Avian identification of jiu in the Shijing.

• Author: Lai, C.M.

Under the best of circumstances, accurate identification of avian images in ancient literature is a challenge. In the Shijing it is virtually impossible. However, avian identification of literary species is within the range of possibility. The clarity with which one may discern literary species may enhance our reading of a poem's imagery. At the very least, a classification may be offered with which other literary species can be compared. For instance, how do the Shijing species compare with the Chuci species? Or, how have the Shijing species evolved, given their metaphorical behavior in Tang poetry?(1)

A more challenging task lies in the classification of different species having identical nomenclature. This is the case with jiu (Old Chinese: *kiog), which occurs in five Shijing poems. Unlike much of the floral and faunal imagery in the Shijing, the jiu is not bound to just one Shijing poem. Usage suggests that it is a generic, rather than a specific name of a bird, much as we assign the tag of "duck" to mallards and teals alike. In common practice, folk etymology attributes to jiu, homophonous with the word meaning "nine," the sense "nine birds," because the left and right components of the graph can be separated out as "nine" and "bird" But this equivalence need not detain us.

Judging from the content of Shijing poems 1, 12, 58, 152, and 196, the jiu bird designates more than one species - viz., the osprey, cuckoo, and pigeon. Varying literary roles are inevitable. The metaphorical power of jiu in Chinese literature has ranged from the auspicious to inauspicious. It is a harbinger of spring, assumes the form of a hawk, and projects sovereign virtue and omens of felicity for courtship and marriage. It also plays the spoiler, invoking sorrow and despair.

All of the jiu birds are arboreal. Three (those in poems, 12, 58, 152, 196) are directly or indirectly connected with the mulberry tree. Two of the cases feature binominal expressions (1, 152) and are exclusive to the Shijing poem in which they appear. In three poems (1, 12, 152), the bird imagery projects auspicious or virtuous omens. In the other two poems (58, 196), sorrow and futility are projected.

When an image was established within the context of a Confucian text, its perpetuation was a matter of no minor import. Thus ratified by literary memory, and impervious to the ways of nature, the image and its associations always have validity. Inconsistent identification, however, can usurp the metaphorical authority of a literary motif. Egregious mistaken identification can diminish the artistic symmetry of an...