Reading
Proem
… Read
Chuci 楚辭, ‘I Alone am Pure and Will Not Submit’ 七諫 沈江
The world’s ways change; everything is altered;
I alone am pure and will not submit.
Bo Yi starved himself on Shou-yang Mountain;
Shu Qi’s name endures in ever-growing glory.[1] 世俗更而變化兮，
伯夷餓於首陽。
獨廉潔而不容兮，
叔齊久而逾明。 These lines are from ‘Drowning in the River’ 沈江, the second of the poems known as the ‘Seven Remonstrances’ 七諫 in The Songs of the South 楚辭, a collection of poems from the fourth-century BCE long associated with the name Qu Yuan 屈原, China’s ‘Archpoet’.[2]… Read
I alone am pure and will not submit.
Bo Yi starved himself on Shou-yang Mountain;
Shu Qi’s name endures in ever-growing glory.[1] 世俗更而變化兮，
伯夷餓於首陽。
獨廉潔而不容兮，
叔齊久而逾明。 These lines are from ‘Drowning in the River’ 沈江, the second of the poems known as the ‘Seven Remonstrances’ 七諫 in The Songs of the South 楚辭, a collection of poems from the fourth-century BCE long associated with the name Qu Yuan 屈原, China’s ‘Archpoet’.[2]… Read
How to Read
Reading is a guide into a cluster of ideas, texts and language offering a New Sinological appreciation of some of the living, if contradictory, traditions within Chinese cultural, political and social life.… Read
Zhuangzi 莊子, ‘Boyi: a matter of perspective’
In the ‘Autumn Waters’ chapter of Zhuangzi, that fame of Boyi is put into context.
The time of the autumn floods came and the hundred streams poured into the Yellow River.… Read
Zhuangzi 莊子, ‘Robber Zhi on Confucius’ 盜跖論孔丘
In his ‘Biography of Boyi’ Sima Qian is befuddled as to why even the most vile people, the notorious Robber Zhi for example, can enjoy happy and prosperous lives. Fame in posterity and through the praise of notable figures at least assures the virtuous a reputation for the ages.… Read