f u P oe t ry : an anC i e n t-s t y l e r Ha P s oDy 75In the midst of merriment and intoxication with wine, the emperor suddenly
becomes lost in contemplation. As he reflects on the extravagance of his excur-
sions, he fears that his successors will imitate his behavior. Resolving to abandon
the activity, he dismisses hunters and revelers, and opens the park for the use of
the common people. He now resolves to turn his attention to matters of state. He
declares that he will model his conduct on the Confucian classics and that he will
perform the proper rituals. By this action, the emperor becomes the equal of the
great sage-rulers of antiquity, and thus he is superior to the princes of Chu and Qi,
who are portrayed in the “Fu of Sir Vacuous” as rulers who sacrificed the welfare of
the common people to their own pursuit of idle pastimes. At this point, Sir Vacu-
ous and Master Improbable are overwhelmed and speechless. When they finally
manage a reply, they say, “Your humble servants have been stubborn and uncouth,
and ignorant of the prohibitions. Now this day we have received your instruction.
We respectfully accept your command.”
The emperor for whom Sima Xiangru wrote “Fu on the Imperial Park,” Em-
peror Wu, ascended the imperial throne at the age of sixteen and ruled for more
than half a century, from 140 to 87 b.C.e. During Emperor Wu’s reign, the Han
fully consolidated its power internally and began to expand into new territories.
Emperor Wu’s generals led military expeditions, which gained the Han control
over new territory in the northeast, southeast, southwest, and west. Emperor Wu’s
expeditions to what the Chinese of the Han called the Western Regions increased
Chinese knowledge of Central Asia and opened trade routes that brought count-
less precious objects, rare animals, and plants to the imperial storehouses and
imperial park. The era of Emperor Wu was an age of great pride in the might
and magnificence of the empire, and much of the cultural activity of the period is
fundamentally “imperial.” Thus during this period, the religious rites, education,
philosophical thought, art, music, and literature were all related in important ways
to the institution and person of the emperor.
“Fu on the Imperial Park” is a type of fu called dafu (literally, large fu). Such
pieces are called “large” because they are long, but also because they are on grand
topics such as capitals, palaces, and parks. The dafu usually have a tripartite struc-
ture consisting of a “head” (shou), “middle” (zhong), and “tail” (wei). In the head,
the poet introduces the topic. In “Fu on the Imperial Park,” the head occupies all
of part I, in which the imperial spokesman Lord No-such belittles the expositions
of the emissaries from Chu and Qi and then proposes to describe for them the
superior features of Shanglin Park. The middle is the longest section of the fu,
which extends for some four hundred lines from part II through part X. In this
section, Sima Xiangru describes the park’s terrain, lists the various creatures and
objects that are found there, and gives a brief account of the imperial hunt. The
tail, which begins with part XI, is the moralistic conclusion, in which the emperor
is portrayed as repudiating the extravagance of the park and transforming himself
into a dutiful sovereign who shows concern for the livelihood of his people.
Although Sima Xiangru did not compose “Fu on the Imperial Park” for any par-
ticular occasion, it is a celebratory poem. During the Former Han, the court held