Читать книгу A History of China - Morris Rossabi - Страница 37

The Chinese literary tradition, especially poetry, also developed during the Zhou. The Chinese have traditionally excelled in the writing of poetry, yet very few pre-Han dynasty works are extant. Many more poems were written, but most have not survived. The most renowned early anthology of poetry was the Book of Odes (Shijing), which consists of about three hundred poems. The poems were designed to be sung and were edited to incorporate rhymes within a specific dialect. Over the centuries, Chinese commentators interpreted these poems to fit the specific social and political values their society wished to inculcate. The poems assumed a didactic and moralistic tone. In the commentators’ hands, love poems were transformed into paeans advocating filial piety and proper performance of rituals. Similarly, songs lamenting the absence of a loved one became critiques of student truants. Such far-fetched and moralistic interpretations persisted for a long time. Because the Book of Odes was accepted as one of the Five Confucian Classics, these interpretations, even if outlandish, need to be considered because of their pervasive influence.

The poems derive from diverse origins. The largest number, the so-called “airs” section, is composed of folk songs that were probably revised and refined at court. These short poems yield insights into the daily lives, aspirations, and activities of ordinary people. They deal with love and marriage, festivals, work, and rituals. The songs give voice to soldiers lamenting separation from their loved ones and to wives or husbands betrayed or ignored by their spouses. Some clearly express discontent with the inequities in Chinese society. They criticize oppressive officials, avaricious kings, and constant turbulence and warfare. Commentators naturally read political judgments and criticism into other seemingly bland poems. They did so often by reinterpreting the nature symbolism found in the songs. Because the contemporary meaning of various animals, birds, and natural phenomena was unknown, later commentators could assert that they represented criticisms of political and social conditions of the time. Despite the numerous over-interpretations, however, this section of the Odes reveals the common people’s dissatisfactions with the chaos, misrule, and exploitation that enveloped them.

Other sections in the Book of Odes have distinctly different themes, reflecting, in particular, the interests and activities of the nobility. The xiaoya and daya (“lesser odes” and “greater odes”) describe festivals, hunts, music and dancing, and sacrifices and provide details about clothing, meals, and transport. Surprisingly, a few poems offer social critiques, consisting of denunciations of officials who do not perform their assigned tasks, of oppressive governments, and of scandalously opulent lifestyles for some in the nobility in the face of poverty and starvation for many commoners.

These complaints attest to the unsettled times and to exploitation and misgovernment. The hymns (song), the final section of the Odes, differ from the rest because they do not include a litany of complaints, laments, and accusations. Instead they offer praise for the kings’ military victories and proper performance of rituals and for the dynasty’s accomplishments. They glow with optimism about the deeds of the nobility, and few rumblings of discontent emerge.

Although some of the poems offer trenchant or, on occasion, covert critiques of Zhou society, many appear to be straightforward evocations of hopes, wishes, and reality. Some are exactly what they purport to be, with no symbolic or hidden messages. They include courtship poems, songs of lovesick or neglected young men or women, and verses reflecting the woes of disillusioned and abused wives. These poems are direct and unencumbered with larger political or social meanings.

However, because the compilation of the Book of Odes was often attributed to Confucius, individual poems have been accorded a moral or didactic interpretation. One traditional view was that Confucius selected the three hundred poems from a larger anthology while another was that he simply gave his imprimatur to an existing collection. Whatever the true origin of the poems, Confucius emphasized their significance in the education of a gentleman. According to the Analects, he urged his disciples to study the Odes in order to broaden their sensibilities, refine their language, and enlarge their knowledge of nature. He insisted that officials needed to be conversant with the Odes because others made repeated references to them when discussing and negotiating state affairs. Because many officials had memorized the poems, could allude to them, and accepted the rather labored and exaggerated interpretations of individual songs, Confucius advised his disciples to ponder and seek to understand the Odes for the very practical reason of fulfilling their public roles and responsibilities. Additional evidence that Confucius played a role in the compilation or editing of the work is the large number of hymns deriving from the state of Lu, his native land.

Confucius is also credited with amassing the various passages that constituted another of the Five Classics, the Book of Documents (Shujing). However, some sections of the work date from after Confucius’s death. A text written in archaic language, the Book of Documents consists of legendary, semihistorical, and historical passages with no underlying unity or at least little effort to produce a coherent narrative. Much of the text is composed of speeches. Since the writers or historians could not have been present during most of these discourses, the speeches cannot be considered authentic, although they may, on occasion, convey the general sense of what transpired. The parts of the work that deal with the Zhou dynasty are more reliable than descriptions of much earlier, semilegendary figures. Although many of the speeches and incidents cannot be attested, they nonetheless reveal the general themes and values that the compiler(s) wished to inculcate.

The most important of these themes was the Mandate of Heaven theory, which, according to the Documents, the early Zhou rulers expounded to Shang citizens whom they had just conquered. In seeking to justify the overthrow of the Shang kings, the Zhou leaders, in particular the Duke of Zhou, explained that Heaven, an amorphous force that controlled the Earth, bestowed a specific leader or group with a mandate to rule. As long as these designated rulers and their descendants continued to govern virtuously, they would retain Heaven’s support. Should they, however, abandon virtue and encourage corruption and exploitation, Heaven would retract its mandate, offering it instead to a new leader or group. How would one discover Heaven’s displeasure? Earthquakes, floods, droughts, and other natural disasters indicated Heaven’s dissatisfactions. If the new leaders emerged victorious, Heaven had surely bestowed its favor on them; here pragmatism merged with morality. In sum, each successive leader needed to prove himself morally fit to maintain the mandate, for Heaven did not grant the throne to descendants in perpetuity. The Zhou rulers asserted that their own overthrow of the Shang, which had lost the mandate, was thus justified. The Documents, in this way, contributed to a historical tradition of portraying the first rulers of a dynasty as honest, benevolent, and courageous and the last rulers as evil and immoral. New dynasties could therefore justify their usurpation of the throne. The implication was that no dynasty lasted forever.

In addition to the Mandate of Heaven theory, the Documents offers a specific and unusual view of the transfer of power. The text lauds legendary figures who selected the most meritorious candidate to succeed them instead of turning authority over to their sons. The mythical ruler Yao, for example, did not tap his son as his successor but rather chose a commoner named Shun. In turn, Shun handed over power to his minister Yu, not to any of his own progeny. Eventually, the principle of family succession, usually father to son, took hold, and the Documents ultimately confirm this mode of transfer of authority. Yet, considering the prestige accorded to the Documents, it is puzzling that the value of family seems to be superseded in these early examples. One explanation is that the work reflects the views and aspirations of the traveling group of philosophers during Confucius’s time. Deriving from nonelite backgrounds, they attempted to secure positions in government. Using the Documents, they could show that the legendary revered heroes of the past had selected successors on the basis of merit, not heredity. The lesson would presumably not have been lost on the contemporary rulers from whom they requested employment.