tang dynasty times

Lady Rokujo (治大國、若烹小鮮)

 

He was not the first man to accuse me of engaging in curses, the evil eye or other forms of supernatural sabotage. It is true, I have been known to break dishes, send blinds crashing down and now it seems I have the power to zap a cell phone just by virtue of my angry feelings.

Riled to fury like Lady Rokujo. The world was once populated by Rulers, the Ruled and Vengeful Spirits. What is the other side of longing but a vengeful spirit?

Karyn Lai was recently discussing this passage on the philospher's Zone:

六十
 治大國、若烹小鮮。以道莅天下、其鬼不神。非其鬼不神、 其神不傷人。
非其神不傷人、聖人亦不傷人。夫兩不相傷。故徳交歸焉

The Sage governs a large kingdom as he cooks a small fish
By approaching (莅) the world by way of the Dao--
The spirits of our dead ancestors will not haunt (其鬼不神).
Even if these spirits do not stop haunting
Still, their haunting shall not harm the people (人民）.
The Sage of a large realm too (亦） shall not seek to harm the people
If neither sages nor spirits causes harm
Then so shall virtuous governing be achieved

In thinking and talking about translating this passage with Epicurus, we tried out a number of words for 鬼 （gui）-- demons, ghosts, spirits, the dead, "the ancient manes," bogeymen, "your inner demons"-- but we became increasingly frustrated: just what is it we were talking about here? What are these spirits exactly?

It was clear enough that the classical Chinese word 鬼 generally meant the spirits of the dead (however, there were exceptions, I was told). But what do these spirits do exactly? You see we were looking for the perfect phrase for 其鬼不神 ("these spirits won't x").

The similarity to traditional Japanese concepts of ghosts immediately comes to mind-- but so too is the similarity to the ancient Roman concept of "the manes"

Epicurus summarizes information gleaned from several online sources (including the usual place) thus:

The Manes are the spirits of the dead ancestors. When the deceased receives the due honours and rites, he is allowed to ascend from the Underworld to protect his family. This is in contrast with the Lemures or Larvae, evil ghosts which are the souls of the dead who the Dii Inferi refused to receive in the Underworld.

Mānēs, in Roman thought, the spirits of the dead, named euphemistically the ‘kindly ones’ (from the old Latin adjective mānus, ‘good’). From a sense of their collective divinity they were worshipped as the di manes (‘the divine dead’) at the festivals of the Feralia, Parentalia, and Lemuria. By extension the name manes was applied by the poets first to the realm of the dead, the Underworld, and secondly to the gods of the Underworld (di inferi), Dis, Orcus, Hecatē, and Persephonē. Later the di manes were individualized and identified with the di parentes, the dead of the family. The individual tomb led to the conception of each dead person having an individual spirit, and manes, although a plural noun, came to be used of a single spirit. Graves were originally dedicated to the dead collectively and were inscribed dis manibus sacrum (‘sacred to the divine dead’); under the empire it became customary to add the name of the dead person, as if the meaning was ‘sacred to the divine spirt of so-and-so’.

The Manes were offered blood sacrifices. The gladiatorial games, originally held at funerals, may have been instituted in the honor of the Manes.

Incidentally, James Legge, chooses this word "manes" for his translation, translating the above passage:

“Let the kingdom be governed according to the Dao, and the manes of the departed will not manifest their spiritual energy. It is not that those manes have not that spiritual energy, but it will not be employed to hurt men. It is not that it could not hurt men, but neither does the ruling sage hurt them. When these two do not injuriously affect each other, their good influences converge in the virtue (of the Dao).”

Why "Manes" (singular "manis), though, when he could have gone with Furies? Especially since Manes were thought of as being benevolent spirits.

The Furies, on the other hand, known intrigingly as both the "angry ones" and the "gracious ones," are often on my mind these days. There are two aspects about them that I think help illuminate our problem (ie, 其鬼不神):

First, as Dreyfus points out in his lectures on the Oresteia, while the Furies were all about intense emotions, like rage, jealousy and revenge-- he insists that "these were no kinky emotions of the kind people talk about with their psychologist."

What does he mean by that, you wonder?

Well, the emotions that are being displayed by the Furies are the kind of emotions that anyone would feel in that circumstance. This is important. And, I think Dreyfus is right. Modern people may have their neuroses, but these are profoundly different from the emotions expressed by the Furies-- which, while attached to individual people, the emotions themselves are not particular to that person's personality. For example, Clytemnestra's furies are not particular to her individual personality but are just the kind of fury that any woman in her experience would manifest (even though they are manifesting specifically by her, they are not intrinsic to her personality in the way a "kinky" neurotic fear of flying is, says Dreyfus).

So, they are attached to an individual but yet they are universal in their manifestation.

Dreyfus secondly explains that the Furies stand for personal vengeance-- as opposed to the Rule of Law, and  indeed, he sees this play as portraying the way societies transition from the rule of blood feuds to that of Law.

Even today, if a person is wronged, there are really two methods for justice open to him: punishment via law, or via personal vengence. (The Oresteia also displays the manner in which personal vengence turns into a cycle of violence as one blood murder begets the next blood murder. It takes two such extractions of justice to start a fued). Parag Khanna, in his book The Second World, talks about areas in Pakistan where tribal law (jirga) and blood feuds still reign. And, I think both forms are expressed to a larger or lesser degree no matter where we look today.

**

This is the world we are talking about in the Daodejing passage above. A world populated by 1) rulers, 2) the ruled and 3) vengeful spirits. And, if a ruler rules by way of the Dao, then this ruler--a sage ruler-- will  not do harm to the people nor the spirits; that is, his action will not rile the spirits to vengence. This does not mean that he performs some kind of magic which takes away the powers of the spirits but rather that by the virtue expressed in his actions, he will not rile them.

 **

Lady Aoi and Lady Rokujo--

Lady Aoi was Genji’s first wife in the Tale of Genji. The Noh play, which is based on one episode of the novel, is about Lady Aoi’s suffering at the hands of a spirit that possesses her body and causes her to fall ill. In order to try and identify who is tormenting her, Lady Aoi sends a Priestess to try and draw the spirit out by the sound of a bow made of Japanese cherry birch (azusa-yumi); thereby discovering it was the jealous spirit of the Lady Rokujo, who then appeared right there next to the pillow that Lady Aoi was resting on. After talking about the happy days she spent as Genji’s lover, the spirit of Lady Rokujo thereby becomes enraged and her fury results in Lady Aoi's death

Lady Rokujo. What is so stunningly unforgetable about her is that she actually did her "haunting" while still alive. You see, so consumed by jealously was she that her spirit actually left her body to do its haunting.

An elegant and clever but haughty older woman or a sweet and adorable younger woman?

Genji made his choice and the lady was not happy about it.
 

  

gentlemen (and ladies) prefer bronze (司母戊鼎)

丈夫生不五鼎食、死即五鼎烹耳    If I can't have it all, then boil me in a ding!
出典：「史記－主父偃伝」 

My friend, the great Gialbo, says that gentleman prefer bronze. He's right. But, does he realize that ladies too prefer bronze? I wonder if he ever heard the story of Lady Li?

Quite famous during the Song dynasty, Lady Li and her scholar-official husband had built up one of the finest collection of ancient bronzes-- not to mention books (unbelievable volumes of books)-- in Chinese history. She and her husband were known during Song times not just for their illustrious scholarship but also for their unforgetable love poems (many to each other).

They were like movie stars.

That is until those damned Jurchens stormed the walls of Kaifeng and everyone had to run for their lives.

Leave behind the collection?

She screamed, Never! And so it went.

Not as heavy as the bronze that Geralissmo Chiang Kaishek lugged around during World War II (司母戊鼎), but still those bronzes were heavy. And uncountable volumes of books. But what to do? Everyone around them was fleeing Kaifeng just ahead of the approaching enemy, but Lady Li and her man refused to budge. Standing their ground, they struggled to save their art collection. Even as the outside world around them teetered, neither faltered in their heart's occupation. Indeed, their inner world of learning and art seemed to hold the greater significance.

Struggling to make their way south, she lost much--including her beloved husband, who died en route.

Here is her last poem

"The wind dies down, the scent of flowers fills the dusty air
The flowers are fading.
When evening comes I am too tired to dress
But I still have my pieces. My beloved is gone, all is finished.
I cannot speak without weeping." 

 **

Symbolizing virtue, the allure of bronze-- It is as hold as China itself.

Manyul Im is working on a very interesting project to view Confucian aesthethic-ethical sensibility via Kant's Judgment of Taste. I wanted to recommend to him Stanley O'Connor's essay on the Mataram jars of SEAsia (here).Tackling the way in which Kant's Critique of Judgment has effected our modern Western way of thinking about art, O'Connor writes that our modern way of talking about art is strongly based on

"the assumption that collectors, critiques, and the generality of the interested, urban, literate, art public subscribe implicitly, at least to some of the following: Art is a realm of its own differentiated from other activities of life; artworks are autonomous and self-sufficient; their purpose is simply to be rather than to instruct, to edify, or be of use; the artist creates out of some kind of inspired freedom and in this way the art work differs from that made by the craftsperson, who is subsumed by purpose and constrained by craft subscription; and, finally, the proper response of the viewer is disinterested contemplation of the object of art for its own sake rather than as an instrument of the viewer's purpose or desire."

As Manyul would point out, this has profound implications not only for art appreciation and aesthethics but for ethics as well. Since aesthethic judgement, according to Kant, must be detached and dis-interested, there are no implications or requirements for action. It all boils down to Dis-interested contemplation.

Manyul breaks it down like this:

So on a Kantian, working model of aesthetic judgment as a distinct sort, such judgments have three characteristics:

1. Immediacy – the judgment is not derived from higher principles or rules
2. Normativity – the judgment carries a normative claim that others’ judgments ought to agree with it
3. Disinterestedness – the judgment does not stand in a relationship of psychological or practical necessity to desires of any particular sort

Museums, of course, are one "by-product" of Western aesthetics. In Japan, traditionally, art works were not objectively viewed out of context, but rather were stored very carefully in pauwlania wood boxes and wrapped in layers of protective cloth and only brought out for appreciation during certain events. For example, when they were to be used in some way (for example, used during a tea gathering, or displayed in honor of a special occasion). This was the traditional Japanese manner of art appreciation and connoisseurship.

Another very interesting point to bring up as well is that while knowledge and objective appreciation were the hallmarks of the Western tradition in Japan, the notion of practice or practitioner was as central to art collecting as it was to the practice of art. A better way of saying this is that there was not this sharp differentiation between artist and art collector.

In contrast, in East Asia, there is this long history of the traditional artist-scholar gentleman/gentlewoman, which sees as ideal the "cultured gentleman" who is adept in one or more of the traditional arts, is well read and well-traveled. No matter how hard you look, all the famous art collectors of the East (who collecting under traditional means) were themselves adept at some art: often calligraphy and sometimes music, painting or chanoyu. And, most important for this discussion, the practice of art and the contemplation of art were conflated as ethical aesthic practice.

O'Connor, in his discussion of the jars of Borneo, states that

"Modern art theory deprives art of its context and in this way beauty has been banished to museums as something apart from daily life."

Manyul says the same thing here, in terms of Confucian rites:

Confucius’s disciple Zengzi’s words in Analects 8.4 are to the point here:

…There are three principles of conduct which the man of high rank should consider specially important: that in his deportment and manner he keep from violence and heedlessness; that in regulating his countenance he keep near to sincerity; and that in his words and tones he keep far from lowness and impropriety. As to such matters as attending to the sacrificial vessels, there are the proper officers for them.

There’s an element of self-regulation during performance which incorporates both the aesthetically passive attitude of “taking in” one’s own performance and the aesthetically active attitude of creating the performance, or to put it in Kantian terminology, of putting the beauty into the object of the judgment, the object here being a dynamic event as opposed to an artifact.

**

For Lady Li, then, the bronzes in her collection were not merely "objects" for detached or pleasurable viewing, but rather were "props" she used in her own ethical practice. She was both collector and practioner, and the art objects in her collection excerted power in sense that in a very specific context the objects affected her behavior. Aesthethic practice was thought to cultivate ethical sensibility. This is something that underlies tea ceremony in Japan down to today. I have repeated the story of my tea teacher who would place priceless teabowls in my hand and encourage me to "use" them. When I would protest, she would say, "handling beautiful objects in a ritualized manner will affect/regulate your behavior and by cultivating your sensibilities and sensitivity to beauty-- and over the long run it will make you a better person." 

One can only hope...

view from inside a bronze ding (司母戊鼎)

I guess it's beause he inevitably reminds me of my ex-husband, but whenever I hear mention of Chiang Kai Shek, I always find myself growing annoyed.

A few days ago, the View from Taiwan brought up the old story of the Chiang Kai Shek and the infamous stolen gold. It seems that the actual pilot of the chartered aircraft came forward to say that, yeah, he too often wondered where the gold had disappeared to. Slick airlines out of Oakland. Love it. As everyone keeps pointing out, the Generalismo's gold was a drop in the bucket compared to US aid to the KMT.

The plane was "grossed out"... I am "grossed out."

Inside a bronze ding

Have you ever heard of The Square Ding Dedicated to Mother Wu (司母戊鼎; 12th century B.C.)? This ding is said to be the heaviest bronze vessel found anywhere on earth, weighing in at over 875 kilograms (about the size of a compact car!) Found near the royal Shang burial site at Anyang in March of 1933, the piece was so heavy that it was put back into the ground when it was first discovered. Waiting out World War Two underground, it was finally officially excavated by archaeologists in June of 1946 and then presented to CKS on his 46th birthday.

My Japanese books (NHK publications) say that he treasured the piece, keeping it nearby him in his study during the long period of political struggle and civil war. From Shanghai to Nanjing and then all the way to Chongqing...However, when the weary Nationalists eventually retreated to Taiwan, the tremendously heavy bronze ding had to be left behind much to his dismay-- for what better symbol of political power could there be then this enormous bronze ding?

Remember the troublesome general from the state of Chu who was belligerent enough to ask about the weight of the nine tripods (問鼎)? You will recall the wise answer provided to the general by the Zhou King's steady servant Wáng-sūn Mǎn (王孫満):

The tripods do not matter, virtue does.

It's all in a person's approach, isn't it?

夢の都

My Beloved Emperor faced a similar problem in his city of dreams. The world's most glorious empire was about to be overrun by barbarians of the very worst kind. And what did my man do? Well, for one thing  

he had special tunnels dug under the Forbidden City in order to visit his favorite courtesan’s house or walk the streets of Kaifeng un-detected. And he continues obliviously writing his poetry and lavishly spending on the arts as his country teetered on the edge of disaster

As I have said elsewhere, I think when one is facing a terrible dilemna there are 3 possible approaches.

1) You can ignore the problem.
2) You can directly face the problem head-on
or
3) You can indirectly seek to eliminate the causes of the problem so that the problem will cease to arise

Huizong's detractors perhaps could accuse him of the first, while those who are fond of him might prefer to posit the third.

So, there he was. His country on the brink of disaster, and rather than mobilizing the army, he sought instead to throw himself into the study and re-cataloging of the ancient bronzes. As if to say, in the words of one of my great aristocratic friends, if I could just get the bronzes right, everything else would follow suit.

Pursuing virtue in small ways. One doesn't always need to be dramatic. Or in the words of Mencius,

 Knowing their government by seeing their ritual; knowing their virtue by hearing their music

View from a minaret
View from inside a bronze ding

 

 

View from Inside a Bronze Ding: Part 3

    

From Xia to Shang
   And from Shang to Zhou....

You know the story: Nine bronze tripods-- caste in the mists of great antiquity-- were treasured by ancient Kings as a symbol of their right to rule.

Passed down from dynasty to dynasty-- for nearly 2,000 years-(or so the story goes) until the time when the First Emperor, Shihuangdi, finally toppled the last Zhou King-- and rather than see their transfer to Shihuangdi’s new dynasty-- the last Zhou King cast them forever into the River Si  (泗水?)

Given their symbolic significance, Shihuangdi actively attempted to dredge up the sacred bronzes from the river, but it was to no avail, and scholars of later dynasties saw this as further evidence of the lack of moral virtue of the First Emperor.

For you will recall the wise words of the Zhou King's steady servant Wáng-sūn Mǎn (王孫満):

The tripods do not matter, virtue does.

Perhaps in one sense different than the regalia of ancient kings of Europe, it was never that the tripods were treasures of state in and of themselves, but rather they served only as symbols of the virtuous character of a wise king-- linking current kings to those exemplary models in the past. In that way, I suppose the tripods had more in common with the Medieval concept of Excalibur. 

Indeed, on that thought, I wonder what powerful object Obama will inherit as his right to rule? Please don't tell me the only thing we've got to pass down nowadays to our kings are launch codes for nuclear weapons...

Epicurus asks me, "What grabs you about the bronzes?"

 

I am too stingy to re-purchase the book, but I think it was Foucault (working off Heidegger) who did the best job of examining the way objects "present themselves" to us differently over time.

Well, one thing which I find so fascinating is the simple fact that they have been greatly treasured in an unbroken line for probably 4000 years-- is that possible? Over such a large expanse of time, it is therefore all the more interesting to think about both the continuity as well as the fluctuations in the way these once sacred objects have been viewed within Chinese culture. (Conrad's ancient Greek tripods have had almost as long a history, and I wonder if their meaning has changed in similar ways over time?)

Although outdated by jade carvings by several thousand years, their appreciation has followed a similar-- though much more dramatic--pattern, I think. As Beurdeley described and I quote in another post, these bronze vessels from the Shang and Zhou dynasties were in huge demand among the elite during the Han dynasty and remained the most highly prized of all the Chinese collectors’ arts-- at least until the great rise of calligraphy much later in history.

Like jade, ritual bronzes were valued, in part, for their great beauty, which appealed to aesthetic preferences perhaps unique to the Chinese. Traditionally valued in China well above gold and precious gems, jade was prized for its soft lustrous color and subtle glowing quality which is so different from the dazzling shimmer of gold and sparkle of diamonds. Even more, jade was valued for its extreme hardness and fine resonance which was likened to music when struck. Bronze, as well as porcelain and the finest scholars’ stones of later times shared these attributes which had, at least by the time of Confucius become associated with concepts of virtue and the moral right to rule.

Also, like Jade, the creation of bronze vessels was highly labor-intensive, and therefore its use was confined to that of the most important rituals of ancient Shang and Zhou kings and aristocrats.The oldest Shang dynasty vessels were used in rituals centered around the sacrificial offering of food and wine to ancestors. Like elaborate banquets for the dead, foods which included meats and grains as well as rice or millet wine and sacrificial water were prepared and presented in bronze vessels and then ritually offered at family altars, often located in a separate structure within a family compound. As British scholar, Jessica Rawson, explains:

 These were essentially family ceremonies in which both the dead and the living took part. The dead remained an integral part of everyday society, requiring the kind of attention also given to living members of the family. The banquets or rituals were a show of respect to the dead so as to ensure that they would help their descendents by interceding on their behalf with the gods and spirits. Without help from the dead, and a proper acknowledgement of their role, human affairs might fail and their descendents suffer.

This was especially so of kings, whose ancestors not only had the power to affect the fortunes of their descendants, but were semi-godlike, having power and influence over the entire population as well. Thus the most elaborate rituals-- more like ceremonies of state than the private rituals held by aristocratic families-- were performed by ancient kings. Highly decorated bronze vessels created in sets played a leading role in these rituals-- containing sacrifices and hosting their preparation.

(With this in mind, it stands to reason that the ghosts of the passage that were being riled to fury were not the collective ancestors of the people but rather were the ancestors of the fish-cooking king).

I was looking through an essay in a Japanese book last night which wanted to stress the manner in which these bronze vessels were set aside for ritual use only. In Japan, there was not this same rigid separation of vessels for ritual use and for everyday use. In ancient China, it seemed, these vessels were for ritual-- and for ritual alone-- and in that way were truly sacred objects-- much the like heirloom jars from Borneo that I so covet.  

Over time, however, the role played by the bronzes changed and came to be associated less with religious observances, and instead associated more with aristocratic power and conspicuous consumption. This became especially so after the overthrow of the Shang and establishment of the Zhou dynasty. While the Zhou still used bronze vessels in elaborate rituals of great pageantry, which included poetry and music, their function changed from that of being the containers or instruments used to ritually communicate with gods, to becoming “monuments” in bronze commemorating great deeds or events in the lives of the person who had them commissioned.

Important political events, decisive battles, or honors bestowed by kings were described in sometimes very long inscriptions cast inside many of the Zhou vessels. As one scholar writes, such bronzes demand “reading not seeing.” The National Palace Museum in Taipei contains one ding tripod, the Mao Gong Ding, from the Western Zhou dynasty,  which has an inscription of over 500 characters. Truly an amazing example of the high technical level having been attained by ancient Chinese craftsmen, the characters cover the entire curved surface of the inside of the tripod, and describe the many honors bestowed by the king on Mao Gong, a statesman of the period. These honors included gifts of horses as well as many bronze and jade vessels. The ding was cast to commemorate the event for all eternity (Use the magnifier here to see just how phenomenal the calligraphic carving is).

In trying here to explain the meaning of the "five dings" in this quote 

丈夫生不五鼎食、死即五鼎烹耳」
出典：「史記－主父偃伝」

which I translate as

"If I can't have it all, then boil me in one of the 5 dings."

(If I cannot partake in all five delicacies of the five dings, then I choose the worst punishment of the realm-- boil me in a ding)

Epicurus mentioned that the state stipulated the number of bronze vessels that one could use by rank. This is from the wikipedia article, for example:

The ritual books of old China minutely describe who was allowed to use what kinds of sacrificial vessels and how much. The king of Zhou was favoured to use 9 dings and 8 gui vessels, a duke was allowed to use 7 dings and 6 guis, a baron could use 5 dings and 3 guis, a nobleman was allowed to use 3 dings and 2 guis.

This was also similar to jade. I am pretty sure that during Confucius' time, aristocrats wore jade pendants around their neck whose number was also prescribed by rank. When they walked, one could hear the bell-like tinkling sound of the jade pieces clinking against each other so that those of higher rank (who had on a greater number of pendants) could be heard louder than those of a lower rank (with less jade).

This melodious sound, Confucius (I think?) called the "sound" of a virtuous man and according to the Japanese kojien, the etymology of the kanji, 玲玲 refers to this beautiful sound of jade (cf. 玲瓏). If Adonis had been a girl, I wanted to name "her" 玲香 ("the fragrance of the beautiful-- and virtuous-- sound of jade tinkling"-- isn't it nice how much information 2 kanji can squeeze in?)

So, to answer Epicurus' question: obviously I am deeply attracted to this "fragrance" of history and antiquarianism which surrounds bronzes; I also marvel at the tremendous technical (problem-solving) skills involved. The ancient bronzes were made in such a surprisingly large variety (given the times) of shapes, most which I find to be extraordinarily pleasing. Maybe that is what I love about them the most-- their shapes (which have greatly influenced ceramics, of course).

Finally, whenever I see an ancient Chinese bronze vessel, my mind inevitably turns to one of two people. The first, my beloved, spent a lifetime cataloging the ancient bronzes in his care. Even as his empire teetered dangerously on the edge of destruction, he kept steadfast in his research and cataloging, believing indeed that if he could just get the bronzes accurately described, then everything could well take care of itself. There are, I'm sure you will agree, worse ways to lose an empire.

The second person, I've also written about in these pages.

Lady Li.

One of my all-time favorite art history books by my hero, Michel Beurdeley, The Chinese Collector through the Centuries devotes an entire chapter to Lady Li-- indeed she probably deserves an entire book.

Quite famous during the Song dynasty, Lady Li and her scholar-official husband had built up one of the finest collection of ancient bronzes-- not to mention books (unbelievable volumes of books) in Chinese history. She and her husband were known during Song times for their scholarship and passionate love poems (many to each other). They were like movie stars. That is until those damned Jurchens stormed the walls of Kaifeng and everyone had to run for their lives.

Leave behind the collection?

She screamed, Never! And so it went.

Here is her last poem

"The wind dies down, the scent of flowers fills the dusty air
The flowers are fading.
When evening comes I am too tired to dress
But I still have my pieces. My beloved is gone, all is finished.
I cannot speak without weeping." 

Even as the outside world around them teetered and indeed they lost everything-- neither faltered in their heart's occupation. Indeed, that inner world seemed to hold the greater significance.

Inside a bronze ding-- again.  

**

More bronze bells here and also Inside a Bronze ding Part 1 and Part 2

Lothar Ledderose describes the way these tripods were manufactured in his book Ten Thousand Things. Made in sets, they were mass-produced through division of labor and QA practices that perhaps are not all that different from goes on in a Chinese factory today.I would imagine that this was pretty different that what happened in ancient Greece-- although maybe not. Conrad, by the way, recommends Calasso's The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

Photo at top by Wang Wusheng

**

For Switzerland and Hongkong:

(On Translation)

From Kyoto Journal 2002 interview with Red Pine (available here, it is highly recommended reading)

“I tried to do things that I saw happening in Chinese — the Chinese language is a very telegraphic, terse language — time is almost irrelevant, their subject is also dispensed with. A line can be very ambiguous. So I started to play with that in English and still make sense.

“Words carry a lot on their surface, but a lot is under the surface that we don’t see when we see the word — a lot comes from contextual familiarity.

People identify words with context. I was intrigued by the nature of Chinese poetry and its brevity — there were these flashes of meaning.

“What I do now is more of a performance,” he says. “Before, I was usually sort of reading the lines like an actor, but now I perform the book — what I do now is closer to dance. The words have to follow along my physical feel for the rhythm, the feeling of what’s happening in the Chinese poem. I don’t see the Chinese as the origin anymore. The Chinese was what the authors used to write down what they were feeling.

“I’ve gotten so used to the words I don’t have to think about them anymore. I’m more concerned with the spirit. I don’t think I have a philosophy of translation, but you have to be very open.

Two Bachelors & Hannah Arendt

--For Bill Haines (whose delightful, shimmering blue conversation about potatoes  and other matters had me smiling for the first time in a week、感謝)

It was at least six months ago when Cyrus said to me, "I think you box yourself in."

Of course I do. But, don't all mothers really? Isn't that part of the package? And, what, I wondered, could a bachelor really know about boxes? Of course, I have closed myself up in a box-- but what is the alternative?

It's interesting, but I say that a lot these days:

"But, what's the alternative?"

It reminded me again of a quote by Anais Nin I like:

*From The Diary of Anais Nin (1931):
"... You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book..., or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hybernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hybernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death."

Discussing this state of hiberanation with Apollo, the whole thing seemed to annoy him, and he said, "yes, i suppose this is the state of dissatisfaction you mention earlier.  but -- is anais nin a little naive in automatically assuming (even if she does not do this consciously) that falling in love is the only option to get out of her ennui?  i should imagine her to be a really dull person if she could not interest herself in something, find herself some employment for her mind and heart. i always can.  this is a character trait known as auto-telic personality -- one capable of setting himself his own goals, choosing his own games and toys.  it is a useful character trait."

Again, what would a bachelor really understand about this? (And anyway, who was talking about falling in love?)

I mean, I consider myself to be an auto-telic personality. And yet, life can drag you out to Sea. Remember Odysseus?

Work, child-rearing, being responsible for another human being (spouse, child or even parent) can bring a heaviness to life. It can drastically reduce your options and clip your wings. It is the unbearable heaviness of being (as the wikipedia article states: because we live but once, everything matters; or better: because we love, everything matters). It is indeed the ancient diochomy between light (freedom) and weight (obligation and duty).

Indeed, sometimes by the very weight of what we are involved with, we can only choose inaction (無為）.

Interestingly, the Great Gialbo (ruler of a strategically-important kingdom on the very edge of the empire) himself was confused by much the same issue. A line from one of the famous passages of the Dao de Jing had caught his attention, and he asked,

Dan Robins and I were wondering how to interpret “cooking small fish.” The first thing that comes to mind seems to be to be careful because of the fish’s delicacy. I’ve favored in the past, thinking of small fish as actually requiring less delicacy–i.e. small fish can just be tossed onto the pan and cooked whole, without any cutting or cleaning–sort of like smelt (which only helps you if you’ve ever cooked or eaten smelt). But Dan pointed out to me that at least in contemporary China and probably in the recent past, larger fish are also often cooked whole without any cutting or cleaning, as anyone who’s gone to a good Chinese restaurant can attest. So, I guess I don’t really have a compelling interpretation, unless cooking large fish whole is only a recent development. Any thoughts? Any early Chinese cuisine experts out there? Any other interesting or weird interpretations? Jump in…

Under normal circumstances, I never would have jumped into the frying pan on this one. For the obvious two reasons that I do not understand classical Chinese nor have I read the Daodejing since I was in junior high school (though I did read it very carefully and also repeatedly at that time). Despite my misgivings, though, it was quite clear that the King (as well as his sidekick Dan) had quite possibly never cooked a fish before-- and so I left a comment, which turned into a string of comments (which anyone who is interested can read by traveling to the Great Gialbo's domain).

Out of the conversation, I have come up with my own translation, which I dedicate here to the brave knight Bill and to the souls of all dead fish:

六十
 治大國、若烹小鮮。以道莅天下、其鬼不神。非其鬼不神、 其神不傷人。
非其神不傷人、聖人亦不傷人。夫兩不相傷。故徳交歸焉

The Sage governs a large kingdom as he cooks a small fish
By approaching (莅) governing in this way-- this way of the Dao--
The spirits of our dead ancestors will not haunt (其鬼不神).
Even if these spirits do not stop haunting
Still, their haunting shall not harm the people (人民）.
The Sage of a large realm too (亦） shall not seek to harm the people
If neither with each other causes harm
Then so shall virtuous governing be achieved

It's not the fish, nor the ancestors haunting which are really at issue (though they were the problematic aspects, I think in terms of translation), the issue at hand is on how to govern a large kingdom in a virtuous manner. And, I think the answer is clear. One does not seek to impose one's will in an overly heavy-handed manner but rather keeps a watchful eye on things in an effort to rule with delicacy.

Of all the aspects of this startlingy elegant passage, it is this proposition which I find to be most thought-provoking:

the heavier the burden, the less that willfull force ought to be used

You see, I think that is the thing. The more we love; that is, the more we are a part of something bigger than ourselves, the more we ought to hesitate in inposing our own will in too strong a way-- because of the almost unbearable heaviness of the situation (Nietzshe).

Having said that, though, as Calvino has said, it is neither lightness or heaviness, but rather knowing when to move lightly and when to move heavily that really matters. The passage from the DDJ above, I think, illuminates one aspect of this aim of trying to attain this kind of balance.

Another interesting thing I think which can be gleaned from the passage is that, when thinking about the important things in life (philosophy), one should also (亦）aim to balance rationality with embodied experience. Yes, depending on our frame of mind, great philosophical insights can be attained right there simmering fish (actually they can probably only be attained there).

Or as Hannah Arendt has hinted-- The heart always needs to go visiting.