The Li Sao or "Fallen Into Sorrow", a poem of 370 lines and the second great monument of Chinese poetry, is the representative literary work of the south as the Shih Ching or "Book of Songs" is that of the north.
Ch'u Yuan (322-295 B.C.), the author of the Li Sao, was a native of Tzukuei in Hupeh province. He lived during the period of the Warring States when the Chou Empire was divided among seven rival states engaged in intrigue and civil conflict. The moral principles of Confucius had fallen into decay and the declining ruling house of Chou was unable to prevent the struggle of the seven powers of which the most powerful was Ch'in, followed by Ch'i and Ch'u.
Ch'u Yuan was a member of the royal family of Ch'u and also the Left Counselor of King Huai, whose confidence he enjoyed for some time. He fell into disgrace with the king because of the jealousies and calumnies of his political rivals.
After 359 B. C., the power of Ch'in rose rapidly with the introduction of reform measures by Shang Yang. In the other six states there grew up two schools of strategy, one advocating an alliance against Ch'in and the other supporting appeasement. Ch'u had followers of both schools of thought.
Ch'u Yuan belonged to the anti-Ch'in party and became its policymaker and most vehement spokesman. When the pro-Ch'in clique gained the upper hand, Ch'u Yuan was out of favor. But King Huai had a vacillating character and soon wanted to make peace with Ch'in. He sent Ch'u Yuan as his special envoy. Thirteen years later, King Huai wanted to accept an invitation to Ch'in.
Ch'u Yuan warned him against going and was sent into exile at Hanpei. It was during his exile that he wrote Li Sao. After the death of King Huai, Ch'u Yuan returned to the Ch'u court and diplomatic relations between Ch'in and Ch'u were severed. He was exiled for a second time by King Ch'in Hsiang when Ch'u and Ch'in made up. For years he roamed from place to place and wrote poems giving vent to his grievances until finally he drowned himself in the Milo river. When the sad news reached his friends and those who held him in high esteem, they set out to locate his body. They failed, but that did not prevent them from showing their respect. They set aside the fifth day of the fifth moon in his memory. On that day, dumplings made of glutinous rice wrapped in aromatic leaves were dropped into the river to nourish his soul. Today boat races are contested in his honor and glutinous rice dumplings are eaten on the fifth day of the fifth moon. This has come to be called the Dragon Boat Festival.
Li Sao is the representative work of Ch'u Yuan and the longest of his lyric poems. In this masterpiece we find depiction of the loyal minister and noble scholar of high moral aspirations as well as of a poetic genius endowed with a rich imagination and great sensibility.
Three Sections
Li Sao can be divided into three sections. In the first, the poet tells of his ancestors, his birthday, his naming, his literary talent, his moral qualities, his cultivation of virtue, and his wish to serve the king loyally. He then describes his emotional response to the rapid succession of days, nights, and seasons, and his desire to achieve merit in serving the erring king while there was still time.
To my inherent fine qualities
I add cultivated virtues and talents.
I cover myself with Mi Wu plant and white Chih
And wear a bouquet of autumn orchids as ornament.
Methinks I should make haste
Lest time awaits me not.
I pluck magnolia in the morning
And Shu Mang in the eve.
The sun and moon linger not in their rapid course,
Spring and autumn in their sequence move.
Thinking of the withering grass and trees,
I fear that my belle loses her youth.
She rejects not vile friends in her prime.
Why changes she not her erring ways?
By driving the best of steeds,
She can come and let me show her the way ahead.
He then cites the examples of the three legendary sage-emperors—Yao, Shun and Yu—who took advice from the virtuous men. He notes that Chieh and Chou, despotic rulers of the Hsia and Shang dynasties, respectively, failed because they did not follow the right way. But King Huai was surrounded by seekers of selfish benefit and pleasure and turned a deaf ear to Ch'u Yuan's admonitions. In disappointment, Ch'u continues:
The vile and treacherous seek only pleasure,
The road is somber and perilous.
For myself I fear not adversity
But I'm afraid lest the royal chariot tumble.
As of yore
The eagle flocks not together with ordinary birds.
How can a square fit into a circle?
How can the virtuous get along with the vile?
With lotus leaves I make my upper dress
And hibiscus flowers my lower garment.
If my sentiments are truly fragrant,
To be misunderstood matters not.
People delight in different things.
For me, being virtuous is my joy.
I would not change even dismembered,
Should I be punished therefore?
In the second section, a female character of uncertain identity is introduced. Nu Hsu, alleged to be the poet's elder sister, blames the poet for his intransigence. With sympathy and understanding, she warns him that his firm stand might bring his own destruction. Her eloquent exhortations end the second section of the poem.
Imaginary Travels
The third section is a vivid description of the poet's imaginary travels in search of truth and idealism. In fantasy, he first travels south to address himself to the semi-historical Emperor Shun. He reviews the chief events and personalities since Emperor Shun's earthly existence and tells of his own bitter experiences. He then leaves Ts'ang Wu, the alleged burial place of Emperor Shun, for the abode of the Supreme Being. In his travels to the Heavenly Kingdom, he passes through a number of mythological lands in the company of such personages as the Sun, Moon, Wind, Cloud, Thunder, Rainbow, Phoenix, and Dragon. But be is not admitted to Heaven:
Setting off from Ts'ang Wu in the morn,
I arrived at Hsien P'u in the eve.
Fain would I linger there for a moment
But the day is rapidly dying.
I ask the Sun to slacken his pace
Not to approach Mt. Yen Tzu
Long, long is the road before me,
In the upper and lower realms shall I search.
I make my horse drink in the Hsien Pond,
I attach my veins to the Fu Sang tree.
Breaking a branch thereof, I swing it in the setting sun
To while the time away.
The Moon is my guide,
The Wind my follower,
The Phoenix my vanguard
But the Thunder is an unwilling companion.
I tell the Phoenix to soar high,
Unceasingly day and night.
But the gale rises and then sinks
While the clouds push my chariot.
The clouds gather and then scatter,
Multicolored and mobile.
I ask the heavenly guardian to open the gate,
But, leaning against the door, he only stares, unheeding.
Refused admission to Heaven, the poet continues his trip in search of an understanding Goddess but is disappointed for a second time:
I ask the clouds to drive on
To find out the abode of Princess Fu.
Taking off my jade ornament,
I send Chien Hsiu as a matchmaker.
Influenced by evil tongues,
She suddenly turned me down.
In the eve she returned to Ch'iung Shih to rest,
In the morn she washed her hair in Yu P'an.
Proud of her beauty,
She roves and seeks pleasure all day long.
In search of another I must leave her—
La belle dame sans merci.
The poet then seeks the guidance of a fortuneteller who advises him not to give up, to move on in search of his ideals:
With divine grass and fine bamboo sticks,
For me Lin Feng performs divinations.
Two creatures of kindred beauty can surely be united, says he.
But where can I find an admirer of virtue?
Just think of the vastness of the Nine Continents,
Beauties can be found elsewhere, Depart without hesitating, counseled he,
One who seeks beauty will surely treasure you.
Ch'u Yuan followed the advice of the fortuneteller and continued his trip, traversing such areas as Mt. Kunlun, the Heavenly Ford, the Floating Sands, and the Scarlet Waters:
In the morn, setting off from the Heavenly Ford,
I arrived in the Extreme West in the eve.
Soaring high up in the air,
The phoenix flutters his wings over the dragon banners.
Suddenly I arrived at the Floating Sand,
Lingering by the Scarlet Waters.
I ask the dragons to build a bridge
And Emperor Shao Kao to curry me across the ford.
I assembled a thousand chariots
With their jade wheels rolling side by side.
They were driven by eight long, flying dragons
And decorated with a cluster of cloud banners.
But of a sudden and on high, the poet beheld his native land. His driver began to grieve and the horses were reluctant to go on:
Ascending toward the dazzling glamour of Heaven,
I suddenly beheld my native land.
The driver began to grieve, my horses remembered the city we left.
They drew back and would not advance.
In lamentation, the poem closes:
Alas! All is over.
My fellow-countrymen know me not.
Why should I pine for my native land?
Since there is none to govern well with me,
I shall join P'eng Hsien's adode.
Thus the poet made up his mind to take his own life and threw himself into the Milo river.
These special points are to be made:
The romantic flavor—Contrary to the Shih Ching which is essentially realistic, the Li Sao belongs to the individualist and romantic school. While the former contains a considerable amount of social documentation, the latter is the free expression of the author's personal feelings. It is a combination of mythology, symbols, creative imagination, and personal emotions imbued with local color and clothed in mystery.
Symbols and Structure
The symbols—In the lines from the Li Sao, we notice that the poet speaks frequently of beauties and such plants as the orchid. While beauty is employed to denote the king, the orchids symbolize virtue.
The structure—From this point of view, the Li Sao is revolutionary. While the poems in the Shih Ching are mainly composed of four-syllable lines, the Li Sao is made up of lines of unequal length, ranging from trisyllabic to nine-syllable lines. The rhyme is variable and occurs at the end of even and odd lines with occasional non-rhymed verses. The particle "hsi" is often used at the end of the odd lines to produce a rhythmic effect, suggesting a slow, languishing tempo different from the quick one of the Shih Ching.
Influences of the Li Sao on later poetry —The Li Sao is as important as the Shih Ching in its influences on later poetry in both spirit and structure. As far as structure is concerned, the four-syllable lines of the Shih Ching developed into five or seven-line poems, while the irregular meter of the Li Sao set the pattern for the rhythmical prose of the Han dynasty as well as for the Yueh Fu songs.
In spirit, the Shih Ching deals mainly with daily life, seasonal occupations, warfare, local customs, and historical events. It is a sort of social document. The Li Sao is the creative work of a single author and gives expression to his feelings; it is highly influential from the literary point of view.
The prevailing literary form of the Han dynasty, the Fu, owes also its origin to the Li Sao. The Fu, which can be translated as rhymed or symmetrical prose, is an intermediate literary form-between prose and poetry. Its meter is irregular and the rhyme scheme variable. The style is aristocratic, over elaborated and refined; its vocabulary is extremely rich.
During the Three Kingdoms period, Ts'ao Chih, Chang Heng, and Wang Ts'an were much influenced by Ch'u Yuan in the Fu, just as was the great Tang poet Li Po in his long Yueh Fu poems, especially in "Trip to Mt. Tien Mu While Dreaming".