Music

AnonymousBashu Publishing House · ChinaJul 2024

3.5

Word count: 645 words
Chapters: 2

Summary

In the Xianyang Palace there were twelve cast-bronze figures, each seated and standing three to five chi tall, arranged on a single mat. They held qin, zhu, sheng, and yu, each with its own instrument; all were adorned with woven ribbons and floral colors, looking for all the world like living people. Beneath the mat were bronze pipes, their mouths rising several chi high. One pipe was hollow, and inside it was a cord as thick as a finger. When one person blew into the hollow pipe and another pulled the cord, the qin, se, yu, and zhu all sounded, no different from real music. There was a qin six chi long, fitted with thirteen strings and twenty-six studs, all adorned with the seven treasures, inscribed "The Music of Yufan." There was a jade flute two chi three cun long with twenty-six holes; when it was blown, carriages and horses could be seen emerging from mountains and forests, faintly advancing in order, then vanishing when the blowing stopped; it was inscribed "The Pipe of Zhaohua."

Editor's review

The text collected in Yue centers on a set of ingenious musical instruments in the Xianyang Palace: twelve bronze figures, each holding a qin, zhu, sheng, or yu; bronze pipes beneath the mat emit air, and when one person blows into an empty pipe while another pulls a cord, all the instruments sound together, indistinguishable from real music. There is also a six-chi qin adorned with the seven treasures and a twenty-six-hole jade flute; when played, carriages, horses, mountains, and forests seem to appear and vanish faintly. The text itself reads more like a fanciful account of objects, blending mechanical devices, musical performance, and fantastical scenes with a strong visual quality. The 2024 Bashu Publishing House edition presents it as a standalone volume, making it easier for readers to focus on this distinctive passage. Its value lies not in offering music theory but in presenting the ancient imagination of "automatic music-making" and "soundscape illusions"; it can serve as extended reading on classical notes, material culture, or literary imagination. It suits curious, leisurely reading, and also comparison with materials on ancient technology or court life, to appreciate how writing moves between record and fiction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in ancient artifacts and court anecdotes
Readers who enjoy zhiguai notes and imaginative writing
Students studying music and object writing in classical literature
Teachers seeking short classical texts for extended reading

Not a good fit for

Readers hoping to systematically learn ancient music theory or temperament
Those needing rigorous history-of-science verification and diagrams
Readers who prefer long narratives and lack patience for short object accounts

Reading tips

Read the whole text first, visualize the scene of bronze figures making music, then revisit the details.
List the objects in the text by type, size, and function to clarify the structure.
Compare with records of ancient machinery and automata to see the gap between imagination and real objects.
After reading, try retelling the scene in modern language to check whether you have grasped the key descriptions.

About the publisher

Bashu Publishing House China · Founded in 1983

Bashu Publishing House is a publisher centered on collating and publishing classical Chinese cultural texts, with its main publishing areas covering classical literature, Eastern philosophy, ancient poetry, and educational classics. Its library currently holds 1,075 titles, including representative works such as Dream of the Red Chamber, the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering, Renjian Cihua, and Out to the Frontier, involving authors such as Cao Xueqin, Wang Xizhi, Wang Guowei, Wang Changling, Liu Xie, and Yan Yu. These reflect the publisher's focus on literary classics, poetry criticism, and philosophical readings. Its publishing character lies in working around ancient texts and canonical works, with attention to textual collation and presentation. Public information on its more detailed publishing background and series plans is limited; this introduction is based only on the library's book information.

版权信息
卷六

FAQ

Is this text a factual record or a fictional story?

The material itself does not state its nature. The text describes the ingenious instruments and automatic music-making in the Xianyang Palace in a record-like tone, with obvious imaginative coloring. Readers may treat it as a text combining ancient object accounts with literary imagination, and should not take it directly as reliable historical material on technology.

Is the "music" discussed in the book music theory?

No. What is presented here is music-related objects and performance scenes, such as bronze figures holding instruments, bronze pipes producing sound, and a jade flute whose playing reveals carriages, horses, mountains, and forests. The focus is on ingenious devices and soundscape imagination, not systematic discussion of temperament or music theory.

It is short—is it worth buying as a separate volume?

Whether it is worth it depends on your reading needs. If you are interested in ancient object writing, court imagination, or short classical texts, a standalone volume makes repeated close reading and note-taking convenient; if you expect systematic knowledge or long-form content, it may feel thin, so you might borrow it first before deciding.

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About the author

Anonymous Author

Anonymous is not a real personal name but a general Chinese designation for authors whose names are unknown, lost, or unsigned. Neither nationality nor dates of birth and death can be verified, and available public information is limited, so the works attributed to this name are the only basis for description. The collection holds 2,078 works under Anonymous, spanning medicine, classics, historical readings, ancient poetry, classical literature, and philosophy. Representative works include The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon: Lingshu, Mencius, The Book of Documents, Nineteen Old Poems, Complete Song Ci, and The Peacock Flies Southeast. Most of these works took shape through long transmission and editing, emerging either from collective folk creation or from authors whose names were lost over time. In ancient China, the Book of Songs, the Great Learning, and many popular storybooks and plays were signed Anonymous because their authors could not be traced. Anonymous works cross the classics, histories, philosophical writings, medical texts, and poetry; their subjects are broad, and their styles vary from archaic simplicity to clear naturalness, making them important and influential sources for understanding ancient Chinese thought, medicine, and literature.