Formulaicity in Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions

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Formulaicity in Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions

Mercedes Valmisa, Princeton University, May 2013

She would go and smile and be nice and say “So kind of you. I’m so

pleased. One is so glad to know people like one’s books.” All the stale

old things. Rather as you put a hand into a box and took out some

useful words already strung together like a necklace of beads.

Agatha Christie, Elephants Can Remember.

Background: The Phenomenon of Formulaicity

In 1980, linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson united to

claim a platitude: our language is prominently metaphoric. As obvious as it might

seem today, the fact that everyday language –and not only literary or poetic

language— is filled with metaphors had passed unnoticed to both modern speakers

and scholars. On the eve of the 21st century, linguists Alison Wray and Michael

Perkins joined forces to claim another important but unrecognized platitude: our

language is prominently formulaic. Not only do specifically ritual and religious

language employ large numbers of formulas to ensure fixedness, repetition,

correctness, authority, and patterned understanding and communication. Everyday

language does too, and for a variety of reasons and purposes. Most language, written

or oral, seems to start from collocational sets or frameworks, that is, sets of words that

usually occur together, such as the expressions “rule of thumb” or “perfect stranger.”

Our lexicon is formulaic in that it relies in these basic and probable word

combinations.

Recent researches have taken advantage of compilation of language databases

with real samples of speech and writing, and statistical methods, to analyze how

languages are composed. One of the most interesting findings of these researches

points to the dichotomy between language use (how language is actually used) and

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language usage (how language could be used).1 On the basis of grammar and lexicon

alone, much more variability in language use could be predicted.2 Instead, the

patterning of words and phrases reveals that there are certain chunks of things that we

are likely to say or write when we find ourselves in a particular situation.3 It has been

proposed that these “preferred strings”4 of conventionally together combined words

are handled like single “big words,”5 that is, their parts are not remembered nor

decomposed as single, separate items.6 While some of these strings are fully fixed

(“nice to see you,” “glad to hear”) and likely to show ungrammaticality (“long time

no see”), others are open enough so we can insert morphological detail and referential

items (“The teacher had set his sight on promotion” or “I’ve set my sight on winning

that cup”).7 In fact, only a small number of formulaic sequences are entirely fixed:

most of them legitimately permit insertions. Moreover, the boundaries of a formulaic

sequence might seem unprincipled, since the fixed parts of a formulaic frame seem

able to be a subcomponent of a clause or a larger unit.8 This is important to remark

because in the bronze inscriptions we will often find differences from one formulaic

expression to the other yet these differences need to be acknowledged as legitimate

variations of a single formula.

Formulaicity is a multi-faceted quality of language expressed in a wide range

of phenomena: idioms, amalgams, lexical chunks, sentence builders, holophrases,

stock utterances, frozen metaphors and ready-made expressions are only some

examples of how linguistic formulaicity has been analyzed in the last decade. Wray

proposed an encompassing definition of formulaicity that includes all these aspects,

what she calls a “formulaic sequence”:

“A sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other elements, which

is, or appears to be, prefabricated: that is, stored and retrieved whole from memory at

1 For a review of these researches, see Wray, 2000 and 2002. 2 Perkins, 1999:55-6. 3 Coulmas, 1981. 4 Wray, 2002:7. 5 Ellis, 1996:111. 6 Saussure, 1916. Jespersen, 1924. 7 Wray, 2002:5. 8 Wray, 2002.

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the time of use, rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language

grammar.”9

Among all the expressions of formulaicity that we can encounter in present-

day languages, for the purpose of analyzing the language of Western Zhou bronze

inscriptions it is important to establish a difference between the following: formulas

or formulaic sequences, idioms, and templates. I adopt Wray’s working definition of

formulaic sequence as cited above. The single most well-known and acknowledged

instance of a formulaic sequence in Western Zhou bronze inscriptions might surely be

子子孫孫寶用, “May my sons and grandsons treasure and use (it).” This formulaic

sequence accepts a certain degree of variation, such as 孫孫子子其永寶, “May my

grandsons and sons eternally treasure (it), and 子子孫孫亡彊寶, “May my sons and

grandsons never cease to treasure (it).” These variations are explained as a feature of

most of the formulaic phenomena. As for idioms, they are fossilized formulaic

sequences that have renounced their semantic meaning in favor of a holistic one. The

figurative meaning of an idiom is independent from the literal meaning of each of its

parts, hence idioms are only learned by means of contextual usage, being sometimes

difficult to understand at the first hearing without direct pragmatic or explicational

context. Examples of idioms in the early Chinese literary context are sifang 四方 to

mean “everywhere” (literally, “the four quarters”)10 or tianxia 天下 to mean the

empire/realm (literally “under heaven”).11 Semantically opaque formulaic sequences

cannot be analyzed but must be learned as a whole, and like individual words, they

can become unintelligible if their meanings are forgotten. Thus they will only remain

actively used and understood if they become idioms.12 The formulaic sequence “verb

ming de 明德”13, seen in Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, Shangshu 尚書, Shijing

9 Wray, 2002: 9. 10 Sifang 四方 appears in many Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, as well as received literature. It is sometimes accompanied by the verb bao 保, “to protect the four quarters.” 11 Tianxia 天下 is often translated literally as “All under Heaven” because the idiom has become to be known in English too to the extent that its figurative meaning is understood without need to offer the figurative translation. 12 Wray, 2000: 4. 13 The basic formulaic senquence “grasp bright power” 秉明德 appears in a group of bells and several vessels from late Western Zhou. The Guodiao lü zhong 虢弔旅鐘 inscription adds the adjective “original” to the formula, becoming: “秉元明德”. Other bells from mid-Western

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詩經, Zuozhuan 左傳, and later philosophical texts (Xunzi 荀子, Daxue 大學, Wenzi

文子, Guanzi 管子, Huainanzi 淮南子, and others) did not become an idiom in later

times, and thus its meaning for cultural communities where the sequence is no longer

in active use becomes opaque at least to the extent that it is not immediately and

intuitively apprehended. The presence of the formula “ming de” in the classics forced

commentators from later generations to interpret the expression, which has been used

and explained in multiple and even opposite ways, as opposed to idioms such as

sifang and tianxia, whose meaning has remained well defined throughout literary

history. This phenomenon, rather than precluding the subsequent utilization of such

non-idiomatized formulaic sequences by later scholars, is precisely what makes them

useful and compelling, given their “openness” of interpretation: each commentator

can appropriate the sequences in the most suitable way for his own theories.14 Finally,

templates are models or patterns of text that serve as a guide to create similar texts.

Templates may allow a certain degree of freedom in making alterations or

modifications, but are generally composed of fixed, non-modifiable parts (the corpus

of the text) and spaces to be filled with individualized information about the specific

Zhou present the following case: “不敢弗帥且考秉明德” –“[I] do not dare not to model myself after my deceased ancestor and grasp his bright power.”

Other occurrences of the compound mingde in Western Zhou bronze inscriptions are the following: “帥井（刑）皇明德” –“Take guidance and model after the Augusts’ bright power” in a bell from late Western Zhou; “共（恭）明德秉威儀” –“revere their bright power and grasp their awe-inspiring manners”, in the gui 簋 named 弔向父禹 (Late WZ); and 厥沫唯德，民好明德，寡在天下－“What (Heaven) praises is only inner power. (Heaven finds he among the people who) appreciates bright inner power and employs him in (the governance) of all under Heaven”, in the Bin Gong xu 燹公盨 (Mid-WZ). 14 In regard to “ming de,” interpretations have ranged from “displaying one’s own virtue” in the Liji “Daxue” 禮記大學, to “distinguishing and employing the capable and virtuous” or more literally “illuminate those of virtue” by commentators such as Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 and Kong Yingda 孔穎達. While both interpretations remark the importance of governing through virtue, reading “ming de” as “illuminate one’s virtue” launches an image of the ruler as a quasi-divine figure who stands alone over the myriad things, and who merely by displaying his unmatchable inner power is able to harmonize the world. On the other hand, the reading “illuminate those of great virtue” emphasizes a less idealized image of the ruler, whose role in choosing virtuous and capable officers among the people is crucial --a political philosophy in which wise delegation of power stands as the basic principle for sage ruling. A third position is taken in chapter “Zheng lun” 正論 of the Xunzi 荀子, where the formula “ming de” is interpreted as for the ruler to openly and clearly display his policies, rather than his virtue, to the people.

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person and/or situation. Some scholars such as Robert Eno have interpreted the

structure of the bronze inscriptions as templates to build on. In his view, particular

information would be given by means of variations over a fixed template.15 I explain

in the following section what is problematic about this view, in relation with Edward

Shaughnessy’s and Lothar von Falkenhausen’s “ideal types.”

Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions as Templates or “Ideal Types”

A high degree of formulaicity does not entail the static fixedness and lack of

originality suggested by such terms as “templates” and “ideal types.” Quite the

contrary, the phenomenon of formulaicity is the “feature of development”16 or starting

point of human linguistic creativity. What is the relationship between the seemingly

repetitiveness of our language and novelty and creativity? Our linguistic system is

perfectly capable of dealing with novelty, both as targets and creators. Our knowledge

of language cannot be reduced to the memorization of a set of prefabricated phrases

that would satisfy the expectations of any given situation. Effective interaction with

ever-new situations requires that we be able to interpret, apply and extend the

formulaic material, as though using pragmatics to “extrapolate the meaning of the old

to the new.”17 Therefore, the process of “preferring” certain word sequences over

others coexists with our capacity to create and understand entirely new strings of

words. 18 Prefabrication is a starting point from which we can envision novel

juxtapositions (grammatical and lexical) that are more adapted than the original

formulaic sequence to deliver fitting messages for every particular situation,

locutionary and perlocutionary goals, and registers. Formulaicity not only sustains

novel adaptation to particular situations (for instance, when we adapt the pre-existing

formulaic sequence “Subject to be sorry to keep-tense Object waiting”19), but also

sustains striking poetic constructions that express novel and complex ideas “through

exploiting our knowledge of what the grammar and lexicon can (and cannot) do.”20

Eno’s idea of templates starts from the appreciation of a certain regularity in 15 Eno, 2010: 1, and 2010: 2. 16 Wray, 2000: 19. 17 Wray, 2002: 45. 18 Wray, 2002: 12. 19 Pawley and Syder, 1983: 210. 20 Wray, 2000: 11.

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the structure of Western Zhou bronze inscriptions to suggest that, rather than being

composed on an individual basis, all inscriptions were written by filling in pre-

existing templates with the relevant information about particular events. Eno’s image

of the inscriptions’ template structurally conforms to Lothar von Falkenhausen’s

analysis of the “basic structure” of Western Zhou inscriptional texts. 21 Von

Falkenhausen reacts against the four-part ideal type envisioned by Shaughnessy (1.

date and place notation; 2. event notation; 3. gift list; 4. dedication)22 under the

premise that it does not do justice to the basic nature of the texts. His own model

recognizes three parts corresponding to (1) past: “announcement of merit” –an

account of the achievements of the patron and his ancestors that often includes a

description of the ceremony in commemoration of which he commissioned the

inscribed bronze; (2) present: “statement of dedication”—a dedication of the object to

ancestors; and (3) future: “statement of purpose” plus guci 嘏辭 – enunciation of

future benefits expected from the use of the object in ritual, plus prayers in the form

of “auspicious words.”

Von Falkenhausen makes three claims in regard to this model: (1) the

“statement of dedication” is pivotal to the textual composition of an inscription: it is

the only part that cannot be missing; (2) the “announcement of merit” is better

understood as elaboration and explanation of the donor’s name and the events that led

to the manufacture of the inscribed object; and (3) the “statement of purpose” plus

guci “brings out the underlying intent of the preceding passages and shows the

religious nature of the entire document.”23 All three claims grow from his assumption

that his tripartite scheme pre-exists and is present in the patron’s mind24 at the time of

creating the text of an inscription, regardless of the final form that this inscription may

acquire. Von Falkenhausen believes that the commemorative text of an inscription

reflects “all or part of the text”25 of the records in bamboo taken during or right after 21 See von Falkenhausen’s discussion of the structure of Western Zhou bronze inscriptions in “Issues in WZ studies,” 1993: 152, and following; and in “The Royal Audience and Its Reflections in Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions,” 2011.

22 Shaughnessy, 1991. 23 Von Falkenhausen, 1993: 154. 24 I cannot enter the discussion of who creates the text of the inscription, so I will just speak of the patron or commissioner in order to simplify. 25 Von Falkenhausen, 1993: 162.

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the ceremony that served as occasion for the creation of the bronze object. In his

view, this bamboo document contained the three parts described above, and it was up

to the vessel patron to decide which parts, and how extensively, his inscribed bronze

would show. Only the “statement of dedication” was indispensable because it

“expresses the linkage between message and medium.”26 This means that inscriptions

that do not contain the three statements –merit, dedication, and purpose— are

abbreviations or reduced versions of pre-existing archival documents that did contain

the three statements (which in turn were records of a three-part ceremony). In his own

words, “This tripartite structure is also expressed, albeit in abbreviated form, by the

short texts that constitute the majority of extant inscriptions.”27 This is why he would

read the “announcement of merit” as subordinated to the “statement of dedication,” as

being implied even when not recorded in the bronze inscription. And this is also why

he will read the expression of a religious purpose into an inscription even when no

guci section appears in it. In his view, the patron could decide not to include guci in

his inscribed vessel, but whatever he did write would nevertheless be impregnated

with the religious intent of an omitted but latent guci. Von Falkenhausen grounds his

claims in the assumption that bronze inscriptions are not “primary texts,” but

secondary versions of the document stored in the patron’s family archives. This

theory presents several problems.

First, it assumes an ideal and static ritual that remained unchanged from the

beginning to the end of the Western Zhou period. Von Falkenhausen reconstructs the

Zhou ritual system from pieces of inscriptions from the late period and assumes that it

was in use from the beginning, as though Zhou court ceremony never changed

between 1050 BC and 771 BC. This is a history-free view of past societies as a static

system that he makes no attempt to justify. The court ceremonies that certain late

inscriptions record may have been in use for centuries, but they as well might not –

rituals change.28

26 Von Falkenhausen, 1993: 155. 27 Von Falkenhausen, 2011: 1. 28 In “Late Western Zhou taste,” von Falkenhausen discusses the ritual reform suggested by Jessica Rawson (see Rawson, 1990) to have happened by the end of the Western Zhou period. However, he does not connect the changes he identifies in the ritual with changes in the bronze inscriptions. His discussion of “taste” and its connections with vessel types, decoration, ideology and religion are on the other hand so problematic in many different regards that it is difficult to make sense of it in a meaningful way.

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A second problem is that the function of the inscriptions is also static: it

remains the same –a dedication— no matter what the length, content or type of text

inscribed. The fact that the “statement of dedication” is pervasive does not mean that

we must subordinate our interpretation of the rest of the inscriptional text to it. When

an “announcement of merit” appears, we should assume that it serves a function of its

own, one that could not be satisfied by merely naming the patron and dedicatee of the

vessel. Indeed, the part that von Falkenhausen identifies as “announcement of merit”

is precisely the one that becomes more literary over the decades, showing the greatest

signs of individuality, personality and creativity. The function of an inscription with a

long and elaborated “announcement of merit” should be not reduced to the function of

an inscription that merely consists of a “statement of dedication.” Moreover, we

should at least consider the possibility that in early inscriptions where no

“announcement of merit” appears, the functions associated with such announcements

were not yet at play.

Third, in von Falkenhausen’s view, his proposed tripartite structure acts as an

“ideal type” that is always on the mind of the inscription maker and that he can follow

or deviate from, much as a template. But the word template implies a regularity of

pattern that the inscriptions simply do not have. It is as though we were to say “all

texts originate in the minds of their authors as letters, though some authors may

choose to omit the salutation and the signature.” When we are examining a text that

does not contain a salutation or a signature, we should examine the content of the text

before pronouncing it to be a letter. We will understand the inscriptions better if we

think in terms of formulas rather than templates.

Fourth, von Falkenhausen’s model fails to explain why progressively more

information begins to be recorded; he merely connects the length and the amount of

information provided to the space available in the bronze object.29 Since in his view

short texts (even the earliest, which only contain what he calls a “statement of

dedication”) are mere abbreviations of an ideal, long and complete form that always

existed in the minds of writers, he ignores the fact that his “complete” form only

appears in bronze after centuries of steadily increasing length and expanding

informational content. Von Falkenhausen hints at a certain development between

middle and late Western Zhou periods, in terms of standardization and extension of 29 Von Falkenhausen, 1993: 164.

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the guci part. However, his “development” over time only accounts for how much of

the ever-present ideal model will be recorded in bronze. The “ideal type” existed from

the beginning, as a reflection of the also static ritual, but only over time all of it will

become visible in the inscriptions. He does not connect the growth of the guci part

with a possible change in the function and audience of the inscriptions. Although the

tripartite structure that von Falkenhausen identifies is indeed a good description of a

particular pattern repeatedly used in Western Zhou inscriptions, not all inscriptions at

all periods fit it. Patterns change, and they do so in dialogue with changing functions

and changing intended audiences. We will have more to say about this in the next

section.30

A fifth problem: according to von Falkenhausen, all inscribed vessels were

religious in nature. Bronze vessels are originally used to offer sacrificial food and

wine to the ancestors in a ceremonial cult, so it is only natural to think that the first

inscriptions found in Shang and early Zhou bronzes as statements of ownership or

dedication had a religious purpose, in the sense that they identified the parties to a

transaction that linked living and dead. But it does not follow that all bronze

inscriptions from a period of three centuries, regardless of content, have a religious

nature. Li Feng shows how the bronze inscriptions themselves attest for other usages

of the ceremonial vessels, including economic, legal, political and social.31 These

usages may not all have been clearly divorced from religious usages, but von

Falkenhausen’s insistence on the guci as indicative of the religious nature of the

whole document is arbitrary and reductionist.

In summary, von Falkenhausen’s account of the Zhou ritual system and the

practice of inscribing bronze vessels, much like Eno’s and Shaughnessy’s, is ideal and

static, and does explain change and difference, indeed it ignores or denies change. 30 Von Falkenhausen hints at a certain development between middle and late Western Zhou

periods, in terms of standardization and extension of the guci part. However, his

“development” over time only accounts for how much of the ever-present ideal model will be

recorded in bronze. The “ideal type” existed from the beginning, as a reflection of the also

static ritual, but only over time all of it will become visible in the inscriptions. He does not

connect the growth of the guci part with a possible change in the function and audience of the

inscriptions.

31 See Li Feng, “Scribal literacy and the social contexts of writing,” in Li & Branner, 2011.

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Rather than trying to see all inscriptions under a single model –tripartite or other— it

might be more illuminating to examine their use of language. In this the phenomenon

of formulaicity may be helpful. Seeing how certain formulas repeat, how different

inscriptions build upon them, and which different functions they seem to serve may

inform us of different ways in which inscriptional texts were created in relation to

different functions and audiences.

The Titulary as a Case of Formulaicity in Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions

As we have seen in the background section, in our ordinary language we use

lexical chunks and other kinds of formulaic sequences all the time. Formulaic

language is the basis of our everyday speech and certainly not less the basis of our

writing. The principle of formulaicity as a certain fixedness of language is that of

economy of effort: formulaic sequences are “ready-made frameworks on which to

hang the expression of our ideas, so that we don’t have to go through the labor of

generating an utterance all the way out from ‘S’ every time we want to say

something.”32 Recurrence of similar situations in human affairs, as well as a natural

tendency to economy of effort, are recognized as factors that explain the prevalence

of formulaicity in language use.33 This is to say, formulaicity becomes more prevalent

in situations in human affairs that require the same kind of response, such as greetings

or giving condolences.34 This explains why formulaicity is especially evident in ritual

language. Rituals are to be performed always in the same way, constituting therefore a

conducive space for the repetition of language.

But different agendas will favor different kinds of formulaicity, adapted to

different registers and contexts. Scholars have largely recognized the phenomenon of

formulaicity in the language of the bronze inscriptions, but they have also largely

explained it as a consequence of the ritual function of the bronze vessels that carry

these inscriptions.35 Therefore, only those formulas directly linked to the ritual

32 Becker, 1975: 17. 33 Sinclair, 1991: 110. 34 In similar situations, there at two processes at work that lead to the creation of formulaic sequences: “schematization” is the reinforcement of recurring commonalities, whereas “cancellation” is the non-reinforcement of the features that do not recur. Wray, 2000: 7. 35 Some efforts have nevertheless begun towards opening up the horizon on functions that bronze vessels and their inscriptions may have served. Li Feng for example shows how many of the records in bronze are purely legal and not linked to the ancestral cult (Li Feng, 2011).

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ceremony and the religious character of the commemorative bronze inscriptions have

been identified. These are the “dating formula” and the “praying formula,” which

begin and end the inscriptions that contain them. The “gift list” is also recognized as a

distinctive textual item in inscriptions recording appointment ceremonies. However,

its formulaic quality is not openly specified. Shedding light on the variations and

evolving history of each of the formulaic sequences that are identifiable in Western

Zhou bronze inscriptions would require a thorough and lengthy study that I cannot

undertake here. Thus, I do not intend to present a panoramic Western Zhou typology

of inscriptional formulaicity. Instead I will focus on titularies as a privileged case of

formulaicity that, to my knowledge, has not been acknowledged as such so far, and

that may serve as point of departure for a new direction in the study of the language of

the inscriptions, and in turn for new ways of reflecting upon their nature and functions

in the ancient society where they were at play.

A titulary is best understood as a list of epithets attached to a single person.

We define epithets as descriptive terms conventionally aggregated (epithetos:

aggregated, attributed) to a noun to emphasize its intrinsic properties, such as “noble

lord,” or “honorable chairman.” When accompanying the names of divinities, kings or

other historical figures, an epithet implies that the highlighted quality is essential to

the person (or god) of whom it is attributed, as in the cases of Athena Parthenos

(Athena the Virgin) and Swift-Footed Achilles. As such, the epithet works as a

nickname that better identifies the person with his/her most distinctive quality. The

titulary, as a list of such epithets, became the standard naming convention for the

royal family in civilizations such as those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and

emphasized the power and authority of kings and gods.36 A beautiful and notorious

example of a royal titulary is that of King Hammurabi of Babylon:

Hammurabi, the shepherd, called by Enlil, am I;

the one who makes affluence and plenty about;

Robert Eno discusses inscriptions such as the Bin Gong xu that share more with other literary genres (the admonition gao) than with ritual records (Eno, 2010).

36 All pharaohs carried five great names. In addition to the personal name, received at birth, a pharaoh would acquire four other titles on his accession to the throne. All five royal names plus a list of epithets would appear at the beginning of every royal inscription.

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who provides in abundance all sorts of thins for Nippur-Duranki;

the devout patron of Ekur;

the efficient king, who restores Eridu to its place;

who purified the cult of Eabzu;

the one who strides through the four quarters of the world;

who makes the name of Babylon great;

who rejoices the heart of Marduk, his lord.37

We also find titularies in ancient Chinese literature. The longest lists of

epithets in the early Chinese context are those provided by Scribe Qiang in the

inscription he commissioned, the Shi Qiang pan 史牆盤 . 38 The first half is a

genealogy of the Zhou kings, ending with the Son of Heaven Qiang served; and the

second, parallel to the first, a genealogy of his own family ending in Scribe Qiang

himself. I reproduce only the first half with Robert Eno’s translation,39 which presents

it as a narrative, followed by my working translation in italics that acknowledges the

text as a titulary:

Shi Qiang pan 史牆盤

曰古文王！初盭龢于政，上帝降懿德大屏，匍有上下，合受萬邦。

� 圉武王！遹征四方，達殷㽙民，永不鞏狄虘，微伐夷童。

憲聖成王！左右��剛鯀，用肇徹周邦。

淵哲康王！㒸尹彊。

宖魯卲王！廣�楚㓝，隹寏南行。

祗显穆王！井帥宇誨。

緟寧天子！天子周䬤，文武長剌。天子�無匄，褰祁上下，亟㺇𧻚

慕，昊照亡臭。上帝司夒尤保，受天子綰令，厚福豐年，方䜌亡不窋見。

37 McComiskey, 2009: 324. 38 For the discovery of the Shi Qiang pan, its material features and the archaeological context, see Wenwu 文物, 2003, and Yin Shengping 尹盛平, 1992. 39 Eno, 2010: 44. Note that I have basically followed Eno’s translation semantically, mainly changing the style and rhythm of the sequences.

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Of old, when King Wen first brought harmony to governance, the Lord

on High sent down beautiful virtue to guard him as he came into possession of

all above and below, convening and receiving the many states.

King Wen the Examiner of Antiquity! The one who first brought

harmony to governance. The one to whom the Lord on High sent down beautiful

powers and great protection; the one who was in possession of all above and

below; the one who convened and received the many states.

Martial King Wu campaigned in all the four quarters. He thrashed the

Yin and led the people, never fearing. He campaigned far and struck the Yi

tribes of the East.

King Wu the Martial! The one who campaigned in the four quarters; the

one who thrashed the Yin and led the people; the one who never feared to

campaign far; the one who struck the Yi tribes of the East.

Sage King Cheng, his advisors assembled orderly and strong, first

brought order to the states of the Zhou.

King Cheng the Sage! The one who assembled his advisors orderly and

strong; the one who first brought order to the Zhou states.

Deeply wise King Kang brightly ruled the land he inherited.

King Kang the Deeply Wise! The one who brightly ruled the land he

inherited.

Vastly blessed King Zhao, broadly did he strike the land of Chu and

Jing, campaigning through to the South.

King Zhao the Vastly Blessed! The one who broadly struck the lands of

Chu and Jing; the one who campaigned deep to the South.

Brilliant King Mu carried out the great plan of his forbears.

King Mu the Reverent! The one who patterned himself and followed the

great plan of his forbears.

Guardian of the peace, this Son of Heaven, he carries forth the lasting

merit of Wen and Wu; may he live forever as a standard for all above and

below, as a beacon for those far and near, shining without end. May Di on High

watch over the Son of Heaven, and protect his receipt of the Mandate. With

many blessings and fruitful harvests, may there be no distant tribes or Man

peoples in the South who do not come to acknowledge his suzerainty.

Son of Heaven the Guardian of the Peace! The Son of Heaven who

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carries forth the lasting merit of Wen and Wu; who is forever a standard for all

above and below; who is a beacon for those far and near; who shines without

end; whom Di on High watches over and whose receipt of the excellent

appointment for him is protected; who provides many blessings and fruitful

harvests; to whom there are no distant tribes or Man peoples that do not come

to acknowledge his suzerainty.

Eno’s translation starts as a straight narrative, eliminating the parallelism

between the first entry –the titulary of King Wen—and the rest. He does not translate

yue 曰, probably left as a neutral initial particle to set the scene, and translates gu 古

as “of old,” as if Scribe Qiang were retrieving a story from the past to commence his

genealogic narration. As appealing as this might be, the parallelism forces us to take

yue gu as a binomial and epithet of King Wen, and one plausible option is to

understand yue (ɢwat) as a loan for yue 粵 (ɢwat), 40 which in turn is defined by

Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 as indicating careful investigation.41 Therefore, I render the

epithet yue gu wen wang 曰古文王 as “King Wen the Examiner of Antiquity.”42 But

before we can worry about the precise meaning of the epithets that Scribe Qiang

ascribes to the different kings, we must first recognize them as epithets; furthermore,

we must recognize the lines following the kings’ entries as titularies. That these lines

are not narrative is evidenced by the fact that they were written in rhymed verse. See

for instance the four verses accompanying King Wen’s entry:43

曰古文王！

初盭龢于政 *teŋ-s

上帝降懿德 *tʕəәk 大屏 *bʕeŋ

40 Yue 粵 replaces yue 曰 in the formula “yue ruo” in several bronze inscriptions, and the two words are phonetically indistinguishable, so the loan is unproblematic. 41 SWJZ: 宷愼之䛐也。 42 Di Yao’s epithet in the “Yao dian” is similar: “the accordant and investigator of the past.” For a discussion of the rhetoric and dating of this chapter, see Kern, 2012 (in press). 43 This passage also appears complete in a mid-Western Zhou bell, with the only difference that, instead of possessing “all above and below” 上下, in the bell inscription King Wen possesses “the four quarters,” 四方.

The reconstruction of the old Chinese in this paper is mainly based on Baxter & Sagart’s online database.

15

匍有上下 *m-gʕraʔ-s

合受萬邦 *pʕroŋ

Why should a record of the merit of an official addressed to his ancestors

include such poetic devices and even two full lists of elaborated titulary entries? The

only possible answer is that this inscription is no mere record of a dedication, and that

it is not directed only to the spirits. As mentioned already, von Falkenhausen has

argued that bronze inscriptions are not primary texts, but secondary versions of legal

documents stored in the patron’s family archives.44 He imagines the process of

creating a bronze inscription in the following way: First, there was a royal charge

during a ceremony, and notes were taken by a zuoce 作冊. Second, these notes were

transcribed into an official document that conformed to certain clerical conventions,

including the date, description of the ceremony, and the beneficiary’s expression of

gratitude. This document was written on perishable material such as bamboo or wood.

Then, the beneficiary was entitled to commemorate the event by casting a bronze,

“onto which he would transcribe all or part of the text of the document,”45 adding to

that text, however, guci, a component that transforms a legal document on bamboo

into a religious one in bronze. That is to say, in Falkenhausen’s view, the written

contents change from the ceremony to the legal document, but not from the legal

document to the bronze inscription (except for the addition of the guci). Can we

accept the draft for a bronze inscription to be just a copy-paste from a legal document

of archival function? In an article about writing in early civilizations, Jerrold Cooper

argues that writing and speech are mutually complementary expressions of language,

and that “our choice of oral or written medium can drastically affect the semiotic of

the communicative act.”46 Von Falkenhausen acknowledges this when explaining that

the legal document is a version of the notes taken at an oral ceremony “adapted” to its

archival function. However, the same can be argued of writing in different registers,

such as the legal and the ritual and religious one. In different registers, and for

different purposes, different things will be said, and in a different way. In function

bronze inscription is not merely a durable record of a perishable archival document.

44 Falkenhausen, 1993: 162-4. 45 Falkenhausen, 1993: 162. 46 Cooper, 1989: 330.

16

Its contents therefore cannot be assumed to be identical with those of the legal

document. Moreover, the earliest bronze inscriptions did not record a ceremony or

copy a legal document: they only give a name, that of the patron or the dedicatee.

Why should we suppose that later on, when inscriptions grow longer and more

complex, recording a ceremony and preserving the contents of a document is all they

do? The ceremony, the legal document and the bronze inscription, although all having

the same object of reference, each initiate a new communicative act, with a new

audience, new targets and new functions. The following discussion of the intended

audience and functions of the Shi Qiang pan will help clarify this issue.

Bronze vessels were used by Shang elites in ritual ceremonies that involved

offerings of food and drink, as well as musical performances, long before inscriptions

started to being attached to them around 1250 B.C. 47 The earliest inscriptions

consisted only of one or a few characters that designated the ownership of the vessel –

the name of the person who commissioned it, or a dedication –the name of the

ancestor to whom offerings in that vessel would be dedicated. There are instances of

long inscriptions already in late Anyang period and by the end of early Western Zhou

(think of the Da Yu ding).48 Longer inscriptions attached more information to the

original “statement of dedication.” This information primarily consisted in relating the

event that gave rise to the casting of the bronze, such as the appointment ceremony in

which the commissioner received charges and honors from the king. The original

purpose of the bronze vessel was to hold offerings for ancestors, and so there is no

question that the original audience of the first inscriptions was family ancestors too.

Over time, the audience for the inscriptions grew because of the way bronze vessels

were used: bronze vessels would sit for generations on the altar of the family temple,

where not only ancestors but also family members could see them. The

commissioners of inscribed vessel would therefore start writing for the two audiences, 47 For a discussion of the first attestation of writing in China, see Bagley 2004: 191-217. 48 Most scholars assume that the average length of the inscriptions grew more drastically from middle to late Western Zhou. Their calculation is based on repertories of bronze inscriptions (such as Jicheng) that are only interested in inscriptions that record more information than merely a name, and as such are biased toward longer inscriptions. For instance, Venture 2013 published the following calculation of average characters per period: 2 for Late Shang, 6,62 for Early Western Zhou, 31,44 for Middle Western Zhou, and 28,44 for Late Western Zhou. If we looked through any repertory of bronze vessels, as opposed to bronze inscriptions, and calculated the average length of the inscriptions on the vessels, we would definitely get much lower figures than Venture’s.

17

which implies an evolution in the use of the bronze vessels and in the functions of

their inscriptions.

Scribe Qiang did not present his royal genealogy as a narrative of the most

significant deeds of each king; rather, his is a list of royal entries in verse qualified by

a main epithet and followed by a titulary. The titulary, rather than inform us about

certain events related to the kings, identifies the kings with their most influential and

long-lasting qualities and actions. In this sense, King Kang did not just “brightly rule

the land he inherited”: he is “the one who brightly ruled the land he inherited.” This

predicate and the name of King Kang are exchangeable, and this king is to be thus

defined and remembered.49 In a narrative, the actor and the action are at the same

level. In the phrase “King Zhao struck the lands of Chu and Jing,” King Zhao is

nothing else than one more narrative element. As an epithet, “King Zhao, who stroke

the lands of Chu and Jing,” a fiction is created where King Zhao is elevated over the

narrative and gives meaning to the whole event. The event now is only worth

knowing because of its relation with King Zhao, and not the other way around.

Naming Hermes Argeiphontes (Hermes, the Assassin of Argus) makes the slaying of

Argus something to be remembered only as an attribute of the god. As a literary

chunk, the epithet sums subject and proposition up in a single element that is both

different from and more than its separate parts taken independently. Identifying a past

event with a person, a new single reality is created that overcomes both the past event

and the person –a myth to be remembered by future generations. In his inscription,

Scribe Qiang is boasting about the past when depicting the former kings and royal

attendants, when inventing or recycling epithets and when including himself as the

last link of the cycle. And he is also creating a new reality to be remembered by the

future generations, who will see the vessel in the family temple, and will identify that

person of the past with the whole story of glory that ended in the commissioning of

his precious vessel. The principle of emulation brings these two goals together: Scribe

49 The fact that the predicate “brightly rule the land he inherited” could in principle also be applied to most other kings is irrelevant –this epithet only belongs to King Kang. In the same vein, that King Zhao’s campaign to the South was a disastrous defeat does not at all diminish the power of the epithet. That bronze inscriptions (much as Shijing odes and Shangshu documents) are not objective historical records but rather repositories of how important actors and events should be correctly addressed and remembered has often been noticed in recent scholarship (see for instance Goldin, 2008; Kern, 2009; Schaberg, 2001). After all, Joanne the Mad was not so mad as his king son wanted to pretend, nor did Alfonso II the Chaste avoided carnal relationships with women due to his piety.

18

Qiang claims to be emulating his ancestors in order to gain legitimacy, at the same

time that he is creating a new model of emulation for the future generations of

descendants –himself.50 By means of the formulaic use of the titulary, a world of its

own is created with which we become familiar by repetition.51 Over the separate

entries that compose this inscription rises a new reality as macro-discourse that is the

one that will remain to be remembered, and the only one that is true.

Kings Wen and Wu deserved of course the longest poetic titularies among the

former kings 先王. We know from the received literature that, as founders of the

Zhou dynasty, Wen and Wu enjoyed a privileged status as models of virtue and glory,

and were considered a complementary pair, the cultured and the martial, with even a

common binomial appellation “Wen Wu” 文武. It should not be surprising either that

Scribe Qiang’s Son of Heaven was the object of his longest declaration of appraisal

and recognition, for he is the raison d´être of the whole list of poetic royal titularies.

In the same sense, Scribe Qiang himself is the raison d´être of the second list, that of

his ancestors, ending with his own titulary and a prayer for success and protection.

Again, I present Eno’s translation followed by mine in italics:

隹辟孝友，史牆! 夙夜不窋，其日蔑曆，牆弗敢抯，對揚天子，丕

顯休令，用乍寶尊彝。52

刺且文考，弋■受■爾■，福褱福錄，黃耇彌生，龕事氒辟，其萬年

永寶用。

Filial and fraternal, I, the Scribe Qiang, am diligent day and night

without fail that my valor may be daily praised. I dare not err, and raise in

thanks the brilliant grace of the Son of Heaven’s charge, wherefore was cast this

precious vessel.

And today, Scribe Qiang the Filial and Fraternal to his Ruler! The one

who is diligent day and night without fail; the one whose valor might be daily

praised; Scribe Qiang, who dares not err, who raises in thanks the illustrious

50 See Kern, 2000: 68. 51 Cawelti, 1976: 10. 52 I have not been able to check all the rhymes because there are some words not listed in Baxter & Sagart’s old Chinese reconstruction database. Therefore, I have divided the text based on content differences.

19

grace of the Son of Heaven’s appointment, wherefore making this precious

ceremonial vessel.

My shining grandfather and my patterned father have conveyed to me

the precious blessings of succession. May I embrace their blessings to great old

age, never dying, that I may serve my lord and forever treasure this.

May my shining grandfather and my patterned father protect and bless

my receipt of succession. May they give Qiang vibrant freshness, fortunate

peace, blessed wealth, a yellowing old age, and a prolonged life, so that he may

be worthy to serve his ruler. May he for ten thousand years eternally treasure

and use (this vessel).

Much as the ancestral lineage starting with King Wen legitimizes the reign of

the current holder of the celestial appointment, Scribe Qiang situates himself at the

end of a lineage of royal attendants that had always guaranteed the success of the

former kings, thus legitimizing himself in his post. The poetic and formulaic lists of

titularies establish a parallelism between the royal lineage and his own, and between

the Son of Heaven and himself. Through these parallelisms, Scribe Qiang also

constructs his identity as member of a community and an elite. In his own titulary,

Scribe Qiang uses formulaic sequences that are seen in other inscriptions too. One of

them, the formula “not dare Verb” 弗敢／無敢 is often seen in inscriptions recording

appointment ceremonies as part of the appointee’s speech, in the forms of “not dare to

be remiss,” “not dare not to follow and model myself on my ancestors,” “not dare not

be diligent,” “not dare neglect the office,” “not dare not to carry out your commands,”

etc. These formulas are generally used after the appointee has already claimed his

elite group identity and his legitimate place in the community, in order now to mark

himself independently. By means of these formulas, Scribe Qiang claims not only that

he knows what place is his, but also that he will strive to conserve it and be worthy of

it. He is an individual born to a social role within a long tradition, but it is up to him

to realize it here and now, so he makes a promise. These socio-interactional functions

are intrinsic to the use of formulaic language. Formulaic language avoids recourse to

full analytic decoding, and as such is better suited than novel language to ensure that a

speaker achieves what he wants and is perceived as an individual within the group.53

53 Wray, 2000: 15.

20

We all have better chances to be understood –and therefore to see our goals

achieved— if we use consistency of form, conventional sequences of words, and even

pre-established formulas.

In this light, can we subordinate the “announcement of merit” in this

inscription to its “statement of dedication,” as von Falkenhausen would have us do?

Can we explain the two long lists of titularies merely as an expansion of the

dedication? Surely not. Although the formula for the “statement of dedication” in this

inscription is not uncommon, in the Shi Qiang pan it is included as part of Scribe

Qiang’s titulary. Scribe Qiang is “the one who raises in thanks the brilliant grace of

the Son of Heaven’s appointment” and the one who, by favor of this appointment,

“makes this precious vessel.” The “statement of dedication” is here transformed into a

defining feature of the commissioner, a feature that legitimizes his political charge

and by which he wants to be remembered. If there were to be subordination, it would

be that of the “statement of dedication” to a completely overarching “announcement

of merit.” And a further question: can we reduce the function of the Shi Qiang pan to

being a dedication of religious nature, as in inscriptions that only consist of a

dedication and a prayer? Again, surely not.

Scribe Qiang’s long “announcement of merit” does not grow from the

“statement of dedication,” but rather participates in a community of formulaic

textuality both within and without the inscriptional genre.54 How many of the epithets

in his inscription were invented by Scribe Qiang himself and how many were echoes

of pre-existing conventions? I would say that he invented quite much. However, he

did not invent them out of nothing. As a highly literate person, he was probably aware

of the practice of qualifying with epithets (even titularies) the founder kings, and he

turned this practice to his own purposes.55 Let me show some instances from the

54 See Kern, 2000: 122-4 for a discussion on Zhou literary inter-textuality. Kern attributes formulaicity in bronze inscriptions to “cultural memory” and ritual conventions: “The cultural memory, it appears, preserved not only information, i.e., historical memory, but also the models of verbal expression. Composing an inscription, one was not free to choose randomly whatever expression one wished but, operating within a limited code, one was certain to continue the ritual legacy (…).” (Kern, 2000: 124). 55 The same strategy is used in the late Western Zhou Lai pan, where Lai revisits his list of ancestors who assisted the Zhou kings in perpetuating Heaven’s appointment and maintaining suzerainty. At the end of this list we find Lai himself, who promises loyal and diligent care to the current Son of Heaven 天子, situating himself within the lineage of royal attendants from King Wen to his own days. Each entry consists of a main epithet per ancestor and a following

21

Shijing 詩經. This time I first provide James Legge’s translation followed by mine in

italics:

In Ode “Wen Wang” 文王

亹亹文王、令聞不已

Full of earnest activity was king Wen, and his fame is without end.

King Wen, the Inexhaustible! The one whose appointment is by all

learned without end.

穆穆文王、於緝熙敬止。

Profound was king Wen. Oh! Continuous and bright was his feeling of

reverence.

King Wen, the Majestic! The one whose feeling of reverence was

continuous and bright.

儀刑文王、萬邦作孚。

Take your pattern from king Wen, and the myriad regions will repose

confidence in you.

King Wen, the Pattern! The one who inspires confidence in the myriad

regions.

In Ode “Wu” 武

於皇武王、無競維烈。56

Oh! great wast thou, O king Wu, Displaying the utmost strength in thy

work.

King Wu the August! The one whose ardor was without equal.

允文文王、克開厥後。

Truly accomplished was king Wen, Opening the path for his successors.

King Wen the Truly Accomplished! He who was able to open the path

for his successors. titulary, much as in the Shi Qiang pan. However, the Lai pan does not include entries for the former kings. 56 An identical line appears also in ode “Zhijing” 執競.

22

In Ode “Huan” 桓

桓桓武王、保有厥士。

于以四方、克定厥家。

於昭于天、皇以閒之。

The martial king Wu, Maintained [the confidence of] his officers,

And employed them all over the kingdom, So securing the establishment

of his Family.

Oh! glorious was he in the sight of Heaven, Which kinged him in the

room [of Shang].

King Wu the Martial! The one who protected his officers.

The one who in the four quarters was able to establish his royal house.

The glorious in the sight of Heaven, and thereby made king.

Among the documents from the Shangshu agreed by modern scholars57 to

contain original Western Zhou materials, the Admonition to Kang 康誥 presents the

most interesting case of a rhymed titulary dedicated to King Wen.58 In this case I

present only my translation:

惟乃

丕顯考文王，*ɢwaŋ A 克明德慎罰；*bat A? 不敢侮鰥寡，*C.kwʕraʔ B 庸庸，祗祗，*təәʔ B 威威，顯民，*miŋ A 用肇造我區夏，*gʕraʔ B 越我一二邦 *pʕroŋ A 以修我西土。*thʕaʔ B King Wen, the Greatly Illustrious Deceased Father!

The one who was able to be discerning in his use of virtue and cautious

in his use of punishments;

who dared not maltreat the widowers and widows;

who employed the employable, and revered the reverend; 57 See Nylan, 2001. 58 We know where the titulary ends and the narrative part of the text starts because rhymes end after the titulary, and the rhythm also becomes irregular.

23

who awed the awesome, and enlightened the people;

who by means of this was first in creating the different territories of our

Xia state; who went beyond our one or two territories

to put order into our western lands.

I am of course not claiming that Scribe Qiang learned from these particular

examples (we do not even know if these particular instances are earlier or later than

the Shi Qiang pan). My point is that an epithetical and titulary practice around the

figures of the founding kings Wen and Wu was in play by mid-Western Zhou, and

that Scribe Qiang availed himself of this literary practice to endow his own figure

with honorific and perdurable legitimacy. He was able to do this only because he

lived in a time when the bronze inscriptions’ vocabulary had already grown beyond

the nominalistic form that had dominated its origins, and when ritual vessels were

associated with functions other than the purely religious. Witness of this is the mid-

Western Zhou trend of preferring pan, ding, and bells over other vessel types as

vehicles for their inscriptions.59 The pan in which Scribe Qiang’s inscription was cast

is the best support for a fully visible text, a text that is asking to be read.60

The titulary for kings Wen and Wu in inscriptional texts became more

standardized by late Western Zhou. Of all the features that have been defining kings

Wen and Wu in the poetic literature, the one that survives is one that is related to the

ideology of the Mandate of Heaven. In the end, Kings Wen and Wu are remembered

as “those who received the mandate.” Although every king in the following

generations participates in this Mandate of Heaven, only kings Wen and Wu, as

dynastic founders with Heaven’s approval and support, are considered the original

recipients of it. Later kings can only achieve legitimacy by claiming to be descendants

of the founder ones and to follow their guidance in every action. The Shi Hong gui 師

訇簋 bear witness to the shorter form of this new and more concise formulaic

sequence that will remain attached from late Western Zhou onwards to the name of

Wen and Wu:

不顯文武！雁受天令。

59 Venture, 2013: 25. 60 See annex for a picture of the Shi Qiang pan and its inscription.

24

Wen and Wu, the Greatly Illustrious! Those who received the heavenly

appointment.

The Guibo gui 乖伯簋 introduces the following variation:

朕不顯且玟珷！雁受大命。

Kings Wen and Wu, our Greatly Illustrious Ancestors! Those who

received the great appointment.

In the Shi Ke xu 師克盨, the Lai pan 逨盤, and the Wu si Hu zhong 五祀㝬鐘

, the titulary formula shows an addition:

不顯文武！雁受大命，匍有四方。

Wen and Wu, the Greatly Illustrious! Those who received the great

appointment; those who broadly possessed the four quarters.

The Mao gong ding 毛公鼎 inserts more information between the two parts of

the simpler formula:

丕顯文武！皇天引厌劂德, 配我有周, 膺受大命。

Wen and Wu, the Greatly Illustrious! Those whose charismatic power

attracted August Heaven; who were a match for our blessed Zhou; who

received the great appointment.

All of these formulaic sequences appear in the opening words of the king’s

speech at an appointing ceremony, serving the function of providing a legitimating

precedent. It is only because the current king participates in a lineage of power that

extends from Heaven to the Former Kings and ultimately to himself that he is a

legitimate ruler and can extend his power to others. By claiming to participate in the

same power inherited from Heaven as the Former Kings, the king puts himself in a

position to transmit it. This is but one case of how an epithetical practice may become

a titulary one, and how these titularies, which became more standardized over time,

may be used as socio-political discourse within what originally was a religious

context. The targets have obviously changed since the first ceremonial vessels bearing

signatures, and new and imaginative ways of communication are being invented for

the medium of bronze. New ways always require taking “the stale old things” and

25

putting them in new juxtapositions, giving rise to a different reality. There is no

creation from nothing.

Bronze inscriptions are not a closed system. They interact not only with the

objects that carry them, and thus with their ritual function, but also with the political

context and actors that serve as their occasion, with the growing audiences, and with

other literary genres. New things that appear in bronze inscriptions could be borrowed

from any other arena of writing. As such, when a bronze inscription grows, it does not

grow as an irrelevant and inconsequential elaboration of the original dedication

formula. It grows in a dialogue with changing and new imagined functions and

audiences. The Shi Qiang pan illustrates how inscriptional language grows and how

along with it new functions are incorporated. A formula that is originally related to a

religious purpose (the “statement of dedication”) becomes in the Shi Qiang pan a

means to make a socio-political statement, a means to say something that will affect

the status of the commissioner in this world, and not (only) in the spiritual one. The

Shi Qiang pan also bear witness to how formulaic sequences in the form of

conventional epithets to qualify kings Wen and Wu in literary speech can be turned

into titularies and extended to use for other former kings, and even for Scribe Qiang’s

own family lineage including himself. By means of poetic parallelism, Scribe Qiang

claims to participate in the same legitimacy and glory as his ancestors, and even as

kings Wen and Wu. In light of the present discussion, the strict relationship between a

static tripartite ceremony and a parallel tripartite inscription presents too simplistic an

explanation of the complex textual and socio-political contexts at play in the writing

on bronze. By studying inscriptional texts’ formulaic language in the larger context of

the phenomenon of formulaicity, we are able to detect other functions that the

inscriptions may have had, beyond the over-generalizing ritual one. Inscriptional texts

seek political legitimacy, means of inclusion in an elite social community, aesthetic

and poetic ways of self-representation, and traces of glory that should be remembered.

26

Annex: The Shi Qiang pan and its inscription

27

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