Two Poems from the Book of Songs

“Jian!” 簡兮 and “Strike the Bells” 鼓鐘; Two Poems that Mention Music in The Book of Songs

The ancient Book of Songs 詩經, said to have been edited by Confucius (551—479 BCE) himself, contains 305 poems, of which 54 mention of music. An eclectic collection of verses about a variety of topics, including rich coverage of everyday life, its subject matter spans a range from governance and regal sacrificial ceremonies to love and friendship. As such, it represents the most substantial text for delving into the social organisation of ancient China, and the vivid and detailed language with which musical performance is portrayed is unparalleled in other contemporary written sources. One such poem is “Jian!”, the thirty-eighth of the sequence:

[The original Chinese is given next to my translation of the relevant line.]

38 “Jian!” 簡兮

Jian! Jian! sounds the drum 簡兮簡兮

The Ten Thousand Dances is about to be performed 方將萬舞

The sun is in the middle of the sky 日之方中

And who is at the front of the dancers! 在前上處

5 A tall, strong man, sturdy and powerful 碩人俁俁

At the royal ancestral temple performing The Ten Thousand Dances 公庭萬舞

He has the strength of a tiger 有力如虎

And manipulates the reins like silken thread 執轡如組

[And controls the dancers like the warp and weft of silken thread]

In his left hand, wielding a yue bamboo flute 左手執籥

10 In his right hand, grasping a pheasant’s tail-feather 右手秉翟

In ruddy health, as if smeared with ochre 赫如渥赭

The ruler gives word: bestow on him a goblet of wine 公言錫爵

In the mountains are hazel trees 山有蓁

In the fens are liquorice herbs 隰有苓

15 Of whom is she thinking? 云誰之思

A handsome man from Zhou, far to the West 西方美人

That handsome man! 彼美人兮

A man of the West! 西方之人兮

Poems 1–160 in The Book of Songs are subsumed under the title “The Poetical Styles of Different Countries” 國風 and tend to be folksy, shorter, stanzaic, and use vernacular patterns of word repetition from verse to verse. Inside this category, poems are ordered according to where in the Zhou dynasty Empire they were gathered, “Jian!” coming from the subsection “The State of Bei’s Poetical Style” 邶風 that comprises poems 26—44.

It describes a sacrificial ceremony performed in front of the royal ancestral temple. The poems in The Book of Songs can be hard to interpret and conflicting readings of the same poem abound. I have chosen to regard this poem as written from the perspective of a woman in the audience admiring the lead dancer who plays the yue 籥 bamboo flute. The first verse begins boldly telling of the crisp intoning of a drum accompaniment and how a complex dance called The Ten Thousand Dances 萬舞 is to be performed, led by this man, perhaps a shaman, positioned at the head of an assembled corps de ballet. She clearly appreciates his physique:

(line 5) A tall, strong man, sturdy and powerful 碩人俁俁

his strength:

(line 7) He has the strength of a tiger 有力如虎

and his masterful leadership:

(line 8) And manipulates the reins like silken thread 執轡如組

[And controls the dancers like the warp and weft of silken thread]

This last line could be given the alternative, more metaphorical interpretation that is given in square brackets.

She even ogles the colour of his skin:

(line 11) In ruddy health, as if smeared with ochre 赫如渥赭

Whilst dancing he grasps the flute in his left hand, and the character for it 籥 indicates that it is made of bamboo as it carries the bamboo radical 竹 at its top. Not satisfied with simply playing whilst dancing, in his right hand, he also holds a pheasant’s tail-feather. This was evidently a vigorous dance with multiple props that had both a complex narrative and a musical structure, and was a vibrant spectacle performed for the appreciation of a substantial audience.

Lines 13—14, however, take our poetic journey in another direction entirely:

In the mountains are hazel trees 山有蓁

In the fens are liquorice herbs 隰有苓

These two lines appear to have nothing in common with what has already been described in the poem. They are in fact a xing 興, a common rhetorical device by which an image from nature is taken and inserted into the poetic form simply to set the mood. Unusually, the xing here occurs towards the end of the poem, whereas they are more commonly found at the opening of the entire composition or each verse, as is the case with “Strike the Bells” quoted below. Their effect is always radical, and the lovely world of plants and scenery that lines 13—14 of “Jian!” evoke takes the reader quickly from the ritual the lady is witnessing and deep into her inner psychological state. She is not just admiring an energised performance, but deeply in love with its chief protagonist.

By contrast, poem 208 in The Book of Songs, “Strike the Bells”, translated in full below, strikes a different note, and comes from the “Little Elegance” or “Lesser Songs of the Court” 小雅 section that comprises poems 161–234. Poems in this section tend to employ more complex language and are often related to courtly life.

208 Strike the Bells 鼓鐘

Strike the bells “jiang-jiang” 鼓鍾將將

The waters of the Huai River rush and churn 淮水湯湯

My anxious heart is wounded 憂心且傷

I think of that virtuous person, a true gentleman 淑人君子

5 Reminiscing, I cannot forget 懷允不忘

Strike the bells harmoniously “jie-jie” 鼓鐘喈喈

The waters of the Huai River swiftly flow 淮水湝湝

My anxious heart is deeply sad 憂心且悲

I think of that virtuous person, a true gentleman 淑人君子

10 His morals, so upright, not twisted in any way 其德不回

Strike the bells, beat the big bass drum 鼓鍾伐鼛

The Huai River has three islets 淮有三洲

My anxious heart is wretched 憂心且妯

I think of that virtuous person, a true gentleman 淑人君子

15 His moral conduct not deficient in any way 其德不猶

Strike the bells “qin-qin” 鼓鐘欽欽

Pluck the se, pluck the qin 鼓瑟鼓琴

The sheng and qing chimes sound together 笙磬同音

Play the ya drum, the nan bell 以雅以南

20 Play the yue flute, with no discord 以籥不偕

In this poem, a veritable orchestra is introduced, including the yue bamboo flute mentioned in “Jian!”. At its heart is the magnificent bell set indicated at the start of each verse which has been excavated from the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng 曾侯乙 in Hubei Province. This bell texture is punctuated by drums (line 11) and supplemented by qing chimes (line 18). As the poem and musical performance move to a climax in the fourth and final verse, the plucked zithers qin and se join (line 17), as does the sheng piped mouth organ (also line 18), sounding together 同音 (perhaps in unison) with the qing chimes. Smaller percussion in this multi-layered timbral heterophony includes the ya drum and nan bell (line 19). Crucially, when the yue flute enters in the final line (20), the whole effect is “with no discord” 不偕. This “concordancy” is the essential feature of ancient Chinese music with the bell and drum ensemble at its core, and represented a social ideal of stability and moral rectitude rooted in political orthodoxy.

The poem is rich in onomatopoeia describing the resonances of the bells. Using modern Mandarin pinyin, they are variously described in the opening lines to each of verses 1, 2, and 4 respectively as “jiang-jiang” 將將, “jie-jie” 喈喈, and “qin-qin” 欽欽. The xing occurs on the second line of each of the first three verses and its recurring theme of the Huai River serves perhaps to emphasise the magnificence of the spectacle:

(line 2) The waters of the Huai River rush and churn 淮水湯湯

(line 6) The waters of the Huai River swiftly flow 淮水湝湝

(line 12) The Huai River has three islets 淮有三洲

Yet the poet is sad, as is revealed in the third line of each of the first three verses:

(line 3) My anxious heart is wounded 憂心且傷

(line 8) My anxious heart is deeply sad 憂心且悲

(line 13) My anxious heart is wretched 憂心且妯

The reason for this is made clear in the fourth line of each of the first three verses which is identical in all cases:

I think of that virtuous person, a true gentleman 淑人君子

The final line of each of the first three verses summarises the poet’s appreciation of the gentleman’s character:

(line 5) Reminiscing, I cannot forget 懷允不忘

(line 10) His morals, so upright, not twisted in any way 其德不回

(line 15) His moral conduct not deficient in any way 其德不猶

Who is this deceased person, so deeply mourned? The answer most commonly given is that he was a music master at the royal court, responsible for the orchestra so richly described in the poem.

Confucius himself seems to have regarded The Book of Songs as of profound philosophical significance, and in his Analects, chapter 2, “The Practice of Government” 爲政, saying 2, gives:

子曰：“《詩》三百，一言以蔽之，曰：‘思無邪’。”

The Master said: “In The Book of Songs there are three hundred poems, yet one phrase can summarise them all, which is: ‘In thought, no perversion’.”

There is more, however, to the mentions of music in The Book of Songs than that. They tell instead of a vivid world of performance of many types, and the verve of their narrative style takes us close to the heart of what it was like to be actually there.