Nine Changes
"Nine Changes," also known as "Nine Variations," "Chiu pien" or "Jiu Bian" (traditional Chinese: 九辯; simplified Chinese: 九辩; pinyin: Jiǔ biàn) is one of the 17 poems in the ancient Chinese poetry collection Chu ci, also known as The Songs of the South, or The Verses of Chu. Along with Shi Jing, Chu ci is one of the two essential Classical Chinese anthologies of poetry. The authorship, date, division, title significance, and composition intention of "Nine Changes" are controversial. However, it is still vital in the development process of Chinese poetry. As a poem in Chu ci, "Nine Changes" is written in a new style: "Sao Style," which allows each line to contain a good deal of narrative. Moreover, starting from "Nine Changes," "be grieved by autumn" (悲秋) has been a motif of traditional Chinese literature. Authorship Song Yu is a purported author of the "Nine Changes." He was a supposedly 3rd century B.C. disciple of a 4th century B.C. poet called Qu Yuan at the Chu court. A 2nd century A.D. compiler Wang Yi, who collected all poems and compiled this anthology, first attributed the poem to Song Yu. Zhu Xi (12th—13th century, A.D.) also claimed that this poem was composed by Song Yu, who grieved his teacher Qu Yuan's exile and thus wrote this poem to proclaim his integrity. However, the authorship is still controversial because there is scant reliable information about this purported author. Although a notable historian Sima Qian (c. 2nd—1st century, B.C.), in his Historical Records, listed Song Yu among the great poets of the Chu who lived after Qu Yuan, Sima Qian did not mention the authorship of "Nine Changes." Jiao Hong (16th century—17th century, A.D.) believes that this poem was composed by Qu Yuan rather than Song Yu. The same situation also happens in other poems: "the date and authorship of the poems in the anthology (Chu ci) are in many cases the subject of fierce controversy." Content Title "Nine Changes" is a title borrowed from myth, and another example of such borrowing is "Nine Songs," a phrase that occurs in more than one Chinese myth. Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692) clarifies that this poem uses the same title of another "Jiu Bian" composed by the son of the founder of the Xia dynasty. Modern scholar Gopal Sukhu agrees that this title "refers to music said to have been brought back to earth by Qi, the son of the founder of the Xia dynasty, after one of his visits to heaven." The Chinese characters are "九辩" (which pinyin is "Jiǔ Biàn"), in which "九" literally means "Nine," and "辩" literally means "arguments." "Nine" in antiquity was often used as a synonym for "many," and in the context of the Chu ci generally refers to a musical arrangement with "nine" modal changes. According to Wang Yi, "Nine" is the number of "Yang (masculine principle);" "Nine" indicates the Way ("the Way" is the fundamental reality; a constant Way in which the diverse ways of living and relating