56 Pr e - q i n t i m e s
and abducting the Luo goddess to be his wife. Some commentators, among them Hawkes, regard
the reference to Qiong-shi Mountain and the Wei-pan Stream as a suggestion that Fu Fei led a
wanton lifestyle (Songs of the South, 91).
- You, Lisao zuanyi, 290, 294.
- Ling Fen was a master of divination.
- The Ford of Heaven is a constellation in the eastern sky.
- According to Chinese mythology, the God of the West, also known as Shao Hao, presides
over the western regions. - According to ancient myths, Bu-zhou Mountain is northwest of Mount Kunlun.
- The Nine Songs are the music of heaven. According to legend, Shao music was the music
of the sage-ruler Shun. - Luan (literally, disorderly) is a musical term designating the final section of a song. It is so
called because it sounded disorderly when all the instruments were played together at the end of
a piece. - Hawkes, Songs of the South, 68–78.
suggest eD reaDings
e ng l i sH
Hawkes, David, ed. and trans. The Songs of the South: An Anthology of Ancient Chinese Poems by Qu
Yuan and Other Poets. New York: Penguin, 1985.
Qu Yuan. The “Nine Songs”: A Study of Shamanism in Ancient China. Edited by Arthur Waley. 1955.
Reprint, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1973.
Waters, Geoffrey R. Three Elegies of Ch’u: An Introduction to the Traditional Interpretation of the
“Ch’u Tz’u.” Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
Yu, Pauline. The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1987.
C H ine s e
Jiang Liangfu 姜亮夫. Chuci lunwenji 楚辭論文集 (Studies of the “Chuci ”). Shanghai: Shanghai guji
chubanshe, 1984.
Ma Maoyuan 馬茂元, ed. Chuci xuan 楚辭選 (Selections from the “Chuci ”). Beijing: Renmin
wenxue chubanshe, 1998.
You Guoen 游國恩. Chuci lunwenji 楚辭論文集 (Studies of the “Chuci ”). Beijing: Gudian wenxue
chubanshe, 1957.
———. ed. Lisao zuanyi 離騷纂義 (Collected Commentaries of “Lisao”). Beijing: Zhonghua shuji,
1980.