Songs of Chu

by Qu Yuan

This anthology was first compiled in the second century AD. Its poems, originating from the state of Chu and rooted in Shamanism, are grouped under 17 titles. The earliest poems were composed in the 4th century BC and almost half of them are traditionally ascribed to Qu Yuan. In his introduction to this edition, David Hawkes provides a discussion of the history of these poems and their context, styles and themes.

Genres: Poetry, China, Classics, Chinese Literature, Literature, Ancient, Asian Literature

426 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 100

About the author

This is a Chinese name. The family name is Qu.

Qu Yuan (Chinese: 屈原; 343–278 BC) was a Chinese poet and minister who lived during the Warring States period of ancient China. He is known for his contributions to classical poetry and verses, especially through the poems of the Chu Ci anthology (also known as The Songs of the South or Songs of Chu): a volume of poems attributed to or considered to be inspired by his verse writing. Together with the Shi Jing, the Chu Ci is one of the two great collections of ancient Chinese verse. He is also remembered as the supposed origin of the Dragon Boat Festival.

Historical details about Qu Yuan's life are few, and his authorship of many Chu Ci poems have been questioned at length. However, he is widely accepted to have written Li Sao, the most well-known of the Chu Ci poems.

Reviews

[Marcos Augusto · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the greatest poets of ancient China and the earliest known by name. His highly original and imaginative verse had an enormous influence over early Chinese poetry. He wandered about southern Chu, writing poetry and observing the shamanistic folk rites and legends that greatly influenced his works. He eventually drowned himself in despair in the Miluo River, a tributary of the Yangtze. The famous Dragon Boat Festival, held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar year, originated as a search for the poet’s body.

[Tao · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The love that is not deep is quickly broken."

"I have plucked the glistening flower of the Holy Hemp
To give to one who lives far away."

[Amlux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even for Chinese poetry, with its tradition of sophisticated literary allusion, the background you need for these is pretty extreme. Without them, it'd be like reading Dante or Milton with no background in Greco-Roman classics. Luckily there's footnotes and introductions of course. It often felt I'm reading them 70% of the time and the poems the other 30%. But that isn't a bad thing; it actually has made the experience one of the richest I've had in a while.

[Scott Sebastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Even as the rushing water roars with the crash of boulders, And the waves sweep up and surge, and rapids boil and race, whipped to a wild frenzy, plunging in foaming flood, dashing on jagged rocks, Swirling and circling, whirling and eddying, hurling frustrated at that which confines them-

So Qu Yuan, meeting with many misfortunes, falling on dire disgrace,
Poured out his wonderous words in writing, to leave to posterity."

[James Violand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the latter half of this classic is a redundant screed of self-pity by unappreciated but honest advisors to rulers, I enjoyed it. Why? Because it cracks open the vault to an ancient history of China before its first empire. The Editor, David Hawkes, has included hundreds of footnotes that are just as entertaining as the main work. I wish other anthologies of the ancient world would be as complete in explanations and revelations as found in the notes.

[Sean Tandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a great deal about the history, mythology, and literary culture of Early China, but also found many of the poems repetitive and difficult to get through. The poems are largely derivative of Qu Yuan’s Li Sao, a shamanistic-erotic nature poem actually about politics, which is fantastic and became a classic that later poets reimagined in various ways that perhaps don’t always translate well (especially for a general reader without a thorough background in Chinese mythology). I enjoyed David Hawkes stately translations but found some of his notes overly in-depth or simply subjective in their judgement. Overall, I’m glad I read this book, but did not entirely enjoy getting through it.

[Kai Grenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Czytałam po polsku, ale nie mogę tu znaleźć polskiego tłumaczenia, a nie chce mi się dodawać. :<

[CivilWar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellently introduced, commented upon and annotated, and decently translated, by David Hawkes, this classic collection which forms all we have of Chu poetry and along with the Shijing all that we have of ancient Chinese poetry, the flaws of this collection are, for once, more a flaw of the work itself rather than with issues of translation and so on, though the question of translating rhyming Chinese poetry to accurate English verse, let alone with meter or keeping the rhyme, remains of course insurmountable.

What I mean by that, rather, is that, while the main piece here, and indeed the origin of most of the other pieces here, Li Sao, is indeed excellent and even better in Chinese, and the Tian Wen, Jiu Ge, Zhao Hun and Da Zhao are all of a shamanistic oral origin and thus absolutely essential primary sources for ancient Chinese shamanism, the oldest religion known in China and of crucial importance to learn the whole of religious development in Korea and Japan alongside Chinese religious history. From these wu shamans come the miko. They are also important primary sources on Chinese mythology, specially the Tian Wen, though its cryptic character and its fragmented and damaged state makes it extremely hard to use - this edition is, again, excellently annotated and there is no extant myth referenced that goes missed and unexplained for those (understandibly) less familiar with the Chinese mythological tradition.

I learned an unspeakable amount from this book and from Hawkes' notes: it never would've crossed my mind that Taoist "immortals" as depicted in the Zhangzi could be but normal hermits engaged in shamanic "spirit journeys" for the recreational value, hence the very similar imagery between Taoist immortals and what's seen in Li Sao. But the large majority of this enjoyment in reading the Li Sao, the great lament and journey that it is, and of reading the main primary documents of Chinese shamanism oneself, is undercut by the utter mediocrity of the poetry that follows.

The "lament" character, self-lament to be specific, of Li Sao had, with the elevation of Confucianism to a State religion, the unfortunate consequence of spawning an entire genre of complaint-poems of righteous Confucian scholars who are rejected for their virtues by the foolish Prince/Lord (addressed as the Fair One due to shamanistic tradition in Chu which, uniquely, approached the deity being communicated as a lover) because he is fooled by the degenerate modern day and age, whereupon yearning for the mythological Confucian sages (the Chinese heroic age is, as opposed to the Indo-European, Japanese, etc ones, made up of ideal Confucian scholars as opposed to morally dubious heroes) is expressed. It is tedious, self-pitying, dull and downright oppressive at times, and while this is in part due to translation (the originals, at least, are in rhyme and have less syllables per verse), it is in large part due to the mediocrity of the poetry itself. I can not express it better than David Hawkes himself in his introductions to many of these pieces, per example the intro for Qi Jian states:

The anonymous author of these poems assumes the persona of Qu Yuan as a poetic convention enabling him to rail with impunity against the injustice of his employer and the iniquity of the times. The poems are extremely derivative, drawing extensively on Li sao, Jiu zhang, Jiu bian and Yuan you, but totally lacking the magic, passion and movement of their originals. The conventions of Chu poetry – the symbolism of plant and flower and the parallels drawn from ancient history and mythology – seem in these poems to have become an end in themselves. The result is a long, almost unrelieved litany of complaint which progresses by mere accumulation and ends only when poet, reader and metaphor are all three exhausted.

Ai shi ming is described likewise:

Ai shi ming is an example of Sao poetry at a very low ebb. Here is all the apparatus of the Sao poet: the symbolism, the parallelism, the allusions, the introspective grief, even – in one brief, perfunctory passage – the spirit journey. But the inspiration is dead. Image is piled upon image in illustration of the same theme: virtue and talent are not recognized; I am virtuous and talented; therefore I am not recognized; therefore I am miserable. The effect of having this said in 160 lines of verse is monotonous and oppressive.

And finally, the ridiculous collection at the very end, the Jiu Si:

Wang Yi rigorously applied the Confucian principles of Shi jing exegesis in his interpretation of Chu ci, sometimes with peculiar results. The chief interest of his Jiu si poems is that they enable us to see these principles given a practical demonstration.

Wang Yi’s somewhat mechanical use of symbolism often produces a near-comic effect when he is at his most serious. Thus in Yuan shang (‘Resentment against the Ruler’) the picture of the poet standing in a storm of thunder, lightning, hail, sleet and wind (all ‘bad’ symbols) and covered from head to foot with a wide variety of insects (also ‘bad’ symbols) is both ludicrous and repellent. Sometimes the words, if taken at their face value, do not make any picture at all – even a ludicrous one. For instance, clouds and rainbows, according to Wang Yi, are both ‘bad’ symbols: and so we find, in Zao e (‘Running into Danger’), that rainbows, as well as clouds, darken the sky.

(He is not joking when he says that the symbolism here is ridiculous: in one section, it appears that Wang Yi is sipping ambrosia with the gods on Mount Olympus, Kunlun mountain, and this is meant to be a "fall")

Overall, it's a great edition of one of the most essential pieces of ancient Chinese literature, indeed all we have of ancient Chinese poetry along with the Shi Jing, and I wholeheartedly recommend it for either the fan or student of ancient literature, the historian of Chinese religion, mythology students, or anyone interested in Chinese literature really, but it cannot be argued that much of the less ancient poems here are mediocre, bad to the point of being hard to read even.

[J.L. Flores · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gusta esta versión, hay poco de Qu Yuan, de la dinastía Han. Es sin duda el primer poeta chino en recibir elogios no por mantener una tradición, sino por tener una vos propia.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This generic-sounding title Songs of the South should instead have been entitled Songs of the (Warring) State of Chu, a more direct translation of the Chinese title Chǔ Cí. These poems indeed date back to what Chinese historiography calls the Warring States period (the Chinese Axial Age), or shortly thereafter. As such they are the second oldest major collection of Chinese poetry after the much older Shījīng (Book of Songs, earlier on this GoodReads list). Furthermore, while the Shijing was putatively compiled by Confucius on the Yellow River plain at the epicenter of the emerging Chinese civilization, the kingdom of Chu flourished in the Yangtze River valley on the southern periphery of that civilization. As a product of the south, the Chu Ci is considered to have its own separate origins, and later scholars would treat the Chu Ci and the Shijing to be 2 distinct foundations for the next couple thousand years of poetry. Indeed the styles of the 2 books are very different, as are the contents. The Chu Ci songs are much more varied in length and structure. The odes of the Shijing are mostly short expressive bursts that provoke an emotion or a mood. In contrast, the first and most famous poem of the Chu Ci, the Lí Sāo, tells a long and winding autobiographical story of an exiled ex-minister of Chu contemplating his misfortune, railing against his enemies, trying and failing to get another job, and ultimately committing suicide. Much of this is narrated in metaphor, referring to his underappreciated skills as flowers and to would-be employers as would-be paramours. The heavy use of these metaphors makes the Li Sao a difficult read, but this has not stopped it from being a celebrated and famous story; the suicide of the unfortunate minister (and author of the poem) are remembered to this day by racing dragon boats and eating sticky rice dumplings. Another long poem of note is the Tiānwèn, each verse of which is a question about some factoid in Chinese cosmology, mythology, or history. Many of the other poems describe or invoke spirit journeys (often on dragon-pulled chariots), and so provide a window on shamanistic practices outside of and preceding the dominance of Confucianism and Taoism. Amidst all this strangeness, the translator Hawkes provides a sure hand and guide.

[Ad · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Chuci or Elegies of Chu (China, 2nd c. BCE - 1st c. CE) form an anthology of poems which are qua metrics and content very different from the older Classic of Poetry. Chu was a powerful state with its own culture that grew up on the margins of the Zhou cultural region. When Chu collapsed in the 3rd c. BCE, its culture moved east and later influenced the Western Han dynasty. The oldest stratum in the Chuci consists of late Warring States works from the state of Chu, the newest layer consists of imitations from the Han Dynasty. The Elegies of Chu was compiled and edited by Wang Yi (c. 89-158) and consists of in total 17 sections, several of which contain between seven and eleven individual pieces.

The most famous poem in the Chuci is Encountering Sorrow. In this work, the (semi-legendary) poet called Qu Yuan (c. 339-278 BCE) complains that, although a high minister and member of the royal house, he has been plotted against by evil factions and slanderers at court (he warned against the aggressive intentions of the state of Qin and history proved him right, as towards the latter years of the 3rd c. BCE Chu was destroyed by Qin). As a result he has been rejected by his lord and twice exiled to wild borderlands. In the end, he commits suicide by drowning himself in a river. Throughout Chinese history, Qu Yuan has therefore been considered as the model of the loyal and righteous but unfairly rejected and misunderstood official - a very important theme in Chinese poetry. The same is true for the images used in the poem: Qu Yuan is compared to a neglected wife and a rejected lover. The poem also contains the description of a shamanistic spirit journey to various mythological realms. Another section in the Chuci, the Nine Songs contains hymns to various deities venerated in Chu. We also find texts which elaborate on the legend of Qu Yuan, and in one of the poems the soul of a deceased person (Qu Yuan?) is summoned to return to the body - shamanism seems to have been widely practiced in Chu. And we have a "summons to a recluse," which anticipates the avalanche of Chinese recluse literature.

The Songs of the South by Sinologist David Hawkes is the only full, scholarly translation of the Chuci

See my website: https://adblankestijn.blogspot.com/

[Kayleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this work primarily to better understand later Asian classics influenced by these poems, and I didn’t know much about Warring States history before this. The Penguin edition has many much-needed contextual notes for the beginner in Chinese classics, and I would have been lost without them. The notes are very thorough, although I think I could have done with less explanation of Chinese astrology and individual courtesans (of which a large number of footnotes consist) and more explanation of other symbolic elements, such as gems and flowers. Although some readers struggled through the repetitive poems in the last third of the collection, I felt that they allowed me to become familiar with the form of Sao-style poetry.

As a warning to the potential reader, this edition reads more as an academic text than the average Penguin classic.

[Hojita · Rating 5 out of 5]

From : it is this that my heart takes most delight in, And though I died nine times, I should not regret it….I will no longer care that no one understands me, as long as I can keep the sweet fragrance of my mind

[James Carrigy · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10

As much of a scholarly work by Hawkes as it is an anthology of poetry, credit must be given for his ability to guide a reader such as myself around poetry that is impossible to understand, let alone enjoy, without the appropriate historical and cultural background required.

[Mateusz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great anthology for people of worth, seeking consolation against the vulgar business-as-usual and becrying their disuse and aging. When there is no fertile ground, it is better to withdraw into the expanse of Gods and find solace in little things adored for their beauty. Life goes on, anyway.

[Shailee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The slanderer will get in and supplant you.
I wished to set forth my thoughts and explain my actions:
I little dreamed that this would be held a crime.

VII ‘Alas for the Days Gone By’ (Xi wang ri)

[Amber Scaife · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of ancient Chinese poetry.
The collection seems similar to the Homeric Hymns and, to a lesser extent, Pindar’s Odes. Interesting stuff, and the Penguin text has excellent and extensive notes to help the likes of me, who knows nothing about ancient eastern literature.

[Marjorie Jensen]

The soul-summoning poems were my favorites; I want to write in this form. I also loved seeing turtle-shell/oracle bone divination, which I learned about from a poetry student a while ago.

[Patty Chang]

Some really beautiful poems in here, especially the one about soldiers marching off to battle and dying. They seem so contemporary and I always wonder if it’s due to the translations.

[It · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bad commentary. Good selection of work

[Manuel Del Río Rodríguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Chinese classical literary tradition is quite unknown in the West, with the exception of some of the most famous poets of the T'ang dynasty like Li Bai or Du Fu. Nevertheless, when these and other luminaries made their first verses, literary Chinese already had accumulated a vast treasure trove of texts, and counted on more than 2.000 years of literacy. Its future manifestations would continue, using a very similar written standard, until the beginning of the 20th century.

The first poetry anthology in the language that has survived is the Book of Odes (Shih jing). The second oldest is the one we have here: the Ch'u T'zu (in the old Wade-Giles transcription. In today's pidgin, it is Chu Ci), usually translated as 'Songs of the South' or 'Elegies of Chu'.

The Kingdom of Chu was one of the 7 great states that carved up the Chinese territory in the period of the Warring States (475-221 b.C.). Situated next to the rivers Yangtze and Huai, Chu had a peculiarly distinct culture that differentiated it from the other, 'northern' Chinese kingdoms of the Yellow and Wei river valleys. One of the main differences was the importance of Shamanism in its religious practices: Shamans frequently practiced 'astral voyages' and summonings of souls for the locals. In fact, these oral, recitative practices were probably part of a quite impressive public performance and recitation, with gestures and mimics that remotely remind us modern Voodoo and Santería practices.

From the last years of the 4th to the middle of the 3rd century before our area is the lifespan of the Chu noble, courtier, public servant and poet Ch'ü Yüan (pidgin, Qu Yuan). After a small spell of political power, he was ousted from the court because of slanderers and for criticizing the king's erroneous foreign policy (which would lead, a few years later, to its destruction by the rival kingdom of Qin). In exile, Qu Yuan writes the 'Li Sao' ('Encountering Sorrow') before he drowns himself into the river Mi-Luo.

Li Sao is a fascinating poem, which inspires itself in the local shamanic oral practices to recreate Qu Yuan's experiences after exile. The Li Sao starts with the poet describing his origin, genealogy and purity; his many virtues are represented through an exotic flower imagery. He censures the king for listening to the flatterers who have forced his exile, and continues with an erudite catalogue of previous good and bad kings and good and bad ministers; finally, the poet wanders all over the south of China and ends in a 'flight of fancy' that takes him to the skies in a chariot pulled by dragons and accompanied by gods and constellations, in search for a 'fair one' (a bride, or rather, in the allegorical context of the poem, a new and wise king which to serve).

This poem would stem forth a whole literary tradition and poetic genre which would flourish in the following centuries, and which is contained in the Chu Ci anthology. Most of these poems share certain metrical forms and a common subject matter (they are in the persona of a slandered, good minister, usually Qu Yuan; they have an elegiac, 'lamenting' tone; they include supernatural voyages and vegetable and animal imagery...). The anthology as we now it passed through at least three processes of compilation and expansion, processes headed by the poets Liu An (King of Huainan), Liu Xiang and Wang Yi. The form which we have today is the result of the last compiler's effort; an effort that finished some 500 years after the Li Sao had been written.

Aside from Li Sao, other important pieces in the collection are Tian Wen ('Heavenly Questions'), a shamanic encyclopedia of sorts of Chinese mythology, the Jiu Ge ('Nine Songs'), invocations of gods and goddesses by the shamans including a travelling-and-courtship format, the Jiu Zhang ('Nine Pieces'), that include the lament for the fall of the Chu capital, or Zhao hun ('Summons of the Soul'), in which the shaman/poetic persona summons the soul of the king to return to his body and his life of pleasures, away from the dangers of the world.

The present translation (the only whole one in the market) was the wonderful work of professor David Hawkes. Although some of its poems frequently appear in other anthologies (and the great sinologist Arthur Waley also studied and translated the 'Nine Songs'); Hawkes' work and efforts are unmatched. His edition is carefully annotated and, compared with other translations, shows great aesthetic and poetic insight aside from the superb academic work and the clarity and beauty of the translations themselves.

I only had good words for this magnificent work. Nevertheless, on the negative side, we could mention the shabbiness of the edition (a Penguin paperback), as it would be great to have in the market a hardback edition in quality paper to store this great masterpiece and nice piece of scholarship.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oddly Christianesque in the sense of obsessing about feeling persecuted

[Lulu]

4th/3rd BCE -

anthology of Chinese poetry traditionally attributed mainly to Qu Yuan (c. 340 BC – 278 BC) and Song Yu from the Warring States period (ended 221 BC), though about half of the poems seem to have been composed several centuries later, during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD)

anthologized with its current contents 2nd AD (125-144) by Wang Yi

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...

[H]

intros, li sao, yuan yu, yu fu (fisherman; qu yuan), and chao yin shiih