Ellipsis of Battle.pdf - University of Washington

Towards Defining a Chinese Heroism
Author(s): C. H. Wang
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 95, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1975), pp. 25-35
Published by: American Oriental Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/599155
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TOWARDS DEFINING A CHINESE HEROISM
C. H. WANG
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
When scholars and critics say that there is no epic in the long and rich literary tradi-
tion of China, they obviously refer to the fact that martial heroism is never quite specifically
celebrated in Chinese poetry. This paper attempts to define a cultural heroism as estab-
lished in the early Chou era and developed in some subsequent periods. The sublime
quality of the king's acts in accordance with this heroism is "epical" which, in the jus-
tification of the overthrowing of the Shang dynasty, becomes the sustaining force of the
so-called Weniad. The epic perception of the Weniad repudiates martial spirit in the ideal
government. More, it directs the Chinese poet of all ages to the conscious ellipsis of battle
in poetry. The ellipsis of battle is an unmistakable characteristic of the narrative struc-
ture of all Chinese poetry about war.
1. THE EPIC QUESTION
ONE OF THE QUESTIONS about Chinese literature
raised repeatedly since the turn of the century,
but obviously not before, is the "epic question."
Informed scholars find it vexing that the Chinese
do not seem to have expanded an epic at the time
when poetry began. Wang kuo-weia, convinced
that the epic is the highest of all genres, deter-
mines that the Chinese can have little pride in
their literature now that the deficiency is evident.1
Ch' ien Chung-shub notes in his discourse on poetry
and history, the two most celebrated areas in the
Chinese humanities, that only the epic combines
the two, and he implies that China does not have
it.2 Western scholars of Chinese literature agree.
"Chinese literature offers examples of all the major
literary genres found in European literature,"
James Robert Hightower says, "except the epic."3
Jaroslav Prusek goes further:
Epics and the epic perception of reality, which was so
important in Greek literature and historiography and
strongly influenced the entire later development of
Latin, and European historiography as well, were on
the whole of very minor importance in the correspond-
ing branches of Chinese writing.4
1 Vang Kuan-t'ang hsien-sheng ch' iian-chi, 16 volumes
(Taipei, 1968), V. 1846.
2 T'an i lu (Shanghai, 1948), p. 46.
3 "Chinese Literature in the Context of World Litera-
ture," Comparative Literature (Oregon), V. 2 (1953), 120.
4 "History and Epics in China and the West," Chinese
History and Literature, Collection of Studies (Prague,
1970), p. 31.
25
Questionable notwithstanding, these statements
of the learned Sinologists confirm some random
remarks of Sir Maurice Bowra, an absolutely
erudite scholar of the epic in the major European
traditions but limitedly informed about the es-
sence and developments of Chinese literature.
Equating the epic with the heroic poem in his
definition, Bowra comments on some examples
from ancient Chinese verse and pronounces them
neither to be "pre-heroic" poems or laments. A
song from the stone drum inscriptions, though in
its quiet way recalling heroic narrative, reflecting
the pride of men who set themselves a difficult
task and carry it out, is pre-heroic because it is
"not an objective narrative but a personal record."5
Or, in the case of "Those Who Died for the State"
("Kuo-shang")c, it is a lament because it is "a
personal tribute to the dead and not an objective
narrative of their doings."6
In contrast with this line of opinion which
strictly postulates both the metrical and cultural
features of the epic as conceived in the West to
check against the Chinese poem of action, there
is also a scholarly movement to allow a critic to
seek in various types of the Chinese writing some
equivalents of the epic. Hu Shihd conveniently
calls a number of narrative poems dated in the
second and third centuries "epics," including the
"Peacocks Southeast Fly" ("K'ung-ch'iieh tung-
nan fei")e.7 He obviously overlooks the fact that
5 Heroic Poetry (London, 1952; rpt. 1966), p. 13.
6 Ibid., p. 14.
7 Pai-hua wen-hsiieh shih (Shanghai, 1928; rpt. Taipei,
1969), pp. 60-87.

26
Journal of the American Oriental Society 95.1 (1975)
a high style is more essential than its narrative
structure for a poem to qualify as epic. For, as
an English medievalist also argues, the epic has
a style that is "ambitious and self-conscious ...
aristocratic and accomplished," which is not
characteristic of the ballad.8 The ballad may have
many things in common with the epic, W. P. Ker
observes, but it has lost "the grand style, and the
pride and solemnity of language" attributed to
the epic.9 The earnestness of Hu is similar to that
of Joseph Addison. Addison ventures in The Spec-
tator 70 (Monday, May 21, 1711) to elevate the
English ballad "Chevy Chase" to the status of the
Aeneid, by an intelligent comparison of the style;10
but Hu fails even to provide such a comparison.
More recently, Ch'en Shih-hsiangf finds the
grief of Chu-ko Liang, as magnified in a small
poem "The Design of Eightfold Array" ("Pa-chen
t'u")g by Tu Fu, to have a "heroic dimension,"
sublime and tragic.ll Although Ch'en refrains
from using the word "epic" to describe this quat-
rain, his analysis signifies an important awareness
of the epic style in what Ker emphasizes as "weight
and solidity."12 No sooner is the notion of weight
and solidity singled out to define its primary styl-
istic distinction, hence the thematic significance,
than the epic exists in all genres of literature.
In other words, the epic is a unique type of grand
writing which, having the value in the vision it
upholds rather than in the scope or size it reaches,
and less still in such mechanisms as beginning the
narrative in medias res, traverses all literary genres.
An English example is anticipated by E. M. W.
Tillyard in his reading of Shakespeare's history
plays as an epic of England, within the great uni-
fying motives of the Tudor myth and the morality
idea of Respublica.13 When the flexibility is ap-
8 W. P. Ker, Epic and Romance, Essays on Medieval
Literature (New York, 1957), p. 124.
9 Ibid., p. 125.
10 Addison and Steele: Selections from the Tatler and
the Spectator, ed. Robert T. Allen (New York, 1964),
pp. 121-27.
1 "To Circumvent 'The Design of Eightfold Array',"
The Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, n.s. VII.1
(1968), 26-53.
12 Epic and Romance, p. 4.
13 Shakespeare's History Plays (New York, 1962), p. 276
et passim. Tillyard's concept of the flexibility of the epic
is also expressed in The English Epic and Its Background
(1954; rpt. New York, 1966).
preciated, the search for a Chinese epic becomes a
highly imaginative exercise with the scholars of
Chinese literature who have an eye for comparative
literature. Anthony C. Yu has recently found
some dimensions of the epic in a number of verses
interlaced in a Chinese popular novel, Hsi-yu
chi,h which are by no means of more "weight and
solidity" than the "Peacock Southeast Fly" or
"Chevy Chase."14
It is true that recent writings have actually
affirmed some epical elements in traditional Chi-
nese literature, manifesting certain dimensions of
the epic in vision and structure. The question,
nevertheless, remains: why were not the "ele-
ments" in all dimensions integrated into a struc-
ture of the long narrative in verse to assert that
grand vision? I seek in this essay to investigate
an inherent rhetorical pattern in the Chinese verse
account of the battle. I attempt to describe some
quality of a heroism most highly regarded in the
Chinese tradition, the meaning of wen in contrast
with wu, which in turn sets up the rhetorical pat-
tern, some images, motifs, and tropes. The pattern
is established, as a result of the poet's cultural
tendency which does not permit him to dwell on
the details of the clash of arms; the heroic "action"
is consequently redirected into another area. In
this connection, Bowra's observation may prove
to be quite true:
The great intellectual forces which set so lasting an
impress on Chinese civilization were hostile to the
heroic spirit with its unfettered individualism and
self-assertion.15
2. CONCEALING THE WEAPON
Li Po finishes one of his most original "imi-
tations" of the Han yiieh-fu, "Fighting South of
the Walls" ("Chan ch'eng-nan"),l with a para-
phrase from Laotzu (Tao Te Ching XXXI). The
approximate quotation in effect summarizes the
general Chinese attitude toward the weapon by
the eighth century:
14 See "Heroic Verse and Heroic Mission: Dimensions
of the Epic in the Hsi-yu chi," JAS, XXXI. 4 (1972),
879-97.
15 Heroic Poetry, p. 14. Cf. also, James J. Y. Liu,
The Art of Chinese Poetry (Chicago, 1962), p. 154; and
Achilles Fang, "Out of China," Poetry, CVII. 3 (1965),
196-99.

Know therefore that the weapon is an evil thing
Which the sages use only when they must.16
The opposition to arms is unmistakably strong
and extensive in Tao Te Ching. The weapon is
on the extreme farthest from tao as the means on
which one relies to assist his prince to become
prosperous (XXX). In the same chapter, Laotzu
predicts: "Where the troops dwell, brambles grow;
following the war, there is bad harvest." As the
weapon is an evil thing, one mourns over the men
he slays in the battle (XXXI). Furthermore,
Laotzu urges that one "observe a military victory
with the rite equal to funeral" (XXXI).
The basically Taoist comment on the evil of
war is adopted indirectly by Chu Hsi,J an eminent
neo-Confucian, in the twelfth century to interpret
the anxiety of an officer-poet in one of the most
famous ancient poems against the barbarians, Shih
Ching 168.17 Chu notes that the poet is worried,
and his groom weary; but the feeling of dejection
at the outset of a military campaign is appropriate.
"In the ancient times," Chu says, "one observed
the start of a military expedition with the rite
equivalent to funeral; when the call to arms came,
all the warriors wept."18 The reluctance, however,
is not generated by the Taoist philosophy of
"non-action." Rather, it is determined by Chi-
nese ethics in general that almost repudiates mar-
tial spirit from heroism. The display of martial
power (wu)k is never as worthy as the exhibition
of cultural eloquence (wen).1 In the sanctification
of King Wu of Chou'sm military action against
the Shang, Confucianism judges the conquest in-
complete until the weapon is put away and the
rite performed appropriately.
The King Wu conquest (1111 B.c.) signifies the
culmination of a great national "epic" of the
Chou.l9 It is the most glorious military compaign
most widely and profoundly documented in Chi-
16 Li T'ai-po ch'iian-chi chu (rpt. Taipei, 1962), 3.14a.
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from Chinese
in this paper are mine.
17 The numbering of the Shih Ching poems follows the
Concordance to Shih Ching, eds. Hung Yeh et al. (Peking,
1934).
18 Shih chi-chuan (rpt. Taipei, 1967), 9. 18b (p. 423).
19 For the dating see Tung Tso-pin, "Wu-wang fa Chou
nien-yiieh-jih chin k'ao," Tung Tso-pin hsiieh-shu lun-chu
(Taipei, 1962), pp. 869-904. Other assumptions include
1124, 1122, 1116, 1070, 1067, 1066, 1047, 1030, and
1027 B.C.
WANG: Towards Defining a Chinese Heroism
27
nese history. The conquest is the climactic event
in the collective experience of the Chou people in
search of a land to build their nation. Even only
in the verse of Shih Ching, the epical sequence
contains a creation myth,20 and an account of
exodus, wandering, combats, and periodic settle-
ments of the people near to the barbarians in
China's west where the Yellow River flowing east
drastically turns north.21 Each poem in this group
of Shih Ching poems is by itself a complete metrical
and thematic achievement, sometimes in the form
of panegyric but more often in that of an inclusive
narrative. The poems illuminate a central figure
in the epical experience of the Chou. The figure
is King Wu's father, King Wenn, whose position
in the sequence is so significant as a pivot that
the epic, as it were, is the Weniad.
In the Weniad, in which the cultivation of wen,
or cultural elegance, is emphasized, the martial-
heroic spirit is kept muted. King Wen, inheriting
the legacy of Hou Chi,o or Lord Millet, maintains
for the Chou an emphasis on agriculture and a
belief in the power of meekness. Often in face of
humiliation would King Wen, following his an-
cestors' virtuous practice, resort to humbleness
to sublimate his image in the China about to be
torn apart by the evil ruling of a tyrant.22 "Truly,
it is the way of heaven to diminish the full and
augment the humble." Han YingP quotes the
words of Confucius: "It is the way of earth to
20 Shih Ching 245. For an excellent explication of the
poem see Ts'en Chung-mien, "Chou ch'u sheng-min chih
sheng-hua chieh-shih," Liang Chou wen shih lun ts'ung
(Shanghai, 1958), pp. 1-17. The heroic life of Lord Millet
conforms to most of the characteristics common with the
pattern in world literature. For an array of the charac-
teristics see Jan de Vries, Heroic Legend (London, 1963),
pp. 210-26.
21 Shih Ching 250, 237, 241, and 236. Cf. Mencius
I-B. 3; Shih Chi (Peking, 1959), 4. 112-16 (Les Mdmoires
historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, 6 volumes, traduits et an-
notes par JIdouard Chavannes [rpt. Leiden, 1967], I. 210-
16); and Han Shih wai-chuan, SPTK, 3. 18a (Han Shih
Wai Chuan, trans. James Robert Hightower [Cambridge,
Mass., 1952], p. 111). For modern commentaries on their
historicity, see Ch'en Teng-yian, Kuo-shih chiu-wen
(Peking, 1958), I. 3. 71-73; and Liu Chieh, Ku-shih k'ao
ts'un (Hong Kong, 1963), pp. 266-67, 268-69, 272-73,
279-81, 288-90, 292-94.
22 Shih chi, 4. 116-19 (Chavannes, I. 216-21). Cf. Ku
Yen-wu, Jih chih lu (rpt. Taipei, 1970), 2. 37; and Ch'en
Teng-yiian, I. 3. 80-81.

28
Journal of the American Oriental Society 95.1 (1975)
overthrow the full and bless the humble, Spiritual
Beings inflict calamity on the full and bless the
humble. It is the way of man to hate the full
and love the humble."23 The wrath of Achilles
that leads to heroic action finds no equivalent in
the Weniad. King Wen, nevertheless, practically
took over China in the twelfth century B.C. by
his virtue. Confucius specifies his virtue:
Possessing two of the three parts of China and with
them serving the Yin; the virtue of the Chou can
indeed be called the ultimate virtue!
(Analects VIII 20)
The heroism of King Wen is in the governance
by virtue, by meekness; providing the people
with clearings for the growth of food;24 and
standing in awe of his ancestors. He is pious:
It is clear and all the more splendid,
The ordinance of King Wen:
He established the sacrifices
That in the end brought us victory.
It is the auspice of the Chou I
(Shih Ching 268)
When King Wen died at the age of ninety-seven,
his son succeeded him and is called King Wu.
After many delays, the heavenly mandate ordered
King Wu to carry out the conquest.25 On a winter
day at dawn, he held his court in the old capital
Feng,q sacrificed, and led his army comprised of
approximately fifty thousand men east to assume
the punitive campaign against the Shang. The
expedition was ritualistically performed, and a
great number of the feudal princes all over China
came voluntarily to his help.26 They assembled
at Meng-chin,r sacrificed again, and crossed the
river to confront the Shang army ten times of
their number at Mu-yeh.s The Shang tyrant was
defeated, when his own army turned against him.
He ascended a tower, donned precious garments,
set the tower on fire by his own hand, and burned
himself to death. King Wu cut his head in a
23 Han Shih wai-chuan, 8. 17a (Hightower, p. 285).
24 See, for example, the liturgical song dedicated to
him, Shih Ching 270.
25 Shih chi, 4. 120-21 (Chavannes, I. 222-27).
26 Shih Ching 236. For a detailed description of the
ritualistic march, see the "Wu ch'eng" chapter of Shang
Shu cheng-i (rpt. Taipei, 1963), 11.5b; Han Shih wai-
chuan, 3. 7a-8b (Hightower, pp. 89-91); and I Chou shu,
SPPY, 4. lb-4a, 4.9b-12b. Cf. also, Shih chi, 4. 121-25
(Chavannes, I. 227-35).
ritualistic manner; the military action was then
over. That was the victory of the Chou, signifying
the climax in the Weniad; the heroism of cultural
elegance was defined. For King Wu never neg-
lected to refer to himself as "the son." The
martial force that takes the Shang capital is en-
dowed with a power of cultural heroism; "Such
is the action of humbled virtue."27 According to
Mencius, it is the wrath of King Wu, a continu-
ation of the valor of King Wen, which gives repose
to all the people under the heaven (Mencius I-b3).
There is wrath indeed in the kings, as Mencius
observes. The wrath of King Wen is soft, which
deprives the Shang of two-thirds of China; and
the wrath of King Wu is hard, which finally
prompts the king to overthrow the Shang once
and for all. In the first stage, the wrath is sub-
sumed into cultural elegance (wen); in the second,
it engenders the surge of martial power (wu), as
in the case of the Iliad. The weapon, a cursed
thing, is used, because it is now necessary. How-
ever, the weapon is not to be celebrated or sung
of. Whereas Virgil sings of arms and the hero in
the founding of Rome, the Chinese avoid arms,
and instead, sing of the martial King Wu as a
pious, filial executor of cultural elegance in the
second phase of his people's effort to seek a nation
of their own.
Indeed, the first man who insists on concealing
the weapon, attributing the virtue of wen as the
moral force to founding the empire of Chou, is
the conqueror himself. Upon the conquest, in
the spring when he returned to the old capital,
King Wu ordered that arms be wrapt and stored
upside down, and battle horses and oxen be let
loose and sent back to the wilderness-to show the
world the determination that he would not use
them any more. The King ordered his subjects
to suppress martial spirit and to cultivate cultural
subjects, namely rites and music. He offered
sacrifices to heaven, ancestors, and mountains
and rivers; and solemnly announced that the
conquest was done.28 Later, when a eulogistic
poem for the king was composed, the concealing
of arms was specified to be the primary aspect of
his heroism, and the king was nonetheless martial.
Timely he travels his lands,
High Heaven takes him as a son.
27 Han Shih wai-chuan, 8. 17a (Hightower, p. 285).
28 See "Wu ch'eng." Also, Shih Chi, 4. 129 (Chavannes,
I. 243). Ezra Pound records the story in his Canto LIII.

Indeed, Heaven protects and orders the Chou;
When he proceeds to quake,
All are shaken:
Likewise are the spirits appeased
And the rivers and soaring mountains.
Indeed the king is monarch I
Bright and glorious is the Chou
Now orderly on the throne:
Then putting away the shields and axes,
Then wrapping the bows and casing the arrows.
We have acquired good virtue
To bestow upon China all over.
Indeed the king will protect it!
(Shih Ching 273)
The poem read together with other liturgical
hymns in Shih Ching manifests a strong attempt
to suppress martial spirit once the conquest is
done. The great virtues to be spread over China
are those in the form of rites, music, and above
all, agriculture. In the traditional canon of Shih
Ching, poem 273 is preceded by one in celebration
of the meekness of King Wen that finally becomes
triumphant, and is followed by others which clear-
ly promote agriculture and husbandry, with one
dedicated specifically to Lord Millet (275). Fur-
ther, poem 294 sings of the fact that the conquest
actually causes repeated rich years. Commenting
on the poem, Chu Hsi notes that the King Wu
conquest does not entail bad harvest as Laotzu
says all military actions do (Tao Te Ching XXX).
The poet eulogizes the king's attentiveness to
cultural elegance and admonishes the ministers not
to neglect it.
The most glorious conquest in Chinese history,
therefore, did not give rise to a poetic convention
like that defined through the heroic action in the
Trojan War. The poet of China, deferent to the
sage king, sings of the positive cultural values of
the conquest, but not of arms. The "heroism"
is confirmed, nonetheless, but it is not the heroism
that sustains itself in the extoling of arms. It
is the heroism that exhibits the courage of ap-
proaching the cause with valor and appreciating
the effect with wisdom. Commenting on Blake's
moral objection to some heroic poetry, Northrop
Frye observes that the battle of Agincourt and
the retreat from Moscow are not really heroic,
"because they are . . . part of the purposeless
warfare of the state of nature and are not progres-
sing towards a better kind of humanity."29 But
29 "Blake's Treatment of the Archetype," Discussions of
William Blake, ed. John E. Grant (Boston, 1961), p. 13.
WANG: Towards Defining a Chinese Heroism
Blake must believe that the French and American
revolutions, with their apocalyptic importance,
certainly are. In this light we also see the Weniad
hyper-heroic. The heroism of the Chou is com-
prised of a courage of regretting, too, admitting
that the weapon is an evil thing, "which the sages
use only when they must." The Chou hero is a
true hero. "The true hero is," Frye says, "the
man who, whether as thinker, fighter, artist,
martyr, or ordinary worker, helps in achieving
the apocalyptic vision of art."30
3. ELLIPSIS OF BATTLE
The opposition to arms in life seems to extend
to the conscious avoidance of the mention of
arms in early Chinese poetry about war. The
poet sings of the war, in panegyric verse and more
often in complaints and laments; but the battle,
the actual clash of arms, is almost always left
unsaid. This is called the "ellipsis of battle." It
is a significant feature in the Chinese literary con-
vention that keeps poetry about the heroic action
from developing into detailed narrative of the
battle.
Most of the war poems in Shih Ching are techni-
cally anti-war poems in which the heroic quality
of combat is reduced to the minimum. Instead,
it is combat fatigue that is described. This is es-
pecially true with the poems composed by the
trooper singing of his own military experience.
The voice of the officer is normally restrained;
he would either let his groom translate his feelings,
as in Shih Ching 168, or assume an austere attitude
toward the mission, as in poem 232. In the latter,
for instance, the poet, presumably leading a march
to the east, calmly depicts the soaring mountain
rocks to pass and the endless fields to venture
into. He then catches sight of a herd of swine
with white trotters just crossing a river, when the
moon is moving near a certain star-signs that
a deluge of rain is at hand. It is implied that the
rain will add hardship to the troops. The com-
plaints of the private soldier, however, are less
metaphorical. In poem 206, for example, the
soldier-poet urges everyone not to escort the big
chariot rambling to the war, for "it can only make
you dusty." He tries to incite others to take a
negative stand toward the war. Be indifferent,
he cries out, or "you will only make yourself
miserable I" This is, however, the only poem of
its type that tends to be outspoken in the expres-
30 Ibid.
29

30
Journal of the American Oriental Society 95.1 (1975)
sion of feelings against the war. Other singers in
the Shih Ching tradition reveal their grievance in
a subtle way. Confucius finds that a standard
Shih Ching poem "expresses grief without doing
injury." (Analects III 20).
To express grief with restraint but effectively,
the poet turns to the use of contrast and juxta-
position. He contrasts the past and the present
to suggest the mutability of life; and he juxtaposes
the place there and here specifically to underline
a soldier's migratory life. In so doing, the grief is
delineated, but the actual battle is avoided.
There is no poem in the corpus of Shih Ching
that permits the reader to witness the clash of
arms. As most of the complaints are uttered by
the trooper in first person, the singer always seems
to have a strong consciousness to conceal the
brutality of the battle, keeping it to himself.31 The
soldier of poem 167, for example, puts stress on
the passage of time to show his desire to leave the
frontier for home. The passage of time is indicated
with reference to nature. In the first three stanzas,
he observes the development of the fern, sprouting,
tender, and finally growing hard-time passes
swiftly in the poem. The cry "Return, return I"
is desperate and resounding in the three incre-
mental stanzas. As a private soldier, he nearly
resorts to cursing when he realizes that the officer's
horse constantly threatens him on the march.32
The experience is then summarized in the con-
cluding stanza:
Long ago when I was taking off,
The willows were dangling in green:
Now as I am coming back
It is wet, the snowflakes flying.
Dragging along the endless road,
I am thirsty and hungry.
My heart is painful and anguished,
But no one knows how I have suffered.
The contrast of the past and the present is evident
here. Again, the emotive words in the last lines
31 In this case the T'ang poet Ts'en Shen departs from
the classical tradition in the treatment of war. The
bloody scenes in his poetry seem meant to horrify his
readers back in Ch' ang-an. One of the reasons may likely
be that Ts'en is not a combat officer, but a judicial clerk
in the army. Writing from imagination is certainly dif-
ferent in focus from singing out of experience.
32 Cf. the similar situation in Xenophon, Anabasis III.
4: Soteridas, a man from Sicyon said, "We are not on a
level, Xenophon. You are riding on horseback, while
I am wearing myself out with a shield to carry."
are prepared by the description of nature's change,
all the way to the winter of increasing misery.
The emotion is conjured up, but the battle remains
elided. This technique is also found in poem 168,
where the formulaic pattern "Long ago when I
was taking off . . . Now as I am coming back"
is utilized to denote the similar emotion by con-
trast. It is, furthermore, the basic pattern that
is repeated to open each of the four stanzas
throughout poem 156.
I went to the east mountains -
Long it was that I did not return.
Now that I am coming back from the east,
It drizzles all over.
I longed to return when I was in the east,
But now my heart is sad for the west.
She once made me many clothes, and thought
That I would never be gone with the troops.
When the worms started to writhe
Teeming in the mulberry field,
Alone, I slept through the nights
Once and again under the cart on the field.
I went to the east mountains -
Long it was that I did not return.
Now that I am coming back from the east,
It drizzles all over.
The fruit of the bryony has spread,
Hanging down from the eaves of my house.
Sowbugs live in the room:
Spiders' webs blocked the door.
My paddock has turned into a deerfield,
And the glow-worms move in dark.
These are things to be afraid of,
Indeed, and things to love.
I went to the east mountains -
Long it was that I did not return.
Now that I am coming back from the east,
It drizzles all over.
A stork cried on the ant-hill;
The wife sighed in her room.
She sprinkled and swept the empty house,
For I was coming back from the war.
The bitter melons have piled up,
Many of them, on top of the firewood I cut.
Since I last saw them
Till now, it is three years I
I went to the east mountains -
Long it was that I did not return.
Now that I am coming back from the east,
It drizzles all over.

The oriole was in flight;
Its wings were glistening.
The girl was going to be married;
Her horse was bay and white:
Her mother had tied the strings of girdle for her;
And many other things were done properly for her.
She was perfectly beautiful when she was my bride,
But I wonder what she looks like after these years I
The singer recalls his battlefield experience in the
first stanza, juxtaposing it witht he thought of the
common life back home when the worms writhed
on the field during spring. He observes the land
near home in the second stanza and imagines how
his house has turned desolate. In the third stanza,
some ordinary objects by the house finally remind
him of the pain that he has been gone for three
years. He then switches in the last stanza to the
recollection of the joyful wedding scene in another
spring when the oriole was in flight, and wondering
what has become of his bride after these years.
The ellipsis of battle allows him to concentrate
on the succint presentation of a man approaching
home. It enables him to complete the chain of
thoughts in a tight relation, without polluting
the joyful song of homecoming with the memories
of the gory battle in the east. In other words,
the singer knowing the weapon as an ominous
subject to mention chooses to let the war ex-
perience stay merely as a notion elusively con-
trasting his present undertaking that suggests
pathos.33
Poem 156 represents almost exactly a private
soldier's version of the grand style in which King
Wu ritualizes the completion of his military ex-
pedition. The weapon is concealed, so to speak,
in the first stanza, where a war experience is
introduced. For the use of arms is not to be
celebrated, in life or in poetry. The poem moves
on slowly to have agriculture and husbandry
visualized as the bliss of heaven. The bitter melons
in a pile upon the firewood he cut are an emotional
indication of the joy of peaceful life without senti-
mental exaggeration. The museful mind of a
veteran having suffered and had others slain is
detectable in the words. There is even some touch
33 Arthur Waley interprets the poem as "a typical
'elliptical ballad', suggesting that during the soldier's
absence his wife has assumed his death and married
again." The interpretation is unprecedented and rather
questionable. See The Book of Songs (New York, 1960),
p. 117.
WANG: Towards Defining a Chinese Heroism
31
of regret, for the waste of life which is always out
of his control. As a celebration of the end of war,
the poem maintains itself faithfully in the moral
tradition, the tradition which supports the great
King Wu conquest described above. According
to the traditional commentary, the poem is sung
by a soldier (perhaps to the tune of a military song)
returning from an expedition that has punished
some rebelling feudal princes against the newly-
founded Chou court. It is a campaign led by the
Duke of Chout, brother of King Wu, to pacify
the revolt of Kuan-shuU, Ts' ai-shuv (other brothers
of King Wu enfeoffed in the east), Wu-kengw (a
prince of the conquered Shang) and some barbarian
tribes near the sea. The majority of soldiers who
participate are from the west, the old land of the
Chou.34 This explains the formulaic expression
repeated in the beginning passage of each stanza.
As a punitive action, the expedition is justified.
It is a continuation of the grand conquest earlier
executed by King Wu. Upon completion, the
Duke of Chou issued seven edicts about morality
and institutions that stabilize the empire for
several centuries to come.35
As a song of a private soldier, poem 156 observes
the victory with deference to the former king's
piety. While the Duke of Chou has expressed the
ethos of the military action in the seven edicts
in prose, the singer of poem 156 tells of the pathos
in verse. The weapon and the battle are elided in
the song, merely hinted at to set up a frame of
lyrical structure. Victorious, the soldier's heart
is sad over the war which has caused death and
separation. The martial spirit is indeed kept
minimal throughout the poem. Instead, it is the
longing for a life of simplicity and quietude that
underscores the theme of the poem-a desire to
return to the farming land. The singer also con-
cludes poem 156 with a reference to the rite that
eventually prevails to delete the immediate memo-
34 See K'ung Ying-ta, Mao Shih cheng-i (reps. Taipei,
1968), 8-b. 3b-4a. The campaign is said to last for three
years; see Shih chi, 4. 132 (Chavannes, I. 245).
35 "Ta kao," "Wei-tzu chih ming," "Kuei ho," "Chia
ho," "K'ang kao," "Chiu kao," and "Tzu-ts'ai." See
Shih chi, 4. 132 (Chavannes, I. 245). The authenticity
of some of these pieces is uncertain. K'ung Ying-ta
(Shang Shu cheng-i), for example, does not include "Kuei
ho" and "Chia ho." Bernhard Karlgren only accepts as
authentic the four chapters, "Ta kao," "K'ang kao,"
"Chiu kao," and "Tzu-ts'ai"; see The Book of Documents
(Stockholm, 1950).

32
Journal of the American Oriental Society 95.1 (1975)
ries of the battle. Whereas the sacrifice to heaven,
mountains, rivers, and ancestors ritualistically
completes the formal conquest, a happy wedding
in remembrance marks the end of this poem
about a commoner's war experience. Poem 156
likewise ends with a personal emphasis on the rite.
The specific ritual program, the wedding, is com-
patible with the circumstances under which the
singer expresses his love and piety. As the merits
of the Duke of Chou signify the d6nouement of
the Weniad, poem 156, a part of the national epic,
reiterates all the more forcefully the distinctive
meaning of heroism in the founding and protection
of the empire. The plentitude of an epic seems to
congeal at a point where the rite occurs to settle
the hero's adventures. The Iliad concludes with
the burial of Hector, the famous breaker of horses,
the Beowulf ends with the funeral of the aged
hero, son of Ecgtheow and lord of the Geats,
so does the Weniad have the apocalypse revealed
in a certain ceremony that gives rise to and per-
petuates music, rite, and agriculture.
4. DEGENERATION OF A BIRD
The ellipsis of battle as a poetic device in early
Chinese literature seems to be a positive response
to the urge that arms be concealed. The poet
contrasts his emotions going to and coming back
from the war, intensified by the change of seasons
and natural objects, to heighten the dramatic
tension of the passage of time. The war itself is
omitted from the verse. By the contrast and
juxtaposition of a concatenation of events, a
chain of actions and reactions, the poet elicits an
understanding of the horror of war from the imag-
ination and collective experience
of his audience.
The interplay of the described moments before
and after the war produces a highly developed
event that becomes conceivably vivid with the
audience.
The convention prevailing in the style of the
oral-formulaic poetry of Shih Ching continues to
characterize Chinese poetry in the subsequent
periods.36 Within a small scope of composition, it
36 The poetry of Shih Ching is presumably oral and
demonstrably formulaic. For a study of this aspect of
ancient Chinese poetry, see C. H. Wang, The Bell and
the Drum: Shih Ching as Formulaic Poetry in an Oral
Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1974); for a definition of the formula in terms of oral
poetry, see Chapter Two.
always presents a certain symmetrical structure
that defines the unsaid. The unsaid, moreover,
is flanked by the two contrasting, concatenate
elements which seem to comprise a couplet,
perhaps the origin of the antithetical parallel
structure of Chinese poetry. An example follows:
a-1. hsi wo wang yi
(long) ago [when] I left yi (particle)
a-2. yang liu yi yi
poplars [and] willows [were] dangling [and] dang-
ling
b-1. chin wo lai ssu
now [as] I return ssu (particle)
b-2. yii hsiieh fei feix
rain [and] snow [are] flying [and] flying
The adventure is defined only suggestively between
a (1-2) and b(1-2). In an oral tradition the formula
a(b)-1 is powerful enough to achieve a certain
totality of association which the poet aims at for
his audience. The ellipsis is also evident in other
contexts. The elegies from Ch'u Tz'u, for
example, abound in the uses of the contrast of
morning and evening in two successive lines.37
Many other poems from the Han era conform to
this convention; of them the most salient one is
the yiieh-fu "Fighting South of the Walls." Here
the poet again uses the contrast of places (south
vs. north) and of moments (morning vs. evening)
to convey the horror of the war in a perfect an-
tithetical structure. The contrast of places opens
the poem, while the contrast of moments closes
it. The lines in the middle are devoted to the cor-
relative objects and to some eulogistic observations
the poet has.38 The similar technique is used in the
"Ballad of Mu-lan" ("Mu-lan tz'u"),Y usually
dated in the third or fourth century. Of the in-
stances in this song, the following couplets show
the most distinctive development of the ellipsis
of battle in a single composition. Mu-lan decided
to dress as a man to go to the war on behalf of
her old father.
At dawn she parted from her parents:
At dusk she encamped by the Yellow River.
37 See "Li sao" and "Hsiang fu-jen" (for translations
see David Hawkes, Ch'u Tz'u: The Songs of the South
[Boston, 1959], pp. 21-34, 38-39).
38 For a translation and interpretation of this poem,
see Hans H. Frankel, "The Abduction, the War, and the
Desperate Husband: Three Early Chinese Ballads," Ven-
tures, 5. 1 (1965), 9-12.

At dawn she parted from the Yellow River:
At dusk she arrived at the Black Hills.
The actual battles are all elided, with only two
more couplets relating how she moved from place
to place with the army, and how the cold of the
northern night was felt by the warriors. The
war ended suddenly:
The generals, having fought a hundred battles, were
dead:
The warriors, after ten years, were on the way home.
Henceforth, when Li Po picked up the tradi-
tional theme of the horror of war in his "Fighting
South of the Walls," little was added to visualize
the battle. The poem also opens with a contrast
of moments and places:
Last year we fought upstream on the Sang-kan:
This year we fought on the road near Onion River.
Now we washed our weapons in the surf of Parthian
seas:
Now we pastured our horses in the T'ien-shan snow.
The poem is an 'imitation' of its Han model in
that Li Po deliberates more on the aftermath of
a battle than on the battle itself. Men have fought
to the death; horses neigh to heaven. In order
to increase the horror of the war, Li Po, following
his Han model again, has recourse to the image of
the carrion bird, a faclon pecking the bowels of
the dead and hanging them on the branch of a
withered tree.
The bird as scavenger in Chinese poetry takes
its definite shape in this poem by Li Po. Seeking
carrion on the battlefield, the bird is one of the
"beasts of battle" attendant on a scene of carnage
in classical Chinese poetry as it is in Old English
poetry.39 The poet mentions the beasts in the
wake of a battle in order to create the atmosphere
of horror, which is readily accepted by the audience
before the oral poet. The bird is originally a
predator in the Chinese oral convention as evident
in Shih Ching. Poem 178 introduces a hawk
39 Cf. Francis P. Magoun, Jr. "The Theme of the Beasts
of Battle in Anglo-Saxon Poetry," Neuphilologische Mit-
teilungen, LVI (1955), 83. Also, Adrien Bonjour, "Beo-
wulf and the Beasts of Battle," PMLA, LXXII (1957),
563-73; Alain Renoir, "Judith and the Limits of Poe-
try," English Studies, XLIII (1962), 145-55; and Robert
Diamond, "Theme as Ornament in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,"
PMLA, LXXVI (1961), 461-68.
WANG: Towards Defining a Chinese Heroism
which symbolizes our martial spirit for a heroic
action. In this connection, the hawk can be re-
garded as a poetic agent that contributes to the
further ellipsis of battle. Man's combats are im-
plied in the performances of the predatory bird.40
The specific beast of battle degenerates into a
scavenger in the Han yiieh-fu "Fighting South of
the Walls." It does not fight on our side anymore.
The singer cynically asks the debased crow: "How
can their rotting flesh escape from you?" Of
course one of the reasons that causes the bird
to degenerate is that "Fighting South of the Walls"
obviously sings of the dead rather than the sur-
vivors. The poem is definitely more in the tradi-
tion of the Ch'u song "Those Who Died for the
State" than in that of the trooper's complaints
typical in Shih Ching. In other words, the motif
of the bird as a predatory beast of battle enters
a ballad in eulogy of the dead souls. The bird
is transformed immediately to a scavenger singled
out to symbolize the dire calamity the war offers.
"Those Who Died for the State," a eulogistic
song for the dead, happens to be the only early
Chinese poem that ever presents a recognizable
passage involving the actual clash of arms in a
battle scene.41 The poetic traditions of Shih Ching
and Ch'u Tz'u merge in the Han yiieh-fu, and
the merging causes a bird to degenerate. It is as
if the carrion of the South is scattered transcending
time to be eaten up by the bird of the North.
The degenerated bird, nevertheless, continues to
serve to allow the ellipsis of battle even more
effectively than before in Chinese war poetry in
which the mention of arms is deliberately avoided.
5. CONCLUSION
The deliberate avoidance of arms, the ellipsis
of battle, brings Chinese poetry about war to a
stylistic achievement opposed to the detailed nar-
rative of the so-called "heroic action." The epic
in its strict definition is absent from Chinese
literature. Dynastic songs and liturgical hymns
composed before the sixth century B.C., supported
by other documents in prose, nonetheless delineate
33
40 One of the earliest birds in connection with war
appears in the account of King Wu's campaign against
the Shang. The red crow transformed from the heavenly
fire is multi-symbolic; see Shih chi, 4. 120 (Chavannes,
I. 226).
41 For a different interpretation of the poem, see F.
Tokei, "Deux notes au Kouo-chang de K'iu Yuan,"
Archiv Orientalni, XXVI (1958), 621-25.

34
Journal of the American Oriental Society 95.1 (1975)
a grand sequence about the founding of a great
dynasty in which Chinese philosophy, literature,
as well as institutions help to perpetuate. The
Weniad is the epic of the Chou. The "epic per-
ception of reality" is extremely important in
Chinese poetry, contrary to Jaroslav PruSek's
assumption. For the "epic perception of reality"
as defined by the Weniad puts emphasis on the
cultivation of cultural elegance, on the ultimate
command to suppress the martial-heroic spirit
"with its unfettered individualism and self-as-
sertion." The vital force of this perception pene-
trates the poet's mind. The weapon is concealed,
and the battle scene omitted in Chinese poetry.
The Chinese epic perception of reality denies
the extolling of arms. There are reactions in
history, of course; but the outcome is always
severe. The imperial house of Chou was rendered
powerless during the era of the Warring States,
and intrigues prevailed in China. The master
itinerant persuader Su Ch'inZ approached King
Hui of Ch'in and offered to serve as his adviser.
In a presentation of his plan full of hyperboles
and allusions, he persuaded the king to prepare
for war.
Thereupon, they rejected culture and adopted warfare.
They generously supported brave warriors, donned
armor, sharpened their weapons in order to achieve
victory on the battle field.42
Ch'in did conquer all the rival states in the middle
of the third century B.c., after many battles and
massacres. The most martially powerful dynasty
of China, however, lasted for no more than half a
century. Why? Cllia Yiaa answered it in the
second century B.C. One of the major reasons
was, Chia Yi pointed out, that Ch'in, having
succeeded, "abolished the ways of the former kings,
burning the writings of the hundred schools in
order to deceive the people," to deprive them
of any contact with culture that defined the ele-
gance of Chou.43
42 Chan-kuo ts'e, SPPY, 3a. The translation is from
David R. Knechtges, The Han Rhapsody: A Study of the
Fu of Yang Hlsiung (53 B.C. - A.D. 18) (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 1975). This
passage is also translated in James I. Crump, Jr., In-
trigues: Studies of the Chan-Kuo Ts'e (Ann Arbor, 1964),
p. 5; and Chan-Kuo Ts'e (London, 1970), p. 58.
43 "Kuo Ch'in lun," Wen Hsiian (rpt. Taipei, 1960),
51. 708. The complete text of the essay is translated by
Burton Watson from Shih chi in Records of the Grand
The historical philosophy of Chia Yi is obviously
derived from the epic perception of reality based
on the Weniad. This epic perception is also a-
dopted by Ssu-ma Hsiang-jubba generation after
Chia Yi in the second century B.C. to underline
the theme of his rhapsodic poem of epic plentitude,
the fu on "Shang-lin Park." The elaborate, gran-
diloquent account of the hunt in the "Shang-lin
Park" prepares for the climax where the emperor
contemplates and realizes that the hunt, an imi-
tation of military action,44 is nothing but a waste-
ful extravagance. He calls an end to the revelry
and makes the following orders:
Those lands that can be cultivated, let theni be turned
into farms, so that my people may have sufficient
support I Tear down the walls and fill up the moats,
so that my people now living in the hills and swamps
may move up to the clearings I
Fish will grow in the lakes and ponds for the people
to take; imperial resorts will be emptied for the
homeless to live; and granaries will be opened to
succor the poor and starving. And to ascertain
that a significant change is in order, the mea-
surements and statutes, the color of vestments,
and the calendar will all be reconstituted. The
world under heaven will have a new beginning.45
The courage of regret on the part of the Han
emperor can be meaningfully interpreted only
with a reference to the determination of King Wu
of Chou upon the conquest, to hush the military
spirit (wu) and promote cultural elegance (wein),
music, rites, and agriculture. The martial-heroic
action that involves the clash of arns, bloodshed
and massacre, must stop, and the urge to battle
must be restrained. When the poet and historian,
like the conqueror himself, find in retrospection
Historian of China, 2 volumes (New York, 1961), I. 30-
33.
44 For the mimic nature of the hunt after the battle,
see especially Shih Ching 179. Cf. also, Bowra, Heroic
Poetry, p. 13.
45 "Shang-lin fu," Wen hsiian, 8. 112. For a complete
translation of the poem, see Burton Watson, Records,
II. 308-21; the translation is reprinted in Chinese Rhyme-
Prose (New York, 1971), pp. 37-51. An excellent inter-
pretation of the poem can be found in David R. Knechtges,
The Han Rhapsody, Chapter Two. The book forthcoming
also contains complete translations of Yang Hsiung's
"Yd/ lieh fu" (or "Chiao lieh fu) and "Ch'ang-yang fu,"
which also preach against the extravagence of the hunt,
hence martial spirit.

that a man's wrath is not worthy of grand celebra-
tion, and that the weapon is a cursed thing, then
it is natural that there is no epic poem as such in
Chinese literature. There is yet an epic, and an
epic perception of reality generated by it to direct
the Chinese poet and historian to the life of reason
and triumph. Furthermore, there is an arch epic
figure whose virtue rests primarily in his meekness
and piety. Whereas Socrates cites from the Iliad,
comparing his courageous sense of duty to maintain
truth to the wrath of Achilles, Confucius insists
that, after the death of King Wen, the cause of
b tx at
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WANG: Towards Defining a Chinese Heroism
truth lodges in him.46 They are equally the epic
perceptions of reality and eternal truth the wise
men have. Anthony Burgess' observation is both
true and false:
Most primitive poetry is about fighting, and the
ancient epic naturally extols fighting qualities, making
its heroes out of heavyweights gifted with blind
courage, brute strength, and a garnishing of conven-
tional virtue.47
46 Apology XXVIII C; Analects IX 5.
47 Rejoyce (New York, 1966), pp. 111-12.
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