Sh i P oe t ry : musiC bur e au P oe m s 85dates back to the pre-Qin periods. However, as early as the Southern Dynasties,
Shen Yue (441–513) states in the “Yueshu” (Monograph on Music), collected in
the Song shu (History of the Liu Song Dynasty), that there were no song-collecting
officials in either the Qin or the Han.3 Modern scholars, East and West, have also
supported this view.4 Despite this scholarly consensus, it is possible that some of
the regional songs mentioned in the “Summary of Poetry and Rhapsodies” were
among those collected.5
In this chapter, I discuss these ritual hymns and popular yuefu verses in order,
providing the historical and cultural backgrounds of these poems and analyses of
their content, style, and cultural significance.
One of the two most important, extant sets of ritual songs of the Han is the “An
shi fangzhong ge” (Songs to Pacify the World, for Inside the Palace). The Han shu
attributes the authorship to Lady Tangshan, the wife of the Han founder, Liu Bang
(Han Gaozu [r. 206–194 b.C.e.]), around 206 b.C.e.6 But both the Sui shu (History
of the Sui Dynasty) and the Beishi (History of the Northern Dynasties) attribute this
set of poems to the pre-Qin erudite Shusun Tong (fl. 205–188 b.C.e.).7 Later, in the
Song dynasty, Chen Yang (twelfth century) emphasizes in the Yueshu (Monograph
on Music) that Lady Tangshan only matched the songs with Chu music. Setting
the songs in the Chu mode (surely unorthodox in the ritual tradition) would have
been in order to please Liu Bang, whose hometown was in the Chu area. There are
seventeen songs in total in the Han shu, although some scholars have suggested
that they actually number twelve or sixteen. In 194 b.C.e., the head of the Music Bu-
reau, Xiahou Kuan (fl. 193 b.C.e.), was ordered to arrange the songs for flute accom-
paniment. The name of this set of songs was then changed to “An shi yue” (Songs
to Pacify the World). In terms of style, thirteen of these songs were composed in
the solemn tetrasyllabic meter. This is the classical style for eulogy in the ancient
Shijing (The Book of Poetry) and thus suitable for such ceremonial occasions. Writ-
ten to praise the achievements of the Han ruler, the poems resemble the eulogies
in the Shijing. Four of the poems are in trisyllabic meter or in an unusual mixture
of seven- and three-syllable lines. The trisyllabic meter, which is rarely seen in any
pre-Han poetic collections, is a special feature of the ritual hymns and other yuefu
verses of the Han. The seven-syllable style is even more unusual, since it is found
mainly in Han popular sayings and primers for children as a means for learning
characters quickly (such as the Ji jiu pian [Primer for Quickly Learning Chinese Char-
acters], by Shi You [fl. 48–33 b.C.e.]), and did not become widely accepted by literati
until the late fifth century. The first song opens with an exclamation about filial
piety, one of the central ideas of the series:
❀
C 4. 1
Songs to Pacify the World, for Inside the Palace, No. 1
安世房中歌 (ān shì fáng zhōng gē)
Grand filial piety is complete! 大孝備矣 (dà xiào bèi yĭ)
2 Excellent virtue is magnificent and pure. 休德昭清 (xiū dé zhāo qīng)