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 


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. 


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 


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. 





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. 





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 




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. 


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 


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. 


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 


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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? f - fi 

g l^ 4iI) 

h 

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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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