The art of lamentation in the works of Pan Yue: "Mourning the Eternally Departed."

• Author: Lai, C.M.

Pan Yue (247-300) excelled in the writing of shi poetry, fu, and dirges (lei), and the high literary standard evident in his works has earned him a place of dinction in Chinese literature.(2) Literary critics in their praise laud his works on lamentation as being pioneering and innovative in theme and craft.(3) Acclaim for Pan's dirges is evident in the influential anthology, Wen xuan (Selections of Refined Literature), in that his works represent over half of the dirges selected by Xiao Tong (501-31), not to mention the selection of his other works concerning the theme of lamentation.(4) In a striking departure from his literary predecessors, Pan Yue was notably gifted in expressing personal lamentation in his pieces, even in dirges, a public form conventionally reserved for an official function. In his works on death, Pan mourned many individuals among his family and friends. Such a desire to write about the passing of family and friends is regarded in contemporary times as an accepted, even natural, response from a writer. However, for Pan Yue to write about the people who were very dear to him, but who were nonetheless "ordinary" and fairly insignificant in their position in society, was unusual in third-century China.

In popular history, Pan Yue is famous for two things. First, he was known as a most handsome man, and his name has become a byword for comeliness.(5) Second, he is admired for the eloquent verse lamentations he wrote on the death of his wife, Lady Yang. The mourning of one's wife, unlike that of one's parents, was not regarded as a virtuous duty.(6) Therefore it is exceptional that the majority of Pan's works on mourning concern his wife. Written over a period of time, Pan's fu and shi poems concerning the death of his wife impart to the reader a genuine sense of grief and emphasize his enduring sense of loss. His most famous work, "Poems Lamenting Her Death" ("Dao wang shi"), is a set of poems in pentasyllabic verse written about the mourning, formal and otherwise, of Lady Yang's death; these poems are not in chronological sequence and may have been composed following the mourning period, after Pan returned to office.(7) Also of great significance are the fu pieces, "Fu Lamenting Her Death" ("Dao wang fu") and "Mourning the Eternally Departed" ("Ai yongshi wen"), the latter of which is the more intact and finely crafted of the two? Both fu compositions describe the pre-interment rituals and obsequies for his wife.

Pan Yue's literary responses to the deaths of family members and friends are rich in details of mourning and funerary rites that were of utmost consideration during his time, and which continue to be important in present-day Chinese society.(9) Such careful attention given to realistic description is a distinctive feature of Pan's craft, exemplified in his accounts of the obsequies for his wife. This trend toward a realistic portrayal of events and circumstances began prior to the late third century. However, with his masterful command of language, Pan refined this tendency through the use of imagery that is realistically and accurately descriptive of natural and cosmic phenomena, frequently expressed by means of five-phases correlatives.(10) This was enhanced by other stylistic innovations, including a conscious crafting of parallelism and prosody.(11)

In Pan Yue's works on death and mourning, especially in his lamentations for Lady Yang, Pan provides us with an informative and enlightening look at mourning rites before the funeral, the funeral itself, and the period of mourning after burial. His laments, in particular "Mourning the Eternally Departed," are heavily couched in the language of the ritual classics, Li ji (Records of Rituals) and Yi li (Ceremonies and Rituals), although these texts do not give foremost consideration to the rites of mourning one's wife. Later critics commend Pan Yue for his rhetorical flourishes, but they chastise him for using the language of these ritual texts in inappropriate cases. Liu Xie in the Wenxin diaolong, for instance, while praising Pan's literary expression of his grief, states that in his dirges Pan transgressed propriety by using for people of ordinary status terms and references from the Li ji reserved for persons of higher status.(12) However indiscreet, this elevation of status gives resonance to Pan's lamentations, for he undoubtedly intended to flatter in this way the subjects of his eulogies.

Besides elevating the status of the deceased and flaunting his own erudition, Pan Yue's purpose in using language from the ritual texts was twofold. On one level, by attending to proper rites he displays his moral virtue and propriety. On another level, in adhering to the Confucian code of ritual, he demonstrates his accordance with the concept that rites are necessary to prevent displays of excessive emotion.(13) Pan thus attempts to seek an equilibrium between human emotion and ritual; he stresses, however, that when the balance tilts heavily toward emotion, it does not necessarily imply a transgression of ritual.

The predominance of personal emotion over state-regulated ritual can be viewed as a natural development from the "self-discovery of the individual after the late second century."(14) This emergence of "self" is also reflected in the third-century evolution of fu and shi into mediums that were more expressive of individual voice. The third-century fu in general continued to possess Han fu characteristics in retaining a high degree of difficulty in language. In a departure from the early Han style, however, the third-century poets did not restrict expression of ideas or morals to the conclusion but incorporated them into the main body of the piece, fashioning individual thought and emotion into the theme. Thus, the writer's personal circumstances and feelings became the direct and ostensible focus. Transformation of the fu in the third century coincided with the rise of pentasyllabic verse, which was then developing into a principal genre in the literary tradition. Concurrent with the more personal tailoring of the fu, new subgenres in pentasyllabic verse of a highly personal nature were created and these continued to play important roles in the literary arena long after the Six Dynasties. One of the most intimate is the dao wang 1 subgenre inspired by Pan Yue's poems lamenting the death of his wife.(15)

In spite of an inclination toward realism, Pan Yue seldom describes the object of his lamentation in a concrete or direct way. Rather, the focus is on his personal grief alone, not even on contemplation of his own mortality. However, in his poems mourning his wife, Pan's eschewal of explicit description is a sign of proper social decorum. In "Mourning the Eternally Departed," for example, he speaks of the grief of her sisters-in-law and of her mother-in-law.(16) This is an indirect way of indicating to the reader that his wife had been accepted by his family, particularly by the women who so often are the nemesis of a young bride. Acceptance by her husband's family during her life and their displays of distress upon her death suggest the true virtue of Pan Yue's wife.

As a subject in early Chinese poetry, the poet's wife - much less a deceased wife - is not often encountered. A prominent early example of a lament for a deceased wife is the "Fu on Lady Li" ("Li Furen fu") written by the Han Emperor Wu (r. 141-87 B.C.). Pan Yue the widower Emperor Wu in several of his pieces, primarily with regard to Wu's well-known attempt to secure a meeting with the spirit of his dead empress Li.(17) As for a deceased wife of non-imperial status as a theme, Sun Chu (220?-93) wrote a piece called "Poem Written on the Occasion of Setting Aside the Mourning Robes Worn for My Wife" ("Chu fu fu shi")(18):

Seasons progress, never ceasing, Days and months flee like lightning. Her soul rose, ascending afar; Suddenly a full year has passed already. In rites and regulations there is a proper order, So I declare the conclusion of mourning at the tomb. By the altar, afflicted with suffering, It is as if my innermost heart were wrenched.(19)

Sun Chu's poem, in tetrasyllabic verse, is unconventional for its time in the nature of its topic, but the poem does not match Pan Yue's compositions in artistry.

It was Pan Yue's fate to outlive quite a few of his family members and friends - one reason certainly why so many of his works were devoted to the themes of death and mourning. He felt keenly the deaths of his close friends, Ren Hu (d. 277) and Xiahou Zhan (242-91); Pan had known them both since they were of "cupping age."(20) Tragically, both of Pan's children died in infancy. His only son died a few months after birth in 292, on Pan's journey to take up the post of Chang'an prefect.(21) His young daughter, Jinlu, passed away soon after the death of his wife.(22) As is evident from dirges and other works for various members of his wife's family, Pan also was very close to the Yang clan. In fact, Pan Yue's marriage in ca. 274 was largely owing to his early acquaintance with his father's friend, Yang Zhao (d. 275).(23) To judge from his extant works, it appears that Pan Yue felt more of a loss over the death of Yang Zhao than he did over that of his own father, Pan Pi (d. ca. 275).(24)

The death of Lady Yang, however, looms most significantly in Pan's literary corpus. Contemporary sources are in disagreement regarding the date of her death, varying from 296 to 298.(25) It seems most likely, however, that she passed away during the late autumn or winter of 298. In his preface to a "Dirge for Yang Zhongwu", written for Lady Yang's nephew, Pan relates that his wife died the year before in Degong Village near Luoyang. With the death of Yang Sui, Pan laments that he has been in mourning dress continuously.(26) Moreover, a passage from the text of the dirge indicates that the deaths of aunt and nephew occurred less than a year apart:

Alas, Zhongwu! Alas...