Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Poems 1-6

[x_los]

Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute is "a series of Chinese songs and poems about the life of Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) poet Cai Wenji[;] the songs were composed by Liu Shang, a poet of the middle Tang Dynasty. Later Emperor Gaozong of Song (1107–1187) commissioned a handscroll with the songs accompanied by 18 painted scenes." 

This week, we're reading poems 1-6, up to page 40, in this collection. Because of the nature of the book in question, I'll ask you to refer here for Chinese and English copies of the poems and the images together.

You can view the scroll as a whole more easily and read some background on the Met's website; the Wiki page will also help orient you.  

This is the first of three weeks we'll be spending on this collection. I'll link us to some additional background information in the coming weeks, once we've had a chance to orient ourselves; this is the first time the piece we're looking at has come with its own explanatory material, and that's a sound starting-point. 

Comments

1. The Abduction of Wen-chi

[x_los]

漢室將衰兮四夷不賓，
動干戈兮征戰頻。
哀哀父母生育我，
見亂離兮當此辰。
紗牕對 鏡未經事，
將謂珠簾能蔽身。
一朝虜騎入中國，
蒼黃處處逢胡人。
忽將薄命委鋒鏑，
可惜紅顏隨虜塵。

The Han house is declining, the barbarians of the four directions have become unfriendly;
They raise arms, and wars are incessant.
Pity my father and mother who bore and reared me:
For witnessing partings and turmoil— this is the moment.
At gauze windows, looking into mirrors, I had not experienced the world;
I thought that the beaded curtains could shelter me.
One day the barbarian cavalry entered China;
Suddenly everywhere we met nomads.
My unfortunate life is now at sword's point,
Alas, a helpless woman carried away into the aliens' dust.

Re: 1. The Abduction of Wen-chi

[x_los]

Intro: Why are Wang Anshi and Wenji herself’s versions of these poems not a bigger deal? They’re not even linked from the wiki, are they even mentioned? Are these considered the best treatments to that extent?

Tfw the book goes with some fucking weird pinyin—what’s the t’ang dynasty, are you spelling it Sung dynasty bc it’s past tense, that’s not necessary bruv

It’s really interesting that people copied the painting very closely, rather than just doing their own thing?

So the calligraphy style is essentially a ‘font’ modelled after a particular Emperor’s handwriting? By the way: what do they mean when in NiF they say the emperor’s sister’s husband has a declaration in the Emperor’s own hand above their gate—it’s not like the emperor came and painted a sign. Does the emperor write on a board and then someone installs that board, or is his writing on paper enlarged and then his handwriting copied by an artist?

‘A Chinese’ this is always so weird

I’m really kind of shocked she’s going to walk away from young children? Like it makes sense in a Chopin ‘Awakening’ way, but it’s not at all what I expect to happen in this kind of story.

Here’s a thing about how the ‘flute’ is actually a stringed instrument, just to destabilise Yinharn’s worldview.

1. Kinda poignant treatment of the structure of the interior courtyard (is that the right term for like—civilian rear palace?) as a structure she assumed she could trust, of violated containment/chastity. In a way she’ll have more freedom on the steppe even in being a captive, but what’s the point of being Freer in a really circumscribed world she can’t even communicate in?

Does this guy next to the chief have a leopard pelt? How?

Really cool detail work on these roof beams

This horse armour looks shit like it’s just a blanket

Re: 1. The Abduction of Wen-chi

[vorvayne]

For posterity, it's all standard wade-giles romanisation, which makes sense since this book is from the 70s.

I googled and I'm pretty sure the 'nomad flute' is 胡笳 (from the Chinese title, 胡笳十八拍/Hújiā Shíbā Pāi) which seems to be a kind of reeded woodwind instrument - baidu entry is here, and here's a bilibili video of someone playing one.

Yeah people made 'fonts' sortof of famous calligraphers, and there seem to have been a lot of emperors who were considered great at the calligraphy business. When you're learning chinese calligraphy now you still copy a lot of the works of the old masters; sometimes they were literally carved into stones and stuff. Using a template?

It's so weird that the authors never mention the like...racism inherent in viewing the Xiongnu as unwashed barbarians but repeat it without comment.

This first poem is probably my favourite: I wish I knew more about what the gauze windows and beaded curtains are about.

Re: 1. The Abduction of Wen-chi

[superborb]

Huh, Baike actually has NO gloss at all for this set of poems, though they have a bunch of articles on Wenji's life and the other media that are based on it.

I'm a bit surprised that the book mentions that the copying was done by tracing and filling in. It would seem opposed to all the 'one stroke only' calligraphy I was taught, where you practice by copying over and over? Why is the scribe incapable of copying it freehand.

Re: 1. The Abduction of Wen-chi

[douqi]

Haven't gone through everything yet but I read this some time ago on different depictions of Wenji's abduction and return:

'To the Chinese, Wenji was a heroine who never wavered in her loyalty
to China, and her story was celebrated in paintings and poems throughout
successive dynasties. The Wenji legend was revived in the eighth century by
the Tang poet Liu Shang and again in the Song in a poem by the famous
statesman Wang Anshi (1021–1086). In pictorial representations of the poems,
tribesmen in the nomad camp where she was taken strongly resemble contemporary
Kitan. Wenji enthusiasm reached a new high in the twelfth century,
when the Song empress dowager, who had been captured by the Jin at the fall
of the northern capital, was allowed to return to the Song court—giving rise
to more paintings and poems recalling Wenji’s story. Clearly, for the Song
the main motif of the Wenji story was her loyalty and eventual return.
To the horse-riding pastoralists of the northern frontiers, however, the
Wenji story had a different meaning. Wenji and women like her mediated between
the two worlds of the steppe and China. A short Jin-dynasty hand scroll
depicting Wenji’s return is illustrated in figure I.1. The scroll is dated between 1200 and 1209 and was executed by a Jin court artist, painted in color on silk. In the painting, Wenji is shown on her way back to the capital accompanied
by servants in Jurchen costume. She is portrayed as a middle-aged
matron riding with the ease of experience and a firm foot in the stirrup. The
wind that forces the other figures in the work to shield their faces is welcome
to Wenji, who alone faces it without protection. The Wenji of this painting is
a heroic figure, emotionally and physically courageous. She was also a mother
who had been forced to leave her two sons behind. Her loss is poignantly suggested
by the foal accompanying the lead mare; even so lowly a creature as a
horse could bring her child with her while Wenji was alone. Courage—as well as good horsemanship—were qualities that characterized Liao and Jin heroines,
as shown in the succeeding chapters.

Wenji is depicted in Jurchen attire, with a fur hat, ribbons, a belted jacket,
skirt, pantaloons, and high boots. She wears the Jin imperial color yellow (now
faded). By the date of the painting, the tribal or “raw” Jurchen had become
so peripheralized and alien in Jin society that they could stand in as the “barbarians” who had abducted Wenji. As art historian Susan Bush has pointed
out, the painting may have been intended as a moral exemplar for women in
the imperial household. Wenji’s depiction as a mounted warrior woman reflects
the martial roles for women in Liao and Jin cultures, while the implicit
messages she bears, loyalty and filial piety, can be understood with reference
to the twelfth-century Jin state, which in this representation allegorically represented the Han state, the epitome of a civilized Chinese cultural entity, to
which the Jin considered itself equivalent.'

That's from 'Women of the Conquest Dynasties'