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71 C H A P T E R T H R E E The Intergendered Shaman of the Li sao What does the removal of the roadblock posed by Wang Yi’s interpretation of the word jiang allow us to see in the Li sao? Does it reveal a “logical pattern of events,” what many modern scholars tell us the poem lacks?1 And are those events amenable to allegorical interpretation? Once we recognize that the beginning of the poem introduces the descent of a spirit from the sky, then the ascent of the same spirit near the end of the poem becomes its mirror image. We are thus impelled to ask at the very least: why did he come and why did he leave? Already the symmetry and interest of a plot begin to emerge. The poem is fairly clear about why the spirit left: 已矣哉， 國無人莫我知兮， 又何懷乎故都？ 既莫足與為美政兮， 吾將從彭咸之所居。 It is hopeless! The kingdom has no men! And no one sees value in me. Why remain attached to my home, the royal city? Since no one is up to the task of collaborating with me toward beautiful rule, I will follow Peng and Xian, going wherever they find a home.2 This statement is in that section of the poem known as the luan 亂. The word luan means mainly confusion or disorder, but like many classical Chinese words, it sometimes must be understood in its opposite meaning. Tacked on to the end of a long poem in the fu 賦 or sao 騷 form, the luan is that section of the poem meant to clear up confusion about the purport of the work. The Li sao luan situates the poem in the universe of political complaint where the complainer is the minister and the object of the complaint is the king. Since the complainer in the poem is Zhengze (True Norm), also known as Ling 72 The Shaman and the Heresiarch Jun (Spirit Fair-share), we assume he stands for the minister, and that the person he is complaining to and about, usually called Ling Xiu 靈修 (Spirit Adornment), stands for the king. But this luan does not explain such things as flower imagery, spirit flights, or the name Peng Xian (or the names Peng and Xian). Nor is it clear whether it is the author speaking or the persona. Most later readers take it as a direct statement by Qu Yuan.3 Let us for a heuristic moment take it as a statement by the spirit Zhengze. It stands to reason that if the spirit left because he could find no worthy collaborators to help him put (or keep) the government on the right track, then the reason he came was simply that. This of course invites another question : what kind of spirit descends from heaven with the express purpose of influencing the political course of a state? A passage from the Guoyu 國語, a Chinese historical work probably compiled between the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, is unexpectedly instructive in this regard, for it gives a glimpse of what some believed at the time about the influence of spirits on statecraft and the kind of imagery associated with the belief: In the 15th year of King Hui [676‒652 BCE] of the Zhou dynasty, a spirit descended in the state of Xin. The king, asking Guo the Court Historian about it, said, “Why did this happen? Has it ever happened before?” The Court Historian answered, “It has happened before. When a state is on the rise, its ruler will be of consistent clarity, impartial and just, pure of spirit, benevolent and peace-loving. His virtue will be such that it emits a pervasive fragrance, and his compassion will be such as to unify his people. If the spirits enjoy their sacrifices and the people are compliant—that is, if neither people nor spirits have cause for resentment —then a spirit descends to observe the merits of his government and to broadly spread good fortune on his kingdom. On the other hand, when a state is on the decline, its ruler will be greedy, perverted, given to excess, lazy, corrupt, and violent; his government will emit a foul odor, and no good fragrance will rise [to Heaven]. He will pervert the law and punish the innocent, and loyalty will stray away from the hearts of the important families. Then the spirits do not appear, and his subjects wish to be far from him—that is, both the spirits and the people bear grudges against the ruler...

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