Hartman PoetryPolitics1079 1990

Poetry and Politics in 1079: The Crow Terrace Poetry Case of Su Shih
Author(s): Charles Hartman

Source: Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) , Dec., 1990, Vol. 12 (Dec.,
1990), pp. 15-44
Published by: Chinese Literature: essays, articles, reviews (CLEAR)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/495222
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Poetry and Politics in 1079:
The Crow Terrace Poetry Case of Su Shih
Charles Hartman
State University of New York at Albany
Father explained there were polite constraints in these passages. Once my brother had
finished his narration, Father said, "When you study, you must also understand the
meaning of what is not said. For every word written, there may be three that are not
written. For every sentence written, there may be three sentences not written. When
you come upon such passages, you must use your native intelligence or you won't
know how to read them."
-Ch'ien Mu, "Reminiscences on My Parents at the Age of Eighty," in Jerry

Dennerline, Qian Mu and the World of Seven Mansions (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1988): 15, 134.
ABBREVIATIONS
CCSL Su Shih, Ching-chin Tung-p'o wen-chi shih-lieh f4t

& 't$ . Rpt. Hong Kong: Chung-hua, 1979.
CHATS Ch'an-hua-an ts'ung-shu ~t~ iRA .
HCP Li Tao , Hsii Tzu-chih t'ung-chien ch'ang-pien t
i & . Che-chiang shu-chii, 1881.
Hui-pien Yen Chung-ch'i , 9 fS ed., Su Tung-p'o i-shih hui-

. Ch'ang-sha: Yieh-lu shu-she, 1984.
HTCTC Pi Yiuan YiI , Hsi Tzu-chih t'ung-chien M 8ia . Rpt.
Peking: Chung-hua, 1979.
SLKC Ts'ai Cheng-sun II_ , ed., Shih-lin kuang-chi itE~1 9 .
Rpt. Peking: Chung-hua, 1982.
SS Sung shih 2 i . Rpt. Peking: Chung-hua, 1977.
SSCS Li E E ed., Sung-shih chi-shih 9UI . Rpt. Shanghai:
Ku-chi, 1983.
SSSC Wang Wen-kao 't i ed., Su Shih shih chi ~ ~i . Rpt.

Peking: Chung-hua, 1982.
STPC Su Shih, Su Tung-p'o chi M , . Wan-yu wen-k'u hui-

yao 4 W ed. Rpt. Taipei: Shang-wu, 1965.
THYYTH Hu Tzu fR
Rpt.,Taipei:
T'iao-hsi yii-yin
Shih-chieh, 1966. ts'ung-hua H i , a .
TSCC Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng Q a .
WTSA Wu-t'ai shih-an , $4 .

15

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
16 Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 12 (1990)
Sometime in late July of 1079 the Acting Investigating Censor Ho Cheng-ch'en AT

IF ~ charged in an indictment to the throne that the writings of Su Shih E (1037-
1101) contained unrestrained censures of government policy. Additional indictments
by the Censor Shu Tan #f (1042-1104) and the Vice-President of the Censorate Li
Ting Q a (1028-1087) detailed these charges with quotations from specific writings and
broadened the accusation to include defamation of the emperor, a capital offense. On
3 August 1079 the case was forwarded to the Censorate Bureau of Investigation in a
dossier containing the four indictments against Su Shih and copies of his allegedly
slanderous writings. Marshals were dispatched to Hu-chou ,lI , where Su Shih had
just been appointed magistrate. He was arrested on 27 August "just like one would
apprehend a bandit," and escorted to the capital under guard. As the party passed
Lake T'ai he thought of drowning himself to avoid interrogation and implicating others,
but concerns for the fate of his own family combined with the vigilance of the guards
dissuaded him. He was confined to the Censorate prison on 15 September, where
interrogations began two days later. A prisoner in the next cell pitied Su Shih for the
intensity of the inquisition which often lasted through the night, even though in his
own opinion Su's writings did contain "things that should not have been said." It
seems only the personal intervention of the emperor preserved him from physical harm.
At first, Su Shih proclaimed his innocence; but as the interrogations progressed, the
inquisitors retrieved more of Su Shih's poems and correspondence from his acquaint-
ances throughout the empire. On 20 October, when confronted with the confession of
another key party in the case, he "admitted everything," and began to explain the
poems in question. A detailed deposition was taken, and official investigation of the
case was concluded on 25 December. Over thirty individuals were found guilty of some
involvement; several were exiled, most were fined. Su Shih was sentenced to two years
"penal servitude" for "composing poems and other various writings that criticized the
Court and slandered officials both in the capital and in the provinces." He was released
from prison on 23 January 1080, and departed immediately for Huang-chou R ,I1, where
he was to serve his sentence.'
A collection of documents known today as the Tung-p'o wu-t'ai shih-an W A,

S([Su] Tung-p'o's Crow Terrace Poetry Case) seems to derive in a rather direct manner
from the actual Sung dynasty Censorate dossier that was compiled during the course
of events outlined above.2 As such, most scholars consider this text as primary source
material for the biography of Su Shih; some consider the deposition an actual com-
position of Su Shih himself. But the significance of the Wu-t'ai shih-an extends far
beyond its value to Su Shih's biographers: it is the largest surviving collection of primary
1Wang Pao-chen E , Tseng-pu Su Tung-p'o nien-p'u hui-cheng i h ~ ~a f (Taipei: Kuo-li T'ai-

wan ta-hiueh wen-hsiueh-yiian, 1969); 134-139; Chao I (1727-1814), Ou-pei shih-hua ## (rpt.
Peking: Jen-min, 1963); 74. For Su Shih's contemplation of suicide, see his own account in "Request for
Provincial Assignment upon Being Recalled to the Capital from Hang-chou," STPC 15/9/58 and K'ung P'ing-
chung tL VtZ{(chin-shih 1065), K'ung-shih t'an-yaan IL A (quoted Hui-pien #157). For the account of Su
Shih's fellow prisoner Su Sung &/ (1020-1101), see Chou Pi-ta J! t Y (1126-1204), Erh-lao-t'ang shih-hua
(TSCC ed.): 31-32 (Hui-pien #159).
I would like gratefully to acknowledge the assistance of the National Endowment for the Humanities whose
fellowship supported the research and writing of this article.
2"Crow
the Terrace"
Censorate as ahad
courtyard euphemism for the
rows of cypress Censorate
trees (yi-shih
that regularly tai Aseveral
attracted . ) dates from nesting
thousand the Han dynasty, when
crows.
See Han shu (rpt. Peking: Chung-hua, 1962), 83/3405.

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
HARTMAN Poetry and Politics in 1079 17
documents relating to a specific case of literary persecution from medieval China.

Although principally a legal document, I perceive its relevance to Chinese cultural
history as essentially twofold. First, it presents testimony of the struggle to define an
acceptable relation between the limits of literary expression and the demonstration of
political loyalty at a critical period in Chinese history when the relations between these
often-conflicting parameters were rapidly changing. Second, it provides evidence for
an analysis both of the rhetorical patterns practiced by writers of Chinese political
poetry and of the hermeneutic strategies of reading adapted by parties who were either
politically allied to or hostile to the author.
The Text
Material concerning Su Shih's trial survives today in essentially three versions:

1) The Tung-p'o wu-t'ai shih-an in one chilan, allegedly compiled by one P'eng Chiu-
wan l h T , a Sung figure from Szechwan of whom nothing else is known, is primarily
a legal document." The text begins with the four Censorate indictments. The long
deposition follows, within which sometimes whole poems are quoted and sometimes
only fragments of poems. The text concludes with two Censorate documents that detail
the disposition of the case.
2) The Shih hsien fW A , also in one chian compiled by Chou Tzu-chih 1 #
(1082-1151), is primarily a literary document." The text is arranged as an anthology
of the shorter poems, which are always quoted in full, followed by explications from
the deposition appended as commentary. There is also some commentary from other
sources.
3) Chapters
by Hu 42-45virtually
Tzu Tff include of the T'iao-hsi yii-yin
all the material alsots'ung-hua 8 i ,deposition
present in the P. completed
of the in 1148
Wu-t'ai shih-an.5
Although each of these three collections differs in its arrangement of material, there
are only minor textual variations in the material relating to any specific poem. Each
version derives in its own way from the original Censorate dossier compiled during
the interrogation of Su Shih, whose holograph copy survived for a least a hundred
years after the events.6
3The present text derives from Li T'iao-yiian's ~9 f (1734-1803) Han-hai i 1782 reprinting of a Sung
copy. I have used the TSCC edition and the more critical edition of Sung Tse-yuian 1 i fl in the Ch'an-hua
an ts'ung-shu ' ?t i R l of 1887. Earlier editions seem no longer to exist. I have also consulted with great
profit the Mei-shan shih-an kuang-cheng ii h4 E r in six chilan by the Ch'ing scholar Chang Chien
(1768-1850). Published in 1884, this is an exhaustive study of the Wu-t'ai shih-an that includes textual notes,
extensive quotations from parallel texts, and a collection of other Sung source material relating to Su Shih's
trial. The work seems not to have been reprinted; there is a copy of the original edition in the Gest East
Asian Library at Princeton University.
4I have used the TSCC edition which reprints the Hsiaeh-hai lei-pien - i~ F~ text of 1831. The text of the
Shih hsien is virtually identical to the material from the "Wu-t'ai shih-an" contained in the fourth chapter of
the Shih-lin kuang-chi t t compiled by Ts'ai Cheng-sun , I ,f, a disciple of Hsieh Fang-te - t/ 8
(1226-1289), in 1289 (rpt. Peking: Chung-hua, 1982; pp. 257-272). The text is also included in the Sung-
shih chi-shih 2d I # compiled by Li E 2 (1692-1752) and printed in 1746 (rpt. Shanghai: Ku-chi, 1983;
1.513-522).
5Hu Tzu, T'iao-hsi yil-yen ts'ung-hua (rpt. Taipei: Shih-chieh, 1966), 1.286-310.
60f these three versions, the provenance and integrity of the third is the most secure. Hu Tzu relates that
his father worked in the Censorate at the end of Northern Sung and made a copy of the original dossier of

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
Legal and Political Aspects of the Case Against Su Shih
All societies practice censorship in some degree and in some form. In the West,
routine connotations of the term bring to mind the proscription of written texts, their
confiscation and destruction, controls on their distribution, and punishment for pos-
session. These actions in turn assume that some standard has been set and some
mechanism established to determine which writings are objectionable. These
dures have sometimes included imprisonment and interrogation of the auth
lishers, and readers of such writings. It is interesting to note that all of thes
teristics were present in some degree and in some form in the proceedings a
Shih.
The Censorate officials who formulated the case in 1079 relied on well-established
principles and statutes of traditional Chinese law. The Sung criminal code, the Sung
hsing-t'ung 2 m~~ , promulgated in 963, was derived almost verbatim from the mo
famous T'ang code, the T'ang-lii shu-i J & m .7 Article 122 of the code, entitl
"denunciation of the imperial chariot" 4 it- . , prohibited the expression of critical

comments directed against the emperor. The statute distinguished between two degre
of violation: where the "circumstances were completely reprehensible," the punishme
was death by decapitation; where the circumstances were less than "completely re-
Su Shih's trial. This copy was more detailed than " current printed edition of the Wu-t'ai shih-hua 4
8." Hu included excerpts from his father's manuscript into his own work (THYYTH, 1.286). Chou Pi
relates that he saw sometime after 1145 a copy of the dossier in Su Shih's own hand that had been remo
from the Censorate files in 1127 by Chang Shou t': (1084-1145). This holograph contained emendatio
each of which had been initialed by Su Shih and sanctioned with a Censorate seal (Erh-lao-t'ang shih-hu
p. 31). Su Shih himself relates that the dossier contained "several hundred poems" the Censorate authorit
had gathered from the Hang-chou area alone (SSSC 21/1091). Ch'en Chen-sun P 4 ,(1190?-1249) record
in his Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i R , (rpt. Shanghai: Ku-chi, [1987]:330) a Wu-t'ai shih-hua in
chian compiled by P'eng Chiu-wan of Szechwan. It contained material from the original dossier that P'e
had augmented with writings from both before and after the trial, presumably with the intention of giving
more context to the dossier text.
It is possible to deduce several facts from the above information. First, the original dossier was much larger
than the present text of the Wu-t'ai shih-an. Second, Hu Tzu saw a printed edition called the Wu-t'ai shih-
hua sometime around the middle of the twelfth century. It was shorter than his father's manuscript. Third,
Ch'en Chen-sun likewise saw a printed edition of the Wu-t'ai shih-hua whose format resembled the present
text of the Wu-t'ai shih-an but which was much larger.
It therefore seems possible to conclude that the present surviving material comprises at least two excerptions
of the original dossier: 1) by Chou Tzu-chih in the form of a short text in the shih-hua format that survives
today as the Shih hsien; 2) by Hu Tzu from his father's manuscript for the T'iao-hsi yi-yin ts'ung-hua. P'eng
Chiu-wan, sometime before 1148, put together the deposition with other surviving related documents to
form the 13 chapter Wu-t'ai shih-hua recorded by Ch'en Chen-sun. But this book in turn disappeared, and
the present Wu-t'ai shih-an was reconstituted by an unknown author at a later date from Hu Tzu's excerpts
according to P'eng Chiu-wan's original format as described by Ch'en Chen-sun.
For notices on the bibliography of the Wu-t'ai shih-an, see the Ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu tsung-mu t'i-yao (rpt.
Taipei: Shang-wu, 1971), 13/100 p. 1396); Kuo Shao-yii, Chung-kuo wen-hsiieh p'i-p'ing shih (Shanghai:
Shang-wu, 1934-47), I. 391-392; and George Hatch in Etienne Balazs and Yves Hervouet, eds., A Sung
Bibliography (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1978), pp. 448-449.
7Chang-sun Wu-chi t ,, + , , T'ang-li shu-i J & L i (rpt. Peking: Chung-hua, 1983). For a study of the
code and translation of the first chapter, see Wallace Johnson, The T'ang Code. Volume I. General Principles
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). In this study I have adopted Johnson's continuous numbering
of the 502 individual statutes of the T'ang code. For the Sung code, see Sung hsing-t'ung (Peking: Kuo-wu
yiian-fa-chih-chii M Ii 1Ur ~ 1918; rpt. Taipei: Wen-hai, 1964). On the latter see also Jacques Gernet in
Sung Bibliography, p. 185.

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
prehensible," the punishment was two year's "penal servitude" A . Should the
transgression occur during the midst of governmental policy discussions, the accused
could petition the emperor for clemency.8 These distinctions obviously attempted to
address the issue of intentionality, and Su Shih's accusers took great pains to document
his intentional denunciation of the emperor.
Even more potentially troubling for Su Shih, and the reason why the censors at-
tempted to prosecute him under article 122, was the inclusion of the latter among the
"ten abominations" - . These were a special grouping of statues whose violation
was regarded as especially heinous. Special provisions made those convicted of these
crimes much less able to evade punishment. Groups accorded special legal protection,
such as government officials, were not allowed to exercise their special privileges when
convicted of these crimes; amnesties almost never applied; and the death sentence was
carried out immediately.9
Article 122 was included under the sixth of the ten abominations-"great irrever-
ence" (ta pu-ching h: { c ), a category of crimes against the emperor and the insignia
of the imperial state.10 The indictment of Shu Tan specifically mentions that the words
of Su Shih "have denounced the imperial chariot and can be said to be great irrev-
erence."11 This category and the related category of pu-tao { i "depravity" were used
at least since Han times against those accused of speaking ill of the emperor or gov-
ernment policies.12 For example, in 72 BC Hsia-hou Sheng $I f was imprisoned for
criticizing the policies of the former Emperor Wu, maintaining that an edict of his
should not be followed. This "criticism of an imperial edict and slander of a former
emperor" was considered pu-tao, "depraved."'3 Similarly, in 36 BC the well-known I-
ching specialist Ching Fang ,. E was beheaded for "criticizing and speaking evil of the
government and imputing blame to the Son of Heaven."14
Despite the fact that the Sung monarchs had never executed an official for such
audacious outspokenness, there is ample evidence to suggest that Su Shih and his
supporters believed his execution was a very real possibility.'5 Indeed, the eagerness
of Censorate officials to break precedent by executing Su Shih, together with the in-
tensity with which the inquisition was conducted, suggests that much more than Su
Shih's own fate was at stake. The censors successfully widened the case against Su to
8T'ang-lii shu-i, p. 207.

9See Wallace Johnson, pp. 17ff.
'oJohnson, pp. 69-74.
"WTSA (TSCC ed.), p. 2; CHATS ed. 2b.
'2See the detailed study in A.F.P. Hulsewe, Remnants of Han Law. Volume 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1955), 156ff. esp.
pp. 169-176.
'3HS 75/3157; Hulsewe, p. 175.
'4HS 75/3167; Hulsewe, p. 176.
'5Su Shih himself states in the "Letter in Reply to Li Chih-i" (STPC 5/29/113) written in 1080 less than a
year after his release from prison that he was "sentenced almost to death" for speaking out on contemporary
affairs. According to the testimony of Tsu Wu-p'o f E (1029-1093), who was the assistant magistrate of
Hu-chou at the time of Su Shih's arrest, Su thought that he had committed crimes offensive enough to
receive "conferred death" 1PL (K'ung-shih t'an-yilan [Hui-pien #154]). The strongest evidence, however, is
Su Ch'e's letter of petition to the emperor written during his brother's confinement. He admits that some
poems are "so obvious they cannot be refuted or defended successfully, and for this he deserves the ultimate
punishment." See Luan-ch'eng chi g i (Shanghai: Ku-chi, 1987), pp.777-778 and Shimizu Shigeru, T6-Sb
hakkabun (Tokyo: Asahi shimbunsha, 1966), II, 373.

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
involve over thirty other individuals, all of whom had had literary contact with him.
Obviously, the heavier the final sentence imposed against Su, the heavier would be
the sentences imposed against the others. The physical arrangement of the deposition
confirms this intention of the censors to cast as wide a net as possible: most poems in
the deposition are grouped under the name of the individual to whom they were
addressed, rather than listed by their titles, as in the Shih hsien literary arrangement.
The clear intent is to build a case not only for the subversive content of the texts but
also for the subversive nature of the personal associations they document.
By far the most important individual involved was Wang Shen (1036?-1103?),
a rich nobleman who had married the second daughter of Emperor Ying-tsung (1032-
1067). The deposition subsection concerning Su Shih's relations with Wang Shen is
by far the longest and most detailed in the Wu-t'ai shih-an.'6 It chronicles relations
between the two men beginning ten years earlier in 1069, emphasizing not only their
literary but also their financial, social, and artistic ties. Wang repeatedly sent Su Shih
valuable presents, especially paintings, supplied him with materials to mount his own
paintings, and lent him money for his niece's wedding that had not been repaid. The
central charge, however, is that Wang Shen had caused to be printed a three chian
edition of Su Shih's poems entitled Ch'ien-t'ang chi i3 ~ (Hang-chou Poems). This
collection contained subversive poems that Su Shih had secretly sent to Wang Shen.
The first indictment specifically mentions that "Su Shih's satirical writings have cir-
culated widely among the people. We are forwarding for Your Majesty's perusal those
which have been recently obtained from the market, where they have been printed
from wooden blocks and offered for sale."'17 The Ch'ien-t'ang chi included poems that
later became among Su Shih's best-loved, such as "Jesting with Tzu-yu" Ak fi and
the five "Mountain Village" poems Jhj .18
The deposition is careful to indicate which poems were included in this printed
edition and which came to light during the subsequent course of the investigation.
Initially, Su Shih denied that the poems in the Ch'ien-t'ang chi criticized government
policy, with the sole exception of the "Mountain Village" poems, where the satire was
obvious. He denied he had written any other such poems. But as the censors questioned
Wang Shen and other associates (Huang T'ing-chien was questioned as far away as
Ta-ming in Hopei) and retrieved from them manuscript copies of poems, Su Shih was
confronted with a growing number of obviously subversive texts, the existence of which
he had initially denied. The most blatant example was the "Poem on the Dredging of
the Salt Transport Canal" _~l~- , which described in graphic scenes the disruption
of agricultural life that state regulation of the salt trade had brought to the countryside.19
Another factor that both enticed and incensed the censors was the popularity of
Su Shih's verse. The first indictment states that "there is nothing he has not slandered
or ridiculed. The common people therefore expect that as soon as there is a flood or
a famine or an outbreak of banditry, Su Shih will surely be the first to criticize the
'6TSCC ed., pp. 6-9; CHATS ed. 7b-13a.

17TSCC ed. p. 1; CHATS ed. lb. Shu Tan's indictment also mentions printing (TSCC ed., p. 2) as does the
final notice of conviction (p. 33).
'8SSSC 7/324-326, 7/437-440; Michael Anthony Fuller, "The Poetry of Su Shi (1037-1101)," (unpublished
Ph.D. diss. Harvard University, 1983), pp. 237-242, 246-247; Burton Watson, Su Tung-p'o (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1965), p. 44.
19SSSC 8/388-390; Fuller, pp. 243-245.

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
situation, attributing all blame to the New Policies."20 Chao I has called attention to
the crucial interrelationship between printing and public popularity in this case, sug-
gesting that publication of the Ch'ien-t'ang chi afforded Su Shih immediate and wide-
spread notoriety as a poet, which, in turn drew the attention of the censors toward
him.21
It is also certain that the censors chose Su Shih as the pivotal figure in their case
because of his wide circle of acquaintances, his activities, and literary contacts among
the anti-Wang An-shih party. As a political document, the Wu-t'ai shih-an must be
viewed squarely in the context of the struggle between Wang An-shih I &'E (1021-
1086) and his and

7k (1019-1086) "reform party" to institute
his "conservative the "New
party" to oppose thesePolicies" andMost
policies.22 Ssu-ma Kuang a,
historians
regard Su Shih and his brother Su Ch'e i (1039-1112) as leaders of a "Szechwan
party," which, although it maintained its own intellectual independence from either
of the two major parties, sided with Ssu-ma Kuang and the conservatives on most
practical issues. Su Shih had been a vocal opponent of the "New Policies" since their
inception in 1069-1070. His famous "nine-thousand-word letter" submitted to Emperor
Shen-tsung (r. 1067-1085) in 1071 is among the classic expressions of anti-Wang An-
shih opinion.23 And so it is not surprising that the majority of poems in the Wu-t'ai
shih-an were seen as hostile to various aspects of the "New Policies" or their advocates.
Although the emperor retained the "New Policies" until his death in 1085, unrelenting
opposition, uncertain tangible benefits derived from the policies themselves, and in-
ternal dissention within the Wang party all eroded his earlier enthusiasm. Wang's
resignation from Court late in 1076 left the reform party without a leader and even
more vulnerable to attack.
The general political background for the case against Su Shih seems clear, even if
specific motivations have yet to be determined. Politically, the case is best viewed as
a preemptive strike by remaining members of the reform party to prohibit the opposition
from generating enough cohesion to challenge their dominance of the emperor and
control of the government. Li Ting and Shu Tan, the major shapers of the Censorate
case, were both early partisans of Wang An-shih. Li Ting was appointed head of the
Censorate in 1078, a year before the case against Su Shih. Also possibly relevant may
be the elevation of Ts'ai Ch'iieh (1037-1093) to the Privy Council in the fifth
month of 1079. Ts'ai had previously served in the Censorate where he acquired a
reputation for the political use of lawsuits to further his own career.24
It is also possible the case was in some way ultimately directed through Wang Shen
against the Empress Hsfian-jen sheng-lieh A 'i ~ ! (1032-1093), whose pro-conserv-
ative leanings were well-known and under whose regency (1085-1093) the conserv-
20WTSA (TSCC ed.), p. 1; CHATS ed. lab.

210u-pei shih-hua, pp. 64-65.
22There is a sizable literature on the subject. Still useful are H.R. Williamson, Wang An Shih (2 vols. London:
Probsthain, 1935) and James T.C. Liu, Reform in Sung China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959).
For an excellent summary of the intellectual positions of the two parties, see Peter Bol, "Principles of Unity:
On the Political Visions of Ssu-ma Kuang (1019-1086) and Wang An-shih (1021-1086)," unpublished man-
uscript, ACLS Conference on Sung Dynasty Statecraft in Thought and Action, January 1986.
23CCSL ch. 24; STPC 13/11/38-50; partial translation in Wm. Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of Chinese
Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 1,425-431.
24SS 471/13698-13699; HTCTC 74/1856.

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
atives returned to power during the Yiian-yu period (1086-1093). The Hsfian-jen Em-
press was the wife of Emperor Ying-tsung, mother of Emperor Shen-tsung and of Wang
Shen's wife, the Princess Wei-kuo ta-chang REA & (1051-1080). Many members of
the future Yiian-yu government were implicated in the case against Su Shih.25
There is also one important indication that the origins of the case against Su Shih
may go back to 1073-1074, well before the retirement of Wang An-shih. According to
this account, when Shen Kua iRt (1031-1095) was appointed regional inspector of
Che-chiang, the emperor asked him to visit Su Shih who was then administrative
assistant at Hang-chou. Shen Kua took advantage of his visit to have a copy made of
Su's recent poems which he presented to the Court upon his return with the comment
that the "expressions were all abusive and hateful." Su Shih heard of Shen Kua's
actions but made light of them, and nothing came of the event until Li Ting and Shu
Tan developed the idea of turning Su's poetry into a law case.26
Literary Aspects of the Wu-t'ai shih-an
There are several ways the student of Sung literature might approach the Wu-t'ai
shih-an. The material can obviously be viewed as a collection of Su Shih's poetry on
social and political issues. As we have seen above, Su Shih's deposition was reworked
by Chou Tzu-chih into a short anthology; the numerous times Chou's work was copied
verbatim into other larger collections testify to the appeal of this approach.
As an anthology of poetry by one of China's master poets, and as a collection whose
relationship to Sung political history is clear and acknowledged by author, contem-
porary reader, and modern reader alike, the Wu-t'ai shih-an provides an excellent op-
portunity to study the literary atmosphere under which such political poetry was written
and read in the Northern Sung. The rhetorical structures through which the poetry
expresses the author's opposition to government policies play a vital role in defining
this atmosphere, and much of Su Shih's deposition is devoted to elucidating these
structures.
It is useful to begin with the "Mountain Village" poems. The censors felt this se
to be so obviously offensive that Shu Tan quoted from it in his initial indictmen
25These include Ssu-ma Kuang, Su Ch'e, Huang T'ing-chien, Wang Kung I *, Li Ch'ang 4 S (1027-1
Sun Ch'iieh , (1028-1090), Liu Chih (1030-1097), Liu Pin fi (1023-1089), and other lesser fig
Related to the above hypothesis is the painting attributed to Li Kung-lin L~ 4(ca. 1040-1106) entitled
"Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden," which depicts a gathering of sixteen literati in a garden belon
to Wang Shen. Ellen Johnston Laing ("Real or Ideal: the Problem of the 'Elegant Gathering in the We
Garden' in Chinese Historical and Art Historical Records," JAOS 88.3 [1968]: 419-435) has argued persuas
that the gathering never took place and that the painting was probably done in the early Southern Su
a tribute to the Yiian-yu partisans, then undergoing political rehabilitation. If this interpretation is cor
the setting of the painting in Wang Shen's garden would suggest that he once served as a focal point
the anti-reform party. Wang Shen, Su Shih, Su Ch'e, Huang T'ing-chien, and Wang Kung were all
involved in the Wu-t'ai shih-an affair and portrayed in the painting. Wang Shen, whose interests were
artistic than political, lost influence as a result of his exile over the poetry incident and the subsequent de
of his wife, the princess, one year later in 1080. For an excellent study, see Weng T'ung-wen Wi' RI, "
Shen sheng-p'ing k'ao-liieh" IR 4 7 P Sung-shih yen-chiu chi & ff R 4, vol. 5 (Taipei: T'ai-wan
tien, 1970), pp. 135-168 and H. Franke, ed., Sung Biographies. Painters (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1976),.pp.
147.
26Wang Chih ' $, Yiian-yu pu-lu nT i~~i~ft(Hui-pien #151). Wang quotes this story as the words of Shen
Kua himself.

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more detailed analysis is included in the deposition section on Wang Shen, since these
poems were included in the Ch'ien-t'ang chi which Wang had published. Su Shih's
deposition carefully relates how the descriptive details of these poems delineate their
political import:
The second of the "Mountain Village" poems reads,

In the mist of drizzle and rain, sounds of chickens and dogs,
yet nowhere do the people live in peace.
If we could just make them stop carrying yellow calves from their belts,
then even the cuckoo would not have to trouble himself to urge them on to the planting.
My meaning is that at that time many of the private salt traders carried knives and clubs.
Therefore
ordered the Ipeople
used the words
to sell of and
swords Kung Sui
buy 4. i_toin
oxen, the
sell Ch'ien
their Hanand
knives shu (89/3640)
buy calves, "he
saying 'why carry oxen and calves from your belts?' " My meaning is that if we were
to relax the salt laws, then the people would not wear knives and swords and would
buy oxen and calves and plant the fields of their own accord, so we would not have
to trouble ourselves to exhort and supervise them. By this I criticized the Court, saying
that the salt laws are too severe and are not effective.
The third poem of the series reads,

An old man of seventy, sickle at his waist,
feels guilty the spring mountain bamboo and bracken are sweet.
It's not that the music of Shao has made him lose his sense of taste,
It's just that he's eaten his food for three months without salt.
This says that the people in the mountains are impoverished and have nothing to eat.
Although old, this man must still pick himself bamboo shoots and bracken to satisfy
his hunger. The salt laws of the time were too severe and strict. People in poor and
remote places had no salt to eat. This had been the situation for several months, as
when the Sage of old lost his appetite when hearing the music of Shao (cf. Analects
7/13). How can the mountain people enjoy eating bland food? By this I criticized the
severity of the salt laws.
The fourth poem of the series reads,

With pigweed staff and bundles of boiled rice, he hurries off;
but his green-sprout money, in a glance, passes to other hands and is gone.
All he's gained is a good accent for the children,
for half the year he's forced to live in the city.
My meaning here is that as soon as the common people receive the green-sprout money,
they at once squander it in the cities. It also means that the country people twice yearly
must pay summer and autumn taxes and several other levies, to which is now added
the green-sprout and corv6e assistance monies, with the result that the children from
the families who work on the great estates are often in the cities, where they become
disorderly and learn nothing but a city accent. By this I criticized the Court and the
New Policies, saying that the green-sprout and corv6e assistance plans were not ef-
fective.27
27WTSA (TSCC ed.), pp. 7-8; CHATS ed. 9b-10b; Shih hsien, pp. 2-3; SLKC, pp. 258-260; SSCS, 1.514; THYYTH,
p. 288; SSSC 9/437-440; Watson, p. 44; Fuller, pp. 246-247. LJ~ B --- E 7 41g

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One will note that although all three poems are descriptive, Su Shih has carefully
focused his attention in the deposition on those details of "mountain village" life that
the New Policies have made more difficult. Accordingly, the exegesis does not dwell
on aesthetic aspects of the poems but concentrates on detailing their political import.
References to the Ch'ien Han shu and the Analects that develop this import are expli-
cated; but the "pigweed staff" and "wrapped up rice," references to Chuang-tzu (Watson
tr., pp. 91, 316) that are probably not elements of realistic description and that serve
to dignify the stature of the peasant, thus making his present plight all the more
lamentable, are not explicated. Su Shih's opposition to the salt laws and the green-
sprout loans was well-known. He wrote in a memorial, for instance, that "every time
I have witnessed the dispersal of the green-sprout monies, there has been a sudden
increase in the stocks of alcoholic drink in the county seats, and the country people
have returned home empty-handed."28 In the case of the "Mountain Village" poems,
therefore, it was necessary only that Su Shih restate in precise and legal language the
obvious meaning of the poem. Most poems in the collection are considerably more
allusive and required more extensive exegesis. Representative of this group is the fol-
lowing poem sent to Liu Shu ,2, (1032-1078) in 1073 when Su Shih was serving as
controller-general of Hang-chou.
Resent not that these bright times do not accept you;29

I lament only that my teaching goes east with you.30
When you sit down to talk, it's enough to make Huai-nan afraid,31
2uoted
Although thein the commentary
wording of the deposition at
wasSSSC 9/439.
obviously a compromise between Su Shih and his accusers,
criticisms"
vast, in following
no onthe contemporary China.
passages from the Wu-Master'ai shoudih-an are continue to pranslated after the text of there is no harm
28Quoted in the commentary at SSSC 9/439.

29Shih
hua-an
29Shih chi chi Peking:
ts'ung-shu
([rpt. ([rpt. Peking:
edi([rpt.
Chung-hua, Chung-hua,
Peking:1959
Chung-hua, 1959
1965],
47/1932]; tr. 47/1932];
35/1207),
Chavannes, biography
Memoires tr.
of Chavannes,
Cheng
historiques first Mai-
[rpt. Paris: Mimoires
rather thsian thehistoriques
third person. [rpt. Paris: M
sonneuve, 1967], V, 369-370), biography of Confucius: "Yen Hui said, 'Because the Master's teaching
had completed his studies with Ma Jung and preparlly composed the document himselfpart, as is said, "Whe practice oncerning departself-
criticisms" in contemporary China.
in its not being accepted; for even though it is not accepted now, later one will recognize you as a chfin-
in its not being accepted; for even though it is not accepted now, later one will recognize you as a chain-
tzu."
tzu."
Hasonneuve, 1967], V 50/2319-370), biography of Chi Aonfucius: "YWhen the King of Huai-nan wthe Mas ploter's teaching rebellion, heso
30Hou Han-shu ([rpt. Peking: Chung-hua, 1965], 35/1207), biography of Cheng Hsiian U6~ when Cheng
feared Chi An, saying, 'Chi An acceptis fond of giving honee Master should crmontinue to praectice it, saince his integrity to thearm
had completed his studies with Ma Jung and prepared to depart, Ma said, "When Master Cheng departs
today, my teaching goes east."
31Han shu 50/2319, biography of Chi An k~~ ~: "When the King of Huai-nan was plotting rebellion, he
feared Chi An, saying, 'Chi An is fond of giving honest remonstrances; he will maintain his integrity to the
death. As for persuading men like Kung-sun Heng, it's as easy as uncovering a jar." So the saying arose
"When Chi An was at Court, the plotting of Huai-nan was put to rest" (San-kuo chih [rpt. Peking: Chung-
hua, 1959], 52/1238).

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
when you return home, the north of Chi will be empty of horses.32
A lone crane need not cry out day or night,33
in a flock of crows there's no way to tell male from female.34
The teaching of Hui-yian of Lu-shan has never spread this far,
but in a recluse like yourself, it's developed in every detail.
Su Shih's deposition on these strings of erudition reads as follows:
I considered that Liu Shu was learned and had an honest personality; therefore, I composed
this poem to praise him and by means of it indirectly to criticize those who currently
hold power. In the first line I meant that just because Liu Shu had at that time been
dismissed from his academic post in the capital to work at supervising the alcohol tax
collection, he should not resent that the times do not accept him. Ma Jung said to Cheng
Hsiian "My teaching goes east," so I used this as a metaphor for Liu Shu. "When Chi
An was at Court, Huai-nan put to rest his plots" is also used as a metaphor for the
integrity of Liu Shu. And Han Yii wrote "the herds to the north of Chi were emptied
of [uncommonly good] horses." This means that in the academy there are no good
men. Hsi Shao "stood out prominently like a wild crane in a flock of chickens." There
is also Huai-nan tzu "The chickens know the approach of dawn, the crane knows the
depths of the night." Using the crane as a metaphor for Liu Shu means that others are
the chickens. The ode sayd, "They all say, 'We are wise.'/ Yet who can know the male
from the female crow?" My meaning here is that among those currently in power there
are chzin-tzu and petty men mixed together like crows among whom there is no way
to tell male from female.35
One should perhaps begin by pointing out that this poem is by no means as allusive
or as recondite as Su Shih was capable of writing. The ability to turn scholarship into
verse was routine among Chinese poets, but Su Shih excelled at the practice. A story
recorded by Wang Kung (1048-1104), one of Su Shih's best friends, testifies to
his prowess at these exercises of memory and erudition. One day during the trial, Li
Ting remarked to a group of officials outside the Court, "Su Shih is an extraordinary
talent!" When no one quite knew how to respond to this remark from Su Shih's chief
prosecutor, Li continued, "Whatever question we posed to him concerning his quo-
32Han Yii (768-824), "Preface Seeing Off Wen Tsao on His Return to the Ho-Yang Army" (Ma Ch'i-ch'ang,
ed., Han Ch'ang-li wen chi chiao-chu [Shanghai: Ku-tien, 1957], p. 164-165): "Once Po-lo passed through
the wilds in the north of Chi, and the herds were emptied [of uncommonly good] horses."
33Shih-shuo hsin-yai (Richard Mather, tr., A New Account of Tales of the World [Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1976], p. 311): "Someone said to Wang Jung, 'Hsi Shao stands out prominently like a wild
crane in a flock of chickens.' " Also Huai-nan tzu (SPTK ed.) 16/5b: "The chickens know the approach of
dawn, the crane knows the depths of the night."
34Shih-ching (SPPY ed.) 12/4b: "They all say, 'We are wise.'/Yet who can know the male from the female
crow?"
35WTSA (TSCC ed.), p. 26; CHATS ed. 34b-35a; Shih hsien, p. 6; SLKC, pp. 264-265; SSCS, 1.517; THYYTH,
p. 300; SSSC 11/331-332.
~ L1Jh~1;5{~'] k-f ~ E tLK~, f ~1Vi~P ~

IJrH4~] ~J IF; 4Z ~ttt~?r: f

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
tations from the classics or commentaries in over thirty years of his prose and verse
compositions, he responded at once without the mistake of even a single character.
Truly, he is one of the most extraordinary talents in the empire!"36
With this story in mind, one sees that Su Shih's rhetorical technique in the poem
for Liu Shu goes far beyond that of simple allusion or linguistic borrowing. The poem's
positive "metaphors" a for Liu Shu-Chi An, the good horse, and the lone crane-
would all be apparent without the aid of Su Shih's exegesis. And yet each of these
correspondences also involves an implicit negative comparison through which criticism
is indirectly aimed at those who are not like Liu Shu. If Liu Shu's integrity is like that
of Chi An, then who is Huai-nan? If there are no good horses in Chi, then implicitly
only bad horses remain. If Liu Shu is a lone crane, who then are the chickens? Su
Shih's exegesis makes these equations explicit: by praising Liu Shu, I am criticizing
those now in power who have dismissed him. This meaning emerges, however, only
when the original context of the references is known.
Another poem included in the accusations against Su Shih reveals even more clearly
how praise for a friend could also signify criticism of his political opponents. In 1070
many of Ou-yang Hsiu's former disciples were being removed from Court positions
to make way for the new administration of Wang An-shih. Among these was Tseng
Kung a (1019-1083), for whom Su Shih composed a departure poem that by praising
the virtues of Tseng assails the shallowness of his adversaries.
Item. In 1070 there was the poem seeing off Tseng Kung. Tseng Kung's tzu was Tzu-ku.
In that year, in accordance with an imperial edict, he was appointed controller-general
of Yiieh-chou. As he was about to depart, his colleagues in the academies, in accordance
with the old custom, gave him a banquet to see him off. We all divided rhymes, and
I received the rhyme yen. I composed a poem seeing off Tseng Kung, which reads:
The scholars around the gate of Ou-yang Hsiu

were so many it was hard to excel as wise.
Master Tseng, alone, surpassed the others:
a solitary fragrance that made vile the mass of beauties.37
When Ou-yang came up from the South,
you flew swiftly together with him.38
Now that Ou-yang his suffered distress,
it is only right you should go also.39
Chia I, at his nadir, went to Ch'u;
Master Yieh, in old age, still thought of Yen.
How could one because of the delicacy of Yangtze minced fish
36Chia-shen tsa-chi Ffi PP ME (Hui-pien #175). See also THYYTH, p. 286.

37The Ch'ing commentator of Su Shih's poetry, Wang Wen-kao 7 Z & (1764-?), suggests that the opening
quatrain may allude to the fact that many of Ou-yang Hsiu's disciples and proteges either turned against
him or sided with Wang An-shih. Such an interpretation would thus establish at the onset of the poem the
contrast between that group and the unique virtues of Tseng Kung.
38Following Tseng Kung's chin-shih degree in 1057, Ou-yang Hsiu appointed him to work in the office of
historiography.
39This refers to Ou-yang Hsiu's transfer to Ts'ai-chou in 1070 for failing to implement provisions of the
New Policies. See James T.C. Liu, Ou-yang Hsiu (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967), pp. 82-84.

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
then detest the rank odors of Heaven's Kitchen?40
But you suffer the narrowness of the world's opinion

that grates on the ear like chirping cicadas.
This criticizes indirectly that many unfeeling men have recently been employed at Co
that their opinions are narrow-minded and make a raucous din like the sound of cica
and that they do not deserve to be heard. There is also [the final couplet]:
Where can we find a pond of ten-thousand ch'ing

to nurture this sturgeon that spans the seas?41
With these lines I created a metaphor for the expansive talent of Tseng Kung.42
40This complex series of allusions urges Tseng Kung to accept his assignment to Yiieh-chou as te
and to harbor no resentment. Chia I R was slandered and exiled to Ch'u but in several years was su
to return to Court (SC 84/2492; Watson, 1,509). Since this poem closes with a quotation from Chia I's "L
for Ch'i Yuian," Su Shih clearly intends Chia I to be the major parallel for Tseng Kung. Yiueh I &
third century BC general for the state of Yen who, despite ungrateful treatment at the hands of i
house, refused to criticize his sovereign (SC 80/2427-2434). Heaven's Kitchen is a star where the Han
Liu An 'i 1 was assigned to serve a temporary probation before being admitted to the Court of th
scendents (Wang Ming, ed., Pao-p'u tzu [Peking: Chung-hua, 1985], p. 350). Heaven's Kitchen th
for a distasteful yet temporary assignment, as opposed to the pleasures of full retirement (Yangtz
fish), and the lines can be paraphrased thus:
Your talents equal those of Chia I, who at the low point

in his career, was exiled to Ch'u, but returned;
be like Yiueh I, who was loyal without rancor to the end.
How can you be enticed by the pleasures of retirement,
when your exile is only temporary and your return to Court assured?
41Su Shih's final couplet is an allusion to the final lines of Chia I's "Lament for Chiu' Yi
/-, AEon{ the
Studies ~2 f..,
Han ? F.l-.?
Fu," 20 /
Parerga , [tl] ]fA
I [1968], p. 13):. David Knechtges translates these lines ("
How can a dirty eight- or sixteen-foot ditch

Accommodate a giant fish that can swallow a boat?
The whale that becomes stranded in a river or lake
Will certainly be controlled by mole-crickets and ants.
Chia I's lines are certainly based, as Knechtges observes, on Chuang-tzu 61/23/11 (Harvard-Yenching ed.):
"If a fish that can swallow a boat is left dry by the overflowing of the waters, then even crickets and ants
can persecute him." But it is difficult to see how heng k& can be understood as "stranded," which seems
to follow Watson's paraphrase: "The whale, stranded on the river shoals,/ Ants and crickets feed upon!"
(Records of the Grand Historian of China [New York: Columbia, 1961], 1,511). Heng seems best understood in
its usual meaning of "to span, to traverse," thus serving to emphasize the great size of the fish in contrast
to the smallness of the ditch to which it is confined. The ditch cannot accommodate such a great fish:
"sturgeons and whales that span the rivers and lakes/ will certainly [in this case] be controlled by crickets
and ants." This "sea-spanning fish" Wj 2i4 soon became a euphemism for the great man, as in Li Po's line
& ,of
cup 'V,water-/
RE 2- .(Li T'ai-poaccommodate
can hardly ch'iian-chi [Peking: Chung-hua,
a fish that 1977]One
spans the seas." 17/791): "The
will note state
that of Lu-a
Su Shih's single
allusion
to Chia I's couplet forces the characterization of Tseng Kung's oppressors as "crickets and ants," which the
T'ang commentary to the Shih chi glosses as "slanderous thieves and petty retainers" (SC 84/2496).
42WTSA (TSCC ed.), p. 24; CHATS ed. 32ab; Shih hsien, p. 10; SLKC, p. 269-270; SSCS, 1.520; THYYTH, p.
301; SSSC 6/244-246.

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In this case, Su Shih's moral support for Tseng Kung, who had lost his Court position
as a consequence of the rise of the Wang An-shih party, is contrasted against Su's
disdain for Tseng's oppressors. And the stated equation of Tseng Kung with Chia I
and the resulting unstated, indirect equation of the "slanderers" who persecuted Chia
I with the Wang An-shih party suffuses the poem with a definite opposition flavor that
was obvious to the censors. The good-natured jocular hints that Tseng Kung's exile
would be only temporary certainly exacerbated rather than mitigated this flavor nine
years later at Su Shih's trial in 1079.
Another entry in the deposition reveals how similar praise for the high moral values
of a friend could be read as an expression of anti-establishment feelings, even when
the surrounding context was clearly non-political:
Item. In 1074 when I was serving as controller-general of Hang-chou, on the twenty-

seventh day of the first month (25 February), I traveled to the Cave of the Wind and
Water. Li Pi, the prefectural judge of that district, knew that I was to come and was
waiting for me there. When I arrived, I left a poem inscribed on the wall. Its final
couplet was non-conformist and said:
[In the
here, spring
I cannot mountain
but chant is the
my poems.43 sound of the spring chukar; l-
The road is long and meandering, beside the river shore; ii
here, I cannot but want to talk to you. Lt Pi -
But I do not find you beside the golden carp pond;
searching for you, I pass the village at Ting Mountain.44
The people by the road all say you are not far ahead:
a young man clean and handsome riding a horse.
The wind grotto and the water cave have long been famous, ,
but at night, separated by a mountain brook, I cannot proceed.
At dawn, plum calyxes float by under the bridge across the brook,
and I know that you have tied your horse where grotto flowers fall. "
Three days since leaving town, you're still wandering about,
your wife and children wondering when you will return.] ,

The little ones of this world boast how fast they run;
but where are those today with an outlook such as yours?
With these lines I satirized the many petty men of the world who strive to advance qu
This poem was not written to be given to Li Pi. In the same year, we traveled
to the Cave of Wind and Water; and there was the couplet:
The milk-white water from the mountain cuts us off from W i aL 7
the dusty world, LI ? 4 4
the transcendent winds on the mountain top make dance
the juniper and pines.
Delicate and fine the dragon scales emerge from the jumbled rocks,
in swirls the winds blow around the empty crags. ,
43Che-che f f is used here onomatopoetically for the call of the chukar.

44The golden carp pond was on the grounds of the K'ai-hua Temple BP {t # in the southern suburbs of Hang-
chou; Ting Mountain was about fifteen miles southwest of Hang-chou.

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The underground chamber of P'ing-i has no beams and pillars;

the chariot of Lieh-tzu does without harness or reins.]45
As the affairs of the world become increasingly more difficult, I want to depart
and forever follow those two masters and so avoid ridicule and slander.
My meaning here is that after the promulgation of the New Policies, the "affairs of the
world" have daily become more difficult. Many petty men strive to slander and defame.
I have decided that at this time I can neither conform, nor can I abide them. Therefore,
I desire to resign my office and live in retirement.46
In both these poems, only the final couplets are cited as being "non-conformist."
Otherwise they are quite routine exercises in the sub-genre of excursion verse. In both
cases, however, the expression of the desire to retire from office, the better to appreciate
the beauties of the natural world, is taken as dissatisfaction with and criticism of existing
government policy. This same technique of indirect reading and writing is also vital
to an important poem that formed the political core of the case against Su Shih. A
major fear of the Wang An-shih party following the withdrawal of their leader from
the chief ministership in 1076 was that Ssu-ma Kuang would be recalled from his
retirement in Lo-yang and asked to form a new government, as indeed happened
following the death of Emperor Shen-tsung in 1085. As we have seen above, it was
perhaps to forestall this possibility that the case against Su Shih was instigated, and
a6 passage in asSuevidence
i was used Shih's poem
that Su"Ssu-ma Kuang'sSsu-ma
Shih supported GardenKuang's
of Solitary
returnPleasures"
to power: ,iH ,%
Item. In 1077 Ssu-ma Kuang was serving as academician in the Tuan-ming Hall and
supervisor of the Ch'ung-fu Mansion (sinecure titles held during the period of his
withdrawal to Lo-yang). At Hsi-lo, he had restored an old garden and called it the
Garden of Solitary Pleasures. On the fifth day of the sixth month of this year (27 June),
I wrote a poem and sent it to be inscribed [in this garden]. In addition to lines that
contain no criticism, there are these lines:
Why have you alone nothing to do,

when the four quarters wish you to mold and to smelt?47
The children all chant Chiin-shih;
the messengers all know Ssu-ma.
I take your palm and laugh at you,
how all these years you've made like a mute.
45The couplet is constructed of doubled, parallel allusions in each line to Chuang-tzu (16/6/32 [Watson, p.
81] for P'ing-i; 2/1/19 [Watson, p. 32] for Lieh-tzu) and the Ch'u-tz'u ([SPPY ed.] 2/18b [Hawkes, p. 42] for
P'ing-i; 4/28b [Hawkes, p. 76] for Lieh-tzu). "Beams and pillars" are also metaphors for major state func-
tionaries; "harness and reins" for the fetters of state office. The couplet thus expresses the desire to live free
of bureaucratic entanglements and prepares for the couplet to follow.
46WTSA (TSCC ed.), p. 25; CHATS ed. 33b-34a; Shih hsien, p. 6, 10; SLKC, pp. 264, 270; SSCS, 1.516-517,
520-521; THYYTH, p. 301; SSSC 9/430-433.
47Cf. Huai-nan tzu (SPTK ed. 2/1b; trans. Eva Kraft, "Zum Huai-nan-tzu, "Monumenta Serica 16 [1957], 253)
where
of "to control.
political mold and smelt the ten thousand things" i ?; , ?j is used as a metaphor for the shaping power

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
[This poem] says that the people of the four seas all want Ssu-ma to take charge of the
government and to "mold and smelt" the empire. By this I criticize indirectly that those
in charge of the government are not the right people. I also say that children and
messengers all know his family and given name, and that ultimately he should be
employed at Court. The tzu of Ssu-ma Kuang was Chfin-shih. Because Kuang has
already said the New Policies are not suitable and because I have already expressed
the same opinion, when I say that ultimately he should be employed at Court, this is
also to criticize the Court and the New Policies as unsuitable and to maintain that
ultimately Kuang should be employed [to change these policies]. That Kuang has been
mute and does not speak means that I hope Kuang will, as he did before, attack [the
New Policies].48
In this case, the political power of the poem resides not in the ingenuity and al-
lusiveness of the indirection but rather in the fact that the indirection pointed to the
quite direct possibility of Ssu-ma Kuang's recall. There is contemporary evidence that
in 1077 Ssu-ma Kuang was so popular among the populace even in areas as far distant
from Lo-yang as Shantung that the mere rumor of his recall was sufficient to incite
spontaneous outbursts of jubilation in the streets.49 In such a politically charged at-
mosphere, even literary indirection much more subtle that Su Shih's poem for the
Garden of Solitary Pleasures could easily be understood as subversive of existing au-
thority. And once again, Su Shih admits that he expected his readers to understand
the opposite of what he wrote: by pointing out that Ssu-ma Kuang has been "mute"
for the ten years of his retirement he means to emphasize his hope that Ssu-ma Kuang
will not remain mute much longer.
Su Shih himself spoke directly to the rhetoric of the Wu-t'ai shih-an poems in the
"Memorial Requesting Provincial Assignment" written 3 December 1088:
In earlier times, the former Emperor summoned me to the audience hall and questioned
me on ancient and modern events (a reference to the "direct speech and full admonition"
examination which Su Shih passed in 1061). He also commanded me to speak forth
whenever I should encounter some important event. And so afterwards I often dis-
coursed on events, but my opinions were never put into practice. I therefore repeatedly
composed poems that lodged [meaning in] objects and made use of them for indirect
criticism " 1 &L in the hope they might circulate upward to reach His Majesty and
stimulate his sagacious understanding.50
In this passage Su Shih makes an implicit comparison between the composition of

his own poems and two major premises from the poetics of the Great Preface to the
Shih-ching: that poetry can be used to inform higher authority of social conditions if
48WTSA (TSCC ed.), p. 23-24; CHATS ed. 31b-32a; Shih hsien, p. 8-9; SLKC, pp. 267-269; SSCS, I. 519;
THYYTH, p. 300; SSSC 15/732-734.
~E't~ 4~ i%9fiYiY1i4 4: L;tjf~~~~~~4 /ffr

JLrI 9.'4% ,q .x i~L ti'r~~~1
49Wang P'i-chih i- l- (?-1096+), Sheng-shui yen-t'an lu Ml!E 7K,~.~ as quoted in Ting Ch'uan-ching JIf
4, Sung-jen i-shih hui-pien i2 A$ (rpt. Taipei: Shang-wu, 1982), II,517. On Wang's work, see Sung
Bibliography, p. 102.
s50CCSL 35/611; STPC 14/5/115.

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more normal channels of communication are blocked, and that such poetry most prop-
erly uses a rhetoric of indirection in which criticism is "lodged" in the description of
physical objects or scenery.
Su Shih's accusers also make reference to this rhetoric of lodged indirection. The
indictment of Li Ting charges that "even though his words may only touch upon things
he is dissatisfied with, his meaning always contains something lodged ... ET; % .?
Thus has he slandered his superiors and cursed his subordinates." One will note that
Li Ting is careful to avoid linking Su Shih's rhetoric of lodging with the poetics of the
Shih-ching. Su Ch'e, however, twice mentions the rhetoric of indirection in his brother's
trial verse, both times mentioning the Shih-ching:
He was then transferred to serve as magistrate of Hu-chou, but when he submitted his
memorial of gratitude to the Emperor, some critics excerpted his expressions to make
them seem slanderous. Officials were dispatched to arrest him and deliver him to the
Censorate prison. Previously, he had served in the provinces and had seen how matters
were not going well for the people. Although he dared not to speak out, neither did
he dare to look on in silence. So he followed the virtues of the Shih-ching poets and
made use of events to criticize indirectly R il, hoping thereby to be of some use
to the country.51
In recent years when he was serving as controller-general of Hang-chou and magistrate

of Mi-chou, whatever object he encountered he made use as hsing and so composed
poems, the language of which was perhaps sometimes light-hearted.52
In the poem to Liu Shu discussed earlier, for instance, the criticism of contemporary
events is "lodged" in the references to "objects" (the horse, the lone crane, the crows)
and past "events" (Cheng Hsiian, Chi An). In the poem for Tseng Kung, the criticism
is lodged in the analogy equating Tseng Kung and Chia I.
Two other sections of the deposition reveal the same process at work with a single
contemporary "event."
Item. In 1073 I was serving as controller-general of Hang-chou. At that time the magistrate
of the district was the drafting official Ch'en Hsiang (1017-1080); his tzu was Shu-ku.
In winter, the tenth month of that year, several peony trees blossomed in a Buddhist
temple. Ch'en Hsiang wrote four chfieh-chii, and I composed poems that matched his
rhymes. The first is:
One blossom of magic red, so bright the color could run right off,
spring's hues returned to shine and shame the frost and snow:
Nature's makers only wanted to show off their new talents,
never allowing the quiet flowers a moment's rest.
This poem indirectly criticizes those great ministers currently in charge of the government.
By taking Nature's makers as a metaphor for those in charge of the government and
by taking the quiet flowers as a metaphor for the common people, I mean that those
51"Epitaph for My Departed Brother Su Shih," Luan-ch'eng chi, p. 1414.

52"Letter On Behalf of My Imprisoned Brother Su Shih," Luan-ch'eng chi, p. 777.

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in power desire only to put forth new ideas and plans and that these make the common
people unable to obtain even a moment's rest.53
In this case, the use of a real, contemporary "event" to lodge a seemingly unrelated
meaning would probably go undetected by the modern reader without Su Shih's own
testimony to the poem's ultimate import. The presence, however, of several motifs
well-established in the literary tradition-an untimely natural occurrence (peonies
blooming in winter) as a token of nefarious political activity, the awesome prowess of
nature's order as a metaphor for the political power of the high minister, and the
common flowers as metaphors for the common people-would have alerted the con-
temporary reader to suspect that the poem was something more than realistic descrip-
tion and comment. One should emphasize, however, that there is no reason to doubt
that a tree peony did indeed bloom in the tenth month of 1073 in Hang-chou. The
lesser poet wrote a poem describing an aberrant tree peony; but that same scene spurred
the genius of Su Shih to discover, through the tradition, the link that enabled him to
connect that event to the larger issues that occupied his mind. Or, as Su Ch'e said,
"whatever object he encountered he made use of as hsing and so composed his poems"
Other poems in the Wu-t'ai shih-an employ the same rhetorical technique, but rather
than using an isolated and ultimately private experience such as the precocious tree
peony, they employ, on the other hand, well-known, public spectacles as the vehicles
for lodged criticism. Among the most famous events of Hang-chou was the tidal bore
that took place in the estuary of the Che River at the time of the full moon during
mid-autumn festival about the fifteenth day of the eighth month. To enhance public
amusement, local officials sponsored competitions in which poor youths competed by
swimming in the dangerous currents. Many were drowned, and the practice had been
repeatedly banned but without effect.54
Item. In 1073 I was serving as controller-general of Hang-chou. While watching the tidal
bore on the fifteenth of the eighth month, I wrote five poems. These were composed
at the An-chi Pavilion in that district. The first three contain no criticism, but the fourth
reads:
When the young boys of Wu grow strong, they make light of the swirling waves
and for the risk of profit endanger their lives, without thought of themselves.
53WTSA (TSCC ed.), p. 23; CHATS ed. 31ab; Shih hsien, pp. 4-5; SLKC, p. 262; SSCS, 1,515; THYYTH, p. 300;
SSSC 11/525-526.
54Cf. Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962),
pp. 195-196. Watching the tidal bore was a popular theme in Sung art; cf. the examples listed in James
Cahill, An Index of Early Chinese Painters and Paintings (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp.
92, 96, 120, 205, 215. There is a particularly fine example in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts with a figure
standing on a pavilion overlooking the river, much as in Su Shih's poem; see Kojiro Tomita, ed., Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Portfolio of Chinese Paintings in the Museum, Vol. I (Han to Sung Periods) (Boston, 1938),
plate 59.

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If the eastern sea had known our enlightened ruler's intention,

he could have had the salt flats turned into mulberry fields.55
This says that those people who swim in the waves desire the profit from the officials to
the extent that there are some among them who have died from drowning. Therefore,
there was the Court proclamation prohibiting [this custom]. By this I meant that our
ruler is eager to undertake water conservancy, but He does not understand that the
profit is small and the dangers many. [The last couplet] speaks of a project that can
never be completed and is a criticism that the Court's water conservancy projects will
be difficult to complete.56
The indictment of Shu Tan specifically cited the concluding couplet of this quatrain
as evidence that Su Shih had "denounced the imperial chariot," and indeed the poem
is a daring comment on the limitations of the imperial will in accomplishing state
policy. Su Shih himself has a note to this poem which states that "at this time there
was a new edict forbidding swimming in the waves." The basic comparison is thus
between the inability of imperial proclamations to end the dangerous swimming com-
petitions in the Hang-chou tidal bore and the futility of the Wang An-shih government's
attempts to control the course of several major rivers, including the Huang-ho, through
water conservancy projects.57 Beside this basic equation, however, is yet another, even
more startling comparison. The stark juxtaposition of the two couplets draws into relief
the following comparison: the young boys who, in their desire for small, short-term
gain, fail to perceive the dangers of the tidal bore are parallel to the emperor who, in
his desire for the benefits of land reclamation and flood control, fails to perceive the
enormity of the projects and the disruption of agricultural life they entail. There may
even be more sinister implications in the use of the drowned swimmers as a "lodge"
for criticism. Under the year 521 BC the Tso chuan contains the following passage:
Only the perfectly virtuous are able to rule the people through magnanimity. Failing that,
there is nothing better than severity. For when the fire blazes, the people watch and
fear it, and so few perish from it. But water is weak, and the people despise and play
in it, and then many perish in it. Therefore ruling by magnanimity is hard.58
The relation of this passage to Su Shih's poem is uncertain. Its connection of death
by drowning with ineffective administration, however, may have been the source for
the poetic inspiration that prompted Su Shih to link his experiences viewing the tidal
55The female transcendent Ma Ku F A said of herself: "Three times I have seen the eastern sea turn into
mulberry fields. Recently, I went to P'eng-lai, and the waters were shallower than before. They will soon
be only half what they once were. Will the eastern sea not turn to dry land once again?" See T'ai-p'ing
kuang-chi (1755 ed.) 60/1b.
56WTSA (TSCC ed.), p. 15; CHATS ed. 20ab; Shih hsien, p. 5; SLKC, p. 263; SSCS, 1.516; THYYTH, p. 292;
SSSC 10/484-486.
57For a review of these projects see Williamson, Wang An-shih, 1,290-295. As mentioned in Su Shih's poem,
land reclamation was a central aspect of these efforts, which culminated in the summer of 1073, to deepen
and straighten the Huang-ho.
58Tso chuan (Shih-san ching chu-shu ed.) (rpt. Peking: Chung-hua, 1980), II, 2094c.

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bore in the autumn of 1073 with his opposition to the water conservation projects then
underway. In Chinese critical terms, the swimmers became the hsing that incited in
the poet's mind the associations that constitute the core of the poem.
Another example of the power of the rhetoric of indirection may be found in the
concluding lines of Su Shih's "Inscription on a Painting of Pasturing Horses by Han
Kan" M 4tk~ A . The deposition relates that in the spring of 1079 when Su Shih
returned to the capital for a brief visit, Wang Shen invited him for an outing outside
the city where they met face to face.
The next day (7 April 1079) Wang Shen sent a painting of twelves horses by Han Kan,
complete in six scrolls, with fhe request that I write a colophon for it. I wrote a non-
conformist poem [of which the last couplet was]:
Wang Liang, taking hold his whip, flew up to the highest Heaven;59
why should I, with lowered head, seek a short-shafted cart?60
By taking these fine horses as metaphors for myself, I meant indirectly to criticize that the
great ministers who control the government have been unable fully to utilize my talents;
if there was one who could drive chariots like Wang Liang what need would there be
to bend low and contend for a Court position?61
Su Shih has again drawn upon well-established elements in the tradition, in this
case the figure of Wang Liang (Po-lo) as a horse trainer who is able to recognize and
extract the maximum potential from each of his horses as a metaphor for the chief
minister who recognizes and effectively uses the talents of his subordinates. This last
couplet criticizes by complaining that since there is now no Wang Liang to recognize
his talents, Su Shih must suffer the ignominy of seeking for himself a minor Court
position. The lines that precede this couplet, too long to quote in full, are a spirited
but apparently straightforward description of Han Kan's painting of a herd of fine
horses.62 By comparing himself to these horses and by this last couplet, Su Shih has
once again lodged his meaning in an encountered object and so turned both object
and poem into a powerful expression of his resentment against the political opposition.
59Wang Liang E: , better known as Po-lo t8 , was a legendary charioteer of antiquity. There are many
references in classical texts, but the most appropriate to this passage occurs in the Han shu (64B/2823)
biography of Wang Pao . r : "The mediocre man drives a common horse, and even though he injures his
mouth cursing and wears out his whip, he does not advance. But when Wang Liang takes over the reins,
he gallops easily and fast, swift as a flash of light, roaming over the eight directions, a myriad ii in a single
breath. So man and horse both attain their own potential."
60For the "short cart-shaft," see the account in Shih-shuo hsin-yii ch. 26 #6 (Mather, pp. 430-431). The
original meaning of the term seems to have been as a metaphor for something ineffectual or inadequate.
The extended meaning of a minor political office may be related to the dual meaning of yian #. 1) cart-shaft,
2) official residence.
61WTSA (TSCC ed.), p. 9; CHATS 12a; SSSC 15/723.
62For a complete translation see William A. Roulston, "On Han Kan's Scroll Painting of the Horses of the
Imperial Pastures," Oriental Art 10 (Autumn 1964): 181. Roulston's translation does not capture the satire
of the last couplet: "Wang Liang grasps the whip and soars heavenward./ I bow my head in reverence and
offer my humble praise."

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The excerpts from the Wu-t'ai shih-an translated above will give a fair idea of the
literary style and tone of Su Shih's deposition. Two observations come immediately
to mind. First is the obvious affinity of the deposition to traditional Chinese commen-
tary. The deposition not only identifies allusions and quotations, most of which were
doubtless known to the readers anyway, but explains in specific, concrete detail how
these references relate to contemporary political events. Or in Chinese critical terms,
Su Shih supplies the connective thread linking the hsing or "incitement" of the poem
and his known stance on political issues. The technique is remarkably similar to such
staples of traditional commentary as the Mao/Cheng Shih-ching exegesis and the Wang
I commentary on the Ch'u-tz'u.
Second, and obviously related to the first point, is the deposition's reliance on
Confucian moral vocabulary not as tags for political abstractions but as real names for
real people. Su Shih' poetic targets are "petty men who strive to slander and defame."
He desires to retire so as "to avoid ridicule and slander." The "great ministers who
control the government are unable fully to utilize my talents." One of the greatest
values of the Wu-t'ai shih-an as a document of cultural history is to affirm the power
of these traditional Confucian images of loyalty and dissent to shape Sung political
and artistic discourse. It may not surprise students of Sung literature to find Su Shih
taking on the persona of Ch'ii Yiian, but it does surprise to find that persona not only
maintained but so well defended in the stark reality of a legal deposition.
Literary Persecution in the Political Life of Su Shih
Most scholars believe that the experience of arrest, trial, and conviction for writing
poems that slandered the Court had a profound psychological effect on Su Shih. The
trauma made him more hesitant to commit his political opinion to verse and, combined
with the exile to Huang-chou, set him on the path toward introspection and reflection
that culminated in the development of the persona of the "Master of the Eastern
Slope."63 Yet the affair that resulted in the Wu-t'ai shih-an, although admittedly the
most significant, was not the only instance in which issues related to Sung manifes-
tations of literary persecution and censorship touched the life of Su Shih. One could
perhaps even make a case that Su Shih's struggle with such issues might be viewed
as a connecting thread running through the very center of his political life.
Su Shih advocated throughout his career a policy of open and full exchange of
differing opinions as an essential precondition to informed political decision making.
Although such a position may not appear particularly controversial today, it earned
for him the enmity of important members on both sides of the political struggles of
the late eleventh century and the friendship of only a few like-minded idealists. His
refusal to abandon or to compromise this policy in the face of the ever-worsening
partisan factionalism of the 1080s and 1090s contributed to the ultimate collapse of
his political career in these years and the long exile that closed his life.
Even before his career in government had begun in earnest, Su Shih witnessed first
hand a confrontation that brought into classic relief the delicate tensions that existed
between the closely-guarded prerogatives of the Chinese sovereign and the Confucian
duty to remonstrate. Three scholars passed the special examination held in 1061 entitled
63See, for example, Stanley Mervin Ginsberg, "Alienation and Reconciliation of a Chinese Poet: The Huang-
zhou Exile of Su Shi," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1974).

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"direct speech and full admonition"-Su Shih, his brother Su Ch'e, and Wang Chieh
i fr. But several examiners felt that Su Ch'e's paper had too sharply criticized the
Emperor for mismanaging frontier policy and for the opulence of his harem: "I do not
think Your Majesty can maintain that this devotion to sexual pleasure within has no
harmful consequences without?" The Emperor himself resolved the impasse by allow-
ing Su Ch'e to pass, remarking, "What will the empire think of me if I seek out those
who speak directly, and then reject them for doing precisely that?" But Wang An-shih,
then a proclamation drafting official, refused to draft Su Ch'e's appointment notice,
maintaining that he had "arrogated the powers of the chief minister and intentionally
attacked the Emperor." Another official was appointed to draft the notice, and the affair
ended.64
Su Shih himself contributed to the dialogue on this problem when he was chosen
to act as a grader for the chin-shih examinations of 1070, the first in which Wang An-
shih's new educational policies were put into effect. The new format abandoned the
traditional composition of shih and fu poetry in favor of a prose disquisition on a
question of contemporary state policy. But the question in 1070 was little more than
an open-ended invitation for the candidates to voice their support for the New Policies,
asking in effect, "We all want prosperity; we have make a good start toward that goal
with the recent reforms; by what further specific policies can we perfect them?"'65 During
the grading of the papers Su Shih noticed that his superior, Lii Hui-ch'ing C (1031-
1110), an assistant to Wang An-shih, favored those who most closely promoted the
New Policies. Eight hundred and twenty-nine candidates were cleared for presentation
to the Emperor, with one Yeh Tsu-ch'ia H li: ranked first. But Su Shih objected that
"Yeh Tsu-ch'ia has defamed the imperial ancestors in order to flatter those presently
in control." The offending sentence from Yeh's paper was "The imperial ancestors have
pursued many derivative and insubstantial policies [ V i4 M i r , but with the ascen-
sion of Your Majesty, these have been reformed and made new." Once again, the
Emperor was forced to adjudicate, and he decided to allow Yeh Tsu-ch'ia to retain his
first place.
The affair so unsettled Su Shih that he wrote a memorial to protest the change in
the examinations, arguing that the new format, by rewarding those candidates who
adopted the ruling government line, was destroying the remonstrative value of the
examination process. Once that change takes full effect, it will not matter what literary
format the examination assumes, its remonstrative value will be gone forever. Su Shih's
real motive was obviously to counter the attempt by the reformists to use the educa-
tional system to stifle opposition to their policies.66
Su Shih also took the extraordinary step of personally submitting a mock answer
to the question. In a brilliant parody, he turned the reformers' own political slogans
back against them. One section of the question asked what steps might be taken to
"cause harmony to prevail and broaden joy overall?" Su answered,
If the Court can be said at present to lack harmony, the reason is that Your Majesty has
not sought out the underlying causes, but has rather sought to overcome this dishar-
64HCP 194/20b-22a; HTCTC 59/1448-1450; and George Hatch in H. Franke, Sung Biographies, pp. 909-
916.
65For the text of the question, see CCSL 21/330-331. For other material on the examination of 1070, see
HTCTC 67/1673; CCSL 21/329-341; Wang Pao-chen, pp. 76-77; Hatch in Sung Biographies, p. 921.
660n this point, see James T.C. Liu, Reform in Sung China, pp. 6-7, 88-89.

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mony with force. But it has long been the case that force cannot overcome the multitude
of officials. In ancient times there were swords and saws in front of them and caldrons
for boiling behind them, and yet officials still resisted.

Now Your Majesty has personally followed the way of Yao and Shun and has yet to
execute a guiltless man. In your desire to silence the criticisms of the multitude, you
have not gone beyond banishing those officials with differing opinions and replacing
them with others. I doubt you would allow the Ch'in prohibitions on private conver-
sations to be promulgated or resurrect the partisan prisons of the Eastern Han.
So many officials cannot be threatened into silence. I fear that if these banishments do not
cease, the number of critics will increase. And complaints against government policy
have never been greater than at present. So if you want to "cause harmony to prevail
and broaden joy overall," had we better not start quickly?67
A primary concern of the anti-reformers at this time was Wang An-shih's purge of
those opposed to him in the Censorate (Yfi-shih-t'ai) and the Board of Policy Criticism
iA1 and their replacement with officials sympathetic to his reforms. Su spoke to this
issue at the conclusion of his famous "nine-thousand-word letter" sent to the Emperor
in 1071. He notes that since the beginning of the Chinese state there has always been
a problem of striking a balance between centralization ( Ji ) and decentralization
( 'I ). The Ch'in and Wei dynasties may represent the former; the Chou and T'ang the
latter. The Sung state had tended toward centralization.
Our imperial ancestors therefore established the Censorate and the Board of Policy Criticism
as the ultimate guard against overcentralization. If we look at the period from the Ch'in
through the Five Dynasties, several hundred censors have been executed, and yet since
the founding of our house, not once has a censor been punished. Avenues have existed
for the anonymous criticism of all officials regardless of rank. And if these criticisms
touched the imperial chariot, then the Son of Heaven took notice. If the affair touched
the Court, then the chief ministers awaited their punishment. Therefore, in the time
of Emperor Jen-tsung there was even criticism that the chief ministers merely pro-
mulgated the policies of the Censorate and Policy Board. But there was a deeper mean-
ing to this policy of the founding Sages, unappreciated by ordinary people, of promoting
these agencies and fostering their zealous spirit and delegating such great power to
them. It was not that these officials were all great worthies or that their opinions were
always correct, but that they were to nip the nefarious official in the bud and so preserve
us from the evils of overcentralization. For in the beginning it is easy to root them out,
but once established, even force of arms cannot dislodge them ...
When I was small I remember the elders saying that the criticisms of the Censorate and
Policy Board always followed the public opinion of the empire 1 F- 0 , . What public
opinion supported, the Censorate supported; what it attacked, the Censorate attacked.
At present, there is a tumult of opinion, resentment has reached its peak; it is quite
easy to see where public opinion lies.
Su Shih goes on to state that mutual trust is essential to good government. When
avenues for criticism are open, even the mediocre will offer suggestions; but when they
are closed, even the brave dare not to speak up.
67CCSL 21/336-337. For the Ch'in prohibitions to which Su Shih alludes, see SC 8/362 (Watson, I,90):
"Those who criticized the government were wiped out along with their families; those who gathered to talk
in private were executed in the market place."

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I fear that once this pattern becomes established, and everyone has become a private
creature of the government, then the situation will arise in which the sovereign will
stand alone, the system will perish, and anything may happen. .... The chain-tzu values
harmony but he does not assent; the small man values assent but he is not harmonious.
For harmony is like the blending of a soup; assent is like flavoring water with water.68
Su Shih has concluded his text with a reference to one of the most famous touchstone
passages in classical literature concerning the necessity of the ruler to allow his ministers
the freedom to speak fully on state matters. This powerful citation and the placement
of this section near the conclusion of his most ambitious anti-reformist tract may indicate
the importance he attached to the concept of an independent remonstrative agency in
Sung government.
Su Shih's hopes were of course never to be realized again in the Northern Sung.
Upon the death of Emperor Shen-tsung in 1085 and the beginning of the regency under
his mother the Empress Dowager Hsfian-jen, Ssu-ma Kuang and the conservative party
returned to power, and Su Shih with them. Wholesale rescision of the New Policies
was ordered; but the conservatives were no more prepared than their opponents had
been to tolerate an independent Censorate and Policy Board, which were now staffed
with loyal adherents to Ssu-ma Kuang. Su Shih objected to repeal of the Hired Services
Policy, arguing it had in fact improved provincial administration. This independence
of opinion, combined with a personality conflict with Ch'eng I (1033-1107), sub-
jected Su Shih to the rancor of the conservative party after the death of Ssu-ma Kuang
in 1086.
His "Memorial Requesting Provincial Assignment," written on 3 December 1088,

seventeen years after his warning about the dangers of making policy critics subordinate
to policy makers, reveals the degree to which his earlier fears had come true and how
deeply he viewed this development as inimical to his own career in government. Su
Shih relates that his own relationship with Ssu-ma Kuang was based on mutual respect,
but
the members of the Censorate and Policy Board all assented to his opinions in order to
obtain their positions, and since his death they have banded together in a faction to
represent themselves to Your Majesty as the sole voice of his ideas and to oppose
differing opinions .... People inside the capital and out all realize this and have told
me that if I do not soon depart, I will certainly meet my downfall.... The influence
68CCSL 24/391-394. Cf. Tso chuan, Chao 20 (521 BC), James Legge, The Chinese Classics (rpt. Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 1960), V, 684: "When the Marquis of Ch'i returned from the field, Yen-tzu
attended him on the Ch'uan Terrace. Tzu-yu (Chi of Liang-ch'iu) came driving up in his chariot, and the
marquis said, 'Only Chui is in harmony with me!' Yen-tzu replied, 'Chii is only one who assents; how can
he be in harmony with you?' 'Are they different-harmony and assent?' asked the marquis. And Yen-tzu
replied, 'They are different. Harmony is like making a soup. There is water and fire, vinegar, pickle, salt,
and plums in which to cook the fish and meat. These are brought to the boil over firewood, then the cook
harmonizes them, leveling out their flavors so as to supply whatever is deficient and carry off whatever is
in excess. Then the master eats it, and his mind is made tranquil.
"So it is with the relations between ruler and minister. When there is something not proper in what the
ruler approves of, then the minister points out that impropriety and so makes the approval entirely correct.
When there is in what the ruler disapproves of anything that is proper, the minister brings forward that
propriety, so as to remove occasion for the disapproval.
"Now it is not so with Chu. What you approve of, he approves of. What you disapprove of, he disapproves
of. This is like flavoring water with water. And who would care to eat that?' " (tr. adpt. Legge).

82.29.158.244 on Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:41:40 +00:00
of the Censorate and Policy Board has become pervasive at Court; officials from high
to low as well as provincial officials all fear them and avoid their barbs, rushing to
carry out their opinions.
Su Shih goes on to relate that their endless attacks have made it impossible for him
to perform his duties as a proclamation drafting official. "For the past two years what-
ever I have said and whatever I have written has been labeled as slanderous." He
compares the present accusations to those of 1079 brought against him in the
shih-an case.
Yet that case was at least plausible in the sense that my indirect admonition was taken as
malicious slander. But in the present case, my draft contained the phrase "the people
indeed are heavily burdened," and Chao T'ing-chih k ti has taken this phrase as
malicious slander of the former emperor. This is simply turning white into black, east
into west, and is not at all plausible. I know from this that the poisons of Chao T'ing-
chih are worse than those of Li Ting and Shu Tan.69
The accusation to which Su Shih makes reference concerned a quotation from Shih-
ching ode #253 in a routine appointment notice dated 27 April 1088 and written in
his capacity as a proclamation drafting official for the promotion of Lui Ta-fang hA <
(1027-1097) to chief minister. The passage in question reads: "The way of Heaven is
evident: a forthcoming turn to reigns of successive peace. The people indeed are heavily
burdened and desire to hear of a period of rest and peace" R , , 4 I, 7Ji ,

4, WI, M tgAli, ,A . The offending phrase figures prominently in a poem which
traditional exegesis of the Shih-ching framed as a complaint against the oppressive
government of King Li of the Chou dynasty. The charge against Su Shih stated that
his notice said that "the people are indeed heavily burdened," and that one hoped to reach
a period of peace. Those who understood trembled in anger over this, because in the
governments of the Hsi-ning (1068-1077) and Yiian-feng (1078-1085) periods the of-
ficials were attentive to their duties and generally things experienced a rebound. But
among those officials, there were unfortunately some who put profits first in the hope
of merit and reward; and there was oppressive exaction of taxes. But this was a simple
administrative failing and cannot be compared to the times of King Li of the Chou
dynasty; the poems Min-lao V. (Mao #253), Pan t (Mao #254), and T'ang ?i (Mao
#255) reprehend the disorder of those times.70
Su Shih's distinction between the two cases provides an important clue as to how
he viewed the legal status of unofficial government critics. He admits that the material
in the Wu-t'ai shih-an for which he was convicted in 1079 was intended as "indirect
admonition" and that some of this material could plausibly have been perceived as
slanderous. In the case of the notice for Li Ta-fang, however, the Shih-ching quotation
is not intended as indirect criticism, but is simply a rhetorically accepted way to state
that one hopes the advent of Li Ta-fang as chief minister will lessen the burden on
the common people. The quotation implies no comparison between Emperor Shen-
69CCSL 35/607-612; STPC 14/5/113-116.

70HCP 463/9a. The text of Chao T'ing-chih's original charge against Su Shih seems not to survive. This
passage is extracted from a later memorial written in 1091 against Su Ch'e. See also HTCTC 82/2077 and
the text of Su Shih's appointment notice for Li Ta-fang in STPC 17/6/46.

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tsung and Emperor Li of the Chou. It is a historical comment on the past rather than
an indirect criticism of the present.7'
The difficulties in 1088 were not the first time since his trial that similar accusations
of literary transgressions were raised against Su Shih. Already in 1084, upon his transfer
from his place of exile in Huang-chou to Ju-chou, enemies at Court pointed to a passage
in his memorial of gratitude to the Emperor. According to their interpretation, Su Shih
meant to imply that since he had passed the "direct speech and full admonition"
examination of 1061 he had received the tacit permission of the crown to remonstrate
free of encumbrance, in which case his punishment for the Wu-t'ai shih-an affair was
unjust. Emperor Shen-tsung dismissed the suggestion.72
A much larger dispute arose over the text of a question Su Shih composed in 1086
for an examination to screen candidates for admission to the Court's academic insti-
tutions. The question asked the candidates to reconcile the two conflicting tendencies
of recent Sung government, a liberal policy of Emperor Jen-tsung which had led to
bureaucratic negligence and a more determined policy of Emperor Shen-tsung which
had lead to bureaucratic oppression. He noted that in the Han dynasty, Emperor Wen
had pursued a policy similar to Emperor Jen-tsung's but without his officials becoming
lax and that Emperor Hsian had pursued a policy similar to Emperor Shen-tsung's but
without his officials becoming oppressive. "How can we administer and manage affairs
so as to attain these conditions? Please explain clearly the reasons why things are this
way and list fully the actions that should be taken."73
The Censor Chu Kuang-t'ing c ki (1037-1094) attacked this text as being disre-
spectful to the two Sung emperors, arguing that they were not inferior to the two Han
emperors. They should be honored and not brought into discussions of contemporary
policy: "Su Shih has used emotion-laden allusions to revile and reproach the imperial
ancestors, maintaining their splendid achievements and numerous merits were not
equal to Emperors Wen and Hsiian of the Han. Has a subject ever been as disloyal as
this?"74
Su Shih first responded in a memorial dated 19 January 1087 that he had intended
no disrespect and that the references to the Han emperors "are simply examples of
literary allusions and there was no intention to draw comparisons with the two [Sung]
emperors." In less than a month, an imperial edict exonerated Su Shih but ordered
that formats mentioning the imperial ancestors no longer be used in future examina-
tions. Su Shih replied on 22 February 1087 in an eloquent reversal of his earlier denial,
a reversal strikingly similar to his actions in the Wu-t'ai shih-an trial, that although his
question had in no way intended to slander the former emperors, he certainly had
71One could perhaps question in this case Su Shih's protestations of innocence. Lii Ta-fang was a vehement
opponent of Wang An-shih who had spent long years in the provinces when the opposition was in power.
He would certainly have read the quotation from Ode #253 as a reference to the Wang An-shih years. One
might also compare Legge's paraphrase of the traditional reading of this ode: "In a time of disorder and
suffering, some officer of distinction calls upon his fellows to join with him to effect a reformation in the
capital, and put away the parties, especially flattering parasites, who were the cause of the prevailing misery"
(Chinese Classics, IV, 495).
72Ho Wei fi~ (1077-1145), Ch'un-chu chi-wen UfJEg (Hui-pien #247).
73CCSL 22/348-349; STPC 5/22/19.
74HCP 393/19b; on this incident see HCP 393/13a ff.; HTCTC 80/2015-2017; Wang Pao-chen, pp. 173-
174; Hatch in Sung Biographies, pp.958ff.

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intended "to criticize the present Court, the ministers, and the members of the Cen-
sorate and Board of Policy Criticism."
When I composed the question, if indeed I had committed a crime it would have been not
to speak fully and so to deceive Your Majesty. I have heard that sagely administration
avails itself of both gentleness and severity, and that relations between ruler and servitor
are a blend of assent and dissent. If subordinates approve of what their superiors
approve of without question as to what is true or false and disapprove of what their
superiors disapprove of without question as to what is right or wrong, then this is what
Yen-tzu meant when he said "If you were to flavor water with water, who would drink
it?" and what Confucius meant when he said "When I speak let none dare oppose
me-that sentiment is sufficient to lead the state to ruin" (Analects 13/15).
Su goes on to explain that he has been opposing one-sided government since his
"direct speech" examination of 1061. Whenever there has been a turn-around in policy
he has advocated that the excesses of one side be tempered by some corresponding
"magnanimity" or "determination" from the other side. Many of the policies of Emperor
Shen-tsung's time have now come to be more "magnanimous" through such action.
Thus the meaning beyond the meaning of the question, which cannot be fully expressed
in words, was that even though Your Majesty has opened wide the avenues of criticism
so that nothing need be avoided, the Censorate and the Board of Policy Criticism have
attacked not only the mention of individuals from previous courts but also the mention
of the policies of previous courts. This is exactly "using water to flavor water." I was
troubled by this and so wrote this meaning into the examination question, truthfully
to criticize the present Court, the ministers, and the members of the Censorate and
Board of Policy Criticism. I wanted Your Majesty to see it so that it would attract your
attention and in the hope that you would jointly pursue the policies of magnanimity
and determination of the two emperors.7
Su Shih here admits to using the rhetorical technique of indirection (the "meaning
beyond the meaning,

) as a vehicle which of
for his criticism cannot be fullypolicy.
contemporary expressed
But, in words"
as in ?4 & he
past cases, , (f n, i
draws
a sharp distinction between "indirect criticism" and "malicious slander."
It may be helpful to examine how well Su Shih maintained this principle in one
instance where he was on the prosecuting rather than the defending side of such cases.
On 8 November 1087 Su Shih, together with Su Ch'e and Liu Pin, responded to a
directive from the Secretariat requesting their opinion on an accusation brought by
Chao Chiin-hsi 8i of the Board of Scrutiny against Yeh Tsu-ch'ia, the former first
degree holder of 1070. Chao charged that Yeh should be denied a promotion because
his "former examination paper had slanderous words that touched the imperial tem-
ples." Now seventeen years after the event, the three scholars replied that they reviewed
the paper and found nothing slanderous; they request that Chao specify the offending
passages.
We observe that when our former emperors examined the candidates, they wished every
candidate to speak forth fully without fear. They desired that discussions of events by
officials should penetrate to the core of the details-even if the language sometimes
touched upon the imperial ancestors-so that the facts of each matter and what was
75STPC 14/5/85-88.

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right in each case would not be hidden. They looked only to whether the words were
truthful or not in order to promote or demote; and they did not allow that every word
be treated as potentially slanderous.
They find, however, that Yeh Tsu-ch'ia's use of the phrase "insubstantial and de-
rivative" 4j [j { iJ is improper; "his scholarship is shallow and his line of argumentation
is faulty. But it is impossible to say that he has slandered the ancestral temples."
The following day Su Shih submitted a memorial under his own name in which
he explained his role in the 1070 examination affair. He has not altered his opinion
that Yeh should have been ploughed, but adds the interesting observation that Yeh
himself agreed to emend the offensive sentence to read: "Since the coming of the
imperial ancestors until now plans and policies, compared to the recent past, have
included some derivative and unsuccessful points" iL h1 {A2 k . This compromise
obviously allowed Yeh to pass in 1070 and shows that Yeh himself realized the phrase
"insubstantial" was not possible.76
The Northern Sung Context
The instinctive reaction of modern Western readers against anything that smacks
of censorship has colored recent views of Su Shih's experience as recorded in the Wu-
t'ai shih-an. Typical is the account in Lin Yutang's The Gay Genius where the confed-
erates of political and moral darkness unjustly and mercilessly beset the fearless ad-
vocate of an enlightened and prescient populism-the "cultural teddy bear" of George
Hatch's apt characterization. So pervasive has become this view, even in quite re-
spectable secondary literature on the subject, that it seems itself almost a "great irrev-
erence" to point out that traditional Chinese opinion on the issue has been very dif-
ferent.
As we have seen, Su Shih drew a distinction between "indirect criticism" and

"malicious slander," but neither he nor anyone else in his time was prepared to define
theoretically where the line between the two was; and he himself admitted the possible
validity of the perception that he may have crossed over that line. Su Ch'e admitted,
perhaps for rhetorical effect but nevertheless admitted, his brother's guilt. Later ob-
servers attributed Su Shih's legal troubles to carelessness, an unrestrained exuberance
of talent, and to an ultimate moral failure of the man himself.
We have seen that Su Shih justified his writing of critical poems by placing himself
in the tradition of the Shih-ching poets and by linking his verse through the rhetoric
of indirection to the poetics of the Great Preface. Criticism against him arose from
those who saw him as having failed to live up to various understandings of what was
most important in this tradition. An early and quite interesting reaction came from
Yang Shih i 4 (1053-1135), a disciple of Ch'eng I and thus no friend of Su Shih.
It is impossible to compose poetry without an understanding of the significance of the feng

II and the ya P. Poetry values oblique remonstration. Only then is the speaker without
fault, the hearer sufficiently admonished, and there is something beneficial. But if one's
remonstrations cross over into libel or slander, then the hearer is angered, and there
is no benefit to anyone. Su Shih's poetry simply mocked the Court and is totally lacking
76STPC 14/4/96-97.

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in the spirit of "meekness and sincerity" ?i r i. Because of this, he was rightfully

apprehended and punished.77
Yang Shih goes on to contrast Su Shih's poetry with several lines from the poetry
of Ch'eng Hao tWH (1032-1085) that comment negatively on contemporary issues in
an extremely allusive way. While the partisan nature of Yang Shih's comments cannot
be discounted and while few modern or traditional readers would prefer the poetry of
Ch'eng Hao to that of Su Shih, Yang's main point is well taken. One criterion to define
the fine line between "indirect criticism" and "malicious slander" is the practical effect
on the "hearer." If the criticism is accepted, and there is "benefit" to the country, the
poem is successful. In this view, the poem is not successful if the author is sanctioned
because in that case, the author not only loses his ability to remonstrate again but may
also weaken the potential of others to do so. From this point of view, the most important
aspect of the Great Preface poetic is to remonstrate in a way that preserves the har-
monious relationship between ruler and servitor.
Much more severe in his judgement was Wang Fu-chih E : (1619-1692), who
emphasized on the other hand the danger that the rhetoric of indirection posed to the
moral health of the writer: literary equivocation often veils not only the direct pres-
entation of social realities but also masks the moral equivocation of the author. He
points out that in antiquity the rhetoric of indirection was most effectively coupled
with clear denunciations of what the writer opposed.
But the men of Sung tried to have it both ways. They wanted reputations for great integrity
and forthrightness, yet they also feared misfortune would strike. So they wrote with
much shadowy language, skillfully shooting off ingenious barbs. Yet precisely because
of this, many met with misfortune; for once they had given to others just the hint of
a suspicion, even though there was nothing to reproach, they could be framed on false
charges.
Look at the crow terrace poetry case of Su Shih. He was exiled to the far wilds, but in
truth he brought it on himself; for one cannot lift one's head high, clear out one's throat
and sound forth, then when the shackles are put on write, "My wise lord is like Heaven
and all over is spring." Who could be more shameless than this? Many of my contem-
poraries imitate this way, not understanding it to be a bad habit of frivolous tricksters
and something the chuin-tzu has long disdained.78
Slightly more charitable was the opinion of Chao I that Su Shih's troubles arose
from his own lack of caution, caused in turn by an inability to control his formidable
talents. He paraphrases with the maxim "an arrow once in the bow cannot but be
released. "79
Finally, it may be useful to examine the Wu-t'ai shih-an and Su Shih's other ex-
periences of censorship in the fuller context of the changing nature of Northern Sung
government. Historians have traced the origins of certain "despotic" or "absolutist"
trends of Ming-Ch'ing times to the Northern Sung. Opinions differ concerning the
77Kuei-shan hsien-sheng yii-lu LL$ A 5# # (SPTK hsi-pien ed.), 2/2ab.

78Tai Hung-sen * V & ed., Chiang-chai shih-hua chien-chu R : i (Peking: Jen-min, 1981), pp. 127-
130. The Su Shih line is from one of several poems composed while he was confined to the Censorate prison.
See SSSC 19/998 and Fuller, pp. 422-423.
790u-pei shih-hua, p. 66.

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relationship of this phenomenon to the coexistent rise of Neo-Confucianism.s8o There

is general agreement, however, that at least initially the reform party was more willing
than the conservative party to abridge the remonstrative function. Wang An-shih is
reported to have told Emperor Shen-tsung, "If anyone at the court is permitted to
obstruct policies with different ideas, how can the principles of good government ever
be realized? In my humble opinion, unless the entrusted officials at Court have the
same purpose, the same beliefs, and cooperate in unity, nothing can really be accom-
plished at all.""'81 After Wang's death, lesser hands developed such sentiments into the
literary and personal persecutions against the former members of the Yiian-yu gov-
ernment.
It is probable that Wang An-shih's frustration with "different ideas" arose fro
unprecedented growth of "opinion power" during the middle of the eleventh cent
The beginning of this process can be traced to about 1035 when Fan Chung-yen
iA (989-1052), who was three times demoted for offending the Emperor, insiste
the value of remonstrance and public opinion both to restrain the absolute pow
the monarch and to control factionalism among the bureaucracy. According to J
T.C. Liu, Fan's ultimate goal was to organize through the power of public opini
divisive bureaucracy into a force cohesive enough to balance the ultimate power
sovereign.83 And this goal became an important principle in the political agend
Ssu-ma Kuang.
One will note that this period of more open public discussion of government policy
coincides almost exactly with the birth of Su Shih in 1037 and reached its apogee
during the 1060s when he was a young official in the capital. There can be little doubt
that his intellectual upbringing in such an atmosphere, combined with his own literary
talents, encouraged him to perceive the old Confucian concept of the remonstrative
function of poetry in more serious terms that it had been in earlier times. For Su Shih,
the old metaphors of Ch'ii Yuan and the old images of loyalty and dissent held very
real artistic and political value, and he defended these values at risk of his life during
the trial of 1079.
The Wu-t'ai shih-an can thus be viewed not only as a turning point in the life of
Su Shih, but also in the intellectual life of Northern Sung. It was the first major effort
to extend the curtailment of public opinion beyond the reformist subversion of an
independent Censorate and Board of Policy Criticism to the larger world of letters, an
effort that would eventually end in the banning of all published works by members
of the Yiian-yu government. But this development cannot be laid at the doorstep of
the monarchy itself. Su Shih's literary persecution after his return to the capital in 1085
came at the hands of the very party that had earlier espoused greater remonstrative
freedoms. In short, the rise of literary persecution in the Northern Sung seems more
a result of bureaucratic factionalism than of any attempt by the Sung monarchs to exert
their theoretical powers of absolute control.
8soSee Anthony William Sariti, "Monarchy, Bureaucracy, and Absolutism in the Political Thought of Ssu-
Ma Kuang," JAS 32.1 (Nov. 1972), 53-76.
'81Quoted in James T.C. Liu, Reform in Sung China, p. 88.
82See James T.C. Liu, "An Administrative Cycle in Chinese History," JAS 21.2 (Feb. 1962), 137-152.
83James T.C. Liu, "An Early Sung Reformer: Fan Chung-yen," in Arthur F. Wright, ed., Chinese Thought
and Institutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 122-124.

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Hartman PoetryPolitics1079 1990

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Hartman PoetryPolitics1079 1990

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Poetry and Politics in 1079: The Crow Terrace Poetry Case of Su Shih

Author(s): Charles Hartman

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/495222

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-Ch'ien Mu, "Reminiscences on My Parents at the Age of Eighty," in Jerry

CCSL Su Shih, Ching-chin Tung-p'o wen-chi shih-lieh f4t

Hui-pien Yen Chung-ch'i , 9 fS ed., Su Tung-p'o i-shih hui-

SSSC Wang Wen-kao 't i ed., Su Shih shih chi ~ ~i . Rpt.

STPC Su Shih, Su Tung-p'o chi M , . Wan-yu wen-k'u hui-

WTSA Wu-t'ai shih-an , $4 .

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Sometime in late July of 1079 the Acting Investigating Censor Ho Cheng-ch'en AT

A collection of documents known today as the Tung-p'o wu-t'ai shih-an W A,

1Wang Pao-chen E , Tseng-pu Su Tung-p'o nien-p'u hui-cheng i h ~ ~a f (Taipei: Kuo-li T'ai-

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documents relating to a specific case of literary persecution from medieval China.

Material concerning Su Shih's trial survives today in essentially three versions:

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Legal and Political Aspects of the Case Against Su Shih

"denunciation of the imperial chariot" 4 it- . , prohibited the expression of critical

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8T'ang-lii shu-i, p. 207.

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'6TSCC ed., pp. 6-9; CHATS ed. 7b-13a.

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1086) and his and

20WTSA (TSCC ed.), p. 1; CHATS ed. lab.

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Literary Aspects of the Wu-t'ai shih-an

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The second of the "Mountain Village" poems reads,

The third poem of the series reads,

The fourth poem of the series reads,

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Resent not that these bright times do not accept you;29

28Quoted in the commentary at SSSC 9/439.

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Su Shih's deposition on these strings of erudition reads as follows:

~ L1Jh~1;5{~'] k-f ~ E tLK~, f ~1Vi~P ~

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The scholars around the gate of Ou-yang Hsiu

36Chia-shen tsa-chi Ffi PP ME (Hui-pien #175). See also THYYTH, p. 286.

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then detest the rank odors of Heaven's Kitchen?40

But you suffer the narrowness of the world's opinion

Where can we find a pond of ten-thousand ch'ing

Your talents equal those of Chia I, who at the low point

How can a dirty eight- or sixteen-foot ditch

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Item. In 1074 when I was serving as controller-general of Hang-chou, on the twenty-

your wife and children wondering when you will return.] ,

43Che-che f f is used here onomatopoetically for the call of the chukar.

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The underground chamber of P'ing-i has no beams and pillars;

Why have you alone nothing to do,

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In this passage Su Shih makes an implicit comparison between the composition of

~E't~ 4~ i%9fiYiY1i4 4: L;tjf~~~~~~4 /ffr

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In recent years when he was serving as controller-general of Hang-chou and magistrate

51"Epitaph for My Departed Brother Su Shih," Luan-ch'eng chi, p. 1414.

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If the eastern sea had known our enlightened ruler's intention,