「陌上桑」をめぐって

Abstract

As the Sung-shu 宋書 puts it, the old hsiang-ho-kê 相和歌, a branch of yüeh-fu 樂府, are anonymous ballads composed in the Han 漢 dynasty. Yet it remains unknown as to when, where, by whom and how they were sung in the Han period. The present article registers my first attempt towords resolving these mysteries. I have mainly concerned myself with analyzing Mo-shang-sang, one of the most popular songs among the extant hsiang-ho-kê. This study is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the story of Mo-shang-sang. The theme of erotic enticement on the part of the man and woman's rejection recurs in folk-songs and folk-tales all over the world, and China is no exception. In Shih-ching 詩經, for example, as Glanét accurately observes, such theme runs through a number of works. The second section centers on the description of Lo-fu 羅敷's dress and her husband. Her dress is probably too stylish for an ordinary country-side woman. In the poem, she has mentioned that her husband belongs to the upper classes in society. There has been two interpretations about the status of her husband. One being that she must have exaggerated the status of her husband, and a second possibility is that later poets or more probably musicians in the Court have changed the original shape of the poem, thus transforming her into an upper class woman. I think both fall short of being satisfactory explanations. In other old hsiang-ho-kê we can find passages very similar to those of Mo-shang-sang in which the woman's dress as well as the husband are elaborately described. Some common elements among them include: the family is very prosperous; there are a number of sons in the family; they are all successful official bureaucrats; and that their dresses are always very stylish. This fact suggests that the passages may not be original, but are altered as "well-wishes" chanted by beggars in order to appeal to listeners. Bearing this in mind we can then approach the extant Mo-shang-sang as a mixture of the popular story and the "well-wishes". This perhaps explains the contra-dictions we find in the poem. The third part is about old hsiang-ho-kê as a whole. We may notice that the "well-wish" is not old hsiang-ho-kê per se. Many of them actually have nothing or little to do with the songs itself. Thus not much attention has been paid to them. They are, however, important historical clues to understanding the styles and characterisics of these anonymous singers who compose the old hsiang-ho-kê in the Han dynasty.