Sao P oe t ry : t He Lyr i cS of c h u 37the example, it appears at the end of odd-numbered lines, but in the “Nine Songs,”
it is placed within each line, as is illustrated by the following two lines from “Xiang
jun” (The Lord of the Xiang River):
lord not move xi hesitate — 君不行兮夷猶 ( jūn bù xíng xi yí yóu)
[for] who remain xi middle isle 蹇誰留兮中洲 ( jiăn shuí liú xi zhōng zhōu)
The function of xi is thought to be mostly musical, since as a word it does not have
much meaning except to indicate a drawn-out sound similar to the a in modern
Chinese. As in the poems of the Shijing and later periods, rhyming in the Chuci
takes place in the last word of even-numbered lines. For example, the rhyming
words in the earlier passage from “On Encountering Trouble” are yōng and jiàng,
pronounced in archaic Chinese as λiwoŋ and γeuŋ, respectively. In some short
poems, one rhyme is used throughout, but in “On Encountering Trouble,” the
rhyme changes several times.
During the early Han dynasty, there was a tremendous interest in the Chuci,
thanks to the dynasty’s early rulers, who came from the Chu region. Han Gaozu
(r. 206–194 b.C.e.), the founding emperor of the Han, wrote his famous “Dafeng
ge” (Song of the Great Wind) in Chuci meter. Han Wudi (r. 140–87 b.C.e.), another
powerful monarch of the dynasty, was also a practitioner of the genre. Several
princes of the royal family were actively involved in studying, editing, and com-
posing Chuci poems. Liu An (179–122 b .C.e.), the prince of Huainan, for example,
wrote the first commentary on “On Encountering Trouble.” Critical views of the
Chuci varied from the early Han on. While most critics emphasized its continuity
with the Shijing tradition and praised Qu Yuan for his steadfast loyalty to his state,
others expressed uneasiness. Ban Gu (32–92), the author of the Han shu (History
of the Han Dynasty), accused Qu Yuan of being arrogant and self-flaunting and
of using a poetic language filled with “empty words” (xuwu zhi yu).1 Liu Xie (ca.
465–ca. 522), the author of the Wenxin diaolong (The Literary Mind and the Carving
of Dragons), arguably the greatest work of literary criticism ever written in China,
listed several features in “On Encountering Trouble” that conform to and stray
from the classics and characterized it as “extraordinary writing” (qiwen). He also
criticized Qu Yuan’s decision to commit suicide (for more on this, see the later
discussion of “On Encountering Trouble”) as “narrow-minded.”2 Throughout Chi-
nese literary history, though, the Chuci and its main hero, Qu Yuan, have proved
to be an enduring presence and influence. In time, Qu Yuan became a national
hero of China, and Shi-Sao (the Shijing and “Lisao,” the Chuci writ large) came to
represent the very foundation of the Chinese poetic tradition.
This chapter presents two poems from the “Nine Songs” and an excerpted ver-
sion of “On Encountering Trouble.”3
The “Nine Songs” are generally believed to be songs that were performed at sha-
manistic rituals. There are in fact eleven songs in this group, and with the excep-
tion of two, each is dedicated to a particular deity. They are thought to have been
compiled and polished by Qu Yuan. The state of Chu, situated along the Yangtze