Leisure Notes

Leisure Notes

李渔

The Rites of Zhou is a book devoted to the great enterprise of kingly government. From the affairs of state involving agriculture and warfare at the highest level, down to such everyday details of human life as cart drivers and drink sellers, shoes and hats, nothing is left untreated: all is examined meticulously, comprehensively, appropriately, and with due consideration. Hence the saying: kingly government takes human feeling as its foundation. Yet when Wang Mang applied the Rites of Zhou to the Han, the Han collapsed; when Wang Anshi again applied it to the Song, the Song declined. Why was this? Because Wang Mang and Wang Anshi were both men who did not understand human feeling. They would have failed whether they employed the Rites of Zhou or not. That the Rites of Zhou had the misfortune to be used by these two men was a fault in its application, not a fault in the book itself.

Su Xun said: “Among those whose conduct runs contrary to human feeling, few are not men of great treachery and evil.” From ancient times to the present, those who have accomplished great deeds or written genuine literature have never departed from human feeling. Those who place themselves outside it either perform fantastic acts involving ghosts and spirits in order to deceive the world, or employ false and cunning words to mislead others. Very few of them possess any genuine truth relevant to the ordinary matters of men and women, food and drink.

I was deeply moved when I read Mr. Li Liweng’s Casual Expressions of Idle Feeling. In former times Tao Yuanming wrote his “Rhapsody on Idle Feeling,” in which he wrote of collars, belts, mats, shoes, eyebrow pigment, perfumed oils, shadows, candles, fans, and paulownia trees. His words are tender, lingering, and graceful, merely using such things as vessels for idle feeling; yet by analogy, the myriad concerns of the mind and the imagination wandering through the eight directions may all be lodged in such things. Now in Mr. Li Liweng’s Casual Expressions of Idle Feeling, everything described lies within the range of ordinary sight and hearing, while the reach of his thought extends beyond the winds and clouds. Whatever former writers wished to express but could not fully express, Mr. Li expresses to the utmost; whatever people today wish to say but cannot put into words, Mr. Li also pours forth without reserve. His language is plain and accessible, yet its purport is profound and far-reaching; the feelings he expresses are abundant, and the things he employs are vast in scope. How lucid his thinking! How meticulous his reasoning!

Those whose minds are clouded become open and clear after reading him; those whose thoughts are blocked become fluent and quick; the sorrowful become cheerful; the clumsy become ingenious; the melancholy begin to dance with delight; the sick suddenly recover. How could this Casual Expressions of Idle Feeling be merely an ordinary book by Mr. Li? It is nothing less than an extraordinary work that elegant and refined people throughout the world will recite in every household.

I firmly believe that once this book appears, it will travel everywhere without legs. Envoys from distant lands will come by boat to purchase it, and merchants from foreign countries will bring carts of gold to buy it. Yet certain pedantic scholars in the world still accuse Mr. Li of neglecting the great enterprise of ordering the state and instead producing petty words contrary to the Way.

To these accusations I reply: what you say appears correct, but in truth it is mistaken. In former times Xie An reclined at ease on East Mountain while bearing the hopes of all the people under Heaven in his heart; when he went on excursions he always took singing girls with him, and when staying at his country estate he amused himself by playing go. When Xie Xuan went to the front to defeat the enemy, Huan Chong was initially worried about him. Xi Chao said, “Xie Xuan will certainly defeat the enemy. I once served with him in Duke Huan’s household and know well that every movement of his hands and feet is properly employed. Therefore his campaign will certainly succeed.”

What are called sound and beauty are merely the temporary lodging houses of men of talent, while what is called literature resembles the workmanship by which Nature fashions creation.

I think of such men of antiquity as Wu Zixu playing the flute, Mi Heng beating the drum, Ji Kang playing the qin, Ma Rong playing the flute, Wang Wei being called a “disciple of the pipa,” and He Ning being known as the “Minister of Songs”; then Zhang Chang painting his wife’s eyebrows, Xie Kun having a tooth broken over a beautiful woman, Cao Zhi powdering his face to enhance his appearance, Sima Xiangru abandoning office and eloping with Zhuo Wenjun, Song Qi going cold rather than wear a half-sleeved coat for fear of showing partiality, and Han Xizai dressing in ragged clothes and begging for food for amusement.

These were all manifestations of incomparable men of talent who, when frustrated and bored, sought something in which to lodge their feelings and adopted an attitude of escape. They were like travelers on a hundred-li journey whose carriage has broken down and whose horses are exhausted, forcing them merely to take temporary shelter at an inn.

Compared with the gaudy entertainments of painted drums and brocade zithers in the singing and dancing quarters of Yichun, or the ostentatious display of golden hairpins and silver ornaments in the luxurious villas of Zize Garden, the difference between refinement and vulgarity is immeasurably vast.

Yet even things possessing natural beauty must still rely upon literature in order to be transmitted. The rhapsodies on the qin, flute, and vertical bamboo flute composed by earlier writers were already meticulously phrased, restrained in measure, and exceedingly subtle. Song Yu’s “Rhapsody on the Goddess” describes the fragrance of orchids and fragrant herbs; Cao Zhi’s “Rhapsody on the Goddess of the Luo” depicts ornaments of fine jade and jasper; Song Yu’s “Rhapsody on Master Dengtu, the Lecher” portrays the neighbor’s daughter as one for whom “powder would make her too white, rouge would make her too red,” perfectly balancing red and white; and the Book of Songs, in “Among the Mulberries” from the “Airs of Yong,” depicts the woman of Shang Palace with precisely the right degree of radiant beauty.

Between their lines one seems to smell fragrance; within a mere foot of writing one seems to see a charming smile before one’s eyes. Is this not evidence of the exquisite refinement of their brush and ink? These are truly masters of the “golden pipes” on the field of music and marvelous painters who, applying colors and blending hues to mountains and streams, produce scenes as wondrous as those reflected in a precious mirror.

To go further, Jiang Yan said: “Blue and red combine into color; intermixed and rearranged, their transformations are endless. Gong and shang join to form music; their splendid and graceful variations know no limit.”

Do beautiful women necessarily move the soul merely because their faces resemble one another? Do fragrant grasses and marvelous flowers necessarily delight the spirit merely because they share the same qualities?

Thus, if we examine their forms, every household has its own beauty and every family its own charm; if we investigate their conventions, they differ from day to day and renew themselves from month to month.

If Zhao Feiyan and Yang Yuhuan were born today, they certainly would not perform the Han song “Returning Wind Carries Me Afar,” nor dance the Tang dance “Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Garment.” If Zhuo Wenjun and Sun Shou came here today, they certainly would not paint their eyebrows in the old “distant mountains” style, nor arrange their hair in the ancient “falling-from-a-horse” coiffure.

Why? Because what one sees repeatedly ceases to seem fresh.

In Song Yu’s “Reply to the King of Chu,” a traveler sings in Ying, the capital of Chu. When he sings “Yangchun” and “Baixue,” only a handful of people join him. This is not because lofty music naturally finds few companions, but because as the number of those who can join in grows each day, the singer himself gradually becomes commonplace. How then would “Yangchun” and “Baixue” differ from the popular songs “Baren” and “Xiali”?