Chapter Two Cultural Components in Chu Ci
2.1 Working Definition of Culture
For various definitions of “culture”, the term “culture” can be understood from two perspectives: (i) from the perspective of humanities, it focuses on the way a social community represents itself and others through its material productions; (ii) from the perspective of social sciences, it refers to the “ground of meaning” proposed by Howard Nostrand. 1 The two definitions give rise to different approaches to the study of culture: the historical which is based on the written texts and the ethnographic which is based on the observation, data collection and analysis of mostly oral phenomena. Both approaches make phenomena meaningful by placing them into appropriate historical and social contexts and by enunciating their appropriate laws in time and space. In addition to history and social science, culture is therefore also literature, for it is literature that opens up "reality beyond realism" and that enables readers to live other lives-by proxy. Culture, then, constitutes itself along three axes: the diachronic axis of time, the synchronic axis of space, and the metaphoric axis of the imagination.
Chu Ci indeed is a cornucopia of cultural information, drawn from the ancient Chu people’s understanding of cosmos, the Creation and cultural traditions that sustain the fabric of the society. Since “culture” consists in three interwoven aspects, the thesis will therefore be restricted in three aspects for the sake of argumentation.
2.2 The Formal Property of Chu Ci
The prevalent use of the chanting exclamatory word xi（兮）originated from ballads and popular songs is a remarkable feature of Qu Yuan’s works with few exceptions. In Shi Jing（《诗经》）, this choral particle is not found in the ya（雅） and song（颂）poems of elevated diction, but is occasionally employed in the feng (风)poem or ballads and folk songs. Its pervasive use in Qu Yuan’s poetry taking its origin from ballads is further evidenced by the quotation of this folk song in Yu Fu （《渔父》）:
When the water of Tsoung-loung is limpid,
I could wash my hat cords with it;
When the water of Tsoung-loung is turbid,
I could wash my twain feet with it. 2
沧浪之水清兮，可以濯吾缨；
沧浪之水浊兮，可以濯吾足。
The Chu Ci style exists in a number of metrical variations, but in each case the line consists of two segments divided by a character 兮which is pronounced in modern times xi. D. Hawkes called it a “carrier-sound”, “because its original function was obviously to carry the singing voice through parts of the melody…” This character can also be found in Shi Jing; but its exclusive use in every line is unique to nearly all the Qu Yuan’s poems. The first stanza of Li Sao is a typical example:
帝高阳之苗裔兮，
朕皇考曰伯庸。
摄提贞于孟诹兮，
惟庚寅吾以降。
In the above lines, the character is located at the sentence final position, and it also appears at other positions in a line. For example:
帝子降兮北渚，
目眇眇兮愁予。
袅袅兮秋风，
洞庭波兮木叶下。
According to the different positions where the character is placed in a line, the xi-sentence pattern can be grouped into three categories. For the first group, the character 兮 is placed the sentence-final position. The following sentences quoted from Ode to the Orange （《桔颂》） serve to exemplify this group:
后皇嘉树，橘来服兮。
受命不迁，生南国兮。
深固难徙，更一志兮。
绿叶素荣，纷其可兮。
And those sentences ending with the character 些 also belong to this group, for example:
天地四方，多奸贼些.
The line is excerpted from Zhao Hun （《招魂》）and the character 些is pronounced “suò” in Chinese. In general, this category of xi-sentences, still at the immature transitional stage of Chu Ci style, is lacking variety and does not have great capacity. For that reason, except Ode to the Orange and Zhao Hun in which this kind of sentences is adopted throughout the whole passage, this group of sentences is used only in the Epilogue （乱辞） of Crossing the River（《涉江》）, Stray Thoughts（《抽思》）, Thoughts Before Drowning（《怀沙》）, etc.
The second group of sentences is characterized by having the character “兮” situated in the sentence-middle position. In other words, there are two segments in the sentences of this group: one segment before the character 兮and the other after it. For example:
采山秀兮于山间，石磊磊兮葛蔓蔓 （《山鬼》）
带长铗兮挟秦弓，首身离兮心不惩 （《国殇》）
This category of sentences comes directly from the folksong of Chu region and they differ greatly from Shi Jing in sentence structure and style. Due its foot-making function and stability, the character 兮 in this type of sentences gives loose to the variation in the number of characters in the segment before or after it, and the writer is able to adjust the number of characters to his or her will so as to avoid monotony without causing confusion of rhythm. As a result, two subcategories of sentences are derived from this basic sentence structure: for the first subcategory, there are three characters in the segment before the character 兮and two in the segment after it, for example:
帝子降兮北渚，目眇眇兮愁予。 （《湘夫人》）
While for the second one, the two segments in a sentence are identical in character numbers— both containing two Chinese characters, for example:
石濑兮浅浅，飞龙兮翩翩。 （《湘君》）
This type of sentence structure is mainly used in Jiu Ge.
The structure of the third group goes like this: the character 兮comes at the final-position of the first clause, for example:
帝高阳之苗裔兮，朕皇考曰伯庸。（《离骚》）
This sentence structure, mostly employed in Li Sao, Jiu Zhang, and YuanYou, is the innovation of Qu Yuan on the basis of folksongs of Chu and becomes one of basic sentence structures in Chu Ci as well as the most mature one.
In sum, despite the fact that the character 兮 did appear from time to time in the poetry of the period before Qu Yuan’s time, the pervasive use of it was initiated by Qu Yuan and thus distinguished the Sao-Style Poetry from the Feng-Style Poetry. So the xi-sentence pattern becomes the de facto symbol of the Sao-Style Poetry created by Qu Yuan.
Eugene A. Nida once put forward in his book From One Language to Another that anything related to the text is meaningful, including the formal property of the language. Actually, for a long time past, the relation between form and the content has been at once a most concerned and contentious topic amongst translation circle. Since translation is, above all, an activity that aims at conveying meaning or meanings of a given-linguistic discourse from one language to another, rather than the words or grammatical structures of the original, it is natural to conclude that the content or the meaning should be given a prior consideration over the formal property of the language, and when the conflict between them can not be reconciled the form has to be sacrifices to the content or meaning. True, this is quite valid when only non-literary translation is considered.
But for literary translation, esp. the translation of poetry, the rule does not always apply because the language form usually plays a very important role in conveying the poet’s emotions. More often than not, it’s hard to draw a distinction between the form and the content of a poem. There is enough evidence to suggest that the language form is one of the two ingredients of poetry, supposing the poetry can be divided into the content and form. This is especially true of the works of Qu Yuan which is considered to be an independent literary genre in Chinese literary history—Sao-Style Poetry. In other words, the language form, i.e. the unique sentence pattern in Chu Ci, serves to distinguish Sao-Style Poetry from any other literary genre of Chinese literature. Actually, since early 20th century, importance has been attached to the form of literary works. Since then, the form of literary arts has always been regarded as the “thing-in-itself” of literary arts by the theorists of New Criticism, structuralism as well as semiotics because they believe that literary works, first of all, exist in a certain “form”, and there is no “phenomena” itself without “form” and beauty and arts is no more than a kind of “meaningful form” and the feeling, thoughts and meaning embodied by them pervade the “form” instead of dissociating from it. Therefore, the specialized mode of language — xi-sentence pattern cannot be separated from the literary genre-sao style. Since the sentence pattern characterized by 兮 is indispensable to the sao style, it has to be taken into consideration when a translator attempts to translate it into English.
As a linguistic sign, the character 兮 is meaningless. However, a phenomenon derives its meaning from “the historical and social contexts,” as I have made clear at the very beginning of this chapter. So if the character is place in the historical and social contexts, it becomes a “meaningful form.”
2.2.3 Xi-Sentence Pattern as a Cultural Sign
Scholars have long realized that the meaningless character兮 denotes a “rest” or break in the flow of characters, produces an elongation of the pronunciation and helps to punctuate the sentences. To serve as a complement to the meaningful linguistic signs, the character is lengthened in pronunciation to effect a sound duration to convey various feelings depending on the meaningful linguistic signs to which it is attached. In this way is the character linked to such feelings as sadness, sorrow and depression, for example:
指九天以为正兮，夫为灵修之故也。（<离骚>）
心不同兮媒劳，恩不甚兮轻绝。（《湘君》）
悲莫悲兮生别离，乐莫乐兮新相知。（《少司命》）
风飒飒兮木萧萧，四公子兮徒离忧。（《山鬼》）
With the help of this character, the bitter sorrow and sadness of the poem flare up in incandescence. No other interjections are comparable to this character in the quality of chanting and expressiveness. It is no wonder for Mr. Jiang Liangfu （姜亮夫） to argue that when we read Jiu Ge，we have wonders, …and this should be attributed to the character xi（兮）.3
The character 兮at the same time is a phonogram, which denotes the close connection between Chu Ci and music. In the early songs of Chu, the character 兮is used to regulate the cadence and echo with the melody or the air of the songs. When the lyrics of these songs were recorded in the written form, the meaningless overtone of the songs had been transformed from a concrete physical vocalism to a written symbol of sound. Qu Yuan inherited this kind of xi-sentence pattern and therefore the character continues to regulate the rhythms and measures in the works of Qu Yuan. So Mr Lin Geng （林庚） argues, “it seems that 兮 is merely a note, and therefore it has most power to shape a foot.” 4 The foot-making function of the character in Chu Ci is mainly realized by a break in the middle of one sentence or between two sentences. Consider the following the examples
秋兰兮青青，绿叶兮紫茎。
满堂兮美人，忽独与余兮目成。
——《少司命》
余既滋兰之九畹兮，又树蕙之百亩。
畦留夷与揭车兮，杂杜蘅与芳芷。
——《离骚》
Chu Ci, or the Sao-Style Poetry, which is characterized by xi-sentence pattern, is created by Qu Yuan who was born and bred in the State of Chu and who finally died for this land, so it is a corollary that the Sao-Style Poetry reflects the collective personality and aesthetic taste of Chu people: the spirit of freedom and the romanticism. Furthermore, the tragedy of Qu Yuan endues his works with a cultural quality of sorrow, solemnity, loneliness and indignation and this cultural quality was extended to the Sao-Style Poetry. It is because the Sao-Style Poetry can evoke the reader’s preexisted aesthetic experience that people naturally appeal to it to give vent to their sad or sorrowful feelings.
This can be further evidenced by the fact that many men of letters in the history of Chinese literature who suffered the same fate as Qu Yuan’s would naturally choose the Sao-Style Poetry as their medium of their feelings. Again it can be concluded that the Sao-Style Poetry is closely associated with a specific culture and a specific feelings. Just as Guo Jianxun 5（郭建勋） observed in his book Studies on the Pre-Tang Dynasties’ Ci and Fu:
All the works of Qu Yuan and Song Yu are composed when the poets are in a mood of sorrow and agony or when their loyalty cannot be recognized, so their works is to give vent to their distemper or wrath or to spend their sorrowful thoughts. In addition, the language of their work is usually “polished lines” characterized by “magnificence and gracefulness”. Coupled with the tragic life of the poets, this furnishes the literary genre “Chu Ci” with a taste of lyric.[My translation]
“屈宋的辞作，无一不是忧愁幽思或怀才不遇的发愤之作，充满着或愁苦或悲愤或伤感等等情绪，而承载这些情绪的语言形式，又往往是“弘博丽雅”的“华藻”，再加上屈原、宋玉本人带有浓烈悲剧色彩的身世遭际，使“楚辞”这种形式富有文学的抒情韵味。”
And this kind of cultural quality of the Sao-Style Poetry is realized buy the character兮. So the character 兮 in the works of Qu Yuan can not be replaced by any other particle and thereby achieves an unique implication. Wen Yiduo（闻一多） thinks that “the interjection is really the core and the impulsion of the songs” and it would be a great loss to omit the character 兮 because “what will be lost is the ‘implication’” but the “the implication is more important than the what is said”.6 The implications spread by the character 兮 includes the chanting quality, rhythms, the culture of Chu people and the tragic implication which is associated with Qu Yuan’s life experience.
It follows from this that the character 兮 is the token of Sao-Style Poetry. The unique form and the “implication” of Chu Ci will disappear if this character is crossed out, so will the distinction between the Sao-Style Poetry and other literary genres. Let us compare the first lines of Jin You Ren （《今有人》） in Song Shu.Yue Zhi （《宋书.乐志》）and Shan Gui in Chu Ci.
若有人兮山之阿， 今有人，山之阿,
被薜荔兮带女罗。 被服薜荔带女罗。
既含睇兮又宜笑， 既含睇，又宜笑，
子慕予兮善窈窕。 子恋慕予善窈窕。
乘赤豹兮从文狸， 乘赤豹，从文狸，
辛夷车兮结桂旗。 辛夷车驾结桂旗。
—《山鬼》 —《今有人》
It is evident that the character 兮in Jin You Ren《今有人》）either degenerated into a short pause or evolved into a substantive. Although the literal meaning of both passages remains unchanged, yet the omission of the character 兮 not only alteres the sentence structure, but also deprives the poem of the cultural meaningfulness that is associated with the xi-sentence structure. And as a result of the change in sentence structure, the poem Jin You Ren（《今有人》）is to be included in the literary category of Yue Fu Songs （乐府诗） which is characterized by sentences of odd characters
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