Rediscovering Ying Qu and His Poetic Relationship to Tao Qian (clik ...

Ying Qu and His Poetic Relationship to Tao Qian 47
is the corrupt grand provisioner (taiguan 太 官 ), who puts everything
from the imperial kitchen up for sale: “How would it be merely the
salted meat and grain, / Even down to vinegar, meat sauce, salt and fermented
bean paste he sells” 豈 徒 脯 與 糗 , 醯 醢 及 鹽 豉 .35 As Ying Qu
uncovers the inadequacy of those in power, he also comically portrays
those who try to flatter their superiors in any way possible:
漢 末 桓 帝 時
郎 有 馬 子 侯
自 謂 識 音 律
請 客 鳴 笙 竽
為 作 陌 上 桑
乃 言 鳳 將 雛
左 右 偽 稱 善
亦 復 自 搖 頭
In the reign of Emperor Huan, at the end of Han,
There was a gentleman, a Duke Ma.36
He considered himself well versed in music,
And invited a retainer to play the pipes.
[The guest] played “Mulberry by the Path,”
But [the duke] claimed that it was “Phoenix and
her Chicks.”
[Ma’s] attendants feigned their praises [of him],
[The duke], for his part, also wagged his head.37
The Honorable Ma’s pompous sense of self and his entire entourage’s
flattery culminate in a comic moment at the end of the poem when
the duke nods his head in pride, on which the poet makes no further
comment.
The “Baiyi shi” also offers vignettes from the daily lives of the commoners,
especially those from the countryside. One fragment of a
poem depicts the routine of an impoverished rural resident, as well as
his worries:
平 生 居 □ 郭 All his life he dwelled in the outskirts of . . . .
寧 丁 憂 貧 賤 The solitary man worries about his poverty and
humble position.
35
Lu Qinli, 1:471. On food and the terms used for food in early China, see David
Knechtges, “A Literary Feast: Food in Early Chinese Literature,” JAOS 117.2 (1986), reprinted
in his Court Culture and Literature in Early China (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing
Limited, 2002), pp. 49–63.
36
Zi and hou are two of the five ranks of nobility in the Han: gong 公 (duke), bo 伯
(earl), hou (marquis), zi (count), nan 男 (baron). Wangzhi 王 制 , Liji zhushu 禮 記 注 疏 ,
SKQS, 11.1a. Here Ying Qu is using zi and hou in the general sense of an aristocrat, “a duke
or a baron Ma.” The character lang refers to a man, but it is also possible that here it is an
abbreviated form of shilang 侍 郎 , an attendant gentleman, a post Ying Qu once held.
37
Taiping yulan, 490.14a; Lu Qinli, 1:471. My translation is based in part on the translation
in Knechtges, “The Problem with Anthologies,” p. 11.