80 t He Han Dy na s t y
Han dynasty recorded 120 fu under his name.30 Regrettably, none of his works
survives. According to his biography in the Han shu (History of the Han Dynasty),
Mei Gaoaccompanied the emperor when he went to Sweet Springs, Yong, and Hedong;
made inspection tours of the east; performed feng sacrifices on Mount Tai;
diked the break at Xuanfeng Temple on the Yellow River; went sightseeing at
the touring palaces and lodges of the Three Capital Districts; visited mountains
and marshes; and participated in fowling, hunting, shooting, chariot driving,
dog and horse races, football matches, and engravings. Whenever there was
something that moved His Highness, he immediately had Mei Gao rhapso-
dize^ [^ fu] on it. He composed quickly, and no sooner received the summons
than he was finished. Thus, the pieces he rhapsodized are numerous.31
Although the text does not specifically state that Mei Gao chanted the poems, the
fact that it does use fu in its verbal sense (to fu something, to recite a poem about,
to chant), as well as the speed with which he composed, suggest that at least some
of his fu were extemporaneous oral compositions.
The textual history of “Fu on the Imperial Park” also tells us something about
the oral quality of the piece. There are two early versions of the poem, one in the
Shiji (Records of the Grand Scribe), compiled by Sima Qian (145–86? b .C.e.), and the
other in the Han shu, compiled by Ban Gu (32–92). Although the Shiji antedates
the Han shu, through textual analysis, scholars have determined that the version
of “Fu on the Imperial Park” included in the Han shu is earlier than that found in
the Shiji. Many of the differences between the two texts involve the writing of allit-
erative and rhyming compounds as well as the names found in the various lists of
animals, birds, and plants. For example, where the Han shu writes 屬玉 (zhuyu),
the Shiji gives 鸀鳥 + 玉 (zhuyu) for “white heron.” The latter form, which adds the
“bird” classifier on the left-hand side, is clearly an emendation intended to add a
semantic element to the graph. A large number of the words in the History of the
Han Dynasty do not have these semantic classifiers. It should be noted that when
Sima Xiangru composed his fu, there were no standard forms for writing many
words, especially the rare and difficult expressions that occur in “Fu on the Im-
perial Park.” Because many of the words that Sima Xiangru used did not have stan-
dard orthography, the original text of his fu must have contained numerous graphs
that we probably would not easily recognize today. It is quite probable that the
poet simply transcribed the words based solely on their sounds. Thus this would
explain the absence of semantic classifiers in the Han shu version. In addition, if
the fu were recited, as many scholars now believe was the case, the poet would have
transcribed it phonetically using homophonous graphs to represent the unusual
and rare words.
David R. Knechtges