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Eulogistic Songs and Summaries The four sections of the Shijing, each headed by an opening that stands for the ultimate perfection ofpoetry, conclude with the "Songs ofPraise". The songs are descriptions; their end, the glorification of virtue. In the days of Di Ku, Xian Rei composed a song of praise, to the tune of Jiu shao (nine summonses). The rules governing the composition of this type of song were settled with the completion ofthe "Shang Songs of Praise" ofthe Shijing. Poems that exerted an influence on a single state were known as "Popular Songs"; those that corrected and normalized the world beyond the state were called "Standard"; and those whose purpose it was to satisfy the gods with descriptions were given the name of"Songs ofPraise". The Popular and Standard Songs being human discourse included both orthodox and mutant poems; the Songs of Praise, being communications to the gods, were all pure, unalloyed. For the sake of the Duke of Zhou the people of Lu compiled the Lu Songs of Praise; in memory of their former kings the people of Shang put together the Shang section. These were ceremonial songs for ancestral halls, not designed for crooners at your revels. "Shi rnai" (passing) among the Zhou Songs ofPraise was composed by the Duke of Zhou himself; a poem by a man of wisdom, it provided a model for later generations. At heart men are all different; what they have in common is a mouth that cannot be stopped up. When the Jin soldiers went on about the "fresh fields" in their chanting (inciting War), when the commoners of Lu mocked the "furs and aprons" (donned unjustifiably by Confucius), they spoke what they wished to say without turning it into song. Their briefwords of double meaning and satire Eulogistic Songs and Summaries I 31 were recorded as "recited" - (pronounced song, which is homophonous with the word for a song of praise) by both Zuo Qiuming and Kong Zigao. In this way recitation/description underwent a sea-change, from a communication to the gods to one between men. In "In praise of the orange-tree", a work that must be described as fragrant in style and substance, employing comparisons for the conveyance of meaning, Qu Yuan extended the song ofpraise to small physical objects. The First Emperor of the Qin made the song of praise praise his achievements by ordering the inscriptions on stone. Even Huidi and Jingdi of the Han had their reigns graced with compositions in the genre. Thus the tradition went on, from generation to generation. When Yang Xiong wrote in praise of Zhao Chongguo, Ban Gu covered the life ofDou Rong, Fu Yi delivered the eulogy on Mingdi the "Bright" Emperor, and Shi Cen told the story of Xi the "Burning-Bright" Empress, they all imitated the Songs of Praise Section of the Shijing, and whether they wrote briefly or at length their method was consistent, in the magnification of appearance and the public celebration ofmorality. The "Northward, ho" and "Westward, ho" by Ban Gu and Fu Yi were more like prologues than poems: this was probably a misappropriation of the form that resulted from overestimation. The praises that Ma Rong lavished on the hunting facilities of Guangcheng and Shanglin in the pieces named after those places were elegant, but too much in the manner ofthefu poem, losing the native properties of the genre in a play ofrhetoric. "In praise of Nanyang wenxue" by Cui Yuan and "In praise of Mr Fan" by Cai Yong were both short shrifts somewhat shadowed by lengthy prolegomena. Zhi Yu was shrewd in concluding that these works failed in typological distinction, that far from being purely "Praise", they contained elements of the "Popular" and "Standard" Songs, and that, therefore, their claim to theoretical basis was as false as the formula for the balance of iron and copper in beating out a sword. The miscellaneous songs of praise of the Wei-Jin period continued in the path of impurity, so that even when such distinctive pieces among them as the "Praise of the prince" by Cao Zhi and the "Praise of the meritorious ministers" by Lu Ji have been taken into account, they must, in view of the indiscriminate mixing of encomium with reprobation, be dismissed for their illegitimacy. A song of praise is by nature elegant, its language is always sparkling, its spread out style is like fu without, however, its extravagance. In rectitude it is like the inscription but without its...

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