74 t He Han Dy na s t y
in the year 137 b.C.e., to have an audience with Emperor Wu in the capital. It seems
that one day Emperor Wu chanced upon a copy of a piece that Sima Xiangru had
written at the court of Liang, “Fu of Sir Vacuous.” This poem, which is a lavish
description of the hunting preserve of the ancient state of Chu, so impressed the
young emperor that he exclaimed to his attendant, Yang Deyi, “Shall We alone not
have the privilege of being this man’s contemporary?” Yang Deyi, who was a native
of Shu, informed the emperor that his fellow townsman Sima Xiangru was the au-
thor of this piece. Emperor Wu immediately issued a summons for Sima Xiangru
to appear at court.
This story is not very credible for several reasons. First, one wonders how a text
of the “Fu of Sir Vacuous,” which was written in Liang, reached the imperial court.
Even accepting the dubious proposition that someone in Liang sent a copy of this
piece to the imperial archives, one is endlessly fascinated at the prospect of the
nineteen-year-old Emperor Wu sitting in his palace study with a bundle of bamboo
strips trying to decipher the text of a fu written in a difficult script and replete with
rare words. This is a wonderful story, but it strains credibility.
According to the traditional account, in his audience with Emperor Wu, Sima
Xiangru belittled the quality of his earlier composition, which after all concerns
only the “affairs of the vassal lords.” He then offered to compose for the emperor
a “fu on the excursions and hunts of the Son of Heaven.” With brushes and bam-
boo slips given to him by the master of writing, Sima Xiangru composed a long
fu on the imperial hunting park, Shanglin Park. Emperor Wu was so pleased with
the poem that he appointed Sima Xiangru to a position at the imperial court. Al-
though there is nothing implausible about this part of the account, one wonders
how much the historian has embellished it to fit the conventional story of the
scholar-poet from the hinterland who rises from obscurity to prominence at the
imperial court.
“Fu on the Imperial Park” begins with Lord No-such admonishing the emis-
saries of Chu and Qi for failing to “elucidate the duties of ruler and subject or to
correct the ritual behavior of the vassal lords.” He accuses them of “competing
over the pleasures of excursions and games, the size of parks and preserves, wish-
ing to overwhelm each other with wasteful ostentation and surpass one another
in wild excesses.” Such things, he claims, only serve to defame one’s ruler and do
injury to oneself. He then proceeds with the most lavish account of them all, a
description of Shanglin Park. Most of the first part of the fu consists of a series of
catalogs of rivers, water animals, birds, mountains, plants, land animals, palaces,
stones and gems, trees, and the animals that dwell within them. He follows with
an effusive portrayal of what purports to be a typical excursion-hunt, although
virtually all of the account is full of hyperbole meant to impress the reader with
the emperor’s power. At one point, the emperor soars aloft and, as a companion
of the gods, chases fabulous creatures through the sky. At the end of this celestial
journey, the emperor descends to earth, where he moves rapidly through palaces
and towers, and halts at a hall where he holds a banquet accompanied by song and
dance.