項羽の垓下歌について

Abstract

In the Hsiang Yü pen-chi 項羽本紀 of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih-chi is preserved a four-line song which is said to have been composed by the tragic hero himself sometime before his death at Kai-hsia 垓下. In sorrow, Hsiang Yu laments his misfortunes, attributing his downfall to a capricious Heaven. An underlying feeling of uncertainty and despair betrays his belief that man's earthly existence is subject to the unreliable and unpredictable will of Heaven. Such a sentiment is seldom found prior to this time. In the poetry of the Shih-ching or Ch'u-tz'u, Heaven, rather than behaving capriciously, is in general conceived of as giving to human life an eventual direction and object. The pessimism of Hsiang Yu's song thus represents the first appearance of that general feeling of uncertainty which pervades the poetry of the Han and later dynasties. The author has had at his disposal a text of the Shih-chi preserved only in Japan. In this manuscript the poem contains one additional line.