Rhapsody

AnonymousBashu Publishing House · ChinaJul 2024

3.9

Word count: 1.4K words
Chapters: 2

Summary

There is a great thing that is neither silk nor cloth, yet its patterns form a coherent whole. It is neither sun nor moon, yet it illuminates all under heaven. The living rely on it for long life, the dead for burial. City walls are made secure by it, the three armies made strong. When it is pure, one becomes a true king; when mixed, a hegemon; when wholly absent, one perishes. I am too dull to know it—may I ask the king? The king said: Is this the thing that has pattern but no adornment? Is it the simple and easily understood, yet deeply principled? Is it what the noble revere and the petty do not? Is it that without which our nature is like the beasts, and with which it becomes most refined and proper? Is it that which, when an ordinary man exalts it, makes him a sage, and when a lord exalts it, unifies the four seas? Most bright yet restrained, most orderly yet substantial—let us return it to ritual propriety. —Ritual Propriety.

Editor's review

This short chapter unfolds in question-and-answer form, posing layered questions about a certain 'great thing': it is neither silk nor cloth yet has pattern, neither sun nor moon yet illuminates all under heaven; the living rely on it for long life, the dead for burial; city walls are made secure by it, the three armies made strong—and it finally settles on the single word 'ritual propriety.' The writing is concise and rhythmic, creating a riddle-like tension between question and answer, so that reading it feels like listening to a small-scale dialectical dialogue. It does not lay out the specific statutes of ritual institutions; instead, through parallelism and rhetorical questions, it sketches ritual's place in individual life, social order, and political strength and weakness. The progressive judgment 'pure, one becomes a king; mixed, a hegemon; wholly absent, one perishes' elevates ritual to the level of survival and ruin. This Bashu Press edition is brief in length, suitable as material for training a feel for classical Chinese, and also for readers interested in pre-Qin discourse on ritual to browse at leisure. When reading, one might first guess the answer, then see how the author draws it together; this allows one to appreciate how classical expository prose achieves force through concision.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in pre-Qin discourse on ritual and classical expository prose
Students who want to train their feel for language and dialectical thinking with short classical texts
Those who enjoy question-and-answer forms and riddle-like structures
General readers who need a light reader on classical Chinese studies to browse at leisure

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a systematic history of ritual institutions or detailed statutes and regulations
Literary readers who prefer plot and character development
Those who need practical frameworks from modern management or sociology

Reading tips

On a first pass, cover the final word 'ritual propriety' and guess the answer yourself, then compare it with the author's answer.
While reading, mark the parallel and rhetorical sentences and feel how the rhythm drives the argument.
After reading, summarize in one sentence the several functions assigned to 'ritual propriety' in this passage.
Read alongside other short pre-Qin texts on ritual and compare the similarities and differences in their use of questioning.

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
赋第二十六

FAQ

Why is this passage written in riddle-like question-and-answer form?

The question-and-answer form lets readers first follow the questions in guessing what the 'great thing' is, then approach the answer through layer upon layer of parallelism, finally settling on 'ritual propriety.' This way of writing turns an abstract concept into a tangible process of inquiry; it is more participatory than a direct definition and better highlights ritual's roles in long life, burial, city walls, and the three armies.

How should one understand 'when it is pure, one becomes a true king; when mixed, a hegemon; when wholly absent, one perishes'?

This is a judgment about the relation between the purity or impurity of ritual institutions and political outcomes: when ritual is pure and complete, one becomes a true king; when ritual is mixed and impure, one becomes a hegemon; with no ritual at all, one heads toward ruin. The author uses the presence or absence and the purity or impurity of ritual as a standard for measuring political order; the tone is progressive, emphasizing that ritual is not an optional ornament but a fundamental matter of survival and ruin.

Can one understand it without a background in ritual institutions?

Yes. This passage does not itself list specific ritual statutes but uses metaphor and parallelism to summarize ritual's functions. Even readers unfamiliar with statutes and regulations can grasp the general meaning from sentences such as 'the living rely on it for long life, the dead for burial' and 'city walls are made secure by it, the three armies made strong.' For deeper understanding, one may supplement basic background on pre-Qin discourse on ritual.

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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.