Ellipsis of Battle.pdf - University of Washington

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).