Sh i P oe t ry : musiC bur e au P oe m s 89beliefs in the power of this star. In this poem, he is described as the creator of the
sun and the moon and as the regulator of the four seasons and the movements of
the stars. The harmony of the universe and the generation of life are made possible
through the Grand Unity, who transcends not only heaven and earth but also the
five emperors of the five quarters. Lines 3–12 extol the awesome power of the god
and his role in creation. Lines 13–18 effect a transition to the sacrificial ritual and
an invitation to the god. In lines 19–24, the poem expresses the wish and suppli-
cation of the imperial house and of the people for the Grand Unity to confer bless-
ings on them. The hymn ends with loud, triumphant music and a dance in which
a banner representing the god causes the Nine Yi tribes from the remotest areas to
come in surrender. The “Twinkling Indicator” refers to the star γ Boötes, which is
also sometimes imagined as part of the Northern Dipper, or Big Dipper.13 Accord-
ing to the Shiji (Records of the Grand Scribe), when the Han dynasty was about to at-
tack Nanyue, a ritual banner painted with the sun, the moon, the Northern Dipper,
and an ascending dragon was presented to the Grand Unity during a sacrifice.14
There was probably a contemporary belief that the deity would protect the army
and guarantee victory. This suggests the deity’s role as war god and protector of
the dynasty. To subdue the tribes on the border areas had been the ideal and dream
for nearly all Chinese dynasties. The word jiu (line 24) in classical Chinese in many
cases does not mean “nine” but denotes “many.” It was during Emperor Wu’s reign
that the borders of China were greatly expanded, and many more minority tribes
came to pay tribute at court. In the poem’s last lines, we sense a subtle fusion of
the emperor with the Grand Unity, likely one of the poem’s intended messages. By
performing the sacrifice to the highest god, the emperor becomes an extension of
the deity himself on earth who resides in the court, the center of China. Through
him, order will reign, natural disasters will be eliminated, wars will be won, and
all the people within China will live in harmony.
Despite their importance in the Han court, these sacrificial hymns had little
influence on the development of Chinese poetry and functioned only within their
limited religious spheres. They contain an abundance of archaic words, and they
are read mostly by specialists today. Secular yuefu songs, however, became a major
source of poetic influence in medieval China. The extant Han yuefu corpus, com-
posed mainly of poems in pentasyllabic lines, covers a great diversity of themes. I
shall discuss poems on various topics of ordinary life that continue to be popular
and widely read by Chinese readers even in modern times. Like the ritual hymns,
the secular songs are assumed to have had a close relationship with music. In the
most comprehensive yuefu collection, Yuefu shiji (Collection of Yuefu Poetry), the
compiler Guo Maoqian (twelfth century) classified all the Music Bureau poems
under twelve musical categories.15 It is undeniable that yuefu poems must have had
a musical association, since the evidence is in the titles themselves. We find many
containing such musical terms as jie (stanzas), yan (prelude), qu (finale passage),
and luan (envoi or coda).16 Nonetheless, we must bear in mind that since the music
had been lost long before Guo’s time, the classification of his musical categories
must be viewed as speculative.