Chapter 15 · The World of Literature: The Bitter Herb, Waves of Wheat, and Poetry of Fullness and Emptiness

I. Wheat in the Book of Songs: From "I Walk Through the Wilds" to "Lush and Luxuriant the Wheat"

Wheat is the leading figure of the Xiaoman season, and also an image sung of again and again in the Book of Songs.

The Book of Songs, in "Zai Chi" from the "Airs of Yong," contains the line "I walk through the wilds, and the wheat grows lush and luxuriant" (我行其野，芃芃其麦)—I walk through the open wilderness, and see the wheat growing thick and abundant (pengpeng). These four characters, "lush and luxuriant the wheat," bring vividly to life that boundless, vigorous sea of wheat waves around the time of Xiaoman. This is the joy of a harvest in sight, a vivid portrait of "a small attainment of fullness."

The Book of Songs, in "Si Wen" from the "Hymns of Zhou," recounting the virtue of Hou Ji (the Lord of Millet), states: "He bestowed upon us wheat and barley; the Sovereign on High decreed that all be nourished thereby" (贻我来牟，帝命率育)—Hou Ji bestowed upon us wheat and barley (lai mou), and the Sovereign on High decreed that all the people be universally nourished by them. "Lai mou" refers to wheat, regarded as a gift bestowed upon the human world by the Sovereign on High (Heaven), the very foundation for nourishing all the people. From this we can see that, in the hearts of our ancestors, wheat was by no means an ordinary crop, but a "sacred thing" bearing the grace of Heaven and bound up with the very life of the people.

The timeless poem "Shu Li" from the "Airs of Wang" in the Book of Songs—which speaks of the millet hanging heavy, the sorghum's sprouts... the millet hanging heavy, the sorghum's ears... the millet hanging heavy, the sorghum's grain—though it sings of millet and sorghum, its technique of investing the growth of grain crops, from "sprout" to "ear" to "grain," with a sense of the rise and fall of states and homes, may equally be applied to the observation of wheat. The wheat's growth, from putting forth its ear (before Xiaoman) to filling with grain (Xiaoman) to ripening (Mangzhong)—this journey of "approaching fullness but not yet full"—is, in itself, a wordless poem of hope, anxiety, and harvest.

II. The Bitter Herb in Poetry: The Flavor of Life Within Bitterness

We have already discussed the image of the bitter herb in the Book of Songs; here let us savor it once more, from a literary angle.

The line "Who says the bitter herb is bitter$9 It is as sweet as shepherd's purse" from "Gu Feng" in the "Airs of Bei" is a matchless masterpiece in the history of Chinese literature, using taste to write of emotion. An abandoned wife uses the bitterness of the bitter herb (tu) to set off, by contrast, the bitterness within her own heart—the bitterness of the herb, compared to the bitterness in her heart, becomes, astonishingly, "as sweet as shepherd's purse." What a poignant contrast this is! The bitter herb is, in itself, bitter, yet because human life is even more bitter, it becomes, by comparison, "sweet"—herein lies a profoundly deep recognition of the bitterness of human existence.

This literary tradition of "writing bitterness through bitterness, savoring flavor within bitterness" continues on from the Book of Songs, becoming a profound recurring motif of Chinese poetry. That "the bitter herbs flourish" at Xiaoman places this image of "bitterness" at the very season when all things are approaching fullness constitutes a profound tension—the outer world is all "approaching fullness" and flourishing (the wheat waves lush and luxuriant), yet in a corner of that flourishing grows the "bitter herb," reminding people of the bitterness within fullness, the hardship behind the harvest. This juxtaposition of "fullness" and "bitterness" is precisely the complex, profound flavor of human life that Chinese literature excels at expressing—joy holding sorrow within it, sweetness holding bitterness, fullness holding incompleteness.

III. The Fragrant Herbs of the Verses of Chu and the Beauty of Southern Summer

Moving from the Book of Songs to the Verses of Chu (Chuci), the sense of summer in literature gains a further layer of magnificence and depth.

The south (correlated with Fire, with summer), as depicted by Qu Yuan, is a world of luxuriant fragrant herbs, brimming with vitality. The world of fragrant herbs in the "Li Sao"—gathering river selinea and angelica, stringing autumn orchids to wear as a girdle; plucking magnolia on the slopes at dawn, gathering evergreen grass on the islet at dusk—is precisely a portrait of the lush flourishing of plants and trees in the southern summer. The "Nine Songs," in "The Lady of the Xiang," has the line "gathering the sweet flag on the sandy isle, to send to one far away," and "The Mountain Spirit" has the lines "clad in creeping fig, girdled with dodder vine" and "the person of the mountains, fragrant with sweet flag, drinking from the stone spring, sheltered by pine and cypress"—what pervades these lines is precisely that beauty of "fullness" found in the southern summer's luxuriant plants and fragrant abundance.

But the depth of the Verses of Chu lies in this: within this world of "fullness," this world of fragrant herbs, it is suffused, from beginning to end, with a profound anxiety and searching. Qu Yuan is not intoxicated with self-satisfaction at the beauty of the fragrant herbs; rather, amid this beauty, he feels all the more keenly "the fear that the fair one's beauty will fade with age"—an anxiety over the fleeting nature of beauty (fullness). "Only I fear that the plants and trees will wither and fall, and that the fair one's beauty will fade with age" ("Li Sao")—plants and trees will inevitably wither, just as the fair one's beauty will inevitably fade, just as fullness will inevitably turn to emptiness. This sober-minded clarity, "anxious over the coming passing even amid fullness," resonates so profoundly with the spirit of "Xiaoman"—"flourishing yet knowing to guard against excess, full yet contemplating emptiness"! Qu Yuan's anxiety over the withering of plants and trees at their very height of flourishing is precisely like our ancestors' guarding against "great fullness" at the very season when all things approach fullness (Xiaoman)—both are the most sensitive, most profound recognition of the Dao of Heaven's principle that "fullness at its extreme must decline."

IV. "Blank Space" in Literature and the Aesthetics of "Xiaoman"

Finally, let us look, from a more panoramic angle, at how the spirit of "Xiaoman"—"full yet not overflowing, leaving room to spare"—has profoundly shaped the aesthetic character of Chinese literature.

What Chinese literature (poetry especially) has always prized most is never speaking every word to its very end or writing every feeling to its very full, but rather "words that end while meaning remains inexhaustible"—blank space, restraint, lingering resonance. Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Categories of Poetry (though a work of the late Tang, its principles trace back to the pre-Qin thought of Zhuangzi and Laozi), discussing "restraint" (含蓄), says: "Without setting down a single word, the whole of its elegance is captured" (不著一字，尽得风流)—without stating it directly, and yet expressing the whole of its grace and spirit. This "blank space" of "not setting down a single word" is precisely the literary version of "Xiaoman"—not "filling" the meaning to the brim, but leaving vast blank spaces, letting the reader imagine, fill in, and savor.

Why does Chinese literature prize restraint and blank space so highly$10 Because a work that is "written full" (great fullness) has no lingering resonance—everything has been said, the reader need not, and indeed cannot, imagine anything further, and the work's vitality ends right there ("its function has failed"). A work of "restraint" (small fullness), by contrast, has "its function never fail"—it retains inexhaustible room, letting generation after generation of readers continually discover new meaning within it. This is precisely the literary embodiment of "great accomplishment seems flawed, yet its function never fails."

Tao Yuanming's line "in this there is a true meaning, but wishing to express it, I have already forgotten the words" ("Drinking Wine"), and Wang Wei's line "I walk to where the water ends, and sit to watch the clouds rise"—these timeless lines move us precisely because they both pause at the state of "Xiaoman": the meaning has already become full (a true meaning present, a subtle realm attained), yet remains restrained, unwilling to say it all (forgetting the words, sitting to watch), leaving an inexhaustible resonance for the reader to steep in. It may be said that the highest realm of Chinese literature is precisely the realm of "Xiaoman"—abundant yet not overflowing, restrained yet resonant, its words ending while its meaning remains inexhaustible.