tao qian on his deathbed 97

chapter four

Tao Qian on His Deathbed

Imagined journeys through the heavens were composed mostly in the manner of fu during the Han times, but in the Wei-Jin period poets started to write about itineraria in shi poetry. Both Ruan Ji and Tao Qian contrib- uted to this new trend. But unlike Ruan Ji, who imagined surviving apoca- lyptic destruction, Tao Qian often portrayed himself drinking, and sometimes wrote about his own imagined death. Neither Ruan nor Tao would likely have been considered a religious writer by people in their own time, but one can never dismiss the religious thought in their literary works or the impact of religion on them.1 In Tao’s case, his family’s faith in Celestial Master Sect Daoism and his intimate association with members of Sect have invited speculation on religious termi- nology and belief in his writing.2 According to dynastic histories, which relied almost solely upon Tao’s writings as their source, Tao Qian seems to have been uninterested in public service from an early age. He allegedly took low-ranking function- ary positions solely to relieve the pressure of earning a livelihood.

1 One reason these two men would not likely have been considered religious writers within contemporary religious communities is their drinking. There are “thirty-six losses” in drinking and getting drunk, according to An Shigao 安世高 (Han), trans., Foshuo fenbie shan’e suoqi jing 佛說分別善惡所起經, T. 729.17.518b24–518c29. Drinking is one of the “five precepts,” according to Chi Chao 郗超 (336–77), Fengfayao 奉法要, HMJ, 86b3–6. The prohibition of drinking in religious Daoism is found in TPJ, 69.269; Taiwei lingshu ziwen xianji zhenji shangjing 太微靈書紫文仙忌真記上經 (HY 179), 2a; trans., Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures, 363. 2 Chen Yinke argues that Tao Qian’s thought has nothing to do with Buddhism, only with Daoism. He terms Tao’s philosophy “Neo-Naturalism” 新自然. Chen, “ zhi sixiang,” 197–202. One study worth mentioning is Bokenkamp, “The Peach Flower Font,” 65–77, in which the author finds a Daoist origin for the imagined Utopia Tao described in his “Taohuayuan ji” 桃花源記. The Daoist scripture that records a similar realm is the Taishang Lingbao wufujing xu (HY 388). Donald Holzman strongly objects to Chen’s view and defines Tao as a Confucian. See his “A Dialogue with the Ancients,” 89–91. Among the studies of Buddhist influence on Tao was an early attempt by Yoshioka Yoshitoyo, in his “Kikyorai no ji ni tsuite,” 25–44. In his discussion of two lines from Tao’s “Coffin Puller’s Song,” Shimura Ryōji finds one of its four origins as being Huiyuan’s 慧遠 (334–416) “Ming baoying lun” 明報應論, HMJ. See Shimura, “Tō Enmei ‘si qu he suo dao, tuo ti tong shan e’ kō,” 209–13. A thorough study of Tao’s Buddhist thought is Ding Yong- zhong, Taoshi Foyin bian. 98 chapter four Immediately before his final retirement from official service in 405, Tao was local governor of Pengze 彭澤 (in present-day province) for some eighty days. In his testimony, we are repeatedly told that taking office was a violation of his disposition, though we often need to read these kinds of pronouncements in terms of their literary function, rather than as historical fact.3 According to the Songshu, in response to a request for an audience with a district magistrate, which required that he be decently attired, Tao stated: “I won’t bend my back before a country bumpkin in order to receive five pecks of grain [as salary].”4 By contrast, however, there is in his extant works—most of which were written after his retirement—a serious concern about dying without achievement. Tao’s detachment from official life threw into question the standard path to success and illustrated an alternative means of achieving an immortal name. The pursuit of immortality had found a new interpreta- tion nearly two hundred years earlier in the first Wei-dynasty emperor, Cao Pi’s emphasis on writing, which helped establish the potential of establishing one’s fame through the writing brush, and transmitting it to later generations.5 The attitudes that underlie this effort to achieve immortality through writing mark a radical departure from the theme of carpe diem presented in the works of late Han poets, as well as in Tao’s own earlier writing, superficially observed. This authorial motive is most apparent in his elegy on his own death and the “Coffin Puller’s Songs” (“Wan’ge” 挽歌) he wrote for himself. We observe in these texts Tao’s efforts to trace a spiritual ancestry among poor yet upright persons who preceded him, as well as his efforts at conversation with the ancients and with future generations. This way of reading these poems allows us to not only refute the tradi- tional view that Tao wrote his dirges to himself on his deathbed, but also to radically revise the received view of Tao’s morbid agony in these maca- bre works. In these works, Tao turned the playful self-mourning tradition into a vehicle for autobiography. The genre features of these playful dirges are so easily overlooked that scholars tend to treat these works literally. By tracing these genre features and comparing Tao’s attitudes towards death as revealed in his other writings, we are in a much better position to understand Tao’s authorial intentions.

3 “Guiqulaixi ci,” TYMJ, 5.159. 4 Songshu, 93.2287. 5 Cao, “Lunwen” 論文, Quan Sanguo wen, QSG, 8.11a. Tao’s authorial intentions have been a focus in recent studies of the poet. See for example Owen, “Self’s Perfect Mirror,” 71–85; Ashmore, The Transport of Reading, 3.