Chapter Thirteen: Lesser Cold in Literature — From the Cold Year of the Book of Songs to the Winter Mood of the Songs of Chu

I. Deep Winter in the Book of Songs: Laments and Steadfastness amid the Cold Year

The Book of Songs (Shijing) is China's oldest collection of poetry, truthfully recording the lives, emotions, and songs of the ancient people through the four seasons. Its passages on deep winter and bitter cold provide the most vivid, most authentic window onto the mindset of the people during Lesser Cold.

The Book of Songs, "Airs of Bin," "Seventh Month" (Qi Yue) is a long poem describing in detail the agricultural work and daily life of all four seasons. Its depiction of deep winter is especially precious: "In the first month, the wind howls; in the second month, the cold pierces. Without coat or jacket, how shall we see the year's end$22"

These few words lay bare the real predicament and hardship of the ancients in the bitter cold of midwinter. The terms bifei (howling wind) and lilie (piercing cold) render the biting, shrieking cold of Lesser Cold and Greater Cold with marvelous exactness; and the plaintive cry "without coat or jacket, how shall we see the year's end$23" expresses the anguish of impoverished people struggling to survive the cold.

Yet the poem continues: "Stop up the cracks, smoke out the rats, seal the north windows, plaster the doors ... Alas, my wife and children, the year is changing — let us enter this house and dwell within." These lines depict, with moving warmth, the scene of the ancients at year's end, the whole family working together to seal doors and windows against the cold, dwelling together to await the new year. The ancients, facing the severity of Lesser Cold and Greater Cold, did not passively lament but actively and wisely responded with "sealing the windows and plastering the doors" and "entering the house to dwell together."

II. Wuding and the Calling Pheasant: Phenology and the Cultivation of Virtue in the Book of Documents

One of Lesser Cold's three pentads, "pheasants begin calling," is connected in the Book of Documents (Shangshu) to a famous story of a ruler and minister cultivating virtue — adding a layer of rich civilizational meaning to the "pheasant's call" of this solar term.

The Shangshu, "Books of Shang," contains the chapter "Gaozong's Day of Sacrifice" (Gaozong Rong Ri), which records that during King Wuding of Shang's sacrifice to his ancestor Tang, there occurred the anomaly of a "calling pheasant" — a pheasant flew to the ear-handle of the sacrificial cauldron and cried out. In the worldview of "resonance between Heaven and humanity," such an unusual phenological event was taken as a warning from Heaven.

The worthy minister Zu Ji used the occasion to remonstrate with Wuding, advising that Heaven watches over the people and uses their adherence to righteousness as its standard; the king should reverently cultivate virtue and correct his conduct in response to Heaven's warning. Wuding heeded Zu Ji's counsel, reverently cultivated virtue and attended to governance, and ultimately achieved the glory of the "Wuding Restoration."

This account of "Wuding and the calling pheasant" invests Lesser Cold's "pheasants begin calling" with extraordinarily profound civilizational meaning: the pheasant's call can serve as the occasion for awakening a ruler to virtue and bringing about a flourishing age.

III. Winter Mood in the Songs of Chu: Cold with Steadfastness, Cold with Seeking

The Songs of Chu (Chuci) is a treasure of southern Chinese literature. In the works of Master Qu (Qu Yuan), winter and cold are often interwoven with steadfast character and unyielding pursuit, presenting a more deeply passionate and impassioned tone distinct from the plain steadfastness of the Book of Songs.

Master Qu, in the Li Sao (Encountering Sorrow), repeatedly uses frost-enduring fragrant plants and characters that do not wither in severe cold to symbolize his own lofty, unwavering integrity. His celebrated lines: "At dawn I drink the dew that drips from magnolias; at dusk I dine on the fallen petals of autumn chrysanthemums." The autumn chrysanthemum, blooming through frost and defying cold, is a portrait of Master Qu's unyielding character — resonating perfectly with the Master's (Confucius's) "only when the year grows cold do we know that the pine and cypress are the last to wither."

In "Crossing the River" (She Jiang) from the "Nine Pieces" (Jiu Zhang), Master Qu directly sings of steadfastness amid severe cold: "The deep forest, dark and dim, where only apes and gibbons dwell; the mountains, steep and high, blocking the sun; below, all is obscure and rainy; sleet and snow swirl without end, clouds press close to the eaves." This is a scene of the most desolate cold, the deepest darkness of midwinter in the mountains. And it is in precisely this environment that Master Qu upholds his integrity: "I cannot change my heart to follow the vulgar — I am resigned to ending my days in sorrow and want."

Why does the Songs of Chu use the severity and darkness of deep winter to set off this spirit of unyielding seeking$24 Because only the most severe environment (midwinter's cold, the mountain's darkness) can most powerfully contrast and temper the most steadfast character and the most unyielding quest.

IV. "Nurturing Spring within Cold" in Literature: Writing Hope in the Midst of Severe Cold

Surveying the Book of Songs, the Songs of Chu, and countless later poems on cold, we find a moving shared theme — literature never merely writes of cold's severity but always, within the cold, writes of steadfastness, of constancy, of hope.

The Book of Songs' "Seventh Month," after lamenting "without coat or jacket, how shall we see the year's end$25" immediately follows with "the year is changing, let us enter this house and dwell within" — hope for the new year and the warmth of the family together. The Songs of Chu, after depicting "sleet and snow swirl without end," stands firm with "I cannot change my heart to follow the vulgar" — an integrity that never surrenders.

Why is Chinese literature so fond of the theme of "nurturing spring within cold"$26 Because it accords with one of the deepest spiritual qualities of Chinese civilization — to persevere, to endure, to maintain hope even in the most difficult, most severe, most desperate circumstances. Just as Lesser Cold is the coldest yet yang is already ascending, the "cold" of Chinese literature is never the endpoint of despair but always gestates, always heralds, the spring that must surely come.