How to Read offers a wildly different interpretation:
The River Has Branches The River has branches that leave and return— 2 When this person returned home, He did not take me, 4 He did not take me, And afterward he will regret it!
6 The River has channels ’tween its islets— When this person returned home, 8 He would not be close to me, He would not be close to me, 10 And afterward he will be troubled by it!
The River has the Tuo tributary— 12 When this person returned home, He did not stop by to see me, He did not stop by to see me, His wailing will become my song.
Line 1 of this poem, along with its variants (lines 6 and 11), has been identi ed as a xing. It also functions as a comparison (bi), linking the lover, who is often absent, to the River (the ancient name of the Yangtze River), which has branches that wan- der o from the main channel. Perhaps the wayward lover is a merchant. Each stanza of the poem is in trimeter until the nal line, which reverts to tetrameter. Yet even these nal lines break on the particle ye, yielding a 3:1 rhythm, the nal syllable constituting a kind of exclamation: “And afterward . . . regret!” and so on. If the nal lines are scanned so, in performing the poem there seems to be great potential for controlling the audience. The listeners would have empathized with the persona and hoped that her unfaithful mate would somehow be punished. If the singer stressed the ye (which, as a particle, would normally be unstressed), if he or she held this word longer before revealing to the audience the negative e ects on the unfaithful lover, the power of the poetic justice would have increased with this suspense. The nal line of the third stanza would thereby reveal the ultimate surprise: that the errant lover’s anguish would become the plot for a song—this song. Although the emotions weigh down the reader, the e ect of rhyming nearly every line (axaaa, bxbbb, cxccc) lightens the mood and prepares for the almost mocking closing line.
Structurally, there is here, too, a kind of incremental repetition. In the rst stanza, although branches of the river depart from the main channel, they return. In contrast, the lover seems to have left for good. His initial emotion will be merely regret. In the second stanza, the many channels between the islets may suggest the lover’s coursing between more than one love interest. Because of this, he did not even try to soften his departure with a nal rendezvous. This, the persona tells us, will cause him more anguish even than leaving her. Finally, in the last stanza, there is a suggestion that the river has joined with someone else (as the Tuo joins the River) and that he did not even stop by to see his former lover before leaving. As a result, his anguish will someday cause him to wail, a sorrow that the persona promises to put to song. The more he demonstrates his coldness toward her, the more she wants to believe he will eventually su er. The force of this reading lies in the contrast between the reality of the rst four lines of each stanza and the singer’s fantasy in the nal lines.
This poem has also been interpreted as the lament of a young female relative of a bride who has left the relative behind as the bride headed o to be married (line 2 of each stanza could also be read, “She has gone to be married,” as in “Tao yao”). It was a common practice for a bride to take along several young women of her family, who became the husband’s secondary wives or concubines.
Re: Jiang You Si
The River Has Branches
The River has branches that leave and return— 2
When this person returned home,
He did not take me, 4
He did not take me,
And afterward he will regret it!
6 The River has channels ’tween its islets—
When this person returned home,
8 He would not be close to me,
He would not be close to me,
10 And afterward he will be troubled by it!
The River has the Tuo tributary— 12
When this person returned home,
He did not stop by to see me,
He did not stop by to see me,
His wailing will become my song.
Line 1 of this poem, along with its variants (lines 6 and 11), has been identi ed as a xing. It also functions as a comparison (bi), linking the lover, who is often absent, to the River (the ancient name of the Yangtze River), which has branches that wan- der o from the main channel. Perhaps the wayward lover is a merchant. Each stanza of the poem is in trimeter until the nal line, which reverts to tetrameter. Yet even these nal lines break on the particle ye, yielding a 3:1 rhythm, the nal syllable constituting a kind of exclamation: “And afterward . . . regret!” and so on. If the nal lines are scanned so, in performing the poem there seems to be great potential for controlling the audience. The listeners would have empathized with the persona and hoped that her unfaithful mate would somehow be punished. If the singer stressed the ye (which, as a particle, would normally be unstressed), if he or she held this word longer before revealing to the audience the negative e ects on the unfaithful lover, the power of the poetic justice would have increased with this suspense. The nal line of the third stanza would thereby reveal the ultimate surprise: that the errant lover’s anguish would become the plot for a song—this song. Although the emotions weigh down the reader, the e ect of rhyming nearly every line (axaaa, bxbbb, cxccc) lightens the mood and prepares for the almost mocking closing line.
Structurally, there is here, too, a kind of incremental repetition. In the rst stanza, although branches of the river depart from the main channel, they return. In contrast, the lover seems to have left for good. His initial emotion will be merely regret. In the second stanza, the many channels between the islets may suggest the lover’s coursing between more than one love interest. Because of this, he did not even try to soften his departure with a nal rendezvous. This, the persona tells us, will cause him more anguish even than leaving her. Finally, in the last stanza, there is a suggestion that the river has joined with someone else (as the Tuo joins the River) and that he did not even stop by to see his former lover before leaving. As a result, his anguish will someday cause him to wail, a sorrow that the persona promises to put to song. The more he demonstrates his coldness toward her, the more she wants to believe he will eventually su er. The force of this reading lies in the contrast between the reality of the rst four lines of each stanza and the singer’s fantasy in the nal lines.
This poem has also been interpreted as the lament of a young female relative of a bride who has left the relative behind as the bride headed o to be married (line 2 of each stanza could also be read, “She has gone to be married,” as in “Tao yao”). It was a common practice for a bride to take along several young women of her family, who became the husband’s secondary wives or concubines.