ceremonials presented at the imperial altars and temples. As to the lyrics needed for the remaining state sacrifices, I request that Your Majesty order senior officials and Hanlin scholars to write what is needed. Once the new state sacrificial songs are created and their texts compiled into anthologies, they can be sent to the Court of Ceremonials, where court musicians will practice them for performances at future state sacrifices. Then restoration of the Song empire will promptly be advanced, and the civilized sounds of the ancient Shao will become audible again. Such new state sacrificial music can be performed indefinitely. 臣恭惟陛下飭躬齋精，祗見郊廟，靡愛圭幣，懷柔百神，獨聲詩之薦 未稱明德。伏觀太常所奏樂章，則有詳略之不同；稽之文義，則或有 違牾而弗協。三歲之親祠，四時之常祀，率用此也。而習熟所傳，有 司弗議，臣甚懼焉……臣愚欲望聖慈深詔邇臣，取凡太常樂章，更定

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篇次，摽別部分，具以奏禦。陛下萬機之暇，用列聖故事，擇宗廟郊 禖所用，駿發睿思，肆筆而成，其餘分命大臣與兩制儒館之士，一新 撰 述， 裒 為 成 書， 下 之 太 常， 一 俟 來 歲 郊 祀 奏 焉。 庶 幾 中 興 追 繼 《韶勺》，施之無窮，取進止。

Figure 2.2 Lyrics and Musical Notation for Zhang Xiaoxiang’s State Sacrificial Songs in ZXLS.

Zhang’s memorial convinced Gaozong, who had new lyrics composed. One of the officials he ordered to compose new ritual lyrics was none other than Zhang himself. One set of ritual songs that Zhang wrote is a set of twelve songs for performance at the state sacrifice honoring Qingdi and Taihao. Its text and musical notation are preserved in the Zhongxing lishu 中興禮書 (A Manual of Ritual and Music for the

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   39 Restored Empire), 25 illustrating how Zhang negotiated sonic and non-sonic objects in his yayue musikscape (Figure 2.2). Emulating the classical and literary style of yayue songs preserved in the Shijing 詩經 (Classic of Poetry), Zhang’s songs evoke the Chinese court ideology and performance tradition of state sacrifices that the ancient Zhou dynasty had launched centuries ago. Structurally, each song is written as a sequence of eight four-character phrases. Semantically, the songs describe the participants’ emotional and physical being as well as their ritual actions and intentions. The songs also claim that the worshipped deities will accept the offerings presented, and in return, bestow supernatural grace on the Southern Song empire. Take, for example, the fifth song in the set,26 which was performed to accompany the official celebrant’s climbing up and down the steps of the altar during the ritual performance. In translation, its lyrics say: 在國之東， In the east of the capital, 有壇崇成。 There is an altar rising tall. 節以和樂， Accompanied by harmonious music, 式降式登。 I ascend and descend this altar. 潔我珮服， The jade accessories on my ritual costume, 璆琳鏘鳴。 Make a clear tinkling against each other. 匪壇斯高， This altar is built tall, 曷妥厥靈？ To efficaciously reach the deities, does it not?

Presenting revealing historical and poetic data about Southern Song state sacrificial music, this song underscores the way its harmonious and structured sounds accompanied and defined ritual actions performed during the ceremony and at the sacred site.27 The detailed reference to tinkling sounds made by jade ornaments on the celebrant’s ritual regalia is particularly telling—it specifically evokes what an observant witness would hear at this sonically rich outdoor event. Similar data are also found in other songs in the set. For example, a phrase from the first song, which serves as a musical welcome for the deities, states: “The sacrificial music we offer has been comprehensively prepared and performed.”28 Poetically, this phrase informs us that the music follows established standards of the genre. Indeed, as historical

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records show, Southern Song state sacrificial music implemented Zhouli 29 周禮 (Rites of Zhou) and Northern Song prescriptions. Thus, the music was performed with two sets of singers and orchestras, namely the terrace orchestra and singers (dengge 登歌) and the courtyard orchestra and singers (gongxian 宮懸). Both paraded instruments representative of the eight traditional groups of musical timbres (bayin 八音). Their contrasting timbres of the two sets of orchestras and singers make effective musiking devices. Sonically they not only delineate the developing liturgical stages of the ceremony, but also expand the physical compound of the altar complex. Its yayue soundscape would extend beyond the compound and reach as far as the sacrificial sounds could be physically transmitted through the air and heard by anyone, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. As it spreads out, the yayue unites every appreciative “hearer” within its sonic reach as members of a unified ritual-socio-political community; those who reject or do not hear the ritual sound become aliens. The same phrase also alludes to modal features and performance practices. The four welcome songs (yingshen 迎神) in the Qingdi set implemented what Zhouli prescribed. As demonstrated by its preserved notation, the first song was performed three times in the “e♭ as dol” (huangzhong weigong 黃鐘為宮) mode; the second one, once in the “c as mi” (huangzhong weijue 黃鐘為角) mode; the third one, once in the “d as sol” (taicu weizhi 太簇為徴), and the fourth one, once in the “e as la” (guxian weiyu 姑冼為羽) mode. Modal and repeated performance of the songs as a set of variations constitutes a sustained moment of ritual time wherein participants in the state sacrifice can take their positions to welcome the deities to their offerings. A similarly informative phrase comes from the eighth song of the set. Sung during the liturgical offering of food to the deities, its lyrics say: “Sung slowly and steadily, this song would be heard.”30 Poetically, this phrase registers how Southern Song state sacrificial music should be performed—slowly and steadily so its sounds and messages would be heard, understood, and obeyed. Indeed, it was such sounds and messages that confirmed what verbal, kinetic, and visual expressions the performance realized. And it was their multi-media and elocutionary confirmation that made all present in the sacred site to grasp the imperial and ritual declaration: protected by deities, the Southern Song emperor would rule and his subjects should obey.

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   41

Figure 2.3 Zhang Xiaoxiang’s State Sacrificial Songs in Staff Notation.

This musical-ritual-socio-political negotiation is anchored by a historically and politically established theory and practice, a fact that Zhang’s essay on the auspicious omen of grains explains.31 Yayue, Zhang’s essay declares, began with the sage-ruler Shun’s creation of the Shao, the musical work that traditional Chinese scholar-official-theorists praised as the most beautiful and perfect music in Chinese music history and the theoretical exemplar for all subsequent yayue compositions in imperial China. When Shun had the Shao performed, Zhang writes, it enticed

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phoenixes to emerge and lead all kinds of animated beings to dance, celebrating the ideal world that the sage-ruler had created. Unfortunately, Shao disappeared with Shun’s passing. However, in subsequent times, when benevolent rulers returned to China, bringing civilized societies with them, yayue would re-emerge and be heard again. To herald such a development, auspicious omens would appear. When the Zhou dynasty was established, auspicious grains appeared, and then yayue was heard at the Zhou court, Zhang notes. Zhang’s essay is self-serving because it implies that a benevolent ruler has returned to civilized China in the person of Gaozong. As such, the essay underscores the ways Southern Song elite manipulated yayue history, knowledge, performance, and memories to construct their yayue musikscape which advanced their socio-political agendas. It asserts the agendas with a sonically and stylistically distinctive state sacrificial music.32 As noted and prescribed in a wealth of historical sources, Southern Song state sacrificial music was composed and performed in the orthodox syllabic style (yizi yiyin 一字一音), which is marked by the matching of one musical tone in the melody with one word in the song lyrics, short and modal melodic phrases which feature occasional large intervallic skips and designated modal initials and finals.33 It is no accident that whenever the syllabic state sacrificial music was played in Lin’an, it generated a sonically distinctive musikscape by and within which Southern Song elites like Zhang and Gaozong musiked their orthodox ideology and privileged identities.

Zhang’s Other Soundscapes and Musikscapes If the yayue musikscape of Zhang and his elite contemporaries commanded center stage in the Southern Song musical world, it nevertheless coexisted with other musically discursive phenomena of the time. To heuristically map these overlapping phenomena and demonstrate how they collectively defined the overall sound culture, soundscapes and musikscapes of the time, they can be grouped into four types. They are: 1) natural soundscapes/musikscapes in which people casually and momentarily hear and interpret natural sounds; 2) social soundscapes/ musikscapes in which members of a community produced, consumed, and interpreted sounds to interact with other communal partners, negotiating their social roles and needs in general terms; 3) monologic

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   43 soundscapes/musikscapes in which individuals musik by and for themselves at times and sites where they are physically, intellectually, and often-times voluntarily detached from other human beings; and 4) dialogic soundscapes/musikscapes wherein individual participants musik to deliberately and ideologically negotiate specific agendas with targeted audiences, who might or might not respond directly or immediately. Zhang’s poems randomly but vividly evoke the natural soundscape that he experienced in his everyday life, showing how it affords him a platform to construct purposeful musikscapes in which he negotiates his personal and social agendas. To historically and heuristically reconstruct this natural soundscape, a collection of relevant data preserved in his poems can be organized into a composite picture of a musical day in the poet’s life. In the morning of that day, Zhang slept late. He heard birds chirping at dawn, but refused to get out of bed until the sun was high.34 There, lying in bed, he listened to sounds of flowing rivers and the wind sweeping through pine trees. Finally, he got out of bed, went outdoors, and began a journey to visit his Buddhist friends. Climbing in the mountains, he heard soft and harmonious sounds echoing across the land/earth all around him, reminding him of heavenly state sacrificial music offered to deities and deified ancestors at imperial altars and temples.35 As he traveled further up the mountain, paying more attention to the pristine soundscape surrounding him,36 he heard clear echoes of a single large bell being struck at the Buddhist temple.37 Taking the resonant tones as a guide, he approached the temple. Zhang traveled often and thus he knew all kinds of natural sounds. For example, traveling along city or rural roads, he experienced flies humming and frogs croaking.38 Visiting the frontier in autumn, he noted the military drum calls carried on the wind. Traveling by boat, he witnessed how strong wind would blow and make the sails flap like beating drums, generating thunderous noise.39 At the end of the day’s travel, Zhang retired. Lying in bed, and resting his head on the pillow, he listened to all kinds of night sounds that penetrated the windows and walls to reach his ears.40 These natural sounds, which ranged from rain drops beating on the roof of the house in which he sleeps to wind rustling the leaves of the trees standing outside, are different from man-made sounds that Zhang has heard elsewhere. For example, when Zhang was restless and stayed up late in his office to read

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or write military communications, he would hear whistle calls that patrolling guards would make.41 Zhang’s natural soundscape is expansive and emotive, and its sonic details and semantic meanings morph flexibly and momentarily. In contrast, Zhang’s social soundscapes/musikscapes are sonically and semantically more stable and defined. The sounds made and heard signify not only the physical presence of Zheng and his social partners, but also their interrelationship. Living at home as a husband, for example, Zhang heard his wife chanting Buddhist sutras—did he find her more religious than wifely?42 As a socially active man, Zhang participated in many musical events. Once at a birthday party honoring his parents, for instance, he danced to the music of a song he composed, or improvised.43 Socializing with friends and courtesans at wine parlors and other entertainment venues, Zhang indulged in boisterously singing or rhythmically striking wooden clappers and other musical instruments with them.44 Zhang clearly enjoyed such social musiking and the pleasures and friendly bonding it generated. When friends sang together, he believed, they made harmonious tunes.45 This was particularly true, when the singers had resonant voices.46 Leaving Lin’an and the court to perform his duties as a local official, Zhang entered his subjects’ localized social soundscapes.47 There, he listened as a bystander and noticed how commoners sing to articulate their manual and repetitive tasks, like paddling boats on ponds and picking lotus flowers. Also in those social soundscapes, he witnessed how old farmers sing and dance to request supernatural beings to send rain to nurture their crops. Traveling from city to city, Zhang encountered guards blowing horns to announce the closing of city gates. 48 Casually and frequently, Zhang moved in and out of all kinds of everyday social soundscapes that collectively constituted the Southern Song musical world. Remembering these musical experiences, he described them with literary words. Such remembering and writing efforts make only passive musiking. To musik actively, Zhang must transform what he encounters into monological musikscapes, creating times and sites when and where he can strategically negotiate by and for himself. In other words, he has to conflate what he is hearing and thinking in the present with what he remembers and/or imagines. For example, when he visits a quiet frontier before or after a battle, he would hear neither the shriek of flying arrows nor the

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   45 thundering waves beating warships like drums.49 He could, however, inject into this calm time and place his memories of military sounds, transforming its natural soundscape into a monologic military musikscape, which warns of future battles and dangers. This is what Zhang did at the Yongning Pavilion in Guilin, in southwestern Guangxi Province.50 When he climbed to the pavilion, he saw before him a land filled with wild thorns and wandering pheasants; in the past, he remembered, it was a civilized place filled with music and dance. Stimulated by his memories and patriotic emotions, Zhang heard natural echoes bouncing back and forth among the mountains as military calls, interpreting the natural sounds there and then as social and urgent warnings. He and his fellow citizens should wake up from their indulgent lives in Lin’an, and take up arms to fight for their empire. With such intellectual and musical manipulations, Zhang constructed many monological musikscapes for himself. Performing his social-political role as a scholar-official who participated in many musical and military farewell activities, Zhang heard many drums calls or oar-beating performed to send soldiers or sailors off to their land or sea battles. As his patriotic feelings swelled then and there, he musiked by creating monologic musikscapes for himself and/or for potential or imagined partners.51 A case in point is Zhang’s creation of an alien and uncivilized musikscape for Han Chinese still living in the north under Jurchen rule. Zhang wondered how they lived and sang under the Jurchens. Upon learning that Han people there sang non-Han songs among yayue ones, Zhang was saddened. Then, he musiked to intellectually construct for himself a soundscape/musikscape where the former Song citizens had lost their Han identity and civility.52 Such musiking of Zhang’s was clearly subjective, but it was also rooted in the traditional understanding that music genuinely reveals what people harbor in their hearts. Three of Zhang’s poems are particularly revealing of his patriotic and Confucian heart-mind. In a farewell song, he declared that he wanted to drown his sorrows by singing madly to air out his patriotic frustrations.53 Zhang wrote similarly in response to a friend’s poetic questions about dynastic rise and fall. Being an imaginative poet, Zhang also created fictive musikscapes. One poem describes how he dreamed of a trip to the palace accompanied by processional music.54 To be sure, musiking with words and imagination is different from musiking with actual sounds and uttered words, but both types were commonly

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practiced by Southern Song elites. To them, music was both sonic and non-sonic; music and human heart-minds are expressively and indelibly connected. This is why, when Zhang died, his friends lamented his passing as the signing-off of a distinctive voice (sheng 聲).55

Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Social-Political Musiking and Dialogic Musikscape Such linking of the sonic with the non-sonic renders Southern Song people’s musiking a fundamental activity in their daily and expressive lives. They need to musik: unless they discipline the sounds in their everyday life and/or emotional-intellectual realities, they would find only cacophonic and unintelligible soundscapes. To make sense of their everyday soundscapes, they have to strategically discipline them into dialogical and social-political musikscapes, a process that Zhang’s writings vividly register. And to discuss something non-sonic in their lives, they might have to pragmatically reference something sonic. For example, when Zhang wanted to ask a friend when and how he would perform his duties as a patriotic Chinese scholar-official, Zhang asked the friend whether he would play the chime-bells and chimes-stones again—to play the instruments is to perform yayue, the music that distinguishes Han and Confucian Chinese courts and gentlemen.56 Similarly, when Zhang urged his compatriots to restore Han and Southern Song civility and institutions, he told them to play, but not abuse, the chime-bells and chime-stones. In such ways, Zhang manipulated a diversity of music objects and sites to construct all kinds of dialogic and patriotic musikscapes. For instance, by taking large and solitary bells of the Buddhist temples as both musical instruments and religious tools,57 he urged his fellow citizens to carefully listen, and grasp, as Buddhist message, the instruments’ resonating vibrations across mountains and seas. Similarly, by asking where autumn breeze would blow and make “the twelve phoenixes” (an euphemism for the standard pitch pipes) sound, Zhang asked when and how patriots in the South would find the right tools to restore the Song empire?58 To sustain his dialogic musikscapes beyond specific places and times, he presents them in poetic words, communicating and perpetuating his sonic experience, feelings, and thoughts verbally. Four among his celebrated poems are unmistakable examples of this strategy of his. The first

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   47 is “The Charm of Niannu: Passing Lake Dongting” 念奴嬌過洞庭, which describes a serene setting where Zhang is inspired to sing, exposing his lonely self, and wondering where his friends and comrades are/will be.59 In translation, the poem says: 洞庭青草， Lake Dongting and its span of green grass, 近中秋， At night near mid-autumn, 更無一點風色。 No breeze blows. 玉鑒瓊田三萬頃， On this thirty thousand acres of brilliant jade, 著我扁舟一葉。 My single boat floats. 素月分輝， The moon shines particularly bright, 明河共影， Its shadow reflected on the lake, 表裏俱澄澈。 Which is clear in and out. 悠然心會， Leisurely, I respond to its expressiveness, 妙處難與君說。 Which is so subtle that I can hardly explain it to you. 應念嶺表經年， I remember the year spent in the Southwest, 孤光自照， where I could only live like the lonely moon, 肝膽皆冰雪。 and freeze my body and mind. 短髮蕭騷襟袖冷， Now, desolate, with shorn hair and thin clothes, 穩泛滄溟空闊。 I float steadily in this immense expanse. 盡挹西江， I would like to scoop up the waters of the West River, 細斟北斗， Drink it as wine from the Big Dipper itself, 萬象為賓客。 With all of nature as my guest. 扣舷獨嘯， Standing by the boat’s railing, I chant to myself, 不知今夕何夕。 Not knowing what night this is!

Zhang’s text poetically describes a natural soundscape with no one but himself. The description is poetic and the soundscape can only be dialogic, a fact that Zhang’s hyperbole reveals and a reading of Ye Shaoweng’s historical report confirms. As discussed at the beginning of this essay,60 Ye reported that Zhang had sailed on Lake Dongting in mid-autumn of 1166. Touched by the beautiful moon-lit scenery he witnessed, Zhang wrote his celebrated poem, telling what he felt then and

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there. Ye did not say whether Zhang himself actually sang during the boating, but mentioned that he ordered his servants to sing the lyrics he had composed—Ye did not record what song they actually sang either. And to share the joy of the moment, or to reward the servants, Ye noted that Zhang had wine sent to them. Ye’s report is factually objective and credible. Zhang could not have traveled alone on Lake Dongting. His voyage was operated by servants and boatmen; he could not have sung by himself on the lake. The discrepancies between Zhang’s poetic portrayal and Ye’s historical report attest that whereas Ye reported a historical soundscape, Zhang gave his readers a dialogic musikscape, one in which he exercised his cultural understanding of music to highlight his masculine and patriotic loneliness. As the Yueji 樂記 (Record of Music) says,61 when people are touched by external stimuli, they utter words, and when the words cannot comprehensively tell their thoughts and feelings, they sing and communicate with their audience, real or imagined. A similarly dialogic musikscape emerges from Zhang’s poem entitled “A Buddhist Dancer” (菩薩蠻).62 Its text begins with a detailed description of a courtesan playing zither music, and concludes with a gendered plea. As translated, the lyrics of the poem run as follows. 琢成紅玉纖纖指， Delicate fingers made up like red jade, 十三弦上調新水。 Picking out new tunes on the thirteen-stringed zither. 一弄入雲聲， Once plucked, the clear sounds of the instrument rise to the clouds, 月明天更青。 Making the moonlit sky more blue. 匆匆鶯語囀， Quickly, the music trills like orioles singing, 待寓昭君怨。 But expresses Zhaojun’s lament. 寄語莫重彈， Don’t play those strains again; 有人愁倚欄。 Someone is already leaning on the railing, heavy with melancholy.

The poem describes a social soundscape in which a courtesan’s zither music extends from indoors to out. This soundscape becomes a gendered musikscape when Zhang hears the music as oriol chirping— an euphemism of female singing—and as a woman’s lament. Finding the

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   49 expressive but melancholic music unbearable, the courtesan’s audience begs her to stop playing. Zhang’s short poem concisely tracks music as a sonic and semantic discourse of love and gendered relationships in Southern Song China. Beautiful and musically skilled courtesans of his time professionally played for male patrons like Zhang. Both courtesans and patrons knew how to decode the plucked sounds and their messages in private and public settings. Having decoded the music, they respond with personal and/or social acts; As a love-sick man, the audience would request the performer to stop playing, so that he can forget his yearning or do something about it. Zhang was probably that love-sick man himself. When he reveals himself with such a musiking statement, he illustrates how entertainment music of his time indexes gender and desires in Southern Song China. Not all of Zhang’s dialogic musikscapes are so personal. Some are more imaginative than realistic, demonstrating how cerebral musiking in Southern Song China could be. A vivid example is Zhang’s “A Prelude to Water Music: Boating On Xiang River” 水調歌頭：泛湘江.63 Translated, the poem reads: 濯足夜灘急； I wash my feet at night by the river bank with the rapidly flowing water; 晞髮北風涼。 I dry my hair with the cold northern breeze. 吳山楚澤行遍， I have visited all the mountains and rivers of the South, 只欠到瀟湘。 but til now, I have yet come to where the Xiang and Xiao rivers meet. 買得扁舟歸去， I have purchased a little boat with which I go home traveling along the rivers, 此事天公付我： This is a favor Heaven has granted me 六月下滄浪。 Passing along the Han River in June. 蟬蛻塵埃外， In the past, Qu Yuan shed his earthly clothes and lived away from the dust, 蝶夢水雲鄉。 And Zhuang Zhou dreamt of his butterfly amidst water and mist. 制荷衣， Now, I put on my hermit’s dress, 紉蘭佩， Decorate it with a garland I have woven for myself, 把瓊芳。 And hold flowers in my hands.

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Joseph S. C. Lam 湘妃起舞一笑， Smiling, I dance with the Xiang Fairy, 撫瑟奏清商。 And pluck the zither to play the pure Shang tune. 喚起九歌忠憤， Singing his Nine Songs, I wake up the righteous Qu Yuan, 拂拭三閭文字， Wiping the dust off his Chuci, 還與日爭光。 I see how his talents still shine bright like sunlight. 莫遣兒輩覺， Don’t wake up the kids, 此樂未渠央。 I’m still dancing with angels and sages!

Read literally, this poem portrays how Zhang sings, dances, and plays the zither; it tells a playful scene of music making. Read with positivist criteria, however, Zhang’s singing, dancing, and playing cannot happen as he described. As a human man, he cannot dance with Xiang River fairies; as a Southern Song gentleman, he cannot sing the Nine Songs to wake up Qu Yuan, the Chu poet who died centuries before. Even if Zhang could pluck a zither on a boat sailing along the Xiang River, he could not play tunes of the Shang dynasty, which had long vanished. This is to say that with the poem, Zhang is musiking imaginatively, and the dialogic musikscape he thus generates is more intellectual and discursive than sonic and performative. This is how Zhang and his colleagues connected the sonic and non-sonic dimensions of their Southern Song world to negotiate their agendas, transcending physical limitations of sound, time and place. When strategically constructed, such musiking could generate not only powerful dialogic musikscapes but also concrete social-political results. A case in point is Zhang’s “Prelude to the Song of the Six States” 64 六州歌頭, a literary masterpiece with a celebrated history. As documented, Zhang composed the poem for a banquet that Zhang Jun hosted in Nanjing in the autumn of 1162, a time when the Southern Song court was still fighting the Jurchens prior to signing the peace treaty of 1164. It is not clear whether Zhang improvised the poem at the banquet or had prepared it beforehand, or wrote it afterwards. It is also not clear whether Zhang or musicians actually sang or chanted the song at the party. It is, nevertheless, clearly recounted that after Zhang Jun heard a performance of the song, and realized what its lyrics said, he was so touched that he abruptly left his own party. Translated, the ci song reads:

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   51 長懷望斷， Straining to see beyond the River Huai, 關塞莽然平。 The flat borderland where wild grasses grow high. 征塵暗， There, dust darkens the land, 霜風勁， Frosty wind blows strong and blear; 悄邊聲。 Military horns and calls have now subsided. 黯銷凝。 But I feel sad and drear. 追想當年事， I recall the events of those years, 殆天數， Perhaps it was fate, 非人力； And could not be changed by our human efforts. 洙泗上， Now, the land of rivers Zhu and Xi, 弦歌地， Where civilized songs and zither music once played, 亦膻腥。 Stinks with the smell of blood and killing. 隔水氈鄉， Now, when the sun sets on the land on the far side of the Huai River, 落日牛羊下， It shines on the Jurchens’ felt tents, 區脫縱橫。 And their wandering herds of cattle and sheep. 看名王宵獵， Observing the Jurchen generals hunt at night, 騎火一川明。 With horsemen holding torches to light their way, 笳鼓悲鳴， Listening to the sad sounds of their shawms and drums, 遣人驚。 I feel threatened. 念腰間箭， Realizing the arrows quivered at my waist, 匣中劍， And the sword in its sheath, 空埃蠹， Is gathering dust and rotting away, 竟何成！ I ask myself what I have done! 時易失， Opportunities quickly pass, 心徒壯， Even if one harbors bold plans in his heart; 歲將零。 Now, the year is ending, 渺神京。 Now, the court has appeased the foreigners with pompous performances, 干羽方懷遠， And I still cannot see the fallen capital. 靜烽燧， The warning fires have been put out,

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Joseph S. C. Lam 且休兵。 And the soldiers are resting. 冠蓋使， Traveling in their regalia, 紛馳騖， The officials negotiating the peace hurry along like ducks, 若為情？ What feelings do they have? 聞道中原遺老， I have heard that the people of the fatherland, 常南望， Often look south, searching for the colorful 翠葆霓旌。 banners of our army. 使行人到此， Should they come here; 忠憤氣填膺。 Their chests would swell with loyalty and anger; 有淚如傾。 And their tears would come in streams.

This text reveals a complex musikscape that Zhang imaginatively and patriotically constructs by drawing on historical memories and actual music objects. Military horns and drums and Jurchen shawms were played and heard during Southern Song battles. Such sounds, however, could not and should not have been heard at Zhang Jun’s party in Nanjing, which was some distance away from the actual battle field. In other words, Zhang imaginatively and strategically evoked thrilling battle sounds the party participants would have heard in times past, and sounds that would sharply contrast with entertaining music performed at the party. It is strategic for Zhang to recall historical repertories and performances that were once performed in lands by the Zhu and Xi rivers, which the Jurchens captured decades before. With such a recall, Zhang pointed out not only the loss of Han land and pride, but also the civil and military failures that contributed to those defeats. In other words, he created a dialogic musikscape by which to culturally and historically confront the party participants, forcing them to enter into a discursive space and time where they could not hide from their failure to stop the Jurchens. Thus confronted, Zhang Jun, the host, who knew the lost music, land, and civilized way of life there, broke down. He could not face the poet’s musiking and patriotic challenge; he had no choice but to leave the party. The arguments and emotions that Zhang’s dialogic musikscape evokes are intellectual and discursive, but they are not without sonic and elocutionary persuasions. Derived from a historical piece of wind and

Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World   53 drum processional music, the tune of “Prelude to The Song of Six States” prescribes short melodic phrases and singing in vigorous rhythms. Conventionally performed and heard as masculine and martial music, the short phrases and vigorous rhythms contrast with entertainment songs that Southern Song courtesans regularly sang. It is a contrast that no Southern Song elite male would miss. And that was why Zhang’s “Prelude to the Song of the Six States” effectively touched many scholar-officials of the time.

Concluding Remarks Reviewing Zhang’s literary-musical works, one observes how he manipulated music to negotiate his practical and intellectual realities, connecting the sonic with the non-sonic in the Southern Song musical world. One also sees the practicality of examining literary-musical sources of the era with broad and flexible theories like sound cultures, soundscapes, musiking, and music as cultural-social-political discourses. And it is with such examinations and theories, one can organize preserved historical and poetic data of Southern Song music and music culture into meaningful narratives. A more comprehensive narrative about Southern Song music and musical culture is possible because Zhang was not the only Southern Song personality who musiked with sounds, words, and acts. Gaozong, the emperor who handpicked Zhang as a top candidate, was himself a music connoisseur. He went to great lengths to manipulate ritual and entertainment music to create times and sites to musik his emperorship, controlling his officials and commoners. Zhu Xi, an intellectual leader of the time, established a Neo-Confucian musikscape for his disciples and posterity by preserving in his General Survey of Ritual 儀禮經傳通考 the scores of twelve allegedly Tang dynasty melodies for singing Shijing poems.65 From that time forward, generations of Chinese scholars have sung and discussed those classical songs, performing and passing down a NeoConfucian soundscape/musikscape. Many of Zhang’s elite contemporaries, such as Fan Chengda and Yang Wanli 楊萬里, also participated in recording and shaping the natural, social, monologic, and dialogic soundscapes and musikscapes of their time. They wrote numerous ci songs, and had them performed by female musicians as entertainment and communications for themselves and their colleagues.

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If Zhang’s musiking reveals many aspects of musical lives in Southern Song China, however, it also raises many questions on how typical or atypical Zhang’s soundscapes and musikscapes were in his time. Judging from Zhang’s own words, and comparing them with those of his friends and colleagues, he probably musiked more smoothly, openly, and forcefully than many of his contemporaries did. Zhang’s musiking, for example, differs from that of a younger Southern Song man, namely Jiang Kui,66 a commoner who happens to be the most widely known and admired ci music composer in Chinese history. Less dynamic and expansive than Zhang, Jiang’s musical world was essentially limited to composing and singing ci songs as art works for himself and his patrons. As much as Jiang was and is admired as a multi-talented artist, he did not have this kind of musical-social-political voice that Zhang had. When compared to the Southern Song sound culture depicted by Zhou Mi, Nai Deweng 耐德翁, Wu Zimeng 吳自牧, and other vernacular writers of the time,67 Zhang’s literary descriptions of music stand out for their silence on theatrical and narrative musics of his time, which laid the foundations for their dynamic developments in Yuan, Ming and Qing China. But Jiang Kui did not write about theatrical and narrative musics, either. Whether the silence of Zhang and Jiang merely reflects the elite’s selective musiking is a question that awaits musicological answers. However one explains the silence, it points to the observation that musical Southern Song was more dynamic, fluid, and interactive than its current accounts have suggested. Trying to understand the observation, one wonders if the early and late Southern Song musical worlds were quite different. Is it possible that during his lifetime professional musicians and actors had yet to assert their presence in an urbanized and commercialized Lin’an, which was filled with contradictions and fissures? If so, singing and dancing were not merely tools for intoxicating Lin’an people, prompting them to forget their military and political failures. They were not intoxicated, and they did not confuse Lin’an with Bianjing as the poem by Lin Sheng at the start of this chapter suggested. They only musiked to discipline their dynamic but turbulent worlds into desirable and meaningful soundscapes and musikscapes which have vanished, leaving only literary and musical traces that can be read and eavesdropped.

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Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry Martin Powers

Always fade out in a montage; if you fade out it seems like more time has passed in a montage; montage . . . Team America, World Police, 2004

the paintings of medieval China and Europe share at least one feature, namely, the rarity of reference to the passage of time.1 Likewise, early modern paintings in both China and Europe share a marked attention to the character of light in different seasons or at different times of day, as well as the effects of time on things, as for instance the weathering of rocks, trees, and soil. These developments were by no means accidental; they are a function of a broader understanding of historical time. As Stephen Toulmin observed decades ago, a more critical consciousness of historical time emerged in Europe only in the fifteenth century.2 Without a sense of historical time—the possibility that things as we know them might change—artists have no incentive to represent the vicissitudes of the moment. In a medieval social formation, or even in some early modern societies, the important things in life, such as the majesty of God, the infinite peace of Amitabha, or a nobleman’s station, typically were not subject to change.3

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In China, scholars never fully lost their awareness of historical time, but artists, who mostly served religious establishments such as Buddhist temples, and the aristocracy, showed little interest in time prior to the late Tang, that moment Stephen Owen referred to as the end of China’s middle ages. It was that period when, for the first time, revisionist historical studies were put forward by scholars such as Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 (773–819). Previously social institutions were thought to have been invented by the sage kings as models for all time, but Liu Zongyuan showed that historical process was contingent on historical circumstance, and in particular social institutions.4 About the same time, thanks to an emerging art market, artists made rapid advances in pursuit of a more rigorous standard of visual likeness, which is to say, a standard independent of the sage kings, the nobility, or Buddhist and Daoist institutions. As Liu Zongyuan’s contemporary and friend Bai Juyi succinctly put it: “In painting there is no absolute standard of excellence; painting takes resemblance as its standard. In learning there is no absolute authority; learning takes truth/facts as its authority” 畫無常工，以似為工；學無常師，以真為師. As a model of naturalistic painting Bai cited the work of a Mr. Zhang: If you peer at his paintings closely, there are places where it seems that, as from a distance, you can make out shadows amidst the wavelets. It is at such moments that one discovers that his learning penetrates to his very marrow, and that he arrives at it through the skills of the intellect . . .5 迫 而 視 之， 有 似 乎 水 中 了 然 分 其 影 者。 然 後 知 學 在 骨 髓 者， 自 心 術得……

But this kind of truth, the truth of the here and now, right down to shifting shadows on the water, could not be achieved without reference to the passage of time. Song artists would find several solutions to this challenge, but it was after the capital moved to Lin’an that artists working in the court academy fully mastered the fleeting effects of the moment: the fragile glow of the setting sun, or the flick of a fish’s tail in water—these were the accomplishments of the late Song masters of Lin’an, modern-day Hangzhou, and that is the focus of this essay.

Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry   57

Figure 3.1 Attributed to Li Cheng, Chinese (919–967 ce). A Solitary Temple Amid Clearing Peaks (detail), Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127). Hanging scroll, ink and slight color on silk, 44 x 22 inches (111.8 x 55.9 cm). The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

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Visualizing the Passage of Time A naturalistic style typically requires some reference to time, but this does not necessitate a description of the passage of time. Some styles, such as French neoclassicism, emphasize the single, sharply lit moment and so provide little hint of time’s passage. Other styles, such as that of a Turner landscape, offer such precise descriptions that we can identify a particular moment of the day and infer its incipient change. In China also we find a range of solutions to the problem of time. During the tenth and eleventh centuries, pictorial naturalism developed hand in hand with an ethos of independence from aristocratic tutelage. In Guo Ruoxu’s eleventh-century account of the great masters of landscape naturalism, virtually all are portrayed as mavericks who scorned the noble, the powerful, and the rich.6 Their bleak, weathered landscapes portray not only the ravages of frost, wind, and drought but, metaphorically, the depredations of unjust government. Their tall pines, trunks stripped of bark by ill winds, were metaphors for men of integrity who defied the attacks of powerful adversaries.7 It was these masters—men like Li Cheng, Fan Kuan, and Guo Zhongshu, who studied the imprint of weather and time on trees, rocks, and soil, as well as the effects of light and mist (Figure 3.1, p. 57). They did so, not to mirror God’s truth, but to convey all the more poignantly their social message. By the mid-eleventh century such naturalism was treated as the acme of artistic accomplishment, a standard that had to be met by anyone aspiring to canonical status.8 It was this understanding of pictorial time that informed one of China’s earliest cityscapes, “Spring Festival on the River” attributed to Zhang Zeduan 張擇端 (1085–1145). Many aspects of this scroll, from its authorship to its message, remain in dispute, so I shall limit my remarks to the scroll’s treatment of time.9 The scroll begins with a view of a country village in the suburbs of the capital. The artist made good use of Li Cheng’s technical innovations to render the appearance of the windblown loess soil of northern China, the barren, weathered trees, and the time-worn thatch roofs of the cottages. We view these things from outside the village, at some distance and elevated well above ground level. This type of perspective permits the artist to establish a consistent horizon throughout the scroll, but it also separates the viewer from the events

Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry   59 depicted. We see these events in the third person, as it were, not as one within the village looking out. While Zhang Zeduan had fully mastered the rendering of light, space, and texture, and therefore could describe the effects of time passed, the presence of people offered opportunities to portray time as passing— people caught in the midst of an action that has already begun and which would continue into the near future. And so the scroll shows people engaged in conversation, some greeting friends, some eating in restaurants, making purchases in shops, or conversing with a fortune-teller. Others are caught in their daily work routines, hauling barges, transporting goods, or selling wares. In each case we infer the passing of time from people’s gestures and the nature of their environment, whether it be a shop, a restaurant, or a barge. In other cases the artist made clever use of machinery to suggest the passage of time. A woman in a large, multi-passenger ferry has rolled up the bamboo blinds in her berth to peer out the window. The blinds in the other berths remain closed, so we know that the default state for blinds is closed. We infer, then, that those in her berth, too, will go down when the ferry reaches its destination. We know that the movable rudders on the barges, a high-tech device as yet unknown outside China at that time, will not maintain their current angle for long but will inevitably turn as the barge begins its journey. We know that the ripples in the water around those rudders will change again in a moment as the swirling liquid adjusts to competing currents in the stream. We know these things only because the artist has rendered the technical details of machinery, as well as the physical qualities of different substances, with an astounding degree of precision. We can see the ropes and chains that move the rudders and how they are attached to the device, and we can sense the volume of the rolled up blinds as well as the flexibility of the bamboo slats. The pictorial techniques that made such descriptions possible were the same, in the end, as those applied to the rendering of soil, tree bark, and thatch. Primarily the artist conveys to us the texture and quality of materials, whether cloth or rock or wood or bamboo, and in this way informs us of the passage of time.

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Figure 3.2 Qiao Zhongchang, Chinese (active late 11th–early 12th century). Illustration to the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff (section), Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127). Handscroll; ink on paper, 11 518 x 220 5/8 inches overall (29.5 x 560.4 cm). The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

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Figure 3.3 Ma Yuan, Chinese (1190–1235). Bare willows and distant mountains, Southern Song dynasty, end of 12th century. Ink and color on silk 23.8 x 24.2 cm (9 3/8 x 9 1/2 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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Picturing Historical Time It was at this juncture, towards the end of the Northern Song and the beginning of the Southern Song that the center of political authority moved to Lin’an. It was also during this transitional period that the development of landscape painting split into two branches, each promoted by artists offering a different solution to the problem of time: (1) artists who sold their work to collectors in the open market, or who worked within the court (and also sold their work in the open market); (2) intellectuals who did not sell their work in the open market. Their views on art and literature were beholden neither to the court nor to the pressures of the art market. These men formed their own social circles, banded together in schools of art and literary thought, and influenced others through the new but flourishing medium of print.10 As has been discussed extensively in the literature, these men established new styles in poetry, painting, and calligraphy both distinct and independent from the imperial court.11 Literati painting differed from that of the Northern Song masters in that it rejected the necessity of naturalism as a standard in art. Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101) famously dismissed as a technical trick the very ability to capture the feel of wavelets that Bai Juyi had regarded as the acme of painterly art. The artist Pu Yongsheng 浦永昇 was famous for his ability to capture the appearance of wavelets on the water, but this failed to impress Su Shi. Referring to Pu’s skills, he quipped: Ancient and modern painters of water show it in level distance with fine texture strokes (for the wavelets). Even the best accomplish nothing more than to depict the rise and fall of the waves such that we want to touch them, and this is taken to be the ultimate in excellence. But this style is no different from the printer’s use of wet paper (for special effects)—it (merely) strives for skill in trifles.12 古今畫水多作平遠細皺，其善者不過能為波頭起伏；使至以手捫之， 謂有窪隆以為妙矣。然其品格，特與印板水紙，爭工拙於毫釐間耳。

This does not allow us to infer that literati artists never made use of naturalistic techniques—in fact they did, but they also defied naturalistic norms as understood at the time whenever they pleased.13 For instance,

Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry   63 the appearance of deep space or a consistent horizon line common in works of that time generally was missing in their painting. In the place of references to light, the flow of water, or the effects of wind and erosion, literati painting became self-consciously art historical, and so introduced historical time as part of the content of the painting. In Figure 3.2 (p. 60), for instance, a handscroll by the literati artist Qiao Zhongchang 喬仲常 (early 12th century), the artist eschewed the use of wash and so eliminated any indication of light. Other than line, he avoided the use of texture strokes, and so we find few hints of those effects of erosion so ubiquitous in the painting of his contemporaries. Where earlier Song artists all established a stable horizon in their landscapes, Qiao constantly changed both the horizon and the viewer’s position, and so he eliminated any possibility of creating a consistent fictive space. Nonetheless his contemporaries could readily see in the stylistic features of his painting clever references to historical masters such as Dong Yuan 董 源 (c. 934–962), whose hills textured with characteristic “hemp fiber” strokes appear twice in the painting. In each case a Dong Yuan-style hill is placed incongruously in a landscape setting having nothing to do with Dong Yuan (Figure 3.3, p. 61).14 This can be seen as part of a broader strategy to enhance the literary content of painting, thus highlighting the intellectual qualities of the artist. For the same reason, in literati circles, painting was approached more as a kind of poetry rather than a device for recording natural appearances. Su Shi, the intellectual leader among these men, famously asserted the unity of art and literature.15 There is nothing in the many discussions of painting and poetry by this group to suggest that they were concerned with creating formal similarities to particular poetic genres, such as the lyric or classical poem, or even to particular schools of poetic writing, though pictorial references to particular poets do occur.16 Rather they were interested primarily in what we would call tropic devices such as metaphor, or other literary techniques such as citation, the latter being especially apparent in the Qiao Zhongchang, where the telltale hemp fiber strokes and round embankments of Dong Yuan’s style appear as citations, completely separate from the style of the rest of the painting. Other signs of literary practice included a sketchy style with large areas of white paper or silk left blank, allusions to well-known poetic imagery, or conspicuous signatures and inscriptions applied within the area normally given to fictive space.17

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Figure 3.4 Xia Gui, Chinese (active 1180–after 1224). Twelve Views of Landscape (section), Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279). Handscroll; ink on silk, 11 x 90 3/ 4 inches (28.0 x 230.5 cm). The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

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Figure 3.5 Attributed to Liu Cai, Chinese (active c.1080–1120). Fish Swimming amid Falling Flowers (detail), 12th century. Handscroll; ink and color on silk; scroll image: 10 3/8 x 100 112 inches. Saint Louis Art Museum.

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All of these developments were touted as a direct rejection of aristocratic and courtly standards in painting, as had been the case in the art of calligraphy.18 The literati not only forged an alternative standard for painting—they defeated the court in the cultural realm altogether, for in the end it was Huizong’s court that imitated the literati rather than the other way around. First, Huizong moved the painting academy from the court to the Hanlin Academy. This move can be understood as an admission that the emperor’s taste was no longer sufficient to guarantee an artist’s high status. Henceforth, recognized experts would certify an artist’s quality following standardized examinations, as in the regular bureaucracy. Secondly, Huizong’s own painting adopted several features of literati taste, including large areas of blank paper or silk, references to classical styles, and literary inscriptions on the painting.19

Picturing the Fleeting Moment This first round of cultural competition between court and the literati was short-lived, for Huizong’s reign came to an end in 1125. Nonetheless it appears that the Southern Song Academy, which was situated in the new palace in Lin’an, continued to develop the literary potential of ink painting, as Richard Edwards has demonstrated. 20 Thanks to his scholarship, there can be little doubt that poetry constituted the principal referent for Southern Academy painting, both in content and in style. In this respect it was similar to literati painting, which also treated pictures as text. But unlike literati painting, which privileged historical time, Southern Academy artists developed further the illusionistic techniques of the Northern Song masters. Not content to depict the effects of erosion over long periods of time, they sought instead to capture the appearance of the fleeting moment. They achieved this through atmospheric perspective, manipulating the effects of light and mist in ways scarcely imagined by earlier generations. In addition, they altered the viewer’s position in relation to the scene. Instead of looking at the city from an elevated location at a distance, the Southern Song masters situate the viewer within the city looking out across West Lake or other nearby vistas, scenes such as might have been visible from the palace. This device tends to privilege the viewer’s subjective experience—we see the beauty of Lin’an’s environs as someone in the palace might have seen it, and we focus on our elevated aesthetic

Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry   67 experience rather than activities taking place within the city. That is why the viewer is positioned much lower, closer to ground level, as is evident from the low horizon line in many Southern Song landscapes (Figure 3.4, p. 64). In addition to these fundamental changes, Academy artists developed to a high degree of sophistication two techniques in particular: seriality, and the fade out. Both techniques presumed the presence of deep space, treating space as an analog of time, and both methods echoed literary tropes common in Tang and Song poetry. Ma Yuan’s 馬遠 (fl. 1190–1230) “Willow by the Bridge” (Figure 3.3, p. 61) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, makes use of both techniques. Seriality is most evident in the layered mountains. These not only diminish in size but also gradually assume a paler tone in proportion to their distance from the viewer, thereby conveying the sense of increasing distance over time. We know that court artists were sometimes asked to paint a pictorial interpretation of a poem. Ma Yuan’s painting is remarkably similar in details to a poem by Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–72), and so a comparison between the two may reveal something about how poems could be translated into paintings: The plum trees at the lookout tower have lost their flowers, The willows by the stream bridge are delicate. The grass was fragrant, the wind was warm, it shook the horse’s reins. The grief of separation grows infinite as the distance grows. Far, far—endless like the spring river. Inch by inch her tender heart is torn, The flow of tears ruins her makeup. The building is tall—don’t lean over the high railing. Where the grass of the plain ends there are spring mountains; The traveler is even farther, beyond the spring mountains.21

Ouyang Xiu did not invent the conflation of distant mountains and parted lovers. Many had employed the trope before his time, so it was readily available for appropriation by artists. Likewise in numerous poems, a winding stream might evoke distance and separation. We find this figure as well in the Boston fan painting. Here, Ma Yuan made effective use of seriality, for the stream winds back and forth recursively, diminishing in size as it ambles away into the distance.

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Ma Yuan achieved this effect through the use of what we would call synecdoche. This trope often informs seriality in Song painting like a deep structure, and so it appears in multiple guises. For instance, in Southern Academy painting (Figure 3.5, p. 65) we commonly infer the presence of a village though we see no more than a hint of rooftops; we ponder the meaning of an aging pine though we see only treetops; we detect a distant wood because we can make out some foliage in mist, and we sense a cliff’s fractured surface because we see a patch of texture. It is best to distinguish this from metonymy because the technique is subtler than merely part to whole. It isn’t simply that a corner of a rock stands for the entire stone. Sometimes it is the quality of a rock—its texture—that stands in for the stone, or a looming darkness in the mist that evokes a wood. In this way the mere hint of a distant peak may call to mind a series of peaks, or a few ripples may create in our minds the image of a stream. Synecdoche is a common device in Song painting, as in Song poetry, and this is why only a few items were needed to establish seriation. In the fan painting from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Ma Yuan needed only three mountains to create a series. The stream in the middle ground winds but once, yet it continues on, diminishing in size, and so we know that the winding continues as well. Many of these devices were already present in Tang verse; why should Song period painters have lagged so far behind? One reason is that Tang artists had not yet developed atmospheric perspective or texture strokes capable of describing a receding surface, much less the passage of time, in detail. But there could be a more immediate connection in Song literary theory. While Tang poets had long since made use of these tropes, it was Song critics who were fascinated with their theorization. One standard work on literary theory was Wei Qingzhi’s 魏慶之 (fl. 1240–44) early thirteenth-century Jade Splinters from the Poets, a collection of pithy critical writings, mostly by critics sympathetic to Su Shi and his literati comrades. Apart from the assumption that painting and poetry share common principles of organization—a staple of both art and literary theory at the time—this collection testifies to the analytical sophistication of Song literary theory generally. Among topics relevant to this study one finds many discussions of the use of metaphor, citation, explicit and latent images (xu/shi); inexhaustible meaning beyond the image; subtly hidden meanings, and the familiar claim that “a poem’s meaning lies beyond

Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry   69 words.”22 Within the field of the History of Art, Wai-kam Ho has examined the impact of that last ideal in Southern Song painting.23 Here I wish to focus on a more specific effect that was classified in Wei’s Jade Splinters under “meaning beyond words,” namely, the juxtaposition and blending of two resonant expressions of natural time. The relevant discussion is cited in the book Quotations from Jinling, which attributes the theory to Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣 (1002–60). Mei was a poet and critic influential both in art and in literary theory in Song times: “[To write a good poem] It is necessary to portray a scene difficult to describe, as if it is right there before your eyes. Such lines will harbor endless meaning. You must find that meaning beyond the words; only then should you compose your poem” . . . [When I asked how this could be accomplished] he replied: “The author must perceive it within his heart; the reader encounters it and so gets the idea, as in Yan Wei’s poem: ‘On the willow embankment the water flows in a leisurely way; in the flower strewn hollow, the evening passes slowly.’ In this passage both natural appearance and the quality of time blends together their leisurely cadence; how should the scene not appear before the eyes!”24 必能狀難寫之景，如在目前；含不盡之意，見於言外，然後為之…… 作者得于心，覽者會以意。若嚴維「柳塘春水慢，花塢夕陽遲」，則天 容時態，融和駘蕩，豈不在目前乎！

From context it would appear that Mei’s advice to the poet is to imbue the poem with meaning that goes beyond the immediate sense of the words by inserting within the lines a common structural pattern that is not explicitly expressed. In his analysis, the Yan Wei lines accomplish this by describing two separate natural phenomena that nonetheless share a common structural feature. In this case the gradual passage of time marked by the setting sun resonates with the equally slow but rhythmic flow (taidang 駘蕩) of the stream. In the passage of the day and the flow of the water, time passes slowly, but in one the process is smooth, in the other, rhythmic. Such contrasts are typical of the Song poetic sensibility, which is why the discussion of parallels and contrasts (dui 對) gets considerable attention in Wei Qingzhi’s text.25 In this case, the contrast of

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two kinds of temporal passage creates a resonance that adds markedly to the vividness of the impression. One can find instances of this device in Song lyrics. A particularly beautiful example is Mrs. Wei’s lyric in which she imagines a woman’s response to her lover’s departure: 波上清風， A clean breeze ripples the waters; 畫船明月人歸後。 After you left in your painted boat beneath the moon. 漸消殘酒， Gradually the wine’s giddiness passes away, 獨自憑欄久。 As I linger a long time at the railing alone. 聚散匆匆， Meeting and parting, always fleeting; 此恨年年有。 Year after year this aching pain. 重回首， I turn my head and notice again: 淡煙疏柳， In evening mist some scattered willows, 隱隱蕪城漏。 Amidst the muffled tones of Wucheng’s evening bells.

This poem makes use of both seriation and the fade out. A woman, perhaps a courtesan, once again watches her lover part after an all-toobrief reunion. From the ripples on the water, which would diminish in the distance, to the gradual dwindling of her inebriation, the slow passage of time is the underlying theme in the first stanza. In the second stanza the reduplication of cong (rushed) signals “always,” because we know the series will continue; the parallel reduplication of nian (year after year), establish another instance of relentless seriation. It is in the final lines that Mrs. Wei switches brilliantly from seriation to the fade out, conjuring a scene that could have been lifted from a painting by Xia Gui 夏珪 (fl. 1200). As the sun begins to set and the air cools, the evening mist rises while the light continues to fade. The last line refers directly to the gradual and inexorable passage of time as the city bell—quite literally marking the passage of time—resounds in the misty vastness. As in Mei Yaochen’s example, Mrs. Wei has both blended and contrasted two kinds of temporal passage. While measured time is marked in a rhythmic series, sound is not. Sound, like light, fades gradually in the evening mist. And just as the waning of the sun’s light is as relentless as it is inevitable, so is the parting of Mrs. Wei’s lover, who passes irrevocably into the distance. This is a poem about the passage of

Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry   71 time. It is the passing of time that furnishes the sting in Mrs. Wei’s melancholy rhyme.26 This last trick—the conflation of fading sound and light with passing time and swelling melancholy—is a defining feature of Southern Song landscape. This is what I am calling the fade out. The fade out differs from seriation in that it is gradual, without discernible segments. Artists such as Ma Yuan and Xia Gui accomplished this by carefully controlling ink washes such that the darkest tones would dominate the front corner of the composition, while the palest tones would prevail in the most distant corner (Figures 3.3 and 3.4, pp. 60–61). In between, the tones vary gradually but consistently from darker to lighter regions in space, a technique that required the artist to manipulate a wide range of tonal values with almost super-human precision. By capturing the quality of light at one fragile moment in a progressive series, Song masters could rival the emotive power of Song period lyrics. And like Song poets, these artists could blend and contrast the two kinds of temporal passage—fade out and seriation. Through the extensive use of synecdoche, they were able, like poets, to suggest meanings beyond words. Another Southern Song painting that contrasts different rhythms of time is “Fish Swimming amid Falling Flowers,” a handscroll in the St. Louis Museum of Art, a detail of which is shown here (Figure 3.5, p. 65). The work is attributed to Liu Cai 劉寀 (fl. 1080–1120) from the eleventh or twelfth century, but the style shares much in common with works of the Southern Song academy. In the section shown, the fish are remarkably well observed, with both piscine anatomy and the botanical features of the algae rendered with textbook accuracy. This much all the fish share in common. But like a Song poet the artist has set before us a poignant contrast: some fish, such as the carp, lumber slowly through the lake while another whips about like an aquatic dragonfly. How is it that the viewer discerns this difference? The carp, like the algae, are rendered in sharp detail. We see every scale, coarse or fine, and every rib on every fin, because the fish moves slowly if at all. Not so with their smaller brethren. From its somersaulting posture we know that the smaller fish moves at high speed and, correspondingly, we find no trace of its scales. Of course, such fish often have fine scales, but that would not explain why we see no ribs in the tail fins. Those are absent because the tail is moving so fast we could not be

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expected, realistically, to discern such detail. In such ways this artist, like a Song poet, provoked contemplation of the different rates at which time passes in the fluid medium of water. When Southern Song masters such as this artist, or Ma Yuan, or Xia Gui, accomplish such literary feats without abrogating the rules of naturalistic representation, they seem to be saying that the poetry they give us is actually out there, in nature, and not just an artifact of personal wit. In all these respects they share more in common with the early masters of naturalistic landscape—Li Cheng or Xu Daoning—than with the Song literati.

Conclusion Of course it was the literati tradition that, overall, would dominate critical and art historical writing in China. In the works of the literati masters, time continued to operate as historical time. Artists such as Zhao Mengfu 趙孟頫 (1254–1322) might reference many different classical masters in different paintings, without ever producing a work that actually looked like the reference. He was not attempting to imitate a timeless artistic standard; rather his paintings offered his own personal meditations on the work of earlier men. These meditations typically tell us more about Zhao than about the reference, just as a poet’s citation of an earlier work was meant to reveal more about the poet than the old master.27 Still later in time artists such as Dong Qichang 董其昌 (1555–1636) or Chen Hongshou 陳洪綬 (1598–1652) might cite multiple masters within a single work, juxtaposing incompatible spatial regimes on the same painting surface. In such works the viewer’s understanding of the history of art is both challenged and undermined because the relativity and contingency of style has become a central focus of art. What binds both branches of landscape art together is their origin in a post-medieval, historicized time. Once the “timeless” institutions of the sages were shown to be contingent on historical circumstance, once the time-honored status of the nobility was overthrown, then the vicissitudes of time—in nature, in art, in history, and in the lives of ordinary people— became a fit subject for the artist’s brush. From that moment onward, Time would furnish the deep structure for all styles of pictorial expression in China.

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Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation: Jiang Kui’s “Poems on Past Travels” and the Urban Culture of Hangzhou in the Southern Song Zhang Hongsheng Translated by Gang Liu

in the first year of the Jiatai reign 嘉泰 (1201–4) of Emperor Ningzong 寧宗 (1168–1224, r. 1194–1224), Jiang Kui 姜虁 (ca. 1155–1221)

composed a group of fifteen ancient-style pentasyllabic linked poems (lianzhang wuyan gushi 聯章五言古詩) which he titled “Xiyou shi” 昔遊詩 (Poems on Past Travels).1 These chronicled his travel experiences in Hunan and the Jiang-Huai region (along the lower Yangtze and Huai River). This group of poems was written in Jiang Kui’s late years, when he was living a comparatively settled life in Hangzhou. The prosperous urban culture of Hangzhou and the relative stability of life there gave him the time and opportunity to think about the travels of his early years, which had been plagued with all manner of adversities associated with national crisis and social disturbances. These memories of past travels made a sharp contrast with the pleasure-driven and luxurious lifestyle of Hangzhou people at the time. That contrast in turn spurred him to link his reflections on life with those on Hangzhou’s urban culture, and to express his deep-rooted sense of crisis and an implicit critique of the Southern Song’s peace-seeking policy, by which it managed to retain sovereignty over a mere portion of the Song’s original territory. The prosperous urban culture of Hangzhou lay behind the rise of the Rivers and Lakes School of Poetry, of which Jiang Kui was a representative

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figure. But while many of his poems inspired other Rivers and Lakes poets, his “Poems on Past Travels” differed fundamentally from the poetic style of the school. Those differences not only let us appreciate Jiang Kui’s distinctive personal style, but also help us understand the style of the Rivers and Lakes School from a more comprehensive perspective. If we compare Jiang’s “Poems on Past Travels” with the travel poems written by Du Fu (712–70), a literary giant worshipped by most Rivers and Lakes poets, we will gain a more thorough understanding of the implications of these differences. Hangzhou’s culture left a clear mark on Jiang Kui’s life and writing. His poems, whether they are about Hangzhou or not, connect with the life there in its various aspects. They reveal its vibrant urban spirit and therefore can deepen our understanding of city life in the Southern Song. His “Poems on Past Travels,” one of the most representative of his late literary works, is a good example.

“Poems on Past Travels” and the Consciousness of Adversity In his preface to “Poems on Past Travels,” Jiang Kui wrote, When I was young, I lost my father and lived in poverty. I traveled to many places by land and water, until I finally found a place to settle in these last few years. As I passed time languidly on autumn days, I thought about the pleasures and astonishments I had experienced in my past travels and chanted them into five-character lines. They are intended for my reading only and are far from being good enough to be called poems.

Jiang Kui lived with his father in Hanyang 漢陽 when he was young. After his father died at his post, Jiang Kui moved to live with his sister in the Shanyang Village 山陽村 in Hanyang County. Thereafter, for nearly twenty years, he traveled back and forth across the Lower Yangtze and Huai region, and the provinces of Hunan and Hubei. In the thirteenth year (1186) of the Chunxi reign 淳熙 (1174–89) he left Hanyang for Huzhou 湖州 to seek support from Xiao Dezao 蕭德藻 (fl. 1151). During his early years in Huzhou, his life was not entirely settled. He moved back and forth and lived in different places such as Suzhou 蘇州, Hangzhou, Hefei 合肥, Jinling 金陵 and Nanchang 南昌. In the first year (1190) of the

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   75 Shaoxi reign 紹熙 (1131–62), Jiang Kui went to live in the White Stone Cave (baishi dong 白石洞) in Wuxing 吳興. Finally, between the second and third year (1196–97) of the Qingyuan reign 慶元 (1195–1201), he settled in Hangzhou, where he lived until the end of his life. While Jiang Kui had traveled to many places, after he settled down and began recalling the “pleasures and astonishments” of his past, his memories concentrated primarily on his travels in Hunan and the JiangHuai region, as can be seen from the places covered in the fifteen pieces in “Poems on Past Travels.”2 The locations referred to in the fifteen pieces are mainly around Lake Dongting 洞庭湖 in Hunan (some in Hubei as well) and the region along the Yangtze and the Huai Rivers in Jiangsu. In terms of the timeframe, these pieces focus on the years around 1186. Lake Dongting had been the favorite tourist site among scholars for many centuries. Numerous poems praise the beauty of the place, among which the most famous ones included Meng Haoran’s 孟浩然 (691–740) “Looking across Lake Dongting, presented to Grand Councilor Zhang” 望洞庭湖上張丞相, Du Fu’s “Ascending Yueyang Tower” 登岳陽樓, and Liu Yuxi’s 劉禹錫 (772–842) “Gazing at Lake Dongting” 望洞庭. The poems about the Yangtze and the Huai Rivers are even more numerous, of which the most popular include Li Bai’s (701–62) “Looking at the Heavenly Gate Mountain” 望天門山, Du Fu’s “Thoughts While Traveling at Night” 旅夜抒懷, and Su Shi’s (1037–1101) “Early Departure on the Huai River” 淮上早發. These are famous poems much cherished by Chinese readers. But when Jiang Kui wrote about Lake Dongting and the Yangtze and the Huai Rivers, however, his descriptions of their precariousness had a realistic touch, by which he intentionally stood apart from his predecessors to show his originality and the particular mental states he experienced while writing the poems. As we know, both Hunan and the Jiang-Huai region suffered the ravages of Jurchen troops in the late Song. The entire city of Tanzhou 潭州 (present-day Changsha 長沙), for instance, was wiped out by the Jurchen army because it refused to surrender. (Tanzhou was a place familiar to Jiang Kui, for he wrote his famous “Lyric on Xiaochong Mountain” 小重山令 there). Not only was the Jiang-Huai region a war– torn zone during the early years of the Southern Song, it continued to face the threat of war in the confrontational period between the Southern Song and Jin dynasties. In light of this, by writing about his travel experiences there, Jiang Kui did not just want to describe the natural landscapes

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of the area, but also wished to draw us a picture of the perilous living conditions people in these regions contended with, conditions that resulted from years of constant warfare. His writing leaves us a psychological profile shared by many of his contemporaries in the Southern Song, which may be epitomized by the craze for undertaking “border travels” (youbian 遊邊). Although Southern Song society has often been criticized for its extravagance and sensuality, in fact, the voices that called for recovery of the lost territory in the north never entirely fell silent. For this reason, border travels, namely, travels to the regions near the Yangtze and the Huai Rivers, became a favorite form of tourism among scholars of the time. During the Southern Song period, the Jiang-Huai region was also of great military importance, as suggested in the following comment by Liu Kezhuang 劉克莊 (1187–1269), another Rivers and Lakes poet and Jiang Kui’s contemporary: “Though Emperor Gaozong 高宗 and Xiaozong 孝宗 marked the country’s border with strong forces along the Huai River, they deployed even stronger defenses along the Yangtze River.”3 It was deemed an indispensable strategic area. Therefore, “When the Jurchen army invaded the border, Emperor Gaozong issued an imperial edict that he would personally lead the expedition army. After the two Huai regions were lost, many court officials advised retreat. Emperor Xiaozong was enraged and asked to lead the vanguard troops himself into battle.” 4 Because the Jiang-Huai region often suffered the depredations of war, it attracted the attention of many patriotic Southern Song scholars, who worried about the future and fate of the country. They visited the region to personally observe the trauma caused by war and to express their concern at the imminent crisis their country faced. The Duojing Tower 多景樓 in Zhenjiang and the Joy Pavilion 賞心亭 in Nanjing suddenly became favorite tourist sites for the simple reason that from the top of these buildings traveling scholars could overlook the Yangtze River and the vast lands to the north, the two places that were objects of their longing, where their thoughts about the past always traveled. The scholars’ border travels in turn generated many good literary pieces. For instance, Dai Fugu 戴復古 (1167–1248), a junior contemporary of Jiang Kui, left a number of poems after he traveled along the Huai River and witnessed the post-war trauma suffered by the local people. Those poems include “Frequently Drinking from the Huai River” 頻酌淮 河水, “The Looted Huai Village” 淮村兵後, “Gazing Northward [from?]

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   77 Xuyi” 盱眙北望, and “Floating River Hall in Jiangyin” 江陰浮遠堂. In the last poem, he writes,5 橫岡下瞰大江流， From the mountain, I looked down on the roaring river, 浮遠堂前萬里愁。 Before Floating-River Hall, ten thousand miles of sorrow. 最苦無山遮望眼， The bitterest was the absence of mountains to block my view, 淮南極目盡神州。 Letting me look from the south of the river to the ends of the northern land.

In this poem, the poet has ascended the Floating-River Hall to look across the Huai River to the north, only to find the landscape has become a wasteland. In most previous literary works that describe a yearning for home, writers would loathe the presence of mountains because they prevented one’s view from extending further.6 But in this poem, the poet reverses this logic. This ingenious change lets us see the poet’s originality, but more importantly, it provides us a glimpse of the complex emotions that Southern Song poets felt while traveling in the border region. Jiang Kui must have felt the same when he wrote about his border travels. In Jiang Kui’s memory, those days merited special literary commemoration. In his poems, he writes about his feelings after arriving in the Jiang-Huai region. For instance, he wrote about dangers he encountered on the Yangtze River, which might have some deeper implications as well. Jiang Kui once wrote a famous song lyric to the tune of Yangzhou man 揚州慢, which reads, 淮左名都， In this most famed city on the south bank of the Huai, At Bamboo-west Pavilion, a beautiful place, 竹西佳處， 解鞍少駐初程。 I unstrap the saddle for a brief halt at the first stage. 過春風十里， Through ten miles in the spring wind, 盡薺麥青青。 There is nothing but green shepherd’s purse and wheat. 自胡馬窺江去後， Since Tartar horses spying on the Yangtze have left,

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Zhang Hongsheng 廢池喬木， 猶厭言兵。 漸黃昏、 清角吹寒， 都在空城。 杜郎俊賞， 算而今、 重到須驚。 縱豆蔻詞工， 青樓夢好， 難賦深情。 二十四橋仍在， 波心蕩、 冷月無聲。 念橋邊紅藥， 年年知為誰生。

Abandoned ponds and lofty trees Still detest talk of warfare. Gradually it becomes dusk, A clear horn blows out of the cold, In the empty city. Du Mu, the eminent connoisseur, Were he to return today, could not fail to be astonished. Though his poem on the cardamom was skillful And his dream at the blue mansion was lovely, He would find it hard to express these deep feelings. His Twenty-Four Bridges still exist, Waves stir at midstream— the cold moon makes no sound. I pity the peonies beside the bridge, For whom do they grow year after year?7

In the preface to this song lyric, he writes, During the Chunxi reign period (1174–89), I passed through Yangzhou at the winter solstice of 1176. The previous night’s snow began to melt away and shepherd’s purse (capsella bursa pastoris) and wheat extended as far as the eye could see. Entering the city walls, I saw ruin and desolation on all sides. Cold water lay jade green. Sunset colors slowly set in and the guard’s horn sadly moaned. My spirit was desolate; I sighed over the past and present. As a result, I composed this song lyric. The Old Man of a Thousand Cliffs [i.e., Xiao Dezao] feels that it has the sadness of the “Shuli” 黍離 [a poem in the The Book of Songs 詩經, expressing grief on viewing the desolation of the abandoned Zhou capital].8

The “Poems on Past Travels” do not provide such a clear and concrete description as we find in this song lyric. However, since Jiang Kui had visited the Yangtze River border area, it should not surprise us that he cherished the feelings he experienced there and later strove to express in his poems. These feelings, so similar to those in “Yangzhou man,” often have to be found between the lines. Sometimes they are

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   79 revealed, but in most cases they are imbedded in the poet’s description of, say, the turbulence on the Yangtze River, which allows us to see the poet’s faintly discernible anxieties around the circumstances of the time. In light of this, we can say that though the poet was living in Hangzhou, a city of happiness and prosperity, he could not help but constantly think of his border travels in the Jiang-Huai region. The sharp contrast between these two times and places is precisely where we discern the worries and concerns the poet had deeply buried in his mind. Being conscious of the adversity of one’s own time is an important feature of Confucianism. The famous Confucian saying, “He who gives no thought to far-flung problems soon finds suffering nearby”9 and the Mencius admonition to “thrive in calamity and perish in soft living”10 are both good examples of this. Throughout his life, Du Fu had been a faithful follower of Confucianism.11 Whenever he wrote about his life, he would embed this consciousness of adversity in the literary images he created, letting us see his concerns about his time. Just as the Song critics would later comment, “All of Shaoling’s 少陵 (Du Fu’s style name) poems express worry about his country.”12 Even his travel poems were no exception. In the “Tietang Gorge” 鐵堂峽, he writes, 生涯抵弧矢， My life pressed forward like a flying arrow, 盜賊殊未滅。 The thieves and bandits had not yet been wiped out. 飄蓬逾三年， Like a fleabane seed, I wandered more than three years. 回首肝肺熱。 Looking back, my heart burns with worries and sorrow.

In “Dragon Gate Garrison” 龍門鎮, he writes, 胡馬屯成皋， The barbarian army was stationed at Chenggao County. 防虞此何及。 How could it be reached from the defenses here? 嗟爾遠戍人， Alas! I grieved for the men who had marched afar, 山寒夜中泣。 They cried at night from the cold of the mountains.

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In “Stone Shrine” 石龕, he writes, 苦雲直簳盡， The bamboo-cutters said bitterly, “All bamboo has been cut down.” 無以應提攜。 There is nothing left to make arrows for the soldiers. 奈何漁陽騎， What can we do about the usurpers’ army pressing from Yuyang? 颯颯驚蒸藜。 The thunder of the hooves startles everything on the ground.13

As we can see, any of the landscape references in these poems might trigger the poet’s sentiment, causing him to think about the adversities people suffered. Jiang Kui also inherited this consciousness of adversity. For example, in the “Poems on Past Travels” group, in the one that starts, “There were no mountains anywhere around Haoliang,” he describes how he proceeded fearlessly on horseback against heavy storms. But in the last two lines of the poem, he writes, 徘徊望神州， I lingered and gazed toward the sacred land, 沉歎英雄寡。 Lamenting our lack of heroes to recover it from the enemy’s hand.

The transition from the previous lines to these two seems a bit abrupt, and enables us to see how Jiang Kui’s thought had jumped from a proud recognition of his own heroic spirit to a sorrowful realization of the lack of persons in the Southern Song government capable of recovering the lost territory in the north. This bitter revelation made him suddenly think of the north while traveling through the south. Another poem that starts with “When the snow stopped and the sky cleared, I sailed down the Yangtze River” shows a similar leap of thought. It begins with a description of the poet’s peaceful travel along the Yangtze. The water was calm and the poet was enjoying the scenery. But after that, the poem concludes with an abrupt turn. 潮催庾信老， The tides ebb and surge, making Yu Xin old; 雲送佛狸還。 The clouds see Bi Li home.

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   81 萬古感心事， Troubled by things in the ancient past, 惆悵垂楊灣。 My heart withers at a bay of weeping willows.

The meaning of these four lines is conveyed in a rather disguised manner. Yu Xin 庾信 (512––81) was originally a court official in the Southern Liang dynasty (502–57). He was sent on a diplomatic mission to the Northern Dynasties (386–581), but was detained there. Although he was respected and well treated in the north, the desire to return to his home country had never for a moment ceased to torture his mind. In this poem, Jiang Kui creatively refers to this anecdote. By comparing himself to Yu Xin, a southerner who helplessly aged and withered in the north, he expressed his own frustration, a northerner forced to migrate from the Central Plain south and who aspired in vain to return north. The second line alludes to another event taking place in the twenty-seventh year (450) of the Yuanjia 元嘉 reign (424–53). That year, a northern expedition launched by the Liu Song (420–79) dynasty suffered a disaster, and Tuoba Tao 拓跋燾, the Emperor Taiwu (408–52, style name Bi Li 佛狸) of the Northern Wei (386–535), grasped the opportunity to retaliate. The eastwing troops (of the Northern Wei) pressed as far as Guabu Mountain 瓜布山 north of Jiankang 建康 (present-day Nanjing) and built a temporary palace there. When Jiang Kui traveled to the Yangtze River, he thought of the similar failure the Southern Song army had suffered in its northern expedition. He could not help but be “troubled by things in the ancient past.” Hence, the abrupt turn at the end of the poem in fact let us see the complex feelings that Jiang Kui experienced at the time. It enables us to see that even under the guise of a commoner far removed from the political center, Jiang Kui remained deeply concerned about his country and his time. He can be called a person who “harbored deep thoughts about politics in spite of his life in idleness.”14 Since Northern Song times, Hangzhou had enjoyed a flourishing urban culture. By the Southern Song, the city’s development had reached a new height. Naide Weng 耐得翁 (pseud. dates unknown) once compared the capital of the Northern Song with that of the Southern Song as follows: Once the founding emperor of the Song settled the capital in Bianjing [present-day Kaifeng], its customs and rites became models for people

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everywhere. After Emperor Gaozong settled in Hangzhou, the beautiful landscape and abundant resources in the city made it ten times better than the original capital city. The markets [in Hangzhou] were equivalent to those in the original capital. Now, it was more than a hundred years past the Restoration Era. Sage kings succeeded each other in their rule, and peace had been maintained for a long time. More wealth had been accumulated and more people had gathered in the city. Compared with the Restoration Era, the city [of Hangzhou] is [again] ten times better.15

Hangzhou’s beautiful landscapes, especially West Lake, also turned the city into a famous tourist spot. As Zhou Mi 周密 (1232–98) recorded it, Regardless of morning or night, rain or sunshine, West Lake always reveals its world-renowned beauty over the four seasons. It is frequented by Hangzhou residents all year long, but especially during the springtime. In those peaceful days, hundreds of ferries sail on the lake, such as the Big Green, Patterned Green, Ten Damask, HundredFlower, Gold Ornament, and Bright Jade. The smaller ones are countless. All the boats are extravagantly decorated and contend with each other in beauty and fascination. The capital residents and scholars crowd onto the two causeways, and there is barely room to stand. With thousands of boats gathered on the lake like fish scales, they can hardly move. Pleasant songs and flute and drum music resound far and near. Its splendor can only be imagined.16

A Ming dynasty scholar, Tian Rucheng 田汝成 (1503–57), even wrote a book titled Records of Excursions on West Lake 西湖遊覽志, in nineteen chapters, to describe the natural and cultural scenes around West Lake. After Jiang Kui had settled in Hangzhou, he also went on excursions around the city. However, as Lin Jiarong 林佳蓉 has observed, though Jiang Kui wrote twenty-seven song lyrics about Hangzhou, accounting for almost one-third of the entire corpus of his song lyrics, “none of them exclusively depicted the natural landscapes. The descriptions of landscape were almost invariably contrasted to worries about the fate of his country, his feelings about his vagrant life, and nostalgia for the past. Song lyrics that were themed on nature or landscape were extremely scarce.”17 Unlike

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   83 his song lyrics, however, Jiang Kui wrote quite a few poems that describe the beautiful landscapes in Hangzhou, especially its cultural scenery. These poems, such as the ten “Impromptu Poems on Watching the Lanterns,” the four “Lantern Poems,” and the two “Poems on Spring” present us with lively pictures of Hangzhou’s bustling urban scenes and rich cultural life. But the descriptions of real landscape in his poems have many things in common with those in his song lyrics. In his famous “Miscellaneous Pieces on Residing by the Lake,” which treats the beautiful scenery of West Lake, his descriptions are often clouded by an atmosphere of melancholy and depression. When he wrote about West Lake, he did not so much capture its liveliness and prosperity as dwell on its bleak loneliness after the tourists had left. 處處虛堂望眼寬， Anywhere you look, a sweep of the empty halls, 荷花荷葉過闌干。 The lotus flowers and leaves reach across the railings. 遊人去後無歌鼓， After the revelers are gone, no song or music is left, 白水青山生暮寒。 Only the evening chill emitted from green mountains and white river.

In the face of this beautiful landscape, Jiang Kui felt only frustration at his fruitless efforts to serve his country: 囊封萬字總空言， My sealed memorial contains ten-thousand words, all of them empty. 露滴桐枝欲斷弦。 The dew beads drips on the parasol tree, nearly breaking its branches. 時事悠悠吾亦懶， Worldly affairs go on and on, and I am tired. 臥看秋水浸山煙。 Lying on my back, I watch how the autumn water and mountain mist fade together.18

While Jiang Kui certainly appreciated the beauty of West Lake, he could not fully immerse himself in it. At the beginning of another poem titled “Jottings on My Views of the Lake in the Seventh Month of the Dingsi Year,” he first writes about the beautiful sight of moonrise on West Lake,

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Zhang Hongsheng 白天碎碎如拆綿， The daytime is as white as cotton torn into pieces, 黑天昧昧如陳玄。 The nighttime is as black as an ink-stone worn by the ages. 白黑破處青天出， Where the white and black are rent, the blue sky emerges, 海月飛來光尚濕。 As the sea moon flies over, its light still feels wet.

Then suddenly he thinks of the hungry northern refugees, 天邊有餅不可食， A cake hangs at the edge of the sky, but it cannot be eaten. 聞說饑民滿淮北。 I heard that starving refugees had massed north of the Huai.19

The shape of the moon made Jiang Kui think of the famines in the JiangHuai region that followed on recent wars and natural disasters. This stream of thought follows the same pattern found in his “Poems on Past Travels.” Although now settled in Hangzhou, his thoughts still returned to those days along the border. This is clear evidence Jiang could not forget how the common people struggled, even though his own living conditions had improved. As is generally known, after the Song court migrated to the south, seeking a temporary peace to the east of the Yangtze River, a craving for luxury and extravagance came to prevail in society. This was especially true in the capital city, Hangzhou. In his poem “Written at an Inn in Lin’an,” Lin Sheng 林升 (fl. 1106–70) observes, 山外青山樓外樓， Hills beyond hills, mansions beyond mansions; 西湖歌舞幾時休 ? The singing and dancing by West Lake—when will they ever end? 暖風熏得遊人醉， Warm breezes waft over revelers till they are drunk, 直把杭州作汴州。 Simply taking Hangzhou as the capital Bianzhou.20

Another song lyric that vividly describes the Hangzhou lifestyle is Wen Jiweng’s 文及翁 (fl. 1253–75) “West Lake, to the tune of He xinlang.” Below is the first half of this piece:

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   85 一勺西湖水， That ladle of West Lake water, 渡江來、 Since we crossed the river, 百年歌舞， [Has seen] a hundred years of singing and dancing, 百年酣醉。 A hundred years of drunken stupor. 回首洛陽花世界， Looking back to Luoyang, that world of flowers: 煙渺黍離之地。 A faraway place covered with mists and straggling millet. 更不復、 Nobody is ever again seen 新亭墮淚。 shedding tears at the New Pavilion. 簇樂紅妝搖畫艇， Musical ensembles in red attire rock in painted boats 問中流、 In the middle of the lake, 擊楫誰人是？ I ask, Is there anyone beating the oars? 千古恨， The resentment of a thousand generations, 21 幾時洗？ When can it be washed away?

Wen Jiweng’s song lyric is even more sharply critical of the complacent, pleasure-driven corruptive life style prevailing in Song government and society after it moved to the south. When Jiang Kui lived in Hangzhou, he naturally witnessed the extravagance and corruption that Lin Sheng and Wen Jiweng describe in their poems. Hence, although his “Poems on Past Travels” concern the poet’s past, they are also imbued with a veiled criticism of the present, a clear reference to the critical spirit found in Du Fu’s poems. Han Biao 韓淲 (1159–1224), one of Jiang Kui’s friends, once expressed his admiration for the latter’s poetic talent after reading the “Poems on Past Travels.” He said that though he had also reveled along the Yangtze River, he saw far less than did Jiang Kui and so wrote far less striking accounts: 吾嘗泛大江， I once sailed on the Great River, 只見康廬松。 But only saw the pine trees on Mount Lu. 乘風醉臥帆影底， Borne along by the wind, I lay drunk under the shadow of the sails, 高浪直濺嵐光濃。 Tall waves splashed against the thick mountain light. 日暮泊船時， When I moored my boat at sunset, 是夜方嚴冬。 The night was cold and wintery.

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Zhang Hongsheng 雪花壓船船背重， Snow pressed heavily onto the boat. 纜搖柁鼓聲如鐘。 The ropes shook and the rudder drummed, making sounds loud as temple bells. 當年意淺語不到， My thought was shallow and words less eloquent at that time, 無句可寫波濤舂。 I could not write a line to describe the pounding waves. 君詩乃如許， Your poems are so good, 景物不易供。 That they can delineate things that are hard to picture. 盡歸一毫端， With a single touch of the tip of your brush, 狀出三飛龍。 You can conjure up three flying dragons. 人間勝處貴著眼， The best views in the world only become so when they are seen. 雖有此興無由逢。 Though I have the desire to see, there is no way I could do it.

But perhaps the most important lines in this poem are the following: 江淮歷歷轉湘浦， Clearly visible, across the Yangtze and the Huai, then on to the Xiang, 裘馬意氣傳邊烽。 The warrior spirit was passed on through the beacon fires on the border.

What Han Biao truly admired in Jiang Kui’s poems was his warrior spirit, a spirit found in the following two lines of the eighth poem in “Poems on Past Travels,” which describes Jiang Kui’s trip to Changsha and Lake Dongting. It alludes to the unsuccessful invasion launched by Wanyan Liang 完顏亮 (1122–61) against Hubei and Hunan in 1161, 是年虜亮至， The barbarian Wanyan Liang arrived that year, 送死江之壖。 Only to meet his death not far from the River.

Another example of this warrior spirit can be found in the thirteenth poem, cited above, which laments the Song’s lack of capable persons who could turn the tide in its ongoing wars.

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   87 徘徊望神州， I lingered and gazed toward the sacred land, 沉歎英雄寡。 Lamenting our lack of heroes to recover it from the enemy’s hand.

All these lines impressed Han Biao deeply. In addition to expressing his admiration, he also described his personal feelings about living in Hangzhou, 錢唐山水亦自好， Though the mountains and rivers in Qiantang are indeed good, It is hard to live in comfort as a minor official.22 奈何薄宦難從容。

Jiang Kui did not hold any kind of official position, but he too found it “hard to live in comfort” in Hangzhou. His consciousness and concerns over the adversity of his time was well understood by his friend Han Biao. Han’s “Writing after the ‘Poems on Past Travels’” helps us understanding Jiang Kui’s poems. At the same time, it also helps us to recognize the mental struggle many Southern Song scholars went through as they attempted to integrate that consciousness of adversity with their love for the natural scenery and landscape in Hangzhou.

“Poems on Past Travels” and the Rivers and Lakes School of Poetry The Rivers and Lakes School of Poetry was an active poetry group for nearly eighty years, from the middle to late periods of the Southern Song. The rise and development of this poetry school was closely related to the development of city culture in the Southern Song, especially that of Hangzhou. The Rivers and Lakes School was a unique poetry collective. Most of its members did not pursue political advancement by participating in the civil service examinations, nor did they remain in their hometowns as farmers. They roamed from town to town, hoping to become famous by writing poetry, and they were often called “literati vagrants who roamed the rivers and lakes.” Most of them were attracted by the beautiful affluent life in Hangzhou and gathered in the capital.23 A good account of

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this can be found in Wu Zimu’s 吳自牧 (fl. 1270) Records of the Millet Dream 夢粱錄, where he writes about the various West Lake poetry societies formed by the “vagrant scholars” and scholar-officials in Lin’an.24 Similarly, Fang Hui 方回 (1227–1305) also wrote, “Since the Qingyuan 慶元 [1195–1200] and Jianding 嘉定 [1208–24] periods, there were poets who chose to become guest-retainers (yeke 謁客). Poets like Liu Guo 劉過 (1154–1206, courtesy name Gaizhi 改之 and style name Longzhou 龍洲), and Dai Fugu 戴復古 (style name Shiping 石屏), are good examples of this. This practice was so popular at the time that few were willing to study for the civil service exams anymore. . . . Hundreds of poets gathered around the mountains and lakes of the Hangzhou area.”25 The reason that the Rivers and Lakes poets could “gather in the hundreds” in Hangzhou was closely related to the city’s booming publishing industry. Many cities in the Southern Song had highly developed commercial publishing, and Hangzhou was one of them. Among all the renowned publishers there, Chen Qi 陳起 (fl. 1194–1224) was especially prominent.26 Chen Qi’s family had lived in Lin’an for generations. He opened a bookshop at Muqin fang 睦親坊 and published many poetry anthologies, including Tang poems as well as poems written by contemporary poets. He was especially interested in publishing work by the Rivers and Lakes poets and produced collections such as the A Small Anthology of the Rivers and Lakes Poems 江湖小集, A Sequel to the Anthology of the Rivers and Lakes Poems 江湖後集, and Rivers and Lakes Poems of the Restoration Era 中興江湖集. He published so many poems by these men because he recognized that people of the time were quite interested in this distinctive poetry group, which constantly criticized the Jiangxi School of poetry and promoted the literary principles and poetic styles of the late Tang. Chen Qi maintained good rapport with the Rivers and Lakes poets by lending them books, writing with them at social gatherings, getting to know their activities, and soliciting works from them. This put him in an excellent position to fulfill his readers’ demand for good poetry by publishing new poems in a timely fashion. Chen Qi’s methods were unusual and quite distinctive in Chinese history. This in turn earned him a reputation among contemporaries for his “mature appearance and well-seasoned knowledge” 氣貌老成聞見熟, and he became “a poetic compass for the Rivers and Lakes poets” 江湖指作定南針.27 The traditional view considers Jiang Kui to have belonged to the Rivers and Lakes School since his poems were collected in the various

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   89 anthologies of their work. But Jiang Kui was in fact quite senior to most of poets in that school. Even the “Four Lings of Yongjia” 永嘉四靈, four poets of Yongjia County in Zhejiang, known for their poetic mastery and their advocacy of late Tang poetic styles, were nearly twenty years younger. In light of this, Jiang Kui should rightly be called a precursor of the precursors of the Rivers and Lakes School. In the twelfth chapter of Zhou Mi’s Conversations with the Rustic from Eastern Qi 齊東野語, there is an “Autobiographical Account” written by Jiang Kui himself, in which he lists all his contemporary admirers. The first paragraph runs as follows: I lost my father early in life and have been depressed ever since. But, fortunately, I managed to undertake the scholarly profession of my ancestors. When I bustled around in my youth, I benefited by learning from all the renowned nobles and great scholars. Master Liang, the Imperial Academician, who was also from my hometown, liked my poems for their resemblance to the Tang poems. He told me that my song lyrics were the best in the world. Master Zheng [Zheng Qiao 鄭僑, 1170 huangyuan], the Commissioner of Military Affairs, liked my prose very much and asked me to write a piece at a banquet seat. After I finished, Zheng beat out the time as he chanted it, and extolled it over and over again. Master Fan Chengda [范成大, 1126– 93], the Vice Grand Councilor, thought both my writing and personality resembled those of renowned scholars of the Jin [265–420] and Liu Song [420–79] dynasties. Master Yang Wanli [楊萬里, 1127– 1206], the Edict Attendant, was willing to become a good friend despite the great difference in our ages because he thought I, just like Lu Tiansui [Lu Guimeng 陸龜蒙, fl. 9th c.], was well versed in all literary works. Master Xiao [Xiao Dezao 蕭徳藻, 1151 jinshi] of Fuzhou, known by the world as the “Old Man of a Thousand Cliffs,” said he had spent forty years looking for a poet friend like me. Master Zhu [Zhu Xi朱熹, 1130–1200], the Edict Attendant, admired me for both my prose and my profound understanding of the rites and music. Master Jing [Jing Tang 京鏜, 1138–1200], the Grand Councilor, not only praised my books on the rites and music, but also loved my parallel prose. Master Xie [Xie Shenfu 謝深甫, 1166 jinshi], the Grand Councilor, liked my books on music so much that he sent

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his second son to study with me. Master Xin Jiaxuan [Xin Qiji 辛棄疾, 1140–1207] deeply admired my song lyrics. Other eminent scholars of the time who cannot all be described here, such as Master Sun Congzhi [Sun Fengchi 孫逢吉, 1135–99], Master Hu Yingqi [Hu Hong 胡紘, 1139–1204], Master Yang of Jiangling, Master Zhang of Nanzhou, Master Wu [Wu Rousheng 吳柔勝, 1181 jinshi] of Jinling, Wu Defu [Wu Lie 吳獵, 1142–1213], Xiang Pingfu [Xiang Anshi 項安 世, 1129–1208], Xu Ziyuan [Xu Ji 徐璣, 1162–1214], Zeng Youdu [Zeng Feng 曾豐, 1142–1224], Shang Huizhong [Shang Feiqing 商飛 卿, 1175 jinshi], Wang Huishu [Wang Yan 王炎, 1137–1218], and Yi Yanzhang [Yi Fu 易祓, 1156–1240], liked my personality, poetry, prose, or calligraphy enough to condescend to become acquainted with me. As for the scholars of Dongzhou 東州 such as Master Lou Dafang [Lou Yue 樓鑰, 1137–1213] and Master Ye Zhengze [Ye Shi 葉適, 1150–1223], they all extremely marveled at my literary talent.28

This passage is often quoted in discussions of Jiang Kui’s poetry. What scholars especially like to mention is the part where Jiang Kui’s literary talent was praised by such notable figures as Fan Chengda, Yang Wanli, Xiao Dezao, Zhu Xi and Xin Qiji. In doing so, however, they often neglect the last sentence, where “Master Ye Zhengze” appears. “Master Ye Zhengze” refers to Ye Shi, who was also a big fan and a patron of the Four Lings of Yongjia, the direct precursors of the Rivers and Lakes School. In his “Epitaph for Xu Wenyuan” 徐文淵墓誌銘, Ye Shi expressed his encouragement and praise of the Four Lings’ writings as follows: Initially, the great tradition of Tang poetry had been abandoned for a long time. You and your friends Xu Zhao [徐照,?–1211], Weng Juan [翁卷, dates unknown], and Zhao Shiyou [趙師秀, 1170–1219] often talked about this. “The past poets paid great attention to the skillful use of the level and oblique tones, and judged the merit of a poem by its choice of a single word and structuring of a single sentence. Those were indeed the essential principles of good poetry. Nowadays, poets write lengthy dry poems, and go on and on without control or limit. How can they ever become great poets this way?” The four of you then worked hard to perfect your poetic language, and the great tradition of Tang poetry was thereby revived.29

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   91 What did Ye Shi especially like about poems by the Four Lings? Their works were said to all possess a “pure and fresh spirit” 清氣; that is, they are not hackneyed. The poetic form most often used was the pentasyllabic regulated verse 五言律詩). Zhao Shixiu even said once, “It is fortunate that a poem has only forty words, because if there were one more word, I wouldn’t know how to deal with it.”30 As Yan Yu 嚴羽 (ca. 1192–ca. 1245) pointed out in his Discourses on Poetry by Canglang 滄浪詩話, “Most of the poets of the Rivers and Lakes School emulated the [Four Lings’] style,” 31 and many poets in that school also chose to write primarily in pentasyllabic regulated verse. Of course, if we examine poems by the Rivers and Lakes poets from a more comprehensive perspective, we will find that they also liked, and were adept in writing, heptasyllabic quatrains (qiyan jueju,七言絕句). This might be due to the fact that pentasyllabic regulated form requires careful thinking and planning in advance and is therefore an ideal form for less gifted poets who wanted to become famous through their diligent practice. The short length of heptasyllabic quatrain, however, allows poets to readily capture a sentimental moment and express their “native sensibility” (xingling 性靈) with some measure of spontaneity. If this was the case, how should we understand Ye Shi’s admiration for Jiang Kui? Jiang Kui did not specify which of his poems Ye Shi had “especially marveled at.” But to figure this out, we must first get a more comprehensive picture of Jiang Kui’s poetry. Of all the poems that Jiang Kui wrote in his life, only 187 pieces survived.32 According to the Collection of Poems and Song Lyrics by the White Stone [Daoist] 白石詩詞集, published by People’s Literature Publishing House in 1959, we can see that Jiang Kui chose the following poetic forms for those 187 poems. Hexa- HeptaPentaHeptaPentaHeptaPentasyllabic syllabic syllabic syllabic syllabic syllabic syllabic ancient-style ancient-style regulated regulated quatrain quatrain quatrain verse verse 五古 wugu

七古 qigu

五律 wulü

七律 qilü

五絕 wujue

六絕 liujue

七絕 qijue

45

12

11

16

10

2

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It becomes obvious from this table, if we exclude the marginal hexasyllabic quatrain (liuyan jueju 六言絕句), the pentasyllabic regulated form is next to last among the poetic forms Jiang Kui chose to write in. This is a little strange. As a precursor of the Rivers and Lakes School, why would Jiang Kui’s choice of the poetic forms be so different from that made by other poets of the school? The heptasyllabic quatrain seems to have been Jiang Kui’s favorite, since its number accounts for almost half of his extant work. But this choice does not explain Ye Shi’s admiration. As a matter of fact, many Tang and Song poets, such as Wang Changling 王昌齡 (ca.690–ca.756), Du Mu 杜牧 (803–ca.852), Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021–86) and Yang Wanli, were adept at writing heptasyllabic quatrains. Although Jiang Kui was certainly not bad at composing in this form, it is hard to argue that he did a better job than his predecessors. Moreover, Ye Shi had praised the Four Lings for reviving the tradition of writing pentasyllabic regulated verse, which had been popular in the mid-to-late Tang period. But of the heptasyllabic quatrain hardly represents that practice. So what was the true reason for Ye Shi’s admiration? If we carefully examine all the poetic forms Jiang Kui like to use, we find he was especially fond of linked verse. Of all his extant works, there are five groups (34 poems total) of pentasyllabic ancient-style linked poems (wugu lianzhang, 五古聯章), two groups (5 poems total) of pentasyllabic regulated linked poems (wulü lianzhang, 五律聯章), four groups (9 poems total) of pentasyllabic and hexasyllabic linked quatrains (wujue, liujue lianzhang, 五絕、 六絕聯章), and eleven groups (57 poems total) of heptasyllabic linked quatrains (qijue lianzhang,七絕聯章). The sheer number of linked poems testifies to their importance in Jiang Kui’s writing. Jiang Kui of course had his own special aesthetic considerations. In his Discourses on Poetry 詩說, he especially emphasizes, “When writing long-form poems (dapian 大篇), one should pay special attention to the arrangement, should balance the beginning and the end, and plump out the middle.” “When a long poem can both stretch out and pull back, then it can be considered a good one.” “The stretching-out and pulling-back in writing are like the waves on a river, in the sense that a subsiding wave is immediately followed by a rising one. It is also like placing troops on the battlefield. A full attack can suddenly turn into a surprise raid, and an ambush can become a head-on strike. The possibilities of change are constant and numerous, but they never confuse the rules and principles.”33 The arrangement stretching out and pulling back are all the

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   93 principles that one should pay attention to when writing a long-form poem. As literary critics have pointed out, linked verse can also be considered a type of long-form poem, for each linked unit is not only an independent piece, but also an indispensable part of the larger entity.34 Jiang Kui applied these theoretical insights to his own writing, the best proof of which may be found in the “Poems on Past Travels.” There are also other examples, such as the ten linked heptasyllabic quatrains titled “Returning to the Tiao Rivulet from Stone Lake on New Year’s Eve” 除夜自石湖歸苕溪, which was written in the winter of the second year (1191) of the Shaoxi reign (1190–94) commemorating Jiang Kui’s departure from Fan Chengda’s villa. These linked quatrains start with a passage about Jiang Kui’s returning boat trip with the sing-song girl Xiao Hong 小紅. That is followed by a series of poems describing his experiences during the trip, his missing his hometown, the landscapes he saw on the way, his memories of the past and longing for the future. These linked quatrains end with another poem about Xiao Hong, bringing the entire series to closure by returning to its starting point. The poet’s sadness at parting with his friend, pleasure at returning home, regret for his lack of accomplishment, and other exquisite feelings have been meticulously mixed into different layers of these poems, making all the linked quatrains into a highly integrated and interconnected whole. Yang Wanli thought very highly of this poetic structure and its effects. He once praised it for being “so meticulous as to tailor the clouds and seam the mist” and its sound “so wonderful that it resembles the extraordinary music made by striking metal and tapping jade” 有裁雲縫霧之妙思，敲金戛玉之奇聲. Another example is the six linked heptasyllabic quatrains titled “In Snow: Six Sections” 雪中六解, which describe snow scenes Jiang Kui had witnessed at different places. In his discussion of the structure of these linked quatrains, Chen Si 陳思 (fl. 1225–64) says: This group of linked poems starts with a description of a snow scene in Haoliang the poet saw during his northward travel in the bingshen year [1176] of the Chunxi reign. It ends with a poem about the poet’s entering the Yue region in the guihai year [1204] of the Jiatai reign [1201–4] to enjoy a view of the snow with Jiaxuan in the Autumn Wind Pavilion (秋風亭). The middle four poems recount the snow on Yellow Crane Tower (黃鶴樓) in Mian’e, on Mount Wu (吳山) in the provisional capital, and near the Drooping Rainbow Bridge (垂虹) on

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New Year’s Eve. These snow scenes, scattered across five different places, let us see the poet’s footprints during his thirty years of travel.

The idea to use different snow scenes to sew up the poet’s thirty years of travel was clearly the poet’s artful structural design. At the end of his comment, Chen Si does not forget to point out that “[this group of linked quatrains] uses the same structural design as the ‘Poems on Past Travels.’”35 By comparing these two groups of linked poems, both written late in Jiang Kui’s life,36 Chen Si made a truly incisive observation. If we examine the modes of expression used in the “Poems on Past Travels” more closely, we will be able to understand Jiang Kui’s artistic concerns. Repetition is the first and foremost thing a poet should avoid in describing landscapes, especially if the poet is writing about the same place at the same time, where little or no change can be easily discerned. How to infuse difference in sameness, therefore, becomes the touchstone of true poetic skill and talent. Du Fu set a good example on this matter. His poems about the Qin Mountains (秦嶺) delineate the mountains from a variety of angles, constantly providing his readers with fresh views and new aesthetic experiences of the subject. Jiang Kui clearly took to this method of writing. Many poems in his “Poems on Past Travels” mention Lake Dongting. Though the vast and smooth surface of the lake makes it more susceptible to monotonous description than a mountain range, Jiang Kui managed to avoid repetition by depicting the lake from different perspectives. For instance, in the poem that begins “Lake Dongting spreads out eight hundred li,” he focuses primarily on the lake’s tranquil beauty in moonlight, which resembles “mercury on a jade plate” 玉盤盛水 銀. The poem contains many beautiful lines that describe the serenity of the lake at night, such as: 長虹忽照影， The rainbow suddenly casts its reflection on the lake. 大哉五色輪。 Ah! How immense this wheel of five colors!

And the following poem: 青蘆望不盡， One can never see to the end of the green reeds, 明月耿如燭。 The moonlight illuminates the sky like a bright candle.

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   95 Another poem37 concentrates mostly on describing the vastness of the lake, as can be seen from the line “Lake Dongting encompasses all five rivers” (洞庭包五河). The poet continues, 洶洶不得道， I lost my course on the roaring lake, 茫茫將何歸。 Didn’t know how to get back across the water’s vast wastes. 是中大無岸， The lake was so vast [one could see] no shore, 強指葦與沙。 We could only hang onto reeds and sandbars.

Here the poet mocks his own helplessness. In another poem,38 he outlines various dangers he encountered on the lake: 大風忽怒起， A fierce wind suddenly arose, 我舟如葉輕。 My boat was like a small and fragile leaf. 或升千丈坡， Sometimes it rose ten-thousand feet on the tops of the waves; 或落千丈坑。 Sometimes it dropped into a watery abyss tenthousand feet deep.

The poet then uses war-related metaphors to describe the ferocity of the enormous waves,

如飛鵝車炮， [The waves] shot forth like cannonballs from siege carriages,39 亂打睢陽城。 Smashing wildly against the city walls of Suiyang. 又如白獅子， Or like a pride of white lions, 山下跳鬇鬡。 Bounding down the mountain, tossing their disheveled manes.

The first two lines allude to a famous battle in the second year of the Zhide 至德 reign (756–58) of Tang Emperor Suzong 肅宗 (711–62, r. 756–62), two years after the An–Shi Rebellion 安史之亂 (755–63) broke out. Zhang Xun 張巡 (708–57) and Xu Yuan 許遠 (709–57), who were leading the Tang defensive forces to guard the city of Suiyang (a military stronghold of the Jiang-Huai region), sacrificed their lives to hold back

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the rebel army for ten long months. Though the city was eventually captured, those ten months of defense bought the Tang government invaluable time to collect taxes and other financial support from the Jiang-Huai region, which laid the foundation for the government’s eventual success against the rebel army. Whether Yin Ziqi 尹子奇 (?–757), the general who led the attack against Suiyang, used the eche 鵝車 siege carriages is not clearly documented in the historical records, and it is possible that Jiang Kui used his imagination of the ferocity of cannonballs firing against the city to capture the brutality of that siege and then compare it to the ferocity of the waves. By alluding to the battle of Suiyang, he also urges us to see the importance of this region during the confrontational period between the Song and Jurchen Jin dynasties. As I pointed out earlier, with his deep consciousness of the adversity in his own time, Jiang Kui paid special attention to what he witnessed in the Jiang-Huai region when thinking about his “past travels.” The imagery of the pounding artillery he uses to describe the fighting at Suiyang reminds us not only of Xu Yuan and Zhang Xun’s martyrdom in defense of that city, but also the Jurchens’ use of the same weaponry to attack Northern Song cities only a hundred years before. In the eleventh month of the first year of the Jingkang 靖康 reign (1126), when the Jurchens attacked the Shanli 善利 and Tongjin 通津 gates of the Northern Song capital, they “used a variety of siege weapons including fire ladders, scaling ladders, sky bridges, battering rams, and eche siege carriages.”40 Similarly, in the fifth month of the first year of the Shaoxing reign (1135), when the Jurchens attacked the county seat of Dangtu 當塗, they also “used hundreds of scaling ladders, cannons, sky bridges, siege towers, eche siege carriages, and filled up the moat on all sides, feeling confident that they were destined to win.”41 Although Jiang Kui did not personally witness the fall of the Northern Song, he clearly had strong feelings about it. (As discussed previously, his song lyric Yangzhou man, which contains a vivid description of the devastation at Yangzhou after the Jurchen invasion, is evidence of his emotions.) He clearly had learned much about the fierceness of the Song-Jin wars, as well as the details of some attacks on Song cities.42 In the light of this, the imagery of the eche siege carriages that he used to illustrate Tang warfare in his poem could in fact be interpreted as a subtle allusion to the fall of the Northern Song, which in turn would remind the Southern Song of its critical situation in face of the war threats from the Jurchens. That is to say, Jiang Kui wanted his contemporaries to learn from the fall of the Northern Song and remain vigilant about the

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   97 imminent dangers that loomed in times of apparent peace and safety.43 Using war-related metaphors to depict natural landscape is a distinct feature of Jiang’s “Poems on Past Travels.” This will become clear in our analysis of other poems in this group. In another poem, the poet also compares the height of the waves to the peaks of the Nine-Stallion Mountains (Jiuma shan 九馬山): 回望九馬山， I looked back at the Nine-Stallion Mountains, 政與大浪爭。 The peaks seemed to be racing the fierce waves.

This side by side comparison is indeed ingenious. On the one hand, we see huge waves forming their kind of mountains; on the other, we see real mountain peaks seemingly competing with the waves. Through these poems, Jiang Kui managed to produce a multifaceted and endlessly engaging account of Lake Dongting. This method of depiction may also be found in the fourteen linked quatrains titled “Miscellaneous Pieces on Residing by the Lake,” written while he was living in Hangzhou. These fourteen poems, considered one of Jiang Kui’s masterpieces, despite their miscellaneous nature as advertised in the title, in fact have a quite clear focus, namely, West Lake and the poet’s feelings about residing by it. Because they are all about West Lake in the autumn, Jiang Kui chose to write about different aspects of the lake in order to avoid repetition. For instance, in the first poem, he focuses on the lake’s lotus leaves and swaths of reeds, the third one describes the mountains and rivers in autumn, and the fifth one describes the weeping willow trees and white swans. Though the subjects described are not entirely different from poem to poem, Jiang Kui paid great attention to writing about them from different perspectives. The same could also be said about the modes of expression he used in these poems. These fourteen poems express Jiang Kui’s inner tranquility through descriptions of peaceful scenes on West Lake. The expressive mode that he uses in each poem is usually different. Sometimes he would bring out the stillness of the surroundings by depicting the movement of things, as can be seen in the seventh poem: 自覺此心無一事， I feel that my heart is free of cares 小魚跳出綠萍中。 When a small fish jumps out of the green duckweed.

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Sometimes he describes the serenity of nature directly, as in the tenth poem: 夜涼一舸孤山下， In the cool night, a lone boat moored at the foot of Solitary Hill, 林黑草深螢火飛。 The woods are dark, the grasses deep, and firefly lights move through the air.

These poems let us see that after Jiang Kui settled in Hangzhou, his approach to literary creation became more and more consistent. Many of the linked poems discussed above were written in Jiang Kui’s later years when his literary creativity was greatly inspired, possibly due to the fact that he was living in the capital. Since the capital city had always been the country’s literary center, many talented writers converged here, and different literary societies or activities of considerable size took place in this cultural hub. Although there is no hard evidence to prove Jiang Kui’s association with Hangzhou’s literary societies, there can be no doubt that his poetic creativity would have been greatly stimulated in its conducive environment. If we compare the linked poems he composed in this period with ones he wrote earlier, such as “Farewells to My Relatives and Friends in Mian’e” (1187),44 we can see his improvement. Though the earlier poems are also quite good, their poetic structure was not as well planned and presented as the ones written in Hangzhou. In the earlier poems, Jiang Kui simply writes about all the friends he missed, such as Yang Dachang 楊大昌 (date unknown), Deng Renju 鄭仁舉 (date unknown), Xin Mi 辛泌 (date unknown) and Shan Wei 單煒 (fl. 1195– 1207), in a simple sequence. Though such a structure also entails strict organization, it cannot compare with the sophisticated craftsmanship of his later work. Du Fu, the poet Jiang Kui admired most, once commented, “In my late years, I became more meticulous in my handling of prosody” (晚節漸於詩律細).45 This same comment could also apply to Jiang Kui’s later work. Now we can try to answer the question we raised earlier about Ye Shi’s regard for Jiang Kui’s work. I suspect that regard might have recognized something more holistic and specifically referred to Jiang’s “power of thinking” (sili 思力). Jiang demonstrates this in all the linked poems, whether they are pentasyllabic ancient-style poems or heptasyllabic quatrains. This “power of thinking” also distinguishes him from the other

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   99 Rivers and Lakes poets. Although Jiang Kui lived the same kind of lifestyle as many of those poets, and some of his poems do resemble typical Rivers and Lakes poems, his linked verses were truly unique, since most Rivers and Lakes School poets could only write “small poems” with no linked themes or structure. Of course, Jiang Kui also wrote small poems. As a matter of fact, he remained interested in writing short-form works throughout his life, even after he settled in Hangzhou. But at the same time, he was also capable of writing long-form poems such as his “Poems on Past Travels,” in which he would focus more on the big picture than the small views, and the whole process rather than fragmented moments. In these works, he perfectly matches his artistic feeling with his literary talent and combines the fresh sensibilities of the Rivers and Lakes School with the magnificent artfulness of the Jiangxi School. In light of this, “Poems on Past Travels” may be considered Jiang Kui’s mature poetic masterpiece. Even compared to other poems he wrote in Hangzhou, their superiority still shines out. In these works, he surpassed not only the Rivers and Lakes poets, but also himself.

“Poems on Past Travels”: Learning from, but Not Confined by Du Fu Rivers and Lakes poets may have lived a relatively carefree life, they still could not entirely escape the deep anxiety widely felt about Southern Song society, where everyone seemed to be content with their confined peace in the south, and entertained no thought of recovering the lost territory in the north. The Rivers and Lakes poets traveled in and out of Hangzhou and witnessed the wasteful and pleasure-driven life that the wealthy and powerful there lived. This deepened their concern about the fate and future of their country, and most of them idolized Du Fu, who was famous for his patriotic thinking about the country and people throughout his life. One of them, Dai Fugu writes of him: 嗚呼杜少陵， 醉臥春江漲。 文章萬丈光， 不隨枯骨葬。 平生稷契心， 致君堯舜上。

Alas! Du Shaoling, Who lay drunk by the rising spring water. His writing emitted a light thousands of feet high, That never died with rotten bones. Throughout his life, he cherished a loyal heart. Wishing to help his emperor become a sage king.

100 

Zhang Hongsheng 時號弗我與， 屹然抱微尚。 干戈奔走蹤， 道路饑寒狀。 草中辨君臣，

Though he was not born in the right time, He firmly held to his little hopes. He wandered around in the wartime chaos. Suffered from hunger and cold along the road. He observed the ruler-subject protocols even in the field. 筆端誅將相。 And used his pen to condemn treacherous generals and ministers.46

Su Jiong 蘇泂 (fl.1200) went even further to point out that Du Fu had attained such literary accomplishment precisely because he had gone through much social turbulence and personal trials in his own life. 此翁曆艱難， The adversities that he suffered in life, 往往詩中見。 Could often be found in his poems.

Also, 百年稟忠孝， Throughout his life he adhered to the principles of loyalty and filial piety, 句法老益練。 As he grew old, his writing became more refined.47

Because of these attributes, the Rivers and Lakes poets all held up Du Fu as someone to model themselves upon. According to Chen Bifu 陳必復 (fl. 1250), “I would bathe and perfume myself three times to worship you [Du Fu] as my master. Though the pinnacle of your literary accomplishment can never be reached with ease, it was so sublime that I never dare to stop trying.”48 As a representative of the Rivers and Lakes poets, Jiang Kui also thought highly of Du Fu. In his Discourses on Poetry by the White Stone Daoist, he writes, The origins of poetry can be found in the Airs (feng 風), the Odes (ya 雅), and the Hymns (song 頌). The rhapsodies written by Qu Yuan 屈原 [340–278 bce] and Song Yu 宋玉 [ca. 298–222 bce] originated from the Airs, and the poems by Han Yu 韓愈 [768–824] and Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 [773–819] from the Odes. Du Fu was the only person who excelled in both.49 In light of this comment, it is no wonder that Jiang Kui would constantly model himself on Du Fu in his poetry writing.

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   101 The “Poems on Past Travels” is a group of linked travel poems. Travel poetry in China had a very early origin, but the genre did not reach its maturity until Xie Lingyun 謝靈運 (385–433). Xie Lingyun is considered the founding figure of Chinese landscape poetry. The poems he wrote about his travels in eastern Zhejiang are often interconnected and therefore have the quality of linked travel poetry. Moreover, since travel poems also contain descriptions of mountains and rivers, they naturally have a close relationship with landscape poems. Poems like “At the Entrance of Lake Pengli” 入彭蠡湖口 and “Landing on a Solitary Island in the River” 登江中孤嶼 are both excellent examples of travel poems. After Xie Lingyun created the genre of linked travel poetry, it continued to develop until it reached a peak of perfection in the hands of Du Fu. As early as the Tang dynasty (618–907), Yuan Zhen元稹 (779–831), one of the first critics to recognize Du Fu’s literary achievement, pointed out that the most important feature of Du Fu’s writing was his preference and capability at writing long–form poems.50 Although Yuan Haowen 元 好問 (1190–1257) of the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) held back on this view,51 most later critics tended to agree with Yuan Zhen. For instance, in his discussion on pentasyllabic poems, Wang Shizhen 王士禛 (1634–1711) of the early Qing dynasty once commented, “As for describing wartime chaos and the army on the move via elaborate parallelism, no one was as good as Du Fu.”52 Wang Shizhen’s observation was quite keen and applies to not only Du Fu’s long poems such as “Northern March” 北征, but also to some of his travel poems. Some of Du Fu travel poems come from his later years, such as “Northern March,” “Departing Qinzhou” 發秦州, and “Departing from Tonggu” 發同谷; others were about his early years, such as “Travels in the Past” 昔遊 and “Travel in My Youth” 壯遊. A poet who lived an unsettled life, Du Fu not only went to many places, he also connected his life experience with those travels. He had a good memory, made keen observations, and expressed subtle emotional responses to the places he had visited. His travel poems take a variety of forms and represent a high level of excellence in the history of Chinese poetry. Jiang Kui also lived much of his life in constant movement. His “Poems on Past Travels,” unfolds in the form of a travel memoir and in many ways resembles Du Fu’s “Travels in the Past” and “Travel in My Youth.” Both of Du Fu’s poems were retrospective, written when his life had become more stable and memories of the past started to rush from the tip

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of his brush. Likewise, Jiang Kui also started to remember the “pleasures and astonishments” in his past travels when he felt his life became less unsettled. Here we can see, then, similarity between Du Fu and Jiang Kui’s mental states when they wrote their travel poems. As for the style of the poems, Jiang Kui, borrowing insights from Du Fu’s “Departing Qinzhou” and “Departing from Tonggu,” used linked ancient–style pentasyllabic poems to delineate a magnificent picture of his past travels from a variety of perspectives. Jiang Kui may have learned from Du Fu when he composed the “Poems on Past Travels,” but we must remember that Song poets were quite independent in establishing their own poetic voices while learning from their predecessors. As we compare their travel poems, we will see that Jiang Kui made a number of his own contributions to the genre. First, Jiang Kui chose to write on the subjects relatively overlooked by Du Fu in his travel poems. Most of Du Fu’s travel poems, including his most famous ones, focused on China’s mountains. He did not start to write intensively about his water travels until after the third year (768) of the Dali reign 大曆 (766–79), when he left Kuizhou 夔州 for the Three Gorges region. Most of the places Du Fu passed through during this period were in Hunan and Hubei, and he primarily traveled by boat–– from Jiangling 江陵 to Gong’an 公安 and Yuezhou 嶽州, then to Tanzhou 潭州, Hengzhou 衡州 and Leiyang 耒陽​. So while Du Fu did not lack experience in traveling by water, he did not write much about those trips. Compared to his mountain-travel poems on entering the Qin region, which liken the ruggedness of the mountains to the difficulties of his time and the calamities in his life, his water-travel poems written in Hubei and Hunan contain rather more lyrical expressions and discussions. When he wrote about storms he encountered on the water, he was usually very brief and sketchy. For instance, once, when moored at Yueyang, he wrote: 岸風翻夕浪， The wind on the bank stirred up the dusk waves; 舟雪灑寒燈。 The snow on the boats dusted the cold lanterns. 漲沙霾草樹， Billows of sand veiled grass and trees; 53 舞雪渡江湖。 The dancing snow swept across river and lake.

These descriptions of the wind and waves on water could have been expanded, but Du Fu chose to keep them brief and condensed.

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   103 In another poem titled “Passing Mount Heng to Enter Lake Dongting” 過南嶽入洞庭湖, Du Fu added a few lines at the end to express his feelings, but his description of the dangers of water travel is only a passing reference, not the center of the poem. In the same way, the “White Horse Pond” 白馬潭 also brushes off difficulties Du Fu encountered while boating against the current. All these poems makes us feel that Du Fu did not bring his literary creativity into full play on these trips, as he had in his poems about Qin Mountain. Still, this gap left an opportunity for later poets, and Jiang Kui’s “Poems on Past Travels,” which focus primarily on the waterways in the south may reflect a conscious choice Jiang Kui made to explore something new to poetry. Moreover, as the preface to this group of poems states, the poet wished to write about the “pleasures and astonishments” he had encountered. While the “pleasures” remind us of the spirit of Du Fu’s retrospective travel poems, the “astonishments” are closely connected to the emotions expressed in Du Fu’s “Departing Qinzhou” and “Departing from Tonggu.” By combining these two opposite emotions, Jiang Kui shows us his poetic ingenuity. Secondly, all travel poems always directly or indirectly involve people. The narrative strategies Du Fu usually used to this end include: adopting the perspective of a single poetic persona for his shorter linked poems, but inserting some kind of narration in the longer travel poems, which made the people involved more full-fledged characters. Du Fu was excellent at writing people into his lyrical poems. Jiang Kui not only noticed and learned this special skill, but also managed to develop it for particular effects he sought. For example, when writing about the dangers he encountered in his travels, Jiang Kui would use his traveling companions’ reactions to bring his description forward more prominently: 我乘五板船， I was riding in a small boat 將入沌河口。 About to enter the estuary of the Dun River. 大江風浪起， Storm waves started to amass on the Great River, 夜黑不見手。 The night was so dark that I could not see my hands. 同行子周子， Mr. Zhou, my traveling companion, 渠膽大如鬥。 Had a bold heart as big as a bucket! 長竿插蘆席， He stuck a long pole into the reed mat, 船作野馬走。 And let the boat dash around like a wild horse. 不知何所詣， Not knowing where we were going, 生死付之偶。 I entrusted my life and death to the odds.

104  忽聞入草聲， 燈火亦稍有。 杙船遂登岸， 亟買野家酒。

Zhang Hongsheng Suddenly I heard the sound of the boat entering grass, And saw dim lights dot the bank. We tied the boat to a stake and hastened ashore, Couldn’t wait to buy wine at a country store!

Here, by describing his travel companion’s reaction, the poet gives a vivid sense of how the storm had made him feel that his life was hanging by a thread. The following poem contains a similar description: 揚舲下大江， I set off my boat down the Great River 日日風雨雪。 Sailing through wind, storms and snows day and night. 留滯鼇背州， Stranded on a small boat in the middle of the river. 十日不得發。 I was unable to move an inch for ten days. 岸冰一寸厚， The ice on the bank was one foot thick, 刀劍觸舟楫。 Like knives and swords it clashed with my oars 岸雪一丈深， The snow on the bank was ten feet deep, 屹如玉城堞。 Like a jade castle it stood high and steep. 同舟二三士， The two or three fellows on my boat, 頗壯不恐懾。 Were quite strong with no worries or fear. 蒙氈閉篷臥， Covered in blankets, they lay under the canvas, 波里任傾攧。 Bumping up and down with the boat on the troubled water.

This poem focuses specifically on depicting the harshness of the weather. With the continuous gale, rain and snow, the poet’s boat was stranded off-shore for ten days. It is worth noting that when the poet describes the thick ice and heaped snow on the bank, he again uses war-related metaphors. As the boat is tossed around in the waves and repeatedly smashes against the thick ice on the banks, it emits a sound like the clashing of weapons on the battlefield. In the same vein, the snow piled up ten feet high on the bank is compared to a well-guarded white fortress. Such vivid descriptions, clearly inspired by the poet’s “border travel” experiences, represent a perfect blending of the natural setting with the poet’s feeling, since they not only capture the adversity of the natural environment, but also allude to the social reality of the time. In the face of harsh weather, however, the poet’s travel companions

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   105 remained perfectly composed. Lying under the canvas, they covered themselves in blankets and cared nothing about the rough journey. But what of the poet himself? The poem does not say much, except for the two lines at the end: 如今得安坐， Now I can finally settle into my seat, 閑對妻兒說。 And tell my wife and kids about my adventures in peace.

From these two poems we can see that the travel companions’ calm composure in fact forms a sharp contrast to the tension and stress experienced by the poet at the time. Though the poet writes little about his own reactions here, readers can figure this out from what is being said about his companions. As a matter of fact, Jiang Kui liked to write about his travel companions. Of course, not all travel companions were so calm in adversity, as can be seen in the following: 滯留三四晨， 大浪山嵯峨。 同舟總下淚， 自謂餧黿鼉。

I was stranded [in my boat] for three or four days, Huge waves stormed around like steep hills. The other men on the boat constantly shed tears, Fearing that they would become food for the alligators and sea turtles.

As we can see, the descriptions of the happiness, anger, grief, and joy experienced by the poet’s traveling companions are not only realistic descriptions, but also a side-channel by which the poet can articulate his own feelings. Third, travel poems often contain the poet’s own experience and contemplations about life. This was already common in Du Fu’s poems, but Jiang Kui seems to have imbued it with his own personal mark. If we examine “Poems on Past Travels” carefully, we notice an obvious structural characteristic: The poems about water travels usually start at the commencement of the journey, continue with a description of adversities encountered by the poet, and conclude with the poet walking away from the difficulty unharmed. After going through the difficulties, the poet used different strategies to relate his reactions and feelings. He may begin with the danger,

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And then relate how he regained his composure once the danger had past: 始知茵席濕， Now I turned to realize that my mat was already wet, 盡覆杯中羹。 Because I had spilled all the soup in my cup.

In other poems, he explains his relief and satisfaction at having come through with lines like “[I] couldn’t wait to buy wine at a country store!” and again, “Now I can finally settle into my seat, and tell my wife and kids about my adventures in peace.” In these moments lies Jiang Kui’s own reflection on life: When calamity comes, everyone experiences the same feelings of shock, fright, and anxiety, but when calamity passes, people often react differently to their regained peace. This to a large extent conforms to what happens in real life. Jiang Kui was constantly on the move most of his life, and the problems he had to deal with in his travels were by no means few. It is therefore quite possible that he used his travel poems to speak about these problems metaphorically. It was a long-established tradition among Song poets to “use poems to express philosophical thoughts” (yi shi yan li 以詩 言理), but comparing travels to one’s journey through life was not something Song poets invented, nor was it especially peculiar to Jiang Kui. Still, no other poet wrote so intensively and extensively about their travels and life experiences in the form of linked poems as did Jiang Kui.54 One of the basic characteristics of Song poetry is its philosophical flavor (li qu 理趣), and if we place Jiang Kui’s travel poems into this larger historical tradition, we can better understand the reasons behind their structural design. We can also find other supporting evidence in Jiang Kui’s “Poems on Past Travels,” such as the following: 既離湖口縣， 未至落星灣。 舟中兩三程， 程程見廬山。

I had left Hukou County, But not yet reached Falling Star Bay. Along the two or three water routes I traveled, Each one gave a view of Mount Lu.

Consciousness of Adversity and the Spirit of Innovation   107 廬山遮半天， Mount Lu blocked half the sky, 五老雲為冠。 Its five peaks wore crowns made of clouds. 朝看金疊疊， At dawn I saw waves and waves of golden sunshine, 暮看紫巉巉。 At dusk I saw a cliff of purple mist, steep and high. 瀑布在山半， A waterfall hung from the middle of the mountain, 髣髴認一斑。 It looked like a small dot from where I sat. 廬山忽不見， All of a sudden Mount Lu disappeared, 雲雨滿人間。 Hidden in the clouds and rain that filled the world.

Readers may well be put in mind of the famous poem “Written on the Wall of the West Forest Temple at Mount Lu” 題西林壁 by Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101): 橫看成嶺側成峰， A mountain range when seen from the front, a peak from the side, 遠近高低各不同。 Far, near, high, low, it reveals its different facets. 不識廬山真面目， One can never make out the true face of Mount Lu, 只緣身在此山中。 For one can only look from within the bounds it sets.

Like Su Shi, Jiang Kui did not really get out of range of Mount Lu. From different viewpoints and different times of the day, Mount Lu revealed itself quite differently. Not only was the waterfall hanging in the middle of the mountain small as a dot at a distance, but the whole mountain itself could suddenly vanish in the rain and clouds. If the poem by Su Shi already has a philosophical flavor, then Jiang Kui’s poem makes this flavor more concrete and perceptible. This characteristic can be found in almost all Song poems. Even a poet like Jiang Kui, who cared more about expressing his “native sensibility” (xingling 性靈),55 was not totally exempt from its influence. This reminds us that “philosophical flavor” may take different forms in poems and should not be treated in a simple or rigid way.

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Conclusion After Jiang Kui settled in Hangzhou and started to gain a better understanding of the city, he saw its flourishing culture and recognized the unstable elements behind its glorious appearances. While he certainly admired the city’s prosperity, he could not help but feel concerned about its future. To find an outlet for his worries and concerns, he used his poems to connect the past with the present and chose to focus particularly on his days traveling at the borders of the Song and Jin empires. This choice showed his patriotic feelings as a Southern Song scholar and also served as a criticism of the extravagant urban culture in Hangzhou at that time. An important aspect of Hangzhou’s urban culture was its booming publishing industry. The publisher Chen Qi took pains to cultivate the Rivers and Lakes poets and offered help to publish their poems. This stimulated the rise and development of the Rivers and Lakes School of Poetry. Jiang Kui, as a precursor to that school, exerted tremendous influence on the literary production of its poets. But he also surpassed most of these poets, due to his greater literary talent and profound thinking. He developed a distinctive poetic style of his own, which nonetheless bore the mark of his time. Jiang Kui’s “Poems on Past Travels” shows great attentiveness to its linked poetic structure. The poems chronicle twenty years of the poet’s life experience, enabling us to see his persistent pursuit of poetry writing. The writing of these linked poems was greatly influenced by Du Fu, whom, like other Song critics, Jiang Kui thought very highly of. Just as Du Fu was known for his pursuit of poetic perfection, Jiang Kui was known for his subtle attention to the structure of his poems. Jiang Kui’s contributions to the genre of travel poetry can be seen in his focus on waterways, his descriptions of companions’ reactions, and his accounts of personal experiences on the water. These innovations gained him a special place in Chinese literary history. In short, we can argue that Jiang Kui’s cool critical mind not only gave him a distinct view on the booming urban culture of Hangzhou, but enabled him to think deeper than other poets and reflect upon the cultural phenomena of his time from a variety of social, political, historical and literary perspectives. In addition, the poetic creativity of Jiang Kui far surpassed the practices of his time. That he was deemed one of the most prominent poets of the Rivers and Lakes School, and in the Southern Song dynasty as a whole, was not without reason.

five

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng Stephen H. West

In the little loft last night, again the eastern wind, My old state—I cannot bear to turn my head in the brightness of the moon ——Li Yu 李煜 (937–78) 小樓昨夜又東風， 故國不堪回首月明中。

the turn of the year is a marvelously complex and ambiguous moment in the flow of a person’s life. It may mark a single evening of intense enjoyment in spectacle, sensuous and sensual pleasure, and even romance; it may magnify a gap in a life separated from friends and family; or it may envelop within its lustrous glow and bright lights a nostalgia for a city, a country, and a way of life that is gone forever. The apt figure, even for China, is the Roman god Janus of two faces, one looking back to events that were and the other looking at the present, contemplating both an unforeseen future and the significance of the lived past. Bathed in natural and human light, the lantern festival of Kaifeng stretched across the turn of the year. Its representations reveal both the materiality of the moment

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and longing, a world seen from the inside out, one that begins in a refulgent cascade of candlelight, lanterns, and eternal day and ends for some in a transparent longing captured in the cool crystalline light of the full moon. There were no spectacles to match the New Year and particularly the Lantern Festival of First Prime, when restrictions against officials and women appearing in public or visiting wine houses was lifted and when wagering on goods (guanpu 關撲) took over the streets along with drinking, song, and laughter. It was, according to Ouyang Xiu, the high point of the year: Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修

“Where were Sights Best in Early Spring?” 青春何處風光好

To the tune: Yudai hua 御帶花 青春何處風光好， Where were sights best in early spring? 帝里偏愛元夕。 Everyone in the empire loved First Prime Eve. 萬重繒彩， Ten thousand layers of silken color 搆一屏峰嶺， Built into a single screen of mountain peaks— 半空金碧。 Gold and blue rose halfway to heaven. 寶檠銀釭， Precious lampstands and silver oil lamps 耀絳幕、 Radiated against crimson hangings 龍騰虎擲。 Leaping dragons and somersaulting tigers. 1 沙堤遠， The sandy path ran far away—

雕輪繡轂， Carved wheels and patterned hubs 爭走五王宅。 Raced with one another to the homes of the Five Princes.2 雍容熙熙作晝， Magnanimous and at peace, turning night into day, 會樂府神姬， We encountered the divine beauties of the Music Bureau, 海洞仙客。 Those immortal wanderers from grottoes out on the sea. 曳香搖翠， Trailing perfume, trembling halcyon jade,

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   111 稱執手行歌， Perfect for holding hands and singing as they walked 錦街天陌。 Along streets like brocade, the pathways of heaven. 月淡寒輕， The moon grew pale, the coolness more slight 漸向曉、 As it gradually shifted toward dawn 漏聲寂寂。 And the sound of the clepsydra turned still. 當年少， I was young then, 狂心未已， My wild heart yet unabated— 3 不醉怎歸得。 No going home unless drunk!

This chapter will investigate one particular series of episodes, the activities from just before the New Year’s celebration to the end of Prime Eve, and will focus on three major types of sources: a set of fifteen poems to the tune “Partridge Heaven” (zhegu tian 鷓鴣天), called “Lyrics on the First Prime” (Shangyuan ci 上元詞), found in a Southern Song scholar’s notebook (biji 筆記),4 a perigraphy of the Eastern Capital of the Northern Song, The Eastern Capital: A Record of a Dream of Hua (Dongjing meng Hua lu 東京夢華錄), and administrative documents that derive from three major sources, The Edited Draft of Administrative Documents of the Song (Song huiyao jigao 宋會要輯稿), The Continuation of the Long Version of the Comprehensive Mirror for the Aid of Government (Xu Zizhi tongjian changbian 續資治通鑑長編) and the Song History (Song shi 宋史). The first set of texts are lyric poems that are found in the Penned Notes from the Confluence of Reeds (Lupu biji 蘆浦筆記), written by Liu Changshi 劉昌詩 (fl. 1181–1215), the last three chapters of which record texts of various genres, many of which Liu seems to have published to supplement texts missing from print or manuscript collections he had seen. He has included a postscript to the lyric series, in which he remarks, These fifteen poems above to the tune “Partridge Heaven” all relate in detail the splendor of the Xuanhe and Zhenghe years, which could not be related by one who had only imagined them. They should be circulated together with A Record of a Dream of Hua.

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右「鷓鴣天十五首」，備述宣政之盛，非想像者所能道，當與《夢華錄》 5 並行也。

The second is a memoir of the Northern Song capital of Bianliang, written in 1142 and published in 1187, that is a recollection of life there between 1107–1125, The Eastern Capital: A Record of a Dream of Hua 夢華錄, perhaps better rendered figuratively as “A Dream of Paradise in the Eastern Capital.”6 Nearly all Chinese urban histories produced in China and the West have used this text, and others like it, to create a master narrative of a continuous linear development of the Chinese city, citing de-contextualized portions of the text as comprehensive and mimetic descriptions of events that reveal a form of “truth” about what the city was like. Dongjing meng Hua lu has also been used by historians of art, architecture, urban development, and literature, as well as by sociologists and economists as a form of “proof” to verify conditions elicited by inductive discipline-specific narratives without giving any thought to the Dream’s provenance in terms of simple geography, time, or intellectual and emotional milieu. This is due in part to the complexity and density of the Dream, which gives the reader an overall impression of comprehensiveness and thoroughness that paradoxically masks the partial and fragmentary nature of the text’s descriptions. A large portion of Dream concerns itself with entertainment, couched primarily in terms of urban theater (i.e., imperial spectacle) and the sensuous and sensual gratifications of sight, taste, and various forms of human physical contact, ranging from the shoulder rubbing of people out to partake in the hubbub of festivals (like the modern kan renao 看熱鬧) to the intimacies of flirtation and intimations of sex. Nothing brought the city to life or created more memories than the turn of the year. From the time the imperial entourage left the Grand Interior at the winter solstice for the Sacrifice of the Southern Suburbs at the Temple of Heaven to the close of the lantern festival on the 18th of the first civil month, the city was alive with activity.7 These are related in the last half of the Dream, a chronography of imperial spectacle and urban theater from the first day of the civil month8 to the last day of the last month. The festivities of New Year’s are recounted in the last chapter of Dream (covering the time from the solstice to New Year’s Eve), and the sixth chapter (covering the first to the eighteenth day of the civil year).

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   113 Chapter X

1. Winter Solstice 2. Rehearsal of Chariots and Elephants for the Great Ritual 3. The Imperial Retinue Resides Overnight at the Hall of Grand Felicity

4. The Formal Guard of the March of the Imperial Retinue 5. The Imperial Retinue Resides Overnight at the Ancestral 6. 7. *8. *9. *10. *11.

Halls; Bearing the Spirit Tablets He Goes Out of the Building The Imperial Retinue Visits the Fasting Palace at the Green City The Imperial Retinue Visits the Altar of the Jiao Sacrifice and Performs the Ritual The Suburban Sacrifice Finished, the Imperial Retinue Returns Sending Down Pardons The Imperial Retinue Returns, A Day is Selected to Visit the Various Palaces and Offer Thanks Twelfth Month

Chapter VI *1. 2. 3. 4. *5.

First Month Court Gatherings on Prime Morning Establishing Spring Prime Eve On the Fourteenth Day the Imperial Retinue Stays at the Taoist Temple of the Five Marchmounts *6. On the Fifteenth Day the Imperial Retinue Visits the Palace of Highest Clarity *7. Sixteenth Day *8. Taking in the Lamps the People of the Metrocapital Go out of the City to Seek the Spring

In his concluding remarks to the text, the author Meng Yuanlao stated that he knew about events in major sacrifices or in the Forbidden Palace only through witnessing the rehearsals.9 This establishes two levels of confidence in these passages, differing between those events that would be

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closed to outsiders (even a privileged person like Meng) and those that were a shared public spectacle. As Bao Weimin 包偉民 has shown in a recent talk,10 the representations in Dream are partial and provide insufficient evidence for a full understanding of Bianliang. If we accept that this text is a product of memory and desire, in which the facts of the New Year’s festival are converted into the truth of Meng’s narrative, then we must push further afield in order to see the city in a rounder fashion. One must engage in a form of textual archeology, seeing the older capital as a space of intersecting interests, needs, and desires, and work down through palimpsests of time and text to recover the social and cultural energies as well as the ritual and bureaucratic templates that produced the majority of written or visual representations. This act bears the same dangers of generalization as field archeology, which draws its evidence of cultural meaning from garbage dumps and burial sites, but the textual record is richer, more comprehensive, and the texts themselves are often in conversation—sometimes colloquy, sometimes monologue—about the significance of the events and places, that is, the facts of the city. But none of these representations are created sui generis; each one reveals a set of motives or generic conventions that lie behind it. In the case of Dream and some of the ci lyrics, this is resurrection of past moments in the present as a way to bind contemporaries of the authors in an imagined community of expatriates. Both of the first two sources cover a similar double time span. The first is the actual event of the lantern festival, the activities of which spanned the time between the winter solstice in the 11th civil month and the end of the lantern festival at First Prime, the 18th day of the first civil month. The second is a long span of time between the events of those thirty-six days and the moment of recall, sometime later in the Jiangnan area, probably in or near Hangzhou. The fifteen lyric poems are only part of a rich repository of poems and lyric verses on the New Year’s festival in the Song, but are uncommon in that they parallel so closely the Dream of Hua passages I have marked above with an asterisk. It seems, in fact, that the cycle of poems amounts to a rereading of this portion of Dream, which puts Liu Changshi’s statement that the poems can only have been written by someone who had actually been there somewhat in doubt. It is possible, of course, that the simple linearity accounts for the correspondence, but we cannot rule out the possibility that is text-based, not directly experienced; or perhaps that it is a combination of both.

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   115 Both sources begin with the end of the Southern Suburban sacrifice to Heaven. At the actual turn of the solar year, immediately after the winter solstice, the sacrifice was a symbolic marker of the advent of spring and the ascendency of Yang. The cycle of lyrics begins: Lyric Poems on the First Prime 上元詞

1 11 12 春曉千門放鑰匙， In spring’s morn a thousand doors abandoned of keys, 萬官班從出祥曦。 Ten thousand officials form in retinue to issue forth from Propitious Sunlight;13 14 九重綵浪浮龍蓋， Above nine circles of colored waves float the dragon’s canopy: 一點紅雲護赭衣。 A single dot of a red cloud protects His ochre clothes.15 車馬過、打毬歸， Carts and horse pass by—returning from playing ball;16 芳塵洒定不教飛。 Dust of flowers’ fragrance is watered down so it will not fly. 17 鈞天品動回鑾曲， Perfect Harmony begins playing the tune of the Returning Carriage Bells, 18 十里珠簾待日西。 For ten miles pearly curtains await the sun’s 19 westward decline.

2 日暮迎祥對御回， Returning at sunset from the Emperor’s Feast at Auspicious Portent, 20 宮花載路錦成堆。 Palace blossoms filled the road, brocade piles into heaps; 天津橋畔鞭聲過， At the Bridge of Heaven’s Crossing the sounds of whips passed by,21 宣德樓前扇影開。 In front of the Tower of Virtue Displayed, an umbra of fans opened.22 奏舜樂，進堯盃， Play the music of Sage King Shun—bring forward the cups of Sage King Yao, The order is passed to let horses and carts enter 傳宣車馬上天街。 Heaven’s Avenue.

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Stephen H. West 君王喜與民同樂， Our lord king delights in sharing pleasure with his people23— 24 八面三呼震地來。 From eight sides three shouts shake the earth.

The parallel passage in Dream of Hua reads: The Suburban Sacrifice Finished, the Auriga Returns25 郊畢駕回 In his sacrificial garb, the Auriga returns to the Major Station from the Minor Station. Only his close attendants form a protective circle around him, holding more than two hundred huge candles. When he reaches the Major Station he changes into his formal court wear, and mounts the “palanquin of great security.”26 The palanquin is like the Jade Carriage but larger, has no wheels, and is hung with large ribbons from its side. The color of the clothes of the palanquin officials is similar to those worn by the ones who line the road [to protect the emperor]. He barely ascends the palanquin before the players of the Court Entertainment Bureau line up outside of the walls around the altar, the Column of Perfect Harmony first plays music, a single armor-clad soldier dances a breakdown. When finished, the Court Entertainment Bureau presents a congratulatory declamation, music is played, and the drums and winds of the squadrons and companies of the various armies all play,27 the sound shaking heaven and earth. They return to the Green City before dawn and the Hundred Officials enter in ordinary court clothes to offer congratulations. After [the emperor] finishes bestowing wine and tea, then the ceremonial guard of the “model imperial procession” and the armored cavalry and their drum and horn sections enter into the Gate of the South’s Infusion. For a stretch of several tens of miles along the Imperial Avenue, there are temporary tents erected as well as shaded lookouts for rich families. Like colorful overlapping scales on fish, they leave no vacant area. 駕自小次祭服還大次，惟近侍椽燭二百餘條，列成圍子，至大次更服袞 冕，登大安輦。輦如玉輅而大，無輪，四垂大帶。輦官服色，亦如挾路 者。纔升輦， 教坊在外壝東西排列，鈞容直先奏樂，一甲士舞一曲破 訖，教坊進口號，樂作，諸軍隊伍皷吹皆動聲震天地。回青城，天色未 曉，百官常服入賀。賜茶酒畢，而法駕儀仗、鐵騎皷吹入南薰門。御路 數十里之間，起居幕次、貴家看棚，華綵鱗砌，略無空閑去處。

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   117 Street theater in Kaifeng was in constant performance, and the central axis of the Imperial Avenue provided the main stage. There was even a special place, called “The Pavilion for Looking at the Avenue” outside of the inner city wall that became a favorite spot from which to view the imperial processions that passed frequently from the Grand Interior to temples in the southern part of Bianliang.28 The constant movement of the emperor as he fulfilled his ritual duties, visited friends, and went to view the entertainments of New Year’s, the shangsi festival of the 3rd of the 3rd month, as well as other times he went out of the Grand Interior provided the major form of public entertainment (perhaps second only to the washe 瓦舍, “tile districts” or entertainment quarters). Indeed, these moments of spectacle were ones that brought all elements of the city together in happy enjoyment of gambling, eating, drinking, and watching. One has only to look closely at the two most famous “line paintings” (jiehua 界畫) of the Northern Song—the Qingming shanghe tu and the Jinming chi zhengbiao tu—to understand the importance of seeing and being seen in a new society dominated by material consumption.29 This is particularly visible in passage from Dream: On the Fourteenth Day of the First month, the Auriga Pays a Visit to the Daoist Temple of the Five Marchmounts 十四日車馬駕幸五嶽觀

On the fourteenth day of the first month, the Auriga pays a visit to the Pool for Welcoming Good Portent at the Taoist Temple of the Five Marchmounts, where he holds an “Imperial Presence” [this means a feast that he holds for his many officials]. When it reaches eventide, he returns to the Interior. The Emperor’s Circle:30 Attendants to the emperor all wear hats topped with a large ball, stuck through with sprigs of flowers, red damask tunics decorated with sporting lions, belts with gold inlaid Heavenly Kings,31 and several kinds of knobbed staffs.32 The Heavenly Martial Officers all are topped with cloth caps with two curled-up tails,33 and a broad tunic, tied with a belt and decorated with large swans on a purple background.

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The Before-the-Hall Assembly are topped with colored cloth caps with two crossing tails that lean toward the back, and they are clad in “Yearning to Be an Immortal” robes of crimson, green, and purple, twilled with golden threads and bound with a belt. They are outfitted with bows and swords, ride horses in full harness and saddle, and trail whisks in order to lead the way forward. The Imperial Dragon Column: cloth caps with one tail pointing upward and one tail curled up; dressed in damask middle-length coats with red button frogs, and cinched with beautiful belts. They bear imperial equipment like His golden folding chair, spittoon, water jars, multilayered fruit [i.e., food] basket, fans, and dust whisks. The imperial seats are chairs covered with yellow silk and densely stitched with pearls. The backs of the chairs are held by his Personal Military Attendants. The Squadrons and Columns of the Palace Army are dressed in tailed cloth hats and middle-length damask tunics. Normally when the Auriga goes out, there will be two hundred pairs of red gauze candle-lanterns, with pasted on gold leaves—on the night of the lantern festival, these are augmented by fan lamps with jade staffs and glass. Each of the “fleetfoot” runners carries a lamp globe with red silken gauze and a net of pearls. When the Auriga is about to arrive, then outside of the several circles of the imperial guard, there is another person who carries a moon-shaped stool covered with damask on horseback. Ten or so Heavenly Martial Officers press closely around to prop it up, and they shout out, “Look at the Auriga.” Then one hundred or so military ranks of the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, attached to the Bureau of Personnel, all in their official clothing, hold polo sticks covered with a net of pearls, ready on horseback to heed any summons. The rest of the close officials are garbed in purple, crimson, or green court robes. The Grand Defenders in Chief of the Three [Imperial] Armies, [military officials] of the Court for Audience Reception, and the Bearers of the Imperial Arms are arrayed in front to lead the procession. “Inner Lads” line both sides—these are strong arms picked from the various armies, who are garbed in short damask jackets, wear small domed caps, and who keep watch with balled fists. Anyone making a loud noise will be beaten until the blood flows. The musical troupes of the Court Entertainment Bureau and the Column of Perfect Harmony lead the way in front, and behind the

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   119 Auriga the mounted troupes of the various squadrons and columns play music. Behind the Auriga and outside of his Circle, on the left and right are, respectively, Grand Ministers, high officials, and literary officials on the left, and on the right are the imperial princes, imperial family members, and supernumerary military officials of the scion of the imperial family. When the Auriga draws near [to the Gate of Virtue Revealed] then some ten or so men are arrayed inline across the face of the gate, where they crack whips. Behind the Auriga there are small red embroidered parasols with crooked handles, also carried by supernumerary military officials on horseback. When the Auriga enters the lantern mountain, personnel from the Court of the Imperial Conveyances shout out in front of the palanquin, “The enchanting [entertainments] follow the bamboo staff.”34 The imperial palanquin makes a complete circle, and then proceeds backwards to view the lantern mountain, and this is called “wheeling rock doves,” or “treading the pentacolor spectrum.” Then the palanquin officials are given rewards for calling out [the summons to perform]. The Auriga ascends the Tower of Virtue Revealed, and the roamers race to the Open Dais. 正月十四日，車駕幸五嶽觀迎祥地，有對御謂賜群臣宴也，至晚還內。 圍子：親從官皆頂毬頭大帽、簪花、紅錦團答戲獅子衫、金鍍天王腰帶、 數重骨朵。天武官皆頂雙卷腳幞頭、紫上大搭天鵝結帶寬衫。殿前班頂 兩腳屈曲向後花裝幞頭，著緋、青、紫三色橪金線結帶、望仙花袍，跨 弓箭，乘馬，一扎鞍轡，纓紼前導。御龍直，一腳指天一腳圈曲幞頭， 著紅方勝錦襖子、看帶、束帶，執御從物，如交椅、唾盂、水罐、果壘、 掌扇、纓紼之類。御椅子皆黃羅珠蹙，背座則親從官執之。諸班直皆幞 頭錦襖束。每常駕出有紅紗帖金燭籠二百對，元宵加以琉璃、玉柱掌扇 燈。快行家各執紅紗珠絡燈籠。駕將至，則圍子數重，外有一人捧月樣 兀子，錦覆於馬上，天武官十餘人簇擁扶策，喝曰：「看駕頭」。次有 吏部小使臣百餘，皆公裳，執珠絡毬杖，乘馬聽喚。近侍餘官皆服紫、 緋、綠公服，三衙太尉、知閣、御帶羅列前導，兩邊皆內等子。選諸軍 膂力者，著錦襖頂帽，握拳顧望，有高聲者捶之流血。教坊，鈞容直樂 部前引，駕後諸班直馬隊作樂，駕後圍子外左則宰執侍從，右則親王、 宗室、南班官。駕近則列橫門十餘人擊鞭，駕後有曲柄小紅繡傘，亦殿 侍執之於馬上。駕入燈山，御輦院人員，輦前喝：「隨竿媚來」。御輦 團轉一遭，倒行觀燈山，謂之「鵓鴿旋」，又謂之「踏五花兒」。則輦 官有喝賜矣。駕登宣德樓，遊人奔赴露臺下。

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This particular episode, which recounts the return of the Imperial retinue from the Daoist Monastery of the Five Marchmounts is a dense, claustrophobic text that signals the colors, sounds, and excitement that will flood the capital on First Prime. Indeed, this one episode accounts for nearly half of the “Lyrics for First Prime” sequence. The colors and types of clothing, the instruments in the imperial panoply, the description of the clusters of people who surround the emperor all evoke perceptual responses in us—we are drowned not only in the colors but also the way they encode a material world built on the pleasures of consumption (both material and visual). This is a process that we find all too often in the Dream of Hua. It begins with a description of institutional forms (whether buildings, ritual clothing, or sacrifices) and always ends up with the minutae of quotidian consumption and display. For instance, in Meng’s description of the Grand Interior, he writes: The Grand Interior 大內 The main gateway to the Grand Interior, the Tower of Virtue Displayed, has five gates abreast;35  each of the gates is lacquered in vermillion and studded with golden nails. The walls are entirely of fired brick and stone laid in alternating rows, and are carved with the figures of dragons, phoenixes, and flying clouds. The rafters are all carved, the roof beams all painted,36  the rising rafters and layered beams  are covered with glazed ceramic tiles. Small side pavilions bend off at ninety degrees,37  the balustrades are vermillion and the door frames are of many colors. Below [the tower] gateyard pylons face each other; the whole is blocked with vermillion chevaux-de-frisé. Enter the main gate of the Gate of Virtue Displayed and one immediately encounters the Hall of Grand Felicity, in the courtyard of which are erected two towers like the bell tower of a monastery temple.38  On the upper floors is located the Director of Calendrical Calculations of the Astrological Service, who examines the clepsydra and reports, holding an ivory plaque, on the double-hour and sub-hour segments. Each ritual fast the emperor holds before going forth for the Great Celebration [of the Suburban Sacrifice] and every court assembly for the New Year’s are held in this hall. There are side gates on the left and right, outside of the hall, called the Left and Right Gates of Enduring Celebration.39 

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   121 There are three gateways on the south wall of the Inner City, which are the routes to audience for the great court assemblies. On the left of the Gate of Virtue Displayed is the Left Ancillary Gate, and on the right it is called the Right Ancillary Gate. Just inside the Left Ancillary Gate is the Hall of Enlightenment.40  Inside and to the west of the Right Ancillary Gate are the Tianzhang and Baowen Galleries.41 It is just about one-hundred zhang (±312 meters) from the Palace Wall to the northern corridor. Entering the [Right Ancillary] Gate and going east: on the northern corridor of the street are the Bureau of Military Affairs, next the Secretariat, and then the Executive Office of the Department of State Affairs where the great ministers order their affairs here when they go to and withdraw from court. Next is the Chancellory and then the secondary gates of the outer corridor of the Hall of Grand Felicity. North another one-hundred or more double-paces (±156 meters) is another secondary gate, which is where the high officials dismount from their horses when they go to court; the other Functionaries in Retinue, Censors and Remonstrators must dismount at the first gate and go by foot to the Hall of Patterned Virtue, where they enter the second secondary gate. Through the second secondary gate, the eastern corridor is the Eastern Side Gate of the Hall of Grand Felicity. In the western corridors are the Rear Section of the Secretariat and the Rear Section of the Chancellory, then the Institute for Drafting the Imperial History, and then a small south-facing corner gate that is exactly opposite the Hall of Patterned Virtue, the hall for ordinary court. The large avenue that runs east and west in front [sic back] of the Hall [of Patterned Virtue] goes eastward out of the Gate of Eastern Florescence and westward out of the Gate of Western Florescence. Just inside [these two gates] are two other opposing gates, the Left and Right Gates of Grandness and Solemnity; southward are the Left and Right Gates of the Silver Dais. From the Palace of the August Heir-Apparent, just inside the Gate of Eastern Florescence, one enters the Gate of Grandness and Solemnity: on the south side of the street are the rear gate to the Hall of Grand Felicity and the Palace Audience Gates of the East and West [the Bureaus of Ceremonies of Felicitations and Condolences, respectively]; on the north side of the street is the Gate of Diffusing Heaven’s Succor.

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In the western corridor of the Grand North-South Avenue, facing eastward is the Hall of Distilled Radiance, which connects to the Gate of Convergent Change, through which one enters the Forbidden Center. In the gateways and towers in the eastern corridor directly across from the Hall [of Distilled Radiance] are the Department of Domestic Service for the Emperor, the Six Imperial Services, and the Imperial Kitchen. Usually doubled rows of the Imperial Guard are lined up at the Hall, who are on alert every notch of every double hour where they diligently monitor the comings and goings. Just inside [the Hall] are the personal attendants and the valued inner retainers [i.e., eunuchs of the imperial staff]. Outside of the Hall are the offices of the Administrator of the Department of Attendance in the Interior Palace and the Imperial Pharmacy. Express runners, Functionaries of the Personal Escort, Convoy officials, the Court of Conveyances, Elders of the Yellow Court, and the various soldiers and officers of the Inner Bureaus, official receptionists [of the Bureaus of Felicitation and Condolence], and those things purchased for or sent as tribute to the Forbidden City all enter here. This is precisely why it is so bustling. The men of the various offices themselves sell rare things to eat and drink, things that would not yet be found in the urban market. When the morning and evening meals are taken in, the Imperial Guard forms ranks between the Department of Domestic Service for the Emperor and the Hall of Distilled Radiance. They form a barrier that cannot be crossed. Above the gate to the Department is one person who calls for items, and he is called “The One Who Allocates the Food.” Then someone in purple robes, capped in a cross-tailed cap, called a “Court Boy” brings a box, which he covers with a yellow dragon-embroidered box cozy. In his left hand he brings a red silk embroidered handkerchief, and enters at this point. This goes on for approximately ten boxes, and then he continues by taking twenty or more golden melon boxes in. Those things requested outside of normal hours are called “Spur of the Moment Requests.” Outside of the Gate of Diffusing Heaven’s Succor one goes west to the Hall of the Purple Mansion where the New Year’s court is held, then next is the Hall of Patterned Virtue where the emperor normally holds court, and next in order are the Hall of Government by Non-Action, the Hall of August Ceremonies, and the Hall of Assembled Heroes where the imperial feasts and the announcement of examination candidates are held.

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   123 The rear halls are called the Hall of Venerating Administration and the Hall of Protecting Harmony. The Bureau of the Personal Messengers is located in the Hall of Perceptive Thought. The rear gate is called Supporting the Northern Asterism. The market area outside of the gate of Eastern Florescence is especially flourishing, probably because the Forbidden Interior trades here. Generally, the food and drink, the flowers and fruits fresh with each season, fish and shrimp, turtles and crabs, quail and rabbit, dried and jerked meat, gold, jade, precious baubles and clothes [sold here] are the most marvelous in the world. Their quality and style are of the highest order—even if a traveler should want ten or twenty different tastes to accompany his wine, they are immediately before the eyes for the having. When the fruits, melons, and vegetables of each season first come on the market, and when such things as eggplant and calabashes first appear, each pair can cost as much as thirty or fifty strings of a thousand cash, yet the various houses of the royal offspring strive to purchase them at this expensive cost. 大內正門宣德樓列五門，門皆金釘朱漆，壁皆磚石間甃，鐫鏤龍鳳飛雲 之狀，莫非雕甍畫棟，峻桷層榱，覆以琉璃瓦。曲尺朵樓，朱欄彩檻， 下列兩闕亭相對，悉用朱紅杈子。入宣德樓正門，乃大慶殿，庭設兩樓， 如寺院鍾樓，上有太史局保章正測驗刻漏，逐時刻執牙牌奏。每遇大禮， 車駕齋宿，及正朔朝會於此殿。殿外左右橫門曰左右長慶門。內城南壁 有門三座，係大朝會趨朝路。宣德樓左曰左掖門，右曰右掖門。左掖門 裏乃明堂，右掖門裏西去乃天章、寶文等閣。宮城至北廊約百餘丈。入 門東去街北廊乃樞密院，次中書省，次都堂，宰相朝退治事於此。次門 下省，次大慶殿。外廊橫門北去百餘步，又一橫門，每日宰執趨朝，此 處下馬；餘侍從臺諫於第一橫門下馬，行至文德殿，入第二橫門。東廊 大慶殿東偏門，西廊中書、門下後省，次修國史院，次南向小角門，正 對文德殿。常朝殿也。殿前東西大街，東出東華門，西出西華門。近裏 又兩門相對，左右嘉肅門也。南去左右銀臺門。自東華門裏皇太子宮入 嘉肅門，街南大慶殿後門、東西上閤門；街北宣祐門。南北大街西廊， 面東曰凝暉殿，乃通會通門，入禁中矣。殿相對東廊門樓，乃殿中省六 尚局御廚。殿上常列禁衛兩重，時刻提警，出入甚嚴。近裏皆近侍中貴。 殿之外皆知省、御藥、幕次、快行、親從官、輦官、車子院、黃院子、 內諸司兵士，祗候宣喚；及官禁買賣進貢，皆由此入。唯此浩穰諸司， 人自賣飲食珍奇之物，市井之間未有也。每遇早晚進膳，自殿中省對凝 暉殿，禁衛成列，約欄不得過往。省門上有一人呼喝，謂之「撥食家」。 次有紫衣、裹腳子向後曲折幞頭者，謂之「院子家」，托一合，用黃繡

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龍合衣籠罩，左手攜一紅羅繡手巾，進入於此，約十餘合。繼托金瓜合 二十餘面進入，非時取喚，謂之「泛索」。宣祐門外，西去紫宸殿。正 朔受朝於此。次曰文德殿，常朝所御。次曰垂拱殿，次曰皇儀殿，次曰 集英殿。御宴及試舉人於此。後殿曰崇政殿、保和殿。內書閣曰睿思殿。 後門曰拱辰門。東華門外，市井最盛，蓋禁中買賣在此，凡飲食、時新 花果、魚蝦鱉蟹，鶉兔脯腊、金玉珍玩衣著，無非天下之奇。其品味若 數十分，客要一二十味下酒，隨索目下便有之。其歲時果瓜，蔬茹新上 市，并茄瓠之類，新出每對可直三五十千，諸閤分爭以貴價取之。 ­­

Now, in both Chinese and English, this description gives one an overwhelming sense of density, specificity, and completeness. However, when we create enough distance between ourselves and the text, we discover that it does not, in fact, actually describe the Forbidden Interior in any significant way. Rather, it describes only two pathways through the palace grounds. It begins with an exterior vista of the Gate of Virtue Displayed, which was clearly the dominant architectural feature of Bianliang’s interior space, moves then in three intrusions: one to the audience hall, the Hall of Grand Felicity behind the Tower of Virtue Displayed, a view inside the eastern side gate to the Hall of Enlightenment, and then a progress through the western gate to the east side of the Hall of Grand Felicity. Many of the places he describes on the second and last pathways are only viewed, not visited. The narrator then withdraws to the major east-west axis of the palace, where he enters from the east, but goes only far enough to make a turn to the north to the service quadrant of the palace. Simultaneously with this deeper penetration into the Forbidden City, the text pans in like a camera, focusing on smaller and smaller detail—specificity increases in proportion to familiarity. We begin with a description of the exterior of the most prominent architectural landmark in the city itself and end up by describing the silk food cozies that cover the dishes taken into the emperor. Compared to other descriptions of the Song imperial palaces, this is stunning for its extremely specific detail and for its lack of comprehensiveness.42 The focus, as with so much of the text, finishes on food and market transactions. This pattern of beginning with large scale description and ending with the minutae of material objects is repeated throughout the text, and in every instance, the description moves from linear, geometric order determined by ritual movement or layout of the city to disorder, to isolated and closed systems of representation, pockets of chaotic language

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   125 and memory that overwhelm simple acts of topological or material description. We find the same curious mixture of detail and minutiae in the passage “The Auriga Returns” in the combination of dense almost claustrophobic description and explanatory asides. But rather than end in consumption, it ends with the emperor viewing the lantern mountain, then ascending to his box on the Gate of Virtue Displayed. This is immediately followed by a surge of inhabitants rushing up to the Open Dais to view the entertainments while the imperial family, high ministers, and royal in-laws look down from the Gate or from their boxes on high. Thus, the emperor’s trundling through the lantern peaks functioned like a royal thread of singular action that ties two completely separate and distinct groups together: the ritual entourage decked out in formal panoply and marching back in serried ranks and a random and chaotic press of urbanites flocking to the center of entertainment in the broad plaza that stood in front of the Gate of Virtue Displayed. The passage also speaks to the possibility of violence that such gatherings could spark. The “Inner Lads,” the thugs who guarded the main part of the entourage were necessary to keep order (Appendix I). While the Imperial Avenue itself was very broad, the other streets through which the emperor passed were not so spacious. If we look closely at the Qingming shang he tu, a representation of street scene in what is presumed to be Kaifeng, we find that the actual width of the streets is quite narrow. While the figures represented in this painting are not drawn in true perspective, an average height of 10 figures in a horizontal line N, and the width of the street can be measured as 4.5N; if the average person were 1.6 meters, then the total distance would be 7.2 meters or 23.5 feet. If we doubled this to account for diminished distance due to perspective, it would be about 14.5 meters wide. This would allow approximately 10–12 mounts to ride side by side through the city. Memorials submitted and edicts issued in the middle Renzong’s reign (r. 1022–63) point out that the Imperial entourage had to share the road with other entourages, people racing back and forth, and was in constant danger from people looking down from high places or from behind closed blinds. Obviously, while the emperor was delighted to “share his joy with the people” the unruly crowds and chaos his presence brought into being posed a real problem of security for his own person. Both of our major sources divide their appreciation of the First Prime in two distinct sections: the first is about the presence of the emperor and

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his various entourages, the second about the pleasures of sightseeing, wine, and the hint of women. The Dream takes unabashed pleasure in the materiality of the imperial presence, and the emperor is both the object of gaze, seated on high in his little red cap; but he is also acknowledged as the gaze that governs all. The Dream’s detailed description of all of the entertainments that provided such delight for the urban audience leaves no doubt about whom the real audience was: In a space of a little more than 100 feet from the lantern mountain to the Gate of Virtue Displayed, a screen fence was constructed of thorns and prickles, which was called “the thorn basin.” Two long timbers, hundreds of feet high, were set up in the enclosure, and papiermâché replicas of the performers of the hundred entertainments were hung from the pole that moved exactly like flying immortals. Inside temporary stage platforms are erected and entertainers attached to the Yamen are dispatched to make music and perform variety skits, and these are bolstered by the hundred entertainments of the two troupes that are interspersed among them. When the Auriga takes his seat, they all perform simultaneously. On top of the Gate of Virtue Displayed, curtains are unfurled that are edged in yellow. There is one seat in the middle, which is the Imperial seat. A colorful awning is made of yellow silk and the Imperial Dragon Column stands outside of the curtains, holding yellow umbrellas and fans. On each of the fore towers one lantern globe is hung down, approximately ten feet around, and a huge candle is lit inside of it, and music is played as well from inside the curtains. The happy laughter of the palace consorts can be heard below and outside [of the Gate]. Just below the Gate squared beams are stacked to make one open stage, which has a railing wrapped in silk, and the two sides are occupied by standing formations of the Imperial Guard, who are in brocade robes and tailed hats which are decorated with flowers they have been given. They hold knobbed clubs and face this music stage. In turn, the Court Entertainment Bureau, the Column of Military Music, and the Disciples of the Open Stage present variety plays. Just inside the [Three Gates], Columns and Squadrons of the Inner Retainer Unit [of the Imperial Guard] stand in formation. The ten thousand surnames all gather below the Open Stage to watch, and from time to time the entertainers lead the ten thousand surnames in a “mountain yell.”43

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   127 自燈山至宣德門樓橫大街，約百餘丈，用棘刺圍遶，謂之「棘盆」， 內設兩長竿，高數十丈，以繒綵結束，紙糊百戲人物，懸於竿上， 風動宛若飛仙。內設樂棚，差衙前樂人作樂雜戲、并左右軍百戲在其 中。駕坐一時呈拽。宣德樓上，皆垂黃緣簾，中一位，乃御座。用 黃羅設一綵棚，御龍直執黃蓋、掌扇，列於簾外。兩朵樓各掛燈毬 一枚，約方圓丈餘，內燃椽燭，簾內亦作樂。宮嬪嬉笑之聲，下聞 於外。樓下用枋木壘成露臺一所，綵結欄檻，兩邊皆禁衛排立，錦 袍，幞頭簪賜花，執骨朵子，面此樂棚。教坊、鈞容直、露臺弟子， 更互雜劇。近門亦有內等子班直排立。萬姓皆在露臺下觀看，樂人 時引萬姓山呼。

Here the emperor is not only encoded into a system of ritual that assures his patriarchal status and presence (both seen and unseen), but also into a complex of entertainment and spectacle (see first underlined passage above). He is the author of the moment as well as the creator of its material and sensual pleasures. The obsession of the Dream with describing the minutest detail of clothing, accoutrement, food, lanterns, etc., can be seen in one way as a system of decoding a hierarchy that is constructed by the privileges of consumption. Conversely, the “Lyrics of First Prime” triangulate the lantern festival with the heavenly realm of Daoist immortals. If we compare the description of the stage and its surrounding formations of musicians above (see second underlined passage above) to the following lyrics, we see how differently the same moment can appear in different texts—different genre conventions, different producers, and different audiences: 3 44

45

紫禁煙光一萬重， A misty radiance around Purple Tenuity, a myriad layers deep, 46 五門金碧射晴空。 Gold and cyan from the Five Gates shot into the clear void; 梨園羯鼓三千面， Three thousand Tibetan stick drums of the Pear Garden Players,47 48 陸海鼇山十二峰。 The twelve high peaks of Leviathan Mountain rose from a sea of land. 香霧重、月華濃， The perfumed fog was thick—the corona of the moon congealed,

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露臺仙仗綵雲中。 The transcendents’ panoply of the Open Dais, amid colorful clouds. 朱欄畫棟金泥幕， Vermillion railings and painted roof beams, curtains daubed with gold, 捲盡紅蓮十里風。 Completely furled to reveal a ten-mile breeze of red lotuses.

4 香霧氤氳結綵山， Perfumed fog, dense and obscuring, knots together colored mountains,50 蓬萊頂上駕頭還。 To the peak of Penglai the jiatou had returned.51 繡韉狨坐三千騎， Three thousand cavalry on embroidered saddle pads and golden-monkey fur saddle pads,52 玉帶金魚四十班。 Forty formations of jade belts and golden fish.53 風細細、珮珊珊， The wind light and delicate—belt pendants tinkling, 一天和氣轉春寒。 A whole heaven of harmonious ethers turned spring’s cold away. 千門萬戶笙簫裏， Amid reed organs and panpipes from a thousand palaces and myriad halls, 十二樓臺月上欄。 The moon climbed the railing at the twelve lofts and terraces.54

5 禁衛傳呼約下廊， The Imperial Guard passed the word—they were invited to descend from the corridor, 層層掌扇簇親王。 Layer upon layer of long-handled fans clustered around the royal princes. 明珠照地三千乘， Bright pearls shone on the ground, three thousand mounts, 一片春雷入未央。 One slice of springtime thunder entered Weiyang Palace.55 宮漏永、御街長， The palace clepsydra seemed eternal—the Imperial Avenue long, 華燈偏共月爭光。 Colorful lamps all strove to match luster with the moon. 樂聲都在人聲裏， The sound of happiness all lay within the sound of human voices,

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   129 五夜車塵馬足香。 For five nights the dust of carts and hooves of horses perfumed the air.

6 寶炬金蓮一萬條， Precious candles, ten thousand little golden lotuses,56 57 火龍圍輦轉州橋。 A dragon of fire surrounded the imperial conveyance, turned at Prefecture Bridge; 月迎仙仗回三殿， The moon welcomed the transcendents’ panoply, as it returns to the Three Palaces,58 風遞韶音下九霄。 Wind circulated elegant music that drops from the Nine Empyrean. He ascended the doubled passageway— 登複道、聽鳴鞘， listened for the whistling cracker, 再頒酥酒賜臣僚。 A second time He distributed sweet wine, serving his officials. 太平無事多歡樂， A time of peace and greatest calm, of fullest pleasure and joy, 夜半傳宣放早朝。 As night halves He transmitted the order, “No morning court.”

7 玉座臨軒宴近臣， The jade throne overlooked the railing as He fêted his closest ministers, 御樓燈火發春溫。 Lantern fire at the Imperial Gate triggered the warmth of spring. 九重天上聞仙樂， In the nine layers of heaven above was heard the sound of transcendent music, 萬寶牀邊侍至尊。 Beside the bejeweled divan they waited upon the Most Revered. 花似海、月如盆， The flowers were like the sea—the moon like a basin, 不任宣勸醉醺醺。 No rebuttal to His urging to drink as all grew pleasantly drunk. 豈知頭上宮花重， Could they sense the weight of palace flowers atop their heads? 貪愛傳柑遺細君。 They coveted being given a sweet orange they can give their own wives.

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In this conceit, Huizong has become the Jade Emperor, the palace has become the Ninth Layer of Heaven, the abode of transcendent beings, the music is the fairy music of the immortals, the imperial entourage is now a panoply of transcendent beings, and his military entourage a scattering of pearls on the ground. There is nothing new about these metaphors.59 The description of the formal entourage of the emperor had long been called “an entourage of transcendent beings.” But this triangulation, taken together with a system of metaphors that emphasize moonlight, misty radiances, smoke, and perfumed fog places the lantern festival in a world of higher experience than the mundane—it is a world usually closed to humans, but opened at this brief moment to all. As the poem says, “the sound of happiness all lay in the sound of human voices” yet the experience itself was otherworldly, a moment of transport and wonder for the citizens of the capital. Behind this set of fifteen poems lie three shi style poems by Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101), the lines of which are adapted into the fifteen lyrics at various points. Su Shi’s poems were probably written while in attendance at an imperial banquet at the Palace of Highest Clarity, which is briefly noted by a single line in Dream: “On the fifteenth [the emperor] visits the Palace of Highest Clarity where he also holds a feast for his officials; later in the day he returns to the Grand Interior.” Su’s poems make absolute the connection between the earthly emperor and the highest monarch of Daoism:60

Su Shi 蘇軾 “Three Verses Written While at the Imperial Banquet on New Year’s: Shown to my Colleagues at the Gate” 上元侍飲樓上呈同列 澹月疏星遶建章， Pale moon and scattered stars surround Jianzhang Palace,61 仙風吹下御爐香； Transcendent’s wind blows down, the Imperial Censer is fragrant; 侍臣鵠立通明殿， Officials in waiting stand like cranes at the Hall of Penetrating Brilliance,62 一朵紅雲捧玉皇。 One blossom of red clouds presents the Jade Emperor.

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   131 薄雪初消野未耕， A thin layer of snow begins to melt, the fallows yet untilled, 63 賣薪買酒看升平； They are “selling firewood and buying wine,” observe ascendant peace; 64 吾君勤儉倡優拙， My lord is frugal, his entertainers amateurish, 自是豐年有笑聲。 It had been a fecund year and there were sounds of laughter. 老病行穿萬馬群， Old and sick, I thread my way through the pack of ten thousand horses, 九衢人散月紛紛； On the paths people disperse, chaotic in the moonlight; 歸來一盞殘燈在， Coming back, a single sputtering lamp is there, 猶有傳柑遺細君。 I still have the orange passed my way to give to my wife.

(author’s note: We drank in attendance in the tower, and the royal relatives vied with each other to bestow sweet oranges on close officials, which was called “passing along the oranges” and you were allowed to take these home. This had become a precedent. 侍飲樓上， 則貴戚争以黄柑遺近臣，謂之「傳柑」，聽攜以歸。)

What lies behind these metaphors and similes may be more than literary or figurative usage. The sect of Highest Clarity had been the state cult of the Song since the time of a purported revelation in Shaanxi in the 960s, after which a Palace of Great Peace of the Highest Clarity was constructed on the spot.65 But there is no doubting their primary use is to construct and maintain the vision of the human emperor as the Daoist deity. The conflation of earthly and celestial courts in Su’s first short verse, in which the wind from heaven that blows on the physical censer, the human officials who stand in waiting in the celestial palace exactly as transcendents do in attendance on the Jade Emperor (仙翁鵠立), and the real imperial umbrella somehow likened to the red clouds that conceal the face of the Jade Emperor in audience, creates an unbreakable bond between the two realms.66 The “Partridge Heaven” lyrics play on this bond, but place it firmly in the realm of pleasure and entertainment. And, as well know, transcendent females have a secure role in more carnal metaphorical realms.67 Let us return for a moment to Ouyang Xiu’s lyric. The first stanza of the lyric

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is about the boisterousness of Prime Eve, the beauty of its lamps, the carts and horses of the well-to-do racing to feasts at the houses of the noble. 帝里偏愛元夕。 萬重繒彩， 搆一屏峰嶺， 半空金碧。 寶檠銀釭， 耀絳幕、 龍騰虎擲。 沙堤遠， 雕輪繡轂， 爭走五侯宅。

Everyone loved First Prime Eve. Ten thousand layers of silken color Built into a single screen of mountain peaks— Gold and blue rose halfway to heaven. Precious lampstands and silver oil lamps Radiated against crimson hangings Leaping dragons and somersaulting tigers. The sandy path ran far away— Carved wheels and patterned hubs Raced with one another to the homes of the Five Marquis.

The second stanza introduces the realm of earthly delights into which the speaker disappears once he is released from the imperial presence and after the lamps of the Leviathan Peaks in front of the Gate of Virtue Displayed are extinguished. (Ouyang Xiu, stanza 2) 雍容熙熙作晝， Magnanimous and at peace, turning night into day, 會樂府神姬， We encountered the divine beauties of the Music Bureau, 海洞仙客。 Those immortal wanderers from grottoes out on the sea. Trailing perfume, trembling halcyon jade, 曳香搖翠， 稱執手行歌， Perfect for holding hands and singing as they walked 錦街天陌。 Along streets like brocade, the pathways of heaven. 月淡寒輕， The moon grew pale, the coolness more slight 漸向曉、 As it gradually shifted toward dawn 漏聲寂寂。 And the sound of the clepsydra turned still. 當年少， I was young then, 狂心未已， My wild heart yet unabated— 不醉怎歸得。 No going home unless drunk!

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   133 The Dream relates the same moment: At this point the flowered lamps and precious candles, the light of the moon and radiance of the flowers, all swirls together like a fog into which everything melts—with moving candles near and far. At the third drum (11pm–1am) the people of the capital come to know, by virtue of a small red lamp globe that is pulled along a rope into the sky that the imperial entourage has already returned to the Interior. In a short time the sound of a whip cracking is heard outside of the Gate and all of the lamps on the mountain and the gate, hundreds of thousands, are simultaneously extinguished. At this time the carts and horses of the rich, as close together as scales on a fish, rush from the area in front of the Interior to go south and roam in the Xiangguo Temple. 於是華燈寶炬，月色花光，霏霧融融，動燭遠近。至三皷，樓上以小紅 紗燈毬緣索而至半空，都人皆知車駕還內矣。須臾聞樓外擊鞭之聲，則 山樓上下燈燭數十萬盞，一時滅矣。於是貴家車馬，自內前鱗切，悉南 去遊相國寺。

This bifurcation between imperially sponsored and private pleasure is found in virtually all of the texts about New Year’s in Bianliang. Cao Xun 曹勛 (1098–1174), writing sometime after the fall of the Northern Song, wrote: Cao Xun 曹勛 “A Precious Garden of Bright Spring” 寶苑明春 To the tune Chunfeng diyi zhi 春風第一支 寶苑明春， A precious garden of bright spring, 青霞射晚， Sunset in sky radiates into the evening, 68 六幕雲閒風靜。 Within the “six hangings” the clouds are still, the wind quiet. 茂林修竹昂霄， Lush forests and long bamboos push up into the empyrean, 素月照人澄瑩。 A white moon shines on people, pure and crystalline.

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Stephen H. West 梅花十頃， 遞暗香、 瓊瑤真景。 散萬斛金蓮， 崇山秀嶺， 盡開花徑。 真個好、 月燈相映。 真個樂、 聖駕游幸。 四部簫韶， 群仙奏樂， 萬光耀境。 玉華不夜， 向洞天、 暖煙回冷。 好大家、 酒色醺醺， 任教漏移花影。

Hundreds of acres of plum blossoms Send out secret fragrance   in a true scene of precious jade. Scattering thousands of pecks of golden lotus Along lush peaks of high mountains And fully opened flower paths. It was good—   moon and lamps shining together It was joy—   sage’s entourage moving place to place. The Xiaoshao odes of Shun from the Four Sections,69 The music played by assembled transcendents— Myriads of rays in the coruscant realm. The florescence of jade70 allowed no night As toward the grotto heavens   the warm mists returned to cold. And a goodly number of us all   suffused with the color wine produces— Let the clepsydra move those flowers’ shadows.71

The “Lyrics of First Prime” are even more explicit: 10 風約微雲不放陰， Wind trysting with light clouds, no darkness was allowed, 滿天星點綴明金。 Star dots, filling the heavens, are a stitch of lustrous metal.72 73 燭龍銜耀烘殘雪， The fire dragon held radiance in its mouth to scorch the remaining snow, 羯鼓催花發上林。 Stick drums urged on the flowers to come forth in Shanglin Park.74 河影轉、漏聲沈， The image of the Milky Way rotated—the sound of the clepsydra grew deep— 縷衣羅薄暮雲深。 So thin the gauzy silk of gold-fretted clothes as evening clouds deepened.

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   135 更期明夜相逢處， We set another time and place for tomorrow night 還盡今宵未足心。 To return to fulfill this night’s unsatisfied heart.

11 五日都無一日陰， Five days full, not one day dark, 往來車馬鬧如林。 Back and forth, cart and horse as bustling “as a forest.” 葆真行到燭初上， We reached the Daoist Monastery of Protecting the True Nature75 as the lamps were first strung, 豐樂遊歸夜已深。 And returned from the House of Abundant Joy76 when the night was already deep. 人未散、月將沈， People had yet to disperse,—the moon began to sink— 更期明夜到而今。 The tomorrow night we had set was now here. 歸來尚向燈前說， Coming back, still inclined to what was said by the lanterns 猶恨追遊不稱心。 Still upset that my pursuits in roaming leave me ungratified.

12 徹曉華燈照鳳城， Through to dawn the decorated lanterns shone on the Phoenix City, 猶嗔宮漏促天明。 Still we were upset that the palace clepsydra urged the day to brightness. 九重天上聞花氣， In the nine layers of heaven above we smelled the aroma of flowers, 五色雲中應笑聲。 And in pentacolored clouds responded to laughing sounds. 頻報道、奏河清， Again and again they reported,—announcing that the Yellow River was clear— 萬民和樂見人情。 All of the people in harmony and happiness, revealed human sentiment. 年豐米賤無邊事， The harvest was abundant, rice was cheap, and there were no border incursions,

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Stephen H. West 萬國稱觴賀太平。 A myriad states raised their goblets to celebrate great peace.

Enjoyment was found in both of these spheres: one the shared pleasure of the flaneur (called in Dream the “roamer” [youren 遊人] or the “metrocapital person” [duren 都人]), who were able to view the grandest spectacle of the year, one that seemed both literally and figuratively to be ephemeral and otherworldly; the other, the private pleasures of friends, banquets, female companionship, and family. New clothes, the clearing of old debts, the cleansing of the house and the state, the purging of demons, and the pleasures of the city all collapsed into these sixteen days. I would like now to turn to the issue of how these texts map out remembered space (in both of those meanings as “brought back to memory” but also “put back together”) and the relationship with loss and nostalgia. Each of these two texts involves a writer moving out of his study and using his art to immerse himself in the remembered materiality and emotions of the past. Each text, in its own way is a process of re-engagement with space and place and a recreation of the intimacy between the writer and the tangible facts of a city and its festivals that he remembers. Memories “take place,” in both senses of this word: they need a place to happen, but they also put the writer “in place” in the center of his created world where the imagined movements of his body bring him in contact with the festival. We cannot doubt the intense materiality of Dream: its foods, smells, sights, textures and colors of clothing; nor can we doubt the refulgent mists, shooting rays of light, and tinkling sounds of music of the dream world in the lyric poems. Each of these worlds— one palpable, the other diaphanous—is a map drawn from within a remembered space, one that both traces the past and recreates it in two forms: the first is a world made by the recursive memory of the writer, one that is fragmentary, personal, and focused on materiality; the second is the world (and the personality?) of the writer recreated within that space, a person far different from the one currently writing the text. We can note, for instance, that the imperially sponsored parts of the festival take place along the central axis of the Imperial Avenue, major routes to points of ritual activities (the Altar to Heaven, the Palace of the Five Marchmounts, the Palace of Highest Clarity), and in the Dream in the private areas in the northern part of the Grand Interior: the pleasure

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   137 parks, private temples, and royal residences of Huizong and his family. But the personal spreads out throughout the city, penetrating into the wards and alleys (“time to go east, but no time to go west”). In each of these cases, the mapping of space is completed from within as the writer savors the world he has recreated, smelling the food, seeing clothes, tasting wine, holding the hands of his friends as they wander through the streets of Bianliang, or expressing the muted anticipation of flirtation or more intimate human contact. The sensations overwhelm us, whether they transport us into the material world of the body or into a wonderland of mists, fogs, and overheard music of fairy lands of gossamer immortals in their half-glimpsed gardens—too ephemeral to hold on to— disappearing in the end like houses of clams out on the sea. But this remembered actuality of entertainment and spectacle and the emotional enjoyment and pleasure that stemmed from it eventually turn to the deep depression of loss. The anonymous writer of the “Lyrics for Prime Eve” vaunts his memory of Kaifeng, 13 憶得當年全盛時， I can still recall the most splendid time of those years, 人情物態自熙熙。 When human sentiment and the shape of the world were in natural harmony. 家家簾幙人歸晚， House after house of curtains and blinds where people came home late, 處處樓臺月上遲。 Place after place of lofts and terraces where the moon slowly climbed. 花市裏、使人迷， The flower markets—they made a man lost: 州東無暇看州西。 In the east of the city there was no time to go see the west. 都人只到收燈夜， The people of the capital, on the night the lanterns were gathered in, 已向樽前約上池。 Had already pledged by their cups to go together out on the Reservoir.

But the entertainments and pleasure he knew disappeared as he stood on the banks (probably) of the Qiantang River in Hangzhou, his dream of “yellow millet” over in flash.

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Stephen H. West 14 步障移春錦繡叢， Screens of transplanted spring are clusters of brocade and embroidery,77 珠簾翠幙護春風。 Pearly curtains and kingfisher hangings protected them from spring’s breeze. 沈香甲煎薰爐煖， The censer filled with aloeswood and opercula of whelk78 was warm, 玉樹明金蜜炬融。 Jade trees lustrous and glistening, beeswax torches melting. 車流水，馬游龍， Carts were flowing water—horses roaming dragons: 歡聲浮動建章宮。 Sounds of happiness floated out of Jianzhang Palace. 誰憐此夜春江上， Who laments this night on the banks of another spring river? 79 魂斷黃粱一夢中。 My soul sundered in a dream of yellow millet.

15 真箇親曾見太平， I myself really witnessed those years of peace, 元宵且說景龍燈。 And on Prime Eve still talk first of the lamps of Jinglong Gate. 四方同奏昇平曲， The quadrants of the world played in harmony the “Song of Ascending Peace,” 天下都無歎息聲。 And the whole realm heard not a mournful sigh. 長月好，定天晴， The abiding moon so wonderful—it could be mistaken for a clear day, 人人五夜到天明。 And for five nights running, people went on until morning light. 如今一把傷心淚， But now it is all a handful of broken-hearted tears, 猶恨江南過此生。 For I still hate that I have to pass this life in Jiangnan.

And while Dream is less direct than the lyrics, the sense of loss elicited by the recursive display of the old capital’s sights, sounds, tastes, and pleasures accumulates in the end a similar nostalgia for a time lost and unrecoverable. It takes us into a world of light and pleasure, but at the same time it unveils the darker side of such pleasure: the instability of the world as we know it and the uncertain outcome of history and of our

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   139 lives. The memories from materiality, move to emotion, and finally become significant markers of ephemeral moments in a recurrent process of change. While these texts are certainly written as memoirs of the city, their instrumental goal, expressed by Meng Yuanlao, was to correct misinterpretations of its memory. As he said in his “Preface”: For several tens of years I indulged in pleasures and roamed in enjoyment over and over, never knowing when it was enough. One morning came the fires of war, and in the year after the bingwu year of Jingkang reign, I left the capital to come south, going to a remote area south of the lower Yangtze.80 I became depressed and lonely as I gradually entered the last part of my life. Silently remembering those years, the style and sophistication of the things that belonged to each season, of the gentleness and comeliness of human feelings—these things became naught to me but disconsolateness and vexation. In recent times, when meeting with kith and kin, as the discussions turned back to former days, the younger born often carelessly made up what was never so. I feared that, as time went by, those who would discuss the customs and traditions [of the capital] would be at a loss for hard fact—and this was truly lamentable. [I] have carefully recalled [what I know] and put that in order to make this collection. I would hope that, as soon as one opens a chapter, one can see the flourishing of that time. 僕數十年爛賞疊游，莫知厭足。一旦兵火，靖康丙午之明年，出京南來， 避地江左，情緒牢落，漸入桑榆。暗想當年，節物風流，人情和美，但 成悵恨。近與親戚會面，談及曩昔，後生往往妄生不然。僕恐浸久，論 其風俗者，失於事實，誠為可惜，謹省記編次成集，庶幾開卷得覩當時 之盛。古人有夢遊華胥之國，其樂無涯者，僕今追念，回首帳然，豈非 華胥之夢覺哉！

This slight undercurrent of negativity and shame (underlined above) in Meng’s overall highly effusive descriptions of the pleasures of the capital and his enjoyment of them can perhaps be attributed to hindsight of age and wisdom. This minor chord of criticism of “not knowing when enough is enough” should warn us away from seeing his memoir as a simple act of nostalgia. It makes Dream a complicated body of text that is meant both to describe the material splendor and imperial power of the former

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capital, and to present the excitement and pleasure they elicited as cautionary examples of the persistent and cyclical nature of history so well captured in the common phrase, “when happiness reaches its culmen, then grief is born” (leji beisheng 樂極悲生). Perhaps his criticism of the younger generation’s careless and absurd recreations of the capital is not simply a desire to restore the correct facts of the capital, but to contextualize them in this cyclical process. But his complaint also points to the need of texts like the lyrics and Dream to keep alive the memories of an expatriate community in and around Hangzhou that was slowly being swallowed up by time and natural death. The carelessness of the young was a sign to him that, with the death of individuals the shared memories that formed a bond within the real and imagined community of émigrés whose identity was formed around and sustained by being a “person of the capital” (duren 都人) was in danger. The community was real in the sense that Hangzhou had become an area occupied primarily by political émigrés and by all of the service apparatus that accompanied them: food, performance, clothing, etc. Even the dialect of the city changed from Wu to a form of mandarin imported from the Central Plain.81 It was imagined in the sense that the primary link was no longer in the present quotidian world of social or economic exchange, but in a symbolic exchange of past memories that created a common bond among the displaced. Other indications of the importance of this common bond occurs with some frequency in the texts of early Southern Song, but perhaps no where more directly than in A Little Document from the Liquid Ambar Window (Fengchuang xiaodu 楓窗小牘), a short scholar’s note (biji) about memories of Kaifeng. The purported author is a certain Yuan 袁, although the text itself is attributed to an unknown person identifiable only through his sobriquet, The Centenarian Codger (Baisui laoweng 百歲老翁). The preface of his work is remarkably similar to that of Dream: In a hurry and under pressure I crossed the Yangtze and lodged as a sojourner among the hills of Lin’an. I personally put my father’s writings in order and there was nothing else to do except to face the tallow tree west of the window and recall things I had heard in the past. I came up with a few dozen entries and wrote them down in order they not be forgotten. This was in the desolation of late autumn. Happily there were vermillion leaves and lingering sunsets to

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   141 reflect [their colors] on my desk. When my record was completed, I immediately called for some wine and dropped the final ink on it, naming it, A Little Document from the Liquid Ambar Window.82 余迫猝渡江，僑寓臨安山中，父書手定，都為烏有，第日對窗西烏桕， 省念舊聞，得數十事錄之，以備遺忘。時晚秋蕭瑟，喜有丹葉殘霞來射 几案。會錄成，輒呼酒落之，名曰「楓窗小牘」。

A more telling bit of information is the author’s utter disappointment about living in Hangzhou, which he considered isolated, claustrophobic, and deprived: In Bian, Yu Hang was called “Heaven on earth, where everything is there and happening.”83 When I actually lodged here in the mountains, there were dried up fields in deep valleys, a forest jungle that blocked the sun, no fish or shrimp, seldom were things suitable and there was nothing to be had. For meals there was only wild onions and bitter lettuce with brown rice. There was a little of the liquid left over from the meal which could be drunk as a substitute for fat. I wouldn’t say that “heaven on earth” would have this kind of enjoyment!84 汴中呼余杭「百事繁庶」，地上天宮。及余邸寓山中，深谷枯田，林莽 塞日，魚蝦屏斷，鮮適莫搆，惟野蔥苦蕒，紅米作炊，炊汁許許，代脂 供飲。不謂地上天宮有此受享也。

In a recent and thought-provoking article, the noted expert on Dream, Yi Yongwen, has suggested that the author of both Dream and the Liquid Ambar Window was a member of the royal family, Zhao Zichi 趙子淔. There are some problems with the actual identification, I feel, but it does seem likely that both texts were indeed written by the same person. Yi’s argument that the pseudonym Meng Yuanlao should be read as Meng Yuanlao, “the eldest son among former officials” is persuasive, as are his conclusions based on a careful collation of similar passages in the two texts.85 The fact that one passage in Liquid Ambar Window suggests that the author traces his lineage to the surname Yuan 袁 provides an obstacle to completely accepting Zhao Zichi as the author,86 but it is clear that whoever wrote these two works was intimately familiar with the palace, the imperial entourage, and even the famous pleasure

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park, Genyue—perhaps a member of the royal family, or at least someone in the ambit of Huizong’s personal retinue. What runs clearly through all of these texts is a dissatisfaction with living in Hangzhou, and that dissatisfaction has mainly to do with material deprivation. Certainly, there is a deep sense of loss over the prestige of the state. But even in that materiality trumps politics: it is the physicality and grandeur of the imperial spectacles that are highlighted. The emphasis on culinary deprivation in Liquid Ambar Window and on the sense of claustrophobia in the new environs of Jiangnan are also very interesting, because they may signal a class difference in reading capitals as topographical text.87 Literati culture, autistic to the core, was more inclined to the aesthetics of the environment and the sociality of a closed group. For them a move to Hangzhou would place them in the middle of natural beauty, the continued legacy of the Song court, and a familiar writing environment in which textual production was primarily spurred by closed social moments. But for the writers of Dream, Liquid Ambar Window, and the “Partridge Heaven” lyrics, what was missing were the material pleasures of the world’s largest commercial city, one dominated by consumption and one that was an open and irregular grid that spread evenly out over a plain. This literature was written in the fifty years that followed the demise of the Northern Song, and as soon as Hangzhou grew beyond a temporary capital to take its place as a capital, the sensible pleasures re-emerged in local production: the other four capital journals, but also in the sanqu of writers like Guan Hanqing and Zhang Kejiu. Materiality re-emerged in drama, the elite-colloquial hybrid form of sanqu, and in Ming fiction. Hangzhou has traditionally been a site of tremendous literary production—from the Wu Zixu bianwen, to the poems of Bai Juyi, Lin Bu, Su Shi and others, to the sanqu of Guan Hanqing and Zhang Kejiu,88 to the Hangzhou background of xiaoshuo production. But one can sense a sharp distinction between the writing produced about Hangzhou before and after the early Southern Song. The major writing about Hangzhou prior to middle Southern Song was dominated by the generic aesthetics of elite literature (primarily poetry and the casual note): landscape, Buddhist monasteries, and particularly West Lake were in the eyes of writers and in the eye of poetry (shiyan 詩眼) as well. But starting with the capital journals of Southern Song, Hangzhou began to be mapped out as a site of entertainment, pleasure, and eating just as Kaifeng had been, although

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   143 these delights would forever be married to natural wonders of the Wu mountains and West Lake. Within these significant historical changes, texts on the New Year’s festival held a pivotal role in forming imagined communities of émigré Northerners who shared both a distaste for Hangzhou and a nostalgia for the pleasures that energized Kaifeng. New Year’s was a time to celebrate imperial power in its ostentatious display of the symbols of authority and consumption. New Year’s was a time of renewal, reunion, as well, conversely, of the sense of enduring longing that the excitement of ephemeral pleasure inevitably prompts. When those pleasures were reimplaced in a new and alien environment, they revived through memory another time and space shared by “people of the metrocapital,” (duren 都人), a self-designating marker of identity that would disappear with the memory of the place itself. The poems and journals also mark an uncertainty about the present and future. Like Janus, these poets looked both back (nostalgia), to the present (the continuation of community of metrocapital people), and to an uncertain future (the political fate of the Song). This trope of “New Year’s in the old capital” could ebb and neap as the tides of fortune changed. But the motif could certainly be found again after the fall of the Southern Song, captured in prose accounts like Old Affairs from Qiantang or in the lyrics of ci writers who bore witness to Song’s demise. Let us conclude with a lyric by the Southern Song writer Liu Chenweng 劉辰翁 (1232–79), who understood quite well the relationship between memory and willful forgetfulness: Liu Chenweng 劉辰翁 “Month of Spring” 春月 To the tune Baoding xian 寶鼎現

[1 (In Bianliang)] 紅妝春騎， Rouged beauties, “racing colts on spring floods,”89 踏月影、竿旗穿市。 Trod in the moonlight—their banners threading the market.

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望不盡、樓台歌舞， Unending gazes—lofts and daises of song and dance—90 習習香塵蓮步底。 Perfumed dust stirred under their lotus steps. 簫聲斷、約彩鸞歸去， Sounds of pipes ceased—anticipating the colorful simurghs departure—91 未怕金吾呵醉。 No fear yet that the Night Patrol will challenge drunken revelers. Then on the Imperial Way—the clamor 甚輦路、喧闐且止。 ceases for the moment. 聽得念奴歌起。 They can hear the song of Niannu begin.

[2 (In Lin’an)] 父老猶記宣和事。 The oldsters still remember these affairs of Xuanhe reign. 抱銅仙、清淚如水。 Clasping the bronze immortals—glistening tears fall like water.92 還轉盼、沙河多麗。 But they still turned their gaze—to the many beauties of Qiantang’s Sandbank. 滉漾明光連邸第。 Endless shimmering rays of the moon linked mansions of the noble. 簾影凍、散紅光成綺。 Images froze on the curtains—scattering reddish rays that turned into patterned gauze of silk. 月浸葡萄十里。 The moon saturated ten li of grape [wine at West Lake].93 看往來、神仙才子。 Looking at their comings and goings—those spiritual transcendents and talented lads— 肯把菱花撲碎。 Willing to smash the caltrop flower to pieces.94

[3 (After the fall of the Song)] 腸斷竹馬兒童， Broken hearted little boys on their hobby horses, 空見說、三千樂指。 Vainly are told—about the three hundred singers [of those days]. 等多時春不歸來， I’ve waited a long time for a spring that never returns, 到春時欲睡。 And when spring arrives I just want to sleep.

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   145 又說向、燈前擁髻。 I speak in the past—of her putting up her coif before the lamp, 暗滴鮫珠墜。 Secretly letting pearly tears fall. 便當日、親見霓裳， Well, back then—I saw myself the Dance of Rainbow Skirts— 天上人間夢裏。 In heaven above, here among men, and in a dream.95

Appendix I From Xu Zizhi tongjian changbian 續資治通鑑長編

In the beginning, the three graded classes of the Auriga’s journey were made for the purpose of ritual affairs, and when the Auriga went out to any nearby place, the retinue simply consisted of ordinary retainers. Those who discussed this [in court] opined that this came close to remissness. At that point, Participator in Executive Affairs, Song Xiang, offered the opinion: When the Auriga now makes a journey, if it is not the complete protocol for the grand ritual of the Suburban Sacrifices to Heaven or the Ancestral Sacrifices, those who normally precede and follow the [the imperial palanquin] are only the jiaotou in front and the cluster of umbrellas and fans behind, which completely lacks the grandeur of earlier precedents, when [the procession] was led by the highest officials. The close inner attendants and the officials of the Hundred Offices, down to the lowest runner all walk randomly in the road. Behind, only a hundred or so close military officials bearing clubs protect the palanquin, and that is called “The Imperial Guard.” The Cavalry of the Palace Army remains quite distant from the palanquin. Yet the ordinary citizens who are looking on and those who have a retinue of their own crowd in on the sides of the road and race back and forth, yelling and shouting without restriction. All of wine houses and market towers have their shades down and are shielded from outside view. All of the citizens find the highest point to look down from above [on the procession], and are never told to stop by the patrols or street police. Commands that should provoke awe are weakened and abandoned, and custom has turned all of this into commonplace.

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初，三駕皆以待禮事，而車駕近出止用常從以行，議者以為近于闊略。 于是，參知政事宋庠言：「車駕行幸，非郊廟大禮具陳鹵簿外，其常日 導從，唯前有駕頭，後擁繖扇 而已，殊無前典所載公卿奉引之土。其 侍從及百司官屬，下至厮役，皆雜行道中。步輦之後，但以親事官百許 人執檛以殿，謂之禁衛。諸班勁騎，頗與乘輿相遠，而士庶觀者，率隨 扈從之人，夾道馳走，喧呼不禁。所過旗亭市樓，皆垂簾外蔽，士民憑 高下瞰，而邏司、街使曾不呵止，威令弛廢，習以為常。」

Now, when the Yellow Emperor, with his divine effort and abundant virtue, still availed himself of an army and weapons as a guard for his camp, it was as to guard against being slighted and to withstand any usurpation. From the Han and Wei down, there have been the ceremonial protocols of the Grand Procession, the Model Procession, and the Minor Procession. When it reached the Tang, then there was a division into the Various Guards who Protected the Center and the Yellow Aegis and other ceremonial guards: the names and allocations were arranged in proper order, and each were properly arrayed. Our own dynasty took on the corrupt remnants of [the practices of] the Five Dynasties and affairs were done in a remiss and perfunctory manner. So, the simurgh bells [of the imperial chariot] went out on a journey, it was like nothing so much as a border prefecture, shorn of all military paraphernalia and proper flags and banners. This is certainly not the careful behavior of “Lead forward at the head of the flag, travel only after the road is cleared.” In every case this is a relaxation of stipulated rules, and a mistake caused by fear of change. 「且黃帝以神功盛德，猶假師兵為營衛，蓋所以防微禦變也。漢、魏以 降，有大駕、法駕、小駕之儀。至唐，又分殿中諸衛、黃麾等仗，名數 次序，各有施設。國朝承五代荒殘之弊，事從簡略，鳴鑾游豫，僅同藩 鎮，而盡去戈戟旌旂之制，非所謂旄頭先驅、清道後行之謹也。此皆制 度放失，憚于改作之咎。」

I say it is appropriate to: 1) depute two widely-learned scholars to search through old commentaries to ritual ceremony and commands about protocols of imperial processions, 2) have them discuss and settle on various [appropriate] guard units of the three graded classes of processions, 3) take the ritual ceremony now used for ordinary travel by the imperial chariot and compare it with these guard units, 4) take what is desirable from them. Slightly increase the actual ritual implements, make the stipulations and prohibitions more complete and severe—above this will revere the pole star [the emperor] and

The Pains of Pleasure: The Lanterns of Kaifeng   147 below it will guard against the yet unknown. Do away with the blind following of old precedent, and make it for today. 「謂宜委一二博學近臣，檢尋前代儀注及鹵簿令，于三駕諸仗內參定， 以今乘輿常時出入之儀，比之三駕諸仗，酌取其中，稍增儀物，具嚴法 禁，上以尊宸極，下以防未然，革去因循，其在今日。」

An edict ordered: The Ritual Court of the Bureau of Imperial Sacrifice, the Central Secretariat and the Hanlin Academy investigated and made a determination, consequently sending a joint memorial: The Cavalry and Infantry of the Palace Army and the Foot and Horse of the Borough Armies that make up the Imperial guard shall remain at the same number. But 100 mounts should be added to the Horse for Clearing the Road, and they should be equipped with bows and arrows and make five distinct layers of cavalry. One rider should bear the Banner of Fixed Stars Mao and Bi that leads the procession, four riders front and back should bear Yamen flags, twenty-four should carry crimson embroidered phoenix pennants, and twelve fans of pheasant feathers—all divided by left and right. The infantry of the Heavenly Martial Army carry cudgels. As for the Personal Attendant soldiers, increase their number to 300, Commanders of the Palace Army increased to 200; they all ride abreast, facing each other on the left and right. Open up two “doors,” each two jian wide to imitate the “human gates” of the Rites of Zhou. Generally, the Imperial Guard will come between the flag at the rear of the front yamen gate and the flag in front of the rear yamen gate. Legal precedent will deal those who enter that area unbidden. It shall be forbidden to climb up high for a birds-eye view below, to unfurl curtains or screen anything off from the outside, to crowd the sides of the road, to shout and yell, or to race around. This was clear in the commands, but it became gradually lax later. 「詔太常禮院與兩制詳定，遂合奏諸班直禁兵步騎為禁衛，仍舊數，復 增清道馬百，佩弓矢為五重騎，而執罕畢者一騎，而執牙門旂前後四騎， 而執緋繡鳳氅二十四、雉扇十有二，皆分左右。天武兵徒行者執柯舒。 親從兵增其數為三百，殿前指揮使增為二百，並騎，左右相對。開二門， 門閒二丈，以擬周禮之人門，凡前牙門旂後，後牙門旂前，為禁衛，輒 入者論以法。禁乘高下瞰、垂簾外蔽、夾道喧呼馳走者。頗著于令，其 後寖弛云。「柯舒」字當考，江休復雜志 駕頭乃初即位御坐，其詳具 嘉祐六年七月。」

six

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi Ronald Egan

the southern song capital of Lin’an (the contemporary name for Hangzhou) is remembered for cultural splendor that matched the beauty of the city’s natural setting. The rapacious military conquest of the Southern Song by Yuan invaders in the 1270s was no doubt at the root of the tendency in later Chinese literature and historiography to romanticize and idealize the Southern Song and its capital. A voluminous twelfthcentury collection of tales may provide balance to our perception of Lin’an before the Mongol conquest. Hong Mai’s 洪邁 (1123–1202) famed Yijian zhi 夷堅志 contains many stories that describe Lin’an in a less sanguine light. Hong Mai’s narratives, which he insists are thoroughly reliable accounts and not made up, provide a stark portrait of Lin’an life, including certain types of stories we would expect to find in a newly established capital full of displaced persons, many of whom had fled there after the Jurchen conquest of the Northern Song in 1127. This chapter examines Hong Mai’s tales for what they reveal about life in Lin’an, accounts that often have more of the feel of nightmare than dream. Hong pays particular attention to narratives about violence against women, corruption among the official class, scams targeting young men with a weakness for sexual fantasy, cases of hauntings and madness, and infidelity in and outside of marriage. By focusing his Lin’an stories on

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lawlessness, Hong Mai provides a valuable perspective on the social and mental worlds of the capital’s residents. The Lin’an his stories evoke complicates the impression of the city conveyed by the better known contemporary accounts that dwell on its material wealth and cultural sophistication. This is not to say that the representations of Lin’an we find in Yijian zhi are objectively “true” or can be taken as faithful reflections of historical reality. The question of the relationship between the world of Hong Mai’s stories and the actual world of the Southern Song (in Lin’an or any other place the stories are set) is a vexed and complicated one. These are, after all, stories of “strange” and even uncanny events—such was the scope of the collection that Hong Mai set out to compile. We should expect them to impart impressions of life and society that are different from those are conveyed by more orthodox and sober historical sources. On the other hand, is it abundantly clear that Hong Mai believed he was presenting reliable narratives. In literally dozens of prefaces, one for each of his thirty-two installments, he repeatedly tells us of the lengths to which he has gone to verify the accuracy and reliability of the narratives. (Alister Inglis has discussed these prefaces at great length in his study of Yijian zhi.)1 Hong Mai is not making stories up. He is recording tales he has heard from informants or copied from written records that he has determined to be credible. The events they describe may be strange or extraordinary, but in Hong Mai’s mind they narrate events that had happened. And if he subsequently discovered that a story in a previous installment had inaccuracies, he corrected them in the next installment or deleted the story entirely when he reprinted the earlier installment. In a sense this conviction about the veracity of the stories lies close to Hong Mai’s purpose in the making the collection, which was to document the existence of the strange as it operated in his world. For the student of Song social history, these stories present a slice of Southern Song life with its own validity and flavor. Moreover, as we will soon see, the quality of “strangeness” that was Hong Mai’s criterion for inclusion was not limited to what we would normally term “supernatural.” Hong Mai’s purview is wider, though it certainly includes the supernatural. In fact, this aspect of his collection makes it singular and particularly valuable to the historian, since it contains so many records of what was exceptional and would rarely if ever be deemed fit for inclusion in orthodox historiography.

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   151 Hong Mai’s stories could—and have—served as an important source for the social history of the Song.2 Of course, the historian needs to be mindful of the peculiar nature of Hong Mai’s work and the problematic issue of the material’s reliability: It needs to be supplemented with all sorts of other contemporary records, such as those found in the Essential Documents of the Song 宋會要, annalistic histories, collections of court cases, the famous treatises on life in the capital cities, etc. Such a project lies beyond the scope of the present chapter. Here, I intend merely to present and discuss Hong Mai’s tales for their inherent interest as one perspective, albeit a literary one, on a darker side of life in the Southern Song capital.

Crimes Against Women We begin with two stories about crimes perpetrated against women. These are not crimes committed late at night against women who were being reckless or taking chances with their safety. They are wanton acts of violence against women carried out in broad daylight and under circumstances in which each woman had every reason to think that she was perfectly safe. “The Wife of Court Gentleman Wang”3 At the start of the Shaoxing reign period, when the invasion and banditry still persisted, Wang, a gentleman for attendance at the court and a native of Bianliang, brought his wife and concubine south to Lin’an to get a new official appointment. They first stayed at a hostel in the Sword Bearers Camp district. Seeing that the area was full of entertainment houses, Wang felt it was unsuitable and went out in search of another place to live among the commoners. He returned and told his wife he had found a place in a certain establishment in a certain lane: “It is spacious and clean. Tomorrow morning I’ll take our trunks there first and then send a sedan chair to fetch you.” In the morning he left. After a while a sedan chair arrived, and his wife set out too. Some time later, Wang showed up at the hostel looking for his wife. The proprietor told him, “Barely an hour after you left, a sedan chair came. Your wife went off in it right away, and your concubine followed on foot. Could they have gotten lost?” Distraught and

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not knowing what to do, Wang went back to the new place. In the end he had lost his wife. There was nothing he could do to find her. Five years later, when he was an instructor in Quzhou (modern Quxian, Zhejiang), Wang went one evening to a banquet hosted by the magistrate of Xi’an (bordering Quxian). The soft-shelled turtle that was served was delicious, and the guests all enjoyed it immensely. But when Wang took one bite of the sliced meat, he put down his chopsticks and started to weep. The magistrate asked what was wrong. He replied, “When my late wife was alive, this was one of her finest dishes. When preparing the calipash, she would clean away all of the black membrane, and would slice the meat in neat squares. Today, the turtle has been prepared exactly that way. That’s why I am weeping.” Wang then told the story of his wife’s disappearance. The magistrate likewise became sullen, and withdrew into his inner quarters on the pretext of “changing his clothes.” When he reappeared, he brought the banquet to a close, saying, “When one guest faces a corner and weeps, everyone in the room becomes unhappy on his account. With our instructor feeling this way, how could the rest of us take pleasure in feasting and drinking?” With that, the guests dispersed. The magistrate invited Wang to an inner room, and he called for a woman to come out. She was Wang’s wife. When they saw each other, they were nearly overcome with emotion. What had happened on that day years before was that a wicked person had overheard them as they made plans to change residences. The man then sent his own sedan chair to deliver Wang’s wife to someone who trafficked in women. They sold her to the magistrate for 300,000 cash. The magistrate kept her as a concubine. Normally, he did not have her work in the kitchen; what she did for the banquet was a pure coincidence. The magistrate said he would have a carriage take her directly back to Wang’s home. Wang kowtowed to him and gave thanks, saying that he wanted to reimburse the magistrate for what he had spent to acquire her. The magistrate said, “To take a fellow official’s wife as a concubine, and fail to understand what I was doing, is already a serious error. It is fortunate that she produced no children with me. How could I even think of mentioning the money?” In the end, he returned her to Wang.

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   153 I heard this story from Yu Jing of Qiantang. He knew the personal names of all those involved and their native places. But I no longer remember them. When a man has such goodness as the magistrate of Xi’an, it would be a great pity indeed if his story were not recorded for posterity! 《王從事妻》 紹興初，四方盜寇未定。汴人王從事挈妻妾來臨安調官，止抱劍營邸中。 顧左右皆娼家，不為便，乃出外僦民居。歸語妻曰：「我已得某巷某家， 甚寬潔，明當先護籠篋行，卻倚轎取汝。」明日遂行。移時而轎至。妻 亦往。久之，王復回舊邸訪覓，邸翁曰：「君去不數刻，遣車來，君夫 人登時去，妾隨之矣，得非失路耶？ 」王驚痛而反，竟失妻，不復可尋。 後五年，為衢州教授，赴西安宰宴集，羞鼈甚美，坐客皆大嚼，王食一 臠，停箸悲涕。宰問故，曰：「憶亡妻在時，最能饌此，每治鼈裙，去 黑皮必盡，切臠必方正。今一何似也，所以泣。」因具言始末。宰亦悵 然，託更衣入宅。既出，即罷酒，曰：「一人向隅而泣，滿堂為之不樂。 教授既爾，吾曹何心樂飲哉？」 客皆去。宰揖王入堂上，喚一婦人出， 乃其妻也。相顧大慟欲絕。蓋昔年將徙舍之夕，姦人竊聞之，遂詐輿至 女儈家而貨於宰，得錢三十萬。宰以為側室，尋常初不使治庖廚，是日 偶然耳。便呼車送諸王氏。王拜而謝，願盡償元直。宰曰：「以同官妻 為妾，不能審詳，其過大矣。幸無男女於此。尚敢言錢乎？」卒歸之。 予頃聞錢塘俞倞話此，能道其姓名鄉裏，今皆忘之。如西安宰之賢，不 傳於世，尤可惜也。

“The Nun in the West Lake Priory”4 A certain official of Lin’an was a native of the city. A young man became infatuated with his wife. Everyday he sat in a teahouse across from where the official lived, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of her, acting as if he were crazy or an idiot. One day he saw a nun emerge from the house, and he followed her as she went. The nun proceeded to West Lake and entered a priory there. The young man also went into the priory, asking for some tea to quench his thirst. Thereafter, he visited the priory several times. This young man had plenty of money, and saying that he wanted to have the roof of the priory’s grand hall repaired, he made donations, which amounted to several thousand strings of cash. The nun was puzzled that he took this initiative without any reason, and she questioned him. He told her of his infatuation, and the nun enthusiastically agreed to help. She told him to come back three days later.

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The nun then wrote out invitations for a vegetarian feast, and listed on it the names of some twenty wives and daughters of high officials. She took this to the house of that particular official and invited his wife to attend, explaining, “Because the roof of our grand hall has been rebuilt, it is right that we have a great banquet. The other guests are already there. Please get into your sedan chair as soon as you can.” The wife changed into her finest clothes and jewelry and set out, accompanied by two maidservants. When she arrived, however, there were no other guests at all. The nun rewarded the sedan chair carriers with money and sent them home. She then set out a feast and even invited the maidservants to drink with them. When the wife became drunk, the nun led her to a side room to rest. When, after some time, the wife awoke, she found a man lying next to her. Frightened, she demanded to know who he was, but he was dead. What had happened is that the nun had hidden the young man obsessed with her in the room. Finally finding himself alone with the object of his desires, as he was taking his pleasure with her he abruptly died. The wife did not wait for her sedan chair carriers. She summoned her maidservants and went home on foot. It happened that her husband was out when she got home, and she did not dare to tell him what had happened. But the two maidservants could not keep the secret and let one or two hints slip out. The nun, fearing that what had happened would come to light, buried the dead young man under the bed. After a week or so, the young man’s family gradually traced his movements that day to the priory, and they brought suit before the authorities of Qiantang. The nun and the wife were put in manacles and interrogated, together with more than ten of the maidservants, servants, and priory novices. After a full year of investigation, the authorities determined the truth of what had happened. The nun was sentenced to penal servitude. The wife was cleared of any wrongdoing. 《西湖庵尼》 臨安某官，土人也。妻為少年所慕，日日坐於對門茶肆，睥睨延頸，如 癡如狂。嘗見一尼從其家出，徑隨以行，尼至西湖上，入庵寮，即求見 啜茶。自是數往。少年固多貲，用修建殿宇為名，捐施錢帛，其數至千 緡。尼訝其無因而前，扣其故，乃以情愫語之。尼欣然領略，約後三日

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   155 來。於是作一齋目，列大官女婦封稱二十餘人，而詣某官宅邀其妻曰： 「以殿宇鼎新，宜有勝會，諸客皆已在庵，請便升轎。」 即盛飾易服珥， 攜兩婢偕行。迨至彼，元無一客。尼持錢犒轎僕，遣歸，設酒連飲兩婢， 婦人亦醉，引憩曲室就枕。移時始醒，則一男子臥於旁。駭問為誰，既 死矣。蓋所謂悅己少年者，先伏此室中，一旦如願，喜極暴卒。婦人不 暇俟肩輿，呼婢徒步而返，良人適在外，不敢與言。兩婢不能忍口，頗 泄一二。尼畏事宣露，瘞死者於榻下。越旬日，少年家宛轉訪其蹤，訴 於錢塘。尼及婦人皆桎梏拷掠，婢僕童行牽連十餘輩。凡一年，鞠得其 實，尼受徒刑，婦人乃獲免。

These are shocking stories, each a tale of gross corruption and abuse of a particular woman. If such crimes could be visited upon the wives of officials, we wonder what kind of dangers and threats must have lurked over the existence of less powerful persons, especially less powerful women. In the first story, Wang must have been one of the thousands of officials forced south by the Jurchen invasion and the removal of the court to beyond the Yangzi River. He may not have been a prominent official, but he had at least an honorary court title, and when the court was reestablished at Lin’an he went there in the hopes of getting a new central government appointment. One wonders if it was partly because of the chaos of the early years of the Southern Song that someone could be so brazen as to abduct and sell the wife of such a man. And yet the events take place right in the capital itself, albeit in an entertainment district, where one would have expected such lawlessness to be minimal.5 We might find it strange that Wang’s wife, finding herself sold to another official, did not simply tell the magistrate what had happened to her and demand that he return her to her husband. This, I suspect, is a modern reaction. First, the woman could not know for certain that her husband would take her back. If she had been abducted she may have been raped as well, before she was sold. At the very least, she had entered another man’s house as his concubine. Some husbands would be incapable of overlooking a wife’s loss of “virtue,” even though it was through no fault of her own. Second, having encountered such a sudden and unimagined calamity, she might have been inclined just to accept her lot. Especially if the magistrate were kindly toward her, she might think that, all things considered, it was safer to remain with him than to risk trying to return to her husband. She might not have even known where he was, since he had not told her the location of the new residence.

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As it turned out, not only was her husband willing to take her back after five long years of her service as a concubine, the magistrate himself was unexpectedly gracious and facilitated her return to her husband. To Hong Mai, the importance of the story is the exemplary worthiness of the magistrate, who refuses even to discuss repayment of the large sum of money spent to acquire the woman. Reading the story today, we are less likely than Hong Mai to think of it as a tribute to the magistrate’s goodness. We are more apt to see it as an illustration of just how precarious was a woman’s safety—even someone relatively well-off—that it could vanish in a moment, reducing her suddenly to a person who could be bought and sold in a nefarious market. In the second story, the source for episodes in The Water Margin, The Plum in the Golden Vase, and other Ming-Qing period stories, the scandalous behavior of the nun, a ready accomplice in the rape of the young wife, is especially noteworthy.6 Hong Mai knows this and fittingly makes her the title character of the narrative. We understand, of course, that the nun has been bribed with all that money the young man has donated to the priory. But the alacrity with which she agrees to help him, “enthusiastically” entering into collaboration, and the elaborateness of the scheme she comes up with, are striking nevertheless. It is interesting that we are not even given so much as a surname for the official whose wife is set up. The man’s name was likely suppressed to protect his reputation. Readers may be curious about the infatuated young man. There is no indication that he is an official or even one of the thousands of young men who flocked to the capital to take the examinations. The amount of money he has at his disposal is considerable. We normally think of Song period society as one whose upper crust was the official class. Yet here we have a young man of great wealth who not only seems to have no connection to the official class but also used his wealth to fulfill his sexual fantasies with an official’s wife. Is this young man the scion of a wealthy merchant? It is hard to imagine he could be anything else. A rakish young man with seemingly endless sums of money is out to show that he can seduce the wife of an official. There is implicit in his escapade a level of contempt for the official class that is remarkable. Unfortunately for him, the young man’s physical viability for what we now routinely refer to as “sexual activity” falls short of his supply of money. Scholars regularly turn to Hong Mai’s collection of tales as a source for reconstructing Song dynasty popular religion. Filled as it is with

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   157 supernatural stories about ghosts, spirit possession, journeys to the afterlife, and local cults, deities, and demons, Yijian zhi is indeed an unmatched compendium of twelfth-century religious belief and practice. What may be overlooked in the use of the text to reconstruct Song beliefs about gods and ghosts, however, is the work’s invaluable repository of Song period perceptions of society’s religious institutions. Those perceptions are often unfavorable. The image this story conveys of a thoroughly unscrupulous nun suggests a deep skepticism among lay people toward Buddhist claims of sanctity for ordained clergy and their places of worship. Do we doubt that such events could have happened in twelfth-century Lin’an? Hong Mai, at least, has no doubt that these events happened, as we know from his prefaces. Although we cannot, at our distance, be certain that he was right in his assessment of what he had heard from his informants, to my mind there is nothing inherently unbelievable about either story. Of course, in the telling by the informant, or in the retelling by Hong Mai, a certain shaping and crafting has been imposed upon the narrative material. The events have been given a tight organization and dramatic polish. As a narrator, Hong Mai likes to surprise his readers. We do not know about the nun’s wicked scheme until we see it unfold, although we may suspect there is something fishy about the banquet and invitation, and we certainly cannot guess how the rape scene will play out until it happens. Likewise, we do not expect that Court Gentleman Wang will ever be reunited with his wife, and certainly not the way it happens. The hand of a very accomplished storyteller is evident in such narratives. How do such stories fit into a collection whose central theme is “the strange”? Neither story contains explicitly supernatural actors or forces. Yet the story of the abduction of Wang’s wife does feature a most uncanny denouement, which is the purely accidental reunion of husband and wife after several years have passed. Surely, that is what is “strange” about that narrative and what attracted Hong Mai’s attention. Oddly, Hong Mai’s explanation of why he included the story is rather different. He says he included it to record for posterity the magistrate’s admirable conduct. But then Hong Mai fails to include the man’s name. Indeed, he tells us that he has “forgotten” the names of all those involved in the story, though he assures us that at an earlier stage of the telling there were names—that is, they were real people and it really happened. The forgetting is, I believe, a bogus explanation. It is more likely that Hong Mai has deliberately suppressed the names to protect Wang’s reputation. Does

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Hong Mai believe that the unlikely reunion of husband and wife was a matter of fate? In any case, that reunion is the crux of the story, not the magistrate’s virtue. With “The Nun of the West Lake Priory” it is more difficult to be sure about Hong Mai’s motives. I suspect, though, that his decision to make her the title character of the story points to the answer. Hong Mai seems to be interested in the fact that a nun, a figure of piety and faith, could be so wicked. This almost seems like the interest a modern writer might take in a character who is thoroughly immoral and unprincipled. The nun is “strange,” to say the least. Another possibility is that the peculiar sudden death of the lecherous young man qualifies the story for inclusion, especially if we understand that his death was a karmic retribution for the evil in his intent. What, if anything, do these stories teach us about the lives of women in Lin’an? Another way of asking the question might be to think about what other sources would provide such material about women and their mistreatment. Few come to mind. Court case records probably come closest, but the quantity of those that survive from the Song is not large, and it is not likely that the stories would be told the same way. I doubt that the plight of women entrapped would be depicted so thoroughly or in a manner so sympathetic to their interests. As we know, the lives of women receive scant attention in Song period writings. The relative lack of attention to the women of Lin’an in the present volume is therefore quite predictable: It reflects the pronounced bias of Song period sources. The chapter on female entertainers by Beverly Bossler does piece together many references to female entertainers to present a rich and valuable account of them. Naturally, the sources Bossler uses predominantly see such women from a distinctly male point of view. And female entertainers were, after all, a special type of woman. Less alluring women, such as quite ordinary wives, even the wives of members of the official class, like those featured in these Hong Mai’s stories, are mentioned only rarely in Song written sources, and most of the attention they receive is utterly conventional. It is risky to make any generalizations on the basis of two stories. At the very least, these stories suggest the types of lawlessness and sexual exploitation that women needed to be on their guard against, even the wives of officials living in the empire’s capital. That such women could be subjected to brazen and violent acts is remarkable. One wonders what the

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   159 lecherous man and the nun planned to do with the young wife after she had been raped? Did they plan to kill her to protect themselves? But murder was also a risky business. There surely would have been an investigation if she had just disappeared, and the investigation would have led right to the priory, where she was last seen. It is more probable that they planned to simply let her go home later in the day, accompanied by her maids, calculating that her humiliation would be so profound that it would prevent her from ever telling her husband about the rape or bringing charges against the perpetrators. We recall that Wang’s wife never told her new master how she came to be put up for sale as a concubine. She suffered a similar humiliation by being abducted, and it sufficed to keep her silent about what had happened. We see, then, that such stories may shed a good deal of light on certain aspects of the lives of women in the time and place that is the subject of this volume.

Scams Hong Mai’s tales contain a wide range of other sorts of lawlessness in Lin’an. Scams are commonplace, mostly involving gullible young men who are outsiders: They come to the capital either to take the civil service examinations or, if they have already begun their career in office, they return to the capital upon the completion of one appointment in the provinces to await a new appointment.7 These are young men with time on their hands and a certain amount of financial means. They become prime targets of the more worldly capital-based scam artists. Here is one such story: “Li Jiangshi”8 Li Jiangshi was a native of Jizhou. He first obtained a titular office through a donation of grain, and then came to Lin’an to await a substantive appointment. He stayed at a hostel in Clear River Ward. In a small house across the street a woman often stood behind blinds looking out. Li heard her talking frequently and viewed her feet. His interest piqued, he strained to catch a glimpse of her, but he never once saw her face. The woman liked to sing these lines: “The willow fronds only know to dance in the wind/ They never stop vexing people with their flirtatious ways.” Li beat time as she sang and joined in appreciatively, thinking that her voice was marvelous. One day a peddler passed by Li’s door selling yellow mandarin

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oranges. Li called him over and entered into a gambling game with him for his merchandise.9 Li ended up losing ten thousand coins. Anger showed on his face and he said, “I threw away ten thousand and never even got one orange into my mouth!” Just as he was still in a rage, a black-robed servant came to him from the street carrying a small box, saying that they were a gift from Her Ladyship Zhao. Li opened the box to find yellow mandarin oranges. Li said, “I don’t know any such person, so why would she do this? Who is this Lady anyway?” The servant replied, “She is the wife of Great Master Zhao who lives on the southern side of the street. Just now she was standing behind the blinds and heard your lordship complain that he had not won any oranges. It happens that she had stored away these several fruits, and so she sends them with her regards, and is only ashamed that she cannot present you with more of them.” Li then asked about Mr. Zhao’s whereabouts. “He went to call on friends and relatives in Jiankang and has not returned for two months,” the servant explained. Li was excited to hear this news. He went back to his room and opened his trunk and took out two bolts of colored silk as a return gift. At first Mrs. Zhao would not accept them, but after Li pressed her, she reluctantly kept them. From this time on, Mrs. Zhao sent fine delicacies to Li, and he reciprocated with local specialties he had brought with him. Li also treated Zhao’s servant to drink on several occasions and the two of them became more and more friendly. Eventually, Li secretly gave some money to the servant, imploring him to arrange a meeting with Mrs. Zhao just once. The servant said, “That is something beyond my power. Let me go and tell her your wish.” He came back with her reply: He would only be permitted to see her sitting in her grand hall. Li was thrilled and rushed to her place. Afterwards, he visited her this way four or five times. Mrs. Zhao was beautiful in appearance and also conducted herself with utmost propriety. She never uttered a word that broached anything vile or lascivious. Li thought longingly of her day and night. While before he frequented singing girl houses all the time, he now stopped going to those places. One evening, the servant came to tell him, “Tomorrow is Her Ladyship’s birthday. If you can bring some

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   161 elegant offering as a long-life gift, she will be even more well-disposed toward you.” Li spared no effort, buying silks, cloth, and fruits, which he sent to her together with vats of official wine. The next morning Li went in person to offer his felicitations. Mrs. Zhao summoned him to a private room where they drank together. The feast ended in the late afternoon, but Li was still less than completely satisfied. The next day at dusk, the servant suddenly appeared at Li’s place with an invitation, mentioning that it would be an occasion unlike any that happened before. Li set out immediately, excited to think that they would finally share some intimacy. Soon Li found himself sitting on her couch, but before he could make himself comfortable there, all at once he heard a horse whinnying outside the gate. There was a hubbub among the servants, and a concubine rushed into the room saying, “Our officer has returned home.” Mrs. Zhao went pale with fright and hid Li in the inner room. When Lord Zhao entered, he cursed and scolded: “How long have I been away that you have brought such shame upon our household!” He beat his concubine with his horsewhip. The concubine pointed to where Li was hiding, and he was dragged out and tied. A charge was drawn up against him, and they prepared to send him under guard to the local constable. Li wept and pleaded: “If I’m taken to the government office, it will certainly implicate one of our official careers. Although she and I have known each other for some time, fortunately we never indulged ourselves in anything unseemly. Please let me absolve myself by giving you 500,000 cash.” Zhao feigned anger and rejected the offer, whereupon Li increased the amount to a thousand strings of cash. Mrs. Zhao stood to the side and urged Li to do more, saying, “This problem is my doing, I don’t dare to say otherwise. But now if this fellow is taken into custody, the authorities are going to come find me to testify against him. I’m not going to escape blame, and that will only add to your lordship’s humiliation. Please, sir, think of me too.” The various servants who had received gifts from Li also surrounded him, begging for consideration. In the end, Li agreed to give them two thousand strings of cash. With that they untied him and had him write out a pledge for the amount and a confession. They sent him back to his hostel, under guard, to get the money, and directed the hostel proprietor to bring it to them. Li was so relieved to be set free that he had a few cups by

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himself and went to bed. When he awoke the next morning and looked out toward Zhao’s residence, it was empty and abandoned! A fellow from my hometown, Xu Zhengfeng, was also waiting for official selection that year, and roomed next to Li. He personally witnessed all that happened. Having lost everything he had brought with him, Li went westward back home, his wings drooping badly. 《李將仕》 李生將仕者，吉州人。入粟得官，赴調臨安，舍於清河坊旅館。其相對 小宅，有婦人常立簾下閱市。每聞其語音，見其雙足，著意窺觀，特未 嘗一覿面貌。婦好歌「柳絲只解風前舞，誚繫惹那人不住」之詞，生擊 節賞詠，以為妙絕。會有持永嘉黃柑過門者，生呼而撲之，輸萬錢，慍 形於色，曰：「壞了十千，而柑不得到口。」 正嗟恨不釋，青衣童從 外捧小盒至，雲：「趙縣君奉獻。」啓之，則黃柑也。生曰：「素不相 識，何為如是，且縣君何人也？」曰：「即街南所居趙大夫妻，適在簾 間，聞官人有不得柑之嘆，偶藏數顆，故以見意，愧不能多矣。」因扣 趙君所在，曰：「往建康謁親舊，兩月未還。」 生不覺情動，返室發篋， 取色彩兩端致答。辭不受，至於再，始勉留之。由是數以佳饌為饋，生輒 倍酬土宜，且數飲此童，聲跡益洽。密賄童欲一見。童曰：「是非所得專， 當歸白之。」既而返命，約於廳上相見。生欣躍而前，繼此造其居者 四五。婦人姿態既佳，而持身甚正，了無一語及於鄙媟。生注戀不捨旦 暮，向雖遊娼家，亦止不往。一夕，童來告：「明日吾主母生朝，若致 香幣為壽，則於人情尤美。」 生固非所惜，亟買縑帛果實，官壺遣送。 及旦往賀，及升堂會飲，晡時席罷，然於心終不愜。後日薄晚，童忽來 邀致，前此所未得也，承命即行，似有繾綣之興。少頃登床，未安席， 驀聞門外馬嘶，從者雜遝，一妾奔入曰：「官人歸也。」 婦失色惴惴， 引生匿於內室。趙君已入房，詬罵曰：「我去能幾時，汝已辱門戶如 此！」揮鞭箠其妾。妾指示李生處，禽出縛之，而具牒將押赴廂。生泣 告曰：「儻到公府，定為一官累。荏苒雖久，幸不及亂。願納錢五百千自 贖。」趙陽怒不可，又增至千緡，妻在旁立，勸曰：「此過自我，不敢飾 辭。今此子就逮，必追我對鞫，我將不免，且重貽君羞，幸寬我。」諸僕 皆受生餌，亦羅拜為言。卒捐二千緡，乃解縛，使手書謝拜，而押回空無 人矣！予邑子徐正封亦參選，與生鄰室，目擊其事，所齎既罄，亟垂翅 西歸。

One wonders whether the hoax was really carried out this perfectly, or whether Hong Mai has polished it in the telling. Regardless, the

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   163 “Zhaos” seemed to have chosen their target well. Li was a young man of some means. We recall that he had purchased a titular office for himself before he arrived at Lin’an. The amount of money the Zhaos got from him, while certainly not a fortune, was worth the effort they put into staging the hoax. One could eat a meal at a good restaurant in Lin’an for as little as a few hundred cash (wen 文), and three persons (e.g., the “Zhaos” and their “servant”) could have a feast for less than two strings of cash (each string, min 緡, consisting of one thousand wen). Naturally, one could eat humbly for a fraction of these prices. National Academy students were allocated 30–40 wen for food per day.10 So the two thousand strings of cash the Zhaos defrauded Li of was a substantial sum (twice the amount that the young man had donated to the priory in 西湖庵尼). It makes sense that Li would have brought a good supply of cash with him to the capital. He would need to have enough to support himself for several months there, not knowing how long it would take the large bureaucracy to produce an appointment for him. In addition to being well supplied, Li seems to have been extremely gullible. How many wives of officials are going to carry on this way with a young man who does not yet even have a regular appointment? Li was naive if not foolhardy to let himself believe the woman was really attracted to him. The con artists did invest considerable time and resources in their scheme. As for the time involved, it sounds like the whole event stretched over at least a few weeks before the trap was sprung. The Zhaos also had to invest in servants, one of whom had to be a skilled actor. Eventually, we understand why they set their trap directly across the street from a hostel, where they could easily target newly arrived young men, ones who did not yet have a good sense of the place or had yet not heard many rumors about what to wary of. But how did they determine that Li was worth all the trouble they went to? What if he had had only a piddling sum of money with him? Presumably, the Zhaos had made secret inquiries or somehow learned—perhaps from the innkeeper—that Li had arrived with considerable funds. Perhaps the innkeeper was in on the plan. The extent of the deception was considerable. Not only did Mrs. Zhao have to play the part of a credible official’s wife, when Zhao himself appeared, he had to look, speak, and act like a credible official. If Li had any suspicions about Zhao’s identity in that final scene, the whole plot could have unraveled. Of course, having just been found alone with Mrs. Zhao in her bedroom, Li may not have had all his wits about him, as Zhao ranted and

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raved. The story of Li Jiangshi could be read as a cautionary tale for young men bringing money to sustain themselves for months or years while they tried to land an appointment in the imperial bureaucracy. The presence of other, similar stories in Hong Mai’s work shows, however, that the scam that fleeced Li was perpetrated again and again, especially in the capital.11 The chapter in this volume by Stephen West stresses the centrality of many kinds of performances in the written remembrances of New Year’s festivities from Northern Song times. The emperor goes out to see performances of various kinds in the city, some of which are being viewed and enjoyed by the commoners as well. The emperor and his elaborate retinue are themselves a kind of performance, indeed a carefully staged one, as they move about inside and outside the capital, allowing the commoners to gaze upon the imperial splendor while keeping them at a distance. In Hong Mai’s stories about elaborate scams it is tempting to find a different but related kind of performance. This is an illegal one, to be sure, but it is also elaborate in its own way and has an entertaining quality for readers of Hong Mai’s retelling of the ruse, though certainly not for the young man defrauded. The criminals cast themselves in different roles and act seamlessly together, much like a dramatic troupe, a feat requiring a certain amount of theatrical expertise. In the story above, a man impersonates an official who has been away visiting relatives. In another scam story, the man who is about to be tricked out of his money is allowed at one point to glimpse official correspondence from the Ministry of Personnel to his “friend” regarding his forthcoming official appointment.12 But the friend is actually a con artist and the documents are forgeries. The documents evidently looked perfectly credible, in this story, to a man who had already served in a provincial post, not a young man uninitiated in the ways of the bureaucracy. In other words, the mark is someone who should know what an official communiqué looks like. Robert Hymes has suggested in an important article on Yijian zhi that issues involving truth, falsehood, and pretense are central to Hong Mai’s collection.13 When he posits this understanding of the work, Hymes is thinking primarily of the stories about gods and supernatural phenomena, many of which hinge on questions about the credibility of popular deity cults, the reliability of fortune-telling and prophecies, the powers of religious adepts, and so forth. Stories about scams might play only a small part in Hymes’ reading of the collection, but they do fit with what he says

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   165 is the fascination people in a burgeoning commercial society have with the spread of fraud and deception carried out for monetary gain. To my mind, what is particularly interesting about Hong Mai’s stories about elaborate frauds is the narrator’s attitude toward the events he describes. The narrator appears to follow the staging of the scam with great interest if not explicit admiration of the cleverness and complexity of the scheme. There is really no indication of narrator disapproval. If anything, the narrator seems to be more on the side of the ingenious criminals than the hapless man who is parted from his money. This attitude is clearly different from what we find in stories about other types of immoral or injurious conduct, including those recounting violence against women discussed earlier. We may rationalize this by characterizing these scams as essentially victimless crimes—no one is murdered or subjected to physical abuse—although the man deprived of his money would hardly see it that way. Still, it is interesting that the man who loses his money is not the narrator’s primary interest. His interest clearly lies with the perpetrators. This viewpoint may indeed be a reflection of a new urban consciousness and level of comfort with performance, even of an illegal kind, in a thriving commercial center where money counts for so much.

Corruption in Officialdom We might think that Hong Mai would need to be very careful when writing about wrongdoing among officials. But he does not, in fact, balk at describing all sorts of official corruption. The great majority of these stories are, however, set in the provinces, so the men he writes about are usually provincial office-holders. Hong Mai’s chronicles of their malfeasance constitute a major story type in his collection. Often it is only through recourse to supernatural forces (e.g., the intercession of the King of Hell or other divine retribution) that the injustices perpetrated by provincial officials are addressed and righted. It is more difficult to find stories that depict court or capital-area officials in an unfavorable light. Hong Mai may have been reticent about recording such stories for obvious reasons. Stories of corruption out in the provinces would be unlikely to land him in any trouble, but exposing wrongdoing at the court might be different. One can nevertheless find tales that cast Lin’an area officials in an unflattering light. [One such is the story of Zhu Siyan, who serves as

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magistrate of Lin’an County in the 1170s, and a guard on his staff, a certain Gao.14 Gao is found to have embezzled government property. Specifically, Gao made a habit of forging official seals and using them to authenticate receipts for money that passed through his hands (tax revenue, official salaries), and then kept the funds for himself. Gao’s wife is somehow implicated in his crimes. The two of them, husband and wife, are arrested and imprisoned in the county jail. In the investigation that ensues, the two are interrogated daily for over a month in their cells. One evening, when the deputy magistrate is making his rounds in the jail, checking on the prisoners, Gao and his wife plead with him, weeping. They say they have been tortured grievously and fear they will not live much longer. The deputy magistrate takes pity on them and has them released and sent home. The next day he tells Zhu what he had done, explaining that he had found them in such bad condition that “they could no longer respond when their names were called.” The deputy then lies and says that he heard the two prisoners both died soon after returning home, and he observes to Zhu that thanks to them (him and Zhu) the two had not died in prison, which would have necessitated another investigation. Zhu is at first pleased with what his deputy had done. But later he begins to have second thoughts. Gao’s crime was not a capital offense, and it is possible that now that they have died Zhu will have to answer for their deaths anyway. Even if that does not happen, Zhu worries that the deceased husband and wife might come back as vengeful ghosts to haunt him. Zhu begins to see visions of the two of them, their naked bodies covered with lacerations from beatings, threatening him with a trial in Hell. Whether eating or sleeping, Zhu cannot rid himself of this vision, and he becomes ill. The deputy comes to visit Zhu, and learning the cause of his distress, explains that he had misled him: Gao and his wife had not died at all. He had released them from prison out of pity, and they were then recovering hidden in a relative’s house. What Zhu was seeing was not aggrieved ghosts but merely a projection of his guilty feelings over what he thought was the couple’s undeserved death. To prove that he is now telling the truth, the deputy has the couple brought before Zhu, and they bow to him in gratitude. Delighted, Zhu soon recovers from his illness. Then Zhu proceeds to reappoint Gao to his former post! Even so, Zhu continues to suffer from visions of other staff members who had died while incarcerated. These cause him to become violent and irrational in his administration. As he moves from one post to another, he is

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   167 never able to regain his composure. A tale such as this provides a window onto the Lin’an County bureaucracy that we are unlikely to get from more staid sources. While the picture it conveys is almost comic in the extent of the corruption and duplicity, at the same time it projects a web of bureaucratic and personal relations that have their own logic and are notably governed by commiseration and a keen sense of guilt over injustices done (or thought to have been done). It is a very human system, subject to abuse, as we would expect, but also pliant and forgiving. Even the imperial palace on rare occasion figures in a tale in a way that standard sources would not countenance. Here is an effective short tale about a scam that takes in not a witless young man but an attendant at the imperial palace—probably a eunuch—and his vain aspiration to curry favor with the emperor: “The Maroon Cat”15 The commoner Sun San lived in a small lane just outside the inner Northern Gate of Lin’an, on the western side. It was just San and his wife, they had no sons or daughters. Every morning he would take cooked meats out to sell in the streets. As he left he would instruct his wife, “Look after the cat. There is no other like it in the entire capital. Don’t let it be seen outside the house. If it gets out, someone is sure to steal it. I’m old and have no son. I prize that cat as much as I would my own child. Be sure you take care of it!” Every day he gave this same warning to his wife without fail. Sun’s neighbors never had any dealings with him, but they often heard him speak this way to his wife. One of them said, “I bet it’s just a tiger-striped cat. That breed used to be rare, but nowadays it’s no longer special. Yet that old man is obsessed with protecting him. How ridiculous!” One day the cat, tied to a rope, suddenly came out as far as Sun’s outer door. Sun’s wife quickly snatched it up and took it back inside. But the neighbors who saw it were shocked. The cat’s fur was a deep maroon color, even its tail and paws were maroon. The neighbors were amazed and envious. When Sun got home that evening, he beat his wife furiously. Gossip about the cat spread, and eventually it was heard by a palace attendant. He sent someone to buy the cat for a hefty price. But Sun

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refused the offer, saying, “I’ve been alone and impoverished all my life. So long as I have rice to eat I’m fine. I don’t need a lot of money. I cherish this cat like my own life. How could I bear to part with it?” The palace attendant tried all the harder to purchase it. In the end, he acquired the cat for a sum of 300,000 cash. Sun wept as he handed over the cat. Again, he beat his wife, and he moaned and cursed all through the night. The palace attendant was beside himself with joy after acquiring the cat. He planned to train it and make it completely obedient, and then to present it to the emperor. But the color of its fur gradually began to fade. Within half a month, it changed into a completely ordinary white cat. The palace attendant hurried back to find Sun, but he had moved away, disappearing without a trace. In fact, Sun had dyed the cat’s fur with the maroon pigment used to dye horsehair fly whisks. When applied for many days, it had completely changed the cat’s appearance. All those warnings that San gave to his wife, as well as the beatings and shouting, were all part of his plan of deception. Ma Xiang Meng-zhang told me this; it is something he personally witnessed. 《乾紅貓》 臨安內北門外西邊小巷，民孫三者居之。一夫一妻，無男女。每旦攜熟 肉出售，常戒其妻曰：「照管貓兒，都城並無此種，莫要教外間見。若 放出，必被人偷去。我老無子，撫惜他便與親生孩兒一般，切須掛意。」 日日申言不已。鄰裏未嘗相往還，但數聞其語。或雲：「想只是虎斑， 舊時罕有，如今亦不足貴，此翁忉忉護守，為可笑也。」一日，忽拽索 出到門，妻急抱回，見者皆駭。貓幹紅深色，尾足毛須盡然，無不嘆羨。 孫三歸，痛箠厥妻。已而浸浸達於內侍之耳，即遣人以厚直評買。而孫拒 之曰：「我孤貧一世，有飯喫便了，無用錢處。愛此貓如性命，豈能割 捨！」內侍求之甚力，竟以錢三百千取之。孫垂泣分付，復箠妻，仍終 夕嗟悵。內侍得貓不勝喜，欲調馴安帖，乃以進入。已而色澤漸淡，才 及半月，全成白貓。走訪孫氏，既徙居矣。蓋用染馬纓紼之法，積日為 偽。前之告戒箠怒，悉姦計也。馬相孟章說；蓋親見之。

Here we see a lowly resident of Lin’an, a street peddler really, conceive and carry out an elaborate scheme that brings him a fortune. And it is the peddler’s confidence about the jockeying for the emperor’s favor among his closest attendants and the belief that he, even so far removed on the social scale from the palace, could manipulate that palace competition to

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   169 his own advantage that motivates him to carry out the ruse. Here again, interestingly enough, we see our narrator clearly on the side of the perpetrator. But this time the mark is not just a man with a weakness for sexual fantasies, it is a palace attendant, whose fantasy is rather more exceptional and potentially troubling to readers: the prospect of ingratiation with the emperor and the rewards likely to proceed from that. The implications of such a tale, which Hong Mai pointedly avoids exploring, are the ways the emperor’s immediate attendants interact with him behind the closed palace gates. And it would not be easy to decide which of the two tales discussed here—that about the magistrate of Lin’an County or this about the palace attendant—conveys a more damning portrait of conduct among the powerful. The other chapters here present much about the splendors of Lin’an. All their discussions greatly enrich our understanding of the cultural meanings and significance of the great city. But we do not hear much about the misgivings of its residents regarding how political power was wielded there. That, of course, was a highly sensitive issue for the emperor’s subjects living in the place, which is why most Song sources avoid it. But Lin’an residents, at least a portion of them and probably not a small portion, did have doubts about the way power was distributed and used. One of the remarkable aspects of Hong Mai’s collection is how, in these two stories and others as well, he occasionally lets those misgivings show through. This is one of the traits that gives his work special value.

The Supernatural in Lin’an The tales we have been examining reveal the less-than-splendid aspects of Lin’an life. Hong Mai tends not to focus on the prosperity and material luxury of the capital, as do so many other sources. His interest, as we have seen, tends to be in persons and events of which the standard historiography takes scant notice. Often his attention focuses on the human dimension of criminal acts and the victims of crime; he is particularly interested in the elaborate details of the deception plots. His stories certainly give us a view of the seamier side of Lin’an life. The most celebrated aspect of Hong Mai’s collection is the prominence of the supernatural in the tales he tells. For the remainder of this chapter, then, I turn to those Lin’an stories that have supernatural elements. We have seen little of the supernatural so far; the closest thing to it has been

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Zhu Siyan’s visions of ghosts. But those are not real ghosts. The story makes it clear that Zhu’s visions are psychologically produced: his guilt over deaths he believes he has caused gives rise to the phantoms that visit him. The supernatural, however, is not ubiquitous or even abundant in the Lin’an stories. But to the extent that it is there at all, a certain parallelism may be perceived between the supernatural tales and the stories of crimes and victims examined earlier. In both, Hong Mai is presenting an alternative vision of life in the capital. It is not the Lin’an of cultural florescence and material splendor, it is a Lin’an of shades and underhandedness, of violent or sordid acts and the hauntings that spring from them. This is certainly not the Southern Song capital that first comes to mind from the grand narrative of Chinese cultural history. The reader of this volume will readily perceive the Lin’an in Hong Mai’s collection is distinct from representations of cities explored in other chapters—Lin’an as garden in Christian de Pee’s essay and the materially and commercially vital Kaifeng as remembered from Lin’an in Stephen H. West’s discussion. The exceptional qualities of Lin’an that Hong Mai evokes are thus all the more remarkable and significant. I should first elaborate on the relative paucity of supernatural elements in Hong Mai’s Lin’an tales. Is it just a coincidence that supernatural acts and agents are rare in the Lin’an-centered stories compared to those set elsewhere, or is there a reason? There are some stray hints—at least we can say that much. For example, in one of the several stories about Yinghua 英華, a local goddess of Jinyun 縉雲 County in Chuzhou 處州 in the southwest of modern Zhejiang, she has a love affair with a certain Wang Qi, cousin to a local official. Subsequently, when Wang Qi travels to Lin’an from Jinyun, Yinghua accompanies him as far as the approach to the city wall. There she announces that the two lovers will have to part ways; she cannot go with him into the capital: “The emperor’s city has many gods and deities, and I cannot enter. Here we must part” 帝城多神明，不可入，將告別.16 Her wording implies a connection between the imperial presence in the capital and the numerous deities who are presumably there to provide divine protection to the emperor. And that abundance of gods and deities has its intended protective effect: they act as a deterrent to Yinghua, a mere local deity, keeping her outside the city wall. On the other hand, some stories stress how widespread the ghosts are in Lin’an. In one of them, the ghosts are not at all malevolent; indeed,

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   171 there is a light-hearted quality to the entire narrative, even as it makes extraordinary claims: “Wang Li’s Baked Ducks”17 When Shi Min, the grand master of palace leisure, completed his term of office as controller-general in Jiankang, he returned to his former residence beside Salt Bridge in Lin’an, where he had left a single attendant to look after things. One day, accompanied by this attendant, he went to the market, where he ran into a man selling baked ducks. The man looked like his former cook, Wang Li. His attendant agreed that the man looked exactly like Wang. Now, Wang Li had died a year earlier. When Shi was in office in Jiankang he had even sent money for Wang’s funeral. Before Shi knew it, the man selling baked ducks was in front of him, bowing. [He apologized] saying, “I have encountered you suddenly like this, before I even had a chance to write or pay you a courtesy call.” With that the man accompanied Shi home, and also presented a baked duck to him that was still left, unsold, in his container. Shi said, “Since you are not a mortal, how is it that you can walk around the imperial city in broad daylight?” Wang Li replied, “I came here after leaving my hometown [his tomb there]. In the city of Lin’an today, three people out of every ten are my kind. Some are officials, some Buddhist monks, some Daoist priests, some merchants, some singsong girls. We are found among every calling and livelihood. In our dealings with ordinary people and our comings and goings we are just like everyone else, and mostly we cause no harm to anyone. The fact is, ordinary people cannot tell that we are different.” Shi said, “So is that a real duck?” . . .

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Ronald Egan 《王立爊鴨》 中散大夫史忞自建康通判滿秩，還臨安鹽橋故居。獨留虞候 一人，嘗與俱出市，值賣爊鴨者，甚類舊庖卒王立。虞候亦 雲無小異。時立死一年，史在官日，猶給錢與之葬矣。恍忽 間已拜於前，曰：「倉卒逢使主，不暇書謁。」 遂隨以歸， 且獻盤中所餘一鴨。史曰：「汝既非人，安得白晝行帝城中 乎？」 對曰：「自離本府即來此。今臨安城中人，以十分言 之，三分皆我輩也。或官員，或僧，或道士，或商販，或倡女， 色色有之。與人交關往還不殊，略不為人害，人自不能別耳。」 史曰：「鴨豈真物乎？」……

There are actually two versions of this story in Hong Mai’s collection. The other features a different person, one Fan Yinbin 範寅賓, and the ghost he encounters (also a former household servant, named Li Ji) is selling baked chickens.18 That story is likewise full of authenticating detail. Fan is eating and drinking in a restaurant at the top of Shengyang Tower when Li Ji approaches him and offers a baked chicken to his former employer.19 What both versions of the story stress is the utter ubiquity of ghosts among the residents of Lin’an, their harmlessness, and their complete lack of physical differentiation from ordinary mortals. Hong Mai’s intent in these stories is apparently to complicate the normal perception of Lin’an life as being so thoroughly quotidian, supremely urbane, and marked by the unparalleled richness and variety of commercial goods that have been gathered in the capital. One thinks of the accounts in Splendid Scenery of the Capital 都城紀勝 (1235) describing not just the large number of dishes available in restaurants and the hierarchy of menus and prices on different floors, but also the elaborate unwritten rules of restaurant decorum by which the savant shows that he belongs in an expensive establishment, or a newcomer to Lin’an exposes his ignorance and becomes an object of scorn.20 (The account of Lin’an found in Splendid Scenery of the Capital is discussed at length in Christian de Pee’s chapter in this volume.) Hong Mai’s stories suggest that such material affluence and knowing how to navigate one’s way through it are not everything. He may be presenting these particular stories tongue-in-cheek, but he may also be gently poking fun at the smugness of Lin’an sophisticates who attach such importance to the city’s material splendor. But some of Lin’an ghosts are also ill-willed and vindictive. An instructive case is that of a singing girl whose ghost comes back to exact

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   173 revenge upon a former lover who had deceived and abandoned her: “Darling Hong”21 Hu Shijiang, assistant magistrate of Qingyang in Chizhou, returned to Lin’an upon completing his term of office. Office Manager Liu of the same county went along with him to await a new assignment, but stayed in a different lodging. Hu stopped by Liu’s place to have a meal with him and when they finished the meal, Hu wanted to go to a shop to have noodle soup. Liu said, “You just finished eating. You can’t possibly be hungry again. Why don’t you go back to your hostel to rest awhile, then I’ll come see you later?” Hu did as suggested and after some time Liu went to look for him. He found Hu lying in bed seriously ill. Seeing Liu enter, Hu’s tears fell like rain, and it was only after some time that he was able to speak. “My death is at hand! After I left you, I cut through Sword Bearers Camp Street and before long I ran into a woman who called out to me, ‘You made me a promise. Why did you deceive me and not marry me as you said? Once you betrayed me I became sick and you never came to check on me. Where in heaven and earth is there such a heartless man as you? That’s all past history now, and I’m not going to dwell on it. But you will soon become sick too, and your sickness is going to be just like mine. Even though I’ve come back here, I’m not going to go check on you either. Good luck!’ With this, she went off. “I walked a few steps, thinking about her, then remembered that she was a singing girl I used to go with named Darling Hong. She died three years ago. I didn’t know what to do and by the time I returned to my room I was in a terrible state of mind. Now my sickness has already reached this stage, I’ll probably never get up again. What can I do? Oh, what can I do?” Liu made some rice porridge for him and prepared some medicine, and in the evening went back to his own place. Seven days later, Hu died. Hu’s companions who could speak about his past confirmed that the twists and turns of his previous relationship and her illness were all just as the ghost described them. The fact is, when Hu first had the impulse to go eat soup noodles, his hun soul had already left him. This happened in the second year of the Qiandao reign period (1166).

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Told to me by Han Yanduan. 《紅奴兒》 池州青陽主簿斛世將，官滿還臨安。縣人劉錄事者，亦赴調，寓於它館。 斛過之共飯，飯才罷，又欲同詣肆啜湯餅。劉曰：「食方下嚥，勢不 能即飢，君盍還邸小憩，吾徐往相就矣。斛去移時，劉往訪之，已病 臥牀上。」望見劉，悲淚如雨，良久言曰：「吾死期至矣。」適從君 所歸，穿抱劍營街未畢，逢一婦人，呼語曰：「君向與我約，如何始 以不娶欺我，既而背之？我病，君略不相視。天地間豈有忍人如君比 者？今事已爾，我亦不復雲。但君亦且得病，病狀殊類我。我雖在此， 必不往視君。君勉之。遂別去。吾行數步，思之，蓋昔時所與遊倡女 紅奴兒者。其死三年矣。吾心惘然。迨反舍，意緒良不佳。疾勢已然， 當不能起，奈何，奈何？」 劉為作粥煮藥，至暮乃歸邸。後七日果死。 其黨能談其往事者，雲曲折病狀，皆與鬼言合。蓋索湯餅之時，魂已 去幹矣。時乾道二年。韓彥端說。

We recall from the first story translated above that Sword Bearers Camp was a neighborhood filled with entertainment houses, so it makes sense that Hu would encounter his former girlfriend there. Did he cut through that district that day on his ill-fated way home intending to look for some entertainment? In any event, what he encountered was the ghost of the singing girl he had jilted years before. One wonders how many young men made such promises to their singing girl sweethearts never intending to follow through. We learn from Hong Mai that Lin’an had residences taken over by the ghosts of persons killed in armed conflict. When Xing Xiaoyang, a grand protector, fled southward with his family after the Jurchen invasion, he settled first in Huzhou.22 But he was unhappy there and wanted desperately to relocate to the new capital. He found a residence for his family just inside Jian Bridge Gate 薦橋門. It was formerly the residence of Wang Xie 王燮 who had served as a general under Gaozong.23 The price for the place was extremely low—the seller was only asking 30,000 strings of cash, whereas a place its size in Lin’an normally could sell for as much as 500,000 strings.24 Of course, there was a reason. The house was said to be full of spirits. Xing scoffed at the notion and told his wife, who resisted moving in, that he would go stay there with two of his concubines first, to prove it was not haunted. He did so and encountered nothing untoward for half a month. Xing persuaded his wife that nothing was amiss, and so the entire family moved in. Then the trouble began. Ghosts

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   175 and phantoms appeared regularly, mocking the family members from the ceiling beams, terrorizing them, and seducing or possessing some of the maids and concubines. Xing quickly summoned Song Anguo 宋安國, a well-known exorcist who was also quite a prominent imperial official, to expel the demons.25 Song captured a few of them, but then determined that there were so many spirits in the house that nothing short of staging a Grand Yellow Talisman Exorcism would solve the problem. He proceeded to do this, supported by three million in cash from Xing. Song directed that a large vat covered with cloth be placed at a strategic place in the house, and during the ceremony he forced the haunting spirits into the vat. When the ceremony was over, it took eight men to carry the vat out on poles. Even then they complained about the weight, while from inside the vat there came the sound of scratching, as if it were filled with so many crabs. Song explains that some of his captive ghosts had told him the house was a site where a battle with invaders had taken place and countless persons had died there. We naturally suppose that this is a reference to the Jurchen attacks on Lin’an during 1129–30, when Gaozong and his court had to flee to the southeast and eventually out onto the East China Sea to elude capture. Was it because of Wang Xie’s status as one of Gaozong’s generals that his residence was the site of so much killing, or was it the residence’s proximity to a city gate? Or was it perhaps just a coincidence? We do not usually think of Lin’an as a place of violent death and restless malingering spirits, so this story is interesting precisely because it reminds us that the recent Jurchen occupation and associated killing was still fresh in the minds of mid-twelfth-century residents. I close here with one more tale of a ghost, a sympathetic one this time. It inadvertently suggests how unshakeable was Hong Mai’s belief in the existence and ubiquity—even in Lin’an—of spirits returned from the afterlife. “The Mother of Instructor Yang”26 A certain Yang, whose given name is not known, from Zizhou (east of Chengdu, Sichuan), was a manager of various bureaus’ accounts in the capital. When he died in office, his family could not afford return to Zizhou with his remains and continued to reside in Dasheng Lane (in Lin’an). Before many years passed, Yang’s wife, née Cao, also died, and the two coffins were placed temporarily in a temple outside

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the city. Their only son, Guang, devoted himself to arduous study and earned a recommendation from the Fiscal Commission. In the wuxu year of the Chunxi reign (1178), he sat for the metropolitan exam. After the exam was over, it happened that a section of the west wall of the Examination Office several meters long collapsed after being struck by violent wind and rain. The Lin’an instructor Gao Li was serving as examination grader, and that night he was reading examination papers at the entrance to his office. Suddenly he saw a woman appear before his candle. Appearing to be in her fifties, she bowed and beseeched him, speaking with a Sichuan accent: “This old woman is a native of Zizhou. My son was added to those who qualified to take the examination. The scroll you are reading is precisely the one he wrote. I ask that you place him at the bottom of your list of those who pass. If he is fortunate enough to receive this favor from you, sir, then my itinerant corpse will be able to return home to the west.” Gao replied, “I see that your son’s writing is only mediocre. There’s no guarantee that he can pass.” The woman pleaded most determinedly, and finally Gao agreed. Suddenly, Gao said with a start, “Old woman, how is it you are able to be here?” “For several nights,” she answered, “I paced back and forth outside the compound. But seeing armored deities surrounding it on all sides, there was no way for me to enter. But then the wind and rain knocked down part of the wall and their deities also fled, so I entered through the gap in the wall. I do not dare to stay long.” With that, she disappeared. It was then that Gao became frightened. He could not sleep all night. The next morning, Gao took the exam in question to show his supervisor, Vice Minister Zheng. He told him about the old woman’s request, and in the end, they listed that exam in the lowest rank of those who passed. When they broke open the seal of the signature page, it was indeed the exam of Yang Guang. When the court gave out assignments, it appointed Guang to be an instructor in Peizhou (Chongqing, Sichuan), and so he was able to transport the coffins of his mother and father back home. Gao was later appointed magistrate of Dexing County and told me about these events. When I checked the list of those who had passed the metropolitan exam that year, however, there was no Yang Guang. I suspect the name was mistaken.

Crime, Violence, and Ghosts in the Lin’an Stories in Yijian zhi   177 《楊教授母》 資州人楊某，幹辦諸司審計，卒於官。其家不能歸，寓居臨安打繩巷。 不數年，妻曹氏亦亡，皆寄攢野寺。一子光，苦志學問，獲漕臺薦送， 淳熙戊戌，赴省闈。試罷，偶貢院西牆為大風雨所攻，頹僕數丈。臨安 27 教授高栗為點檢試卷官， 夜在房門首考閱程文，忽於燭下見婦人，年 五十許，拜而致懇，語言操蜀音，雲：「老婦資州人，有子忝入舉場。 此卷子正其所作，願收置下列。儻僥倖一命，則旅骸可西歸矣。」高曰：「觀 汝子之文平平耳，未必可得。」 復申扣甚力，乃許之。恍然而驚曰：「媼 何以能到此？」曰：「數夜徘徊於外，望金甲神人周匝圍繞，無路可入。 適間風雨打了牆，諸神亦避，故從牆隙而至，不敢遲久。」遂不見。高 始懾怖，終夕不寢。明日，攜此卷詣所隸參詳官鄭少卿，道媼之請，遂 收置末級。洎拆封，果楊光也。廷對注官，調涪州教授，因奉二親之柩 歸。高改秩為德興宰，談其事。予案登科記是年無楊光，疑姓名不然也。

This story belongs to the large category of examination hall stories that feature supernatural interventions of one kind or another. There are several interesting aspects to this particular story, including the belief that the examination compound is guarded by armed deities, that those deities would be driven off by a rainstorm, and that the examiners would have their objectivity (and their standards) compromised by a ghost asking for a favor. But again, perhaps the most intriguing element is Hong Mai’s attitude towards the events he narrates. First, he tries to confirm what Gao has told him by taking the trouble to check the list of examinees who passed in the specified year. (Both Hong Mai and his brother Hong Kuo 洪適 were compilers of Song period examination lists, so Mai obviously had the necessary materials at hand.)28 But when he discovers there is no Yang Guang listed for that year, Hong Mai’s reaction is striking. He does not grow suspicious of the whole story or allow the lack of confirming evidence to undermine the credibility of a ghost entering the grader’s room and begging for a favor. To Hong Mai such an event must seem so plausible that he quickly seizes upon another explanation for the missing name. Hong Mai clearly believes a young man passed that year because his mother’s ghost intervened, and his name could be found on the list if only Hong Mai knew the name in its correct form. The supernatural elements in Hong Mai’s stories set in Lin’an remind us that for all the commercial, technological, and cultural achievements that marked the great Southern Song capital, in some respects the mental universe of its residents was still one that widely admitted belief in ghosts and other supernatural agents whose existence was often, although not

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always, seen as unproblematic. One might object that the stories reveal nothing more than Hong Mai’s own habits of mind. But we know that Yijian zhi was a profoundly collaborative project. The collection in its present form is inconceivable without the vast army of informants whose stories Hong Mai reworked and retold. Whatever belief system we might infer from the collection, it surely reflects ways of thinking that were widespread, though not necessarily universal, in Hong Mai’s day.

seven

Nature’s Capital: The City as Garden in The Splendid Scenery of the Capital (Ducheng jisheng, 1235 ) Christian de Pee

West Lake has the foremost scenery in the realm, perfect in the morning and the evening, in bright weather and in rain, and in all four seasons. The people of Hangzhou therefore roam the lake at every time of the year, although revelers are especially numerous during the spring. . . . Here one may see the inhabitants of the capital contract marriages or celebrate the end of the year, gather with their families or send off the dead to be buried, discuss sutras or sacrifice to the gods. One may see arrangements for an appointment to an official post or for a bestowal of imperial grace, commissions by the imperial court or by the central government, noble eunuchs and prominent officials, great merchants and powerful persons, a companion bought for a thousand pieces of gold and gamblers staking a million. One may even see smitten lads and lovesick girls, and secret assignations and illicit gatherings. ——Zhou Mi 周密 (ca. 1280–1290)1 西湖天下景，朝昏晴雨，四序總宜。杭人亦無時而不遊，而春遊特盛焉。 ……而都人凡締姻賽社、會親送葬、經會獻神、仕宦恩賞之經營、禁省 臺府之囑託、貴璫要地、大賈豪民、買笑千金、呼盧百萬、以至癡兒騃 子、密約幽期，無不在焉。

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in the preface to his Splendid Scenery of the Capital (Ducheng jisheng 都城紀勝, 1235), the pseudonymous author, the Codger Who Irrigates His Own Garden (Guanpu naide weng 灌圃耐得翁), compares his work to the Record of Famous Gardens in Luoyang (Luoyang mingyuan ji 洛陽名園記, ca. 1095) by Li Gefei 李格非 (d. 1106). Because the capital at Hangzhou has increased manifold the inherited splendor of the lost capitals at Kaifeng and Luoyang, he writes, even a partial record of its appearance surpasses the Famous Gardens in Luoyang in the variety and wonder of its entries:

In the postscript to the Record of Famous Gardens in Luoyang it says, “The florescence and ruin of these gardens presage the prosperity and decline of Luoyang.”2 Now that the temporary capital of the restoration [i.e., Hangzhou], in the prosperity of the Southeast, sets the measure for the four directions—now that axle-widths and the script abide by one standard, now that personages flourish in abundance, customs thrive in correctness, and markets convene in throngs—yesteryear’s famous gardens of Luoyang can no longer compare. . . . Although the present text cannot describe even a fraction of this atmosphere of great peace, it yet mimics the former intention of the Record of Famous Gardens. I have merely recorded the facts, without choosing the most appropriate expressions; and for this I am ashamed.3 且洛陽名園記後論有云，園囿之興廢者，洛陽盛衰之候也。 況中興行 都，東南之盛，為今日四方之標準，車書混一，人物繁盛，風俗繩厚， 市井駢集，豈昔日洛陽名園之比？……此雖不足以形容太平氣象之萬 一，亦髣髴名園記之遺意焉。但紀其實不擇其語，獨此為媿爾。

At first consideration, the author’s choice of literary antecedent is surprising, for his Splendid Scenery differs widely from the Famous Gardens in the nature, the scope, and the treatment of its subject matter. Hangzhou and Luoyang both served as a capital of the Song Empire, and both were renowned for their scenic beauty, but the dense, commercial cityscape that emerges from the Splendid Scenery of the Capital bears little resemblance to the lush, contained landscapes that unfold in the Famous Gardens in Luoyang. Li Gefei concentrates his descriptive efforts on nineteen celebrated gardens in the Western Capital, not only to record

Nature’s Capital   181 the names of their buildings and their most famous trees and flowers, but to preserve in writing the itineraries and lines of vision that gave meaning and coherence to their layout.4 The Codger, by contrast, describes a wide, numerous variety of urban institutions such as markets, guilds, wineshops, teahouses, catering services, and entertainment quarters. Crossing and re-crossing the disparate neighborhoods of the city, the energetic author points out rare merchandise and accomplished craftsmanship, explains the recondite practices of restaurants and brothels, and in general reserves his attention for everything that is unique to the capital: “What cannot be found elsewhere in the realm is all gathered here” 天下所無者， 5 悉集於此. Although he includes gardens in his account, he offers little more than a list of their names. His approach to names, moreover, differs markedly from Li Gefei’s. Whereas the latter author places great importance on the proper naming of buildings and scenic spots, the author of Splendid Scenery admits that the names of dishes and shops in Hangzhou are often arbitrary, misleading, or wrong. Considered within a longer history of literary geography, however, the Codger’s claim to the Famous Gardens as an antecedent gains in conviction and significance.6 During the eleventh century, the city emerged into writing, not as an achievement of human artifice, but as an extension of nature. Tang-dynasty poets confined their gaze to strictly natural sites such as urban gardens or the willows blossoming along the Imperial Canal. They noted traffic in the generic shape of horses and carriages; shops and markets they noted scarcely at all. Only in poems about annual festivals, such as the Lantern Festival or Cold Food, did they open up a wider stretch of urban space to reveal throngs of people in the streets, engaged in urban activities. The repeated destruction of Chang’an during the latter decades of the Tang Empire disrupted this literary geography and eliminated its strictures. Men such as Sun Qi 孫棨 (fl. 884–97), Li Chuo 李綽 (fl. 880–908), and Wang Dingbao 王定保 (870–940) described the urban life of the former capitals in unprecedented detail in their Record of the Northern Ward (Beili zhi 北里志, ca. 884), Record of the Seasons in the Imperial Capital (Nianxia suishi ji 輦下歲時記, 880) and Record of the Seasons in Qin (Qinzhong suishi ji 秦中歲時記, 908), and Gleaned Accounts of the Tang (Tang zhiyan 唐摭言, ca. 940).7 And as disillusioned officials turned their backs on the charred remains of Chang’an and Luoyang, they took notice of the lively markets and busy traffic in regional towns.

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By the early Song dynasty, writers began to perceive natural, daily rhythms in the life of cities. If the literary men of the Tang had looked away from the traffic to the flowering trees by the roadside, the writers of the Song perceived the traffic itself as a manifestation of natural patterns: carriages and horses flowed (liu 流) into the streets at dawn and ebbed toward sunset, like the tides of the ocean; goods and money circulated (tong 通) through the city, like the vital essences of the human body; and the commercial city flourished (hua 華), its shops opening and closing by an individual rhythm, like blossoms in a well-tended garden. This perception of the city as an extension of nature may have been informed by the volume of trade and by the ease of travel during the eleventh century, but it appears to have derived more specifically from the attempts of literati officials to understand the principles of finance, and from their determination to reduce the massive movement of people, goods, and money to a limited set of natural patterns. The effort to discern natural principles in urban traffic and in the urban economy aligns the writing of the city in the eleventh century with other intellectual developments of the period, notably with the widespread interest in natural observation, medical diagnostics, criminal forensics, civil engineering, and the construction of a new cosmological foundation for moral philosophy. Rather than a natural concomitant of economic development, in other words, the writing of the cityscape constituted part of a distinct, if related, urge to intellectual and aesthetic reflection—just as the industrial city did not become a prominent subject of European literature and painting until the latter half of the nineteenth century.8 Because literati officials believed that true civilization was patterned on the natural order, and because they were convinced of the essential beneficence of money and trade—which ensured the equitable nourishment of the body politic by the healthy circulation of the riches of the empire—they presumed that the confusing movement of people and goods that they witnessed in their jurisdictions must be reducible to a limited set of natural principles, and that close observation of natural phenomena would provide insights into the principles of finance.9 By their experience in water management they hoped to gain an understanding of fluctuations in value, and by their observation of human digestion they sought to improve their skills in financial planning. When eleventh-century authors wrote of the “flow” of money, the “circulation” of goods, and the “florescence” of urban commerce, therefore, they intended by these

Nature’s Capital   183 metaphors, not convenient poetic similes, but an ontological connection. The shared belief that the economy abided by natural principles, however, did not result in unified solutions to the grave fiscal difficulties of the eleventh century. In fact, their common conviction that the answers to the state’s predicaments lay close at hand, visible to the discerning observer in the lands and the waters, drove political opponents into ever more acrimonious debate, each side increasingly agitated to find that what they thought obviously true they could not convincingly demonstrate. Both the proponents and the opponents of the New Laws enacted by Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021–86), for example, cited the changed course of the Yellow River to prove the merit of their economic policies. The reformers argued that the government should use its superior knowledge and resources to restore the river to its original course, just as the New Laws had improved the economy by rational efficiency and moral redistribution; their opponents countered that the government should allow the fall of the land and the impetus of the waters to determine the course of the Yellow River, just as it should rely on market forces to supply naturally what the New Laws had failed to deliver by forcible regulation.10 The famous urban texts composed in Hangzhou during the Southern Song—Record of a Dream of Splendor in the Eastern Capital (Dongjing meng Hua lu 東京夢華錄, 1148), The Splendid Scenery of the Capital (1235), Record of Luxuriant Scenery by the Old Man of West Lake (Xihu laoren fanshenglu 西湖老人繁勝錄, ca. 1240s), and Former Matters of Wulin (Wulin jiushi 武林舊事, ca. 1280)—all use the natural tropes developed by eleventh-century literati, but without discarding older conventions or alternative ideologies. Whether they perceived the natural analogies as insufficient to explain the complexity of the urban economy or as inadequate to represent the confusion of urban space, the authors of these texts juxtapose the recent tropes of the city as an extension of nature (the metaphors of florescence and circulation, the cycle of daily activities) with the organizing principles of older urban texts (the centrality of the palace, the cycle of annual festivals) to create a semiotic replication of the disorienting sensory experience of the metropolis. To the ideological vision of the city as a living organism, whose health requires an equitable circulation of goods, these works add the ideologies of imperial ritual and sumptuary display, as they shift from daily events in the market to seasonal celebrations at court, and from an interest in the vigorous circulation of staple goods to a fascination with the exclusive

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ownership of rare treasures. This ideological inconsistency may in part be the result of the composite nature of these urban texts, but it is also a consequence of the more general inadequacy of literary conventions to the representation of urban space. The massive scale of the cities and the profusion of their goods exceed the tidy hierarchies of imperial space and natural distribution, and time and again the dense alleys and abundant markets of Kaifeng and Hangzhou lead the authors astray from their organizing principles, away from the palace and away from a virtuous economy, into a maze of oblivious, amoral consumption, where the proliferation of things overwhelms reasoned discourse. Whereas Li Gefei was able to represent the gardens of ancient, stately Luoyang in a suitable form and with elegant diction, the Codger “cannot describe even a fraction of the atmosphere of great peace” in the bewildering expanse of Hangzhou, and his choice of words must yield to lists of things.

Shifting Textual Geographies in Collected Works The genres gathered in the collected works of the ninth century place the Tang capital Chang’an at the center of time and space.11 From Chang’an issue law-giving edicts, yearly calendars, gifts of lined robes in the fall and of unlined robes in the spring, failed examination candidates, successful officials, and disgraced exiles. Toward Chang’an come officials awaiting reappointment, examination candidates and their servants, foreign envoys, tax revenues, drawings of auspicious portents, and tribute from the entire realm and beyond.12 Chang’an itself lies amid parks of perfectly created nature, favored by an exact alternation of seasons.13 In spite of the brilliant virtue of the emperor and the worthy effort of his officials, the landscape and climate of the periphery remain inhospitable and deviant. Especially in the South, beyond the Yangzi River and the mountain ranges, trees and flowers blossom in the wrong seasons, violent people dwell in huts and celebrate strange rites, and nature assaults the body and the senses with miasmic vapors, torrential rain, oppressive heat, pernicious insects, and implacable mountains.14 In these unaccommodating environs, officials create small enclaves of writing and seasonal order. They seek familiar blossoms to honor the calendrical festivals and they inscribe the landscape in the cadences of classical poetry and prose.15 Some slash the unwholesome weeds to make proper gardens or to reveal a scenic spot, and some even tear down the native huts to build tiled

Nature’s Capital   185 houses and city walls.16 But most bide their time, writing melancholic poems to their friends and gazing toward the capital.17 When these officials return to Chang’an at the imperial summons, however, they describe little of what they see. In the capital they find a cultured life of learning and prestige: the splendorous power of the palace, the pleasures of libraries and entertainment, the company of erudite friends. But despite all the coveted joys of life in the capital, ninth-century authors shun almost all reference to the specifically urban aspects of their existence in the metropolis.18 The caravans of the Silk Road delivered their wares to the enormous Western Market of Chang’an, yet Zhang Ji 張籍 (767–830), who lived near the southeastern corner of that market, never mentions it in his poems.19 One encounters in the collected poetry and prose of the ninth century barely any shops or restaurants, and even the pleasure quarters, which were an important part of literary culture, make only a seldom appearance.20 Instead, the literati describe walled gardens and residences, the scenery of imperial parks, and excursions into the landscape outside the city.21 Within the alleys and thoroughfares, the poet’s gaze cleaves to natural beauty along the sides of the road, noting a blossoming branch curving over a wall, slender willows lining the roadway, water glittering in the Imperial Canal, or the sudden transformation of the cityscape by a snowfall.22 Urban itineraries in ninth-century poems are short and occur only in connection to particular tropes, such as the ride to court at dawn,23 the visit to a friend (who is often absent),24 and the funeral procession.25 The celebration of annual festivals also occasionally introduces music, traffic, and crowds of revelers onto the written page.26 Other cities remain invisible in much the same way, as traveling officials inscribe the willows and blossoms of Luoyang,27 the canals and bridges of Suzhou,28 or the celebration of the Cold Food Festival in Yangzhou.29 They mention at times the busy traffic or the numerous populations in the towns of the Southeast,30 but they are more likely to write about wineshops and markets in the countryside than about those in the cities.31 The destruction of Chang’an and Luoyang instantly changed this literary geography. As the imperial court fled, now to Chengdu, now to Fengxiang, now to Mount Hua, officials abandoned their hopes of a restoration and accepted the prospect of prolonged residence in the provinces. Chang’an became a place of sorrow, a city of charred roofbeams and abandoned gardens, its days of splendor now a wondrous, painful memory.32 It was the Huang Chao rebellion (875–84) and the collapse of

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the Tang Empire that caused the urban life of Chang’an to be written up in detail, in Sun Qi’s Record of the Northern Ward, in Li Chuo’s Record of the Seasons in the Imperial Capital and Record of the Seasons in Qin, and in Wang Dingbao’s Gleaned Accounts of the Tang—just as the An Lushan rebellion of 755 had led Cui Lingqin 崔令欽 (fl. 730–762) to write his Record of the Instructional Wards (Jiaofang ji 教坊記, ca. 762), and just as the loss of Kaifeng in 1126–27 would inspire the composition of A Dream of Splendor and the anonymous Record of Customs of the Capital (Jingcheng fengsu ji 京城風俗記, mid-12th c.).33 More striking, however, is the geographic reconfiguration of more continuous genres and tropes, from a landscape oriented upon a singular center of culture to a topography of independent regions with their own political and commercial cities. In the course of the ninth century, literati had noticed that the weather they prized in the metropolis was in fact ordinary in the Southeast, and that the gardens they had created by contrivance in Chang’an grew with ease in Hangzhou and Suzhou. By such admissions, the Jiangnan region acquired a special status in the literary geography of the ninth century. It did not challenge the supremacy of the North, but it was acknowledged to be pleasant and civilized.34 After Chang’an and Luoyang were laid to waste, the flourishing cities of the Southeast emerged more fully into writing. Wei Zhuang 韋莊 (ca. 836–910), who in 880 had witnessed the ravage of Chang’an, a few years later celebrated the oblivious pleasures of the brothels and the pretty scenery in the unharmed city of Yangzhou. 35 Du Xunhe 杜荀鶴 (846–ca. 907), also in the 880s, described to a departing friend the urban scenes he would encounter in nearby Suzhou: Sending off someone to roam in Wu 送人遊吳 君到姑蘇見， 人家盡枕河。 古宮閑地少， 水港小橋多。

When you arrive in Gusu and look around, People’s houses all back onto a river. Amid the ancient palaces open land is scarce, On the river branches small bridges are numerous.

夜市賣菱藕， 春舡載綺羅。 遙知未眠月， 鄉思在漁歌。

The night markets sell water caltrop and lotus root, The spring boats carry silk twill and gauze. Distantly aware of the sleepless moon, You will think of home by the fishermen’s songs.36

Nature’s Capital   187 Han Wo 韓偓 (844–ca. 923), like Wei Zhuang a native of Chang’an, acknowledged in 906 the beauty and the pleasant climate of Fuzhou in autumn.37 Because almost no collected works survive from the Five Dynasties, and very few from the early decades of the Song, it is difficult to discern how this new literary geography developed during the tenth century.38 The most substantial collected works of the Five Dynasties, moreover, make an awkward comparison to the works extant from the ninth century: the first twenty fascicles of Xu Xuan’s 徐鉉 (917–992) Collected Works of the Policy Adviser (Jisheng ji 騎省集, 1017) preserve a literary style that was common during the late Tang but that is not characteristic of the collected works presently extant from that period.39 From the scant evidence it appears, however, that the literary geography continued to evolve away from its Tang configuration. In the fragmented realm of smaller and larger empires, many tropes of Tang literature did not apply, creating a sense of imaginative disorientation. In the latter years of the Tang, Du Xunhe had already ridiculed the trope of the alien South by exaggerating it, comparing a friend who had failed the examinations to an exile sent among the barbarians, where “Boats ferry oceanic slaves, rings weighting their earlobes,/ Elephants bear Man girls, tattoos covering their bodies” ( 舶載海奴鐶硾耳，象馳蠻女綵纏身). 40 In the diminutive empire of the Southern Tang (939–75), Xu Xuan gave a pathetic performance of the ninth-century poetics of exile, bewailing his banishment “at the edge of the sky” 在天涯 while he resided a mere fifty kilometers outside the Eastern Capital.41 Although it is suggestive rather than definitive, this fragmentary evidence fits the general historic trends of the period. The commercial cities that had grown in size and importance during the course of the ninth century in the Northeast, in the Southeast, in the South, and in the Southwest, acquired a political infrastructure as well as cultural authority.42 The courts in Kaifeng, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Chengdu, and even those in Fuzhou and Guangzhou, vied to recruit talented officials and to patronize the religious and secular arts.43 The rivalries of the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms, in other words, corrected the disproportion that had grown between the cultural metropolis at Chang’an and the commercial cities in the provinces, and between the economic importance of the commercial cities and their cultural prestige. As these regional centers persisted into the Song, their schools, libraries, and printing

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houses supported the education of strong contingents of scholars for the imperial examinations.44 For all its unrivaled splendor, the Song imperial capital at Kaifeng never gained the absolute cultural supremacy that Chang’an had possessed during the Tang.45 By the early eleventh century, a new literary geography had formed. In the pages of the collected works of the Northern Song, officials travel through a flattened landscape of efficient roads and swift waterways.46 Although in some literary genres the capital still occupies its dominant position at the high center, cultural authority in general has become shared more evenly throughout the realm.47 Prefectural posts in Fujian and Guangdong have become routine appointments, little different from appointments to counties and prefectures in the Northeast or the Southwest.48 The extreme cultural difference between the North and the South has disappeared. The miasmic vapors have lifted, the poisonous insects have vanished, the unsettling cry of the gibbon has almost ceased to draw notice. Whereas Li Qunyu 李群玉 (fl. 854) in the ninth century had praised the women of Changsha for their exotic beauty (“lithe as sporting dragons” 婉若遊龍), Song Qi 宋祁 (998–1061) in the eleventh century finds that the roaming girls of Changsha “resemble those in the capital” 49 遊女似京都. Alien cultures now lie beyond the borders, in the barren landscape of nomadic peoples or in foreign lands across the oceans.50 Cultural differences of a lesser kind exist between the various regions of the empire, and are contained also within regions and within cities. These cultural differences fill out the streets and the suburban spaces that the Tang poets had left open, to give expression to a new sense of urban simultaneity. Consider, for example, the trope of the ride to the palace at dawn, as treated by various poets of the late Tang and the early Song.51 As the stars fade above the palace gates, Xu Hun 許渾 (788–860) fixes his gaze on the buildings ahead, but Han Qi 韓琦 (1008–1075) notices the criers who precede him: Prospect on the Avenue of Heaven at dawn (Xu Hun) 天街曉望 明星低未央， 蓮闕迥蒼蒼。 疊鼓催殘月， 疏鐘迎早霜。

Bright stars hang low by Infinity Palace, The lotus gates swing open in lofty height. Layered drumbeats urge the waning moon, A faint bell welcomes the early frost.

Nature’s Capital   189 關防浮瑞氣， 宮館輝神光。 再拜為君壽， 南山高且長。

In the guarded enclosure drifts an auspicious air, From the palace halls blazes a divine luster. Again I bow to wish my lord longevity, Like the Southern Mountains lofty and eternal.52

On the way to my first attendance at a morning audience (Han Qi) 初赴早朝 疏星掛闕角， 落月含輕雲。 兀兀馬上身， 叱叱馬前人。

Faint stars hang by a corner of the palace gates, The waning moon clings to a few light clouds. Stupefied this body is seated on the horse, Loudly the men cry out before the horse.

瘦骨酸秋霜， 病瞳昏陌塵。 自顧爾空空， 胡以裨吾君。

My emaciated bones ache with the autumn frost, My suffering pupils are dulled by the road’s dust. Considering myself in this plain manner, I wonder how I may serve my lord.53

Bai Juyi 白居易 (772–846) offers perhaps the most arresting image of morning traffic in Tang-dynasty Chang’an, in two strophes from a poem rhyming with Yuan Zhen’s 元稹 (779–831) “Morning prospect” (Wang xiao 望曉): 街心若流水， 城角如斷岸。 星河稍隅落， 宮闕方輪煥。

The middle of the road resembles a current of water, As though the bugles on the walls have burst the dikes. As the Milky Way looks slightly tilted, So the palace gates emerge fully resplendent.

朝車雷四合， Court carriages roll like thunder from the four directions, 騎火星一貫。 Mounted torches shine like stars strung on a single wire. 赫奕冠蓋盛， Illustrious the abundant caps and canopies! 54 熒煌朱紫爛。 Luminescent the blazing vermilion and purple!

But even these lines lack the visceral detail by which Song Xiang 宋庠 (996–1066) describes the torrent that roars into the roads of Kaifeng at five o’clock in the morning:

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Even in a longer, more detailed itinerary, Zhang Ji does not record the detail of commercial activity that Song Qi observes on his way to the imperial city: The morning audience, sent to Secretary Bai and Director Yan (Zhang Ji) 早朝寄白舍人、嚴郎中 鼓聲初動未聞雞， When the drums first rumble I have not yet heard the rooster, 羸馬街中踏凍泥。 In the avenues my scrawny horse treads on the frozen mud. 燭暗有時衝石柱， The dim lantern causes it sometimes to collide with a stone-hewn pillar, 雪深無處認沙堤。 The deep snow makes it impossible to discern the gravel bank. 常參班裏人猶少， Among the ranks of the court officials, the men are still few, 待漏房前月欲西。 Outside the waiting room, the moon tends to the west. 鳳閣星郎雖去遠， Though the Drafter at the Phoenix Hall and the Star Gentleman are now far away,56 閤門開日入還齊。 On the days when the inner palace gates open, we shall enter together.57

Nature’s Capital   191 Riding to work I look at the markets (Song Qi) 赴直馬上觀市 上直驅羸馬， On the way to work I gallop my scrawny horse, 凌晨望百廛。 Looking upon a hundred warehouses in the clear morning. 壚喧滌器市， The wineshops are loud as the entire market is washing dishes, 簫暖賣餳天。 The pipes are warm as the stalls have started selling malt sugar. 流水隨輕轂， Flowing water fleets along with the light carriages, 翻花送駛韉。 Flying blossoms send off the fluttering saddlecloths. 區區市門吏， Insipidly the guards stand by the market gates, 無復子真仙。 Certainly the immortal Zizhen is not among them.58

Elsewhere, Song Qi writes about an acrobat climbing a hundred-foot pole in an open space in Kaifeng, and Song Xiang describes his wonder at seeing a crane dance in a market in the capital, unperturbed by the deafening traffic.59 From the top of the pagoda at Luxuriant Terrace, Su Shunqin 蘇舜欽 (1008–48) notes that “horses and carriages are diminished to mole crickets and ants” 車馬盡螻螘.60 Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣 (1002– 60) draws attention to the “tall towers lit by lanterns and torches” 燈火 高樓 and the “oblique alleyways dormant behind curtains and window bars” 簾櫳斜巷 off Vermilion Bird Avenue.61 Outside Kaifeng, too, dense traffic, urban life, and multitudes of people obtrude into the poet’s vision. From a tower in an unnamed prefecture, Song Qi looks out upon the smoke curling up from a myriad roofs and hears the clamor of wheels as carts rattle by to take the harvest to the market.62 Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–72) writes of traffic jams in Luoyang, where the carriage-drivers vie “sleeve to sleeve” 連袂 to enter the city at dawn.63 Sima Guang 司馬光 (1019–86) marvels at young acrobats who risk their lives for the pleasure of spectators on the intersections in Chang’an.64 Chen Shidao 陳師道 (1052–1101) hears a mixture of Northern and Southern accents in the market of Shankou, Shandong, and listens to people speaking to each other from their doors and windows.65 Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹 (989–1052) looks out from the Tower for Observing the Breeze in Suzhou, across “the talk and laughter of ten thousand households” 語笑萬家聲.66 Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101) wakes up in his sedan chair to see merchants gesticulating

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under the abundant lanterns of a busy commercial street in Hangzhou.67 Mu Xiu 穆修 (979–1032) offers a detailed poetic account of the fish trade in the South, from the fishing boats and the markets through the textures and flavors of the fish.68 Others include a silkworm market, a market in medicinal herbs, a flower market, silk production, tea merchants, or night markets in their views of county seats and prefectural cities.69 Eleventh-century authors moreover begin to perceive the crowd as an intrinsic part of the urban scenery and hence as a spectacle by itself, such as the throngs of people who watch rich families disport themselves on swings during the Qingming festival, or attend the opening of the rivers, or seek a place to view performances on West Lake in the spring.70 “This is what is called ‘horses and carriages come and go, and people watch other people’” 所謂車馬往來，人看人者是也.71 Yet while these scenes of traffic, commerce, and crowds are distinctly urban, they do not therefore represent a radical departure from the earlier poetic tradition. The market stalls and traffic jams become visible, not by an effort to subvert the Tang poetry of urban nature, but rather as an extension of that poetics. From the garden walls and the roadside, nature has spread into the alleys and thoroughfares, into the life of the city itself. The city wakes up at dawn with the birds, the shops open toward the morning sun like flowers, and the traffic and the crowds flow through the streets on a tide as irresistible as the ocean’s flood. Goods and money circulate through the markets and through the empire as vital essences circulate through the human body, and to comparable effect, because they sustain the health of the urban population and the body politic. Financial experts merely need to stop the dissipation of money and grain, applying their economic devices just as skilled acupuncturists use their needles: The Bian Canal 汴河

Huang Shu 黃庶

(1042 jinshi) 汴都峨峨在平地， The capital at Bian rises like a mountain from the even plain, 宋恃其德為金湯。 The Song trusts its virtuous power as its metal gate and fiery moat.

Nature’s Capital   193 先帝始初有深意， The founding emperors in the beginning had profound intent, 不使子孫生怠荒。 To prevent their descendants from growing lazy or careless. 萬艘北來食京師， A myriad ships come north to feed the capital city, 汴水遂作東南吭。 Making the Bian River in effect its southeastern throat. 甲兵百萬以為命， And the million armored soldiers are thus sustained, 千里天下之腑腸。 The receptive intestine of the thousand-mile realm. 人心愛惜此流水， The people’s hearts love and cherish this flowing water, 不啻布帛與稻粱。 Which offers to them more than cloth, rice, and grain. 漢唐關中數百年， In the capitals of the Han and Tang for many centuries, 木牛可以腐太倉。 Wheelbarrows could fill the imperial granaries till their contents rotted. 舟楫利今百於古， Boats profit the present a hundred times more than the past, 奈何益見府庫瘡。 And yet one never sees in the storehouses a trace of mold. 天心正欲醫造化， If Heaven intends to remedy the transformation, 人間豈無鍼石良。 Doesn’t mankind have an adept with needles of stone? 窟穴但去錢穀蠹， From the hollows just dislodge the worms of cash and grain, 此水何必求桑羊。 And this river need not seek a man like Sang Hongyang.72

In prose genres, too, the city emerges as a landscape worthy of literary representation and of admiration, in terms akin to the appreciation of natural beauty. Tang authors who composed records (ji 記) for buildings, for example, did not present those structures in their urban settings, but eleventh-century literati begin to set pavilions, monasteries, and government buildings along busy roads and by crowded waterways, in an empire pulsing with economic activity. Thus, Zeng Gong 曾鞏 (1019–83) celebrates the active port and architectural beauty of Fuzhou, and praises Prefect Cheng Shimeng 程師孟 (1009–86) for having “purchased a vertiginous ledge on Min Mountain and built a pavilion at

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that site. The scenic beauty of mountains and rivers, the spreading expanse of the city, and the splendid abundance of palaces and residences that its views afford, one can take in all around without leaving one’s seat” 得閩山嶔崟之際，為亭於其處，其山川之勝，城邑之大，宮室之榮，不下 73 簟席而盡於四矚. Ouyang Xiu offers that the beauty of nature and the splendor of cities are equally worthy of admiration, but that only Qiantang (i.e., Hangzhou) combines the beauty and the pleasures of both: “Its customs are subtle, its residences splendid, and it presumably numbers over a hundred thousand households. Ringed by lakes and mountains, it displays continuous scenic beauty on all sides. And at the same time Fujianese merchants and overseas traders, wind-blown sails and oceangoing ships come and go on the endless waves of its rivers, amid dispersing clouds of smoke and fog: this is certainly splendid” 又其俗習 工巧，邑屋華麗，蓋十餘萬家。環以湖山，左右映帶。而閩商海賈，風帆浪舶， 74 出入於江濤浩渺煙雲杳靄之間，可謂盛矣 . According to Wang Anshi, the

frugal modesty of the imperial house has left the population at liberty to exploit their abilities in pursuit of profit and desire, so that “even southern and eastern barbarians who dwell by the lakes and seas and in the mountains and valleys, as well as the households of prosperous farmers, wealthy artisans, and powerful merchants, are frequently able to expand their residences and to raise high towers, and to compete in inexhaustible extravagance with the richest families of the commercial centers and the capital” 自雖蠻夷胡海山谷之聚，大農富工豪賈之家，往往能廣其宮室 75 高其樓觀，以與通邑大都之有力者爭無窮之侈. The double movement Wang Anshi describes—of wealth moving outward from the center and pushing up magnificent towers and luxurious residences in the counties and prefectures—closely matches the transformation of the literary geography during the ninth through eleventh centuries, in which the commercial streetscape is raised to representation in proportion as the stature of the outlying regions diminishes the prominence of the capital. This perception of urban traffic and commerce as natural phenomena (or at least as conformable to natural patterns) relates not only to the increased speed and volume of trade, but also to a new interest among eleventh-century officials in observing natural regularities. The curiosity and insight that inform Shen Gua’s 沈括 (1031–95) Talks with My Brush at Dream Brook (Mengxi bitan 夢溪筆談, 1087) are evident also in the collected works of the Northern Song.76 Liu Kai 柳開 (947–1000), for example, climbs the Haiyang mountains in Guizhou to discover the

Nature’s Capital   195 sources of the Xiang and Li rivers, and to catch sight of an important southern watershed.77 Yu Jing 余靖 (1000–64) lays out his detailed observations of the tide at the eastern and southern coasts, and concludes that the flow of the tide correlates to the phases of the moon.78 Su Song 蘇頌 (1020–1101) investigates the drainage of the rivers around Kaifeng and compiles an illustrated pharmacopoeia—in part because “the medicinal herbs used by doctors today all come from the market, and the market vendors probably get them from people in the countryside, and acquire them whenever they can, without inquiring about their origins” 況今醫師 79 所用皆出於市賈，市賈所得蓋自山野之人，隨時採獲，無復究其所從來. If the Tang poets criticized the unseasonable blossoms of the South as a moral aberration, eleventh-century authors perceive them as the products of a difference in latitude or altitude, devoid of moral implications.80 In this context of natural observation and empirical inquiry, eleventh-century authors invoked the flow of water, the circulation of bodily essences, and the flowering of gardens both to represent and to explain the confusing movement of people, goods, and money in the expanding cities. The study of natural phenomena appeared to offer insights into the fluctuating value of money and the workings of market forces, and to provide solutions for the congestion of traffic and the inertia of wealth— just as eleventh-century exegetes sought to recover the wisdom of the ancients by examining a blade of grass or the behavior of chickens.81 Thus, both Li Gou 李覯 (1009–1059) and Zeng Gong explain the principles of inflation and deflation by comparing the flow of currency to the natural flow of water from a spring.82 Qin Guan 秦觀 (1049–1100) defends his approach to finance by analogy to water management, for “just as an expert at water management considers the four oceans as his reservoir, the financial expert considers the entire world as his resource” 是以 83 善治水者，以四海為壑；善理財者，以天地為資. Su Zhe 蘇轍 (1039–1112) warns against the abolition of the State Finance Commission, since that powerful institution coordinates incoming revenue much as the mouth and the stomach determine the intake of food and regulate digestion, “after which [nourishment] is distributed to the vital essences and the blood, to sustain all the parts of the body” 然後分布氣血，以養百骸—for “the realm depends on resources as man depends on food and drink” 蓋國之有財，猶 84 人之有飲食. In a poem describing the activity in Luoyang, Sima Guang observes that “From antiquity the Western Capital has been a region of abundant florescence” 西都自古繁華地, and proceeds to connect the

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prosperity of the city to its fertile gardens, much as Li Gefei would do a few decades later in his Famous Gardens in Luoyang.85 Eleventh-century funerary inscriptions bring these themes of natural observation and practical administration together in their praise for a new kind of official: the official who by dedicated learning and advanced virtue has gained insight into the inherent pattern of things and is thereby capable of defeating material challenges to governance that have defied others, whether it be the solution of murder cases and civil suits, the prevention of floods by effective dikes and canals, the improvement of agricultural production by irrigation networks, the suppression of bandits and rebels, or the adjustment of local finance.86 The premises of these natural analogies were widely accepted among the literati of the eleventh century. The ancients had taught that true civilization coincided with the natural order, and that an authentic ruler created lasting prosperity by aligning the pattern of human activity with the movement of the stars and the rhythms of nature. The close observation of natural phenomena by eleventh-century literati caused them to elaborate such analogies rather than to reject them. In all the various genres, they insist that trade should circulate necessary commodities at reasonable cost, in their proper season. They condemn the sale of rare and unseasonable products as a dangerous violation of the natural order, and they decry excessive profits and competitive consumption as unnatural and immoral. Inadequate distribution and drainage of resources are symptoms of the ill health of the economy, just as blockage and depletion signal illness in medical diagnosis.87 Unlike the economic thinkers who invoked natural analogies in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, moreover, eleventh-century literati were in agreement that only a benevolent government could secure an efficient, equitable distribution of wealth, by restraining the selfish impulses of merchants and the vested interests of the rich.88 The violent debates instigated by Wang Anshi’s New Laws after 1069 did not set advocates of government intervention against proponents of a free market, but divided men who sought to replace market forces by equitable government regulations from men who believed that market forces accomplished certain things more easily and more efficiently than deliberate laws and fallible officials.89 The proximity of their intellectual positions increased rather than diminished the vehemence of the disagreement between these irreconcilable opponents. The intellectual crisis of the late eleventh century resulted, not from doubt or

Nature’s Capital   197 skepticism about the fundamental truth of the moral order and canonical wisdom, but from the discovery by literati on all sides of the debates that they were incapable of demonstrating to their opponents the merit of their arguments, and that they could not reliably distinguish genuine learning from clever performance.

The City as Nature in Urban Texts The urban texts written in Hangzhou during the Southern Song combine the natural analogies developed by the literati of the eleventh century with older tropes used to write about urban life and the urban landscape during the Tang and the Five Dynasties. Whether the authors of these texts detected the intellectual insufficiency of each of these tropes, or left them unrevised from the sources they collated, or combined them deliberately for literary effect, they achieved by their juxtaposition a semiotic replication of the disorienting metropolitan life they sought to convey to their readers.90 The incommensurability of the various tropes is evident from their diverse ideological associations, with the imperial court, with the literati, and with families of powerful wealth. The prefaces to these texts affirm their authors’ allegiance to the Song imperial house, and their urban descriptions give prominence to the palace, to the emperor’s place in the celebration of annual festivals, and to imperial ritual. The authors omit almost every mention of crime, poverty, pandemics, and disaster.91 Many of the authors, however, also take up the notion, developed by literati of the Northern Song, of the city as an extension of nature. Besides the ontological metaphors of flow, circulation, and florescence, this notion introduces into the urban texts a rival organizing principle, namely the daily cycle of urban activity. The perception of daily rhythms in urban life, in addition to the seasonal ones, created for the literati of the eleventh century a measure of independence from the calendrical year that (in the received literary texts at least) was dominated by the imperial court.92 To the literati of the Northern Song, as of the Tang, the celebration of the New Year or the arrival of autumn brought memories of the capital, thoughts of court ceremonies, and reflections on their place in the empire and the imperium. Although the times of day and night were marked by the sound of government drums and bugles—in county seats and prefectural seats as in the capital— the activities of the day were of necessity more individual than the

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conventional celebrations of seasonal holidays. In the urban texts written in Hangzhou during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, cycles of daily activity revolve beside and within the cycle of annual festivals. In addition to these two discrepant orientations toward time and urban space, the urban texts of the Southern Song preserve traces of yet a third attitude toward the life of the capital. In spite of their ideological differences, the imperial court and the literati shared (again, in the pages of transmitted texts) a stated commitment to an equitable, healthful economic distribution. The lofty buildings of the palace, the inauguration of annual festivals by imperial processions, and the daily circulation of goods and money gave expression to this benevolent economy, just as they give shape to these urban descriptions. And yet as these urban texts venture from the imperial palace into the surrounding streets and alleys, and as they address the material detail of the cycles of annual celebrations and daily activities, they draw onto the written page such a profusion of shops and wares and specialized services as to challenge the frugal injunctions of emperors and officials. The prefaces cite the urban florescence as evidence of the legitimate governance of the Song dynastic house, but the urban descriptions betray a delight in the pursuit of competitive consumption, which the imperial court discouraged, and hint at the transgression of sumptuary restrictions, which the imperial court prohibited.93 The urban texts thereby appear to lend substance to the ideology of the “great merchants and powerful persons” 大賈豪民 mentioned in the epigraph of this essay, the puissant families to whom the edicts of the imperial court and the memorials of officials accord only a negative presence.94 The nervous alternation of these varied principles of literary organization and the resulting juxtaposition of discrepant ideologies, especially in A Dream of Splendor and The Splendid Scenery of the Capital, may well reveal the lacking skill or the ideological disingenuousness of the authors of these texts, but they also help create a semiotic replication of the bewildering variety of the cityscape, and of the irreducible power of its goods. The annual cycle of festivals that coordinates life in the capital with the rhythms of nature and with the rites of the imperial court remains a prominent organizing principle in the urban texts of the Southern Song. To the anonymous author of the Record of Customs of the Capital, for example, a description of “the sights, customs, and beloved entertainments of one full year” 鈔錄一年景致及風俗好尚 amounts to a comprehensive record of the lost city of Kaifeng.95 In Zhou Mi’s 周密 (1232–98) Former Matters of Wulin, too, a cycle of annual celebrations occupies a large

Nature’s Capital   199 portion of the text. But time and again, in the latter record, urban life extends beyond those isolated calendrical days and outside the imperial entourage. The entry on the celebration of the birthday of the deity King Zhang of Paulownia River, for example, on the eighth day of the second month, becomes an opportunity to introduce a variety of theatrical and acrobatic troupes.96 And in the middle of the annual cycle, the text suddenly opens up into a wide vista of West Lake to show the emperor’s dragon boat sailing into a commercial landscape of peddlers, courtesans, acting troupes, restaurants, and teahouses.97 The pseudonymous Meng Yuanlao 孟元老 (fl. 1103–47) makes the most avid attempt to render the complex simultaneity of urban life in writing.98 In his desire to preserve the texture of his remembered life in the Eastern Capital, he relegates the annual cycle of festivals to the latter half of his Dream of Splendor and opens his memoir instead with an attempt to describe the spreading horizontality of the lost metropolis. After situating the walls, the gates, the waterways, the palace, and the government offices, he fills in the remaining space with a disorienting array of markets, stores, brothels, restaurants, and wineshops, and with long lists of commodities and specialties. Every time the text moves away from the palace, its central point of orientation, it becomes lost in the disorderly alleys of the author’s memory. This disorganization of the text may itself be the most eloquent articulation of a vernacular commercial space that exceeds the vertical hierarchies of imperial space and time.99 In this space prevails an aesthetic of excess and consumption for its own sake that shows little concern with equitable circulation—even if Meng Yuanlao presents his recorded memories as a sincere paean to the pinnacle of “an extended period of great peace” 太平日久 during the reign of Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–25).100 Although the level of detail in A Dream of Splendor is unprecedented, one may yet recognize in its streets the traffic, the acrobats, the warehouses, and the wineshops first encountered in the poems of Song Qi and other authors of the eleventh century. Meng Yuanlao even includes, in addition to his extensive annual cycle, a brief sketch of the beginning of the daily cycle, from the announcement of the fifth watch by Buddhist novices and the opening of the gates and markets, to the sale of breakfast foods and washing water, and the rapid increase in urban noise.101 Both in his choice of title and in the rhetoric of his preface, the author of The Splendid Scenery of the Capital takes up the trope of the city as an extension of nature, the city as a garden. The markets, guilds, wineshops,

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restaurants, teahouses, and other social and commercial institutions of Hangzhou are sheng 勝, “scenic spots” that have grown from the peerless conditions of the capital to match its unrivaled landscape, and to express the legitimate governance of the imperial house: When the ancestors of this sacred dynasty founded the empire, they designated Bian [i.e., Kaifeng] the capital, and the four directions looked up to its customs and rites to take them as their model. After Emperor Gaozong halted his carriage at Hangzhou [in 1132], the city—because of the bright elegance of the landscape and the peaceful prosperity of the people—was perceived to surpass the capital [at Bian] by a tenfold.102 Although at that time its markets may have been comparable to those in the capital, now that the restoration has receded more than a hundred years into the past, and a series of sages have succeeded one another on the throne, and the reign of peace continues to extend with each passing day, the regulations have been ever perfect, and the world has gathered here, and the city has surpassed itself by another tenfold since the restoration.103 聖朝祖宗開國，就都於汴，而風俗典禮，四方仰之為師。自高宗皇帝駐 蹕於杭，而杭山水明秀，民物康阜，視京師其過十倍矣。雖市肆與京師 相侔，然中興已百餘年，列聖相承，太平日久，前後經營至矣，輻輳集 矣，其與中興時又過十數倍也。

It is this landscape that the author compares to the famous gardens of Luoyang, a landscape richer in its expression of prosperity than were the landscapes of Luoyang or Kaifeng, but comparable to the landscape of those prior capitals in the effortless efflorescence of its gardens and its markets, in the ceaseless flow of its rivers and its commodities, and in the healthy circulation of its residents and its wealth. The text of Splendid Scenery, however, abandons this imagery altogether. Most of its fourteen chapters take the form of lists, interspersed with historical background, advice, and recommendations: a list of guilds and other commercial associations; a list of the various types of wineshops and their specialties; lists of the types of restaurants and teahouses with explanations of their confusing designations, customs, and expressions; and so forth. These chapters not only create a record for future readers, but they also afford practical guidance to contemporary visitors. They

Nature’s Capital   201 explain the general taxonomy of a particular branch of commerce or entertainment, dispense useful advice (how to order food, how to tell whether a teahouse has prostitutes, how to deal with hustlers), and offer a series of recommended addresses. The lists make little reference to time and, with the exception of the recommended addresses, little reference to space. But the two chapters that attempt a comprehensive sketch of the urban geography demonstrate the semiotic use of discrepant tropes and ideologies, as they suggest material abundance and spatial disorientation by working through a rapid succession of generic conventions. The first chapter of Splendid Scenery, “Markets” 市井, starts in front of the imperial palace, with a description of the gems, foods, and crafts for sale in the morning on the imperial avenue that issues from the Gate of Harmonious Calm, but then it quickly extends to shops and restaurants in a variety of other locations. It briefly returns to the area of the palace for its discussion of night markets, only to turn away once more to other parts of the city. Its short effusion about the night markets ends with a stretch of the daily cycle, which gives way to the beginning of the annual cycle and an account of imperial attendance at the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month: In other streets and markets, the trade, the gambling, the wineshops, and the singing halls grow quiet only by the fourth drum [3:00 a.m.], but by the fifth drum [5:00 a.m.] the horses of the high officials are already about to set out for the court, and the merchants who sell their wares at the morning markets are again setting up their stalls. So it continues during all four seasons. During the Lantern Festival it is especially splendid. Every household has things for sale, people’s dwellings become stalls, and displays for the delectation of spectators are arrayed densely like the scales of a fish, too numerous to describe.104 During the Longxing reign period [1163–64], the retired Emperor Gaozong [1107–87, r. 1127–62] and his consorts watched the proceedings from a stand in the Central Square, across from the present imperial dye factory. When the reigning Emperor Xiaozong [r. 1162–89] returned from the spring sacrifice at the imperial temple, he went to see the lanterns at the festival market.105 其餘坊巷市井，買賣關撲，酒樓歌館，直至四鼓後方靜，而五鼓朝馬將 動，其有趁賣早市者，復起開張。無論四時皆然。如遇元宵尤盛，排門

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私貨，民居作肆，觀玩鱗次，不可勝紀。隆興間，高廟與六宮等在中瓦， 相對今修內司染坊看位觀。孝宗皇帝孟享迴，就觀燈買市。

The mention of Emperors Gaozong and Xiaozong leads to a general description of imperial processions, which in turn inspires an exposition on street theater.106 The chapter ends with a litany of specialized markets and the warning that “it is impossible to list them one by one” 未易縷舉.107 The chapter on “Stores” 鋪席 similarly begins outside the palace, identifying the different sections of the imperial avenue and the expensive shops lining various segments of that broad thoroughfare—exchanges for silver and gold, gold- and silversmiths, pearl shops, pawnshops that buy nothing worth less than ten thousand cash, dealers in fine brocades. But fearing that his reader will think the capital distinguished merely by exclusiveness, the author abandons the avenue to exhibit the expansive variety of commercial activity that, in the final analysis, he finds to be the defining characteristic of the capital. Geographic coherence once more dissolves into lists of commodities: There are also large and small stores, all carrying a wide range of goods. Along the river by the Peaceful Ford Bridge, for example, are fabric stores, fan shops, shops selling lacquerware from Wenzhou, shops selling celadon and white porcelain, and so forth. Every other city is famous for only one article—such as the gauze of Fuzhou, the fans of Hongzhou, or the notepaper of Suzhou108—but the capital is the place where all goods come together, especially because its inhabitants are so numerous and traveling merchants come and go. If there are even specialized stores that sell used paper, feathers, and fan-shaped signs, one can imagine the rest.109 又有大小鋪席，皆是廣大物貨，如平津橋沿河，布鋪、扇鋪、溫州漆器 鋪、青白碗器鋪之纇。且夫外郡各以一物稱最，如撫紗、洪扇、吳牋， 都會之下皆物所聚之處，況夫人物繁夥，客販往來，至於故楮、羽毛、 扇牌，皆有行鋪，其餘可知矣。

Thus, the two chapters that attempt an ordered, geographic exposition of the markets and stores in the capital both end with an admission of defeat. The generic conventions available to the author, and tested by him in quick succession, prove unequal to the massive, overwhelming

Nature’s Capital   203 variety of the metropolis, leaving him once more to suggest this variety by means of a breathless recitation of lists—a transcription of goods by which the author admits the defeat of words by things, and the inadequacy of writing to the representation of urban experience. No effective form exists to render the confluence of commodities that he deems characteristic of the capital, unless the semiotic confusion of generic conventions is itself a coherent form of representation.

Conclusion It is not a given that cities should be represented in writing. The officials who gazed toward Chang’an from their places of exile felt little need to record the urban life of the capital once they were allowed to return. They lived in one of the largest cities in the world, in the vicinity of markets of fabulous reputation, without apparent desire to write about that experience. The celebrations of urban life composed in Hangzhou during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries continued the effort to reconfigure the textual geographies of inherited genres and to write the urban landscape. The repeated sacks of Chang’an destroyed not only the political center of the Tang Empire, but also the center of its literary geography. While some authors preserved the memory of urban life in Chang’an in works of prose, other authors began the creation of a new literary geography by altering existing tropes and by devising new genres. By the eleventh century, the tree-lined avenues and bowered walls inherited from the Tang accommodated the dense traffic and lively commerce of the Song Empire, which flowed through the roads that the literary geography of the Tang had left open. Urban life became a topic deemed worthy of literary representation, not due to a newfound pride in the accomplishments of human artifice, but due to a new attempt to understand the urban economy as a natural phenomenon. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, the ontological metaphors of the city as a living organism, even when combined with older conventions of imperial ideology and with new references to a culture of forbidden profligacy, were still inadequate to represent the cityscape on the written page. Only by the juxtaposition and alternation of generic conventions, which included lists of transcribed commodities, could authors replicate the powerful sense of disorientation in the beautiful, expansive metropolis that stretched “several dozen li to the south, to the north, and to the

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west” 城之南西北三處，各數十里 and that one “could not traverse in a mere few days” 數日經行不盡.110 The city was the palace and the ritual thoroughfares, but it was also the shops and the maze of crooked alleys; it was the great officials and rich merchants, as well as the lay believers and the illicit lovers; it was a confluence of luxurious artifice, and yet it was also a natural landscape, in which the waters of West Lake were the city, and the city was a garden.

eight

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify? West Lake as the Site for Patriotic Sentiment in Southern Song Lyrics Xinda Lian

closely related to every aspect of life in the city of Lin’an 臨安 in the Southern Song (1127–79), West Lake is often perceived as symbolic of the city, even of the dynasty.1 Its poetic symbolism, especially that seen in the ci 詞 (song lyric) genre, is as multifaceted and complicated as the sensual properties of the urban space situated around the dazzling “hills and water” of the lake. Moreover those same complications echo the socio-political implications of the city’s name. This chapter examines what might be called the “Southern Song patriotic West Lake ci.” So many modifiers awkwardly strung together betray the unique nature of this sub-category in the development of the ci genre. Indeed, song lyrics of this group are unique in that they strive to combine three rather disparate elements: first, an intensely emotional ideology engendered by special events at a crucial historical juncture; second, the poetic form of the ci genre, especially the “long song lyric” (changdiao 長調 or manci 慢詞), whose features and aesthetics are significantly different from those of shi 詩 poetry; and third, West Lake as an excuse for poetic acts—in which the delicate beauty of the lake functions either as backdrop or as stimulus. Needless to say, the success of this project hinges on the fluent coordination of the three components. Through close readings of some representative works from the group in

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question, this chapter demonstrates that the more successful expressions of patriotic sentiment exploit the strengths of the ci’s formalistic features and allow the rich sensual properties of West Lake to “participate” in the poetic act.

Song Lyrics “by” the West Lake During the long history of Lin’an’s formation and growth, the area around West Lake was fortunate to have Bo Juyi 白居易 (772–846) and Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101) serve as governors. These two poet-officials left the local people with not merely irrigation and water control systems, but also a charming stretch of water and causeways lined with willows and peach trees, together with poems that matched the beauty of the scenery. Over the years, relishing and celebrating the beauty of West Lake gradually became a tradition in Hangzhou, that paradise on earth with its rare water-rich endowment from heaven. The delicate image of West Lake, which is “always fittingly beautiful, in either light or heavy makeup” 淡妝濃抹總相宜, was established and perpetuated by Su Shi’s comparison of the lake to the legendary ancient beauty Xishi 西施—[yu] ba Xihu bi Xizi [欲]把西湖比西子—in a well-known quatrain.2 Once the city became the capital of the Southern Song, West Lake evolved into a busy consumption hub that attracted all kinds of services and activities connected with the entertainment and tourist industries. To that capital’s multitudes of consumers from different social-economic background with different tastes, West Lake had the same commodity to offer, that is, pleasure.3 While common citizens could enjoy rubbing shoulders with members of the royal house and rich merchants 4 in the crowded markets and streets, known as the “pot for melting gold” 5 銷金鍋兒, scholar-officials and genteel literati continued to find spaces to their liking—either on or by the lake—where they could enjoy its serene beauty and demonstrate their poetic skills. It was during this period that the West Lake ci flourished into a fullblown subgenre of poetry.6 To be sure, many song lyrics were written to present the West Lake beauty in “heavy makeup” 濃抹. To the bustling scenes reminiscent of the exciting display of human activities in Liu Yong’s 柳永 (987?–1053?) works from the former dynasty were added the newly arrived fleet of imperial pleasure boats and ceremonial pageantries. Notwithstanding, what mostly engaged the literati poets was the

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   207 depiction of West Lake in “light makeup” 淡妝. Among the most notable works of this category are song lyrics on the lake’s scenic attractions, which demonstrate their authors’ meticulous observation of and keen sensitivity to the subtle changes in the sight, sound, and smell of West Lake in the rhythm of nature. As is the case with West Lake shi poetry, the lake in ci poetry presents itself as a locus of literati admiration, where the lettered gentlemen could retreat into the half-natural, half-domesticated beauty of nature (a new-found Peach Blossom Spring) either as voluntary recluses or as exiled officials.7 The West Lake ci, however, is otherwise quite different from the West Lake shi. The generic features of the song lyric, especially the organizational devices and the descriptive properties of the manci form, enable it to accomplish some tasks its shi counterpart cannot. A poet who chooses to write about West Lake in ci instead of shi enjoys a certain freedom and convenience provided by the format and conventions of the song lyric. That might mean displaying a multifaceted description of scenery, reflecting upon the twists and turns of the complicated feelings of the poetic personae, or even narrating the mini-dramas of human relationships.

Song Lyrics of the Lake: from Template to Signifier The following song lyric, “Leifeng Pagoda at Sunset” 雷峰夕照, written to the tune Yingtian chang 應天長 (Echoing Heaven’s Everlastingness8) by the late Southern Song poet Zhang Ju 張矩 (fl. early 1260s?), is a good example that demonstrates the capacities and versatility of a West Lake song lyric: 磬圓樹杪， The round jade-chime hangs from the tip of a branch; 舟亂柳津， Boats scatter in the willowed ford. 斜陽又滿東角。 A slanting sunbeam fills the eastern corner one more time. 可是暮情堪剪， This heart at dusk is scissored evenly into pieces and 平分付煙郭。 Sprinkled over the city in misty scenery? 西風影，吹易薄。 With tree shadows blown thinner by the west wind,

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Xinda Lian 認滿眼、脆紅先落。 The early fallen red leaves fill one’s eyes. 算惟有，塔起金輪， Only the Pagoda, silhouetted against the Golden Wheel, 千載如昨。 Rises as it did for the past thousand years. 誰信湧金樓， Who can believe that, up in Yongjin Tower, 此際憑欄， Someone is leaning against the balustrade, 人共楚天約。 Honoring an old promise to another to share at this moment the same Chu sky above. Exact time was set—for both—to exchange the 准擬換樽陪月， wine cups and drink in the company of the moon; 繒空捲塵幕。 Dust flutters like a curtain in the silky sky. 飛鴻倦，低未泊。 Weary wild geese fly low, hesitating to land. 鬥倒指、數來還錯。 You compete with each other to count the number of geese, but, time and again, get confused. 笑聲裏，立盡黃昏， Amid laughter, one stands there until the dusk recedes. 9 剛道秋惡。 Then comes a murmur, “Autumn is plain wicked.”

As its theme title promises, the song lyric is about sunset at a scenic spot by West Lake. The sweet laziness of the golden hours of the day, with both its realistically ephemeral (l. 3) and symbolically eternal (l. 9) significance, is brought forth by a brief and yet well-structured description of the sun. The situation of the sunset is complicated by autumn, the “sunset” of the year, which comes bringing with it the west wind (l. 6), the red fallen leaves (l. 7), and the migrant wild geese (l. 17). Yet the scene is not a “wild” one. The city where humans live is within sight (l. 5), and it is the human drama depicted in the second stanza that gives meaning to the natural time, measured by the movement of the sun and the season. The carefully wrought song lyric thus describes scenes, builds moods, narrates a story, and even passes comments on the vicissitudes of life, and it performs all these duties quite effectively. The expressive power thus demonstrated calls for a comparison with that of the works by such earlier ci masters as Liu Yong, in which poetic scenes and “characters” work together to create vivid little dramas. The raison d’etre for this mellow vignette, however, lies no more with the drama it stages than on

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   209 its West Lake “backdrop.” Simply put, this song lyric is but a skillfully executed literary scheme that uses stock images and stylized poetic situations to people the famous Leifeng Pagoda and Yongjin Tower by West Lake. The poet expresses adequately and in a beautifully “natural” way what he wants to express, but—to some, at least—the problem is that he does not have anything important to say. No wonder a later commentator would define ci works of this type as “song lyrics with little significance” 10 無謂之詞. In fact, the piece happens to be one of ten in a song suite, each dedicated to one of the well-known “Ten Attractions (shijing 十景) of West Lake.” Numerous song suites of the similar kind were composed by many poets from the various poetry communities, societies, or clubs that formed near the lake during the years of the Southern Song, often on occasions of group composition.11 “With little significance” though it may be, Zhang Ju’s song is both the beneficiary of and a contributor to the West Lake culture of his day. Being a literary game practiced by literati at their leisure amid the gentle beauty of West Lake, song lyrics of this type rarely reflect the social or political realities of the time.12 Take for example the piece under discussion. Composed sometime in the early 1260s,13 it deliberately turns a blind eye to the imminent danger caused by the dire military situation in which the country found itself. This was about one hundred and thirty years after the Song court lost control over the northern part of the country to the Jurchens, fled to the South, and established the Southern Song dynasty; now this remaining half of the old country faced an even more formidable enemy from the North, the successors to Genghis Khan (1162–1227). The Mongols, having conquered the Jurchens in 1234, took the Southern Song as its next target. Actually, the ambiguous identity of the city Lin’an itself served as a grim reminder of the precarious military and political situation. When it was made the capital of the Southern Song in 1138, the city was referred to as xingzai 行在, or the emperor’s temporary “visiting headquarters”; it remained so when Zhang Ju and his friends indulged in their “Ten Attractions of West Lake” compositions. Kaifeng, which had been lost to the Jurchens in 1127, “where the imperial tombs were located,” was still, even at that late date, considered the rightful capital to someday be reclaimed.14 Ironically, when the later Song emperors looked back to the old capital, they saw only the famed Jinming Pool (Jinmingchi 金明池) as

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worthy of imitation (xiu jiujing Jinmingchi gushi 修舊京金明池故事) via the imperial pleasure boating in West Lake.15 Centuries later, disturbed by the extravagant festivities and merrymaking on West Lake recorded in a Southern Song text, the annotators of the text commented: When Emperor Gaozong [ 高宗 1107–87, r. 1127–62] halted his carriage in Lin’an, he called the city his temporary “visiting headquarters” (xingzai). [Later] even though people only reveled in feasts and music on the lake and among its hills, and losing their will to recover the Central Plain, the name remained unchanged.16 考高宗駐蹕臨安，謂之行在。雖湖山宴樂，已無志於中原，而其名未改。

If this stark discrepancy between name and reality could still sadden people centuries later, then how could it not shock Southern Song subjects? In fact it did. Frustrated by circumstances of the time and the general “lack of morality,”17 patriotic intellectuals—among them many practitioners of the song lyric—worried about the future of the country and searched for solutions to its problems. As a consequence of this collective anxiety, West Lake became a prominent site for political criticism and the outpouring of patriotic sentiment. The value of the established West Lake imagery, beautiful and graceful as it was, began to appear problematic in the face of some of the most outspoken patriotic ci poets’ conscious and often deliberate efforts to moralize poetic acts. A typical example of this tendency towards direct patriotic expression in West Lake ci is found in the following “On West Lake Tavern” 詠西湖 酒樓 written to the tune Qinyuan chun 沁園春 (Spring in Qin’s Garden) by Chen Renjie 陳人傑 (1218–43): 南北戰爭， 惟有西湖， 長如太平。 看高樓倚郭， 雲邊矗棟， 小亭連苑， 波上飛甍。 太守風流， 遊人歡暢，

War is raging between North and South. Only West Lake Still appears as if in peacetime. See the high towers lean toward the city; Upright buildings rub against the clouds; Lining the gardens are exquisite pavilions; Flying eaves hover above the waves. The elegant magistrate himself is followed By throngs of merry sightseers.

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   211 氣象邇來都斬新。 鞦韆外， 剩釵駢玉燕， 酒列金鯨。

Of late everything is new and fresh. Beyond where the swings are, Is left a pair of jade-swallow hairpins, And wine in rows of golden-whale goblets.

人生樂事良辰。 Life is filled with happy events and good times; 況鶯燕聲中長是晴。 What’s more, in the songs of orioles and swallows, days are always sunny. 正風嘶寶馬， Precious horses neigh into the wind; 軟紅不動， The soft red dust remains undisturbed. 煙分彩鷁， Mists foreground the colorful fish-hawks 澄碧無聲。 Over the silent green water. 倚柳分題， By the willow trees, topics have been distributed for a poetry composition, 藉花傳令， And flowers are passed in drinking games. 滿眼繁華無限情。 Bustling and abundant, the scene is all giddy exuberance. 誰知道， Who knows that 有種梅處士， A plum-planting recluse, 18

貧裏看春。

Somewhere, in poverty, is observing his own spring.

With the three terse lines put forth squarely in the opening strophe, the poet loses no time in making his unflinching socio-political criticism clearly heard. The northern half of the country is still under barbarian occupation, and the enemy never gives up its threat to push further south. Yet West Lake remains a picture of undisturbed gaiety, as if nothing else matters. As if to prove his point, the poet uses a “line-leading word” kan 看 to direct the readers’ eyes to the evidence of his diatribe. The tune pattern Qinyuan chun, rich in four-character structure, an ideal medium for parallel imagistic description, allows the poet to present a detailed display of the prosperity and excitement of West Lake. Altogether fifteen four-character segments are used, depicting the towers, pavilions, gardens, the lake, and the noisy traffic and bustle (ll. 4–7, 17–20), the overabundance and luxury (ll. 12–13), and the excitement of people’s merrymaking (ll. 8–9, 15, 21–22). Since the poet has already told readers at the outset what he intends the song lyric to be, they will take his hint and read the detailed

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cataloging of West Lake scene as proof of the outrageousness of irresponsible indulgence at a time of national crisis. But as they move on and come to the close of the song, they are surprised by the image of the recluse Lin Bu 林逋 (967–1028). As the poet calls the readers’ attention to the recluse’s economic condition—pinli 貧裏 , he is poverty stricken—and to the fact that he stands in direct opposition to the world of vanity and vulgarity, a world that is oblivious (“Who knows. . . ?”) to his existence, readers cannot but go back and reexamine the implication of the poet’s earlier description of the life by West Lake. Being the antithesis of the life of the recluse, who is not bothered by but in fact enjoys the simplicity of his existence, the noisy world of “soft red dust,” with its overflowing abundance, begins to look unhealthy and wrong. The target of the poet’s criticism has shifted from the dangerous negligence of the country’s destiny to the unnecessary extravagance of mundane life in the capital. Suddenly, the opening strophe of the song lyric rings hollow, and worse, out of place, because it loses its target. If one suspends that strophe, it becomes hard to read the song as a patriotic outburst. In other words, the only thing that permits a “patriotic” reading is that opening statement, which is in essence a flag signaling authorial intent but patched perhaps clumsily to the song lyric. Interestingly and ironically, the allusion to the Lin Bu story at the end, also of the poet’s own design, fares much better, and becomes a powerful “tail” that wags the main body of the song. The “tail” wins over the “head” simply because it is not imposed upon the piece, but is allowed to grow naturally from the body of the poem. Despite the poet’s effort to yoke his detailed description in the main body of the song to the discursive statement he makes at the beginning, once the life picture of West Lake begins to unfold, it takes on a life of its own and evolves according to its own inner logic. As a matter of fact, even if we do not attach too much importance to the story of the recluse at the end, but just focus our attention on the main body of the song, we still do not feel the poet’s political statement at the beginning is adequately supported by the intense description of the West Lake scene that follows. Some formulaic elements of the West Lake ci might respond better to the poet’s insistence on a new task. For instance, the loaded image of a graceful magistrate followed by gleeful merrymakers (ll. 8–9), a possible allusion to the drunken magistrate from Ouyang Xiu’s well-known prose “The Old Drunkard’s Pavilion,” is reminiscent of a convention of the

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   213 scholar-official sharing with his people joy in the mountains and rivers as an elegant pastime. In the new context, it might be twisted to serve the political agenda the poet sets for himself. But the allusion to the legendary recluse Lin Bu, a name so closely tied to West Lake and to the numerous poems and songs it inspired, will not easily suit a new purpose without being modified first. Although the poet’s admiration for the recluse might sound reserved, there is no doubt that it will not help with his grand cause of waking up his fellow countrymen from their daydreams. The poet tries to yoke the West Lake song lyric to a new task, but the inertia of the old tradition proves too powerful to overcome. He starts consciously with a forceful political statement, but, unconsciously, is carried away by the stock images and the stylized poetic ploys of the convention of West Lake ci, and ends up with a song lyric whose overall tone is very different from that of the opening statement. Since this effort to force the old tradition to serve a new task is not successful, let us look at other poets’ approaches. In the works of these poets, West Lake is not the real object of poetic treatment, but serves more as a value signifier, as can be seen in the following example by Wen Jiweng 文及翁 (fl. 1253–75), set to the tune He xinlang 賀新郎 (Congratulating the Bridegroom): 一勺西湖水。 That ladle of West Lake’s water, 渡江來， Since we crossed the River, 百年歌舞， (Has seen) a hundred years of singing and dancing, 百年酣醉。 A hundred years of drunken stupor. 回首洛陽花世界， Looking back to Luoyang, that world of flowers: A faraway place covered with mists and 煙渺黍離之地。 straggling millet. 更不復、新亭墮淚。 Nobody is ever again seen shedding tears at the New Pavilion. 簇樂紅妝搖畫艇， Musical ensembles in red attire rock in painted boats— 問中流、擊楫誰人是。 In the middle of the lake, I ask, is there anyone beating the oars? 千古恨， The resentment of a thousand generations, 幾時洗。 When can it be washed away?

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The significance of this single piece of poetic work in the Chinese literary and cultural history can never be overemphasized.21 According to the benshi 本事 anecdotes centering on this song lyric, Wen Jiweng composed the piece during a boat outing on West Lake awarded by the Song court to the top candidates who excelled in the civil service examination. Years after expressing his wish to be “discovered by a true ruler” in this song, the poet did rise to the position in which he was “entrusted the affairs of the nation.” Ironically, when the Mongol armies approached the Southern Song capital in 1275, instead of fulfilling his pledge to serve his country, Wen simply fled with other high-ranking officials.22 It would be dull, however, to disqualify the song lyric from a fair reading on the basis of possibly dubious extra-textual facts. Hence one should use only internal evidence to judge its value. If West Lake is, as the poet claims, a mere “ladle” (l. 1), then who are the people that take it as their whole world, and indulge there in singing, dancing, and drunken stupor? The first line, therefore, is not really a depiction, but a “metaphorical” comment on the scale of West Lake in the greater scheme of things and the outlook of the “Lakers.” Quite cleverly, the poet makes proportion and perspective an issue. Like Zhuangzi’s frog in the well, those who are responsible for “the affairs of the nation” (l. 15) revel in the good life inside that ladle, forgetting the nation’s recent humiliation, and ignoring its ominous future. The minuteness and the limits of the lake are fittingly associated with the small-mindedness and

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   215 the shortsightedness of its denizens. Unlike the case with Chen Renjie’s Qinyuan chun discussed above, in this piece Recluse Lin, whose famed residence, Lone Hill, by West Lake is symbolically an infinitesimal dot within the small ladle, and no longer an object of admiration. He, too, is criticized for his smallness and irresponsibility (11. 19–20). Having prevented Recluse Lin from blurring its target of social criticism, Wen Jiweng’s West Lake ci improves on Chen Renjie’s experiment. But other problems arise. The Qing (1644–1911) critic Chen Tingzhuo 陳廷焯 (1853–92) raises an issue with the treatment of Lin Bu’s image at the end of the song, faulting the poet for exhibiting “bristling eyebrows and glaring eyes” 張眉努目之態, and uses the poem as a negative example in sharp contrast to Wu Wenying’s 吳文英 (1200–60) mellow style that allows roundabout expression of even the strongest feelings.23 Being an outspoken promoter of the chenyu 沈鬱 (deep and reserved) style in song lyrics, 24 Chen Tingzhuo certainly did not like Wen Jiweng’s vehement ending, but it was not really the “bristling eyebrows and glaring eyes” that irked him. He once highly praised Chen Renjie, whose overeager expression of patriotism we just discussed, for his “raising his tone to a strong appeal, filling the heaven and earth with his voice.”25 Chen Tingzhuo did not have any problem with Chen Renjie’s angry expression of poetic indignation. So perhaps it is not the tone of Wen Jiweng’s song but something else that made Chen Tingzhuo uncomfortable. I argue it is the context and appropriateness, or specifically, the matching of scene and feeling. To hold his overflowing sentiments, all Wen Jiweng has is a small container. That container, West Lake, is not only small, but also happens to have long been a paradise for both pleasure seekers and recluses; it cannot be expected to serve as a place for political debates. Recluse Lin Bu, who belongs to the Lone Hill, likewise has nothing to do with the “affairs of the nation” (l. 15). And yet the poet calls him out to answer big questions. The scene (jing 景) is not substantial enough to bear the poet’s strong feelings (qing 情). In fact, this gap between scene and feeling shows itself more clearly earlier in the song lyric, close to the end of the first stanza, where the poet asks, “Is there anyone beating the oars?,” borrowing the grand gesture from the Eastern Jin (316–420) general Zu Ti 祖逖 (266–321), who asked the same question midstream in the Yangzi and vowed to reclaim the lost territory on the north side of the river. But the poet’s question/sigh is generated by his immediate scene, as he sits amid singing girls in one of

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the painted pleasure-boats (l. 8). This farfetched parallel is, to say the least, trivializing and vulgar. Then there is the issue of proportion and perspective: There might be plenty of oars in West Lake, yet there is no “midstream.” The heroic gesture the poet conjures up would be most appropriate if the poetic site were the Yangzi, or any river. But West Lake is a flat stretch of water where no angry waves stir. Actually, it is only a “ladle” of water. While the proportion and perspective issue supports the logic of criticizing the political situation, the weight of the oar-beating image, the most important positive image (actually the sole positive image) in the song lyric should not amount to a convenient yet burlesque parody. The issue here is not whether it is legitimate for the poet to make associations or contrasts in his imagination, but whether such a poetic act is spontaneous and fluent, or, in other words, whether the poetic thrust is adequately sustained by all elements that participate in the process. West Lake carries many values from the past that refuse to be easily replaced. Even poets of the Southern Song, whose poetic creation always fell under the shadow cast by national crisis, had to honor those values whenever they used West Lake as a vehicle for their poetic creation. It is true that, with Lin’an 臨安 becoming the capital of the dynasty, West Lake’s status changed. It began to gather features and qualities that eventually made it not just literary and cultural symbol, but also a holder of social and political values. Yet some things did not change. West Lake remained “feminine”—beautiful, mild, and gentle. It was still a small body, limited in scope; it would not become another Yangzi or Lake Dongting simply because some poet wished it. If it inspired patriotic feelings or fighting spirit at all, it did so by going to the soft spot in one’s heart. Otherwise the poet’s sentiments, noble though they might be, sounded like add-ons that did not grow out of the poetic process naturally. Chen Tingzhuo has a phrase to describe what he saw as disjointed or empty expression in a song lyric, “strong in appearance yet hollow inside” 外強中乾.26 Indeed, one might wonder if it was not the highsounding oar-beating image close to the end of Wen’s song lyric that made Chen Tingzhuo so uncomfortable. West Lake lent Wen Jiweng a good excuse to express, poetically, his concern about the fate of his country; the success of the song, however, depends on the poet’s ability to substantiate and concretize that excuse in a vivid poetic experience. But instead of using sensual or imagistic language to bring out the uniqueness of his experience on West Lake,

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   217 from which his poetic “intent” could naturally grow, the poet chose to keep the lake a signifier of socio-political values, through which a cluster of allusions, themselves signifiers of values at a different level, are organized. The only direct imagistic description of the scene at West Lake in the entire song lyric—“Musical ensembles in red attire rock in painted boats”—was deliberately made symbolic so as to accentuate the dramatically heroic “oar-beating” gesture. The result is a rather discursive and prosaic statement made in the “long and short verse lines” 長短句 of a song lyric. The poet’s strong emotion is not communicated to us by an accumulation of imagined sensory impressions, and we do not experience the artistic “inevitability” achieved with the complete adequacy of the scene to the feeling. If this begins to sound familiar, it is because I am paraphrasing T. S. Eliot. “The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art,” contends Eliot, “is by finding an ‘objective correlative’; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.”27 A close reading of Wen Jiweng’s song lyric, as well as the piece by Chen Renjie analyzed earlier, shows that the patriotic poets’ authorial intent is in excess of poetic facts. Their patriotic sentiments, simply put, are not adequately supported by an “objective correlative.”

Towards an “Objective Correlative” As mentioned earlier, besides the piece analyzed above, Chen Renjie has another emotional song lyric in an angry tone that the tough-minded Chen Tingzhuo praised highly. That song lyric mentions, but does not concern West Lake. The piece, “Thoughts in the Year Dingyou [1237]” 28 丁酉歲感事, again written to the tune of Qinyuan chun, imagines the vast expanse of the “Sacred Land” (Shenzhou 神州) of the central plain, with the moon, stars, and the setting sun above, and the west wind blowing over the Yangzi River and the mountain passes. The poet has all of “heaven and earth” in which to make his cries heard. No wonder Chen Tingzhuo concluded, “This fits.” In fact, Chen Renjie is quite good with vast scenes and grand views. And when he finds a way to establish a relationship between the vast scenes and the small West Lake, the result

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can be stunning, with the poetic persona’s voice—again, in Chen Tingzhuo’s words—“filling heaven and earth”: 記上層樓， I remember ascending that storied building [in Jiankang 建康], 與岳陽樓， And then the Yueyang Tower, 釃酒賦詩。 Pouring wine, composing poetry. 望長山遠水， I cast my eyes to the meandering mountain range and the far stretches of the Yangzi, 荊州形勝， Grand views offered from the vantage of Jingzhou 夕陽枯木， With the setting sun and the withered trees in sight 六代興衰。 I meditated on the rise and fall of the Six Dynasties. 扶起仲謀， Elsewhere I raised up Sun Zhongmou 喚回玄德， And called back Liu Xuande 笑殺景升豚犬兒。 And laughed at Liu Jingsheng’s weakling son.29 歸來也， Now, back from my travels, 對西湖嘆息， I face West Lake, and I sigh, 是夢耶非。 Was all this but a dream? 諸君傅粉塗脂。 With powder and rouge on their faces, those gentle sirs 問南北戰爭都不知。 Do not know about the war between the North and the South. 恨孤山霜重， My heart aches to see Lone Hill shrouded in frost 梅雕老葉， And the old leaves falling from the plum trees. 平堤雨急， Heavy rain beats down the causeways; 柳泣殘絲。 Willows’ tears drip down listless branches. 玉壘騰煙， At this moment, smoke rises above the Jade Bastion, 珠淮飛浪， And the waves of the Huai River surge with splashing pearls— 萬里腥風吹鼓鼙。 From thousands of miles away, the sounds of battle drums come in with the bloody wind. 原夫輩，算事今如， For bookworms like us, in this situation 30 安用毛錐。 What’s the use of a writing brush?

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   219 This song lyric was written when the poet had West Lake before him, as the last strophe in the first stanza indicates. Most of the song lyric, however, tells of places other than the lake, which is pushed off center stage. In contrast with the panoramic view of sites and geographic objects of grand scale and the sense of vast time conjured up by their historic significance, all of which occupies most of the first stanza, the brief closeup shots of West Lake (ll. 16–19) look slight and ephemeral. Compared with the vivid and bustling scenes of West Lake in Chen Renjie’s song lyric discussed earlier, the ambience of the place here is dejected. Only when we read the preface to the song lyric do we see the reason for the author’s negative treatment of West Lake. The lengthy preface itself reads like a travelogue: At age twenty I went to Jiangdong [the administration site of which being Jiankang] for the exam. Once during leisure time a friend and I went up a storied tower for a drink. Not only did the Zhongshan Mountain and the fantastic scenes of the Stone City present vividly in front of our eyes, but also the Huai River plain unfolded like a vast mat between our cups and vessels. Afterwards I traveled north to the mountains in the Huai area and, starting from Qi’an, went up the Yangzi River and floated over Dongting Lake for a brief excursion to Baling. I was able to ascend the Yueyang Tower for a sweeping view of the grandeur of Jingzhou. The ruins reminding [me] of the confrontation between Sun Quan and Liu Bei were still there. With the mountains and rivers, and the grass and trees, the site was quite a scene. After returning to the capital, I found a day to go to the Fengle Tower to view West Lake, and could not but chant out loud a verse by my friend, “The beauty of the Southeast has feminized men!” I sighed, and I sighed again. And, while drunk, I wrote on the wall on the east side of the tower this song lyric to pour out the sudden melancholy in my heart. The time was the last month of autumn in the gengzi 庚子 year of the Jiaxi 嘉熙 reign (1240). 予弱冠之年，隨牒江東漕闈，嘗與友人暇日命酒層樓。不惟鐘阜、石城 之勝，班班在目，而平淮如席，亦橫陳樽俎間。既而北歷淮山，自齊安 泝江汎湖，薄遊巴陵，又得登岳陽樓，以盡荊州之偉觀，孫、劉虎視遺 跡依然，山川草木，差強人意。洎回京師，日詣豐樂樓以觀西湖。因誦 友人「東南嫵媚，雌了男兒」之句，嘆息者久。酒酣，大書東壁，以寫 31 胸中之勃鬱。時嘉熙庚子秋季下澣也。

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This essentially prose version of the first half of the song lyric provides an important detail that might serve as a footnote to the closing lines of the first stanza: Because the contrast is so shocking between the masculinity of the mountains and rivers on one side and the innate femininity of the minute scenes of West Lake on the other, that the poet came to realize that “the beauty of the Southeast has feminized men!” This explicit criticism of the pernicious “West Lake culture,” unlike the other Qinyuan chun piece by Chen Renjie discussed earlier, is well sustained by poetic details. The allusion to Lin Bu (Chen Renjie seems not to be able to leave the recluse undisturbed whenever he writes about the lake) through the dejected images of the Lone Hill shrouded in frost and fallen plum leaves (ll. 16–17) suggests that the famous recluse is no longer the object of the poet’s admiration. Indeed, the lifelessness of the images implies the poet’s criticism of the leisurely lifestyle in the time of national crisis. One might even wonder if the rhetorical question at the end of the piece is not a criticism of the futile and untimely writing of West Lake poetry by men of letters of his day. The “war between the North and the South” rages on (ll. 20–22), but West Lake pleasure seekers “do not know” (l. 15); this is the very same war mentioned at the beginning of the other Chen Renjie song lyric. Yet here the poet’s condemnation of the “feminized” men’s blindness to the grim reality sounds more convincing. Judging from the makeup on their faces, “those gentle sirs” remain in the midst of their daydreams (ll. 14–15). The scenery of West Lake (ll. 16–19) is now seen through eyes of a persona (emphasized by use of the lineleading word hen 恨, which cues a subjective point of view), who, with historical insight gained from his grand view of space and time in the first stanza, can see and hear what others cannot: the smoke and battle drums of approaching war (ll. 20–22). The persona’s high-spirited determination to join the fight at the conclusion, with the belief that the sword is mightier than the writing brush, sounds spontaneous and genuine. Chen Renjie’s sigh that “the beauty of the Southeast has feminized men” was echoed by many other poets. One does not need to delve into historical documents to learn about the “dove-vs.-hawk” debates surrounding the choice of Lin’an over Jiankang as the capital of the Song court after it fled to the South.32 The key issue was Lin’an’s being seen as safe expedient for the preservation of what remained of the old Song empire compared with the potential for Jiankang to become a powerful political center and frontier fortress in the future recovery of the lost

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   221 territories. The femininity of West Lake, together with its negative impact on the behavior and mentality of the men trusted with the fate of the country, was seriously implicated in this debate. Even practitioners of the song lyric, originally a form of popular entertainment associated with singing girls rather than with politicians, joined this debate. An example is found in Wang Yi 王弈 (fl. 1279), who makes the following comment at the beginning of a song lyric set to the tune He xinlang: 品江山， Judging the situation of rivers and mountains, 洛陽第一， One should say number one goes to Luoyang; 金陵第二。 number two, Jinling [Jiankang].

Then, by plausible historical hindsight provided by the fall of Lin’an to the Mongols in 1276, followed by the collapse of the Southern Song in 1279, the poet points his finger at the regrettable mistake made one dynasty ago: 底事輕拋形勝地， Why would they throw off the strategically superior location without hesitation, 把笙歌， And, amid music and songs, 33 戀定西湖水。 Set their hearts on the water of West Lake?

The “music and songs,” the favorite pastimes of pleasure seekers by and on West Lake, is not mentioned here at random. The sound of music and songs was heard everywhere in Lin’an during its heyday, and the footprints of that sound have survived in the recorded words of numerous ci. But when Lin Sheng 林升 (fl. 1160s–1180s?) used the image, it was in his well-known quatrain of socio-political criticism: 山外青山樓外樓， Hills beyond hills, and mansions beyond mansions, 西湖歌舞幾時休？ Singing and dancing by West Lake—when will they ever end? The warm breeze perfumes revelers till 暖風熏得遊人醉， they are drunk,

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直把杭州作汴州。

Simply for taking Hangzhou as the capital Bianzhou!

By that point, it was impossible for people not to associate the music-bythe-water image with a motif from an even more famous quatrain, “Moored on the Qinhuai River” 泊秦淮, by the Tang poet Du Mu 杜牧 (803–852): 商女不知亡國恨， Not knowing the pain of losing her country, the singing girl 隔江猶唱後庭花。 Still performs the “Inner Garden’s Flowers” from across the river. 35

The intended parallel here is forceful and self-evident: A girl from a destroyed kingdom sings a tune composed by none other than the last ruler of that kingdom; the point is aided by the fact that the lost kingdom was Chen (557–589) on the south side of the Yangzi, and by the effect of the girl’s voice traveling over a stretch of water.36 Lin Sheng’s exact dates are unclear. Several unconfirmed sources suggest that he may have been active around the 1170s,37 about the time Xin Qiji 辛棄疾 (1140–1207), the prolific ci writer known by many for the strong patriotism expressed in his works, served in office in Lin’an three different times.38 Being an outspoken policy “hawk” towards the Jurchens, Xin Qiji would have sympathized with the vehement Lin Sheng’s quatrain. Yet, surprisingly, Xin never—it seems—used the indulgence of West Lake to criticize the pacifist tendency of the time or to express his worry about the crisis the country faced. In fact, during his stay in Lin’an he wrote only three or four song lyrics about the lake.39 One of them, written to the tune Haoshi jin 好事近 (Happy Events Approaching) opens with the line: “I pass West Lake day after day” 日日 過西湖 (QSC III.1977). What follows is only general description of the “colors of the mountains,” and, as expected, the music and songs from the lake. A question arises. As Xin’s biography reveals, in his first year (1170) in Lin’an he presented to the court one of his most important policy papers assessing the military and political situation of the time. And five years before that, he even proposed to the emperor bold measures to prepare for military actions against the North.40 Why didn’t

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   223 he—like Lin Sheng, or Chen Renjie and Wen Jiweng—use West Lake as a setting for his patriotic sentiments? Is it because the innate feminine characteristics of the lake—which, as Chen Renjie laments, took away the fighting spirits of men—disqualified it for the purpose?

Beating around the Lake We are made to think twice when reading this one, “On the Cold Spring Pavilion” 題冷泉亭 written to the tune of Manjiang hong 滿江紅 (Whole River Red): 直節堂堂， Upright bamboos, dignified, and, 看夾道、冠纓拱立。 Pressing against the path from both sides, rows of the tufted caps of grand pines. 漸翠谷、群仙東下， Gradually a verdant valley unfolds, with the descending immortals from the east 珮環聲急。 Sending the jade pieces they wear tinkling down the streams. 聞道天峰飛墮地， The towering peak, I have been told, came flying from heaven 傍湖千丈開青壁。 And spread its green wall ten-thousand yards high along the lake. 是當年、玉斧削方壺， Actually it was axed, in time unknown, from the Fanghu Mountain, 無人識。 This, alas, no one realizes. 山木潤， 琅玕濕。 秋露下， 瓊珠滴。 向危亭橫跨， 玉淵澄碧。 醉舞且搖鸞鳳影， 浩歌莫遣魚龍泣。 恨此中、風月本吾家， 41

今為客。

The mountain trees are misty; The emerald bamboos in wet glaze. Autumn’s dew drops drip One pearl after another. Stretching across to the perilous pavilion lies a bridge Over the deep crystal clear pond. Dance through intoxication, and do it like the phoenixes; Let the song resonate, but don’t sadden the fish and dragons. I regret that all these wonders, originally from my homeland, Have been rendered strangers here!

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The poet makes it clear at the beginning that this is no mere landscape poetry. The depiction of the bamboo puns on the homophones of the joint sections of the plant jie 節 and the concept of moral integrity (qi) jie 氣節, and thus taps into the polysemantic connotations of the uprightness, or zhi 直, of the elegant plants (l. 1). The “dignified” bearing of the bamboo is shared by the pine trees, personified as files of solemnly attired gentlemen, suggesting discipline, order, and ceremonial glory (l. 2). The implied Confucian values merge quite smoothly, as the poetic journey continues, with an array of “heavenly” images of sight and sound (ll. 3–8). The poet’s use of mythology, though a perfunctory nod to the “heaven on earth” convention42 of West Lake poetry, lends the scene an ethereal dimension and somewhat cleanses it of the vulgarity resulting from its connection with the quotidian luxuries of West Lake culture. Furthermore, the allusion to the Liezi 列子 of Fanghu Mountain east of the Bohai Sea 43 (l. 7) allows the poet to dismiss the alleged foreign origin of Feilai Peak 飛來峰44 and find for it a birthplace in the collected memory of the Chinese nation. Not to be overlooked is the fact that the birthplace the poet assigns to the mythical peak, somewhere to the east of the Bohai Sea, is actually in the neighborhood of Shangdong, the native land of the poet himself, and—again not to be overlooked—of Confucius. An allusive net of connections between the images in the first half of the song lyric seems to loom. The significance of the origin of Feilai Peak, however, is not revealed fully until the end, when the poet finds it hard to accept that all these wonders of nature, especially the peak from the distant seas of China’s North, have become strangers in this alien environment. And not the least among these “strangers” 客 is the poetic persona himself. Or rather, the persona is Feilai Peak, a homeless entity with extraordinary inner quality removed to the South. The regret expressed explicitly at the conclusion of the song lyric carries a bitter taste, because, as the poet points out at the end of the first stanza (another key point), “no one realizes” where the extraordinary peak is from, never mind its inner quality. A ring of Confucius’ regret that no one knows his true self may be detected in the persona’s lament.45 The penultimate strophe (ll. 15–16) begins to fill in the context. Here the singing and dancing are not some trite props required by the convention, but a necessity for conveying the authorial intent. The poet does not describe; with the carefully chosen qie 且 (had better) and mo 莫 (don’t),

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   225 he prescribes. Read in context, especially with the traditional values implied in the first stanza, the singing and dancing, the only human actions mentioned in the whole piece, take on allegorical meaning. Line 15 should not be difficult to interpret: If you “dance,” be sure to emulate the “phoenixes,” the mythical birds “from the land of the virtuous in the east.”46 The “fish and dragons” in the following line need more investigation. The creatures under water, said to be susceptible to the emotions of stirring songs, seem out of place at first reading, particularly because they bring out a sense of sadness so suddenly. From among the available references of the “fish and dragon” in the texts before Xin Qiji, the one from Du Fu’s 杜甫 (712–770) “Autumn Stirrings” 秋興 stands out: 聞道長安似弈棋， I have been told that Chang-an looks like a chessboard, 百年世事不勝悲。 a hundred years, a lifetime’s troubles, grief beyond enduring. 王侯第宅皆新主， Mansions of counts and princes all have new masters, 文武衣冠異昔時。 the civil and army uniforms differ from olden times. 直北關山金鼓振， Straight north past fortified mountains kettledrums are thundering 征西車馬羽書馳。 from wagon and horse on western campaign winged dispatches rush. 魚龍寂寞秋江冷， Fish and dragons grow silent now, autumn rivers grow cold, 故國平居有所思。 the life I used to have at home is a longing in my heart.47

The “I have been told” (wendao 聞道) from Du’s first line, a term also seen in Xin’s song lyric (l. 5), seems an interesting, albeit tenuous, clue to Xin’s probable debt to this poem. It is the thought of the lost homeland expressed at the end of the poem that point to the possible link between the two images of the “fish and dragon.” The loss of the old country, reminded of by the catastrophic changes, is hard to bear even for creatures from the mythical realm. In Xin’s song lyric, when the persona’s thoughts of home are touched off by Feilai Peak, he is on the brink of tears. Being a Han subject under Jurchen rule who chose to come and join the South, a so-called “person who returns to the right side” 歸正人, his

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pain is twofold. He implores those in power to act “like phoenixes,” and fight to bring order and the old glory back to his homeland. But his effort is ignored, and at the same time he realizes painfully that “no one knows” his inner “uprightness.” Xin Qiji’s patriotic sentiments do manage to find expression in a song lyric that has to do with West Lake! Compared with his more well-known works, this piece is less sophisticated. There is no depth in structure, and some poetic elements, particularly those in the first half of the second stanza, are not tightly knit into the whole. Nevertheless, being his only ci work on West Lake and loaded with meaning, it still offers a good example of the poet’s mastery of the technique “rendering strong feelings as soft expressions” 摧剛為柔. In an analysis of Su Shi’s poetic language, Xia Chengtao borrows a term from the theory of Chinese painting when he defines the scenery at West Lake as a “level-distance landscape” 平遠山水, 48 the effect of which, according to Guo Xi 郭熙 (1020?–1100?), is the “merging into mistiness and indistinctness” of the surrounding scenery, as opposed to the lofty grandeur of a “high distance” 高遠 view or the repeated layering of the “deep distance” 深遠.49 Due to the “merging” effect of level distance, Xia Chengtao observes, the “tone and temperament” of West Lake is “relaxingly easy and delicately serene” 寬舒和婉, and tends to induce the kind of aesthetic experience that is “light and lucid, fluent and easy-going” 50 輕清流走. When Xin Qiji meandered through the terrain around West Lake, he must have been aware of the soft nature of the environment and realized that this was not the right place to give vent to his poetic “heroic abandonment” 豪放. For that, he must wait until he had the opportunity to ascend high places with grand views of mountains and rivers in sight, such as the Shangxin Pavilion 賞心亭 in Jiankang, or the Duojing Tower 多景樓 and the Beigu Tower 北固樓 in Jingkou 京口, etc., all platforms for the thrilling haofang expressions in many of his masterpieces. That being said, another aspect of the picture in Xin’s piece deserves attention. He chooses for his topic a hilly spot near the lake instead of the misty water itself. And furthermore, he depicts the hills and rocks as if they are mountains, even precipitous crags. The explanation for this goes beyond poetic license. He seems to be trying to avoid the light and delicate side of West Lake. Under his brush, the rock of Feilai Peak turns into a ten-thousand feet stone wall “axed” from some mythical mountain. The word “axed” reminds one of an ancient art critic’s comment on a texture

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   227 stroke technique in Chinese painting: “The crags of the northern mountains demanded to be ‘carved and hollowed out,’ . . . ‘like the axe-blade edges of melting ice.’”51 Is it not possible that Xin Qiji is trying to add to his picture of the originally light and soft scene some of the grimness of the northern landscape, which many early painters had represented in improbably precipitous crags,52 and which tend to inspire the viewer’s admiration and awe? Indeed, Xin Qiji’s discomfort with the effeminacy of West Lake, nurtured by the “kinder environment”53 of the South, can be better understood in light of the North/South dichotomy in the aesthetics of Chinese painting.54 Seen in this light, is not Xin Qiji’s imagery of bamboo and pine at the beginning of his song lyric also an attempt to shun the softness of the lake and to arouse “the rigour of spirit and body demanded in the north by traditional Confucian training and the severity of the northern climate”?55

In Spite of the Lake While one might wonder why Xin Qiji did not write more song lyrics on West Lake, many have been baffled that Li Qingzhao 李清照 (1084–1155) did not leave even one song lyric on the subject at all,56 all the more so because Li resided in Lin’an for twenty years after she, like her fellow countryman Xin Qiji, came from the North to the South in the wake of the Jurchen takeover. It is not that the gentle lady tried to stay away from politics in her poetic works, as she is the author of many patriotic works in the form of shi poetry, like this goosebumps-raising quatrain: 生當作人傑， 死亦為鬼雄。 至今思項羽， 57 不肯過江東。

Be a man among men while living, And a hero of ghosts after death, To this day Xiang Yu is remembered For refusing to cross over to the other side.

The poem was probably written in 1130,58 three years after the Song court fled to the South, leaving behind its subjects together with the two ex-emperors who had been captured by the Jurchens. With the memory of what happened still vivid in people’s memory, the poem reads more like a sarcastic criticism of the defeatism of the southern regime than admiration for the tragic heroism of General Xiang Yu (232–202 bce), who,

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according to legend, refused to flee for his life by crossing to the south side of the Wu River (the Jiangdong region) after his army was defeated by Liu Bang 劉邦 (256–195 bce), founder of the Han dynasty (206 bce– ce 220). The reason that Li Qingzhao did not channel to her ci works her strong attachment to the lost homeland in the North and her disdain for the conduct of the regime, it is generally believed, was that she held onto her literary theory that the song lyric was a poetic genre which “constitutes its own household” 詞別是一家,59 and could not accommodate a subject that was suitable for the shi poetry only.60 That, however, still does not solve the puzzle. That the patriotic sentiment—the “heart’s intent” or zhi 志—should be expressed exclusively in the shi does not mean that West Lake—a locus supposedly not fit for patriotism—cannot be the setting of a song lyric. Why would Li Qiangzhao write a sizable number of song lyrics involving the lives of Lin’an, the city that surrounded West Lake and therefore shared its feminine “tone and temperament,” but would never mention the lake itself? With this question in mind, we turn to an example par excellence of the poet’s song lyrics about Lin’an, written to the tune Yongyu le 永遇樂 (Happiness of Eternal Union): 落日鎔金， 暮雲合璧， 人在何處。 染柳煙濃， 吹笛梅怨， 春意知幾許。 元宵佳節， 融和天氣， 次第豈無風雨。 來相召、香車寶馬， 謝他酒朋詩侶。

中州盛日， 閨門多暇，

The melting gold of the setting sun And the jade collage of evening clouds. Where am I? Deep among the hues of the misty willows A flute is heard lamenting the fallen plum blossoms. How far has the spring invaded? The first full-moon brings in the Lantern Festival On this pleasant warm day. Still, can there be no wind or rain? Invitations beckon from fragrant coaches behind precious horses, But I decline the kindness from the friends of wine and companions of poetry. Good old days in the old capital, Young ladies had much leisure time to enjoy.

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   229 記得偏重三五。

This Festival, I remember, was an occasion no one would miss. 鋪翠冠兒， With emerald headwear 撚金雪柳， And hairpins of gold-thread flowers, 簇帶爭濟楚。 We all dressed up, each trying to be the loveliest. 如今憔悴， Now I am worn and weathered; 風鬟霜鬢， My hair disheveled and my temples frosty. 怕見夜間出去。 Dreading to go out for the night, 不如向、簾兒底下， I’d better stay behind the curtain 61          聽人笑語。  And listen to the laugh and chatter of others.

The first nine lines of the song lyric can be evenly divided into three sections, each being a three-line strophe representing 1) the poet’s description of the scene before her eyes; 2) her wavering awareness of and response to the seasonal changes around her; and 3) an assessment of the situation in which she finds herself. Very noticeably, each strophe ends with a question betraying the poet’s unstable psyche. The brazen colors and the exquisite shapes presented in the first two images, despite their implication of splendor, are qualified by the unpleasant attributes of luo 落 (setting/falling) and mu 暮 (dusk/evening), both suggesting decay. The uneasiness thus engendered adds to the disturbing doubt expressed in the first question the poet asks, “Where am I?” (l. 3). She just cannot find her place in this locale. This lack of sense of belonging in “space” leads the poet—through not only visual (l. 4), but also auditory (l. 5), and even implied gustatory (l. 5) experiences—to ask her second question, which reflects her uncertainty about time, “How far has the spring invaded?” (l. 6). Again, the positive connotations of the otherwise pleasant images (the spring trees and blossoms in ll. 4–5, and the reference to spring in l. 5) are weakened by deliberate qualification (the melancholy tone of the flute and the regrettable falling of the blossoms in l. 5). This pattern of the seemingly bright side of things being negated repeats itself in the third strophe, where even the validity of the unquestionable good weather is subjected to question: how do you know that some sudden wind and rain might not ruin everything? (l. 9), bringing to the fore the sense of insecurity which tortures the persona’s mind.

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The reason for the persona’s unstable mind state discloses itself in the second half of the song lyric. She cannot find a place and is not certain about time or season, simply because she still lives there, and belongs to then. In the song lyric, human actions in the present are vague and intangible; the past, fresh and active. Life in the new capital Lin’an is depicted generically with trite attributes: the carriages are “fragrant” and horses “precious.” The excitement of activities, promised by her friends’ invitations, is reduced to two static nouns of jiupeng 酒朋 and shilü 詩侶 —wine partners and poetry buddies. In comparison, her recollection of the preparations for festivities in the old capital is meticulously detailed: jewels, braids, hairpins, and sashes of every color and shape, as if they are vividly present before her eyes. So a decision is made. She will stay on this side of the curtain, where she finds everything she is: her past, which is more real than the present, and the glory of the old country. What lies on the other side of the curtain, then, is what this song lyric is not about—West Lake, where her friends’ carriages and horses are heading, and where the music and songs are. Paradoxically, since the song lyric is about the persona’s refusing to go to West Lake, it is a poem defined by the persona’s complicated feeling about the values the lake carries, and therefore is very much about West lake. It is now clear that the poet’s disorientation—in the first stanza—in space and time, and toward everything in the new environment, is quite intentional. She chooses to live in the past and in the old capital, because it is to them that her loyalty belongs. The persona’s very feminine declining “thanks” to the festivities on the other side of the curtain, though camouflaged in the mild expressions of the poetic school of “delicate restraint” 婉約, is a determined declaration of the poet’s “refusing to cross over to the other side”—also the south side—of the river. No less heroic than General Xiang Yu twelve-hundred years before her, Li Qingzhao’s persona acts like “a man among men” in her ci poetry, and, most importantly, in her own way.

Concluding Remarks To better understand the efforts of song lyric writers of the Southern Song to use the medium of ci to express their patriotic sentiments, I will recap, at the risk of repetition, why our analysis of the song lyrics above has been worthwhile. Reading the first Chen Renjie piece, while one can

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   231 hardly doubt the sincerity of the poet’s call to arms, one also feels that the urgency in that voice rings hollow, because it is not backed up in his presentation of the luxurious sights and sounds of West Lake, which is meant to, but fails at, setting off the folly and absurdity of indulgence in the face of impending danger. The problem lies in the poet’s use of the existing template of the traditional West Lake song lyric, which was developed for a totally different purpose. Chen better succeeds in his second piece by throwing away the conventions and casting West Lake in a new light—dismal and negative if necessary. One might say that Wen Jiweng also does something similar by presenting the lake in images with pejorative connotations. Yet “presenting” West Lake is precisely what he does precious little of; instead he gives a full narration of his ideas and intents, but barely a sense of West Lake. He defines the lake, telling readers what it is, but does not do enough to show in imagistic language how it is. His “small ladle” is not sufficient to serve up his weighty message. The weighty message, however, sometimes supersedes artifice, especially when it involves moral issues. “When solid essence is in excess of ornamentation, you have rusticity,” Confucius tells us, “when ornamentation is in excess of solid essence, you have the manners of a clerk” (6.16). Since the ideal state of having ornamentation and solid qualities equally blended is difficult to achieve, when one has to make a choice between the two, being rustic is preferable, even desirable. As Chen Tingzhuo says unambiguously in a commentary on the patriotic song lyrics of the Southern Song, this poetry critic seems overwhelmed with emotion when he says that, at a time of national crisis, “Anyone with a human heart could not help but draw his sword and strike the ground.” Even though the poetic products of such strong emotion might “not be satisfactory in artistic finish, they serve to boost the courage and will of even cowards.”62 The somewhat rustic song lyrics exemplified by Chen Renjie’s first piece, and, possibly less so, by Wen Jiweng’s piece (Chen Tingzhuo does not include Wen’s famous piece in his long quotes from patriotic song lyrics— a glaring omission), together with many other rough and cacophonous patriotic ci poems by numerous Southern Song writers, have inspired and continue to inspire generations of Chinese readers. Xin Qiji’s case is noteworthy in that, though a prominent exponent of the patriotic ci poets, he consciously avoids using West Lake as a setting for his patriotic works. Being aware that the femininity of West Lake does

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not sanction a direct “masculine” expression, he says what he wants to say indirectly. His method of injecting values into the imagistic presentation partly explains his success. Besides that, the soft and roundabout manner of his expression deserves special mention here. This wellcalculated strategy is summarized in a “philosophical” song lyric written by Xin Qiji himself. In it the persona says that in his youth he had the tendency to over-express his feelings in search of novel poetic effects. Now, matured in experience, he does not reveal his sorrow even when sorrowful feelings are hard to contain. Instead he only remarks “what a nice cool autumn” 卻道天涼好個秋.63 The trick of this strategy lies in the poet laying bare his struggle with the difficulty of effectively expressing a strong emotion 欲說還休, so much so that this process of struggle reflects the struggle of the poet’s inner world and becomes the “content” of the poetry. The poet acts as if he will not say anything, but eventually he says everything, and he puts it across forcefully, too.64 Li Qianzhao differs from all the others discussed here for her insistence that the song lyric form is not suitable for weighty topics. Her fundamentalist stance on the distinctive generic features of the song lyric, however, enables her to exploit to the full the formal properties of the genre. Her “extensive description and narration” 鋪敘, benefiting from the “stratified” “incremental structure”65 of the manci or long song lyric, makes possible an investigation of the complicated emotional and psychological states of a poetic subject that is at once delicate and fragile yet proud and resolute, and still conveys a noble “classic weightiness” 典重.66 Because not only the persona’s love of and loyalty to her lost country are immensely charged, but more important, also have psychological depth, they read as genuine and convincing. Exactly one hundred and forty-five years after Li Qingzhao wrote her Yongyu le ci, on the Lantern Festival of 1275, the year before the Mongols took Lin’an, another ci writer Liu Chenweng 劉辰翁 (1232–97) read her song lyric and was moved to tears. Three years after that, again on the day of the Lantern Festival, he wrote his own song lyric to the same tune.67 In Liu’s piece his persona overlaps with that of Li Qingzhao’s, and by the token of an allusion to Du Fu’s poem “Moonlit Night” 月夜 also moves back and forth in time and space and merges with all the sad souls weeping for the loss of their country and its glorious past. Li Qingzhao’s zhiyin 知音 (soulmates), who understand her music, are legion.

How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?   233 Touching as it is, the patriotic reading of Li Qingzhao’s song lyric still may impoverish its rich potential. The poet never expresses her intent explicitly, as she does in her patriotic shi poems. She does not start with a meaning that is to emanate from her verses, but offers the thoughts and feelings of a sensitive soul who has been through the vicissitudes of life. The poetic experience thus represented is so spontaneously true and self-sufficient; it takes on universal significance and becomes an emblem of human experience of its particular kind. Side by side with what is said in this song lyric exist numerous “others,” that is, stories that could have been told with the same intensity and depth, but were not. The song lyric is not apparently about patriotic sentiment; it is bigger than patriotic sentiment.

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A City of Substance: Regional Custom and the Political Landscape of Shaoxing in a Southern Song Rhapsody Benjamin Ridgway

ever since the Han dynasty, poets had used the grand rhapsody 大賦 genre to describe the capital as the spatial locus of imperial majesty, effectively diminishing regional cities to the status of deficient copies. It is quite striking then, that in his 1158 “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji” 會稽風俗賦, the Southern Song (1127–1279) official Wang Shipeng 王十朋 (1112–71) used the rhapsody to celebrate the regional city of Shaoxing as the epitome of the customs of Yue rather than to praise the newly reestablished imperial center at Hangzhou. In so doing, he overturned the traditional hierarchy between capital and region sustained in grand rhapsodies written up to that time. Wang turned the geo-political orientation of the rhapsody on its head by means of an “evidentiary rhetoric” 實 on “regional customs” 俗, a discourse shared with contemporary local gazetteers that criticized both the exaggerated empty 虛 rhetoric of the genre and its monocentric spatial hierarchy. In this volume dedicated to the various perceptions of Hangzhou in the Southern Song, Wang’s rhapsody on the city of Shaoxing, the newly minted “auxiliary capital” to Hangzhou, offers a unique perspective on the restructuring of the geo-political landscape of the southeast during the early Southern Song. Like a mirror, Shaoxing showed its partner city, the new imperial center, in different plane. On the one hand, Shaoxing reflected and amplified Hangzhou’s authority. The court’s renaming the

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city in 1131 and siting the imperial tombs there in 1142 effectively incorporated it into a newly formulated imperial geography, granting the city an exalted, though hierarchically subservient, position in relation to the imperial center. On the other hand, in Wang’s rhapsody Shaoxing provides an inverted image of Hangzhou. The intertwined policy decisions by Emperor Gaozong 高宗 (r. 1127–62) to fix the capital at Hangzhou and pursue a peace policy with the Jin dynasty aroused strong opposition in a segment of the literati public that included Wang Shipeng. This chapter argues that Wang’s appeal to the discourse of local customs, whose popularity increased significantly during the Southern Song, was aimed at textually restoring Kuaiji’s historical stature as a major regional city.1 As Wang states in the opening of his rhapsody, Kuaiji “truly is the great prefectural capital of the southeast” 實東南之大府 or, as I term it here, a “city of substance.”2 This argument will be pursued in three parts. The first places Wang Shipeng’s highly unusual grand rhapsody in the historical context of Gaozong’s court fleeing south and the subsequent transformation of the geo-political landscape. The second turns to the text of Wang’s “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji” itself and demonstrates how Wang’s appropriation of the fu genre overturns the hierarchy between capital and region so typical of the form. Wang used the new evidentiary rhetoric to argue that knowledge of regional conditions was crucial to maintaining a “national” whole. The third compares Wang’s use of evidentiary rhetoric in his rhapsody to a series of local gazetteers of Kuaji that also valorized a fine-grained description of the regions.

The Transformation of Kuaiji into an Auxiliary Capital in the Restoration Era Wang Shipeng’s “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji” is a unique expression of the form produced under anomalous historical conditions. It can best be understood as a response to decisions made during the chaotic search undertaken in the 1130s by Emperor Gaozong’s court for a base in which to begin the restoration of the Song. The transformation of Kuaiji’s geo-political position began in 1131 when the city changed in status from a historically important regional city to an “auxiliary capital” (peidu 陪都) in relation to the imperial capital at Hangzhou; it would also become the future site of the imperial tombs.

A City of Substance   237

Figure 9.1 A Map of Kuaiji from “Three Rhapsodies of Kuaiji” (Kuaiji sanfu 會稽三賦 ), printed between 1465 and 1620. Image courtesy of the HarvardYenching Library.

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During the three years of the Jianyan reign period (1127–1130) Gaozong’s court was in a state of paralysis, having conducted no fewer than three debates on the best site for the restored dynasty’s new capital. However, the sudden advance of the Jin army toward Yangzhou forced the Song court into action—taking the extreme measure of flight by boat into the open sea. Only in the fourth month of 1130 did the court return to land at Kuaiji once the Jin army had withdrawn from the region. In 1131, to mark the Song dynasty’s survival in the southeast and its goal of restoration, the court changed the reign title to Shaoxing or “continuing the imperial throne and leading the restoration” (shaozuo zhongxing 紹祚 中興) and also used the reign title to rename the city of Kuaiji, Gaozong’s place of refuge during the Jin assault. Kuaiji has been known as Shaoxing, its Southern Song name, ever since. Just as the choice of Shaoxing for the auxiliary capital was in large part a historical accident, the decision to locate the imperial tombs there can also be seen as an expedient solution to an emergency situation. In the eighth month of 1130, the court was joined by the Empress Dowager Longyou 隆祐皇太后, formerly the wife of Emperor Zhezong 哲宗 (r. 1086–1100).3 The empress dowager had played a critical role during the restoration period by endorsing the future Emperor Gaozong during his hasty coronation in 1127 and thereby lent his embattled administration much-needed legitimacy. In the fourth month of 1131, the first year of the Shaoxing reign, the elderly empress dowager died from an illness brought on by the difficulties of her flight from the Jin armies. She was granted the posthumous title of “Empress Dowager of Shining Benevolence and Heroic Sacrifice” 昭慈獻烈皇太后 and immediately buried on Mount Bao, which was subsequently renamed Imperial Mountain 上皇山. The empress dowager’s burial at Shaoxing established a powerful precedent and led to the city becoming the official site of the imperial tombs in 1142, the year the bodies of Emperor Huizong and his consorts were returned by the Jin to the Song court. From that year to the end of the Southern Song, Shaoxing would remain the site of the imperial tombs for all subsequent Song emperors, whose tombs were later known as the “Six Burial Mounds of the Southern Song” 南宋六陵. Furthermore, from 1142 the border between the Song and the Jin would remain fixed at the Huai River with few border disputes. In the context of the struggle to reestablish a political center at the end of Gaozong’s reign, Wang Shipeng’s composition of his “Rhapsody

A City of Substance   239 on the Customs of Kuaiji” in 1158 can be seen as a literary and rhetorical corrective to the geopolitical orientation of the Gaozong administration. The arc of Wang Shipeng’s official career up to the late 1150s and early 1160s reveals a scholar with close ties to the greater Yue 越 region south of Hangzhou who felt authorized by his success in the official examinations to make bold literary statements on the basis for maintaining the territorial integrity of the Southern Song empire into the future. In 1112 Wang Shipeng was born in Yueqing 樂清 located at modern-day Meixi 梅溪 in Zhejiang Province about eight kilometers north of Wenzhou and south of the then dynastic capital Hangzhou. As a young man he studied with the scholar Pan Yi 潘翼 and worked as a teacher at a county school in Jinxi 金溪 during his twenties, and then at a family school in his thirties. Wang Shipeng’s literary works from his early youth to adulthood show a keen intellectual engagement with the ancient prose (guwen 古文) writers of the Tang and Northern Song periods. He modeled his own prose on the works of Han Yu 韓愈 (768–824), Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 (773–819), Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–72), and Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101) and composed a series of shi poems matching the rhymes of Han Yu.4 In addition, his over 150 poems on history (yongshi shi 詠史詩), which concisely evaluate figures from the Tang and Song periods and back to antiquity, show an interest in past rulers and culture heroes that is also reflected in his “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji.”5 National events intersected with Wang Shipeng’s life in Meixi at several key times, culminating with his winning first place in the official examinations in 1156.6 He had attempted to win an official post through the examination system in 1140 and in 1148, but failed both times. Wang Shipeng was a student at the Imperial Academy in Hangzhou for the eleven years between 1145 and 1156, during which he must have become quite familiar with the new capital and the central bureaucracy. The death of the powerful prime minister Qin Hui in 1155, who had championed and carried out the peace policy with the Jin dynasty, often through harsh measures, presented a window of opportunity for literati like Wang Shipeng to air opposing views. When Wang made his third attempt at the official examination in 1156, at the age of 45, he met with spectacular success, winning the coveted first place in the policy response essay (celun 策論) examination personally administered by Emperor Gaozong. Wang famously composed an essay “ten-thousand” characters in length. Apparently his essay moved the emperor to appoint him to the prestigious and

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central post of Administrative Assistant (qianpan 簽判) to Shaoxing, the auxiliary capital rather than to a distant provincial post.7 The year following Wang’s appointment to his post in Shaoxing, he wrote a set of three rhapsodies on Kuaiji, the longest of which is the “Customs of Kuaiji” piece under consideration here. As we examine the textual strategies of Wang’s rhapsody, we will see that his rhetorical corrective or inversion (fan 反) of the Gaozong court’s geo-political orientation operated in two important ways. First, Wang appealed to the growing popularity of discourse on local customs in the Southern Song to textually restore Kuaiji’s historical identity as a major regional city. Second, by writing his rhapsody immediately after the death of Prime Minister Qin Hui 秦檜 (1090–1155), Wang countered the predominant political culture of the court in Hangzhou, which had suppressed the pro-war faction during Qin’s tenure, to redirect attention to recovery of the old capital of Kaifeng.

Inverting the Grand Fu’s Spatial Hierarchy Wang Shipeng’s use of the rhapsody genre was not unprecedented in the Song dynasty, but its significance emerges from the way Wang selfconsciously wrote against the grain of the grand rhapsody tradition exemplified by the early Han work, “Rhapsody on Shanglin Park” by Sima Xiangru 司馬相如 (179–127 bce).8 The tradition’s spatial hierarchy has three defining characteristics. First, the “Rhapsody on Shanglin Park” presents a monocentric urban hierarchy. “Shanglin Park” and subsequent grand rhapsodies employ the fictional frame of a debate between different characters speaking on behalf of different cities contending for the status of imperial capital. The debate in these rhapsodies inevitably concludes with a declaration of the superiority of the (standing) imperial park over princely or regional parks. Second, regional cities (non-capitals) are ranked according to a center-periphery relationship. As Mark Edward Lewis has argued, in the “Rhapsody on Shanglin Park” regional cities or the parks that represent them are reduced to the status of deficient copies and often demeaned as semi-civilized regions on the periphery of the empire.9 Third, despite the extensive cataloguing of objects and descriptions of place, the true subject of Sima Xiangru’s famous work is not only the imperial park or city, but also the figure of the emperor and his internal moral transformation and external re-shaping of the park.

A City of Substance   241 As David Hawkes wrote, “We are made to feel that the purpose and function of the enormously elaborate account of palaces, gardens, parks, lodges, and so forth is merely to provide a setting in which the Great Man, the emperor, who is the heroic protagonist of this little cosmos, may be revealed in power and splendor. Essentially this kind of fu is not the description of a place but the epiphany of a person.”10 In contrast to this legacy of the Han dafu, Wang’s rhapsody makes no mention of the capital Hangzhou, while the emperor makes an entrance only in the final section. Viewed in the context of Shaoxing’s geo-political transformation vis a vis the restored Song court in Hangzhou, Wang Shipeng’s rhapsody can be seen as a vehicle that restores Kuaiji’s ancient cultural identity and elevates the importance of the regions in national policy-making decisions. Wang makes clear in its opening preface that his work is intended to counter or overturn (fan 反) the grand rhapsody tradition. This is obvious first of all in the names that he devises for the speakers in his rhapsody, which parody those of the speakers employed by Sima Xiangru in his “Rhapsody on Shanglin Park.” Wang juxtaposes the host, Lord Actuality, who speaks as a native of Yue on behalf of Kuaiji, with two skeptical guests, Sir Truthful and Master Probable, who doubt the merits of Kuaiji and ask the host a series of questions that amplify in intensity. The preface states, When Sima Xiangru composed his “Rhapsody on the Imperial Park” he cast Sir Vacuous, Master Improbable, and Lord No-such. “Sir Vacuous” refers to vacuous words. “Master Improbable” refers to improbable events. “Lord No-such” means that there is no such person. Therefore his diction was exaggerated and the events were not substantial, just like the “black kumquats that ripen in summer” and “yellow mandarin oranges.” Those nonexistent things found in the “Rhapsody on the Imperial Park” are just like the parables of Zhuangzi. When I wrote my “Rhapsody on Kuaiji,” while my literary talent cannot be compared to even the smallest fraction of Sima Xiangru’s abilities, all the events are based on substantial records. For this reason I cast Sir Truthful, Master Probable, and Lord Actuality in a dialogue of questions and answers. “Sir Truthful” refers to honest words. “Master Probable” means not being false. “Lord Actuality” points to credible events. I have used these to counter Xiangru’s discourse.

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司馬相如作上林賦 , 設子虛 , 烏有先生 , 亡是公三人相答難。子虛虛言 也。烏有先生者烏有是事也。亡是公者，亡是人也。故其詞多誇而其事 不實，如盧橘黃甘之類，蓋上林所無者，猶莊生之寓言也。 餘賦會稽，雖文采不足以擬相如之萬一，然事皆實録，故設為子眞，無 妄先生，有君答問之辭。子眞者，誠言也。無妄者，不虛也。有君者， 11 有是事也。以反相如之説焉。

In this somewhat whimsical introduction, Wang Shipeng introduces the juxtaposed terms “substantial” and “empty” that will thread through the entire dialogue between Lord Actuality and his two interlocutors. At one level the term shi refers to actual events in contrast to the exaggerated diction and patently fictional events that Wang claims are found in Sima Xiangru’s rhapsody, which he compares to the fantastic parables written by the Daoist philosopher Zhuang Zi 莊子 (4th to 3rd century bce). His critique of the exaggerated or empty rhetoric in the “grand rhapsody” tradition itself has a long legacy, dating back to the first such critique, leveled by another Han rhapsodist Yang Xiong 揚雄 (53–18 bce), and also present in the “Rhapsody on the Three Capitals” of Zuo Si 左思 (250–305) from the Western Jin dynasty (265–316).12 Wang’s critique of Han dynasty grand rhapsodies may also imply criticism of more recent works in the genre written on the Northern Song capital, Kaifeng, though this point goes beyond the topic at hand. Nonetheless, Wang Shipeng’s repeated use of the term “substantial” throughout his rhapsody carries a second level of meaning: It points to the Song period evidentiary rhetoric that located the past in the materiality of “remaining traces” as well as in textual exegesis of the history of contemporary place names. This sense of the “evidentiary” is apparent in arguments Lord Actuality makes to prove the historical connection of three culture heroes with the city of Kuaiji and the enduring impact each had upon the customs of the region. These are, in the order of appearance, the hegemon Gou Jian, King of Yue who, after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the rival kingdom of Wu, overcame this shame by conquering Wu in return; the great Yu, legendary tamer of primordial floods; and the sage ruler Shun who, though humbly born into a troubled family, was deemed worthy enough to receive the throne from Yao. Lord Actuality is continuously prodded and prompted by the skeptical questioning of Sir Truthful to prove Kuaiji’s importance. He does this by demonstrating the presence of worthy figures in the city’s history, and

A City of Substance   243 each passage delves deeper into the recesses of distant antiquity for figures of ever greater stature. Each passage also follows a similar rhetorical pattern: first, Wang summarizes each culture hero’s signature moral virtues based on a key historical event; second, Wang argues that the character and customs of contemporary Kuaiji people are a direct continuation of the culture hero’s acts and virtues; and third, he substantiates the claims that such figures indeed came to Kuaiji and continue to be remembered there by appeal to material relics, other traces, and local structures, as well as the etymology of place names in the local landscape. Here are our key examples: Second Question and Answer Lord Actuality said: “In the past after a punishing defeat Gou Jian found a perch at Kuaiji and endured the humiliation of the stone room.13 He placed knotweed in his eyes and soaked his feet in water, embraced ice (in the winter) and grasped fire (in the summer). He picked fishweed in the mountains and placed bile at his table. Women created a song called ‘What bitterness.’ The lyric runs, ‘Eating bile is not bitter, its flavor is sweet as sugar. Command us to pick kudzu vine so that we may treat it as silk.’ Within twenty years, with a heart tempered by fire and a will made firm by bitterness, in the end he destroyed the mighty kingdom of Wu and cleansed the shame of the past. Yue’s surpassing reputation begins from this. Thus, this custom continues to the present day: the ability to, through fervent heroism, defeat one’s opponent and to endure in silence until the task is accomplished. What do you think of this?” (bold added) 有君曰: 「昔勾踐懲會稽之棲也， 痛石室之辱也。 蓼目水足， 抱氷握 火。 采蕺於山， 置膽於坐。 葛婦興歌，名曰何苦。 其詞曰： 嘗膽不 苦味若飴， 令我采葛以作絲。 二十年間， 焦心苦志。 卒滅強呉， 以 雪前恥。 越絶之稱， 權輿於此。 故其俗至今， 能慷慨以復讐，隠忍 14 以成事， 若是何如?」

Third Question and Answer Lord Actuality said, “In the past, once Yu’s labor of taming the flood had been completed, he recorded the merits of his assembled officials on Mt. Miao, changed its name to Kuaiji, and after his death was

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buried there. His temple and burial mound exist to the present day. Above there are the remains of a well and below there is a humble spring. Among those who pass by and drink from it, there are none who do not sigh over his avoidance of [eating] fish or whose thoughts of the Yellow and Luo Rivers are not stirred up. Not only did Gou Jian possess [Yu’s] fervor, Duke Ma also inherited his merit. To the present day this custom of diligence and frugality is truly a legacy of the great Yu. What do you think of this? (bold added) 有君曰：「昔禹治水既畢，與羣後計功苗山，更名會稽，卒而葬焉。祠 廟陵寢，於今尚存。上有遺井，下有菲泉。過而飲者，莫不發免魚之 嘆，興河洛之思，不獨勾踐有其烈，馬侯嗣其功，至今其俗勤勞儉 15 嗇，實有禹之遺風，若是何如。」

Fourth Question and Answer Lord Actuality said, “Shun was born in Zhufeng and Mengzi considered him an eastern barbarian. As generations recede into the distant past, transmitted records lose the truth. The Grand Historian mistakenly believed [that Shun’s birthplace] was in Jizhou! Was that really the case or not? Among the cities of Yue are Shangyu and Yuyao. Among its mountains are Mount Yu and Mount Li. Among its rivers are the ‘Fisherman’s Bank’ and ‘Three Frustrations.’ Its terrain includes Yao Hill and the ‘Hundred Officials’; among the villages, Millet Village.16 There is an ancient ceramic stove, a well for drawing water, and a temple for making sacrifices. These are all [Shun’s] remaining traces. To those who think he was not born here, then surely he must have roamed here? As a son, Shun was able to harmonize family divisiveness through filial acts, and this custom has been a model for so many right to the present day. As a minister he strove to fulfill his duties, and this custom continues today as industrious men tread his path. As an elder brother he did not store up anger or dwell in bitterness, and this custom has continued in love and the ability to tolerate. As a ruler, Shun abdicated the throne for the benefit of all beneath heaven, therefore the custom of honesty and from that the ability to be humble has continued to today. What do you think of this? (emphasis added) 有君曰: 「舜生於諸馮， 孟子以為東夷之人。 歴世逾逺， 流傳失眞， 太史公以為冀州! 然邪否邪? 然越之邑， 則有上虞餘姚， 山則有虞山歴

A City of Substance   245 山。 水則有漁浦三憮， 墬則有姚丘百官， 裏焉有粟， 陶焉有竈， 汲 焉有井， 祀焉有廟， 此其遺跡也。 意者不生於是， 則遊於是乎? 舜為 人子， 克諧以孝， 故其俗至今烝烝是傚。舜為人臣，克盡其道，故其 俗至今孳孳是蹈。舜為人兄， 怨怒不藏， 故其俗至今愛而能容。 舜為 17 人君， 以天下禪， 故其俗至今廉而能遜。 若是何如? 」

In these three passages Wang Shipeng argues that the customs of contemporary Kuaiji derive from the influence of the legacy (lit. “lingering airs” yifeng 遺風) of great historical figures like the local hegemon Gou Jian and the legendary sage rulers Yu and Shun. Wang argues the validity of this human geography through material evidence (“remaining traces” yiji 遺跡) such as tombs, wells, stoves, and temples, where sacrifices perpetuate the memory of these ancient rulers deeds. He points to several place names around Kuaiji to restore the memory of Shun’s travels and possible birth in that city. Significantly, in terms of Shaoxing’s position in relation to the new capital, Wang Shipeng reclaims the earlier identity of Kuaiji as “a great prefectural capital of the southeast” precisely through the “evidence” of tombs and place names. He thereby counters (fan 反) the claims made by the Song court to the city in its identity as Shaoxing or as auxiliary capital by the exact same means. In Wang’s response to the hyperbole and bombastically exaggerated descriptions of the grand rhapsody tradition, we see how he instead persuades through an apparent depth of local knowledge and “substance” that could be verified by in-person visits to the material traces and sites commemorating the three culture heroes in Kuaiji’s landscape. Wang Shipeng also appeals to the persuasive power of another form evidentiary rhetoric, the eye witness (qindu 親睹). For example, in the fifth question-and-answer exchange, in which Lord Actuality rebutts the criticism that Kuaiji’s virtuous customs lie only in its past and not in the present, Wang directly names contemporary Kuaiji natives who responded with assistance to the crisis of the Song court during its flight south. Fifth Question and Answer What generation is without talents and why should that be a matter of past or present? Sir, don’t you see men like Master Chen and Master Zhang, who carried their orders to the northern court and died on behalf of their ruler’s mission. Or what of those like Master

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Hua and Master Fu, who defended the rituals during the Jingkang reign (1126–1127) and who marched to relieve the siege during the Jianyan reign (1127–1130)?18 Are these men of a different era? Nor do you note Master Chen of Yaojiang. Although his arrival caused quite a stir, he also knew how to withdraw and, in both person and reputation, he achieved glory. In the course of administration, Master Li offended a powerful minister. Although he grew old in exile, the world recognized him as a man of virtue. . . These are all events that you sir have witnessed with your own eyes. How do we know that our descendants will not view us today, just as we look back to the ancients? 矧何世之無才， 亦奚有於古今。 子不見夫銜命北庭， 死於王事， 如 陳公張公者乎? 議禮靖康， 赴難建炎， 如華君傅君者乎? 是豈異代之 人邪? 又不見夫姚江陳公， 所臨有聲， 亦克知退， 身名兩榮。 執政李 公， 忤意權臣。 老於淪落， 世賢其人……茲固先生目所親覩也， 安 19 知後之視今， 不猶今之視古乎?

Lord Actuality chides his questioner with a litany of individuals’ names and their service, leading with the phrase, “Don’t you see,” which emphasizes that his evidence is derived from being an eye witness to these events. However, when Wang describes the role of different Kuaiji natives in the crisis of the early Southern Song, he refers to them by surname alone. Luckily for modern scholars of the Song, as well as for the convenience of Wang’s contemporary readers, beginning in 1217 Wang’s “Rhapsody on Kuaiji” began to circulate with the addition of the interlinear notes made by commentator Shi Zhu 史鑄 (thirteenth century) who provides full details of their identity and historical significance in his concise annotations. Like the rhapsody’s author, Shi Zhu also plays the role of local expert by identifying the unknown Yue figures often not otherwise accounted for in the standard histories. With Shi Zhu’s notes, the Southern Song reader unfamiliar with the individual local actors could better appreciate the contributions these Kuaiji natives made to the defense and restoration of the Song dynasty. Their roles range from Northern Song emissaries to the Jin (Master Chen and Master Zhang), to martyrs involved in the defense of the dynasty (Master Hua and Master Fu), to the high-minded recluses (Master Chen of Yaojiang), and finally to

A City of Substance   247 the former Southern Song official Li Guang 李光 (1078–1159), who was exiled to Hainan Island for opposing the pro-peace prime minister, Qin Hui. In contrast to the grand rhapsody’s tendency to focus on the power of the emperor alone to effect change within and beyond the imperial capital, this section of the “Rhapsody on Kuaiji” emphasizes the role of local natives as historical agents and their impact on the customs in the regional city, as well as on political events outside the borders of the city. The prominent place held in Wang’s rhapsody by local natives and important historical figures associated with Kuaiji raises the question of what kind of geo-political argument Wang Shipeng sought to convey to his contemporary audience. The figure of Yu the Great is particularly striking given his status in ancient texts as the tamer of primordial floods, the divider of the known realm into the Nine Provinces, and the founder of the legendary Xia dynasty (traditional dates 2200–1760 bce). In his study on the ancient place name, Kuaiji, its meaning and its phonological history, James Hargett notes that a common set of iconic events and motifs link Yu the Great to the geography of Kuaiji in pre-Han and Han dynasty sources. Specifically, he notes two key events in the Yu legend that appear repeatedly in pre-Han texts: Yu’s meeting with his feudal lords in the Kuaiji Hills and his death and burial there as testified to by the presence of a tomb and well. Hargett also notes that the Han dynasty text Records of the Historian (Shiji 史記) by Sima Qian 司馬遷 (135–68 bce) records the ascension of the Kuaiji Hills by Qin Shihuang 秦始皇 (295–210 bce) in order to offer sacrifices to Yu during his inspection tour of the Qin empire in 210 bce.20 Given Yu the Great’s stature in the classical tradition, is it possible that Wang Shipeng used his “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji” to argue that Kuaiji’s association with Yu endowed the region with sufficient royal virtue to serve as capital to the restored Song dynasty instead of Hangzhou? Although Wang’s citation of certain elements in the legend of Yu the Great might at first appear to be an argument for Kuaiji’s uniquely royal air, the conclusion of his rhapsody actually juxtaposes a “polyarchical” geo-political vision in place of the monocentric scheme traditionally found in the grand rhapsody genre. Wang’s vision corresponds quite closely to the “fengjian discourse” promoted by a group of scholars in the early Southern Song. As described in Jaeyoon Song’s dissertation, in response to the centralized “New Laws” administration of Wang Anshi 王安石

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(1021–86) implemented in the Northern Song and widely seen as contributing to the collapse of the dynasty and loss of northern territories, a group of early Southern Song thinkers advocated a more decentralized system of administration with multiple sources of authority based on ancient models of political organization that pre-dated the Qin unification. According to Jaeyoon Song, the most prominent among the fengjian discourse advocates was Hu Hong 胡宏 (1105–55), for whom the rule of Yu the Great in high antiquity represented the ideals of a decentralized polyarchical system of governance. Jaeyoon Song makes careful note of the way in which Hu Hong seems to have understood this decentralized system: Here Hu Hong contrasts King Yu’s rule with that of the First Emperor. Unlike the harsh bureaucratic system of the First Emperor, King Yu’s rule is founded on a feudal system, designed to let people flourish in a small community-like state. . . . Hu Hong has what I think is a polyarchical theory in mind: a systematic alliance of selfgoverning states; this was not, however, a mere confederation of equals. For maintenance of this system, the leadership of the central government (the royal domain) vis-à-vis each of the self-governing states is essential.21

Though there is no record of direct correspondence or communication between Hu Hong and Wang Shipeng, Wang’s citation of the legend surrounding Yu the Great does bear a striking resemblance to Hu Hong’s use of the Yu as an argument for greater regional authority. Based on these common uses of the Yu legend, it can be argued that Wang Shipeng’s “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji” shared a similar geo-political vision with its contemporary, fengjian discourse. In the conclusion of the “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji,” we see that Wang’s reclamation of Kuaiji’s local identity and customs prior to its ascension to the status of imperial city as Shaoxing does not appear to be motivated by narrow local pride nor by an argument for Kuaiji as the rightful location for a new capital. Wang concludes his rhapsody by placing the customs of Kuaiji in the larger geographic context of the Song empire and for the first time defines the role of the emperor as one who should have a comprehensive view of the whole. Instead of ranking Kuaiji in relation to an actual or prospective imperial capital, the metaphors he

A City of Substance   249 employs in this closing section emphasize the importance of regions and their customs within the larger “national” whole. In the final sixth exchange between guests and host, one guest accuses Lord Actuality of myopic blindness to the affairs beyond the customs of Kuaiji. Lord Actuality replies by arguing that it is his guest who has misunderstood the place of Kuaiji in the larger imperial picture, Sixth Question and Answer . . . How could I be blindly ignorant of what happens outside the borders of Yue? The Son of Heaven has unfurled the map and, thinking of the accomplishments of his ancestors, has sought after the way of governance like one running out of time, has sought out virtuous men and sighed in admiration. Now that he has cultivated civilian virtues, it is time to review military affairs. For this reason he has prepared axe and shield to subdue the distant barbarians and seeks to restore invaded territory to return to the walls of the capital. I await the standardization of axle lengths and written script, the unification of north and south. . . . His view of the customs of the Nine Provinces within the four seas will overshadow the accounts of the rhapsodies on the two and three capitals, and outshine their brilliance ten-thousand times over. When this “Rhapsody on the August Song Unification” is written, looking back to Kuaiji will be like looking at a tiny speck in a great earthen vessel. 予豈瞢然無聞無知於越之外哉? 今天子披輿墬之圖，思祖宗之績，求治 如不及，見賢而太息，文徳既修，武事峕閱，蓋將舞干戚而服逺夷，復 侵疆而旋京闕。餘竢其車書同，南北一……覽四海九州之風俗，掩兩京 三都之著述，騰萬丈之光芒，有皇宋一統之賦出，回視會稽，蓋甄陶中 22

之一物。

Here Wang bluntly states the (presumed) goal of reunification with the lost northern territories. In doing so, he eschews any reference to the current Southern Song imperial capital of Hangzhou and makes only a somewhat oblique reference to the lost Kaifeng as “returning to the walls of the capital.” This general silence on the status of the current imperial capital appears to be a corrective to the traditional center-periphery hierarchy. Wang compares the goal of reunifying north and south to the

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yet incomplete composition of a new “Rhapsody on the August Song Unification,” a work that will outshine the tradition represented by Ban Gu’s (32–92) “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals” and Zuo Si’s (250–305) “Rhapsody on the Three Capitals.” At first, Wang’s conclusion seems to return to the discourse of diminishing regional cities in relation to a current or future imperial center, when he states that “looking back to Kuaiji will be like looking at a tiny speck in a great earthen vessel.” Yet, this reading is belied by the grandeur of the detailed evidence he presents of Kuaiji’s virtuous customs throughout the rhapsody. The final sentence, I believe, is better understood in relation to the function of the future “Rhapsody of the August Song Unification,” which will provide the emperor with a “comprehensive view (lan) of the customs (fengsu)” across the empire. Wang presents Kuaiji as one of many regions about which the emperor needs to know. Rather than conclude with a vision of a magnanimous cosmic hero, Wang envisions an emperor who holds a view of the whole empire and by this Wang projects a polyarchical geo-politics that contrasts sharply with the monocentrism typical of the genre. By reversing the spatial logic of the grand rhapsody tradition, he argues that knowing the “substance” of local customs is a necessary precondition to restoring and maintaining the empire.

“Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji” and Local Gazetteers: Convergences and Misreadings Wang Shipeng’s use of evidentiary rhetoric to overturn the traditional spatial hierarchy draws in large part from the techniques and structures of the new local gazetteer genre, which was published in increasing numbers and provided greater detail about localities over the course of the Southern Song.23 Although Wang Shipeng’s rhapsody predates the first official gazetteer of Kuaiji by almost fifty years, the commentator to Wang’s rhapsody, Shi Zhu, clearly links the work and its agenda to a discursive strategy common in the gazetteers. Shi Zhu’s 1217 preface to Wang’s annotated rhapsody states, During the Shaoxing reign, Master Wang, as Supervisor of the Household of the Heir Apparent. . . selected from maps and gazetteers the [illegible] achievements, adding to these those matters recorded in old accounts and recent observations, enumerated them according to

A City of Substance   251 category, and composed his “Rhapsody of Customs.” In order to judge and rank [them] he presented them in a parable of questions and answers. The events are substantive, his diction is elegant, his meaning is clear and each character has its textual origin. Indeed it is a masterpiece! Given the care of Master Wang’s investigations, he can be called the ancestor of ranking and grading customs and objects. The glory he has brought this land of ours is great! 紹興間詹事王公……乃於圖志掇其赫奕之事蹟，加以舊傳新覩可紀之 事，從類鋪張，著為風俗賦。以抑揚品藻，寓於答問。其事實，其詞 贍，旨趣明暢，字字淵源，誠為傑作。公之究心，可謂平章風物之宗 24 主，其有光於吾邦者，大矣。

Shi Zhu employs a number of key terms to describe Wang Shipeng’s approach to composing. First, he notes that Wang drew on two types of source materials: “maps and gazetteers” as well as “old accounts and recent observations.” Second, he makes a concise observation about the structure of Wang’s rhapsody when he states that Wang drew from his source materials and organized them according to category. Looking at the larger structure of Wang’s rhapsody, one can see that its categories resemble those frequently used in the Southern Song local gazetteers. For instance, the first half of the piece is dominated by a lengthy enumeration of Kuaiji’s natural and human geographical features in rhymed verse delivered in one breath by Lord Actuality. In total there are four large categories of enumerated things: mountains 山, rivers 水, local products 物, and people 人. These categories move clearly from the natural to the human, but given that the latter two sections are much longer, it seems that Wang gave greater weight to the human geography and how local customs arose from the intersection of natural geography and human intentions and actions. The section on people contains clear subdivisions that resemble the moral and occupational categories employed in the assembled biographies section 列傳 of the standard dynastic histories. Wang’s subdivisions include: “the filial and fraternal” 孝悌, “the principled and righteous” 節義, “officials” 循吏, “Confucian scholars” 儒學, “recluses” 隠逸, “masters of esoterica” 方術, “painters” 丹 青, “calligraphers” 筆劄, “Buddhist monks” 浮屠, and “Daoist immortals” 神僊. James Hargett has argued that the conventions used in the standard dynastic histories, such as the liezhuan model of biographical writing, exerted a strong influence on the composition of local gazetteers during

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the Southern Song.25 Hence, in terms of both source materials as well as in compositional structure, Wang’s rhapsody clearly drew inspiration from the models that shaped the gazetteers of the same period. Even more importantly Shi Zhu’s commentary stands as the first link in a chain of sequels to the “Rhapsody of Kuaiji,” albeit sequels of a significantly different generic form. For rather than inspire the production of other rhapsodies on Kuaiji or other local regions, Wang’s work was widely incorporated into the comparatively new genre of the local gazetteer. In the preface to his annotated edition of Wang’s “Rhapsody of Kuaiji,” Shi Zhu says, “The commentary I compose today only cites from The Gazetteer of Kuaiji, which was not available prior to the composition of Master (Wang’s) rhapsody.” This was The Jiatai Reign Gazetteer of Kuaiji 嘉泰會稽志, composed in 1201, about fifty years after Wang Shipeng’s rhapsody and hence not one of the “maps and gazetteers” Wang drew on to write his work. However, the lead compiler of The Jiatai Reign Gazetteer of Kuaiji, Shi Su 施宿 (1164–1222), cited Wang’s “Rhapsody on Kuaiji” four times and added two corrections to the geographic information therein; he also made nine citations to other poetic works by Wang. Almost twenty-five years later The Jiatai Reign Gazetteer of Kuaiji became the basis of a sequel entitled The Baoqing Reign Sequel to the Gazetteer of Kuaiji 寶慶會稽續志 complied by Zhang Hao 張淏 (13th century) in 1225.26 Notably both of these later gazetteers followed Wang’s lead in using the ancient place name, Kuaiji, in their titles rather than the imperially minted name, Shaoxing. Even so some citations of Wang’s rhapsody show divergences or even mis-readings of the polyarchical geo-political vision at the heart of Wang’s work. Importantly, Zhang Hao incorporated a work entitled Questions of Yue 越問 by the local Shaoxing scholar Sun Yin 孫因 (1226 jinshi) into the final juan of The Baoqing Reign Sequel to the Gazetteer of Kuaiji, which directly responded to Wang’s “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji.” Sun Yin’s work is a rather dense geographic treatise written in sao-style verse that sought to fill in what Sun took to be critical lacunae in the Wang piece, providing an even more finely grained account of local customs in the Yue region. Composed of a total of fifteen verse sections, seven sections elaborate in great detail on different local products 地產 including gold and tin 金錫, a variety of slender bamboo called “bamboo arrows” 竹箭, fish and salt 魚鹽, boats and oars 船楫, Yue wine 越釀, Yue tea 越茶, and Yue paper 越紙. Sun Yin’s Questions of Yue concludes with

A City of Substance   253 a poetic account of Emperor Gaozong’s flight to Kuaiji, entitled “Imperial Stopping Place” 駐蹕, which describes how he elevated the city to the administrative status of a superior prefecture 府 and granted the city its new name, Shaoxing. Although the last sections of Sun Yin’s piece also mention the historical figures described in Wang’s rhapsody (Gou Jian, Shun, and Yu), they are in no way contrasted to the current regime. On the contrary, Gaozong is described thus: “Arriving three thousand years after Shun and Yu, he follows in their footsteps” 後舜禹三千年兮，履舜禹 27 之遺跡. On the whole then, Sun Yin’s Questions of Yue seems more concerned with commerce and local pride when it highlights the products of Shaoxing that distinguish it from other southeastern cities and less with articulating a new geo-political vision. Although Wang’s rhapsody provided important source material and inspiration for these later two gazetteers, it clearly subscribed to a distinctly different geo-political discourse.

Conclusion In this volume on perceptions of Southern Song Hangzhou, Wang Shipeng’s “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji” offers a unique outside perspective on the new capital. We have seen that as Hangzhou’s auxiliary capital, writings on Shaoxing in the early Southern Song tended to either augment the authority and imperial majesty of Hangzhou or to offer alternative geo-political visions. Wang Shipeng’s rhapsody is a unique specimen of the grand rhapsody type, but one that alerts us to several key trends toward the end of Gaozong’s reign. First, in geo-political terms, Wang’s rhapsody overturned the spatial hierarchy between capital and the regions that had been inherited from the Northern Song. Written in 1158, just three years after the death of Prime Minister Qin Hui, Wang sought to correct the political culture in Hangzhou by arguing how the substance of regional customs could serve as a true basis for political legitimacy (along with a more aggressive military policy). Wang’s rhapsody promoted the regions and their customs as the foundation for a polyarchical governance at a time when the capital at Hangzhou was still referred to as a “temporary residence.” The lack of grand rhapsodies devoted to Hangzhou as capital and the near political impossibility of such a work being written attest to the fact that the city’s imperial status was not fully settled during Gaozong’s reign.

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Second, Wang’s rhapsody demonstrates shifts in the Southern Song generic economy. The structure and categories of his rhapsody show that it was part of a larger evidentiary discourse shared with local gazetteers, though at the time of its composition no such gazetteer had yet been written for Kuaiji. Rather than inspire later grand rhapsodies, Wang’s work was digested and incorporated into a series of local gazetteers that continued to use the ancient place name, Kuaiji, rather than the imperial name, Shaoxing; these gazetters followed Wang’s lead and continued to valorize fine-grained accounts of local history, geography, and customs. Third, Wang’s “Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji” may have shared a common discourse and methodology with two later local gazetteers, but it is clear that the evidence of ancient artifacts and local eyewitness accounts could be used to serve and support different geo-political visions. Wang Shipeng’s rhapsody may have been an outlier in the ardor of its portrayal of Kuaiji as a “city of substance,” but its oddity opens a unique view on literati debates about how the relocation of the capital during the restoration period transformed the geo-political landscape of the southeast.

Notes

Introduction 1

Zhou Mi 周密, Wulin jiushi 武林舊事, in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong 東京夢華錄外四種 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 329; John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, seventh edition (London: George Allen, 1896), vol. 1, 2.

2

On the dominance of economic and social analysis in urban histories of the Tang and Song dynasties, cf. Hilde De Weerdt, “China: 600–1300,” in The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History, edited by Peter Clark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 307; Kubota Kazuo 久保田和男, “The Study of Song Urban History in Japan since the 1980s,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 38 (2008), 221; Liu Fang 劉方, Shengshi fanhua: Songdai Jiangnan chengshi wenhua de fanrong yu bianqian 盛世繁華：宋代江南城市文化的繁榮與變遷 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang daxue chubanshe, 2011), 9–10, 24–5; Lawrence J. C. Ma, “The State of the Field of Urban China: A Critical Multidisciplinary Overview of the Literature,” China Information 20:3 (2006), 370–79; Wu Songdi 吳松 弟, “Tairiku Chūgoku ni okeru Sōdai toshi kenkyū kaiko (1949–2003)” 大陸中国における宋代都市研究回顧 (1949–2003), Ōsaka shiritsu daigaku Tōyōshi ronsō 大阪市立大学東洋史論叢 14 (March 2005), 21–8; Yang

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Zhenli 楊貞莉, “Jin ershiwunian lai Songdai chengshishi yanjiu huigu” 近二十五年來宋代城市史研究回顧, Taiwan shida lishi xuebao 臺灣師大歷 史學報 35 (June 2006), 223–34.

3

See, for example, Katō Shigeru, Shina keizaishi kōshō 支那經濟史考證, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Toyo bunko, 1952), vol. 1, 299–460; Naba Toshisada 那波利貞, “Toshi no hattatsu to shomin seikatsu no kōjō” 都市の発達と庶 民生活の向上, in Tōyō bunkashi taikei: Sō-Gen jidai 東洋文化史太系： 宋元時代, edited by Konuma Katsue 羽田亨 (Tokyo: Seibundō shinkō sha, 1938), 150–201; Sogabe Shizuo 曾我部靜雄, Kaifū to Kōshū 開封と 杭州 (Tokyo: Fukuyama bō, 1940). On urban history as an illustration of the newly perceived transition from Tang to Song, cf. Hirata Shigeki 平田茂樹, “Songdai chengshi yanjiu de xianzhuang yu keti: cong Songdai zhengzhi kongjian yanjiu de jiaodu kaocha” 宋代城市研究的現 狀與課題：從宋代政治空間研究的角度考察, in Zhong-Ri gudai chengshi yanjiu 中日古代城市研究, edited by Nakamura Gure 中村圭尔 and Xin Deyong 辛德勇 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 2004), 107–10. On the scholarship and influence of Naitō Konan, see Joshua A. Fogel, Politics and Sinology: The Case of Naitō Konan (1866–1934) (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984 ); Hisayuki Miyakawa, “An Outline of the Naitō Hypothesis and Its Effects on Japanese Studies of China,” Far Eastern Quarterly 14:4 (1955), 533–52; Ichisada Miyazaki, “Konan Naitō: An Original Sinologist,” Philosophical Studies of Japan 8 ( 1967 ), 93 – 116 . In this context, one may also mention some early Chinese scholarship, such as Quan Hansheng’s 全漢昇 1937 essay on commerce in Northern Song Kaifeng. See Quan Hansheng, Zhongguo jingji shi luncong 中國經濟史 論叢 (Hong Kong: Xinya yanjiusuo, 1972), volume 1, 87–199.

4

For this general historical narrative see, for example, Naitō Torajirō 內藤虎次郎, “Gaikatsuteki Tō-Sō jidaikan” 概括的唐宋時代觀, Rekishi to chiri 歷史と地理 9:5 (1922), 1–12; Naitō Konan 內藤湖南, Shina ron fu Shin Shina ron 支那論附新支那論 (Tokyo: Sōgen sha, 1938 ), 8 – 53 , 337–77. Cf. Miyakawa, “An Outline,” 535–43; Miyazaki, “Konan Naitō,” 96–106. On modernity as the equivalent of old age see, for example, Naitō, Shina ron, 339–40. Cf. Miyakawa, “An Outline,” 536, 540–41.

5

Naitō’s analysis of the fall of the aristocracy and the origins of imperial autocracy in Discourse on China (Shina ron 支那論, 1914) comprises only the first chapter of a text that otherwise advocates extensive

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Japanese interference in Chinese domestic affairs and urges the Chinese government to cede Manchuria to Japan. Naitō’s New Discourse on China (Shin Shina ron 新支那論, 1924 ) repeatedly threatens that anti-Japanese actions in China will lead to a full-scale war and invasion. This perception that Naitō’s work was informed by a substantive imperialist agenda is supported not only by Nohara Shirō’s 野原四郎 post-war critique of Discourse on China as a piece written “in support of the Japanese imperialist policy to invade” China 実は日本帝国主義の侵 略政策のため助言している, but also by a preface composed by Naitō’s own sons for the 1938 reprint of both Discourses, which states that these two texts demonstrated the historical inevitability that vigorous, young Japan would resuscitate the large, old country of China. See Naitō, Shina ron, esp. page 15 (1938 preface), and 5–7, 89–95, 225–333; Nohara Shirō, “Naitō Konan Shina ron hihan” 內藤湖南《支那論》批判, Chūgoku hyūron 中國評論 1:11–12 (Nov.–Dec. 1946), 35. Cf. Arthur F. Wright, “The Study of Chinese Civilization,” Journal of the History of Ideas 21:2 (1960), 249. Naitō’s successor at Kyoto University, Miyazaki Ichisada 宮崎市定 (1901–95), elaborated the contemporary political implications of Naitō’s theories at length and in detail. See, for example, Miyazaki Ichisada 宮崎市定, “Sō-Gen no keizaiteki jōtai” 宋元の經濟的狀 態, in Tōyō bunkashi taikei: Sō-Gen jidai, 138-49; Miyazaki Ichisada, Tōyō ni okeru soboku shugi no minzoku to bunmei shugi no shakai 東 洋における素朴主義の民族と文明主義の社會 (Tokyo: Fukuyama bō, 1940); Miyazaki Ichisada, “Tōyō no runesansu to seiyō no runesansu” 東洋のル ネサンスと西洋のルネサンス, Shirin 史林 25:4 (1940), 465–80 and 26:1 (1941), 69–102. On the implication of Japanese historiography in imperialist politics, see also Nohara Shirō, “Tōyōshi no atarashii tachiba” 東洋史の新しい立場, Chūgoku hyōron 中國評論 1:6 (June 1946), 54–6, 63; Stefan Tanaka, Japan’s Orient: Rendering Pasts into History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993).

6

See Sogabe, Kaifū to Kōshū, author’s preface, 1, and editorial preface, 3. Miyazaki Ichisada’s Tōyō ni okeru soboku shugi no minzoku was published in the same series. Katō Shigeru’s 加藤繁 ( 1880 – 1946 ) important work on the development of cities and markets during the Song dynasty does not appear to make reference to contemporary events, although his essay “Reminiscing about the Past in Nanjing” (Nankyō kaiko 南京懷古, 1941) depicts him as standing on the damaged city walls of Nanjing in 1940, reflecting on the place of Japan in the

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long history of that former capital. See Katō Shigeru 加藤繁, Shinagaku zassō 支那学雑草 (Tokyo: Seikatsu sha, 1944), 10. His essays from the 1930s and 1940s were reprinted, in revised form, in Katō Shigeru, Shina keizaishi kōshō.

7

Cf. Joseph McDermott, “Charting Blank Spaces and Disputed Regions: The Problem of Sung Land Tenure,” Journal of Asian Studies 44:1 (Nov. 1984), 13–4; Miyakawa, “An Outline,” 547–52; Shiba Yoshinobu 斯波 義信, Sōdai shōgyōshi kenkyū 宋代商業史研究 (Tokyo: Kazama shobō, 1968); Denis Twitchett, Land Tenure and the Social Order in T’ang and Sung China (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 16–32. Several of the wartime studies were published, in revised form, in the context of this debate. See, for example, Katō Shigeru, Shina keizaishi kōshō.

8

See, for example, Hirata Shigeki, “Songdai chengshi yanjiu”; Ihara Hiroshi 伊原弘, “Tō-Sō jidai no Setsusei ni okeru toshi no hensen: Sō Heikō zu kaidoku sagyō” 唐宋時代の浙西における都市の変遷：宋「平江図」 解読作業, Kiyō: Shigakka 紀要：史学科 24 ( 1979 ), 39 – 75 ; Ihara Hiroshi, “Kōnan ni okeru toshi keitai no hensen: Sō Heikō zu kaiseki s a g y ō ” 江南における都市形態の変遷：宋「平江図」解析作業, i n S ō d a i n o shakai to bunka 宋代の社会と文化, edited by Sōdaishi kenkyūkai 宋代史 研究会 (Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, 1983), 104–38; Ihara Hiroshi, Chūgoku Kaifū no seikatsu to saiji: egakareta Sōdai no toshi seikatsu 中國開封の生 活と歳時：描かれた宋代の都市生活 (Tokyo: Yamagawa shuppansha, 1991); Ihara Hiroshi, Ōchō no miyako, hōjō no machi: Chūgoku toshi no panorama 王朝の都、豐饒の街：中國都市のパノラマ (Tokyo: Tokyo inshokan, 2006); Shiba Yoshinobu, Sōdai Kōnan keizai no kenkyū 宋代江南経済の 研究 (Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, 1988 ); Iriya Yoshitaka 入矢義高 and Umehara Kaoru 梅原郁, transl. and ann., Tōkei mu Ka roku: Sōdai no toshi to seikatsu 東京夢華錄：宋代の都市と生活, second edition (Tokyo: Heibon sha, 1996 [1983]); Umehara Kaoru, transl. and ann., Mu ryō roku: Nan Sō Rin’an hanjō ki 夢粱錄：南宋臨安繁昌記 (Tokyo: Heibon sha, 2000). Cf. Hirata, “Songdai chengshi yanjiu,” 110–16; Ihara Hiroshi et al., “Bibliography of Song History Studies in Japan,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 31 (2001), 179–80; Kubota, “The Study of Song Urban History,” 216–23.

9

See Étienne Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, edited by Arthur Wright, translated by H. M. Wright (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964), 34–100. Balazs calls Katō Shigeru’s 1931 essay on cities and urban life in the Song dynasty, “as far as I know, the only

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serious study of the Chinese town that has so far appeared” (op. cit., 71n12).

10 See Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past: A Social and Economic Interpretation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1973); Shiba Yoshinobu, Commerce and Society in Sung China, translated by Mark Elvin (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1970).

11 Lawrence J. C. Ma, Commercial Development and Urban Change in Sung China (960–1279 ), iii. See also E. A. Kracke, Jr., “Sung K’ai-feng: Pragmatic Metropolis and Formalistic Capital,” in Crisis and Prosperity in Sung China, edited by John Winthrop Haeger (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1975), 49–77.

12 See, for example, Hugh R. Clark, Community, Trade, and Networks: Southern Fujian Province from the Third to the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Robert M. Hartwell, “Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750–1550,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42:2 (Dec. 1982), 365–442; Michael Marmé, “Heaven on Earth: The Rise of Suzhou, 1127–1550,” in Cities of Jiangnan in Late Imperial China, edited by Linda Cooke Johnson (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 16–45; G. William Skinner, “Introduction: Urban Development in Imperial China,” in The City in Late Imperial China, edited by G. William Skinner (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1977), 9–31; Richard von Glahn, “Towns and Temples: Urban Growth and Decline in the Yangzi Delta, 1100–1400,” in The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History, edited by Paul Jakov Smith and Richard von Glahn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003), 176–211. See also Billy K. L. So, Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China: The South Fukien Pattern, 946–1368 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000 ). Cf. Linda Cooke Johnson, “New Approaches to Studying Chinese Cities: A Review Article,” Journal of Asian Studies 60:2 (May 2001), 483–93; Ma, “The State of the Field of Urban China,” 365–8.

13 See Chye Kiang Heng, Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats: The Development Hawai‘i Study in Chinese

of Medieval Chinese Cityscapes (Honolulu: University of Press, 1999); Victor Cunrui Xiong, Sui-Tang Chang’an: A the Urban History of Medieval China (Ann Arbor: Center for Studies, University of Michigan, 2000 ); Yinong Xu, The

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Chinese City in Space and Time: The Development of Urban Form in Suzhou (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2000).

14 See Liang Keng-yao 梁庚堯, Songdai shehui jingji shi lunji 宋代社會經濟 史論集, 2 vols. (Taipei: Yunzhen wenhua, 1997), volume 1, 334–680, volume 2, 14–99, 165–218. 15 See The Sixth Five-Year Plan of the People’s Republic of China for Economic and Social Development, 1981–1985 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984), 204; Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guomin jingji he shehui fazhan di qige wunian jihua, 1986–1990 中華人民共和 國國民經濟和社會發展第七個五年計劃, 1986 – 1990 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1986), 128. Cf. He Yimin, “Chinese Urban History Studies Face the Twenty-First Century,” Chinese Studies in History 47:3 (Spring 2014), 77. The authors thank Michael Nylan for drawing their attention to the latter publication.

16 See Lin Zhengqiu 林正秋 and Jin Min 金敏, Nan Song gudu Hangzhou 南宋故都杭州 (Henan: Zhongzhou shuhua she, 1984); Zhou Feng 周峰, ed., Nan Song jingcheng Hangzhou 南宋京城杭州, revised edition (Hangzhou: Renmin chubanshe, 1997 [1988, 1984]). Cf. Lillian M. Li, “Cities in Chinese History,” Journal of Urban History 38:1 (2012), 164–65; Wu Songdi, “Tairiku Chūgoku ni okeru Sōdai toshi kenkyū kaiko,” 21–38; Yang Zhenli, “Jin ershiwunian lai Songdai chengshishi yanjiu huigu,” 223–49.

17 See Cheng Ziliang 程子良 and Li Qingyin 李清銀, eds., Kaifeng chengshi shi 開封城市史 (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 1993), 5, 59–71; Dai Junliang 戴均良, ed., Zhongguo chengshi fazhan shi 中國城 市發展史 (Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe, 1992 ), 10 ; Li Chuntang 李春棠, Fangqiang daota yihou: Songdai chengshi shenghuo c h a n g j u a n 坊墻倒塌以後：宋代城市生活長卷 ( C h a n g s h a : H u n a n chubanshe, 1993), 3; Lin Zhengqiu 林正秋, Nan Song ducheng Lin’an 南宋都城臨安 (Hangzhou: Xileng yinshe, 1986), es 1, 451; Wu Tao 吳濤, Bei Song ducheng Dongjing 北宋都城東京 (Henan: Henan renmin chubanshe, 1984), 119–27; Zhou Baozhu 周寶珠, Songdai Dongjing yanjiu 宋代東京研究 (Kaifeng: Henan daxue chubanshe, 1992), 429–86.

18 Wang Guoping 王國平, “Yi Hangzhou (Lin’an) wei li, huanyuan yige zhenshi de Nan Song: cong Nanhai yi hao chenchuan faxian yinfa de sikao (dai xu)” 以杭州 (臨安) 為例，還原一個真實的南宋：從南海一號沈 船發現引發的思考 ( 代序), editorial preface to Nan Song shi yanjiu congshu 南宋史研究叢書 (Hangzhou: Hangzhou chubanshe, 2006), 30.

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The series also has a preface by Xi Jinping 習近平, then Party Secretary of Zhejiang Province. Cf. He Zhaoquan 何兆泉, Nan Song mingren yu Lin’an 南宋名人與臨安, 1–4; Xu Jijun 徐吉軍, Nan Song ducheng Lin’an 南宋都城臨安 (Hangzhou: Hangzhou chubanshe, 2008), 514–15. Cf. also Chen Guocan 陳國燦, “Nan Song shimin jieceng tanxi” 南宋市民階 層探析, in Nan Song shi ji Nan Song ducheng Lin’an yanjiu 南宋史及南 宋都城臨安研究, edited by He Zhongli 何忠禮 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2009), vol. 1, 160–80; Liu Fang, Shengshi fanhua; Ning Xin 寧欣, “You Tang ru Song chengguan qu de jingji gongneng ji qi bianqian: jianlun dushi liudong renkou” 由唐入宋城關區的經濟功能及其 變遷：兼論都市流動人口, Zhongguo jingji yanjiu 中國經濟研究 3 (Sept. 2002), 116–25; Xu Jijun, Nan Song Lin’an shehui shenghuo 南宋臨安 社會生活 (Hangzhou: Hangzhou chubanshe, 2011).

19 Cf. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, translated by Steven Randall (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 91–108; Henri Lefebvre, Writings on Cities, edited and translated by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 100–17 (“the urban is more or less the oeuvre of its citizens instead of imposing itself upon them as a system, as an already closed book,” 117, italics in the original); Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1960), 1–2, 46–90; Joseph Rykwert, The Seduction of Place: The History and Future of the City (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 3–8.

20 See, for example, Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, 90–9; Cheng Ziliang and Li Qingyin, Kaifeng chengshi shi, 48–133; Heng, Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats, 8–16, 121–35; Lin Zhengqiu and Jin Min, Nan Song gudu Hangzhou; Lin Zhengqiu, Nan Song ducheng Lin’an; Yi Yongwen 伊永文, Xingzou zai Songdai de chengshi: Songdai chengshi fengqing tuji 行走在宋代的城市：宋代城市風情圖記 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005).

21 For a similar critique, see Stephen H. West, “The Interpretation of a Dream: The Sources, Evaluation, and Influence of the Dongjing meng Hua lu,” T’oung Pao 71 (1985), 63–4.

22 The idea that all cities in the Tang had walled wards and walled markets was introduced by Katō Shigeru in 1931. See Katō Shigeru 加藤繁, “Sōdai ni okeru toshi no hattatsu ni tsuite” 宋代に於ける都市の発達に就 いて, in Kuwabara hakase kanreki kinen tōyōshi ronsō 桑原博士還曆記 念東洋史論叢, edited by Kuwabara hakase kanreki kinen shukugakai 桑

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原博士還曆記念祝賀会 (Kyoto: Kōbundō shobō, 1931), 93–140. The idea is still universally accepted, the only disagreement being whether the walls around the wards came down in the ninth, the tenth, or the eleventh century. See, for example, Chen Zhen 陳振, Songdai shehui zhengzhi lungao 宋代社會政治論稿 (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2007), 175, 181–83; Cheng Ziliang and Li Qingyin, eds., Kaifeng chengshi shi, 57–8, 102; Dai Junliang, ed., Zhongguo chengshi fazhan shi, 20–1, 203–7; De Weerdt, “China: 600-1300,” 302–3; Heng, Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats, xvi, 1–2, 37–40 et passim; Hirata, “Songdai chengshi yanjiu,” 114; Ihara, “Tō-Sō jidai no Setsusei ni okeru toshi no hensen”; Ihara, “Kōnan ni okeru toshi keitai no hensen”; Kida Tomoo 木田知生, “Sōdai no toshi kenkyū wo meguru sho mondai: kokudo Kaifū wo chūshin to shite” 宋代の都市研究をめぐる諸 問題：國都開封を中心として, Tōyōshi kenkyū 37 : 2 ( 1978 ), 279 – 84 ; Liang Jianguo 梁建國, “Riben xuezhe guanyu Songdai Dongjing yanjiu gaikuang” 日本學者關於宋代東京研究概況, Zhongguo shi yanjiu dongtai 中國史研究動態 4 (April 2007), 23–4; Li Chuntang, Fangqiang daota yihou, 16-7; Liang Keng-yao, Songdai shehui jingjishi lunji, volume 1, 481; Liu Fang, Shengshi fanhua, 27-31; Naba, “Toshi no hattatsu to shomin seikatsu no kōjō,” 170–76, 186–87; Shiba Yoshinobu, Chūgoku toshi shi 中國都市史 (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppansha, 2002), 82–6; Yinong Xu, The Chinese City in Space and Time, 128; Wu Songdi, “Tairiku Chūgoku ni okeru Sōdai toshi kenkyū kaiko,” 22–3; Wu Tao, Bei Song ducheng Dongjing, 11 – 2 ; Yang Kuan 楊寬, Zhongguo gudai ducheng zhidu shi yanjiu 中國古代都城制度史研究 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993), 254, 264–67, 280–81; Yang Zhenli, “Jin ershiwunian lai Songdai chengshishi yanjiu huigu,” 222; Zhou Baozhu, Songdai Dongjing yanjiu, 16, 68–9, 232–33; Zhu Lingling 朱玲玲, “Fangli de qiyuan ji qi yanbian” 坊里的起源及其演變, in Zhongguo gudu yanjiu 中國古都研究, edited by Zhongguo gudu xuehui 中國古都學 會 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1987), 100–4. Christian de Pee will elaborate the argument against the universality of neighborhood walls in a future publication. Let it suffice here to observe that none of the many studies cited in this note offers evidence for the existence of walled wards outside the imperial capitals, either in the Tang or in the Song, and that the evidence cited for the existence of ward walls during the Tang or the Song incidentally confirms that they were unique to the capitals (where presumably such walls facilitated the protection of the person of the emperor by the convenient implementation of

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curfews). The one example Katō Shigeru cites of a “ward gate” (limen 里門) outside Song-dynasty Kaifeng, for example, refers to the prefectural capital of Yingtian, which was also the southern capital of the empire. See Katō, “Sōdai ni okeru toshi no hattatsu ni tsuite,” 105, citing Li Tao 李燾, Xu Zizhi tongjian changbian 續資治通鑑長編 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1992), 92.2118–9.

23 On genre as mediation between text and space see, for example, M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, edited by Michael Holquist, translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981 ), 84 – 258 ; Christian de Pee, The Writing of Weddings in Middle-Period China: Text and Ritual Practice in the Eighth through Fourteenth Centuries (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 1–20; William F. Hanks, Intertexts: Writings on Language, Utterance, and Context (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 133–64; Franco Moretti, Atlas of the European Novel, 1800–1900 (London: Verso, 1998). Cf. also Michael R. Curry, The Work in the World: Geographical Practice and the Written Word (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).

24 For earlier urban histories with a strong, critical literary sensibility see, for example, Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, esp. 56–7, 71, 81–2; Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, translated by H. M. Wright (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962); Stephen H. West, “The Interpretation of a Dream”; West, “Cilia, Scale, and Bristle: The Consumption of Fish and Shellfish in the Eastern Capital of the Northern Song,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47:2 (1987), 595–634; West, “Playing with Food: Performance, Food, and the Aesthetics of Artificiality in the Sung and Yuan,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 57:2 (1997), 67–106; West, “The Emperor Sets the Pace: Court and Consumption in the Eastern Capital of the Northern Song During the Reign of Huizong,” in Selected Essays on Court Culture in Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Lin Yaofu (Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 1999), 25–50; West, “Empresses and Funerals, Pigs and Pancakes: The Dream of Hua and the Rise of Urban Literature” (unpublished paper, 2000); West, “Spectacle, Ritual, and Social Relations: The Son of Heaven, Citizens, and Created Space in Imperial Gardens in the Northern Song,” in Baroque Garden Cultures: Emulation, Sublimation, Subversion, edited by Michel Conan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2005), 291–321. See also Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550–1850

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(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004); Tobie Meyer Fong, Building Culture in Early Qing Yangzhou (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).

25 See Chapter 1 , “Floating Sleeves, Willow Waists, and Dreams of Spring.”

26 See Chapter 2, “Eavesdropping on Zhang Xiaoxiang’s Musical World in Early Southern Song China.”

27 Ibid. 28 See Chapter 3, “Picturing Time in Song Painting and Poetry.” 29 See Chapter 5, “The Pains of Pleasure.” 30 Ibid. 31 See William F. Hanks, “Discourse Genres in a Theory of Practice,” American Ethnologist 14 (1987), 668–92. 32 De Pee, “Nature’s Capital,” Chapter 7. 33 Although often treated as a Southern Song text, Record of a Millet Dream (Meng liang lu 夢粱錄, 1334), by Wu Zimu 吳自牧, dates to the Yuan dynasty. In the postface to his annotated translation of this text, Umehara Kaoru has explained in detail why the cyclical date of Wu Zimu’s preface must refer to the year 1334, not 1274. See Umehara Kaoru, Mu ryō roku, 373–92.

34 De Pee, “Nature’s Capital,” Chapter 7. 35 See Chapter 8, “How Does an Objective Correlative Objectify?” 36 Ibid. 37 See Chapter 9, “A City of Substance.” 38 For confirmations of Weber’s arguments see, for example, F. W. Mote, “The Transformation of Nanking, 1350–1400,” in The City in Late Imperial China, 101–53; Yinong Xu, The Chinese City in Space and Time, 77 – 84 . For refutations of Weber’s arguments that confirm Weber’s terms of analysis see, for example, William T. Rowe, Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984), 3–14, 327–46; Si-yen Fei, Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009), 11–3, 247–52.

39 Max Weber, The City, translated and edited by Don Martindale and Gertrud Neuwirth (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1958), 65–6. Cf. Don Martindale, “Prefatory Remarks: The Theory of the City,” in Weber,

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The City, 50–2; Lawrence A. Scaff, “Weber, Simmel, and the Sociology of Culture,” in Georg Simmel: Critical Assessments, edited by David Frisby (London: Routledge, 1994), vol. 1, 252–74. For Georg Simmel’s sociology of the metropolis, see Georg Simmel, “Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben,” in Brücke und Tür: Essays des Philosophen zur Geschichte, Religion, Kunst, und Gesellschaft, edited by Margarete Susman and Michael Landmann (Stuttgart: K. F. Koehler Verlag, 1957), 227–42. See also David Frisby, “The Ambiguity of Modernity: Georg Simmel and Max Weber,” in Georg Simmel, vol. 1, 221–33; David Frisby, Cityscapes of Modernity: Critical Explorations (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2001), 100–58.

40 See Weber, The City, 80–1. On the circularity of Weber’s essay, cf. Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System a.d. 1250–1350 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), x, 77n19; Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), 16. On the commutation of European history into universalist social theory see, for example, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, second edition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008 [2000]), x-xiii, 3–46; R. Bin Wong, “Great Expectations: The ‘Public Sphere’ and the Search for Modern Times in Chinese History,” Studies in Chinese History 3 (October 1993), 7–49; R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), ix, 1–7.

41 See Simmel, “Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben”; Georg Simmel, “Der Raum und die räumliche Ordnungen der Gesellschaft,” in Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung, edited by Otthein Rammstedt (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992 ), 687–790. Cf. Philip J. Ethington, “Placing the Past: ‘Groundwork’ for a Spatial Theory of History,” Rethinking History 11.4 (December 2007), 479–81; Frisby, Cityscapes of Modernity, 100-58. On the disarticulation of A Dream of Paradise by historians, see West, “The Interpretation of a Dream,” 63 – 4 . It is appropriate that Janet L. Abu-Lughod cites Jacques Gernet’s “study of thirteenth-century Hangchow, then the largest and most advanced city in the world” as a text that contributed to her skepticism about Weber’s essay on The City. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, x, citing Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion. One might also

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mention that Marco Polo, a citizen of the medieval city of Venice, had no doubt that Hangzhou was “the best and the noblest city in the world,” even though he knew that its citizens “belong to the Great Khan” (thus failing Weber’s test of an autocephalous “urban community”). The authors thank Sharon Kinoshita for sharing with them the section on Hangzhou from her translation of Le Devisement dou monde (ca. 1310), from which the quoted phrases in the preceding sentence are taken.

42 On Simmel’s refusal of a systematic theory, see Georg Simmel, “Das Problem der Soziologie,” in Soziologie, 29–33. Cf. Frisby, “The Ambiguity of Modernity,” 230–31; Scaff, “Weber, Simmel, and the Sociology of Culture,” 269; Margarete Susman and Michael Landmann, “Einleitung,” in Brücke und Tür, v–vi, xi–xiii. On Walter Benjamin’s disposition toward fragmentation see, for example, Hannah Ahrendt, “Introduction: Walter Benjamin, 1892–1940,” in Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, edited by Hannah Ahrendt, translated by Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1968 [ 1955 ]), 1 – 51 ; Vanessa R. Schwartz, “Review Essay: Walter Benjamin for Historians,” The American Historical Review 106 : 5 ( 2001 ), 1741 – 43 ; Leon Wieseltier, “Preface,” in Walter Benjamin, Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, edited by Peter Demetz, translated by Edmund Jephcott (New York: Schocken Books, 2007 [1986]), vii–x.

43 On the flâneur and nineteenth-century Paris, see Walter Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, edited by Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983), 69–72, 524–69 (M); Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, translated by Harry Zohn (London: Verso, 1983), 35–66. See also Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, Paris as Revolution: Writing the Nineteenth-Century City (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994 ), 80–114; David Frisby, Cityscapes of Modernity, 27–51; Anke Gleber, The Art of Taking a Walk: Flanerie, Literature, and Film in Weimar Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Michael Opitz, “Lesen und Flanieren: Über das Lesen von Städten, vom Flanieren in Büchern,” in Aber ein Sturm weht vom Paradiese her: Texte zu Walter Benjamin, edited by Michael Opitz and Erdmut Wizisla (Leipzig: Reclam-Verlag, 1992), 162–81.

44 Hong Mai 洪邁, Yijian zhi 夷堅志 (Taipei: Mingwen shuju, 1994), III.9.443, as translated in Ronald Egan’s essay in this volume. The

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difficulty of telling man from ghost was a trope also in nineteenth-century Paris: “Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves / Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant!” Charles Baudelaire, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), vol. 1, 87, translated by William H. Crosby as: “A swarming anthill city, city full of dreams,/ Where ghosts in open daylight pluck at passersby.” William H. Crosby, transl., The Flowers of Evil and Paris Spleen (Brockport, NY: BOA Editions, 1991), 167.

Chapter One *

I would like to express my gratitude to Joseph Lam for his generosity in inviting me to the Conference on Hangzhou culture, and for his numerous helpful suggestions on various drafts of the paper upon which this chapter is based. I am grateful as well to Steve West for his illuminating discussion of the paper at the conference.

1

The notable exceptions here are scholars of Chinese theater, who have long identified the Song as a critical period in the development of Chinese theater arts, based in part on evidence from Hangzhou. I outline some of their findings in this essay.

2

The central role of entertainment in Song social life is elucidated in detail in Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity in China, 1000–1400 , especially chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5.

3

Joseph Lam, “The Presence and Absence of Female Musicians and Music in China,” in Dorothy Ko, Jahyun Kim Haboush, and Joan R. Piggott, eds., Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), 97–120.

4

I thank Joseph Lam for reminding me of the disparate ways that materials on ritual and entertainment performance were treated in traditional Chinese scholarship. Lam and a few other scholars have recently begun to investigate the rich surviving materials on Song performance ritual. See, for example, Kojima Tsuyoshi 小島毅, “Tuning and Numerology in the New Learning School,” and Joseph S. C. Lam, “Huizong’s Dashengyue, a Musical Performance of Emperorship and Officialdom,” in Patricia Buckley Ebrey and Maggie Bickford, eds., Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China, The Politics of Culture and the Culture

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of Politics (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 206–26 and 395–52, respectively. The present chapter addresses primarily sources on entertainment.

5

In English, see especially the pioneering work of Wilt Idema and Stephen H. West in Chinese Theater 1100–1400 , A Source Book (Münchener ostasiatische Studien, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH, 1982).

6

Dong Xijiu 董錫玖, Zhongguo wudao shi (Song, Liao, Jin, Xi Xia, Yuan bufen) 中國舞蹈史 ( 宋, 遼, 金, 西夏, 元部分) (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1984), 4–16. For detailed contemporary descriptions of Song entertainment (that is, non-ritual) dances and performers, see Chen Yang 陳暘, Yue shu 樂書 (SKQS vol. 211), j. 184–185, and Shi Hao 史浩, Maofeng zhen yin man lu 鄮峯真隱漫錄 (SKQS vol. 1141), j. 45–46 (I discuss Shi Hao’s descriptions below). Similar descriptions appear in Zhou Mi 周密, Wulin jiushi 武林舊事 (in Zhongguo shuju Shanghai bianjisuo 中國書局編輯所, ed., Dong jing meng hua lu (wai si zhong) 東京夢華錄, 外四種 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), j. 7.

7

Dong Xijiu, Zhongguo wudao shi, 19–20.

8

Jin Qianqiu 金千秋, Quan Song ci zhong de yuewu ziliao 全宋詞中的樂 舞資料 (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 1995), 14–15; see also Dong Xijiu’s comments in his postface to Jin’s book, 235.

9

Meng Yuanlao 孟元老, Dongjing menghualu zhu 東京夢華錄注, ed. Deng Zhicheng 鄧之誠 (Beijing: Zhongguo shangye chubanshe, 1982 ), 5.132–3; 6.154.

10 The central role of entertainment in Song social life is elucidated in detail in Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female, especially chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5. The discussion here constitutes a brief outline of developments explored more fully in the book.

11 Wilt Idema and Stephen West have examined these performances in detail. See Idema and West, Chinese Theater, 47–55. 12 Shi Hao, Maofeng zhen yin man lu, j. 45–46. 13 Wang Anzhong 王安仲, Chuliao ji 初竂集 (SKQS vol. 1127), 1.6a–7b. 14 For further detail, see Bossler, “Shifting Identities: Courtesans and Literati in Song China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 62.1 (June 2002): 5–37. 15 The court celebrations seem to have involved both a formal court

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banquet, called wen xiyan 聞喜宴, and a series of more informal gatherings that were in some periods subsidized by the court, called qiji 期集. See Tuotuo 脫脫 et. al., Song shi 宋史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977) (hereafter SS), 114.2711–12, 155.3608; Li Tao 李燾, Xu zizhi tongjian changbian 續資治通鑑長編 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995) (hereafter Changbian), 243.5921. In the prefectures, banquets for degree candidates were called “Deer cry banquets” lu ming yan 鹿鳴宴.

16 On the institution of household entertainers in the Tang and earlier, see Bossler, “The Vocabularies of Pleasure: Entertainers in the Tang Dynasty,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 72.1 (2012): 71–99.

17 For further discussion of the details of these developments and their implications for Song social life, see Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity, especially chapters 2 and 5.

18 Zhu Mu 朱穆, Gujin shiwen leiju 古今事文類聚 (SKQS vol. 925–929), 16.18b–19a. 19 Fan Gongcheng 範公偁, Guo ting lu 過庭錄, in Kong Fanli 孔凡禮, ed., Mo zhuang man lu; Guo ting lu; Ke shu 墨莊漫錄, 過庭錄, 可書, Tang Song shi liao biji congkan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002), 320. We are told that Shao’s poem brought the festivities to an abrupt end.

20 Huang Tingjian 黃庭堅, Huang Tingjian quanji 黃庭堅全集, ed. Liu Lin 劉琳 et. al., Li Yongxian 李勇先 and Wang Ronggui 王蓉貴 (Chengdu: Sichuan daxue chubanshe, 2001), zheng ji, 14.383 (舞鬟娟好。白髮黃花 帽。醉任旁觀嘲潦倒。扶老偏宜年小。舞回臉玉胸酥。纏頭一斛明珠。日日 梁州薄媚，年年金菊茱萸).

21 Sun Yingshi 孫應時, Zhu hu ji 燭湖集 (SKQS vol. 1166), 15.16b (梁山劉 制參園亭).

22 Zhao Dingchen 趙鼎臣, Zhu yin ji shi ji 竹隱畸士集 (SKQS vol. 1124), 6.2a. 23 As quoted in Jin Qianqiu, Quan Song ci zhong de yuewu ziliao, 165. 24 Lam, “The Presence and Absence of Female Musicians and Music in China,” 101–03. For a discussion of classical assumptions about the role of ritual music in governance and personal cultivation in the Song context, see Joseph S. C. Lam, “Huizong’s Dashengyue,” 410–411, 416.

25 See the second preface (序二) by Feng Jiexuan 馮潔軒, in Zheng Zhangling 鄭長鈴, Chen Yang ji qi Yue Shu yanjiu 陳暘及其《樂書》研究 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2005), 1.

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26 Zheng and Wei were both kingdoms of the Warring States Period, criticized by Confucius and later scholars for their seductive music. Their music and “licentious” customs were said to have led to their demise. Cf. Lam, “The Presence and Absence of Female Musicians and Music in China,” 97–99.

27 Two different versions of this passage survive, though the message is the same in both cases. Liu Bin 劉攽, Zhongshan shihua 中山詩話, in (Qing) He Wenhuan 何文煥, ed., Lidai shihua 歷代詩話, vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 1981), 294–295; Jiang Shaoyu 江少虞, Song chao shishi leiyuan 宋朝事實類苑vol. 2, (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1981), 232–233.

28 Shen Kuo 沈括, Meng xi bitan 夢溪筆談, in Zhu Yi'an 朱易安 et. al., eds., Quan Song biji, di 2 bian, vol. 3 (Zhengzhou: Daxiang chubanshe, 2006), 5.39. 29 The dance historian Chang Renxia acknowledges that several Song writers believed the Mulberry Branch Dance originated in areas to the south of China, but based on linguistic and other evidence he argues that it actually came from the Central Asian region of Tashkent. See Chang Renxia, 常任俠, Zhongguo wudao shihua 中國舞蹈史話 (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1983), 52–3.

30 Ge Lifang 葛立方, Yun yu yang qiu 韻語陽秋, in (Qing) He Wenhuan 何文煥, Lidai shihua 歷代詩話, vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981, 1992), 15.605. 31 Zhou Mi 周密, Qi dong ye yu 齊東野語, ed. Zhang Maopeng, Tang Song shiliao biji congkan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983, rpt. 1997), 10.189. 32 Fan Zuyu 范祖禹, Fan Taishi ji 范太史集 (SKQS vol. 1100), 27.7b–8a. 33 Chen Yang, Yue shu, 185.6a. In this manner, the focus in Song literati writings on Tang innovations and expansions of performing arts paradoxically helped to mask or downplay the continued innovations and expansion of those arts in the Song.

34 On this episode, see Lam, “Huizong’s Dashengyue,” 419–430. 35 Sima Guang 司馬光, Jiafan 家範 (SKQS vol. 696), 3.3a. 36 Zhang Zai 張載, Zhang Zai ji 張載集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1978), li yue, 263. 37 Cheng Hao 程顥 and Cheng Yi 程頤, Henan Cheng shi yi shu 河南程氏 遺書, 18.200 in Er cheng ji 二程集, ed. Wang Xiaoyu 王孝魚 (Beijing:

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Zhonghua shuju, 1981). For similar statements, see also 22 shang.277.

38 On the importance of the qin in Northern Song literati life, Lam, “Huizong’s Dashengyue,” 450–51. Zhao Sheng 趙升, Chao ye lei yao 朝野類要, in Wang Ruilai 王瑞來, ed., Chao ye lei yao (fu Chao ye lei yao yanjiu) 朝野類要 (附朝野類要研究), Tang Song shiliao biji congkan, (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007), 1.23 glosses wu dao as “[a set of] seven obeisances at the semi-monthly ceremonies” (wei wudao you qi bai da qi ju 謂舞蹈有七拜大起居). For a memorial complaining about officials who try to avoid the wudao ceremony by claiming illness, see Changbian 190.4628.

39 Note, for example, that students at the Imperial University objected when Huizong asked them to replace the professional performers in ritual court performances. See Lam, “Huizong’s Dashengyue,” 434–35.

40 See Lam, “The Presence and Absence of Female Musicians and Music in China,” 99. 103-06. With reference to the Ming dynasty, in particular, see Lam, “Reading Music and Eroticism in Late Ming Texts,” Nan Nü 12 (2010): 215–54, and Judith Zeitlin, “The Gift of Song: Courtesans and Patrons in Late Ming and Early Qing Cultural Production” (Hsiang Lectures on Chinese Poetry, Centre for East Asian Research, McGill University 4 (2008), 3–8.

41 See, for example, Liao Meiyun 廖美雲, Tang ji yanjiu 唐伎研究 (Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1995); Song Dexi 宋德熹, “Tangdai de jinü 唐 代的妓女,” in Bao Jialin 鮑家麟, ed., Zhongguo funü shilunji xuji 中國婦 女史論集續集 (Taipei: Daoxiang chubanshe, 1991), 67–121; Yao Ping,

“The Status of Pleasure: Courtesan and Literati Connections in T’ang China (618–907),” Journal of Women's History 14, no. 2 (July, 2002): 26–53; Paul Rouzer, Articulated Ladies: Gender and the Male Community in Early Chinese Texts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University Press, 2001).

42 For the relationship between ci poetry and banquet culture, see Kang-i Sun Chang, The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry, From Late T’ang to Northern Sung (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); Lois Fusek, Among the Flowers: the Hua-chien chi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982); Lin Shuen-fu, The Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’uei and Southern Song Tz’u Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 1–61; Anna Shields, Crafting a Collection: the Cultural Contexts and Poetic Practice of the Huajian ji (Collection from Among the Flowers) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center,

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Notes

2006); Ronald Egan, The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 237–94. On Liu Yong, see James R. Hightower, “The Songwriter Liu Yung, Part 1,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 41.2 (1981), 323–76 and “The Songwriter Liu Yung, Part 2,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42.1 (1982), 5–66 and Lap Lam, “A Reconsideration of Liu Yong and his ‘Vulgar’ Lyrics,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 33 (2003), 1–47. 43 Zhou Hui 周煇, Qing bo zazhi jiaozhu 清波雜志校注, ed. Liu Yongxiang 劉永翔, Tang Song shiliao biji congkan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,

1994), 9.413. The editor of this version of the texts notes that this anecdote appears in several other Song anecdotal collections, with slight variations in Chen’s poem. For other examples of erotic poems about young dancers, see Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣, Mei Yaochen ji bian nian jiaozhu 梅堯臣集編年校注, ed. Zhu Dongrun 朱東潤 (Shanghai: Shanghai gu ji chu ban she, 1980), 28.1005 and Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修, Ouyang Xiu quanji 歐陽修全集, ed. Li Yi’an 李逸安, Zhongguo gudian wenxue jiben congshu (Beijing: Zhongguo shu dian, 2001), 6.93, “Chong zeng Liu Yuanfu” 重贈劉原父. Both are discussed in Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity, 88. 44 Jin Qianqiu, Quan Song ci zhong de yuewu ziliao 4.153; 4.157; 4.160; Guo Xiangzheng 郭祥正, Qing shan ji 青山集, (SKQS vol. 1116), 15.1a. 45 A striking case of an entertainer becoming a mother of a literatus is the maternal grandmother of Yuan Jue袁桷 (1266–1327), who was an entertainer-concubine of Jue’s maternal grandfather Shi Binzhi 史賓之 (a grandson of the Grand Councilor Shi Hao 史浩). See Yuan Jue 袁桷, Qing rong jushi ji 清容居士集 (Congshu jicheng xinbian, vol. 65–66) (Taipei: Xinwen feng, 1985), 33.578–579; Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity, 208–09.

46 Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity, chapter 5. 47 Zhou Mi, Wulin jiu shi, 2.369. 48 Wu Zimu 吳自牧, Meng liang lu 夢梁錄 (in Meng Yuanlao 孟元老 et.al., Dongjing meng hua lu, wai si zhong 東京夢華錄，外四種 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 6.181.

49 Zhou Mi, Wulin jiushi, 442–43; Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity, 171–75. 50 Li Xinchuan, Jianyan yi lai xi nian yao lu, 13.12b–13a.

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51 For further detail, see Idema and West, Chinese Theater, 102–41; Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity, 167–71.

52 Shi Hao, Maofeng zhen yin man lu, j. 45–46. 53 Zhou Bida, Wenzhong ji, 36.20b. 54 “Green Pearl” was the name of a famous household courtesan in the Six Dynasties period; “Gold Valley” was a park built by the man who attempted to wrest Green Pearl away from her original owner.

55 Yao Mian, Yao Mian ji, 21.255. 56 For more detail, see Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity, chapters four and five.

57 Lam, “The Presence and Absence of Female Musicians and Music in China,” 106 ff. argues that, faced with contradiction between Confucian denunciation of female entertainments and their own desire to enjoy them, scholars “adopted a form of textual banishment and retreat.” I am suggesting here that the tendency to “banish” references to entertainment increased over the course of the Song.

58 Recent work by Hilde de Weerdt, and by Li Cho-ying and Charles Hartman, has begun to question the traditional narrative of the “rise of Cheng Zhu lixue.” See De Weerdt, Competition over Content: Negotiating standards for the Civil Service Examinations in Imperial China, 1127–1279 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007); Li Cho-ying and Charles Hartman, “A Newly Discovered Inscription by Qin Gui and Its Implications for the History of Song Daoxue,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 70.2 (2010), 387–488. See also the numerous discussions of this issue by Hoyt Tillman, most notably his Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1992).

59 This point is has been made by Liao Ben 廖奔, Song Yuan xiqu wenwu yu minsu 宋元戲曲文物與民俗 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1989), who shows that the significance of many Song artifacts relating to the development of theater arts were ignored until very recently.

60 Luo Zhufeng 羅竹風 et. al., ed., Han yu da cidian 漢語大詞典, 4:1295, entry for 樂語, definition 2. 61 On the sequence of court performances, see Idema and West, 172–174. 62 More specifically, the edict called for the zhiyu of the jiao fang performers to be composed by the Document Drafting office, and those

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of the Kaifeng prefectural (ya qian 衙前) performers to be composed by the Historiography office. This is interesting in that is reveals that both sets of performers participated in imperial banquets in Northern Song. See Xu Song 徐松, Song hui yao ji gao 宋會要輯稿 (Taipei: Xinwenfeng chuban gongsi, 1976) (hereafter SHY), zhiguan 22/3.

63 Eg., Liao Gang 廖剛, Gao feng wenji 高峯文集 (SKQS vol. 1142 ), 12.4a–5a, 「燕待新知越州王中大致語」; Hu Yin 胡寅, Fei ran ji 斐然集, in Rong Zhaozu 容肇祖, ed. Chong zheng bian; Fei ran ji 崇正辯,斐然集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993) 30.651, 「新州鹿鳴宴致語口號」.

64 Shi Hao, Maofeng zhen yin man lu, j. 37–38. Shi Hao evinced unusual interest in music and dance, and two other chapters (juan) of his surviving collected works are devoted to detailed accounts of court banquet performances, as discussed below (see Shi Hao, Mao feng zhen yin man lu, j. 45–46). Shi Hao does not explain why he recorded these performances.

65 Shi Juefan 釋覺範, Shimen wenzi chan 石門文字禪 (SKQS vol. 1116), 13.27a; Liu Yizhi 劉一止, Tiaoxi ji 苕溪集 (SKQS vol. 1132), 28.5a-b; Shi Hao, Maofeng zhen yin man lu 37.6a. 66 Song Peng 彭, Moke hui xi 墨客揮犀, in Kong Fanli 孔凡禮, ed., Hou qing lu, Moke hui xi, Xu moke hui xi 侯鯖録，墨客揮犀，續墨客揮犀, Tang Song shiliao biji congkan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002 ), 10.395.

67 Zhang Bangji 張邦基, Mo zhuang man lu 墨莊漫錄, in Kong Fanli 孔凡禮, ed., Hou qing lu, Mo ke hui xi, Xu mo ke hui xi 侯鯖録，墨客揮犀， 續墨客揮犀, Tang Song shiliao biji congkan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,

2002, 7.203–04. 68 Wang Mingqing 王明清, Hui zhu lu 揮塵錄, Song dai shiliao biji congkan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), hou lu 8.184. For late Southern Song example, see Zhang Duanyi 張端義, Gui er ji 貴耳集 (SKQS vol. 565), shang.20a. 69 The Huizong court’s obsession with auspicious signs has been well documented. See the various articles in Patricia Ebrey and Maggie Bickford, eds., Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), especially Bickford, “Huizong’s Paintings,” 453–513. On how this affected awards for exemplary behavior, see Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity, 146–47.

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70 See Zhou Bida 周必大, Wenzhong ji 文忠集 (SKQS vol. 1147–1149), 69.14b, in his funerary inscription for Li Bing 李邴. 71 SHY, zhiguan, 6/52. It may be significant that both demotions occurred during Huizong’s reign, when different factions fought to control the rhetoric of legitimate rulership.

72 Lit. “Xing long jie” (興龍節), the festival was the celebration of Zhezong 哲宗’s birthday. See Wang Mingqing, Hui zhu lu, qian lu 1.1–2. 73 Hong Mai 洪邁, Rong zhai suibi 容齋隨筆 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1973, 1995), sibi 15.786. 74 SHY, chongru 2/28. 75 Pan Zimu 潘自牧, Ji zuan yuanhai 記纂淵海 (SKQS vol. 930–932), 34.46a. 76 Liu Kezhuang 劉克莊, Hou cun ji 後村集 (SKQS vol. 1180), 39.11a. 77 The text is also called Songwen jian 宋文鑑. 78 Cheng Bi 程珌, Ming shui ji 洺水集 (SKQS vol. 1171), 9.20a–b. 79 Liu Xun 劉壎, Yin ju tong yi 隱居通議 (SKQS vol. 866), 4.10b–11, 22.5a–b, 22.11b, 23.15a. 80 The phrase paiyu that Wang uses here has a double meaning of “jokes” and elaborate parallel prose.

81 Wang Yishan 王義山, Jiacun leigao 稼村類稿 (SKQS vol. 1193 ) 30.4b–5a. 82 SS 345.10955, 471.13698. 83 The other two were Zhang Mao 章懋 (1436–1522), and Zhuang Chang 莊昶 (1437–99). Like Huang, both had recently received jinshi degrees and been promoted to the Hanlin Academy. The memorial appears in Zhang Mao 章懋, Fengshan ji 楓山集 (SKQS vol. 1254), 1.1a–5a.

84 Zhang Tingyu 張廷玉 et. al., Ming shi 明史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974, rpt. 1991), 13.164. 85 Qiu Jun 丘濬, Chongbian Chongtai gao 重編瓊臺槁, (SKQS vol. 1248), 11.1a–2b. 86 Yang Shen 楊愼, Sheng an ji 升菴集 (SKQS vol. 1270), 68.1a-b. 87 Yong Rong 永瑢 et. al., Qin ding Siku quanshu zongmu 欽定四庫全書 總目 (SKQS vol. 1–5), 159.31b. 88 Yong Rong et. al., Qin ding Siku quanshu zongmu, 158.2b.

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89 Thus the emperor insisted that banquet writings be expunged from Hu Su’s 胡宿 Wengong ji 文恭集, and from Liu Qi’s 劉跂 Xueyi ji 學易集. See the imperial prefaces in the Siku quanshu editions, as well as Yong Rong et. al., Qin ding Siku quanshu zongmu, juan shou 1, 9b–11a. Interestingly, one reason we have as much evidence about performance as we do is that in several cases the Siku editors seem to have evaded the emperor’s command. They pay lip service to the imperial view, asserting that banquet writings and other non-canonical ceremonial writings “are not a proper model for writing and cannot be used for instruction” (非文章正軌不可爲訓). Still, they point out that these genres were widely used in the Song, and say that although they should be expunged from published versions, they are preserving them temporarily (often appended to the end of the work). See Yong Rong et al., Qin ding Si ku quan shu zong mu, 152.43a–44a (for Huayang ji 華陽集), 156.12a (for Danyang ji 丹陽集); and Gao Side 髙斯得, Chi tang cungao 恥堂存稿 (SKQS vol. 1182), tiyao, 2b.

90 Likewise, although the Song has long been recognized for the flourishing of the ci genre, attention to the entertainment origins of the genre has been a fairly recent phenomenon. For one exemplary study, see Wang Ning 王甯, Song Yuan yueji yu xiju 宋元樂妓與戲劇 (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 2003).

91 On this point see especially the work of scholars on Song Buddhism, such as the collected articles in Peter Gregory and Daniel Getz, Buddhism in the Sung (Honolulu: Kuroda Institute, University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999) and Mark Halperin, Out of the Cloister: Literati Perspectives on Buddhism in Sung China, 960–1279 (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006).

Chapter Two 1

“Ti Lin’an di 題臨安邸” by Lin Sheng 林升; translation by Shuen-fu Lin, “North and South: The Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1: To 1375, edited by Kang-I Sun Chang and Stephen Owen (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 536.

2

The author would like to thank Christian de Pee for bibliographic citations to studies on Chinese ritual texts and his critical suggestions for correcting and revising drafts of this essay.

Notes

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3

For two authoritative Chinese views of Song dynasty music, see Yang Yinliu 楊蔭瀏, Zhongguo gudai yinyue shigao 中國古代音樂史稿 (Beijing: Renmin yinyue, 1981), in particular, 290–366; and Feng Wenci 馮文慈, “Yinyue, wudao, xiqu di fanrong yu fazhan” 音樂舞蹈戲曲的繁榮與 發展, in Zhonghua wenmingshi 中華文明史, edited by Han Xinbao 韓新保 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1994), 694–755. There is a sizable collection of studies written in Chinese and Western languages on Song dynasty music. For a review of current studies, see Luo Qin 洛秦, “Daixu: shixue guannian yu Songdai yinyue yanjiu di yiyi” 代序：史學觀念與宋代音樂研究的意義, in Lin Cuiqing 林萃青 (Joseph Lam), Songdai yinyueshi lunwenji: lilun yu miaoshu 宋代音樂史 論文集：理論與描述 (Historical Studies on Song Dynasty Music: Theories and Narratives) (Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue xueyuan chubanshe, 2012), 1–15. Few studies have addressed Song dynasty music and musical culture as a musical-social phenomenon that is driven and experienced by individual patrons, performers, and audiences.

4

Fu Shousun 富壽蓀 ed., Fan Shihu ji 范石湖集 (Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 2006), 154.

5

Hu Caifu 胡才甫 ed., Wang Yuanliangji jiaozhu 汪元量集校注 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1999), 233.

6

See Shuen-fu Lin, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’uei and Southern Sung Tzu’s Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 84–85.

7

A guide to such literary materials that provides a model for their interpretation is Jin Qianqiu 金千秋, Quan Songci zhong di yuewu ziliao 全宋詞中的樂舞資料 (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 1990).

8

For a representative study, see Pauline Yu ed., Voices of the Song Lyric in China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994), in particular, Lin Shuen-fu’s discussion of poetry and music, “The Formation of a Distinct Generic Identity for the Tz’u” in that same anthology, pages 3–29 (see in particular 6–14). See also, Liu Yaomin 劉堯民, Ci yu yinyue 詞與音樂 (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1982).

9

There is a substantive body of musicological studies on these issues. On theories of soundscape, see Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1994). For a stimulating study on music and culture, see Jacque Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985).

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10 For another application of the “musiking” concept, see my “Imperial Music Agency in Ming Music Culture” in Culture, Courtiers and Competition: The Ming Court (1368–1644 ), edited by David Robinson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 269–320. I have been developing the concept as a musicological and analytical tool since 2006 . It is inspired by Christopher Small’s insightful theory of musicking; see his Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1998). To underscore the distinct meanings and implications of my term “musiking,” it is spelled unconventionally—with no “c.” Small’s theory is general, and thus cannot be applied to specific analysis of world music and musical cultures. Chinese historical music, which manifests in distinct cultural-social-political contexts, and is associated with particular aesthetics, biographies, repertories, composition and performance theories and practices, demands a theoretical tool more systematic than what Small proposed. For representative comments on Small’s important theory, see Charles Keil’s review in Ethnomusicology (vol. 44, no. 1, 2000), 161–63; and David J. Elliot’s “Music and Affect: The Praxial View,” Philosophy of Music Education Review, vol. 8, no. 2 (Fall, 2000), 79–88; see in particular page 81. Small’s musicking theory has stimulated a number of hypotheses and studies on music as social performance and discursive practice. For a recent example, see Gary Tomlinson, “Evolutionary Studies in the Humanities: The Case of Music,” Critical Inquiry, vol. 39, no. 4 (summer 2013), 647–75.

11 Zhang’s biographical data discussed in this essay are primarily taken from Huang Peiyu 黃珮玉, Zhang Xiaoxiang yanjiu 張孝祥研究 (Hong Kong: Sanlian, 1993); Wan Minhao 宛敏灝, “Zhang Xiaoxiang nianpu 張孝祥年譜,” Cixue 詞學 (1983/2) and (1985/3); Wan Minhao, “Zhang Xiaoxian,” in Zhongguo lidai zhuming wenxuejia pingchuan 中國歷代 文學家評傳, volume 2 (1988); and Wan Xinbin 宛新彬, Zhang Xiaoxiang ziliao huibian 張孝祥資料匯 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006). The last item is a particularly handy reference; it is hereafter listed as ZLHB.

12 A recent and informative study on Shi Hao and Southern Song music and dance is Sun Xiaojing, “The Sound of Silence: Daqu (big-suite) and Medieval Chinese Performance,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2012.

13 Zongxing lishu (ZXLS) 中興禮書, Xuxiu Siku quanshu edition

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(Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2002–5), 159.11b. See also Peng Guozhong 彭國忠, ed., Zhang Xiaoxiang shiwenji 張孝祥詩文集 (hereafter ZXSWJ; Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 2001), 8.

14 See note 11 for bibliographic details on Zhang’s biographical sources. 15 These appointments included: Case Reviewer in the Court of Judicial Review 左承事郎 (1154/4 to 1155/12); Proofreader in the Department of Palace Library 秘書省正字 (1155/12); Vice Director of the Ministry of Rites 禮部員外郎 (1158/1–8); Acting Imperial Diarist and Reviewer in the Imperial Genealogy Office 試起居舍人兼修玉牒所檢討官 (1158/8); Concurent and Probational Secretariat Drafter 兼權中書舍人 (1158/9); Acting Secretariat Drafter 試中書舍人 (1159/6); Senior Compiler in the Palace of Gathered Scholars 集英殿修撰 (1162/10). 16 ZLHB, 112 – 14 ; see also Huang Peiyu, Zhang Xiaoxiang yanjiu, 38–39. 17 Zhang’s local appointments included: Supervisor of the Shrine to Emperor Taizong 提舉江州太平興國宮 ( 1159 / 8 ); Administrator of Fuzhou County 知撫州 (1162); Administrator of Suzhou Prefecture 知平 江府 (1163/5); Officer Left on Guard in Jiankang 健康留守 (1164/2); Administrator of Jiankang Prefecture 知健康府 (1164/2–10); Administrator of Jingjiang Prefecture 知靜江府 (1165/4–1166/4). 18 Wan Minhao, “Zhang Xiaoxiang huainian qifu ci kaoshi 張孝祥懷念棄 婦詞考,” Anhui shida xuebao 安徽師大學報 (1988/2), 108–14. 19 Jiangpu huangyueling NanSong Zhang Tonzhi fufu mu” 江浦黃悅嶺南宋 張同之夫婦墓 , Wenwu文物 (1973/4). 20 ZLHB, 81. 21 ZLHB, 18. 22 ZLHB, 103. 23 See Zhou Mi, “Dali 大禮,” in his Wulin jiushi 武林舊事 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1984), 6–10. 24 Zhang Xiaoxiang, “Qigengding taichang yuezhang zhazi” 乞更定太常樂 章劄子 in ZXSWJ, 201–2. 25 See note 12. 26 Ibid. 27 For an insightful study of the relations between ritual and musical texts and their performances, see Martin Kern, “Shijing Songs as Performance

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Texts: A Case Study of ‘Chuci’ (Thorny Caltrop),” Early China 25 (2000), 49–111. Kern’s argument that ritual texts which often describe performances in detail are not “just descriptive or prescriptive, but constitutive” (page 66), is particularly pertinent here.

28 ZXSWJ, 8. The phrase says: “Woyue beiyi” 我樂備矣. 29 See “Dasiyue” 大司樂, in Zhouli jinzhu jinshi 周禮今注今釋, edited and annotated by Lin Yin 林尹 (Bejing: Shumu chubanshe, 1985), 231–50. 30 ZXLS, 159.12b. The phrase runs, “Huanjie anke, shuji shiting” 緩節 安歌，庶幾是聽.

31 Zhang Xiaoxiang, “Zuo guihe zuo jiahe” 作歸禾作嘉禾 in ZXSWJ, 409–11. 32 For a study on Northern Song state sacrificial music and its yayue musical culture, see Joseph S. C. Lam, “Huizong’s Dashengyue, a Musical Performance of Emperorship and Officialdom,” in Huizong and the Culture of Northern Song China, edited by Patricia Ebrey and Maggie Brickford (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2006), 395–452.

33 For a study on the syllabic style and its cultural significance in Southern Song China, see Joseph S. C. Lam, “A Matter of Style: State Sacrificial Music and Cultural-Political Discourse in Southern Song China (1127– 1279),” in the Oxford Handbook of New Cultural History of Music, edited by Jane Fulcher (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 403–27.

34 ZXSWJ, 73; the referenced phrase reads: 鳥鳥聲樂作初晴 (Birds chirp and announce the dawn). ZXSWJ, 114: 聽松聽水日高眠 (Listening to the sound of the pine trees and flowing water, I sleep until late in the day).

35 ZXSWJ, 42: 群山羅豆登，萬籟酣笙鏞 (The mountains present a feast of offerings, and the air is filled with sounds of the mouth organ and bells).

36 ZXSWJ, 56 : 試向靜處聽，空濛有笙鶴 (Listen where it is quiet, and through the mist, there are cranes calling).

37 ZXSWJ, 40: 路回聞鐘聲，寶刹隱翠 (On the road home, I heard the bell’s echoes; among the trees, I spy the Buddhist temple hidden). And ZXSWJ, 28: 縹緲見鐘樓，鐘梵聲清圓 (Vaguely I make out [the temple’s] bell tower, but I clearly hear the pure resonance of the bell).

38 ZXSWJ, 60: 蛙聲作鼓 (Frogs croaking makes drumming music). And ZXSWJ, 122: 不嫌蛙蠅相喧 (I don’t mind frogs and flies squabbling).

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39 ZXSWJ, 16: 車帆打鼓聲 (The rolling sails sound like drumbeats). 40 ZXSWJ, 66: 夜聲先到竹窗幽 (Meaningful are the night sounds that reach through the bamboo window). ZXSWJ, 52: 夜半雨鳴廊 (In the middle of the night, raindrops rattle along the corridor.) ZXSWJ, 18: 臥聽敧簷竹折枝 (Lying in bed, I listen to the bamboo branches thrashing the eves and cracking).

41 ZXSWJ, 69: 軍書徹夜聽鳴鈴 (Writing documents through the night in my camp office, I heard the soldiers ringing security bells).

42　ZXSWJ, 347: 屬纊而誦佛之聲猶不絕 (You wore plain silk and endlessly chanted Buddhist sutras).

43 ZXSWJ, 151: 再拜為親壽，起舞自作曲 (Bowing repeatedly to wish my parents longevity, I dance to a tune I had composed).

44 ZXSWJ, 120: 不嫌歌板相喧 (I don’t mind noisy singing and the playing of clappers).

45 ZXSWJ, 122 : 要知二人唱必和 (The two of us sing harmoniously). ZXSWJ, 114: 憶對清歌重慨然 (I remember how we sang and lament anew).

46 ZXSWJ, 159: 實大而聲宏 (His body grand and his voice resonant). 47 ZXSWJ, 17: 人來採蓮唱歌起 (People come to pick lotus flowers and start up singing); ZXSWJ, 18: 老農歌舞手作拍 (The old farmers sing and dance, making rhythmic beats by clapping their hands).

48 ZXSWJ, 20: 畫角一聲城欲閉 (Prompted by the sounding of the painted horn, the city gates close).

49 ZXSWJ, 71: 邊箭收聲江不波 (As the river makes no waves, the soldiers’ arrows stop flying and make no sound).

50 ZXSWJ, 28 : 向來歌舞處, 荒棘擁城雉……橫撞鐘萬石, 妙響警昏醉 (The place where songs and dancers once performed is now filled with thorns and pheasants. . . Randomly struck, the bell echoes among the mountain stones, their resonant sounds awakened intoxicated citizens). See Liang Delin 梁德林, “Zhang Xiaoxiang zai Guangxi de wenxue c h u a n g z u o ” 張孝祥在廣西的文學創作, G u a n g x i w e n s h i 廣西文史, 2012/3); http://2010.cvicom/QK/82938X/201003/35262959.html; accessed on February 13, 2013.

51 ZXSWJ, 103: 鼓發營田市，別浦棹歌還 (Starting the journey in Yingtian city amidst drum calls; saying farewell at the pier and returning amidst boatman’s songs).

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52 ZXSWJ, 92: 聞說收兵後，謳吟雜雅歌 (I hear that after the soldiers’ withdrawal, people’s causal singing became mixed in with the yayue songs).

53 ZXSWJ, 82: 饑腸得酒作雷鳴，痛飲狂歌不自程 (My hungry guts receive the wine with a roar . . . I drink with abandon and sing out wildly).

54 ZXSWJ, 92: 無路排閶闔，聊當扣角歌 (I find no road leading to the palace gate, and I substitute processional songs with my own singing).

55 ZXSWJ, 429: 哭公失聲 (We wept that you had lost your voice). 56 ZXSWJ, 79: 問公鐘磬幾時編 (I ask my friend when he would set up the bell-chimes and stone-chimes again).

57 ZXSWJ, 188 . The poem runs: 謂聲非鐘，謂鐘非聲，離是二想，此鐘 長鳴。聲無盡藏，鐘亦不壞，如雷如霆，震此嶺海 (Sounds do not make

bells, and bells are not merely sounds. Forgetting these two facts, this bell rings all the time. Its sounds hold indefinite meanings and its body will not break. Its thunderous roars shake this sea of mountains.)

58 ZXSWJ, 56: 十二鳳凰鳴，秋風何處聲 (Hearing the twelve phoenixes chirp, one asks where the autumn breeze will call).

59 ZXSWJ, 461–62. This translation of mine benefited from my reading of Xu Yuanzhong’s translation in 300 Song Lyrics (Changsha: Hunan chubanshe, 1996), 408–409. 60 ZLHB, 82 61 http://wenku.baidu.com/view/92ee9adcad51f01dc281f18b.html; accessed on August 13, 2011. 62 Zhang Xiaoxiang, “Boshaman: zeng zhengji,” in Zhang Xiaoxiang ci jiaojian edited by Wan Minhao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2010), 163. See also http://www.haoshici.com/1_0_E5BCA0E5AD9DE7A5A5_0_0_0. html. 中國詩詞網·張孝祥詩詞全集; accessed on August 13, 2011. Zhang’s detailed description of the courtesan’s fingers as delicate red jade is both erotic and musical. It vividly evokes a male and informed patron playing attention to a female musician’s performance, which included plucking and pressing the strings of the zither and moving individual bridges (zhu 柱) under the strings to tune them.

63 Zhang Xiaoxing, “ Shuidiao getou: Fanxiangjian,” in Zhang Xiaoxiang ci jiaojian edited by Wan Minhao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2010), 9; see also http://www.haoshici.com/1_0_E5BCA0E5AD9DE7A5A5_0_0_0. html 中國詩詞網·張孝祥詩詞全集; accessed on August 13, 2011.

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64 ZXSWJ, 462. http://www.haoshici.com/1_0_E5BCA0E5AD9DE7A5A5 _0_0_0.html 中國詩詞網·張孝祥詩詞全集; accessed on August 13, 2011. My translation has benefited from my reading of Xu Yuanzhong’s translation in 300 Song Lyrics (Changsha: Hunan chubanshe, 1996 ), 404–407.

65 Rulan Chao Pian, Sonq Dynasty Musical Sources and Their Interpretation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 9, 154–73. 66 See Shuen-fu Lin, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition. For a discussion of Jiang’s musical life and biography, see Joseph S. C. Lam, “Writing Music Biographies of Historical Asian Musicians: The Case of Jiang Kui (a.d. 1155–1221),” World of Music, 43/1 (2001), 69–95.

67 See Zhou Mi’s Wulin jiushi, Nai Deweng’s Ducheng jisheng 都城紀勝, and Wu Zimu’s Menglianglu 夢粱錄, in Dongjing meng Hua lu (wai sizhong) 東京夢華錄（外四種) (Shanghai: Gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1965).

Chapter Three *

My thanks to Christian de Pee for comments that much improved the quality of this chapter.

1

See also Chapter 4, p.84 and Chapter 8, p. 221.

2

Stephen Toulmin and Jane Goodfield, The Discovery of Time (Chicago, 1965), 104.

3

For a classic analysis of this mode of thinking in the European tradition see Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: a Study of the History of an Idea, the William James Lectures Delivered at Harvard University, 1933 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953 ), 147–49.

4

Liu Zongyuan, Fengjian lun, in Lü Ch’ing-fei, ed., Liu Zongyuan sanwen (Liu Zongyuan’s prose works), 3 vols., (Taipei, 1993), I: 23–32. See also Jaeyoon Song, “Redefining Good Government: Shifting Paradigms in Song Dynasty (960–1279) Discourse on ‘Fengjian,’” T’oung Pao 97 (2011), 301–43.

5

Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi quanji, ed., Liu Mingjie 劉明傑 (Zhuhai: Zhuhai Press, 1996), 755– 56.

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Notes

6

Martin J. Powers, “Discourses of Representation in Tenth and Eleventh Century China,” in Susan Scott, ed., The Art of Interpreting: Papers in Art History from Pennsylvania State University VIII, 1996, 95–101.

7

Martin J. Powers, “When is a Landscape Like a Body?” in Landscape, Culture, and Power, ed., Yeh Wen-hsin (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, 1998), 1–21.

8

Shih, Shou-chien, “Positioning Riverbank,” in Judith Smith and Wen C. Fong, Issues of Authenticity in Chinese Painting (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999), 115–48.

9

See Linda Cooke Johnson, “The place of ‘Qingming shanghe tu’ in the historical geography of Song dynasty Dongjing,” The Journal of SongYuan Studies 26 ( 1996 ): 145 – 82 ; Ihara Hiroshi, “The Qingming shanghe tu by Zhang Zeduan and its Relation to Northern Song Society: Light and Shadow in the Painting,” trans., Yoshida Mayumi, The Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 31 (2001), 135–56.

10 Peter K. Bol, This Culture of Ours: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 32–75. 11 This classic study is still useful in part because of the large number of original texts discussed: Susan Bush, The Chinese Literati on Painting (Cambridge, 1971), 22–86; another useful essay is Robert E. Harrist, “Art and Identity in Northern Song: Evidence from Gardens,” in Maxwell K. Hearn and Judith G. Smith, eds., Arts of the Sung and Yuan (New York, 1996), 147–59.

12 Susan Bush, The Chinese Literati on Painting, 33–34, 189. 13 For a critical review of scholarship on the Song literati see Jerome Silbergeld, “Changing Views of Change: The Song-Yuan Transition in Chinese Painting Histories.” In V. Desai, ed., Asian History in the Twenty-First Century (Williamstown, MA Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 40–63.

14 Martin Powers, “The Temporal Logic of Citation in Chinese Painting,” Art History vol. 37, no. 4, 2014, 745–63. 15 “When one savors [Wang Wei’s] poems, there are paintings in them/ When one looks at [Wang Wei’s] pictures, there are poems.” Bush, Chinese Literati on Painting, 24–25.

16 Powers, “Discourses of Representation,” 92–93; 104–5. 17 These developments are well covered in the standard literature. Those

Notes

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requiring more detail may consult Susan Bush, “Chin Literati Painting and Landscape Tradition,” National Palace Bulletin 21: 4–5 (1986), 1–25; Powers, “Discourses of Representation,” op. cit., 101–4.

18 Amy McNair, “Su Shih’s Copy of the “Letter on the Controversy over Seating Protocol,” Archives of Asian Art XLIII (1990), 38–48. 19 Hui-shu Lee, Exquisite Moments: West Lake and Southern Song Art (New York: China Institute, 2001), 44–47. 20 Richard Edwards, The World Around the Chinese Artist: Aspects of Realism in Chinese Painting (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, 2000).

21 Hans Frankel, The Flowering Plum and the Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976). 22 Wei Qingzhi (c. 13th century), Shiren yuxie (Jade Splinters from the Poets), annot., Wang Zhongwen (Beijing: Zhonghu shuju, 2007 ), 170–78; 201–20; 231–71. 23 Wai-kam Ho, “The Literary Concepts of ‘Picture-like’ and ‘Picture-Idea’ in the Relationship between Poetry and Painting,” in Alfreda Murck and Wen C. Fong, eds., Words and Images: Chinese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting (Princeton University Press, 1991), 359–404.

24 Shiren yuxie, 173. 25 Shiren yuxie, 53, 112, 229–37, 493. 26 My thanks to Ronald Egan for help and advice in interpreting Mrs. Wei’s poem.

27 Shiren yuxie, 202.

Chapter Four *

The author would like to thank Professor Shuen-fu Lin, one of the editors of this book, and Professor Gang Liu, the translator, for their inspirational suggestions and comments on a variety of academic issues, which have made the writing and revision of this article a pleasurable and rewarding process. The author and the translator also wish to thank Terre Fisher for her expert editing that has gone beyond stylistic fine-tuning to include perceptive questions about a number of larger issues in good academic writing.

286 

Notes

1

Xia Chengtao 夏 承 燾 (1900–86) believes this group of poems was written in 1201, the first year of the Jiatai Reign. In his Jiang Baishi xinian 姜白石系年 (The Chronicle of the White Stone Daoist), he argues, “In 1201, a xinyou 辛酉 year and the first year of the Jiatai reign, [Jiang Kui] was 47, and the ‘Poems on Past Travels’ should have been written in the fall of that year.” In an annotation to this argument, Xia Chengtao says, “His [Jiang Kui’s] ‘Preface’ says, ‘After many years, I finally find a place to settle down.’ After a chronological examination of his life, I found that he did not travel far except in the years of wushen 戊申 [1188], jiyou 己酉 [1189], gengxu 庚戌 [1190], and from dingsi 丁巳 [1197] to this year (i.e., 1201). The first block-print version of the book places this poem at the end of the volume. Judging from this, we know that this group of poems was written in the xinyou year.” See Xia Chengtao, Tang Song ciren nianpu 唐宋詞人年譜 (The Chronicles of the Song Lyric Writers of Tang and Song) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1979), 440.

2

The fifteen pieces in “Poems on Past Travels” treat the following places: 1) “Lake Dongting spreads out eight hundred li” 洞庭八百里 recounts the poet’s travel to Hunan in 1186 (the thirteenth year of the Chunxi reign). 2) “I let my boat float freely in Longyang County” 放舟龍陽縣 gives another account of his Hunan travels that same year. 3) “The nine mountain peaks are like the heads of stallions” 九山如馬首 comes from that same trip. 4) “The wind was soughing in Xiangyin County” 蕭 蕭 湘 陰 縣 is once again about that same trip. 5) “Setting out on five-plank boat” 我乘五板船 is from the poet’s visit to his sister in Gumian 古沔 during the winter of 1182. 6) “It was cold at the White Horse Ferry” 天寒白馬渡 is also from that visit to his sister in Gumian. 7) “I set off down the Great River” 揚舲下大江 recalls the poet’s travel east down the Yangtze River in 1186. 8) “The grass field at Changsha” 青草長沙境 recalls the poet’s visit to his sister in Gumian in 1179 (the sixth year of the Chunxi reign). 9) “In the past I travelled to the Peach Blossom Mountain” 昔 遊 桃 源 山 recounts a trip to Hunan in 1186 (the thirteenth year of the Chunxi reign). 10) “In the past I traveled to the foot of Mount Heng” 昔遊衡山下 is about that same travel in Hunan. 11) “In the past I traveled to the top of Mount Heng” 昔遊衡山上 is from the same trip. 12) “There were no mountains anywhere around Haoliang” 濠 梁 四 無 山 refers to the poet’s travel to Fengyang in Anhui Province in 1176 (the third year of the Chunxi reign). 13) “Having left Hukou County” 既離湖口縣 is from the poet’s trip down the Yangtze River in 1186. 14)

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“When the snow stopped and sky cleared, I sailed down the Yangtze River” 雪霽下揚子 is from the poet’s trip passing through Jinling in 1187 (the fourteenth year of the Chunxi reign. 15) “In the Daoist temple on Mount Heng” 衡山為真宮 again refers to travels In Hunan in 1186 (the thirteenth year of the Chunxi reign). Translator’s note: The lines in the brackets are the first line of each of the fifteen poems.

3

See Liu Kezhuang 劉克莊 , “With Hu Bo’an, the Edict Attendant, in the Yiyou Year” 乙酉與胡伯闇待制 , in the Houcun xiansheng da quanji 後 村先生大全集 (Complete Works of Master Houcun), vol. 128, included in Sibu congkan chubian 四部叢刊初編 (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1919–22), 1140.

4

See Tuotuo 脫脫 , “Emperor Xiaozong 1” ( 孝宗一 ), in Songshi 宋史 (History of the Song Dynasty), vol. 33 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), 617.

5

See Dai Fugu 戴復古 , Shiping shiji 石屏詩集 (Collection of Poems by Shiping), vol. 7, included in Sibu congkan guangbian 四部叢刊廣編 , vol. 39 (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1981), 126.

6

The most famous one is Wang Can’s 王 粲 (117–217) “Rhapsody on Climbing the Tower” (Denglou fu 登 樓 賦 ), in which he writes, “I climbed the tower and looked around, to use this leisure time to let my worries pass away. . . I tried to see far across the plains, but my view was blocked by the steep mountains.” See Wang Can ji 王 粲 集 (A Collection of Wang Can’s Works) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 19.

7

Translator’s note: The translation of this song lyric with preface is taken, with slight modification, from Shuen-fu Lin, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’uei and Southern Sung Tz’u Poetry (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 72–73.

8

Jiang Kui, Jiang Baishi ci biannian jianjiao 姜白石詞編年箋校 (An Annotated and Chronological Collection of Jiang Baishi’s Song Lyrics), annotated by Xia Chengtao (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji chubanshe, 1981), 1.

9

See “Wei Linggong 衛靈公 ” (Duke Ling of Wei) in the Analects included in Zhu Xi’s Si shu jizhu 四書集注 (The Variorum Edition of the Four Books) (Hong Kong: T’ai-p’ing Book Co., 1964), 108.

10 See “Gaozi 告子 ” in Mencius included in Zhu Xi’s Si shu jizhu, 187. 11 See “General Outline of Poetry” (Shi gai 詩概 ), in Liu Xizai’s 劉熙載 (1813–81) Yi gai 藝 概 (General Outline of Art) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1978), 59.

288 

Notes

12 See Zhou Bida 周必大 (1126–1204), “Collections of Poems by Du Fu and Tao Qian Gained after the Wars” (Luan hou bing de Tao Du er ji 亂 後 並 得 陶 杜 二 集 ), in Taicang timi ji 太 倉 稊 米 集 (Millets in A Huge Granary), included in the Wenyuange 文淵閣 Edition of the Siku quanshu 四 庫 全 書 (Complete Library in Four Branches of Literature) (photographic reprint), vol. 1141, 71.

13 See Du Fu, Dushi xiangzhu 杜詩詳注 (An Annotated Collection of Du Fu’s Poems) annot. Qiu Zhaoao 仇兆鼇 (1638–1717) (Beijing, Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 678, 686, 688. 14 See “Shenwei” 審為 in Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 , “Mou, the Prince from Zhongshan, asked Zhan He, ‘How about my body is drifting on the rivers and seas, but my heart is still on the watchtower outside the palace gate?’” See Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi 呂氏春秋校釋 (Lüshi chunqiu: Proofed and Annotated Edition), annotated by Yin Zhongrong 尹仲容 , vol. 9 (Taipei: Guoli bianyi guan, 1958), 119. Sometimes “rivers and lakes” ( 江湖 ) is used in place of “rivers and seas” ( 江海 ). Weique 魏闕 originally referred to a watchtower outside the palace gate. Here it refers to the court. In traditional China, this saying was often used for someone who held no official position but still cared about politics. The story also appears in “Rangwang” in Zhuangzi 莊子. See Guo Qingfan 郭 慶 藩 , Zhuangzi jishi 莊 子 集 釋 (Zhuangzi with Collected Annotations), vol. 9 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 979.

15 See Nade Weng’s preface to Ducheng jisheng 都城紀勝 (Record of the Splendors in the Capital) (Beijing: Gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1957), 1. 16 See Zhou Mi, Wulin jiushi 武林舊事 (Old Tales of Wulin) (Beijing: Gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1957), 376. 17 See Lin Jiarong, “Xiangleng Xihu: Lun Jiang Kui ci zhong de Hangzhou shuxie” 香冷西湖 —— 論姜蘷 詞中的杭州書寫 (The Cold and Fragrant West Lake: On Jiang Kui’s Writing about Hangzhou in His Song Lyrics), in Guowen xuebao 國文學報 , 49 (2012), 202.

18 See Jiang Kui, Baishi shici ji 白石詩詞集 (Collection of Poems and Song Lyrics written by the White Stone [Daoist]), vol. 2 (Beijing: Remin wenxue chubanshe, 1959), 44. 19 See Jiang Kui, Baishi shici ji, vol. 2, 44. 20 See Li E 厲鶚 (1692–1752), Song shi jishi 宋詩紀事 (Stories Behind Poems of the Song Dynasty), vol. 56 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1983), 2425. Translator’s note: Translation by Shuen-fu Lin,

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see “North and South: The Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in Cambridge History Chinese Literature, vol. 1: To 1375, ed., Kang–I Sun Chang and Stephen Owen (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 536.

21 See Tang Guizhang 唐 圭 璋 ed., Quan songci 全 宋 詞 (The Complete Collection of Song Lyrics of the Song) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 3138. Translator’s note: Translation by Shuen-fu Lin. See “VII. The Fall of the Southern Song” in chapter 6 of the Cambridge History Chinese Literature, vol. 1: To 1375, 550–51. 22 See Han Biao, “Writing after the ‘Poems on Past Travels,’” in Baishi shici ji, vol. 2, 19–20. 23 For detailed discussion of the life of the Rivers and Lakes poets, see Zhang Hongsheng 張宏生 , Jianghu shipai yanjiu 江湖詩派研究 (A Study of the Rivers and Lakes School of Poetry) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995).

24 See Wu Zimu, Mengliang lu, vol. 19, “The Society.” 25 See the comment to Dai Fugu’s “Looking for the Plum blossom” (Ji xunmei 寄尋梅 ), included in Fang Hui’s Yingkui lüsui 瀛奎律髓 , vol. 20. 26 For Chen Qi’s publishing activities, see Zhang Hongsheng, Jianghu shipai yanjiu, chapter 1. 27 See Ye Yin 葉茵 , “To Chen Yunju” in Shunshi tang yingao 順適堂吟稿 (Poems from the Hall of Happiness and Comfort), included in Chen Qi, Jianghu xiaoji 江 湖 小 集 (A Small Anthology of the Rivers and Lakes Poems), vol. 40, in the Siku quanshu 四 庫 全 書 , vol. 1357 (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1985), 322.

28 Zhou Mi, Qidong yeyu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 211. Translator’s note: The English translation is taken with modification from Shuen-fu Lin, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’uei and Southern Sung Tz’u Poetry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 55–56.

29 Ye Shi, Yeshi ji, 葉適集 (Collection of Works by Ye Shi), vol. 21 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 410. 30 Liu Kezhuang 劉克莊 (1187–1269), “Yegu ji xu” 野谷集序 (Preface to the Collection from Wild Valley) in Houcun xiansheng da quanji 後村先 生大全集 (Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 edition), 410.

31 See Yan Yu “Discussions on Poetry” in Canglang shihua. See Guo

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Notes

Shaoyu 郭紹虞 , Canglang shihua jiaoshi 滄浪詩話校釋 (Discourses on Poetry by Canglang: Proofed and Annotated Edition) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 27.

32 This count includes his poems outside the prevailing collection and an addendum to that. Jiang Kui also has three more sets of isolated lines that are not included in this count.

33 See Baishi daoren shishuo in Baishi shici ji, 66–68. 34 Du Fu in his late years especially liked to write linked poems and long regulated poems. These were the poetic forms that he specifically chose to express his feelings in his late years. For detailed discussion, see Cheng Qianfan 程 千 帆 and Zhang Hongsheng, “Wannian: huiyi yu fanxing” 晚年：回憶與反省 (Late Years: Recollections and Reflections), in Bei kaituo de shi shijie 被開拓的詩世界 (A World of Poetry in Exploration) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1990).

35 Chen Si, Baishi nianpu, in Beijing tushuguan cang zhenben nianpu congkan, vol. 33, 244. 36 According to Chen Si, this poem was written in the first year (1205) of the Kaixi 開禧 reign (1205–7). See his Baishi nianpu in Beijing tushuguan cang zhenben nianpu congkan, vol. 33, 244. 37 The poem starts with the line “I let my boat float freely in Longyang County.”

38 The one starts with the line “The nine mountain peaks are like the heads of stallions.”

39 The word 炮 (pao) may refer to the cannonballs or stones fired from the siege artillery or catapults placed behind or beside the eche siege carriages, as can be inferred from the following record, “The Jurchen army added another fourteen cannons and stationed a number of eche siege carriages below the city walls. Stones and arrows were fired fiercely.” See Bi Yuan 畢沅 (1730–97) ed., Xu Zizhi tongjian 續資治通鑒 (A Sequel to the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), Chapter 137, (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 3637.

40 See Ding Teqi 丁特起 (fl.1127), Jingkang jiwen 靖康紀聞 (Records of the Jingkang Period), included in Xuxiu siku quanshu 續修四庫全書, chapter

423, 286. 41 See Zhao Yanwei 趙彥衛 (fl. 1163), Yunlu manchao 雲麓漫抄 (Casual Notes from Yunlu), vol. 7 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996), 123.

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42 Eche, also called eche dongzi 鵝車洞子 or jiantou mulü 尖頭木驢 (lit. spearhead wooden donkey), was a siege weapon that existed prior to the Southern Song. Its prototype was the paowen 炮轀 , as can be seen from the following record in Wujing zongyao 武經總要 (Collection of Important Military Techniques), “The shape of jiantou mulü resembled that of paowen but added two more wheels. A fifteen-foot-long log was used on top of the carriage as its spine. The carriage had a square base and two sloping sides. It was eight feet high and wrapped with untanned ox hides. During the siege wars, ten soldiers could sit inside and would be pushed toward the foot of the city wall to attack the city.” See Zeng Gongliang 曾公亮 (990–1078) and Ding Du 丁度 (990–1053), Wujing zongyao, included in the Wenyuange edition of Siku quanshu, vol. 726, 371. During the Song-Jin wars, the Jurchens used an improved version of eche, together with cannons and catapults, to attack Song cities, as can be seen from the aforementioned records in Yunlu Manchao and Xu Zizhi tongjian. In the light of this, it was not entirely coincidental that Jiang Kui mentioned eche in this poem.

43 The imminent dangers came not only from the Southern Song’s old opponent, the Jurchens, but also from its new rival, the Mongols. Five years after the “Poems on Past Travels” were written, in 1206, the Mongols sent 200,000 soldiers to attack Xiangyang 襄陽 . According to the historical record, “The Mongolian army marched unremittingly from the Yuliangping area in the south to the southeast of the city, carrying siege weapons like catapults and siege carriages. A dozen catapults, all made with nine strings of ox sinews, were used to attack the watch towers on the southeast of the city wall. Each cannon stone weighed more than fifty pounds and smashed every tower it hit.” See Zhao Wannian 趙萬年 (1168–1209), Xiangyang shoucheng lu 襄陽守 城 錄 (Records of the City Defense Battles at Xiangyang), included in Siku quanshu cunmu congshu 四 庫 全 書 存 目 叢 書 , chapter 45, 53. Judging from this, we can argue that Jiang Kui must have had a clear awareness of “imminent danger” from the Mongols when he wrote this group of poems.

44 Translator’s note: The complete title of this group of linked poems is “Farewell to My Relatives and Friends in the Mian and E Regions— Rhymed with ‘chang 長 (long), ge 歌 (song), yi 意 (meaning), wu 無 (no), ji 極 (end), 好 hao (good), 為 wei (for), 老 lao (old), 夫 fu (man), 聽 ting (listen).’” As the title suggests, each of the ten poems in the group

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Notes

rhymed with one of the ten characters in the sequence. The ten characters together also form a poetic line, meaning: “A long poem with boundless meaning, created especially for the ears of an old man.”

45 Du Fu, “Qianmen xicheng Lu Shijiu caozhang” 遣悶戲呈路十九曹長 (A Playful Poem to Lu Shijiu, the Section Head, to Dispel Boredom) in Du Fu, Dushi jingquan 杜 詩 鏡 銓 (An Annotated Selection of Du Fu’s Poems), vol. 15, annot.Yang Lun 楊倫 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1964), 740.

46 See Dai Fugu “Du Fu ci” 杜甫祠 (Du Fu’s Ancestral Hall), in Shiping shiji, vol. 1., included in Sibu congkan guangbian 四部叢刊廣編 , vol. 39, 36. 47 See Su Jiong, “Ye du Du shi sishi yun” 夜讀杜詩四十韻 (Reading Du Fu’s Forty Poems at Night), in Lingran zhai ji 泠 然 齋 集 (Collections of Poems from the Lingran Study), vol. 1, in the Siku quanshu zhenben chuji 四庫全書珍本初集 (Complete Library in Four Branches of Literature: Rare Edition) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshu guan, 1934), 1a, 2a.

48 See Chen Bifu, “Shanju cungao xu” 山居存稿序 (Preface to the Extant Manuscripts from the Mountain Residence), in Chen Qi, Jianghu xiaoji, vol. 34, in Siku quanshu (1985), vol. 1357, 271.

49 See Baishi daoren shishuo in Baishi shici ji, 67. 50 In his “Tang gu Gongbu Yuanwailang Du jun muximing” 唐故工部員外 郎 杜 君 墓 系 銘 (Epitaph for Du Fu, Vice Director in the Ministry of Works of Tang), Yuan Zhen wrote, “At the time, Li Bai 李白 [701–62]

from Shandong was also known for his extraordinary poems. They were called by their contemporaries as ‘Li and Du.’ In my view, in his ability to write powerful and unrestrained poems, to depict things according to their original appearance, and to compose yuefu 樂府 songs, Li Bai was indeed on a par with Du Fu. But when It came to the extensive use of elaborations, parallels, rhymes and rhythms in poems that were hundreds or thousands of words long, to write a poem that was powerful in style but also deep in emotion, and to use correct parallels and rhymes but also stay away from the banal and ordinary, then Li Bai hardly equaled a tip of Du Fu’s talent, not to mention the essence of it.” See Yuan Zhen 元 稹 , Yuan Zhen ji 元 稹 集 (Collection of Yuan Zhen’s Poems), punctuated by Ji Qin 冀 勤 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 601.

51 In the tenth poem of his “Lun shi sanshi shou” 論 詩 三 十 首 (Thirty

  293

Notes Poems on Poetry), Yuan Haowen 元好問 wrote, 排比鋪張特一途， Parallelism and elaboration are but one

strand of poetry, 藩籬如此亦區區。 Such confinement for poetry is indeed

trivial. 少陵自有連城璧， Shaoling [Du Fu] possessed an invaluable

jade. 爭奈微之識珷玞。 Too bad Weizhi [Yuan Zhen] could only see

the stone that covered it.

See Yuan Haowen, Yuan Haowen shi biannian jiaozhu 元好問詩編年校 注 (An Annotated and Chronological Collection of Yuan Haowen’s Poems), annot. Di Baoxin 狄寶心 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2011), 54.

52 See Wang Shizhen 王士禛 , Chi bei ou tan 池北偶談 (Casual Talks by the North Side of the Pond), punctuated by Jin Siren 靳斯仁 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 273.

53 See Du Fu, “Bo zhou Yueyang cheng xia” 泊舟岳陽城下 (Mooring My Boat at Yueyang) and “Lan chuan ku feng xiti si yun feng Jian Zheng shisan panguan” 纜船苦風戲題四韻奉簡鄭十三判官 (Four Playful Rhymes on Berthing Boat in Strong Wind Presented to Administrative Assistant Zheng the Thirteenth) in Dushi xiangzhu, 1945–46.

54 As a matter of fact, similar descriptions can be found not only in his poems about water, but also those about mountains. For instance, in the poem that starts with “It was cold at White Horse Ferry,” he describes the wind thusly, 萬里風奔奔， A strong wind raced across thousands of

miles, 外旃吹已透， Already piercing through the outer coat, 內纊冰不溫。 The inner garment was like ice with no

warmth.

In describing the sudden wild fire, he wrote, 聲如雷霆震， Its sound was like roaring thunder,

294 

Notes 勢若江湖屯。 Its strength was like a devouring torrent.



Finally when the danger had passed, he wrote, 明發見老姊， Tomorrow I will set out to see my old sister, 鬥酒為招魂。 Use a bucket of wine to revive the spirit.



In face of danger, one could more acutely appreciate the preciousness of family.

55 Translator’s note: For another example of translating xingling 性靈 as “native sensibility,” see James J. Y. Liu, Chinese Theories of Literature (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1975), 86.

Chapter Five 1

In the Tang, sand was spread on the roads from the doorways of high officials to the main road in order to save them from having to travel through mud. This later becomes a simple metaphor for routes to the homes of high officials. For the original quote, see Li Zhao 李肇, Tang guoshi bu 唐國史補 (Supplement to the State History of the Tang) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1986), 49.

2

Originally the five brothers of Tang Xuanzong, for whom he erected residences in Luoyang and toward whom he felt great fraternal love. Later this simply comes to mean the “residences of the high and mighty.”

3

Qiu Shaohua 邱少華, ed. and ann. Ouyang Xiu ci xinshi jiping 歐陽修詞 新釋輯評 (The Lyric of Ouyang Xiu, Newly Explained and with Collected Commentary) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001), 226–28.

4

Liu Changshi 劉昌詩, Lupu biji 蘆浦筆記 (Penned Notes from the Confluence of Reeds) juan 10 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,1986), 76–78.

5 Ibid., 78. 6

As Yi Yongwen notes in his annotations to the text, there appear to be two traditions to the naming of the text. The first simply calls it The Dream of Hua (Meng Hua lu). This appears to be the earliest tradition and is found in the colophon by Zhao Shixia 趙師俠 (jinshi 1175)

Notes

  295

in a colophon to the original printing, dated Nov. 12, 1187. It is also referred to by this title in a poem by the Southern Song lyric poet Jiang Jie 蔣捷 (1245–1301), to the tune Qitian yue 齊天樂, entitled, “Reading the Dream of Hua on First Prime” 元夜閱「夢華錄」. The title The Eastern Capital: A Dream of Hua first appears in Xie Weixin’s 謝維新 (ca. 1250) Gujin hebi shilei beiyao 古今合壁事類備要 (The Comprehensive Essentials of Things from Past and Present Paired as Complements and Arranged Categorically); this work was completed in the years 1257–58, and probably added the term “eastern capital” as a way of specifying texts that concerned the Northern Song, or as a way to differentiate editions or manuscripts that were from the Southern Song. See Meng Yuanlao 孟元老 and Yi Yongwen 伊永文, Dongjing meng Hua lu jianzhu 東京夢華錄箋注 (Annotations and Commentary to The Eastern Capital: A Record of a Dream of Hua) vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007), 2–3 and Xie Weixin, Gujin hebi shilei beiyao (Siku quanshu ed.) 16.11a.

7　 See Patricia Ebrey, “Taking Out the Grand Carriage: Imperial Spectacle and the Visual Culture of Northern Song,” Asia Major Third Series

12.1 (1999), 33–65. 8

I use the term “civil” month for the standard numbering of Chinese months. A lunar year would begin on the first dead moon after the winter solstice; in the Song, the civil year began on the third dead moon after the winter solstice.

9

Meng Yuanlao, Yuanben Youlan jushi Dongjing meng Hua lu 元本幽蘭 居士東京夢華錄 (An Original Edition of the Record of Hua in the Eastern Capital by the Hermit of Thoroughwort) (Tokyo: Seikaidō, 1941), 10.6b: “Generally, as for the order and pace of the Grand Sacrifice and events of the Grand Forbidden Interior, I have only witnessed the rehearsals and do not know actually what they were like. There are surely errors of omission or abridgment. Should someone change [my text] and correct them, then it would be good fortune.” 凡大禮與禁中節次，但嘗見習按，又不知果為如何。不無脫略，或改而正之， 則幸甚。 There is a possibility that the term I have translated as “order and pace” 節次 could be understood as “seasonal order” or “seasonal

progress.” Here I am following the proposed reading of Jiang Hanchun 姜漢椿, in Meng Yuanlao, Dongjing meng Hua lu quanyi 東京夢華錄 全譯 (A Complete Translation of the Record of Hua in the Eastern Capital) (Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe, 1998), 264.

296 

Notes

10 Bao Weimin 鮑偉民. “Shilun Songdai Chengshi Fazhan Zhongde Xin Wenti 試論宋代城市發展中的新問題.” http://citylife.sinica.edu.tw/activities/20060424_bao.pdf.

11 This can also be extrapolated metaphorically as “spring’s new dawn”— the beginning of the six 15-day solar periods following the winter solstice.

12 These are the palaces of the imperial city. 13 The Hall of Propitious Sunlight was the eastern gate of the Green City, an area south of Kaifeng where the emperor resided when preparing for the Winter Suburban Sacrifice to Heaven, held at the winter solstice to welcome the advent of spring. It marked the beginning of the New Year’s activities.

14 The nine layers of heaven; metaphorically the nine layers of the Forbidden City—the emperor’s place of residence, home of the dragon. Here refers to the officials who are surrounding him. Each section of the imperial procession wears a different color robe and hat.

15 “Ochre clothes” refers to the emperor. Cf. Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣 (1002– 60), “Two Poems Matching Song Zhongdao’s New Year’s Eve” (He Song Zhongdao ‘Yuanxi’ ershou 和宋中道元夕二首), number 2: 春風來解吹殘雪， Spring winds come in release, blowing away

lingering snow, 燈燭迎陽萬戶燃。 Candle lamps welcome Yang, burning at ten

thousand doors; 竟看繁星在平地， To finally see rampant stars on level earth 不妨明月滿中天。 Does nothing to the bright moonlight filling

mid-heaven. 赭袍已向端門御， The ochre robe has already gone to grace

the Southern Gate, 仙曲初聞法部傳。 As we begin to hear immortal music come

from the Model Section; 車馬不閑通曙色， Horse and cart never cease, right through to

daybreak’s color, 康莊時見拾珠鈿。 From time to time in the broad intersections

we spot and gather up pearly hairpins.

See Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣, Mei Yaochen ji biannian jiaozhu 梅堯臣集編年

Notes

  297

校注 (Collation and Annotations to Mei Yaochen's Collected Works Arranged by Year) ed. Zhu Dongrun 朱東潤 Vol. 2 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2006), 427 and Zhu Dongrun, Mei Yaochen shixuan 梅堯臣詩選 (A Selection of Mei Yaochen's Poetry) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1980), 105.

16 “Playing ball”: can refer to a form of polo or to soccer. The referent is unclear. The military played polo as way of practicing maneuvers, but all social classes also played a form of soccer. One of Huizong’s minions, Gao Qiu 高俅, was particularly renowned for his skill, which won him high position at court. Cf. James Liu, “Polo and Cultural Change: From T’ang to Sung China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 45. 1 (1945): 203–24, 1985.

17 The Column of Perfect Harmony (juntian zhi 鈞天直, a military band that was part of the imperial guard.

18 See Meng Yuanlao, Yuanben Youlan jushi Dongjing meng Hua lu, 10.9a–b 19 In anticipation of nightly activities. 20 This refers to the artificial flowers created in the palace workshops to be slipped into the headdresses of high officials, entertainers, etc.

21 Clearing the way for the imperial entourage. 22 This line remains somewhat ambiguous. This could refer either to actual fans or to the fans of dancers. In the first instance, it could refer to the moment at which the emperor is revealed to the crowd from his stand on the Gate of Virtue Displayed. In the second meaning of the phrase “the umbra of fans” (umbra/shadow/reflection) refers to the lingering feeling after watching dancers’ fans in delicate flight through the air. Since the emperor will return to watch a series of entertainments held in front of the Gate of Virtue Displayed, and based on the locution below, “bring out your seductive delights,” the last reading seems slightly preferable.

23 The large figures of animals and towers constructed in the square in front of the Gate of Virtue Displayed were meant as frames to hold the colorful lamps of the Lantern Festival. On top of the tallest structure was a lighted placard on which was written, “The Emperor of Xuanhe Reign shares his pleasure with the people.” See Meng Yuanlao, Yuanben Youlan jushi Dongjing meng Hua lu, 6.2b.

298 

Notes

24 Three shouts of “Ten Thousand Years!” (wansui, wansui, wanwansui 萬歲、萬歲、萬萬歲)

25 Meng Yuanlao, Yuanben Youlan jushi Dongjing meng Hua lu, 10.5a; for the term “Auriga” I refer to the use of the term jia 駕 “charioteer [of state]” as a designation for the emperor.

26 Here so-named because it was used in the concluding ceremony of the Sacrifice to Heaven. “Great Security” probably stems from its frequent use in early texts to mean the peace that is brought to a state by being in concordance with and maintaining the Way of Heaven.

27 I am following the ritual as described for the Southern Song ceremony of Duzong (r. 1265–74), in which Zhou Mi (1232–98) describes this part of the ritual as “. . . after the congratulatory declamation is finished, music is played, and the squadrons and companies of the various armies all play their drums and pipes in sequence.” ……口號訖， 樂作。諸軍隊伍亦次第鼓吹振作.” See “Grand Rituals” (da li 大禮), in Zhou Mi 周密. Wulin jiushi 武林舊事 (Old Affairs of the Martial Grove [Hangzhou]) ed. Fu Linxiang 傅林祥, (Ji’nan: Shandong youyi chubanshe, 2001). 9.

28 Meng Yuanlao, Yuanben Youlan jushi Dongjing meng Hua lu, 2.2a “About half a li further was the Pavilion for Looking at the Imperial Avenue. Usually we climbed this tower during the movements of the Imperial entourage to make visits [to temples and altars] to observe the mounted riders here.” 約半里許乃看街亭，尋常車駕行幸，登亭觀馬騎於 此。 It was clearly used for other periods of time as well. For instance, in the first act of Zhang Guobin’s 張國賓 northern drama, The Story of a Noble Son’s Undershirt at Xiangguo Temple 相國寺公孫汗衫記, we find the following, “The season is winter, and auspicious omens for the state (snow flakes) are falling. Let me tell you son, have some wine prepared and let’s go to the Tower for Viewing the Avenue to take pleasure in the snow” 時遇冬天，下著國家瑞祥。孩兒道與，交安排酒者，喒 看街樓上賞雪咱. See Zhang Guobin 張國賓, Xiangguo si gongsun hanshan ji 相國寺公孫汗衫記, in Maiwang guan chaojiaoben gujin zaju 脈望館鈔校本古今雜劇, com Zhao Qimei 趙琦美, 84 vols. (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1958), 1.1a.

29 See Ebrey, “Grand Carriage” and Stephen H. West, “Spectacle, Ritual, and Social Relations: The Son of Heaven, Citizens, and Created Space in Imperial Gardens in the Northern Song,” The Social Reception of

  299

Notes

Baroque Gardens, ed. Michel Conan. (Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2004), 291–321.

30 The Imperial Guard that literally encircled the Emperor in protective layers. According to Fan Zhen’s 范鎮 (1007–88) Dongzhai jishi 東齋 記事, it was comprised of five layers:

  There are all together five layers of Imperial Guard:   One layer is comprised of Personal Attendant Officers,   One layer is comprised of the Broad Tunic Heavenly Martial Officers,   One layer is comprised of the Imperial Dragon Column of Archers and Column of Crossbowmen,   One layer is comprised of the Imperial Dragon Column of Knobbed Staffs,   One layer is comprised of the Imperial Dragon Column. Generally, when one penetrates one layer of the Imperial Guard, one is banished from one to three years. Those who accidentally do it suffer two degrees less of punishment. Fu Bian once mistakenly entered the Imperial Guard, and it was determined to be a “private punishment” (i.e., done as a private individual), but Ouyang Xiu twice argued in memorials that it should be a public punishment (i.e., connected with one’s duties) and he (Fu Bian) was allowed to sit for selection via the examinations. 禁衛凡五重：親從官為一重，寛衣天武官為一重，御龍弓箭直、弩 直為一重，御龍骨䤪子直為一重，御龍直為一重。凡入禁衛一重， 徒一年至三年止，誤者减二等。傅卞嘗誤入禁衛，定私罪。永叔再 為論奏為公罪，得應制舉。



See Fan Zhen 范鎮, Dongzhai jishi 東齋記事, ed Ru Pei 如沛 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 209–10. The middle three Columns were also called the Dianqian ban 殿前班, or Squadrons of the Before the Palace Army.

31 “Maharāja-devas; 四天王 Caturmahārāja. The four deva kings in the first or lowest devaloka, on its four sides. E. 持國天王 Dhṛtarāṣṭra. S. 增長天王 Virūḍhaka. W. 廣目天王 Virūpākṣa. N. 多聞天王 Dhanada, or

300 

Notes

Vaiśravaṇa. The four are said to have appeared to 不空 Amogha in a temple in Xianfu, some time between 742–6, and in consequence he introduced their worship to China as guardians of the monasteries, where their images are seen in the hall at the entrance, which is sometimes called the 天王堂 hall of the deva-kings.” From William Edward Soothill and Lewis Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, accessed online at http://mahajana.net/texts/kopia_lokalna/soothill-hodous.html on May 8, 2015.

32 These are called guduo 骨朵 in modern Mandarin. The origin of the name is somewhat obscure. The Jiyun 集韻 (Collection of Rhyme Classes), dated 1037 glosses the character du (°tu) as “gudu (°ku°tu), as “meaning big belly; one explanation is that it is a large mallet, therefore the common term for a stick with a knobbed head that is large is gudu. In the area of Guanzhong (modern Shaanxi), this has been incorrectly transformed into guzhua 胍檛 (°ku°ȶua).” See Ding Duo 丁度 et al., Jiyun shijuan 集韻十卷, juan 2 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1996), 8b. In his work of the late 16th century, Zhou Qi 周祈, Mingyi kao 名義考 (Investigations on the Meaning of Names) juan 12 (SKQS ed.), 18b, contested the dismissal of guzhua as incorrect and also noted that guduo had become an accepted term for the bud of a flowering plant, “nowadays people call a flower in its embryonic state guduo because of the efflorescence above and the straight peduncle below—they look just like the zhua.” Typically having a tapered shaft and bulbous head, these were often called “garlic clove clubs” (suantou guduo 蒜頭骨朵) because of the clove-like knob on the end. Like the modern billyclub, they were used as much for intimidation as actual weapons, and were favored by the body guards and private armies of the rich as well as the Imperial Guard. In the Wu Chuhou 吳處厚, Qingxiang zaji 青箱雜記 (Random Records from the Green Basket), ann. Li Yumin 李裕民, juan 7 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), 69. (dated ±1095), we find the following: In the “Five Elements” of the Grand Plan the prophecies of rumors are called poetic omens of evil, which means that they pronounce punishments divined to be inauspicious. There are many in the past and in the present as well. When Xu Wen’s (d. 938) son, Zhixun (d. 918) was in Guangling, he made knobbed clubs with red lacquer handles, then selected more than a hundred men as his troop of body guards, who wielded these clubs in order to clear the road ahead. They were called

  301

Notes “vermillion garlic cloves.” In the latter part of the Tianyu reign period (903–07) people in Guangling made a fad of wearing short pants, which were called “not making it to autumn.” Xu Zhixun’s being killed by Zhu Qin (c. 918) thirteen years later, in the sixth month [in Guangling] was a response to “vermillion garlic cloves not making it to autumn” [homophone of being finished off by Zhu and dying before one’s time]. 謠讖之語，在《洪範》五行，謂之詩妖，言不從之罰，前世多有之， 而近世亦有焉。昔徐溫子知訓在廣陵，作紅漆柄骨朵，選牙隊百餘 人執以前導，謂之「朱蒜」。天祐末，廣陵人競服短褲，謂之「不 及秋」。後十三年六月，知訓為朱瑾所殺焉，則「朱蒜不及秋」之 應也。



For a detailed discussion and a list of sources, see Li Mingxiao 李明曉, “Guduo” Xiaokao 「骨朵」小考, in Lishi Wenxian Yanjiu 歷史文獻研究 (Shanghai: Huadong shida chubanshe, 2008), 369–77.

33 These are the common cloth caps of medieval China, large squares of cloth with four tails that were used to bind the hair. They sometimes had a woven rattan interior to make a mounded shape to hold the bun. The dangling tails could be starched and manipulated into several shapes.

34 The bamboo staff was held by a conductor who paced the tempo and sequence of the entertainments.

35 This records events after 1117, when the number of doorways in the gate was increased from three to five. See Lu You 陸游, Jiashi jiuwen 家 世舊聞, in Yao Kuan 姚寬 and Lu You, Xixi congyu 西溪叢談, Jiashi jiuwen, ed. Kong Fanli 孔凡禮 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), 220.

36 He is here using a set of ritualized literary binomes; according to the Song architectural manual, Yingzao fashi 營造法式, both meng 甍 and dong 棟 are interchangeable synonyms for either a beam or header (liang 梁) or for heavy beams, (chuan 椽): the terms do not exist anywhere in the architectural manual, except in a short list of synomyms. See Liang Sicheng 梁思成, Yingzao fashi zhushi 營造法式註釋, vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe,1983), 175.

37 That is, the pylons (que 闕) that run out from the main gate; this is a highly colloquial term. See Fu Xinian, “Shanxi sheng Fanzhi xian Yanshan si nandian Jindai bihua zhong suohui jianzhu de chubu fenxi 山西省繁峙縣巖山寺南殿金代壁畫中所繪建築的初步分析,” in Zhongguo

302 

Notes

gudai jianzhu shilun 中國古代建築十論 (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2004), 271–74.

38 These are actually located in the courtyard of The Hall of Patterned Virtue (Wende dian), which is located directly to the west of the Hall of Grand Felicity (Daqing dian). This is one of several mistakes in the text that can be rectified by collation against several other descriptions of the inner city.

39 Again, he has misplaced these gates which are just inside of the Left and Right Ancillary Gates.

40 The Mingtang 明堂 Constructed in 1117 . A hall for worshipping Heaven, the Supreme Thearc, and the royal ancestors, it was “said to be a shining, plain-colored building; its tiles, especially made, had glasslike qualities. Cai Jing, the prime minister, and his two sons, who had been in charge of the construction project, all composed elegant poems commemorating its completion.” See James T. C. Liu, “The Sung Emperors and the Ming-t’ang or Hall of Enlightenment,” Études Song. In memoriam Étienne Balazs, ed. Françoise Aubin (Paris: Mouton, 1970), 54.

41 Two of the five libraries that held the archives of various deceased emperors: Longtu ge 龍圖閣 Taizong; Tianzhang ge 天章閣 Zhenzong; Baowen ge 寶文閣 Renzong; Xianmo ge 顯謨閣 Shenzong; Huiyou ge 徽猷閣 Zhezong.

42 See Yang Huan 楊奐, “Bian gugong ji 汴故宮記,” in Quan Yuan wen 全元文, vol. 1 (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1997), 133–35 and Baisui laoren 百歲老人, Fengchuang xiaodu 楓牕小牘, in Quan Song biji 全宋筆記, series 4, vol. 5 (Zhengzhou: Daxiang chubanshe, 2007), 219. 43 Meng Yuanlao, Yuanben Youlan jushi Dongjing meng Hua lu, 6.3a. The “mountain yell” is the normal cheer of “Ten-thousand Years,” wishing the emperor might live an “allotted life span as high as the southern mountains” 壽如南山高.

44 There are two possible readings of the term yankuang (煙光): one is the hazy refulgence of fog and mist; the other is the particular haze of spring mornings.

45 The relationship between astral patterns and human events and structures was thought to be absolute in pre-modern China. The Palace of Purple Tenuity is a circumpolar area around the North Star and was thought to be the abode of the highest deity of the sky. See Edward

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Notes

Schafer, Pacing the Void: T’ang Approaches to the Stars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 49. The cosmic axis ran from the imperial seat in Kaifeng up to the highest point of heaven, uniting the astral and earthly rulers. Thus, the imperial city was also known as the Forbidden City, the Palace of Purple Tenuity.

46 The five gates are a metonomy for either the Imperial Palace or the capital. Here, the palace. The “gold and cyan” probably refers to the color of the roof tiles. What I have translated as cyan (bi 碧) is a word that ranges in color, depending on context, from the color of lapis lazuli, to the azure of the sky, to the blue-green of roof tiles, to the green of a verdant field.

47 “Pear Garden Players” is an anachronistic term for members of the Court Entertainment Bureau (jiao fang 教坊). The original Pear Garden players were at the court of Tang Xuanzong.

48 These are the “mountains” that are covered with lamps for the lantern festival. They also evoke the isles of immortals that are in the Eastern Sea.

49 The transcendents’ panoply was a common way to refer to the core of guards and officials that accompanied the imperial entourage.

50 These were the peaks of the “tortoise mountain” enshrouded in the smoke of the colored lamps set out on them. From The Old Affairs of the Xuanhe Reign of the Great Song: What was most compelling in the Imperial Ambit was the night of the fifteenth of the first month, which was called “mountain lofts” in the Prefectural Offices and Leviathan Mountain in front of the Grand Interior. From the first day of the last month of the year lamps were lit all the way to the fifteenth day of the first month. Now why did they set out lamps in the last month of the year? Probably because they were worried that it would be dark and rainy on the fifteenth of the first month and that would be an impediment to carrying out the indulgences of the season. So this was called “Pre-enjoyment of the Lantern Eve.” And what did it look like? There was a song that was called “Celebrating a Sagely Reign”: At peace with no untoward events, The four borders peaceful and quiet, smoke of wolf-dung

304 

Notes beacon gone. The country prosperous, it’s people secure— Say not that only Yao, Shun, Yu, and Tang were good. Tens of thousands of people raised their eyes in anticipation To the top of Dragon Prospect Gate Where dragon lamps and phoenix candles shone brightly on one another. Heed the raucous laughter of the variety play And the cleverness of the entertainers. Before the Palace of the Precious Register of Highest Clarity Water was sanctified and talisman written to cut off demons, And besides Genyue Park Where the deep recesses of bamboo forests are better than even Penglai The sound of mouth organs and songs were cacophonous. Yet our August One could not wait— Could not tarry until the sights of Lantern Eve had arrived— For fear that the cloudiness or clarity of the next month could not be promised. In front of the Grand Interior of the Eastern Capital there were five gates: The Gate of Eastern Florescence, The Gate of Western Florescence, the Dragon Prospect Gate, the Gate of Divine Emblem, and the Gate of Virtue Displayed. From the winter solstice they began to build the Leviathan Mountain, more than 160 feet high and 730 paces broad. There were two enormous pillars in the middle of it, each 240 feet high with golden dragons winding around both sides. A lamp was lit in each of the dragons’ mouths, and this was called “Twin Dragons Hold Radiance in their Mouths.” In the middle was a plaque, 306 feet wide and 204 feet in height, with eight characters written on it in gold: “The Colored Mountains of Xuanhe, To be Enjoyed Together with the People.” 帝里偏雄，一年正月十五夜。夜州裏底喚做山柵，內前的喚做鼇山； 從臘月初一日直點燈到宣和六年正月十五日夜。為甚從臘月放燈？ 蓋恐正月十五日陰雨，有妨行樂，故謂之預賞元宵。怎見得？有一 隻曲兒喚做「賀聖朝」：太平無事，四邊寧靜狼煙杳；國泰民安， 謾說堯舜禹湯好。萬民矯望，景龍門上，龍燈鳳燭相照。聽教雜劇 喧笑，藝人巧。寶籙宮前咒水書符斷殀，艮岳傍相竹林深處勝篷島。 笙歌鬧，奈吾皇不候，等元宵景色來到，恐後月陰晴未保。東京大

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Notes 內前，有五座門：曰東華門，曰西華門，曰景龍門、神徽門、曰宣 德門。自冬至日，下手架造鼇山高燈，長一十六丈，闊二百六十五 步；中間有兩條鼇柱，長二十四丈；兩下用金龍纏柱，每一個龍口 裏，點一盞燈，謂之「雙龍銜照」。中間著一個牌，長三丈六尺， 闊二丈四尺，金書八個大字，寫道： 「宣和綵山，與民同樂。」



See Cao Jiping 曹濟平, Cheng Youqing 程有慶, and Cheng Yizhong 程毅 中, eds., Xuanhe yishi deng liangzhong 宣和遺事等兩種 (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1993), 58–59.

51 On these miniature symbols of the imperial throne, see Feng Hanji 馮漢驥, “Jiatou kao” 駕頭考, in Feng Hanji kaogu xue lunwen ji 馮漢驥 考古學論文集. (Bejing: Wenwu chubanshe 1985), 85–98.

52 These were pads made by stitching the hides of golden monkeys from Sichuan into a pad that could be placed over the saddle for warmth. The many citations in Song texts detailing the construction as well as the practical and sumptuary uses of these pads are detailed in Chen Yanshu 陳彥婌, “Songdai guanshu gushi sanze 宋代官署故事三则,” Zhuangshi 裝飾 12 ( 2012 ): 72 – 74 . The article also reproduces a Southern Song painting, “A Spring Feast” (Chunyan tu 春燕圖), which shows two horses equipped with the pads.

53 The ranks of high civil officials 54 A common term for a fairyland, a home of the immortals. 55 This is a muted allusion to the last of Li Bai’s 李白 (701–62) famous sequence, “On Indulging Pleasure in the Palace” (Gongzhong xingle ci 宮中行樂詞), written by command to celebrate Xuanzong’s revels in his

palace. Following the notes in Yu Xianhao 郁賢皓, ed. and ann., Li Bai xuanji 李白選集 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1990), 149–50. 水綠南薰殿， The water is green at the Hall of Southern Infusion, 花紅北闕樓； Flowers are red at the foretowers on the northern

walls; 鶯歌聞太液， Orioles’ songs are heard at Taiye Pond, 鳳吹饒瀛洲。 Phoenixes’ winds circle around Fairy Isle. 素女鳴珠佩， The Unadorned girl sounds her pearly belt

ornaments, 天人弄彩毬； The Heavenly ones play with a colored ball; 今朝風日好， On this morn the breezy day* is fine,

306 

Notes 宜入未央遊。 Suitable it is to enter into the Weiyang Palace to



roam. *Synecdoche for good weather.

56 The lamps that are set out on the mountain. 57 That is, the procession of lanterns that accompanied the imperial entourage.

58 The three major halls of the Imperial City, a synecdoche for the city. 59 See the first entry, entitled “Liang Song yuanxiao ci zhi xiezuo jiqiao: changyong diangu” 兩宋元宵詞之寫作技巧：常用典故 (The craftsmanship of composition of first prime lyrics in the two Songs), in Tao Zizhen 陶子珍, Liang Song yuanxiao ci yanjiu 兩送院宵詞研究 (Taibei: Xiuwei zixun keji gufen youxian gongsi, 2006) 138.

60 In a section entitled “A Chronological Record of the Free and Blocked Flow of the Dharma Law’s Movement” (Fayun tongsai zhi 法運通塞志) in the Grand Master Zhi Qing’s 志磬 Comprehensive Record of Buddhist Patriarchs (Fozu tongji 佛祖統紀), completed in 1276, he cites “A Record of a Perfected Lord,” as saying, “The Buddha is in the center of the Realm of the Three Clarities; in addition Brahma Heaven resides there. Their relationship to the arch on High is exactly like the nine ranks of officials serving the Son of Heaven. 又曰。佛在三清之中。別有 梵天居之。於上帝如九卿奉天子也. See Zhi Qing, “Fayun tongsai zhi,” in Fozu tongji, Taishō shinshū Ōzōkei 大正新修大藏經 (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1983) 396,3–397.1, accessed May 15, 2015.

61 An anachronistic use of the name of a Han dynasty palace as synecdoche for the imperial palaces.

62 This is the name of the hall of the Jade Emperor. According to the Account of Aiding the Sage in Protecting Virtue (Yisheng baode zhuan 翊聖保德傳), attributed to Wang Qinruo (962–1025), this was also the name of the main hall of the Song imperial Shaanxi temple complex. See Barend ter Haar, “Wang Qinruo” 王欽若, and Poul Anderson, “Biography of [the Perfected Lord] Assisting Sanctity and Protecting Virtue” (Yisheng baode zhuan 翊聖保德傳) in Encyclopedia of Daoism, ed. Fabrizio Pregadio, vol. 2 (London: Routledge, 2008), 1014–15 and 1180–81.

63 From the story of Xu Xuanping, an immortal among men who lived a carefree life, and whose ditty “I carry firewood, going out in the

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morning to sell, / I buy wine and come home when the sun is in the west; / People on the road do not ask ‘Where do you return?’ / I thread my way through the white clouds and trod in the green tenuity” 負薪朝 出賣。沽 酒日西歸。路人莫問歸何處。穿入白雲行翠微. See “Xu Xuanping,” in Li Fang et al., Taiping Guangji 太平廣記, vol. 1, juan 24 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), 159.

64 I.e., unused since he pays so much attention to ruling. Based on the passage in the biography of Fan Sui 范睢 in Sima Qian 司馬遷, Pei Yin 裴駰, Sima Zhen 司馬貞, and Zhang Shoujie 張守節. Shiji 史記. 1st ed. 10 vols. Vol. 8, (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), 2418, [King Zhao said,] “I have heard that the iron swords of Chu are keen and their enterainters are amateurish. Now if the iron swords are keen then the officers are brave; it the entertainers are amateurish, then his thinking is far in the future.” 吾聞楚之鐵劍利而倡優拙，夫鐵劍利則士勇，倡優拙則 思慮遠。

65 See Poul Anderson, “Biography of [the Perfected Lord] Assisting Sanctity and Protecting Virtue” (Yisheng baode zhuan 翊聖保德傳) in Encyclopedia of Daoism, ed. Fabrizio Pregadio, vol. 2 (London: Routledge, 2008), 1180–81.

66 See Wang Wengao’s copious annotation to the poems, in Su Shi 蘇軾 and Wang Wengao 王文誥 ed. and ann, Su Shi shiji 蘇軾詩集 Vol. 6 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 1955–56. 67 For instance, in Dream’s own description of the “several hundred completely made up singsong girls, who gather at the doorway [of the private rooms at the Ren Winehouse] in order to await the summons of the drinking guests: when gazing upon them, they are just like spirits and transcendents” 濃妝妓女數百，聚於主廊槏面上，以待酒客呼喚，望之 宛若神仙。

68 Heaven, earth, and the four directions. 69 These are the four sections of the Court Entertainment Bureau, which at this time included the Yunshao bu 雲韶部, a later name for a section that was originally called the Xiaoshao bu. They provided music in the imperial palaces during annual festivals such as New Year’s, Duanwu, etc. For more formal rituals they provided music for the imperial princes’ entertainment. See SHY yue 5.37, and Zhang 2004.

70 The moon. 71 Zhu Decai 朱德才 and Zhong Zhenzhen 鍾振振. Zengding zhushi Quan

308 

Notes

Song ci 增訂注釋全宋詞, vol. 2 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1997), item1214, 231.

72 This appears to be another term for 銷金, a thread with flecks of gold woven into it.

73 The sun. 74 A general term for any imperial park. 75 Associated with Shangqing Daoism; several influential people were named as “masters” of Protecting the True Nature by Shenzong and Huizong in the latter part of Northern Song. The term itself, “protecting the essential/true nature” stems from the Zhuangzi. According to the Remnant Affairs of the Xuanhe Era of the Great Song (Da Song xuanhe yishi 大宋宣和遺事), it construction began on this temple in July or early August of 1122. See Cao 1993, 18.

76 This was another name for the House of Alum (Baifan lou 白礬樓), a drinking establishment located east of the Imperial City.

77 These are screens erected with potted plants. The term yichun 移春 derives from a story in the Events Remembered from the Tianbao Years (Tianbao yishi 天寶遺事) in which Yang Guozhong has flowers transplanted into a moveable flower bed that he had pulled around so he could always see it. He named it yichun kan 移春檻, “the caged cart of transplanted spring.”

78 The operculum of a whelk was mixed with “lignum aloes, musk and various medicinal flowers.” See Bernard Read, Chinese Materia Medica: Turtle and Shellfish Drugs: Avian Drugs: A Compendium of Minerals and Stones Used in Chinese Medicine from the Pen-ts’ao kang-mu. vol. 3, Chinese medicine series (Taipei: Southern Materials Center, 1977), 74–75.

79 From a Tang dynasty tale by Shen Jiji 沈既濟 (ca. 780) entitled “Record in a Pillow” (Zhenzhong ji 枕中記) about a certain student named Lu who meets a Daoist named Codger Lü at an inn in Handan. Lü gave him a pillow so he could take a nap, and he dreamt of passing the examinations, attaining a high position, having a family, and finally dying. When he died, he awoke from the dream to find that the millet that the innkeeper was cooking was not yet ready. In later traditions the story is grafted into the hagiographies of Lü Dongbin 呂洞賓 who becomes Student Lu and Zhongli Quan 鍾離全, who becomes Codger Lü, and the story becomes one of Lü Dongbin’s enlightenment. For the

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original story, see “The World Inside a Pillow,” trans. William H. Nienhauser, Jr., in Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations, ed. Y. W. Ma and Joseph S. M. Lau (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 435–38. For the hagiographical materials and their representations, see Paul R. Katz, “Enlightened Alchemist or Immoral Immortal? The Growth of Lü Dongbin’s Cult in Late Imperial China,” in Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China, ed. Meir Shahar and Robert Weller (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1996), 93–96 and the catalogue of the exhibition of Taoism and the Arts of China, “Taoist Immortals,” in Taoism and the Arts of China, ed. Stephen Little and Shawn Eichman (Berkeley and Chicago: University of California Press and Chicago Art Institute, 2001), 324–27.

80 The term bidi 避地 can mean either to “become a hermit in a remote place” or “find a remote place to escape the calamity of war.”

81 See Richard Van Ness Simmons, “Northern and Southern Forms in Hangzhou Grammar,” Chinese Languages and Linguistics. Vol I: Chinese Dialects, ed. Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. Symposium Series of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. No. 2 (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1992), 539–61.

82 See Baisui laoweng (pseud.), Fengchuang xiaodu, ed. Chen Jiru 陳繼儒, in Fengchuang xiaodu ji qita yizhong 楓窗小牘及其他一種, Congshu jicheng vol. 2784 (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1939), 1, and Fengchuang xiaodu, in Quan Song biji, coll. 4, vol. 5 (Zhengzhou: Daxiang chubanshe, 2008), 291.

83 Referring to a quote from Tao Gu 陶穀 (903–70), “Dili men 地理門,” Qingyi lu 清異錄, Quan Song biji coll. I, vol. 2 (Zhengzhou: Daxiang chubanshe, 2003), 17: “Heaven on earth: for limpid clarity [of rivers] and ripest beauty [of mountains], the southeast is the best; for combining the richness of the whole world, Yu Hang is the best. Everything is there and happening, it is heaven on earth.” 地上天宮：輕清秀 麗，東南為甲；富兼華夷，白事繁庶；地上天宮也.

84 Baisui laoren, Fengchuang xiaodu, Quan Song biji, 219. 85 Yi Yongwen 伊永文, “Meng Yuanlao kao 孟元老考,” Nankai daxue xuebao (zhexue shehuikexue ban) 南開大學學報（哲學社會科學版）3 (2011), 78–86 passim. 86 See Yao Shilin 姚士麟 (ca. 1520–55), “Preface” 序, Fengchuang xiaodu,

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Notes

i, and entry in Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao, Heyin Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao ji Siku weishou shumu, Jinhui shumu 合印四庫全書總目提 要及四庫未受書目禁燬書, ed. Wang Yunwu 王雲五, Vol. 2 (Taibei: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1971), 2918.

87 See for instance the striking difference of coeval descriptions of literati and scholar officials on Hangzhou in the 1150’s assembled in Cao Shuji 曹樹基, Ge Jianxiong 葛劍雄, and Wu Songdi 吳松弟, Zhongguo yimin shi: Liao Song Jin Yuan shiqi 中國移民史：遼宋金元時期, Fuzhou: Fujian

renmin chubanshe, 1997, 276 onward.

88 See Stephen H. West, “Gardens and Imagination in Song and Yuan Gardens,” Gardens and Imagination: Cultural History and Agency, ed. Michel Conan (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2007), 41–66.

89 This term usually refers to “boats that race like horses along the springswollen rivers,” but it could also simply be “on their spring mounts.”

90 While unnoted in commentaries on the poem, this line could also refer to the “open dais” stage mentioned in Dream.

91 Again, commentaries assume this refers to the women’s palanquins, however, it could also refer to the Emperor’s return from his feast at The Temple of the Five Marchmounts, which signaled the beginning of the New Year’s entertainments.

92 From Li He’s 李賀 (790–816) famous poem, “The Song of the Bronze Immortals Bidding Han Adieu” 金銅仙人辭漢歌, in which the bronze statues of immortals holding dew-catching trays aloft weep as they are removed from the Han palaces and carted away by officials from the new state of Wei. Here, perhaps transposed to the old who weep in memory.

93 I am following the readings of this poem proposed in He Wei 賀圍, “Liu Chenweng yuanxiao ci yixiang jianlun 劉辰翁元宵詞意象簡論,” Wenyi pinglun 文藝評論 6 (2011): 61–64; Jiao Yinting 焦印亭, “Liu Chenweng yuanxiao ci shulun 劉辰翁元宵詞述論,” Nanchang gaozhuan xuebao 南昌高專學報 2 (2009): 32–34; and Zhang Bibi 張辟辟, “Jianxi Liu Chenweng yuanxiao ci de shuli zhi bei 淺析劉辰翁元宵詞的黍離之悲,” Hechi xueyuan xuebao 河池學院學報 34.3 (2014): 10–15.

94 Adapting the well-known story of Xu Deyan 徐德言 and the Princess of Changle 昌樂公主, who broke a mirror in two when the state of Chen fell, vowing to meet again and make the mirror whole.

95 Adapting Li Yu’s famous line, “flowing water and fallen flowers leave

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with the spring, above in heaven and here among men 流水落花春去也， 天上人間.” Here, “I saw it all, now swept away like flowing water and fallen blossoms.”

Chapter Six *

I am grateful to Christian de Pee, one of the co-editors of this volume, for correcting several errors in the draft and making numerous suggestions, beyond those of editorial style, which led to improvements in the final version.

1

Alister D. Inglis, Hong Mai’s Record of the Listener and Its Song Dynasty Context (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 23–55 and 123–51.

2

In addition to Inglis’s study, see Valerie Hansen, Changing Gods in Medieval China, 1127–1276 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); Edward Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001; and Robert Hymes, Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Diversity in Song and Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). See also Barend ter Harr, “Newly Recovered Anecdotes from Hong Mai’s (1123–1202) Yijian zhi,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 23 (1993), 19–41.

3

Hong Mai, Yijian zhi, “Dingzhi” 11.631.

4

Hong Mai, “Xihu anni” 西湖庵尼, Yijian zhi, “Zhijing” 3.902-03.

5

Brian McKnight maintains that urban crime was rife in Song cities generally, because of their inherent conditions, see his Law and Order in Sung China (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 108–9, 284–89, and 515–18.

6

On the role that Yijian zhi played as a source for subplots and episodes in later novels and drama, see the Ph.D. dissertation by Wang Jin 王瑾, “Yijian zhi xinlun: yi gushi leixing he chuanbo wei zhongxin” 《夷堅志》 新論：以故事類型和傳播為中心, Ji’nan University, 2010, 182–297.

7

It was common for provincial level officials to return to the capital between assignments, to await a new posting. Sometimes it took a year or more of such waiting before the new assignment was made. During that time, the man might work behind the scenes, contacting whatever powerful friends he might have, to try to influence the assignment process.

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Notes

8

“Li Jiangshi” 李將仕, Yijian zhi, “Zhibu,” 8.1618–19.

9

The gambling referred to here (Chinese: pu 撲 or guanpu 關撲) refers to the widespread practice of engaging street vendors in a game, pitting the buyer’s cash (or other asset) against the seller’s merchandise. As we see here, there was no guarantee the buyer would end up with any of that merchandise. See Meng Yuanlao 孟元老, Dongjing menghua lu jianzhu 東京夢華錄箋注, ed. Yi Shuiwen 伊水文 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006) 7.725–26; and Wu Zimu 吳自牧, Mengliang lu 夢粱錄, in Dongjing menghua lu (wai sizhong) 東京夢華錄（外四種), ed. Zhou Feng 周峰 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1988) 1.139.

10 These figures on the price of food in Lin’an come from Cheng Minsheng 程民生, “Songdai shipin jiage yu canfei kaocha” 宋代食品價格與餐費 考察, Hebei daxue xuebao (Zhexue shehui kexue ban) 33.4 (2008),

10–12. 11 Two other scam stories are grouped together with “Li Jiangshi” in Yijian zhi: “Lin’an wujiang” 臨 安 武 將 and “Zheng zhubo” 鄭 主 薄, Yijian zhi, “Zhibu” 8.1620–21.

12 “Zheng zhubo,” 8.1620. 13 Robert Hymes, “Truth, Falsity, and Pretense in Song China: An Approach through the Anecdotes of Hong Mai,” Studies in Chinese History (Chūgoku shigaku) 15 (2005), 1–26.

14 “Lin’an li Gaosheng” 臨安吏高生, Yijian zhii, “Zhijing” 5.915–16. 15 Hong Mai, “Ganhong mao” 乾紅貓, Yijian zhi, “Sanzhi ji” 9.1372. 16 “Jinyun guixian” 縉雲鬼仙, Yijian zhi, “Jiazhi” 12.102 17 “Wang Li ao ya” 王立爊鴨, Yijian zhi, “Dingzhi” 4.571. 18 “Li Ji ao ji” 李吉爊雞, Yijianzhi, “Bingzhi” 9.443. 19 Shengyang Tower 昇陽樓 is presumably the same place as Shengyang Hall 昇陽宮, mentioned in Wu Zimu, Mengliang lu 10.213. 20 “Guanpu naide weng” 灌圃耐得翁, Ducheng jisheng 都城紀勝, in Dongjing menghua lu (wai sizhong) 東京夢華錄（外四種), 80-81. 21 “Hong nuer” 紅奴兒, Yijian zhi, “Bingzhi” 6.412. 22 “Wang Xie Jianqiao zhai” 王燮薦橋宅, Yijian zhi, “Zhibu” 17.1710–11. 23 The character for Wang’s given name, printed as xie 夑 in Hong Mai’s text, should be that character with the wang 王 radical on the left-hand side (a rare character). For Wang Xie as Gaozong’s general in the early Shaoxing reign, see Li Xinchuan 李心傳, Jianyan yilai xinian yaolu 建炎

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以來繫年要錄 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1988), 70.1180.

24 The selling price the text gives is “3,000 strings of cash” 三千緡, but this sounds too low and, considering what is said later, that the selling price was “less than one-tenth” of the 500,000 strings figure, I believe that “3,000” must be a mistake for “30,000” 三萬緡, and I have altered the number accordingly.

25 Song Anguo figures in several of Hong Mai’s stories as an exorcist summoned to deal with ghosts and spirits. In another story, it is said that he once served as commandant of the Zhexi Circuit, see “Deqing shuyao” 德清樹妖, Yijian zhi, “Dingzhi” 4.568.

26 “Yang jiaoshou mu” 楊教授母, Yijian zhi, “Zhigui” 2.1236–37. 27 Gao Li’s given name is properly the ancient form of the character li 栗, Morohashi, Dai kanwa jiten no. 15166. 28 Edward A. Kracke, “Family vs. Merit in Chinese Civil Service Examinations,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 10 (1947), 106.

Chapter Seven *

The research for this chapter was supported by a Hunting Family Faculty Fellowship from the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan and by a Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars from the American Council of Learned Societies, with residence at the National Humanities Center. I am very grateful for this support, and I am grateful also for the comments and encouragement I received from readers and listeners in response to various versions of this chapter, notably from Beverly Bossler, John Carson, Ronald Egan, Linda Feng, Gabrielle Hecht, T. J. Hinrichs, Robert Hymes, Amy Kulper, Lydia Liu, Ruth Mostern, Ian Moyer, Stephen Owen, Sarah Schneewind, Anna Shields, Curie Virag, Steve West, and Siyin Zhao. I thank Shuen-fu Lin for his careful corrections of the Chinese texts and the translations.

1

Zhou Mi 周密, Wulin jiushi 武林舊事, in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong 東京夢華錄外四種 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 3.376.

2

Shao Bo 邵博, Shaoshi wenjian houlu 邵氏聞見後錄 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 25.202. On the Record of Famous Gardens in Luoyang, see Christian de Pee, “Wards of Words: Textual Geographies and Urban Space in Song-Dynasty Luoyang, 960–1127,” Journal of the Economic

314 

Notes

and Social History of the Orient 52.1 (2009), 102–4; Ronald Egan, The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 154–58; Xiaoshan Yang, “Li Gefei’s ‘Luoyang mingyuan ji’ (A Record of the Celebrated Gardens of Luoyang): Text and Context,” Monumenta Serica 52 (2004), 237–38.

3

Guanpu naide weng 灌圃耐得翁, Ducheng jisheng 都城紀勝, in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong, 89. For a translation of the beginning of the preface, see below. For other translations of this text, see Patricia B. Ebrey, Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, second edition (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 178–85; A. C. Moule, “Wonder of the Capital,” New China Review 3 (1921), 12–7, 356–67.

4

Cf. de Pee, “Wards of Words,” 102–4.

5

Guanpu naide weng, Ducheng jisheng, 91.

6

On the notion of literary geography, see M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, edited by Michael Holquist, translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 84–258; Franco Moretti, Atlas of the European Novel, 1800– 1900 (London: Verso, 1998).

7

See Sun Qi 孫棨, Beili zhi 北里志, in Kyōbōki, Hokurishi 教坊記, 北里志, translated by Saitō Shigeru 齋藤茂 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1992); Li Chuo 李綽, Nianxia suishi ji 輦下歲時記, Shuofu edition (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988); Li Chuo 李綽, Qinzhong suishi ji 秦中歲時記, Shuofu edition; Wang Dingbao 王定保, Tang zhiyan 唐摭言 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1978 [1957]); Ma Duanlin 馬端臨, Wenxian tongkao 文獻通考 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), 206.1707a. On Record of the Northern Ward, see Linda Rui Feng, “Unmasking fengliu in Urban Chang’an: Re-Reading Beili zhi (Anecdotes from the Northern Ward),” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 32 (2010), 1–21. On Gleaned Accounts of the Tang, see Oliver J. Moore, Rituals of Recruitment in Tang China: Reading an Annual Programme in the Collected Statements by Wang Dingbao ( 870 – 940 ) (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

8

On the urge to intellectual and aesthetic reflection on everyday life in Song poetry, cf. Kōjirō Yoshikawa, An Introduction to Sung Poetry, translated by Burton Watson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967 [1962]), 14–24. On the belated representation of the industrial city in nineteenth-century literature and painting see, for example,

Notes

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Robert Alter, Imagined Cities: Urban Experience and the Language of the Novel (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005); Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, Paris as Revolution: Writing the Nineteenth-Century City (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994); Anke Gleber, The Art of Taking a Walk: Flanerie, Literature, and Film in Weimar Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Michele Hannoosh, “Painters of Modern Life: Baudelaire and the Impressionists,” in Visions of the Modern City: Essays in History, Art, and Literature, edited by William Sharpe and Leonard Wallock (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press), 168 – 88 ; Moretti, Atlas of the European Novel, 77–140; Theodore Reff, “Manet and the Paris of Haussmann and Baudelaire,” in Visions of the Modern City, 135–67; James H. Rubin, Impressionism and the Modern Landscape: Productivity, Technology, and Urbanization from Manet to Van Gogh (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008); Frank Whitford, “The City in Painting,” in Unreal City: Urban Experience in Modern European Literature and Art, edited by Edward Timms and David Kelley (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1985), 45–64; Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 153–80.

9

Richard von Glahn observes that from antiquity through late imperial times, “Chinese monetary thought remained anchored to the idea that money was a tool used by the ruler to promote economic welfare by ensuring an equitable distribution of goods and income.” Richard von Glahn, Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996), 28.

10 For protests against plans to return the Yellow River to its former course see, for example, Fan Zuyu 范祖禹, Fan taishi ji 范太史集, Siku quanshu edition (reprint) (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1983), 16.7b–17.17b; Liu Zhi 劉摯, Zhongsu ji 忠肅集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002), 7.137–9; Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修, Ouyang Xiu quanji 歐陽修 全集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001), zouyi.13.1642–53; Su Shi 蘇軾, Su Shi wenji 蘇詩文集, fourth edition (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996 [ 1986 ]), 29 . 823 – 6 ; Su Zhe 蘇轍, Luancheng ji 欒城集 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2009), I.42.920–7, I.45.996–8, II.16.1342–4. For the explicit connection of these protests to the fundamental strategies of the New Laws, see Fan Chunren 范純仁, Fan Zhongxuan ji 范忠 宣集, Siku quanshu edition, zouyi.2.39a–44b.

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11 The collected works of the ninth through eleventh centuries provide suitable evidence for a study of changing literary geographies because they contain a multiplicity of genres, because they remain stable in their form and in the genres they include, because they were perceived at the time to preserve the life and the individual vision of their authors, and because the collected works extant from the ninth century (although a very narrow and unrepresentative selection of the writing of the period) were composed by men very similar to the authors of extant eleventh-century collected works. As the collected works of the ninth century extant today survive because they were admired, studied, and printed by the literati of the eleventh century, the shifting geographic orientation of inherited genres is certain to be the result of conscious literary endeavor, not an accident of historical change or of the vagaries of transmission. On collected works as portraits of their authors see, for example, Bai Juyi 白居易, Bai Juyi ji 白居易集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 71.1504; Chen Xiang 陳襄, Guling xiansheng wenji 古靈先生 文集, 1135 edition, reprinted in Beijing tushuguan guji zhenben congkan 北京圖書館古籍珍本叢刊 (Beijing: Shumu wenxian, 1988 – 1991), preface.3a; Su Song 蘇頌, Su Weigong wenji 蘇魏公文集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004 [1988]), 1139 preface.1. Cf. Christopher M. B. Nugent, Manifest in Words, Written on Paper: Producing and Circulating Poetry in Tang Dynasty China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2010), 258–61; Yoshikawa, An Introduction to Sung Poetry, 1–48.

12 See, for example, Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元, Liu Zongyuan ji 柳宗元集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 26.703–4; Ouyang Zhan 歐陽詹, Ouyang Xingzhou wenji 歐陽行周文集, Sibu congkan edition (reprint) (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1984–85), 5.49b; Xu Yin 徐夤, Xu gong diaoji wenji 徐公釣磯文集, Sibu congkan edition, 8.8b–9a.

13 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 11.224, 18.387, 19.414; Li Deyu 李德裕, Li Deyu wenji 李德裕文集 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999), 3.461–3; Li Pin 李頻, Liyue shiji 梨嶽詩集, Sibu congkan edition, 33b; Liu Yuxi 劉禹錫, Liu Yuxi ji 劉禹錫集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1990), 32.435; Ouyang Zhan, Ouyang Xingzhou wenji, 5.44b–47a; Shen Yazhi 沈亞之, Shen Xiaxian ji 沈下賢集 (Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2003), 1.11. Natural beauty in the periphery is incongruous or dangerous. See, for example, Liu Zongyuan, Liu Zongyuan ji, 29.773; Lü Wen 呂溫, Lü Hengzhou ji 呂衡州集, Congshu

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jicheng chubian edition (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1935–1937), 2.12.

14 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 16.340, 17.355; Bao Rong 鮑溶, Bao Rong shiji 鮑溶詩集, Siku quanshu edition, 1.7b; Han Yu 韓愈, Han Yu quanji 韓愈全集 (Chengdu: Sichuan daxue chubanshe, 1996), 134, 175, 184, 1532, 1656; Li Deyu, Li Deyu wenji, 4.449; Li Shangyin 李商隱, Li Shangyin shiji 李商隱詩集 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1985), 1.11–13, 3.497; Li Shen 李紳, Li Shen ji 李紳集

(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2009), 110–1; Liu Yuxi, Liu Yuxi ji, 1.7–8, 23.290; Liu Zongyuan, Liu Zongyuan ji, 30.798; Wang Jian 王建, Wang sima ji 王司馬集, Siku quanshu edition, 3.1b; Xu Hun 徐渾, Xu Yonghui wenji 徐用晦文集, Southern Song edition (reprint) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994), 1.14b; Yuan Zhen 元稹, Yuan Zhen ji 元稹集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 13.145–6; Zhang Ji 張籍, Zhang Wenchang ji 張文昌集, Song edition (reprint) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994), 1.2b, 1.7a, 2.10a. Cf. Edward H. Schafer, The Vermilion Bird: T’ang Images of the South (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), 120–51; Schafer, Shore of Pearls (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969), 25–54.

15 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 17.366; Han Yu, Han Yu quanji, 138, 169, 281–2; Yuan Zhen, Yuan Zhen ji, 14.161, 15.173. 16 See, for example, Du Mu 杜牧, Du Mu ji 杜牧集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2008), 7.694–6, 7.702–4; Han Yu, Han Yu quanji, 1632–3, 2596–7; Liu Zongyuan, Liu Zongyuan ji, 27.726–36, 28.743–51, 29.759–74; Lü Wen, Lü Hengzhou ji, 2.16; Shen Yazhi, Shen Xiaxian ji, 5.89; Ouyang Zhan, Ouyang Xingzhou wenji, 5.51b–52b; Yuan Zhen, Yuan Zhen ji, 3.31–2. Cf. Stephen Owen, The End of the Chinese “Middle Ages”: Essays in Mid-Tang Literary Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 30–33.

17 See, for example, Cao Ye 曹鄴, Cao cibu ji 曹祠部集, Siku quanshu edition, 1.7b; Han Wo 韓偓, Han neihan bieji 韓內翰別集, Siku quanshu edition, 1.13b; Li He 李賀, Li Changji wenji 李長吉文集, Southern Song edition (reprint) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994), 3.7ab; Li Deyu, Li Deyu wenji, 4.500; Li Pin, Liyue shiji, 15b; Liu Zongyuan, Liu Zongyuan ji, 42.1166. 18 Cf. Yoshikawa, An Introduction to Sung Poetry, 129.

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Notes

19 On the markets of Chang’an, see Victor Cunrui Xiong, Sui-Tang Chang’an: A Study in the Urban History of Medieval China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2000), 166–93. On Zhang Ji’s residence in Yankang Ward, see Han Yu, Han Yu quanji, 702.

20 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 29.665, 1.1508, 1.1517; Han Wo 韓偓, Xianglian ji 香籢集 (Shanghai: Saoye shanfang, 1924), passim; Wang Jian, Wang sima ji, 8.11a; Zheng Gu 鄭谷, Zheng Shouyu wenji 鄭守愚文集, Sibu congkan edition, 1.15b. Some poems make mention of humble peddlers and fortune-tellers. See, for example, Han Yu, Han Yu quanji, 1786; Liu Zongyuan, Liu Zongyuan ji, 17.472; Xu Hun, Xu Yonghui ji, 2.2b. Policy essays and memorials demonstrate that the same authors who exclude the commercial world from their literary compositions are well aware of the economic conditions of their time. See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 47.998–1000, 63.1311–2, 63.1313–21; Han Yu, Han Yu quanji, 2448–9, 2508–14; Li Ao 李翱, Li Wengong ji 李文公集, Siku quanshu edition, 9.6b–7b; Shen Yazhi, Shen Xiaxian ji, 10 .197 –8 ; Yuan Zhen, Yuan Zhen ji, 34 .395 –7 , 36.414–6, wai.2.651. On the centrality of the pleasure quarters in literati life see, for example, Feng, “Unmasking fengliu”; Paul Rouzer, Articulated Ladies: Gender and the Male Community in Early Chinese Texts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001 ), 249–83.

21 On the writing of nature and gardens in the ninth century, see Owen, The End of the Chinese “Middle Ages,” 34–54, 87–105; Xiaoshan Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003), 11–90.

22 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 14.278; Du Mu, Du Mu ji, 2.176; Du Xunhe 杜荀鶴, Du Xunhe wenji 杜荀鶴文集, Song edition (reprint) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1980), 2.7a; Han Yu, Han Yu quanji, 561, 717, 843, 864, 952–3; Li Deyu, Li Deyu wenji, 3.461–2; Li Guan 李觀, Li Yuanbin wenji 李元賓文集, Congshu jicheng chubian edition, 5.57; Li Pin, Liyue shiji, 37b–38a; Liu Yuxi, Liu Yuxi ji, 22.272, 27.356, 34.486; Luo Yin 羅隱, Luo Yin ji 羅隱集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 9.145; Ouyang Zhan, Ouyang Xingzhou wenji, 2.25b; Shen Yazhi, Shen Xiaxian ji, 1.11; Wang Jian, Wang sima ji, 3.4ab; Wei Zhuang 韋莊, Wei Zhuang ji 韋莊集 (Shanghai: Shanghai

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guji chubanshe, 2002), 1.30, bu.359–60; Wen Tingyun 溫庭筠, Wen Tingyun shiji 溫庭筠詩集 (Taipei: Liming wenhua shi, 1999), 3.86; Yao He 姚合, Yao shaojian shiji 姚少監詩集, Sibu congkan edition, 9.7b; Zheng Gu, Zheng Shouyu wenji, 1.4a.

23 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 9.175, 22.484–5, 25.572–3; Wang Jian, Wang sima ji, 5.19b–20a; Xu Hun, Xu Yonghui wenji, 2 .27 b; Yao He, Yao shaojian shiji, 3 .5 ab, 9 .6 b; Zhang Ji, Zhang Wenchang ji, 3.1b, 3.4b, 3.8b; Zheng Gu, Zheng Shouyu wenji, 2.5a. For examples of such poems, see below.

24 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 25.561; Du Mu, Du Mu ji, 2.318; Li Pin, Liyue shiji, 12a; Luo Yin, Luo Yin ji, 7.108; Zhang Ji, Zhang Wenchang ji, 2.11b. 25 See, for example, Han Yu, Han Yu quanji, 350–1; Yao He, Yao shaojian shiji, 10 . 7 a; Yuan Zhen, Yuan Zhen ji, 8 . 90 ; Zhang Ji, Zhang Wenchang ji, 2.4a. 26 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 13.263; Han Wo, Han neihan bieji, 1.50a; Luo Yin, Luo Yin ji, 5.85. Chang’an, of course, also had a characteristic soundscape, with the sound of traffic, the music and noise of neighbors, the drums and bells that sounded the hours, the bells of the many monasteries, and sometimes the cry of an exotic pet, such as a monkey or a southern bird. See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 5.97–8; Liu Yuxi, Liu Yuxi ji, 24.306; Wu Rong 吳融, Tangying geshi 唐英歌詩, Siku quanshu edition, 1.15b; Wang Jian, Wang sima ji, 1.16a; Wei Zhuang, Wei Zhuang ji, bu.394; Xu Hun, Xu Yonghui ji, 1.12a; Yao He, Yao shaojian shiji, 4.1b; Yuan Zhen, Yuan Zhen ji, 17.193; Zhang Ji, Zhang Wenchang ji, 2.2b, 4.10a.

27 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 28.644, 33.757–8; Du Mu, Du Mu ji, bie.1307; Han Yu, Han Yu quanji, 488; Wen Tingyun, Wen Tingyun shiji, 8.320. 28 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 21.644, 24.540; Meng Jiao 孟郊, Meng Jiao ji 孟郊集 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1995), 8.317. 29 See Yao He, Yao shaojian ji, 6.7b. 30 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 21.457, 21.463; Du Mu, Du Mu ji, 4.476; Liu Yuxi, Liu Yuxi ji, 8.102–3; Meng Jiao, Meng Jiao ji, 8.317. 31 See, for example, Du Mu, Du Mu ji, 3.415; Fang Gan 方干, Xuanying ji 玄英集, Siku quanshu edition, 5.9a; Han Wo, Han neihan bieji, 1.54a; Lu Guimeng 陸龜蒙, Fuli xiansheng wenji 甫里先生文集, Sibu congkan

320 

Notes

edition, 7.58b; Luo Yin, Luo Yin ji, 9.133–4; Wei Zhuang, Wei Zhuang ji, 399; Wen Tingyun, Wen Tingyun shiji, 8.278; Yuan Zhen, Yuan Zhen ji, 11.129, 21.236; Zhang Ji, Zhang Wenchang ji, 1.2b, 1.7a, 4.11a. See also Liu Yuxi, Liu Yuxi ji, 20.247–8.

32 See, for example, Han Wo, Han neihan bieji, 1.14b, 1.16a–17a; Qiji 齊己, Bailian ji 白蓮集, Sibu congkan edition, 1.4a; Sikong Tu 司空圖, Sikong biaosheng wenji 司空表聖文集, Song edition (reprint) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994 ), 4 . 3 ab, 10 . 3 a; Wei Zhuang, Wei Zhuang ji, 2.83, 10.310; Wu Rong, Tangying geshi, 2.7a; Xu Hun, Xu gong diaoji wenji, 9.8b–9a; Zheng Gu, Zheng Shouyu wenji, 3.3ab, 37 a. Cf. Huang Tao 黃滔, Puyang Huang yushi ji 莆陽黃御史集, Congshu jicheng chubian edition, 1.95, 1.97; Qiji, Bailian ji, 6.8b; Wei Zhuang, Wei Zhuang ji, 3.115, 3.117, 5.209–212, bu.315–6.

33 See Meng Yuanlao 孟元老 (pseud.), Dongjing meng Hua lu 東京夢華錄, in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong; Cui Lingqin 崔令欽, Jiaofang ji 教坊記 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2012 ); Jin Yingzhi 金盈之, ed., Zuiweng tanlu 醉翁談錄 (Shanghai: Shanghai wenxue chubanshe,

1958), 3.12–4.22. The principle by which the loss of Chang’an generated written recollections of unprecedented detail operates at a more modest scale in poems in which absence from the capital reminded Tang literati of features of the cityscape that they would omit from poems composed in Chang’an itself, such as its tall roofs (Cao Ye, Cao cibu ji, 2.10a), matchmakers crying out in the streets (Liu Tui 劉蛻, Liu Tui ji 劉蛻集, Sibu congkan edition, 5.3a), childhood memories of riding a hobbyhorse by the Imperial Canal (Wei Zhuang, Wei Zhuang ji, bu.379), or the incessant stream of hearses leaving the city gates (Yuan Zhen, Yuan Zhen ji, 1.1–2).

34 See, for example, Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 20 . 450 , 24 . 543 , 27 . 611 , 43.944–5; Du Mu, Du Mu ji, 3.339, 10.794; Fang Gan, Xuanying ji, 4.10b, 6.3a; Huangfu Shi 皇甫湜, Huangfu chizheng wenji 皇甫持正文集, Song edition (reprint) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994), 2.7b–8a; Luo Yin, Luo Yin ji, 306–7; Meng Jiao, Meng Jiao ji, 2.84, 4.164, 8.317; Yao He, Yao shaojian ji, 6.7b; Yuan Zhen, Yuan Zhen ji, 26.313–4. The Southeast also produced increasing numbers of examination candidates and officials.

35 See Wei Zhuang, Wei Zhuang ji, 4.175. Cf. Wei Zhuang, Wei Zhuang ji, bu.373 (about the city of Hanzhou, in Sichuan). For Wei Zhuang’s accounts of the destruction of Chang’an and Luoyang, see Wei Zhuang

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ji, 2.83, buyi.315–9; Nugent, Manifest in Words, 27–71.

36 Du Xunhe, Du Xunhe wenji, 1.1b. Cf. Du Xunhe, Du Xunhe wenji, 1.3b. Cf. also Qiji, Bailian ji, 8.7b; Wu Rong, Tangying geshi, 3.25a– 26a. During the 880s, Du Xunhe lived on Mount Jiuhua, whither he had fled during the rebellions and unrest. See Du Xunhe, Du Xunhe wenji, 1.15a, 2.13b, 3.6a.

37 See Han Wo, Han neihan bieji, 1.14b. In general, Han Wo complains of the discomforts of life as a refugee and a recluse, not about the southern climate or landscape. On the resignation to exile under the weakened court of the late Tang, cf. Shang Yongliang 尚永亮, Tang Wudai zhuchen yu bianzhe wenxue yanjiu 唐五代逐臣與貶謫文學研究 (Wuhan: Wuhan daxue chubanshe, 2007 ), 440 – 96 . I thank Anna Shields for this reference.

38 Cf. Johannes L. Kurz, “A Survey of the Historical Sources for the Five Dynasties and Ten States in Song Times,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 33 (2003), 194. Already in the eleventh century, Song Qi 宋祁 (998– 1061 ) warned in a memorial that the imperial library lacked the collected works of ministers who had served under the first three reigns of the Song. See Song Qi 宋祁, Jingwen ji 景文集, Congshu jicheng chubian edition, fu.84.952.

39 Of the thirty fascicles of the Collected Works of the Policy Adviser, the first twenty gather compositions from the Southern Tang period, while the latter ten collect compositions Xu Xuan wrote during the Song. See Xu Xuan 徐鉉, Jisheng ji 騎省集, Sibu beiyao edition (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1927–1936), 993 preface.2b.

40 Du Xunhe, Du Xunhe wenji, 2.1a. 41 See, for example, Xu Xuan, Jisheng ji, 3.1a, 3.2a, 3.2b, 3.2b–3b, 3.7b. 42 See Hugh R. Clark, “The Southern Kingdoms between the T’ang and the Sung, 907–979,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 5, The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907–1279 , Part One, edited by Denis Twitchett and Paul Jakov Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2009), 171–205; Johannes L. Kurz, China’s Southern Tang Dynasty, 937–976 (London: Routledge, 2011), 27–39, 69–70; Peter Lorge, “The End of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms,” in Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, edited by Peter Lorge (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2011), 223–42; Ruth Mostern, “‘The Usurper’s Empty Names’: Spatial Organization and State Power in the

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Tang-Song Transition,” in Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, 125–66; Wang Gungwu, The Structure of Power in North China during the Five Dynasties (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1963); Hongjie Wang, Power and Politics in Tenth-Century China: The Former Shu Regime (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2011).

43 See Benjamin Brose, Buddhist Empires: Samgha-State Relations in Tenth-Century China (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 2009); Hugh R. Clark, “The Southern Kingdoms between the T’ang and the Sung, 907–979,” 160–3; Anna M. Shields, Crafting a Collection: The Cultural Contexts and Poetic Practice of the Huajian ji (Collection from Among the Flowers) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University East Asia Center, 2006); Hongjie Wang, Power and Politics in Tenth-Century China, 147–93; Wu Hung, ed., Tenth-Century China and Beyond: Art and Visual Culture in a Multi-Centered Age (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013).

44 See, for example, Cai Xiang 蔡襄, Cai Xiang ji 蔡襄集 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1996), 29.509–10. Cf. John W. Chaffee, The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China: A Social History of Examinations, new edition (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995 [1985]), 129–56; Lucille Chia, Printing for Profit: The Commercial Publishers of Jianyang, Fujian (11th–17th Centuries) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002), 71–3.

45 Cf. Jean-Pierre Drège, “Des Effets de l’imprimerie en Chine sous la dynastie des Song,” Journal Asiatique 282.2 (1994), 409–42; Joseph McDermott, “Book Collecting in Jiangxi during the Song Dynasty,” in Knowledge and Text Production in an Age of Print: China, 900–1400 , edited by Lucille Chia and Hilde De Weerdt (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 63 –101 ; Pan Meiyue 潘美月, Songdai cangshujia kao 宋代藏書家考 (Taipei: Xuehai chubanshe, 1980).

46 See, for example, Hu Su 胡宿, Wengong ji 文恭集, Congshu jicheng chubian edition, 35.419–21; Song Xiang 宋庠, Yuanxian ji 元憲集, Congshu jicheng chubian edition, 19.195; Wang Yucheng 王禹偁, Wang Huangzhou xiaoxu ji 王黃州小畜集, Sibu congkan edition, 7.9b; Yu Jing 余靖, Wuxi ji 武溪集, 1473 edition, reprinted in Guangdong congshu 廣東叢書 (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1946), 5.12b–14b. Cf. Colin S. C. Hawes, The Social Circulation of Poetry in the Mid-Northern Song: Emotional Energy and Literati Self-Cultivation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 71; Cong Ellen Zhang, Transformative

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Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2011), 43–68. Peter Lorge similarly notes that the geography characteristic of the Song Empire dates to the turn of the eleventh century, not to the early decades of the dynasty. See Lorge, “The End of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms,” 223.

47 When Song poets gaze toward the capital from the provinces, they usually write in conscious imitation of Tang authors, sometimes even calling the capital “Chang’an” instead of “the Eastern Capital,” “Bianjing,” or “Kaifeng.” See, for example, Hu Su, Wengong ji, 3.34; Song Qi, Jingwen ji, 18.217–8, 18.220; Su Shunqin 蘇舜欽, Su Shunqin ji 蘇 舜欽集 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1981 [1961]), 8.92; Yang Yi 楊億, Wuyi xinji 武夷新集, Siku quanshu edition, 3.9a, 5.6a; Tian Xi 田錫, Xianping ji 咸平集, Siku quanshu edition, 15.6b, 16.17a, 19.1b. Yu Jing 余靖 (1000–64) writes that gazing toward the capital from the provinces is an outdated convention. See Yu Jing, Wuxi ji, 5.13b.

48 See, for example, Wang Gui 王珪, Huayang ji 華陽集, Siku quanshu edition, 36.3b–4a; Wei Ye 魏野, Julu Dongguan ji 鉅鹿東觀集, 1228 edition, reprinted in Beijing tushuguan guji zhenben congkan, 6.7a; Yu Jing, Wuxi ji, 5.15b–17a. 49 See Li Qunyu 李群玉, Li Qunyu shiji 李群玉詩集, Sibu congkan edition, 1.13b; Song Qi, Jingwen ji, 12.135. Li Qunyu’s comparison of beautiful women to lithe dragons derives from the “Rhapsody on the Goddess” (Shennü fu 神女賦). See Xiao Tong 蕭統, ed., Wenxuan 文選, 1809 edition (reprint) (Taipei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1990), 19.7b.

50 See, for example, Irene S. Leung, “‘Felt Yurts Neatly Arrayed, Large Tents Huddle Close’: Visualizing the Frontier in the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127),” in Political Frontiers, Ethnic Boundaries, and Human Geographies in Chinese History, edited by Nicola di Cosmo and Don J. Wyatt (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 192–219.

51 For a similar analysis of contrasted pairs of Tang and Song poems, see Yoshikawa, An Introduction to Sung Poetry, 29–37. 52 Xu Hun, Xu Yonghui wenji, 2.27b. 53 Han Qi 韓琦, Anyang ji 安陽集, 1514 edition, reprinted in Beijing tushuguan guji zhenben congkan, 2.11b. Cf. Song Qi, Jingwen ji, 13.149, where officials waiting in front of the palace gates are beset by wine-sellers.

54 Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi ji, 22 . 484 . Kōjirō Yoshikawa writes, similarly,

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“Though the poems of Tu Fu, Han Yü, and Po Chü-i [i.e., Bai Juyi] may be said to reflect the realities of T’ang life better than those of any other poets of the period, they still tell us less about what it was like to be a member of a T’ang family, to live in a T’ang city, to work on a T’ang farm, than the works of even minor Sung poets tell us about comparable aspects of Sung life.” Yoshikawa, An Introduction to Sung Poetry, 29.

55 Song Xiang, Yuanxian ji, 14.143. Cf. Song Xiang, Yuanxian ji, 2.10, 14.141. 56 The Drafter at the Phoenix Pavilion and the Star Gentleman are, respectively, Bai Juyi and Yan Xiufu 嚴修復 (fl. 817–24), the recipients of the poem.

57 Zhang Ji, Zhang Wenchang ji, 3.8b. 58 Song Qi, Jingwen ji, 8.87. The pipes presumably were warm from the hot syrup that was drained from a boiling mash of grain and malt in the process of making malt sugar. See H. T. Huang, Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 6 : Biology and Biological Technology, Part 5 : Fermentation and Food Science (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 457–60. The “immortal Zizhen” is Mei Fu 梅福 (fl. 7 bce–1 ce) who became an immortal after retiring from the Han court. “Later, some people saw Fu in Kuaiji. He had changed his name and served as a guard at the gate of the market of Wu” 其後，人有見福 於會稽者，變名姓，為吳市門卒云. Ban Gu 班固, Hanshu 漢書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 67.2927.

59 See Song Qi, Jingwen ji, 23.286; Song Xiang, Yuanxian ji, 6.64. 60 Su Shunqin, Su Shunqin ji, 3.26. The pagoda at Luxuriant Terrace is the so-called Iron Pagoda that still stands in the northeast corner of the old city at Kaifeng.

61 Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣, Mei Yaochen ji biannian jiaozhu 梅堯臣集編年校注 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1980), 28.1061. 62 See Song Qi, Jingwen ji, 14.168. 63 Ouyang Xiu, Ouyang Xiu quanji, waiji.1.716. 64 Sima Guang 司馬光, Wenguo Wenzheng Sima gong wenji 溫國文正司馬 公文集, Sibu congkan edition, 3.21b. 65 See Chen Shidao 陳師道, Houshan jushi wenji 後山居士文集, Southern Song imprint (reprint) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1984), 1.18b.

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66 Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹, Fan Zhongyan quanji 范仲淹全集 (Chengdu: Sichuan daxue chubanshe, 2002 ), 5 . 105 . Cf. Fan Zhongyan, Fan Zhongyan quanji, 5.104, where the same poet notices the “hundred thousand houses of the city of Suzhou” 吳都十萬戶 in the view from Tiger Hill.

67 See Su Shi 蘇軾, Su Shi shiji 蘇軾詩集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996 [1982]), 9.440–1. 68 See Mu Xiu 穆修, Henan Mu gong ji 河南穆公集, Sibu congkan edition, 1.1b–2a. 69 See Wei Ye, Julu Dongguan ji, 7.1b; Song Qi, Jingwen ji, 6.72; Zhang Yong 張永, Zhang Guaiya ji 張乖崖集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000), 2.8; Yang Yi, Wuyi xinji, 1.7a; Lin Bu 林逋, Lin Hejing xiansheng shiji 林和靖先生詩集 (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1935), 2.21a; Wei Ye, Julu Dongguan ji, 5.7b. 70 See Han Qi, Anyang ji, 15.2a, 16.2b; Fan Zhongyan, Fan Zhongyan quanji, xubu.1.743. Song Qi identifies gatherings of vulgar people as one of seven unbearable things. See Song Qi, Jingwen ji, 5.60. 71 Jin Yingzhi, Zuiweng tanlu, 3.13. 72 Huang Shu 黃庶, Fa tan ji 伐壇集, in Huang Tingjian 黃庭堅, Shangu quanshu 山谷全書 (Yiningzhou: Yining zhoushu, 1894), 1.13b–14a. On overflowing and rotting granaries during the Han see, for example, Sima Qian 司馬遷, Shiji 史記, Baina edition (reprint) (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1995 [1937]), 30.3a. In ancient times, acupuncture needles were made of stone. The “worms” are thieves who steal money and grain; cf. Zeng Gong 曾鞏, Zeng Gong ji 曾鞏集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984), jiyi.750; Zhang Fangping 張方平, Zhang Fangping ji 張方平集 (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 2000 [1992]), 15.183–9. Sang Hongyang 桑弘羊 (152–80 bce) was a proponent of imperial monopolies during the Western Han. For similar imagery and arguments see, for example, Huang Shu, Fa tan ji, 1.15ab; Shi Jie 石介, Culai Shi xiansheng wenji 徂徠石先生文集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984), 2.11; Su Song, Su Weigong wenji, 20.266–8; Su Zhe, Luancheng ji, 41.916–7; Zhang Fangping, Zhang Fangping ji, 15.181–3; Zheng Xie 鄭獬, Yunxi ji 鄖溪集, Siku quanshu edition, 8.9ab.

73 Zeng Gong, Zeng Gong ji, 19.315. Cf. Wen Tong 文同, Wen Tong quanji biannian jiaozhu 文同全集編年校注 (Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe,

1999), 23.737–8.

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74 Ouyang Xiu, Ouyang Xiu quanji, 40.585. 75 Wang Anshi 王安石, Wang Linchuan quanji 王臨川全集 (Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1960), 83.529–30. Wang Anshi attributes this speech to his host, a Controller-General of Fuzhou prefecture, Jiangxi province.

76 See Shen Gua 沈括, Mengxi bitan 夢溪筆談, 1305 edition (reprint) (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1975). On Shen Gua’s powers of natural observation see, for example, Ronald Egan, “Shen Kuo Chats with Ink Stone and Writing Brush,” in Idle Talk: Gossip and Anecdote in Traditional China, edited by Jack W. Chen and David Schaberg (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2014), 132–53; Daiwie Fu, “A Contextual and Taxonomic Study of the ‘Divine Marvels’ and ‘Strange Occurrences’ in the Mengxi bitan,” Chinese Science 11 (1993– 94), 3–35. Cf. also Dieter Kuhn, The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 160–86.

77 See Liu Kai 柳開, Hedong xiansheng ji 河東先生集, Sibu congkan edition, 4.5b–7a. 78 See Yu Jing, Wuxi ji, 3.10–12a. 79 See Su Song, Su Weigong wenji, 17.237–8, 65.996. Cf. Wen Yanbo 文彥博, Lugong wenji 潞公文集, Siku quanshu edition, 11.6ab. 80 See, for example, Song Qi, Jingwen ji, 20.254, 24.297; Wei Xiang 韋驤, Qiantang ji 錢塘集, Siku quanshu edition, 6.38a; Yu Jing, Wuxi ji, 1.9b. 81 For these examples, see Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 563, 535. 82 See Li Gou 李覯, Li Gou ji 李覯集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2011 [ 1981 ]), 16 . 151 ; Zeng Gong, Zeng Gong ji, jiyi. 747 . Cf. Robert Hymes’s analysis of the “account of economy as automatic or selfregulatory process” in Dong Wei’s 董煒 (d. 1217) Book for Relieving Famine and Reviving the People (Jiuhuang huomin shu 救荒活民書, ca. 1201). See Robert Hymes, “Moral Duty and Self-Regulating Process in Southern Sung Views of Famine Relief,” in Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty China, edited by Robert Hymes and Conrad Schirokauer (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 295–301.

83 Qin Guan 秦觀, Huaihai ji jianzhu 淮海集箋注 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2000), 15.601. 84 Su Zhe, Luancheng ji, 41.916–7.

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85 Sima Guang, Wenguo Wenzheng Sima gong wenji, 14.15a. 86 See, for example, Chen Xiang, Guling xiansheng wenji, fulu.14b–22a; Hu Su, Wengong ji, 36.435–9; Liu Chang 劉敞, Gongshi ji 公是集, Congshu jicheng chubian edition, 53.637–8; Ouyang Xiu, Ouyang Xiu quanji, 20.324–7. 87 See, for example, Fan Zhongyan, Fan Zhongyan ji, 2.25, 9.212–27; Song Xiang, Yuanxian ji, 27.281; Zhang Yong, Zhang Guaiya ji, 2.7–8, 4.38. 88 On the ideological divides in the use of natural analogies in nineteenth-century Britain, see Graeme Davison, “The City as a Natural System: Theories of Urban Society in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain,” in The Pursuit of Urban History, edited by Derek Fraser and Anthony Sutcliffe (London: Edward Arnold, 1983), 349–70.

89 Cf. Peter K. Bol, “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 212–53; Bol, “Whither the Emperor? Emperor Huizong, the New Policies, and the Tang-Song Transition,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 31 (2001), 103–34; James T. C. Liu, Reform in Sung China: Wang An-shih (1021–1086 ) and His New Policies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968 [1959]); Paul J. Smith, Taxing Heaven’s Storehouse: Horses, Bureaucrats, and the Destruction of the Sichuan Tea Industry, 1074–1224 (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1991). For a lucid discussion of the market mechanism and social justice, see David Harvey, Social Justice and the City, revised edition (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2009 [1973]), 114–5.

90 On the inadequacy of metaphors and analogies to the representation of everyday life in the city, cf. James Donald, “Metropolis: The City as Text,” in Social and Cultural Forms of Modernity, edited by Robert Bocock and Kenneth Thompson (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992 ), 451–2.

91 Some texts mention the hardship of the poor during winter, but only so as to introduce the charitable activities of the wealthy. See, for example, Wu Zimu 吳自牧, Meng liang lu 夢粱錄, in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong, 6.180, 18.293–4; Zhou Mi, Wulin jiushi, 3.383. In a comparable manner, the reader learns about the danger of city fires and urban crime from entries about fire brigades and neighborhood watches. See, for example, Guanpu naide weng, Ducheng jisheng, 100 ; Meng Yuanlao, Dongjing meng Hua lu, 3.22; Wu Zimu, Meng liang lu, 7.189.

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By contrast, a fragment of A Desultory Record of Qiantang (Qiantang suoji 錢塘瑣記, 12th century) by Yu Zhao 于肇 (fl. 1100) consists of examples of scams, swindles, and confidence games. See Yu Zhao 于肇, Qiantang suoji 錢塘瑣記, Shuofu edition.

92 On the ideology of the annual cycle, cf. Han Qi, Anyang ji, 21.5b–6b; Ma Duanlin, Wenxian tongkao, 206.1707c–1708a. On the representation of nature as a site of ideological contest between Song literati and the court, cf. Martin Powers, “Discourses of Representation in Tenthand Eleventh-Century China,” in The Art of Interpreting, edited by Susan C. Scott (University Park: Department of Art History, Pennsylvania State University, 1995), 88–125.

93 On consumption and political subversion, see Stephen H. West, “The Emperor Sets the Pace: Court and Consumption in the Eastern Capital of the Northern Song During the Reign of Huizong,” in Selected Essays on Court Culture in Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Lin Yaofu (Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 1999 ), 25 – 50 ; West, “Empresses and Funerals, Pigs and Pancakes: The Dream of Hua and the Rise of Urban Literature” (unpublished paper, 2000); West, “Spectacle, Ritual, and Social Relations: The Son of Heaven, Citizens, and Created Space in Imperial Gardens in the Northern Song,” in Baroque Garden Cultures: Emulation, Sublimation, and Subversion, edited by Michel Conan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2005), 291–321.

94 See, for example, Cai Xiang, Cai Xiang ji, 11.200; Li You 李攸, Songchao shishi 宋朝事實, Siku quanshu edition, 98.1058–59; Su Shunqin, Su Shunqin ji, 14.174; Song Xiang, Yuanxian ji, 27.281. Cf. Christian de Pee, “Purchase on Power: Imperial Space and Commercial Space in Song-Dynasty Kaifeng,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 53 (2010), 149–84, which also explains that officials and the imperial court themselves infringed upon sumptuary restrictions.

95 Jin Yingzhi, Zuiweng tanlu, 3.12. 96 See Zhou Mi, Wulin jiushi, 3.377–8. 97 See Zhou Mi, Wulin jiushi, 3.375–7. 98 For manifold perceptive analyses of A Dream of Splendor, see Stephen H. West, “The Interpretation of a Dream: The Sources, Evaluation, and Influence of the Dongjing meng Hua lu,” T’oung Pao 71 (1985), 63 – 108 ; West, “Playing with Food: Performance, Food, and the Aesthetics of Artificiality in the Sung and Yuan,” Harvard Journal of

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Asiatic Studies 57:2 (1997), 67–106; West, “The Emperor Sets the Pace”; West, “Empresses and Funerals, Pigs and Pancakes”; West, “Spectacle, Ritual, and Social Relations.”

99 Cf. West, “Empresses and Funerals, Pigs and Pancakes.” 100 Meng Yuanlao, Dongjing meng Hua lu, 1. Cf. the 1187 colophon by Zhao Shixia, in Meng Yuanlao, Dongjing meng Hua lu, 63. Cf. also de Pee, “Purchase on Power,” 165. 101 Meng Yuanlao, Dongjing meng Hua lu, 3.22. 102 Although the Song court did not settle permanently in Hangzhou until 1138, Emperor Gaozong 高宗 (r. 1127–62) visited the city several times and made a preliminary attempt to set up the capital at Hangzhou in

1132. See Li Xinchuan 李心傳, Jianyan yilai chaoye zaji 建炎以來朝野雜 記 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000), I.5.119; Ye Shaoweng 葉紹翁, Sichao wenjian lu 四朝聞見錄 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1989), II.45. See also Lin Zhengqiu 林正秋, Nan Song ducheng Lin’an 南宋都城臨安 (Hangzhou: Xileng yinshe, 1986), 29–35; Xu Jijun 徐吉軍, Nan Song ducheng Lin’an 南宋都城臨安 (Hangzhou: Hangzhou chubanshe, 2008), 3–12.

103 Guanpu naide weng, Ducheng jisheng, 89. Later centuries condemned this perception of an unprecedented harmony of the natural and human landscapes as a dangerous illusion. See, for example, the express preface by the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735–95/98) and the evaluation by the editors of the Complete Books of the Four Treasuries, reproduced in Guanpu naide weng, Ducheng jisheng, 102–3.

104 The translation follows the superior variants in the Shuofu edition of Ducheng jisheng.

105 Guanpu naide weng, Ducheng jisheng, 91. Cf. Ebrey, Chinese Civilization, 178–79. The imperial temple was located just north of the imperial palace, along the imperial avenue. Virtuous Longevity Palace, where Gaozong retired in 1162, lay north of the palace city by the eastern city wall, near Newly Opened Gate (Xinkaimen 新開門). Central Square (Zhongwa 中瓦) lay farther north again, between the imperial avenue and Venerating Renovation Gate (Chongxinmen 崇新門). Zhou Mi therefore seems to be mistaken when he writes, in Miscellaneous Notes from the Guixin Quarter (Guixin zazhi 癸辛雜識, ca. 1298): “During the Longxing reign period, Virtuous Longevity Palace and the quarters of [Gaozong’s] consorts all stood across from the Central Square. It was

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ordered that the imperial dye factory be refurbished and that viewing stands be erected. After Xiaozong returned from the sacrificial rites at the imperial temple in the first month, he too went to see the lanterns at the festival market”隆興間，德壽宮與六宮並於中瓦相對，今修內司染坊， 設著位觀。孝宗冬月正月孟享回，且就看燈買市. Zhou Mi 周密, Guixin zazhi 癸辛雜識 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1988), bieji 1.223. Parts of the imperial temple, of the imperial avenue, and of Virtuous Longevity Palace have been excavated. See Hangzhoushi wenwu kaogusuo 杭州市 文物考古所, Nan Song Lin’an fuzhi yu fuxue yizhi 南宋臨安府治與府學遺 址 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2013), 5–8; Tang Junjie 唐俊傑 and Du Zhengxian 杜正賢, Nan Song Lin’an cheng kaogu 南宋臨安城考古 (Hangzhou: Hangzhou chubanshe, 2008), 26–45, 50–8.

106 On the connections between imperial processions, consumption, and theater, see West, “The Emperor Sets the Pace”; West, “Empresses and Funerals, Pigs and Pancakes.”

107 Guanpu naide weng, Ducheng jisheng, 91. 108 The translation of this parenthetical phrase is based on the variant phrasing in the Yongle Encyclopedia (Yongle dadian 永樂大典), given in Guanpu naide weng, Ducheng jisheng, 109.

109 Guanpu naide weng, Ducheng jisheng, 100. Cf. Ebrey, Chinese Civilization, 183–4. 110 Guanpu naide weng, Ducheng jisheng, 100.

Chapter Eight 1

For instance, Ray Huang goes so far as to use “West Lake and the Southern Song” to title the chapter about the Southern Song dynasty in his China: A Macro History (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), 138.

2

“Yin hushang chu qing hou yu” 飲湖上初晴後雨 (Drinking on the Lake First in Sunshine Then in Rain). See Lin Geng 林庚 and Feng Yuanjun 馮沅君, eds., Zhongguo lidai shige xuan 中國歷代詩歌選 (Anthology of Chinese Poetry from All Ages), 4 vols., (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1979), III.628.

3

According to Wu Zimu’s 吳自牧 (fl. 1270) record in his Meng liang lu 夢粱錄 (Records of a Millet Dream), in Southern Song Hangzhou, pleasure seeking was not a monopoly of the rich and the privileged only.

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Poor people also enthusiastically participated in all kinds of festivities and seasonal celebrations. See Meng liang lu in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong 東京夢華錄外四種 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 1.145, 2.148, 3.157, 4.159, 4.161, 6.181, and 19.301.

4

Zhou Mi 周密 (1232–98) records in his Wulin jiushi 武林舊事 (Old Stories about Wulin [Hangzhou]) how people from different social strata mixed with each other in their participation in the carnivalesque celebration of imperial visits to West Lake. See Wulin Jiushi, in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong, 3.375–377.

5

This is a nickname for West Lake used by the Lin’an people recorded in Zhou Mi’s Wulin jiushi. See Wulin jiushi in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong, 3.376.

6

It is believed that the first existent song lyric on West Lake was composed by the Tang (618–907) poet Bo Juyi 白居易 (772–846) in 837. The sudden flourishing of this poetic type had to wait until the advent of the Song dynasty. For a detailed discussion of this topic, see Xia Chengtao 夏承燾 (1900–86), “Xihu yu Songci” 西湖與宋詞 (West Lake and the Song Dynasty Song Lyrics) in Xia Chengtao ji 夏承燾集 (Collected Works of Xia Chengtao), 8 vols., (Hangzhou: Hangzhou guji chubanshe, 1997), VIII.134–152.

7

Song Renzheng 宋仁正, Songdai de Xihu yu Hangzhou宋代的西湖與杭州 (Xihu and Hangzhou in the Song Dynasty), MA thesis, National Chengchi University, 2004, 94–98.

8

Translations of song lyric tune titles are those used in Wu-chi Liu and Lrving Lo, eds. Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), with slight modifications.

9

Tang Guizhang 唐圭璋 (1901–1990), Quan Songci 全宋詞 (Complete Works of Song Dynasty Song Lyrics), 5 vols., (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), V.3087.

10 See Zhou Ji 周濟 (1781–1839), Jiecunzhai lunci zazhu 介存齋論詞雜著 (Miscellaneous Commentaries on Song Lyrics from the Jiecun Studio) in Tang Guizhang, ed., Cihua congbian 詞話叢編 (Collection of Commentaries on Song Lyrics), 5 vols., (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984 ), II.1629.

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11 Some early and brief records of the poetry societies and clubs in the Southern Song are found in Wu Zimu’s Meng liang lu and Guanpu naide weng’s 灌圃耐得翁 ( ？) Ducheng jisheng 都城紀勝 (Splendid Scenery of the Capital). See Wu Zimu, Meng liang lu, in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong, 19.299, and Guanpu naide weng, Ducheng jisheng in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong, 98. For a detailed study of various poetry communities in the Southern Song, see Ouyang Guang 歐陽光, Song Yuan shishe yanjiu conggao 宋元詩社研究叢稿 (Research in Poetry Societies of Song and Yuan Dynasties) (Guangzhou: Guangdong gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), es the “Nan Song zhong hou qi zai Lin’an Xihu huodong de zhu shishe” 南宋中後期在臨安西湖活動的諸詩社 (Poetry Societies Active in West Lake in Lin’an During the Mid- and Late-periods of the Southern Song) section, 258–76.

12 For a more detailed discussions of this, see Ouyang Guang, 269–70. 13 According to Zhou Mi, Zhang Ju once flaunted in his face the song lyric suite On Ten Attractions of West Lake (of which the “Sunset at Leifeng Pagoda” belongs) and boasted of its artistic refinement. Being young and reluctant to be overawed, Zhou toiled for six days and came out with his own suite on West Lake, using the tune of Mulanhua man 木蘭 花慢 (Long Song Lyrics on Magnolia Blossoms) (See Zhou’s preface to the song suite, in Quan Songci, V.3264). After this Zhou’s friend Chen Yunping 陳允平 (b. 1215–20?; fl. 1275–78) was also encouraged to write a song suite on the same subject. In the afterword to his suite (Quan Songci, V.3104), Chen says that the ten pieces were written in the guihai 癸亥 year during the Jingding 景定 reign (1263).

14 See Ray Huang, China: A Macro History, 141. 15 Zhou Mi, Wulin jiushi, in Dongjing meng Hua lu wai sizhong, 3.375. 16 This is the comment made by editors of the Siku quanshu 四庫全書 (Complete Books of the Four Treasuries) in the annotative description of Guanpu naide weng’s Ducheng jisheng. See Yong Rong 永瑢 and Ji Yun 紀昀, eds., Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 (Annotated Catalog of the Complete Books of the Four Treasuries) (Haikou: Hainan Chubanshe, 1999), 388.

17 James T. C. Liu observes that when the Southern Song intellectuals looked for the “common denominator in [the] ugly realities” of their time, what they found “in every case clearly appeared to be a lack of

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morality.” See Liu, “The Jurchen-Sung Confrontation: Some Overlooked Points,” in Hoyt Cleveland Tillman and Stephen H. West, eds., China under Jurchen Rule (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 44.

18 Quan Songci, V.3083–4. 19 Quan Songci, V.3138. 20 Translation by Shuen-fu Lin. See Lin, “VII. The Fall of the Southern Song” in Chapter 6, The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1 : To 1375 , eds., Kang-i Sun Chang and Stephen Owen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 550–51. 21 For a detailed study of the cultural and literary significance of this song lyric by Wen Jiweng, see Shuen-fu Lin, “Lun Nan-Song moqi Wen Jiweng qiren, qishi ji qi Xihu ci” 論南宋末期文及翁其人、其事及其西湖詞 (Wen Jiweng—His Life and Deeds, and his Song Lyric on West Lake), Tsinghua Xuebao 清華學報 39.1(2009.3), 63–124.

22 See “Toqto’a 脫脫” (1314–56), et. al., Songshi 宋史 (History of Song) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), XLVII.928. 23 Chen Tingzhuo, Baiyuzhai cihua 白雨齋詞話 (Commentaries on Song Lyrics from Baiyu Studio), vol. 2, in Tang Guizhang, Cihua congbian, IV.3804. 24 Chen’s discussion on the chenyu quality of the ci works demonstrated in the fine works of his favorite poets can be seen on almost every page of his Baiyuzhai cihua. For notable examples see Tang Guizhang, Cihua congbian, IV.3717, 3776, 3802, 3817, and 3920, etc.

25 Chen Tingzhuo, Yunshao ji 雲韶集 (Commentaries on Song Lyrics), vol. 7, in Sun Keqiang 孫克强 and Yang Chuanqing 楊傳慶, eds., “Yunshao ji ji ping” 雲韶集輯評 (Critiques of the Commentaries on Song Lyrics), Zhongguo yunwen xuekan 中國韵文學刊 2010(3), 71.

26 Chen Tingzhuo, Baiyuzhai cihua, in Tang Guizhang, Cihua congbian, IV.3794. 27 T. S. Eliot, “Hamlet and His Problems,” in The Sacred Wood and Major Early Essays (Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 1998), 58. 28 Researchers find it interesting and also meaningful, that all the existing thirty-one song lyrics Chen Renjie wrote are to the tune of Qinyuan chun. See for example Tao Erfu 陶爾夫 and Liu Jingqi 劉敬圻, Nan Song

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ci shi 南宋詞史 (History of Ci of the Southern Song) (Haerbin: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe, 1992), 152–55.

29 The three verses here allude to an anecdote recorded in Pei Songzhi’s 裴松之 (372–351) annotation on a passage from the Sanguo zhi 三國志 (Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms), which alleges that, in a secret reconnaissance inspection during his campaign against Sun Quan’s 孫權 (styled Zhongmou 仲謀, 182–252) forces on the south side of the Yangzi, when seeing Sun’s well-disciplined army in impeccable battle formation, Cao Cao 曹操 (155–220) was deeply impressed and sighed that you wanted your sons to be like Sun Quan, and that, in comparison, Liu Biao’s 劉表 (styled Jingshen 景升, 142–208) son Liu Cong 劉琮 (?), who earlier had surrendered to Cao Cao without a fight the control of Jingzhou inherited from his father, was no more than a pig or a dog. Liu Bei 劉備 (styled Xuande 玄德, 161–223) was another heroic figure of the time who, with his power base in the Southwest, competed with Cao Cao and Sun Quan for the control of the country.

30 Quan Songci, V.3079. 31 Quan Songci, V.3079. 32 For a succinct and clear account of the debate see Lin Zhengqiu 林正秋, “Nan Song ding du Hangzhou de jingguo yu yuanyin” 南宋定都杭州的 經過與原因 (Hangzhou Being Chosen as the Capital of Southern Song: How and Why), Hangzhou tongxun 杭州通訊 (2008.3), 33–37.

33 Quan Songci, V.3297. 34 “Ti Lin’an di” 題臨安邸 (On a Hotel Wall in Lin’an), translated by Shuen-fu Lin. See Kang-i Sun Chang and Stephen Owen, The Cambridge History, 536.

35 See Lin Geng and Feng Yuanjun, Zhongguo lidai shige xuan, II.513. 36 Ibid. See the notes to the poem. 37 See http://baike.baidu.com/view/75635.htm, http://zh.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ 林升, and http://www.chinapoesy.com/SongCi_linsheng.html (accessed Feb. 14, 2015).

38 Deng Guangming 鄧廣銘, Jiaxuan ci biannian jianzhu 稼軒詞編年箋注 (Song Lyrics of Xin Qiji: A Dated and Annotated Anthology) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1978), 16; Deng Guangming, Xin Jiaxuan xiansheng nianpu 辛稼軒先生年譜 (Chronicle of Xin Qiji’s Life) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1947), 29–31, 34–35, 44.

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39 With a few exceptions, the “West Lake” that appears in many other ci poems by Xin Qiji refers to the one in Fuzhou, where Xin served in two offices From 1192 through 1194. See Deng Guangming, Xin Jiaxuan xiansheng nianpu, 71–77.

40 These are “Jiu yi” 九議 (The Nine Proposals) presented to the prime minister in 1170, and “Meiqin shi lun” 美芹十論 (The Humble Presentation of Ten Memorials) to the emperor. See Deng Guangming, Xin Jiaxuan xiansheng nianpu, 29 and 25, respectively.

41 Quan Songci, III.1886. 42 A good example may be found in Pan Lang’s 潘閬 (d. 1009) song suit in the tune of Jiuquan zi 酒泉子 (Song of the Wine Spring) (Quan Songci I.5–6), believed to be the first ci work on West Lake (see Xia Chengtao, “Xihu yu Songci,” 135), in which the poet makes “the earthly paradise” a recurrent motif.

43 Liezi jishi 列子集釋 (Collected Annotations on the Liezi) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 151. 44 According to popular belief, it was from India that the peak flew to West Lake. See the note to the song lyric in Deng Guangming, Jiaxuan ci biannian jianzhu, 14.

45 “No one knows me,” said Confucius, “Is it that only heaven knows me?” See The Analects, 14.35. 46 Xu Shen 許慎, Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (Explaining and Interpreting the Ideographs) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963), 79. 47 This is the fourth poem in Du Fu’s poem series of eight. Translation by Stephen Owen. See Owen, ed. & trans., An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginning to 1911 (New York & London: Norton & Company, 1996), 436.

48 Xia Chengtao, “Shuo Su Shi de Xihu shi” 說蘇軾的西湖詩 (On Su Shi’s West Lake Poetry) in Xia Chengtao ji, VIII.194–195. 49 Guo Xi’s “three distance” distinction is meant for the different types of mountain scenes. Xia’s understanding and use of pingyuan, therefore, is in the analogical, not the strict, sense of the term. See Guo Xi, Shanshui xun 山水訓 (Advice on Landscape Painting), translated by John Hay and Victor Mair, in Hawai‘i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005), 386.

50 Xia Chengtao, Xia Chengtao ji, VIII.194–95.

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51 Comments made by Zhang Yanyuan 張彥遠 (815–907), quoted in Michael Sullivan, The Chinese Landscape Painting in the Sui and T’ang Dynasties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 36.

52 Michael Sullivan, The Chinese Landscape Painting in the Sui and T’ang Dynasties, 35. 53 Michael Sullivan, The Art of China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 183. 54 The North vs. South dichotomy here refers to the apparent contrast in modes and effects of presentation between the landscape paintings of the North and the South, and does not involve the controversial debate over the existence of two distinct schools or traditions that concerns art historians.

55 Michael Sullivan, The Chinese Landscape Painting in the Sui and T’ang Dynasties, 38. 56 Xia Chengtao even wrote a poetic commentary on this in a quatrain. See Xia, “Quran lunci jueju” 瞿髯論詞絕句 (Quran’s [Xia Chengtao] Quatrains on Song Lyrics) in Xia Chengtao ji, II.539. Actually Li Qingzhao might have written at least one ci poem related to West Lake, which was lost: Zhu Dunru 朱敦儒 ( 1081 – 1159 ) has a song lyric written to the tune of Queqiaoxian 鵲橋仙 (Immortals over the Bridge of Magpies) with the theme title “Ho Li Yian jinyuchi lian” 和李易安金 魚池蓮 (Written in Response to Li Yi’an’s [Qingzhao] Piece on the Lotus of the Goldfish Pond) (Quan Songci, II.841). The “Goldfish Pond” is a pond attached to a temple on the Nanping Hill, one of the “Ten Attractions of West Lake.”

57 Li Qingzhao, “Jueju” 絕句 (Quatrain) in Lin Geng and Feng Yuanjun, Zhongguo lidai shige xuan, III.694. 58 See the note to the poem, ibid. 59 Li Qingzhao, “Ci lun” 詞論 (A Critique of the Song Lyric), in Guo Shaoyu 郭紹虞, ed., Zhongguo lidai wenlun xuan 中國歷代文論選 (Collected Works of Chinese Literary Theories from All Ages), 4 vols., (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1979), II.350–51. The translation of the statement here, as well as other key terms from Li Qingzhao’s theory, is by Shuen-fu Lin, in “The Formation of a Distinct Generic Identity for Tz’u,” in Pauline Yu, ed., Voices of the Song Lyric in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 3. A substantive discussion of Li Qingzhao’s theory on ci in the context of the evolution of the

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genre can be found in this article. See 3–29.

60 Xia Chengtao’s study best summarizes this view. See Xia, “Ping Li Qingzhao de ‘Ci lun’” 評李清照的詞論 (On Li Qingzhao’s “A Critique of the Song Lyric”), in Xia Chengtao ji, II.254–59, esp. 257–58.

61 Quan Songci, II.931. 62 Chen Tingzhuo, Baiyuzhai cihua, in Tang Guizhang, Cihua congbian, IV.3913–3914. 63 “To the Tune of Chounu’er” 醜奴兒 (The Ugly Maid) (Quan Songci, III.1920). 64 For a more detailed discussion of this, see “Chapter III: When the Embittered Speaks Out,” in Xinda Lian, The Wild and Arrogant: Expression of Self in Xin Qiji’s Song Lyrics (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1999), esp. 74–78.

65 In his incisive dissection of the formal properties of the song lyric, Yu-kung Kao observes that the manci form in its ideal state is an incremental structure sustained by a stratification of multi-layered description/narration. See Kao, “Xiaoling zai shi chuantong zhong de diwei” 小 令在詩傳統中的地位 (The Position of Xiaoling Song Lyric in the Chinese Poetic Tradition), Cixue 詞學 9 (July, 1992), 16–19.

66 This is one of several important generic characteristics expected in song lyrics of the highest order, as listed in Li Qingzhao’s “Cilun.”

67 This is “To the Tune of Yongyu le,” of which the first line is: “The jade of the moon first appears in the clear sky” 璧月初晴. See Quan Songci, V.3229.

Chapter Nine *

I am indebted to Professors Shuen-fu Lin, Christian de Pee, and Martin Powers at the University of Michigan for their thoughtful readings and comments. I would also like to thank Professor Michael Nylan of the University of California, Berkeley for feedback she provided to an early version of this chapter at the 2011 Association for Asian Studies Conference.

1

Peter Bol has argued that there is a “demonstrable increase in a variety of writings that remembered what was conceived of as the ‘local’ rather than the ‘national’” in the writings of leading families of the Wuzhou

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region during the Southern Song dynasty. See Peter Bol, “The Rise of Local History: History, Geography, and Culture in Southern Song and Yuan Wuzhou” Havard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 61.1 (2001): 41.

2

Wang Shipeng 王十朋 ( 1112 – 71 ). The Complete Works of Wang Shipeng 王十朋全集 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1998), 821.

3

Having become embroiled in factional conflicts during the late Northern Song the Empress Dowager Longyou (nee Meng) had been demoted to commoner status. This seemingly unfortunate event ultimately proved to be quite fortuitous, for its was her commoner status that allowed her to avoid being taken captive by the Jin armies who had already seized emperors Huizong and Qinzong, along with their consorts and courtiers. For a full account of her incredible story, see He Zhongli 何忠禮, A Complete History of the Southern Song 南宋全史, vol. 1 (Shanghai: Shanghai gujichubanshe, 2012), 79–86.

4

Zheng Dingguo argues that Wang Shipeng was the first literatus of the Southern Song to group together Han Yu 韓愈 ( 768 – 824 ), Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 (773–819), Ouyang Xiu 歐陽脩 (1007–1072) and Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101) as the four greatest prose writers of the Tang and Song dynasties. Zheng Dingguo, Wang Shipeng and His Poetry 王十朋及 其詩 (Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1994), 285–86.

5

Zheng Dinguo, Wang Shipeng and His Poetry, 279–80 and 370–77.

6

In 1131 Wang witnessed the visit of Emperor Gaozong to Wenzhou in 1131 during the emperor’s flight south, the event which precipitated Kuaiji’s transformation into the imperial city Shaoxing. See the biographical chronology compiled by the Committee to Republish the Meixi Collection 梅溪集重刊委員會, The Complete Works of Wang Shipeng, 1165–94.

7

Ibid. At this point in Wang’s official biography the standard history Song shi quotes Emperor Gaozong, “I personally elevated Wang Shipeng to first place desiring to try him out in serving the people. How could I allow him to be distant from [the capital’s] gates? [It is allowed for him to be especially appointed as the Administrative Assistant to the Superior Prefecture of Shaoxing.”

8

While scholars have rightfully noted that innovations in prose rhapsody 文賦 at the hands of the prose masters like Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi are an important part of the guwen 古文 movement that arose beginning in the 1050s, it is also important to note that the earlier tradition of

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writing grand rhapsodies to celebrate the person, accomplishments, or capital of the emperor continued unbroken from the earliest days of the Northern Song until its collapse in 1126–27. Extant examples of grand rhapsodies regularly punctuate this period, clustering around critical events in the founding and maintaining of the Song territorial empire. These include “Rhapsody on the Grand Review of the Troops” 大蒐賦 by Ding Wei 丁謂 (966–1037), the “Rhapsody on Observing Ritual during the ‘Heavenly Omens’ Reign” 天禧觀禮賦 by Yang Yi 楊億 (974– 1020), “Rhapsody on the Imperial Metropolitan Districts” 皇畿賦 composed by Yang Kan, “Rhapsody of the Capital Bian” 汴都賦 by Zhou Bangyan (1056–1121), and its sequel “Expanded ‘Rhapsody on the Capital Bian’” 廣汴都賦 by Li Changmin 李長民 (jinshi 1119). For more information on the prose rhapsody see Ronald Egan, The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 123–24; and Cyril Drummond Le Gros Clark, The Prose-Poetry of Su Tung-p’o (New York: Paragon Books, 1964), 46. For grand rhapsodies on the emperor and imperial capital during the Northern Song see Liu Pei 劉培, Research on Northern Song Lyrics and Rhapsody 北宋 辭賦研究 (Jinan: Shandong chuban jituan, 2009), 15–20 and 200–4.

9

Mark Edward Lewis, The Construction of Space in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 235–36.

10 David Hawkes, “The Quest for the Goddess” in Cyril Birch, ed., Studies in Chinese Literary Genres (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 67.

11 Complete Works of Wang Shipeng, 820. 12 See David Knechtges, The Han Rhapsody (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 89–108. 13 The commentary by Zhou Shize 周世則 on Wang Shipeng’s rhapsody quotes the Han dynasty text, Chronicle of Wu and Yue 春秋吳越, to explain that the “stone room” was the place where Gou Jian was imprisoned following his defeat by Wu. There he was humiliated by being made to work as a servant for three years taking care of livestock. See Zhang Zhizhu 張智主 , ed. Zhongguo fengtu zhi congkan 中國風土 志叢刊, vol.50 (Yangzhou: Guangling shushe, 2003): 78.

14 Knechtges, The Han Rhapsody, 839. 15 Knechtges, The Han Rhapsody, 839. 16 Here the commentary of Zhou Shize provides distances for each

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landmark from the prefectural seat and explains the significance of some of these sites to the historical presence of Shun in ancient Kuaiji. Based on the fact that Yao 姚 was Shun’s surname, Zhou Shize argues that Yuyao 餘姚 was the place where Shun enfeoffed his descendants and that Yao Hill 姚丘 was where Shun’s mother gave birth to him. Zhou Shize also cites textual evidence to explain that Yu Mountain 虞山 was the place to which Shun fled to avoid Zhu Dan 朱丹. Zhu Dan is known as the unfilial son of the sage king Yao who was passed over in the line of succession when Yao ceded his thrown to Shun. According to Zhou Shize, Li Mountain 歷山 was where Shun farmed and Fisherman’s Bank 漁浦 was where he fished. See Zhang Zhizhu, 83–84.

17 Knechtges, The Han Rhapsody, 840. 18 According to Shi Zhu’s commentary, Master Hua was Hua Chuping 華初平. During the Jingkang reign he served as Erudite of the Chamberlain for Ceremonials 太常博士 and refused to comply with the use of honorific titles 尊號 for the Jurchen court by the Song court and thereby

“defended the rituals.” Shi Zhu identifies Master Fu as Fu Songqing 傅崧卿 and states that during the Jianyan reign when the magistrate of

Yue surrendered to the Jurchen invaders, Fu Songqing led troops to relieve the siege. See Zhang Zhizhu, 90.

19 Knechtges, The Han Rhapsody, 841–42. 20 James M. Hargett, “Guaiji? Guiji? Huiji? Kuaiji?: Some Remarks on an Ancient Chinese Place Name” Sino-Platonic Papers No.234 (March 2013), 6–9. 21　Jaeyoon Song, “Shifting Paradigms in Theories of Government: Histories, Classics, and Public Philosophy in 11th–14th Century China,” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2007, 250, 253. 22 Complete Works of Wang Shipeng, 842. 23 For the transition from the compilation of map treatises 圖經 and their collection by the Northern Song central government to the compilation of local gazetteers 地方志 by literati during the Southern Song, see Ruth Mostern, “Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern,” The Spatial Organization of the Song State (960–1276 ce ) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2011): 90–99; James Hargett, “Song Dynasty Local Gazetteers and Their Place in the History of Difangzhi Writing,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol.56.2 (Dec 1996), 412–28. For an examination of the place of Wang Shipeng’s rhapsody in two

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Southern Song comprehensive gazetteers, see Jeffrey Moser, “One Land of Many Places: The Integration of Local Culture in Southern Song Geographies,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 42 (2012), 235–78.

24 Zhu Shangshu 朱尚書, Song ji xuba huibian 宋集序跋彙編, vol.3 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju chubanshe, 2010), 1383. 25 Hargett, “Song Dynasty Local Gazetteers,” 433. 26 For a detailed textual history of the Jiatai Reign Gazetteer of Kuaiji and the Baoqing Reign Sequel to the Gazetteer of Kuaiji see Gu Hongyi 顧宏義, Song Dynasty Gazetteers 宋朝方志考 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2010), 163–72.

27 For the full text of Sun Yin’s Yue wen see Zeng Zaozhuang 曾棗庄 and Liu Lin 劉琳, eds., Complete Song Dynasty Prose 全宋文 (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 2006), 37936–47.

Index

Abu-Lughod, Janet L., 265n40–41 Bai Juyi 白居易, 56, 60, 142, 187, 189, 206, 331n6 Baishi shi ci ji 白石詩詞集 (Collection of Poems and Song Lyrics by the White Stone [Daoist]), 91, 100 Baisui laoweng 百歲老翁, 140 Balazs, Étienne, xv banqueting, 4, 11, 19 Baoqing kuaiji xuzhi 寶慶會稽續志 (Baoqing Reign Gazetteer of Kuaiji), 252 Baudelaire, Charles, 267n44 Beigulou 北固樓 (Beigu Tower), 226 Beili zhi 北里志 (Record of the Northern Ward), 181, 186 Benjamin, Walter, xxv benshi 本事 (original story), 214 bian 遍 (section of a dance), 8 biji 筆記 (scholar’s notes), 111, 140

Biyue chu qing 璧月初晴 (The jade of the moon first appears in the clear sky), 337n67 Bo Qinhuai 泊秦淮 (Moored on the Qinhuai River), 222 Bossler, Beverly, xviii, xix, xxi, 158 cai lian wu 採蓮舞 (lotus-picking dance), 14 Cai Que 蔡確, 21 celun 策論 (policy response essay), 239 chang duan ju 長短句 (long and short lines), 217 Chang’an, xvi, 181, 184–189, 203 Kaifeng as, 186, 188 changdiao 長調 (long song lyric), 205 Chao Buzhi 晁補之, 12 Chen Hongshou 陳洪綬, 72 Chen Qi 陳起, 88 Chen Shidao 陳師道, 191 Chen Si 陳思, 93

344  Chen Yang 陳暘, 10 Cheng Bi 程珌, 21 Cheng Hao 程顥, 11 Cheng Yi 程頤, 11 Chounu’er 醜奴兒 (The Ugly Maid), 337n63 chuanqi 傳奇 (tales, narratives), 23 chuci 楚辭 (poetry of Chu), 50 ci 詞 (song lyric poetry), xxiii, 1, 11, 23, 27, 28, 205, 206 ci bie shi yijia 詞別是一家 (ci constitutes its own household), 228 Ci lun 詞論 (A Critique of the Song Lyric), 336n59 cities itineraries in, xvii, 181, 185 and literary form, xvii, 186 as living organisms, 195 materialist approaches to,   xiv–xviii, xxiv, 151, 170 scholarship about: in Chinese, xv, xvi; in European languages, xv, xxiv; in Japanese, xiv, xv sensory perception of, 182; sources about: Five Dynasties, 187, 197; Song dynasty, xiv, 96, 151, 171, 192, 195, 206, 240; Tang dynasty, xiv, 101, 186, 187 consciousness of adversity, 74, 79, 80, 87 cui gang wei rou 摧剛為柔 (rendering strong feelings as soft expressions), 226 dafu 大賦 (grand rhapsody), xxiii, 235, 241 Dai Fugu 戴復古, 76, 88 dance, xviii, xxv, 1–26, 33, 42

Index danzhuang nongmo zong xiangyi 淡妝濃抹總相宜 (always fittingly beautiful, in either light or heavy makeup), 206 daqu 大曲 (great songs), 3 dianzhong 典重 (classic weightiness), 232 difang zhi 地方志 (local gazetteer), xxiv, 250–53, 340n23 Dingyou sui ganshi 丁酉歲感事 (Thoughts in the Year Dingyou), 217 Dong Qichang 董其昌, 72 Dong Yuan 董源, 63 Dongjing meng Hua lu 東京夢華錄 (A Dream of Paradise in the Eastern Capital), 112–27, 133, 136–7, 139–40, 183, 186, 199 Dongting hu 洞庭湖 (Lake Dongting), 33, 47, 48, 75, 86, 94, 97, 103, 216, 219 Du Fu 杜甫 (Style name Shaoling 少陵), xx, xxi, 32, 74, 75, 79, 85, 94, 98, 99, 100–103, 105, 108, 225, 232 Ducheng jisheng 都城紀勝 (The Splendid Scenery of the Capital), xxii, 172, 180, 181, 183, 184, 199–203 duiwu 隊舞 (group dances), 3 Duojinglou 多景樓 (Duojing Tower), 76, 226 duren 都人 (metrocapital person), 135, 139, 142 Edwards, Richard, 66 examinations, 4, 18, 32, 33, 53, 66, 87, 156, 159, 187, 188, 239

Index fan 反 (invert), 240, 241, 245 Fan Chengda 范成大, 26, 30, 53, 89, 90, 93 Fan Chunren 范純仁, 315n10 Fan Zuyu 范祖禹, 10 Fang Hui 方回, 88 Feilafeng 飛來峰 (Feilai Peak), 224 Feng Wenci 馮文慈, 277n3 Fengchuang xiaodu 楓窗小牘 (A Little Document from the Liquid Ambar Window), 140–142 gaoyuan 高遠 (high distance), 226 Gaozong, Emperor 高宗, 13, 32, 34, 36, 38, 42, 53, 76, 82, 174, 175, 200–202, 210, 236, 238–240, 253 Ge Lifang 葛立方, 9 gengzi 庚子 (name for the thirtyseventh year in the Chinese sexagenary cycle), 219 Gernet, Jacques, 265n41 Geyue tujuan 歌樂圖卷 (The Palace Orchestra Rehearsal), 7 gou 勾 (introductions), 17 guanpu 關撲 (wagering on goods), 110 guihai 癸亥 (name for the sixtieth year in the Chinese sexagenary cycle), 93, 312n9 guizhengren 歸正人 (person who returns to the right side), 225 Han Biao 韓淲, 85–87 Hangzhou 杭州 (Lin’an 臨安 during the Southern Song Dynasty) ambiguous identity of (Lin’an),   209 archaeological remains of,   330n105

  345 beauty of (Lin’an), 66 as capital (Lin’an), 56, 62, 155,   205, 216, 220, 230 city surrounding West Lake (Lin’an), xiii, 66, 84, 88, 153,   205, 216, 221, 222, 228 compared to Kaifeng, xv, xxiv,   142, 184 compared to Luoyang, 180, 184, 185 crime in, xiii, 85, 145, 170, 197 decadence of, xiv, xxi, 73, 82,   108, 194 entertainment in, xix, 2, 3, 13, 15,   116, 136, 137, 142, 155, 181,   199, 206, 221 fall to the Mongols (Lin’an), 232 fires in, 51, 138 gardens in, 35, 180 imperial palaces in, 4, 10, 14, 34,   35, 45, 66, 116–127, 130, 131,   136, 141, 145, 167–169,   183–186, 188, 189, 194,   197–199, 201, 202, 241 imperial processions and rituals  in, 35, 36, 112–127, 145–147 Imperial Avenue in, 36, 201, 202,   329–30n105 parks in, 136, 240 restaurants in, xiii, 59, 172, 181,   199, 200, 201 restaurants in (Lin’an), 163 ritual sites in, 34, 37 selection as capital, xiii, xxiii, 1,   84, 87, 142, 180, 222, 235,   236, 241, 250, 254 shops and markets in, 1, 59, 181,   182, 185, 192, 198, 200, 201,   202, 204

346  sound culture in (Lin’an), 28, 31,   34–36, 42, 221 tales of the supernatural set in  (Lin’an), 169–178 texts about, xxii, 12, 73, 74, 82,   87–89, 111, 112, 140, 149,   172, 180, 181, 183, 186, 196,   197–199 teahouses in, 189, 199, 200 urbanized (Lin’an), 54, 205, 206 wine shops in, 13, 181, 191,   199–201 (see also West Lake) women and crime in, 151–163 haofang 豪放 (heroic abandonment), 226 haoshi jin 好事近 (happy events approaching), 222 he xinlang 賀新郎 (congratulating the bridegroom), 213 hen 恨 (regret), 220 Hirata Shigeki 平田茂樹, xv Ho Li Yian jinyuchi lian 和李易安金 鱼池莲 (Written in Response to Li Yi’an’s [Qingzhao] Piece on the Lotus of the Goldfish Pond), 336n56 Hong Mai 洪邁, xxiv, xxv, 19, 20, 149, 150, 151, 156–159, 163–165, 169, 170, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178 Hu Hong 胡宏, 90, 248 hua wu 花舞 (flower dance), 14 hua xin 花心 (flower bud), 15 Huang Tingjian 黃庭堅, 7 Huang Zhongzhao 黄仲昭, 22 Huizong, Emperor 徽宗, 4, 10, 13, 19, 66, 130, 137, 142, 199, 238 Hymes, Robert, 164, 165

Index Ihara Hiroshi 伊原弘, xv Inglis, Alister, 150 Jade Emperor 仙翁鵠立, 130 jiaji 家妓/ 家姬 (household courtesans), 5 jian wu 劍舞 (sword dance), 14 jianchen 姦臣, 21 Jiang Kui 姜虁, xx, xxi, 26, 54,

73–78, 80–108 Jianghu houji 江湖後集 (A Sequel to the Anthology of the Rivers and Lakes Poems), 88 jianghu shipai 江湖詩派 (Rivers and Lakes School), 73, 74, 76, 87–89, 91, 92, 99, 100, 108 Jianghu xiaoji 江湖小集 (A Small Anthology of the Rivers and Lakes Poems), 88 Jiankang 建康 (present-day Nanjing 南京), 81, 160, 162, 171, 172, 218–221, 226 Jiaofang 教坊 (Court Entertainment Bureau), 4, 13, 116, 118, 126, 303n47, 307n69 Jiaofang ji 教坊記 (Record of the Instructional Wards), 186 Jiaxi 嘉熙 (the fourth era [1237– 1240] of the fifth emperor of Song Dynasty Lizong’s 理宗 reign), 221 jie 氣節 (moral integrity), 224 jie 節 (section), 224 jing 景 (scene), 215 Jingcheng fengsu ji 京城風俗記 (Record of Customs of the Capital), 186, 198 Jingding 景定 (name of the eighth era

Index [1260–1264] of the fifth emperor of Song Dynasty), 332n13 Jingkou 京口 (a district in present day Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province), 226 Jinling 金陵 (present-day Nanjing 南京), 69, 74, 90, 221 Jinling Huaigu 金陵懷古 (Quotations from Jinling), 69 Jinmingchi 金明池 (Jinming Pool), 117, 209, 210 jiqie 妓妾/ 姬妾 (entertainer concubines), 5 jiubi 舊婢 (former maid), 6 Jiuquan zi 酒泉子 (Song of the Wine Spring), 335n42 Jiu yi 九議 (The Nine Proposals), 335n40 jueju 絕句 (quatrain), 91, 92 Kaifeng 開封, xiii, xv–xvii, xxi, xxiv, xxv, 3, 81, 109, 116, 125, 136, 140, 142, 170, 180, 184, 186–189, 191, 195, 199, 200, 209, 240, 242, 250 kan 看 (see), 211 kan renao 看熱鬧 (partake in the bustling noise and excitement), 112 Katō Shigeru 加藤繁, 257n6, 261n22 ke 客 (stranger), 224 Kou Zhun 寇准, 8 Kuaiji fengsu fu 會稽風俗賦 (Rhapsody on the Customs of Kuaiji), xxiii, xxiv, 235, 239, 240, 247–250, 252, 253, 254 kuanshu hewan 寬舒和婉 (relaxingly easy and delicately serene), 226

  347 Lam, Joseph, xviii, xix, xxi, 2, 7 lan 覽 (comprehensive view), 249, 250 Leifengta xizhao 雷峰夕照 (Leifeng Pagoda at Sunset), 207 leji beisheng 樂極悲生 (when happiness reaches its culmen, then grief is born), 140 Li Bing 李邴, 19 Liang Keng-yao 梁庚堯, xvi lianzhang 聯章 (linked poems), 92 lianzhang wuyan gushi 聯章五言古詩 (ancient-style pentasyllabic linked poem), 73, 92 Liezi 列子 (the Liezi text), 224 Lin Gui 林瓌, 20 Lin Jiarong 林佳蓉, 82 Lin Sheng 林升, 54, 84, 85, 221–223, 276n1 Lin’an 臨安 (see Hangzhou) Liu Bin 劉攽, 8, 10 Liu Cai 劉寀 , 65, 71 Liu Changshi 劉昌詩, 111, 114 Liu Kezhuang 劉克莊, 20, 76 Liu Zhengfu 劉正夫, 19 Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元, 56, 100, 239 Longyou huang taihou 隆祐皇太后 (Grand Empress Dowager Longyou), 238 Lou Yue 樓鑰, 22, 90 louli bujing zhi ci 鄙俚不經之辭 (lowly and uncanonical writing), 22 lu ming 鹿鳴 (deer cry), 17 Lü Zuqian 呂祖謙, 20 luo 落 (setting/falling), 229 Luo Qin 洛秦, 277n3 Luoyang 洛陽, 85, 180, 181, 184–186, 191, 195, 196, 200, 213, 221

348  Lupu biji 蘆浦筆記 (Penned Notes from the Confluence of Reeds), 111 Ma Yuan 馬遠, xx, 61, 63, 67, 68, 71, 72 manci 慢詞 (long song lyric), 205, 207, 232 Manjiang hong 滿江紅 (Whole River Red), 223 Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣, 69, 70, 191 Meiqin shi lun 美芹十論 (The Humble Presentation of Ten Memorials), 335n40 Meng Yuanlao 孟元老, xxiv, 3, 113, 139, 141, 199 (see also Dongjing meng Hua lu) Menglianglu 夢粱錄 (Record of a Millet Dream), 88, 264n33, 327n91, 330n3 Miyazaki Ichisada 宮崎市定, 257n5 mo 莫 (do not), 224 mu 暮 (dusk/evening), 229 Mulanhua man 木蘭花慢 (Long Song Lyrics on Magnolia Blossoms), 332n13 Music bayin 八音, 40 cipai 詞牌, 27 dengge 登歌, 40 gongxuan 宮懸, 40 guxian weiyu 姑冼為羽, 40 huangzhong weigong 黃鐘為宮, 40 huangzhong weijue 黃鐘為角, 40 jinshan jinmei 盡善盡美, 36 sheng 聲, 46 taicu weizhi 太簇為徵, 40 tan 彈, 27 yayue 雅樂, 34, 36, 39–42, 45, 46 yizi yiyin 一字一音, 42

Index Nai Deweng 耐德翁, 54 Naitō Konan 內藤湖南 (Naitō Torajirō 內藤虎次郎), xiv Nanchang 南昌, 74 nanman zhuguo 南蠻諸國 (southern countries), 9 Nan Song liuling 南宋六陵 (Six Burial Mounds of the Southern Song), 238 Neo-Confucianism, 1, 2, 16, 24 Nianxia suishi ji 輦下歲時記 (Record of the Seasons in the Imperial Capital), 181 Ningzong, Emperor 寧宗, 73 Nuns, 8, 9, 153, 154, 156–159 Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修, 18, 21–23, 67, 109, 110, 131, 132, 191, 194, 212, 239 peddlers, 36, 199 peidu 陪讀 (auxiliary capital), 236 pian ci pai yu 駢辭徘語 (parallel prose), 21 pingyuan shanshui 平遠山水 (level-distance landscape), 226 pipa 琵琶 (four stringed lute), 6, 15, 27 Polo, Marco, 226n41 Pu Yongsheng 浦永昇, 62 puxu 鋪敘 (extensive description and narration), 232 Qiao Zhongchang 喬仲常, 60, 63 Qidong yeyu 齊東野語 (Conversations with the Rustic from Eastern Qi), 89

Index qie 且 (had better), 224 Qin Hui 秦檜, 32, 240 qindu 親睹 (eye witness), 245 qing 情 (feeling), 215 qing qing liu zou 輕清流走 (light and lucid, fluent and easy-going), 226 Qingdi 青帝, 31, 38, 40 Qinyuan chun 沁園春 (Spring in Qin’s Garden), xxiii, 210 Qinzhong suishi ji 秦中歲時記 (Record of the Seasons in Qin), 181 Qiu Jun 邱浚, 22 Qiu xing 秋興 (Autumn Stirrings), 225 que dao tianliang haoge qiu 卻道天涼 好個秋 (What a nice cool autumn), 232 Queqiaoxian 鵲桥仙 (Immortals over the Bridge of Magpies), 336n56 Ruskin, John, xiii Schafer, Murray, 277n9 senses hearing, xviii–xx, 277n9 sight, xx, 83, 110, 112, 125, 136,   138, 195, 199, 207, 208, 210,   224, 226, 231 smell, xxi, 51, 135, 136, 207 of space, xvii, xviii, xxv, 29, 52,   59, 62, 63 66, 67, 70, 71 113,   124, 125, 135, 136, 142, 181,   183, 184, 188, 191, 198, 199,   201, 205, 206, 220, 229, 230, 232 taste, xxi, 13, 63, 112, 123, 138,   206, 224 and texts, xxii, xxv, 3, 7, 9,

  349  16–23, 26, 34, 37, 38, 52, 66,   68, 111–125, 127, 133, 136,   139, 141, 142, 157, 183, 184,  197–251 shan gewu 善歌舞 (very good at dancing and singing), 6 Shangxinting 賞心亭 (Shangxin Pavilion), 76 Shangyuan ci 上元詞, xxi, 111, 114 Shao Bowen 邵伯溫, 6 Shaoxing 紹興, 96, 151, 153, 235, 236, 238, 240, 241, 245, 249, 251, 252–254 Shen Kuo 沈括, 8 shenyuan 深遠 (deep distance), 226 Shenzhou 神州 (the Sacred Land), 217 Sheren yuan 舍人院 (Document drafting office), 17 shi 實 (substantial), xxiii, 235 shi 詩 (shi poetry), 239 Shi Hao 史浩, 14–16, 18, 30 Shi shuo 詩說 (Discourses on Poetry), 92 shi zhi wu 柘枝舞(Mulberry Branch Dance), 8 Shi Zhu 史鑄, 246 shibi 侍婢 (serving maids), 6 shihua 詩話 (notes on poetry), 19 shiji 侍姬 (attendant charmers), 6 shijing 十景 (ten attractions), 209 Shijing 詩經 (Book of Songs), 39, 53 Shiren yuxie 詩人玉屑（Jade Splinters from the Poets), 68, 69 Sima Guang 司馬光, 10, 191 Sima Xiangru 司馬相如, 240 Simmel, Georg, xxiv singing girls, 215, 221

350  Sogabe Shizuo 曾我部靜雄, 15 Song Anguo 宋安國, 175, 313n25 Song huiyao jigao 宋會要輯稿 (The Edited Draft of Administrative Documents of the Song), 111 Song shi 宋史 (Song History), 111 Su Shi 蘇軾, 6, 17, 18, 62, 63, 68, 75, 107, 130, 142, 191, 206, 226, 239 Su Song 蘇頌, 17, 195 su/fengsu 俗／風俗 (regional customs), 235, 253 Sun Yingshi 孫應時, 7 supernatural, 39, 44 Suzhou 蘇州, xvi, 74, 185, 186, 191, 202 Sword Bearers Camp Street 抱劍營街, 173, 174 taidang 駘蕩 (rhythmic flow), 69 Taihao 太昊, 31, 38 taiqing wu 太清舞 (Heavenly Abode Dance), 14 Tang zhiyan 唐摭言 (Gleaned Accounts of the Tang), 181 texture, 59, 62, 63, 66, 67, 68, 136, 192, 199, 226 Ti Lengquanting 題冷泉亭 (On the Cold Spring Pavilion), 223 Ti Lin’an di 題臨安邸, 25, 84, 221 279n1 Tian Rucheng 田汝成 , 82 Toulmin, Stephen, 55 Umehara Kaoru 梅原郁, xv von Glahn, Richard, 315n9

Index wai qiang zhong gan 外強中乾 (strong in appearance yet hollow inside), 216 Wang Anzhong 王安中, 18 Wang Mingqing 王明清, 18 Wan Minhao 宛敏灝, 278n11 Wang Shipeng 王十朋, xxiii, 235, 236, 238–242, 245, 247, 248, 250–254 Wang Xie 王燮, 174, 213n23 Wang Yishan 王義山, 21 wanyue 婉約 (delicate restraint), 230 Weber, Max, xxiv, xxv Wei Qingzhi 魏慶之 , 68–70 Wen Jiweng 文及翁, xxiii, 84, 213 wen zhang 文章 (literary composition), 12 wendao 聞道 (I have been told), 225 West Lake 西湖 beauty of, xiii, xxii, 66, 82, 83,   143, 179 poetry about, xxiii, 82–85, 88,   97, 142, 144, 205–231 political meaning of, xxiii,  210–216, 220–224, 228, 230 stories about, 153–158 texts about, 82, 88, 183, 186,   198, 199 women, 2–12, 109, 124, 149, 151, 152, 158, 165, 188 (see also nuns, singing girls) Wu Zimu 吳自牧, 13, 54, 87 wudao 舞蹈 (dance steps), 11 Wulin jiushi 武林舊事 (Former Matters of Wulin), xxii, 183 wuwei zhi ci 無謂之詞 (song lyrics with little significance), 209

Index Xia Gui 夏珪 , xx, 70–72 Xianzong, Emperor 憲宗, 22 xiao huan 小鬟 (young entertainers), 6, 7 xiaojin guoer 銷金鍋兒 (pot for melting gold), 206 Xiaozong, Emperor 孝宗, 76, 201, 202, 330n105 Xihu laoren fansheng lu 西湖老人繁 勝錄 (Record of Luxuriant Scenery by the Old Man of West Lake), xxii, 183 Xihu youlan zhi 西湖遊覽志 (Records of Excursions on West Lake), 82 Xinghua tianying 杏花天影 (Apricot Blossom and Heavenly Shadows), 26 xingzai 行在 (emperor’s “visiting headquarters”), 209, 210 xiu jiujing Jinmingchi gushi 修舊京金 明池故事 (Reconstructing the past glory of the Jinming Pool in the old capital), 210 Xiyou shi 昔遊詩 (Poems on Past Travels), 73 xu 虛 (empty), xxiii, 235, 242 Xu Zizhi tongjian changbian 續資治 通鑑長編 (The Continuation of the Long Version of the Comprehensive Mirror for the Aid of Government), 111, 145 Xuanzong, Emperor 玄宗, 10, 303n47, 305n55 Yang Shen 楊愼, 22 Yang Yinliu 楊蔭瀏, 277n3 Yang Zemin 楊澤民, 7

  351 Yangzhou man 揚州慢 , 77 Yao Mian 姚勉, 15, 16 Ye Shaoweng 葉紹翁, 33 Ye Shi 葉適, 90 yi li 義理 righteousness and principle, 11 yifeng 遺風 (lingering airs), 245 yiji 遺跡 (remaining traces), 245 Yijian zhi 夷堅志, xxi, xxiv, 149, 150, 157, 164, 178 Yili jingchuan tongkao 儀禮經傳 通考 (General Survey of Ritual), 53 Yin hushang chu qing hou yu 飲湖上初晴後雨 (Drinking on the Lake First in Sunshine Then in Rain), 330n2 Yingkui lǜsui 瀛奎律髓, 289n25 Yingtianchang 應天長 (Echoing Heaven’s Everlastingness), 207 yiqie bingqu fuwen 一切屏去浮文 (completely gotten rid of extraneous writing), 22 Yong Xihu jiulou 詠西湖酒樓 (On West Lake Tavern), xxiii, 210 Yongjia si ling 永嘉四靈 (Four Lings of Yongjia), 89, 90 Yongshi shi 永史詩 (poems on history), 239 Yongyu le 永遇樂 (Happiness of Eternal Union), 228, 232 Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎, 323–324n54 youbian 遊邊 (border travels), 76 youci yueyu 優詞樂語 (banquet writings), 18 youren 遊人, 136

352  yu ba Xihu bi Xizi 欲把西湖比西子 (wanting to compare West Lake to the ancient beauty Xishi), 206 yu shuo huan xiu 欲說還休 (I want to say it, but retrain from saying it anyway), 232 Yueji 樂記 (Record of Music), 48 Yuewen 越問 (Questions of Yue), 252 Yueye 月夜 (Moonlit Night), 232 Yueyu 樂語 (music words), 2, 17, 18–21, 23 yufu wu 漁父舞 (fisherman’s dance), 14 Zhang Bangji 張邦基, 18 Zhang Jun 張浚, 32 Zhang Tongzhi 張同之, 33 Zhang Xiaoxiang 張孝祥, xix, xxiv, 25, 30, 38, 41, 46 Zhang Xiaoxiang shiwenji 張孝祥詩 文集 (Zhang Xiaoxiang works) Liuzhou getou 六州歌頭, 50 Niannujiao gongdongjing 念奴嬌   過洞庭, 47 Pusaman 菩薩蠻 (A Buddhist  Dancer), 48 Shuidiaogetou fanxiangjiang   水調歌頭：泛湘江, 49 Zhang Xiaoxing ci jiaojian   張孝祥詞校箋, 282n62 Zhang Xiaoxiang shiciquanji   張孝祥詩詞全集, 282n62 Zhang Zai 張載, 10 Zhang Zeduan 張擇端, 58, 59 zhangmei numu zhi tai 張眉努目之態 (bristling eyebrows and glaring eyes), 215 Zhao Dingchen 趙鼎臣, 7

Index Zhao Mengfu , 72 zhegu tian 鷓鴣天, 111 Zhen Dexiu 真德修, 17 Zheng Wei zhi sheng 鄭衛之聲 (the sounds of Zheng and Wei), 8 zhi 志 (heart’s intent), 228 zhi 直 (uprightness), 224, 226 Zhi guan 直館 (Historiography Office), 17 zhiyin 知音 (soul-mate, one who “knows the tune”), 232 zhiyu 致語 (presentation words), 2, 17–19, 21, 22 Zhongxing jianghu ji 中興江湖集 (Rivers and Lakes Poems of the Restoration Era), 88 Zhongxing lishu 中興禮書, 38 Zhou Bida 周必大, 15, 17 Zhou Mi 周密, 9, 13, 34, 54, 82, 89, 179, 198 Zhu Xi 朱熹, 16, 30, 53, 89, 90 Zou Hao 鄒浩, 20 Zuiwengting ji 醉翁亭記 (The Old Drunkard’s Pavilion), 212