50 Pr e - q i n t i m e s230 Passing each day in idle, wanton pleasures. 日康娛以淫遊 (rì kāng yú yĭ yín yóu)
Though fair she may be, she lacks all seemliness, 雖信美而無禮兮 (suī xìn mĕi ér wú lĭ xi)
Come! I’ll have none of her; let us search elsewhere! 來違棄而改求 (lái wĕi qì ér găi qiú)
His frustrations in heaven make the poet return his attention to the world, but
what a “muddy, impure” place he finds it to be! To escape it, he embarks on another
journey, but this time the object of his search is Fu Fei, the beautiful goddess of the
Luo River. His hoped-for result fails, however, because, despite all her beauty, Fu
Fei turns out to be “wanton” and “lacks all seemliness.”
With the change of the search object in this section, the poem’s metaphor
changes as well, and, with it, the speaker’s gender. Now the search is presented as
a courtship, a man seeking his female mate. This reverses the gender relationship
that the poet had with the “Godly One,” where he compared himself with a female
of outstanding beauty slandered by jealous court ladies. This inevitably causes con-
fusion in the allegorical framework of the poem and has generated much debate
among commentators. The Song dynasty critic Zhu Xi (1130–1200) maintained
that the women (Fu Fei and the other two women in the next section) “are divine
women, and they therefore represent virtuous rulers.” But You Guoen and other
modern scholars have regarded this and the following “courtship searches” as alle-
gories of the poet’s efforts to find someone close to the king who could help to
bring him back to the capital.40 Whatever the case may be, the gender relationships
in the poem become increasingly complex. The complexity, though, does not seem
to distract from the central motif of the poem: the poet is still searching for some-
one who shares his ideals.
In lines 233–256 (omitted), the poet continues his search for a “fair lady.” The
object in this section is the “lovely daughter of the Lord of Song.” This search also
fails because the poet finds “my pleader was weak and my matchmaker stupid”
(line 249). At the end of this passage, Qu Yuan draws a parallel between these
failed searches and his inability to wake up his “wise king.”
Somewhat baffled by his failures, the poet decides to seek help from
divination:I searched for the holy plant and twigs of bamboo, 索藑茅以筳篿兮 (suŏ qióng máo yĭ tíng zhuān xi)
And ordered Ling Fen to make divination for me.41 命靈氛為余占之 (mìng líng fēn wèi yú zhān zhī)
He said, “Beauty is always bound to find its mate: 曰兩美其必合兮 (yuē liăng mĕi qí bì hé xi)
260 Who that was truly fair was ever without lovers? 孰信脩而慕之 (shú xìn xiū ér mù zhī)
Think of the vastness of the wide world, 九州之博大兮 (jiŭ zhōu zhī bó dà xi)
Here is not the only place where you can find your lady. 豈唯是其有女 (qĭ wéi shì qí yŏu nǚ)
Go farther afield,” he said, “and do not be faint-hearted. 曰勉遠逝而無狐疑兮 (yuē miăn yuăn shìér wú hú yí xi)
What woman seeking handsome mate could ever refuse
you? 孰求美而釋女 (shú qiú mĕi ér shì nǚ)
265 What place on earth does not boast some fragrant flower? 何所獨無芳草兮 (hé suŏ dú wú fāng căo xi)
Why need you always cleave to your old home? 爾何懷乎故宇 (ĕr hé huái hū gù yŭ)
The world today is blinded with its own folly, 世幽昧以昡曜兮 (shì yōu mèi yĭ xuàn yào xi)