5 AROUSING IMAGES: THE POETRY OF DIVINATION AND THE DIVINATION OF POETR

EDWARD L. SHAUGHNESSY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Ancient China shows evidence of numerous types of activities that involve aspects of divi­nation (the attempt to use signs, whether natural or artificial, to understand and/or influence — in a word, to determine — events, present or future): pyromancy, sortilege, oneiromancy, chronomancy or hemerology, geomancy in all of its particulars (from the lay of the land and the nature of vapors emanating from it to the growth of vegetation and motion of animals on it), astromancy or astrology, physiognomy (of animals as well as of humans), and analysis of Chinese characters, would all have to be mentioned in any thorough survey of Chinese divination, and a real understanding of even any one of these practices would doubtless re­quire at least one monographic study.¹ Rather than viewing the flowers while racing along on horseback, as the Chinese saying puts it, I propose herein to touch on just the first two of these types of divination — pyromancy and sortilege — and even at this I will not attempt to give any sort of systematic introduction to them.² Rather, I will try to show how they shared a common language of expression, a language that they shared in turn with the more general language of early Chinese poetry.

Pyromancy, the scorching or burning of bone or shell in the attempt to cause cracks to appear in them that could then be read as signs, was practiced, sometimes extensively, some­times intermittently, across broad stretches of northern Eurasia from no later than 3500 B.C. until well into the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).³ The best-known manifestation of pyromancy in China is found on the plastrons of turtles and the scapula bones of oxen dating to the last stage of the Shang dynasty (ca.

shells and bones, if not the practice of pyromancy itself, died out with the end of the Shang dynasty. However, over the last thirty years numerous examples of Western Zhou dynasty (1045-771 B.C.) oracle bones have been uncovered from across north China (and especially in the Zhou homeland of Shaanxi), and there has also been plentiful other evidence of the continued practice of turtle-shell divination throughout the remainder of the Zhou dynasty (i.e., until 256 B.C.).⁵

While these archaeologically recovered records of divination properly command the greatest attention from contemporary historians, I propose to begin my examination of turtle­shell divination with a slightly later account, recorded in the history Shi ji or Records of the Historian (ca. 100 B.C.).^{6 *} This concerns a divination performed on behalf of Liu Heng (died 157 B.C.), one of the sons of Liu Bang (247-195 B.C.), the founder of the Han dynasty (reigned 202-195 B.C.). After the death of Liu Bang, the Han ruling house fell into a fifteen- year-long period of civil war between the Liu family and the family of Liu Bang’s empress, Empress Lu. With the death of Empress Lu in 180 B.C. and the subsequent elimination of her family, emissaries from the imperial court approached Liu Heng, then serving as the king (wang) of the state of Dai, and invited him to become the new emperor. Well aware of the precariousness of the position of emperor, Liu Heng at first resisted this offer. Eventually he was persuaded to accept it. According to the narrative of the Shi ji, one of the factors in his decision was a turtle-shell divination that he had performed about it.

The king of Dai consulted with the queen-mother about (whether to accept the emper­orship), but he was still not decided about it. He divined it with a turtle, the divination omen obtained being the “Grand Transversal.” (The diviner) prognosticated saying:

The Grand Transversal geng-geng (geng/*kong⁷):

I will be the heavenly king (wang/*jwang), Qi of Xia thereby shining (guang/*kwang).

The King of Dai said: “Given that I am already a king, what further kingship could there be? The diviner said, “What it means by ‘heavenly king’ is being the Son of Heaven.”⁸

There is evidence from other accounts of divination, both archaeological and traditional, that this divination would have opened with a “command” or “charge” (ming) to the turtle that first announced an intended action, and then ended with a formulaic prayer seeking a successful outcome. Although the charge is not recorded here, it was doubtless something like “I will become emperor; would that it be successful.” After the pronouncement of this charge, a red-hot brand would have been applied to the turtle-shell to cause a crack to appear in it. It was this crack — the omen (zhao) — that the divination official would have inter­preted by way of a pronouncement that we might best translate as “oracle” (yao). This took a

conventional form with an introductory four-character phrase often describing the crack in the turtle shell (or, in other forms of divination, of some omen in the natural world), followed by a couplet of rhyming four-character phrases relating the significance of that crack to the topic of the divination, in this case Liu Heng’s intention to become emperor. The description of the crack, here “The Grand Transversal geng-geng” is apparently multi-dimensional: “Grand Transversal” (da heng) is a term that occurs in another chapter of the Shi ji — the “Biography of Turtle-(Shell) and Stalk (Diviners)” (“Gui ce liezhuan”), which includes a handbook of different crack shapes and their significances for various topics — and apparently refers to a crack that extends horizontally from the vertical shaft of the divination crack, perhaps in the shape of |- but with a longer horizontal line.⁹ “Geng-geng” presumably indicates the sound that the turtle shell made when the crack appeared in it.^{10 *} Although the character used to write the sound here (geng M) is more or less meaningless, several commentators on the Shi ji point out that it is homophonous with another word (geng M) that means “to succeed” (as in “to inherit”), as a son would “succeed” a father.

Another account of a turtle-shell divination that is said to have taken place almost four hundred years earlier is similar in many respects. This is found in the Zuo zhuan, a lengthy historical narrative that serves in some respects as a commentary on the Chunqiu or Spring and Autumn Annals, under the tenth year of Duke Xiang of Lu (reigned 572-542 B.C.; i.e., 563 B.C.). It describes a divination performed on behalf of Sun Wenzi, ruler of the state of Wey, as he deliberated whether to counter an attack on his state by Huang’er of the state of Zheng. The account reads as follows:

Sun Wenzi divined by turtle-shell about pursuing them.

Ding Jiang. Madame Jiang asked about the oracle. They said:

The crack is like a mountain peak (ling/*ljsng):

There is a fellow who goes out to campaign (zheng/*tsjang), But loses his leader (xiong/*jung).

Madame Jiang said: “That the campaigner loses his leader is the benefit of resisting robbers; the great ministers should make plans for it.” The men of Wey pursued, and Sun Peng captured Huang’er of Zheng at Quanqiu.^[36]

Again we can surmise that the command to the turtle shell must have been a statement akin to “We will counter-attack Zheng; would that we defeat them.” This would have been followed by the cracking of the turtle shell, the shape of the crack being explicitly described in the oracle. We learn of this oracle only retrospectively when someone other than the divi­nation official is called on to interpret the crack, presumably because the oracle was regarded as ambiguous. Again the oracle takes the form of a four-character phrase describing the crack as being in the shape of a mountain peak (zhao ru shan ling), perhaps something like |\ or K. This omen is followed by a couplet of four-character phrases relating it to the topic of the divination. It is perhaps easy to see that “There is a fellow who goes out to campaign, But loses his leader” might be ambiguous; which fellow going out on campaign would lose his leader: the attackers from Zheng or the counter-attackers from Wey? For this reason, Sun Wenzi consulted a woman named Ding Jiang to provide the definitive interpretation: “That the campaigner loses his leader is the benefit of resisting robbers” (zheng zhe sang xiong, yu kou zhi li ye).

This prognostication is a simple transformation of a phrase that occurs formulaically in the Zhou yi or Zhou Changes: “beneficial to resist robbers” (li yu kou). The Zhou Changes, better known in the West as Yi jing (or I Ching) or Classic of Changes, is ancient China’s premier divination text, originally produced and used in conjunction with sortilege divination (i.e., divination by counting, in the case of the Zhou Changes originally counting stalks of the yarrow plant).

Nine in the Third: The wild goose advances to the land (lu/*ljuk):

The husband campaigns but does not return (fu/*bjuk), The wife is pregnant but does not give birth (yu/*jiuk). Baleful. Beneficial to resist robbers.

It is easy to see that the main portion of this line statement or “oracle” has the same form as the oracles seen above in the two accounts of turtle-shell divination: a four-character phrase describing an omen (in this case, one in the natural world rather than the shape of the crack in the turtle shell), followed by a rhyming couplet of four-character phrases relating it to some topic in the human realm. We can surmise that the divination that inspired this oracle was concerned with either a military campaign or birth-giving (or perhaps a general topic of marital fidelity), for which the movement of the wild goose (or geese) had a specific — and inauspicious — significance.^[37] We can also deduce from the cases of turtle-shell divination examined above that the remaining words of the line statement, the prognosticatory formulas “baleful” (xiong) and “beneficial to resist robbers,” reflect a secondary composition, presum­ably added by a subsequent prognosticator.

Many line statements in the Zhou Changes reflect this oracular format, the following be­ing just a few of the more illustrative examples:

• Tai Top Six: The city wall returns to the moat: Do not use the army, From the citadel announce the command. Divining: A pity.

• Xikan Top Six: Tied using rope and twine: Place it in the thicket thorn, For three years you will not get it. Baleful.

• Kun First Six: The buttocks fastened to the stumpy tree: Entering into the dark valley, For three years you will not see him.

• Ding Nine in the Second: The caldron has substance: My enemy has an illness, It will not reach us. Auspicious.

• Ding Nine in the Third: The caldron’s ears are stripped off: Its motion is blocked, The pheasant fat is inedible. The borderland rains diminish. Regret, in the end auspicious.

• Ding Nine in the Fourth: The caldron’s broken leg: Overturns the duke’s stew, Its form is glossy. Baleful.

• Feng Nine in the Third: Abundant its bubbles: In the day seeing the murk, Breaks his right arm. There is no trouble.

• Feng Nine in the Fourth: Abundant its canopy: In the day seeing the Dipper, Meeting his barbarian ruler. Auspicious.

Although these line statements all follow a standard format — one that I believe would have been normative for the divinations from which the text was created, one should hasten to note that most line statements in the Zhou Changes are not as complete as these. Many if not most line statements in the text are as simple as the following examples, drawn almost randomly from throughout the book:

• Qian Top Nine: Throated Dragon. There is regret.

• Meng Six in the Fourth: Fastened youth. A pity.

• Gu Nine in the Second: The pestilence of the stem mother. One cannot divine.

• Shihe Six in the Second: Biting the skin and cutting off the nose. No trouble.

• Ben Six in the Second: Decorating his beard.

• Fu Six in the Second: Successful return. Auspicious.

• Fu Six in the Third: Repeated return. Danger. No trouble.

• Daguo Nine in the Third: Bowed rafter. Baleful.

These are all omens of one sort or another, the significance of many of which is by no means immediately discernible. However, by comparing several line statements within the single hexagram Tong ren “Together with Men,” it is possible, I believe, to reconstruct the process by which they were created. The text of the entire hexagram reads as follows:

• Together with men in the wilds. Receipt. Beneficial to ford the great river. Beneficial for the lord to divine.

• First Nine: Together with men at the gate. No trouble.

• Six in the Second: Together with men at the ancestral temple. A pity.

• Nine in the Third: Crouching enemies in the grass: Ascending its high hill, For three years it will not arise.

• Nine in the Fourth: Astride its wall, It cannot be attacked. Auspicious.

• Nine in the Fifth: Together with men, First crying and later laughing. The great armies can meet each other.

• Top Nine: Together with men in the suburbs. No regret.

Even though the Nine in the Third line employs a different image than the other lines, it is easy to see that it constitutes the sort of two-part oracle seen above, “Crouching enemies in the grass” (fu rong yu mang) being the description of the omen, and “Ascending its high hill, For three years it will not arise” (sheng qi gao ling, san sui bu xing) being the couplet that ap­parently comments on this omen’s significance for the topic of the divination. The other lines are all less complete. Nevertheless, I think it is still possible to see that the various “Together with men” phrases must have served as the omen portion of the oracles. Depending on the topic of any given divination, an omen such as “Together with men in the wilds” (tong ren yu ye) or “Together with men at the gate” (tong ren yu men) would have prompted a divination official to compose a couplet of the sort “Astride its wall, It cannot be attacked” (cheng qi yong, fu ke gong) seen in the Nine in the Fourth line statement. Indeed, the rhyme in this latter couplet (yong/*jiwong and gong/*kung) suggests that it was probably originally attached to the image “Together with men at the ancestral temple” (tong ren yu zong; i.e., zong/*tsuong) of the Six in the Second line statement. Similarly, rhyme might suggest that the fifth and sixth lines were split from an original complete oracle:

Together with men in the suburbs (jiao/*kau): First crying (tao/*dau) and later laugh­ing (xiao/*sjau). The great armies can meet each other (yu/*ngju). No regret.

While the phrase “The great armies can meet each other” does not seem to be part of this oracle and should perhaps be understood as the same sort of injunction as the “beneficial to resist robbers” formula seen in the Nine in the Third line of Jian hexagram, it may well be that its near rhyme (yu/*ngju) influenced its insertion here.

Part of the appeal of the Zhou Changes is doubtless the incomplete state in which it has come down to us. This is not to say that any significant portion of it has been lost or that many line statements have been split or otherwise deformed, but rather that the text simply never underwent the sort of systematic editing that would have filled in all of the blanks. Long before post-modern literary critics began to discuss the authority of the reader, readers and especially people who have used the Zhou Changes to perform divinations have assumed the lion’s share of responsibility for creating an intelligible text. This intelligibility has doubtless changed over the course of the centuries that the text has been read, and much of the original symbolic significance is lost to us. For instance, we cannot be sure at all how the various omens came to be associated with the different hexagrams. However, by learning as much as we can about how natural omens were viewed at the time that the Zhou Changes was created, we can at least come to some appreciation of how the couplet that relates the omen to the topic of the divination may have been understood. To learn more about these omens, there is probably no source better than the contemporary poetry, and especially the Shi jing or Classic of Poetry. When no less a figure than Confucius himself said that study of the Poetry would teach his disciples about the names of birds and animals, plants and trees,^[38] his was almost certainly not the interest of a zoologist or a botanist; rather, he was urging his disciples to understand the symbolic meaning of the world around them, which is most immediately visible in the different natures of the goose and the grackle, the osprey and the oriole, or the pine and cypress. In the remainder of this study, I propose to turn my attention to these poetic images, and to suggest that just as divinations could partake of the language of poetry, so too could poems be divinatory.

Before examining the Classic of Poetry itself, I would like to begin with a “children’s oracle” (tong yao) recorded in the Zuo zhuan. This is an example of a more or less extensive genre of folk-song that was regarded as prophetic. This particular song is said to have been occasioned by two events that took place in 517 B.C. in the state of Lu, the homeland of the Spring and Autumn Annals. In the autumn of that year, the lord of the state, Duke Zhao (reigned 541-510 B.C.) fled into exile after unsuccessfully challenging the great families that wielded real power in the state. Earlier in the year, a type of mynah bird or grackle (quyu) theretofore unknown in northern China was spotted nesting in the state. The music master regarded it as fabulous, but is said to have recalled the following folk song from about a century earlier than his own time. I present it in the inimitable translation of James Legge (1815-1897), the Scottish missionary who contributed so much to our understanding of an­cient China through his translations of the Confucian classics.

Here are grackles apace! The duke flies in disgrace.

Look at the grackles’ wings! To the wilds the duke flings, A horse one to him brings.

Look how the grackles go! In Kan-how he is low, Wants coat and trousers now. Behold the grackles’ nest! Far off the duke doth rest.

Chow-fu has lost his state, Sung-foo comes proud and great. O the grackles so strange! The songs to weeping change.¹⁵

I have preserved even Legge’s Victorian transliterations of Chinese words, but I have rear­ranged his line breaks so as better to show the rhyme scheme. I think it is easy to see how stanzas such as quyu zhi yu (*ju), gong zai wai ye (*jia), wang kui zhi ma (*ma) translated by Legge as “Look at the grackles’ wings! To the wilds the duke flings, A horse one to him brings” or quyu zhuzhu (*tju), gong zai Ganhou (*you), zheng qian yu ru (*nzju) “Look how the grackles go! In Kan-how he is low, Wants coat and trousers now” (a more literal translation would be “The grackle goes hopping, The duke is in Ganhou, Seeking gown and jacket”) are similar to line statements of the Zhou Changes, beginning with a description of a natural omen and then correlating it — by way of a rhyming couplet — with a situation in the human realm. Whether this poem should be viewed as prophecy, as it has been portrayed in the Chinese literary tradition, or as historical comment (written after the event) as a more cynical reading might suggest, is perhaps irrelevant. Whether the human event comes after or before the omen, in ancient China at least it was felt that there was a necessary connection between them.

When we look at the images of still more traditional ancient Chinese poems, I think we will see the same connection between natural omen and human society. The most striking feature of poems in the Classic of Poetry, poems generally contemporary with the oracles of the Zhou Changes, is known in Chinese as their xing, a word that means “to raise up,” “to cause to arise,” and which I translate nominally as “arousal.” The arousal routinely comes at the beginning of a stanza, which is often as short as four lines (of four characters each, or two lines of eight-character couplets). It takes the form of an opening couplet describing some na­ture image, drawn usually from the animal or botanical world (although astral and geomantic images also occur), and is then followed by another couplet, always rhyming, that describes an event in the human world. Although some readers have dismissed these arousals as es­sentially meaningless, designed simply to set the rhyme scheme,^[39] I think a more sympathetic reading can readily see connections between the natural and human worlds, and — perhaps more important — can also see how the people of the time could have perceived connections between them. A few other poems, chosen almost at random from among the opening poems of the collection, will illustrate how these arousals work.

The first takes up again the nesting of a bird (or, in this case, two different types of birds): the magpie (que) and the dove (jiu). Arthur Waley (1889-1966), in his translation of the Classic of Poetry, points out that the dove, or the cuckoo, as he calls it, is known for set­tling in the nests of other birds, which Chinese tradition asserts those other birds regard as an honor.^[40] Here the association between the dove’s arrival in the magpie’s nest and the marriage of the “girl” does not seem to have any of the pejorative connotations that are common in the European tradition; it simply portended a woman from another family, as all brides needed to be, coming to take up residence in her husband’s home.

“The Magpie’s Nest” (Que chao; Mao 12)

The magpie had a nest,

A dove settles in it (ju/*kjwo).

This girl goes to marry,

A hundred carts drive her (yu/*njwo).

The magpie had a nest,

A dove takes it over (fang/*pjwang).

This girl goes to marry,

A hundred carts lead her (jiang/*tsjang).

The magpie had a nest,

A dove fills it all up (ying/*jiang).

This girl goes to marry,

A hundred carts place her (cheng/*zjang).

Another wedding song is introduced with a different sort of nature image, one that I sus­pect is less culturally specific: the various attributes of the peach.

“The Peach is Yummy” (Tao yao; Mao 6)

The peach is so yummy,

Blush red are its flowers (Aua/*xwa).

This girl goes to marry;

Fitting her house and home (jia/*ka)

The peach is so yummy,

So bulbous is its fruit (shi/*dzjet).

This girl goes to marry;

Fitting her home and house (shi/*sjet)

The peach is so yummy,

Its leaves are so glist’ning (zhen/*sjen).

This girl goes to marry;

Fitting her home and man (ren/*nzjen)

While fruit ripe for the picking might turn a young man’s thoughts to spring, other fruit falling from the vine could suggest to a young girl that she had missed her chance.

“Falling are the Plums” (Biao you mei; Mao 20)

Falling are the plums;

Oh, seven are its fruit (shi/* dzjet).

The many sirs seeking me;

Oh, would that one be fine (ji/*kjiet).

Falling are the plums;

Oh, but three are its fruit (san/*sam).

The many sirs seeking me;

Oh, would that it be now (jin/*kjam).

Falling are the plums;

The slant basket takes it (xi/*kjei).

The many sirs seeking me,

Would that one might say it (wei/*jwei).

Even without knowing that in later Chinese sex texts a “slant basket” (qing kuang) was a euphemism for the vagina,^[41] it is probably not hard to see in this poem the despairing prayer — and I use the word “prayer” deliberately — of the last women to be chosen at the dance. I would like to suggest that we might compare this poem to the sort of divination that young children in the West have performed for generations: picking the petals off of a daisy and chanting “she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me.” To be sure, this was a song or a poem, but the singer was also hoping that by employing this particular nature image — by catching a plum in her basket — that she could induce a suitable boy to come to her.

He yin yang (Conjoining yin and yang); see Harper 1998: 413.

A similar magic, whether of word or of action, is to be seen in the poem “The Plantain” (Fuyi; Mao 8).

“The Plantain” (Fuyi; Mao 8)

Picking, picking plantain,

Going out picking it.

Picking, picking plantain,

Going out plucking it.

Picking, picking plantain,

Going out gath’ring it.

Picking, picking plantain,

Going out c’llecting it.

Picking, picking plantain,

Going out breasting it.

Picking, picking plantain,

Going out girdling it.

No one would claim that this is great poetry, but it does serve to illustrate how poetic images could stimulate — arouse — desired responses. There are two different identifications of the fuyi that is the focus of this poem: The Mao Commentary, the earliest commentary on the text identifies it as the “plantain” (cheqianzi), while other texts identify it as a type of pear.^[42] However, both of these identifications agree that eating it induced pregnancy. As noted by Wen Yiduo (1899-1946), arguably modern China’s most insightful reader of the Classic of Poetry, this was doubtless because the name of the fruit was closely homophonous in archaic Chinese with the word for fetus (peitai; indeed, the original characters were essentially the same for both words). In this simple poem, the woman wishing to become pregnant went out to gather thefuyi, which for convenience sake I have translated as “plantain.” In the first two stanzas, she picks it off the tree or bush, in the next two stanzas she gathers several together, and then in the final two stanzas she tucks them into her clothing: first into her blouse near to her breasts, and then finally into her girdle at her waist. She must have understood that by singing this song as she gathered the plantain that she would have activated whatever medical properties it may have possessed, progressively making it more and more personal. Just as the diviner sought to use the image in the shell or in nature to influence the future course of events, so too did this poetess seek to use nature to bring about the result that she desired.

It is not possible in this brief paper to supply anything like an inventory of nature images in ancient China. However, to give one final example of how they work in the Classic of Poetry, let me finish with the best-known case, the poem Guanju “The Joining Osprey,” the first poem in the collection. It too is a wedding song, beginning with yet another avian image and then concluding in the last two stanzas with the male protagonist providing musical enter­tainment for the woman he seeks throughout the poem, first with strings and then percussion instruments, said to be appropriate first for courtship and then for a wedding feast.

the Yi Zhou shu (Sibu beiyao ed., 7.10a) identifies its fruit as being similar to a pear.

“The Joining Osprey” (Guanju; Mao 1)

“Join, Join,” calls the osprey,

On the river's island:

Luscious is the young girl,

The lordson's loving mate.

Up, down, the water cress; Left and right, chasing it. Luscious the young girl, In and out of sleep seeking her.

Seeking, not getting her; In out of sleep I think. Longing, oh, longing, oh! Toss turn, over myself.

Up, down, the water cress; Left and right, picking it. Luscious is the young girl; Zither and lute befriend her.

Up, down, the water cress; Left and right, gath'ring it. Luscious is the young girl; Bell and drum amuse her.

In the interests of brevity, I will ignore traditional interpretations and will assume simply that this poem concerns a man's yearning for a woman.^[43] Also in the interests of brevity, I will also disregard all the other images in the poem, natural and otherwise, and focus only on the call of the osprey at the very beginning of the poem. However, to understand fully the meaning of this call, it will be necessary to consider first the nature of the osprey.

Most of the interpretation of this opening image has focused on this question: the nature of the bird. Although there have been some differences of detail, virtually all interpreters agree that the bird is a fish-eating raptor. Although the osprey is said to have various virtues and characteristics, I would prefer to focus just on this one point of agreement: that the bird eats fish. I have already mentioned above the modern scholar Wen Yiduo. In a classic essay of his entitled “On Fish,”^[44] he demonstrated that in the Classic of Poetry fish consistently evoke sexual relations, and that the eating of fish evokes the consummation of those relations. He sees this illustrated, for instance, in the poem “Transverse Gate” (“Heng men”; Mao 138), the title of which refers to the “eastern gate” that led in ancient Chinese cities to what we would call the “red light district.”

“Transverse Gate” (Heng men; Mao 138)

Beneath the Transverse Gate,

You can roost leisurely;

By the spring's full flowing,

You can sate your hunger.

Could it be fish to eat

Must be the River's bream?

Could it be wives to take

Must be a Jiang of Qi?

Could it be fish to eat

Must be the River's carp?

Could it be wives to take

Must be a Zi of Song?

In several different discussions of this fish arousal, Wen notes that it seems also to inform some poems which do not mention fish explicitly, as for instance in the poem “The Men at Waiting” (“Hou ren”; Mao 151, the title of which might also be construed as “Waiting for Someone”).

“The Men at Waiting” (Hou ren; Mao 151)

Oh, those men at waiting,

Carrying daggers and spears.

Those young men over there:

Three hundred red knee-covers.

There's a pelican on the bridge

Who doesn't wet his wings.

That young man over there

Doesn't fit his clothing.

There's a pelican on the bridge

Who doesn't wet his beak.

That young man over there

Doesn't pursue his date.

Oh, how dense; oh, how lush,

South Mountain's morning mist.

Oh, how cute; how charming,

Is the young girl's hunger.

The two central stanzas of this poem are both introduced by the image of a pelican, which, as Wen notes, is a fish-eating bird. However, in this poem the pelican does not deign to dip its head into the water to take its fish. So too, the young man preening in his guardsman's uniform, disregards the young girl who hungers for him; indeed, what I have translated as “Doesn't pursue his date” literally means “does not follow through with the sexual intercourse.”

This evocative quality of the fish image would seem to be one of those cases of an inter­pretation so obvious that it needed but to be pointed out. Yet, it is curious that Wen himself seems to have overlooked the equally obvious parallel between the pelican in “The Man at Waiting” and the osprey in “The Joining Osprey.” Although fish are not mentioned in “The Joining Osprey,” their signification of sexual desire is not far beneath the surface of the poem.

Despite the concern among both traditional and modern interpreters of the Classic of Poetry over the identification and nature of the bird image in “The Joining Osprey,” there has been very little attention to its action: its calling guan-guan. The Mao Commentary remarks that this is “the concordant sound of the male and female responding to each other,” and most subsequent interpreters have been content to accept this.^[45] It seems to me, however, not well to evoke the mood of unrequited love that persists throughout much of the poem. Instead, I would suggest that the poet, in the person of the poem’s male protagonist, heard the osprey, and presumably only the male osprey, seeking “to join” (guan [JU) with its mate. The character with which this sound is written, which means generally “to close” a door, refers originally to the crossbar which locks a two-fold gate (guan ^). If the phallic significance of this is not apparent enough, the word is also perfectly homophonous with the word guan m (originally written $), which means generally “to pierce the center of,” but which in ancient China was also the standard euphemism for sexual penetration. Whatever sound the wild goose actually made, we can tell at least what the poet wanted to hear.

As in the “children’s oracle” poem quoted above, this call of the osprey predicts what will happen in the human world, or at least what the young man contemplating — desiring — the young girl wanted to happen. And just as the grackle’s “wings” suggested somehow the flight of the lord or its “hopping” the unusual appearance of the lord, so too, I would suggest, should we hear the call of the osprey here — written with the Chinese character that means “to close together” or “to join” — to predict the union of the “young girl” and the “lordson,” consummated at the end of the poem by the banging of bells and drums. Of course, with a language such as Chinese, in which there is no alphabet with which to write value-neutral sounds, the sounds of nature can only be rendered with Chinese words. Whether for the poets or the diviners of ancient China, ospreys could only speak Chinese and anyone who spoke that language could understand them. But those attentive to nature did not need to wait for it to speak. Nature revealed itself also in the movement of the wild geese, the hopping of the grackle, the shape of the peach, the dropping of the plums. But more than this, it could be seen also in the belly of the caldron, the rise of a rafter, the biting of flesh, and the crack in the turtle-shell. To be sure, these images could be confusing. That is why then — as now — it was the job of the diviners and the poets to listen to them, to see them, to interpret them, and in turn to tell us what they mean.

is yao-yao; these are natural sounds. The beak of the osprey resembles that of ducks and geese, therefore its sound is like this, also getting the sense of the water’s edge”; quoted in Xiang 1986: 144.

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