The Poetry of Ruan Ji and Xi Kang Library of Chinese Humanities Editors Sarah M. Allen, Wellesley College Paul W. Kroll, University of Colorado Christopher M. B. Nugent, Williams College Stephen Owen, Harvard University Anna M. Shields, Princeton University Xiaofei Tian, Harvard University Ding Xiang Warner, Cornell University The Poetry of Ruan Ji and Xi Kang Translated by Stephen Owen and Wendy Swartz Volume edited by Xiaofei Tian and Ding Xiang Warner De Gruyter This book was prepared with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. ISBN 978-1-5015-1185-1 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-5015-0387-0 ISSN 2199-966X This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliografische Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbiblio- grafie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2017 Stephen Owen and Wendy Swartz, published by Walter de Gruyter Inc., Boston/Berlin The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com. Typesetting: Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong Printing and binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ∞ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Table of Contents Part 1: The Poetry of Ruan Ji (210–263) ................................. 1 Introduction ............................................................................... 3 Singing My Cares ....................................................................... 26 The Five-syllable-line Poems ................................................. 26 The Four-syllable-line Poems ................................................ 139 The Poetic Expositions ( fu) ........................................................ 146 東平賦 Poetic Exposition on Dongping ....................................... 146 首陽山賦 Poetic Exposition on Mount Shouyang ........................... 170 鳩賦 Poetic Exposition on the Cuckoos ................................... 176 獼猴賦 Poetic Exposition on the Macaque ................................... 180 清思賦 Poetic Exposition on Purifying My Longings ................... 188 亢父賦 Poetic Exposition on Kangfu ........................................... 206 Abbreviations ............................................................................. 214 Additional Notes ........................................................................ 216 Part 2: The Poetry of Xi Kang (ca. 223–262) .......................... 253 Introduction ............................................................................... 255 Poems ......................................................................................... 266 五言贈秀才詩 A Pentasyllabic Poem Presented to the Cultivated Talent (also titled “Thoughts of the Ancients in Pentasyllabic Verse” 五言古意) ............................................................ 266 四言贈兄秀才入 Poems Presented to My Elder Brother the Cultivated 軍詩十八 Talent on His Entry into the Army, Eighteen Poems ....... 268 幽憤詩 A Poem on My Indignation in Confinement ................... 288 述志詩二首 Telling of My Intent, Two Poems..................................... 298 遊仙詩 Roaming with Immortals ................................................ 302 六言詩十首 Hexasyllabic Verse, Ten Poems ......................................... 306 重作四言詩七首 Recomposing Tetrasyllabic Verse, Seven Poems (also titled “Imitations of the Song of Qiu Hu” 代秋胡歌 or “Ballad of Qiu Hu” 秋胡行) ........................................... 312 思親詩 Thinking of My Loved Ones ........................................... 322 vi Table of Contents 答二郭詩三首 A Response to the Two Guos, Three Poems ..................... 326 與阮德如詩 A Poem to Ruan Deru ..................................................... 334 酒會詩 A Poem Composed for a Wine Drinking Gathering ........ 338 四言詩十一首 Tetrasyllabic Verse, Eleven Poems .................................... 340 五言詩三首 Pentasyllabic Verse, Three Poems ..................................... 352 琴賦 Rhapsody on the Zither ................................................... 358 Additional Notes ........................................................................ 396 Modern Editions Cited .............................................................. 406 Part 1: The Poetry of Ruan Ji (210–263) Translated by Stephen Owen Volume edited by Xiaofei Tian Introduction Ruan Ji’s Life and Times Ruan Ji 阮籍 (210–263) was born at the beginning of the final decade of the great Han dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE). The Eastern Han Emperor Xian 獻帝 (r. 189–220) continued to reign, but had long since conceded the power to rule to Cao Cao 曹操 (155–220), whose political and military genius reunified the disintegrating empire in North China. Although Wu in the south and Shu in the west eluded Cao Cao’s grasp, the population and agricultural base of North China was still, by far, the greater part of the old Han empire. Ruan Ji’s father, Ruan Yu 阮瑀 (d. 212), had served Cao Cao since Cao Cao’s early rise to power. Until joining the circle around Cao Cao, the Ruans were a provincial family of little distinction; Ruan Yu held a series of minor posts, but enjoyed fame as a writer, who drafted letters for Cao Cao. For this talent Cao Pi 曹丕 (187–226), Cao Cao’s heir, included Ruan Yu in the company of the “Seven Masters of the Jian’an Reign” 建安七子.1 Ruan Yu died when Ruan Ji was only two. Eight years later, in 220, Cao Cao himself passed away; Cao Pi then quickly did away with the fiction of the Han dynasty and declared himself emperor of a new dynasty, the Wei 魏. Cao Cao was posthumously made its first emperor, Wei Wudi 魏武帝. Ruan Ji’s mature life is a skeleton of facts surrounded by a large corpus of anecdotes of uncertain reliability. His works later came to be read in the context of an interpretive tradition lasting more than a millennium, but beginning centuries after Ruan Ji’s death. This interpretive tradition presumes to know Ruan Ji’s opinions regarding the tumultuous politi­ cal events unfolding around him and has read Ruan Ji’s works almost exclusively as responses to those events. Thus the Ruan Ji we now see in contemporary scholarly and popular representations is a confabulation of distinct historical layers. Here I will try to disaggregate those layers, beginning with the skeleton of facts and the political events in the back­ ground of his life. We will then look at the anecdotes, and finally address 1 Owen 1992, 66. DOI 10.1515/9781501503870­003, © 2017 Stephen Owen and Wendy Swartz, pub­ lished by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution­NonCommercial­ NoDerivs 3.0 License. 4 Introduction the political interpretation of his works, which appears in full form almost five centuries after his death. Cao Pi founded the Wei dynasty, but he had neither his father’s political nor military genius. He distrusted members of his close family, and appointed others to positions of political power. The formidable Wei army was under the control of Sima Yi 司馬懿 (179–251), one of his father’s best generals. Cao Pi’s brief reign of six years was followed by that of his son Cao Rui 曹叡 (r. 226–239), who had even less talent for ruling than his father. It was in Cao Rui’s reign that Ruan Ji reached adulthood, and it seems that early on Ruan Ji was wary of becoming involved with the factions forming in court. When Cao Rui died in the spring of 239, succession passed to his eight­year­old heir Cao Fang 曹 ­芳 , with Sima Yi and a distant kinsman Cao Shuang 曹爽 acting as co­regents. Of Cao Rui’s many follies, this may have been the worst, conjoining a courtier with close ties to the intellectual life of the capital with a powerful old general. After Cao Rui passed away, Cao Shuang soon ousted Sima Yi, who quietly retired to his estate and bided his time. Visited by He Yan 何 ­晏 (195–249), a famous contemporary intellectual and advisor of Cao Shuang, Sima Yi put on a theatrical display of senes­ cence, after which He Yan reported to Cao Shuang that the old general was no threat. This proved to be not the case. In 249 Sima Yi returned to the capital with his troops. Catching Cao Shuang unawares, Sima Yi slaughtered Cao Shuang, his entire family, and all his followers — including He Yan. The house Sima found itself “riding the tiger” — and they rode it effectively, killing any opposition, real or supposed. For about fifteen years, Sima Yi and his two sons Sima Shi 司馬師 and Sima Zhao 司 ­馬 ­昭 preserved the fiction of the Wei dynasty under three puppet emperors, until at last, in 265, Sima Yi’s grandson, Sima Yan 司馬炎 (236–290), deposed the last Wei emperor and founded the Jin 晉 dynasty (265– 420). After only forty­five years the Wei dynasty ended as it began, with the deposition of a puppet emperor. Ruan Ji’s readers have largely concerned themselves with what Ruan Ji was thinking in these turbulent times. That is a question that cannot be answered with a modicum of certainty. The better question is: what was Ruan Ji doing? First, he clearly avoided any association with Cao Shuang when he was in power. Second, every post he accepted was under the Sima family, especially Sima Zhao, who favored him and protected Introduction 5 him. Shortly before Ruan Ji’s death, Sima Zhao, enfeoffed as Duke of Jin, was offered elevation to “Prince of Jin” 晉王, which would pre­ pare the way for his possible