1. The biography appears in Hou Han shu 後漢書 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1965), 60B.1979–2008. Many thanks to Michael Nylan, Achim Mittag, Billy French, and two anonymous readers for their insightful comments and inspiring suggestions. The collected works appear in Cai Zhonglang ji 蔡中郎集, in Cai Zhonglang ji zhuzi suoyin 蔡中郎集逐字索引 (Hong Kong: Shangwu, 1998).

2. For a translation and study of several of Cai’s rhapsodies, along with those of other Han poets, see Kechang, Gong, Studies on the Han Fu, translated and edited by Knechtges, David R., with Aque, Stuart, Asselin, Mark, Reed, Carrie, and Jui-lung, Su (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1997)Google Scholar; for a critical biography of Cai Yong, see Gong’s “Cai Yong pingzhuan” 蔡邕評傳, in his Hanfu yanjiu 漢賦研究 (Jinan: Shandong wenyi, 1990), 273–304, and Asselin’s translation in Gong, Studies on the Han Fu, 339–89; for a monograph on Cai Yong’s fu and those of some of his contemporaries, see Mark Laurent Asselin, A Significant Season: Cai Yong (ca. 133–192) and His Contemporaries (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 2010). For a recent comparison of Cai Yong’s biography with those of Zhang Heng and Ma Rong, see Hans van Ess, “Literary Works and Allusion in Three Biographies of the Hou Hanshu and Their Purpose: Zhang Heng (78–139), Ma Rong (79–166) and Cai Yong (132–192),” Monumenta Serica 67.1 (2019), 111–26.

3. All dates are c.e. unless otherwise noted.

4. These seven Classics comprised Zhou Yi 周易 (Classic of Changes), Shang shu 尚書 (Book of Documents), Yi li 儀禮 (Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial), Lun yu 論語 (Analects), Chunqiu 春秋 (Annals), Gongyang zhuan 公羊傳 (Gongyang Tradition of the Annals), and Lu shi 魯詩 (Odes, also called the Classic of Songs, in the Lu version). For a short survey on the Han Stone Classics, see Hong Qianyou 洪乾祐, Handai jingxue shi 漢代經學史 (Taizhong: Guozhang, 1996), 1571–77.

5. Hou Han shu 60B.1990.

6. Loewe, Michael, Faith, Myth and Reason in Han China (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982), 216Google Scholar.

7. Hereafter, the term “Odes” will be written in italics with its initial capitalized whenever the Classic, also known as the Songs (Shi 詩), is meant; when a single piece drawn from that compilation is meant, or when referring to the time prior to the compilation of Odes classic, the term will be lower-cased and not written in italics (“the ode”, “odes”).

8. The Lu version was probably named so because Shen Pei 申培 (219–135 b.c.e.), who is regarded as the “Patron” of the Lu reading of the Odes, had taught in the kingdom of Lu. For a “genealogy” of scholars adhering to a Lu reading of the Odes, see Hong Qianyou, Handai jingxue shi, 659–83, and table, 716. The first patron listed there is Fuqiu Bo 浮丘伯. Note that unlike the readings attached to the Odes in other interpretive lines, those of the Mao 毛 school have been preserved, in what became the sole authorized version. Note, too, that many scholars consider a text by the Ming scholar Feng Fang 豐坊 (1492–1563), which claims to be Shen Pei’s lost Shishuo 申培詩說 (Shen Pei’s Sayings on the Odes), to be a forgery, so my analysis will omit reference to this text. For a general overview over the various readings of the Odes, and especially, the Han readings, see the still relevant article by Robert James Hightower, “The Han-shih wai-chuan and the San Chia Shih,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 11 (1948), 241–310.

9. In a small study, Zhao Debo 趙德波 suggested a close relation between the “Luming cao” of the Qincao and texts drawing on the Lu interpretive line of the Odes. See his “Cai Yong Qincao, ‘Luming’ kaolun” 蔡邕《琴操⋅鹿鳴》考論, Xueshu jiaoliu 學術交流 193 (2010), 141–45.

10. Asselin, Mark Laurent, “The Lu-School Reading of ‘Guanju’ as Preserved in an Eastern Han Fu,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 117.3 (1997), 430CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. In A Significant Season, 358 n. 5, Asselin refers to Wang Xianqian as someone who assumed that Cai followed the Lu interpretive line of the Odes, but I did not find a clear statement by him regarding his view on Cai Yong’s possible adherence to any particular reading of the Odes. For more on this, see my discussion in the last part of this study.

12. See Asselin, A Significant Season, 55f. n. 6. The Cai Zhonglang ji comprises more than a hundred works ascribed to Cai Yong, among them epitaphs, essays, poems, and other writing. The reason why the Qincao was not selected for the compilation is unclear, but this omission is probably due to a debate among musicologists over the authorship of the Qincao: was it compiled by Cai Yong, by Huan Tan 桓譚 (c. 43 b.c.e.–28 c.e.), roughly two centuries before Cai Yong, or by Kong Yan 孔衍 (268–320), who lived a century or so after Cai Yong? As I have shown in my forthcoming book on the Qincao, Cai Yong is the only candidate among the three to whom the Qincao can be plausibly attributed. Cai was not only an active qin player and an accomplished classical scholar, but the manner in which the Qincao narratives are written points clearly to Cai Yong as author (and not merely as compiler, as has often been suggested). See Schaab-Hanke, Ein Kanon für Qin-Spieler: Das Qincao 琴操 des Cai Yong 蔡邕 (133–192) (Gossenberg: Ostasien, scheduled for 2023) which contains a full annotated translation and analysis of the Qincao.

13. For these fragments, see Cai Zhonglang ji, 14.9–12/76–7.

14. Among his “disciples” was certainly his own daughter, Cai Yan 蔡琰 (177–ca. 250), style 昭姬 (aka Wenji 文姬) who is known to have been a poet, a composer, and an accomplished qin player. See her biography in Hou Han shu 84.2800–3.

15. See the anecdote in Hou Han shu 60B.2204, regarding the supposed origins of the designation “singed-tail” (jiaowei 焦尾) for the lower end of the qin.

16. See Cai Yong’s preface to his “Shu xing fu,” in Cai Zhonglang ji 11.3/58; cf. Asselin, A Significant Season, 302.

17. See his Shi sanjia yi jishu 詩三家義集疏 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1987), which draws upon the Sanjia shi yishuo kao 三家詩遺說攷 (On the Fragmentary Sayings of the Three Lines for the Odes) by Chen Shouqi 陳壽祺 (1771–1834) and Chen Qiaocong 陳喬樅 (1809–1859). See n. 56, for references to the respective pieces of the Qincao. The Sanjia shi yishuo kao is included in the collection Huangqing jingjie xubian 皇清經解續編, whose main editor was Wang himself. Chen Qiaocong’s (1840) preface to his Lushi yishuo kao 魯詩遺說考 (On the Teachings of the Lu Line), draws a “genealogical line” from the Xunzi via Shen Pei to the Shi ji and the works of Liu Xiang, as noted in Hightower, “The Han-shih wai-chuan and San Chia Shih,” App. 2 (279–86). Hightower himself, however, expresses his doubts about the reliability of strict assignments to the one or other interpretive line. See ibid., 252n26.

18. Chen Tongsheng’s study focused on tracing various readings of the Odes in the Shi ji 史記, in which process he adduced the Qincao as a text evidencing the Lu readings. See his Shi ji yu Shi jing 史記與詩經 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 2000), 21. In a study tracing the continuity of the Lu Odes readings after the Han, Martin Kern cites a comment by Li Shan 李善 (630–689) on the Jin poet Xi Kang’s 嵇康 (223–262) “Qinfu” 琴賦, which summarizes the narratives of the Qincao. See Kern, “Beyond the Mao Odes: Shi jing Reception in Early Medieval China,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 127.2 (2007), 133. As Kern suggests, Li Shan might have had in mind that Xi Kang interpreted that qin piece according to the Lu reading of the Odes.

19. 古琴曲有詩歌五曲 [ … ]；又有一十二操 [ … ]；又有九引 [ … ]；又有河間雜歌二十一章. Qincao, in Duhua zhai congshu 讀畫齋叢書, compiled by Gu Xiu 顧修 (Tongchuan: Gushi kan, 1799; available online via mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb11129316–4), 1.1b–2a. The King of Hejian was said by some to be an adherent of the Lu reading of the Odes, but at that time there was still no Academician’s chair for teaching the Lu sayings, so far as we know. See Hong Qianyou, Handai jingxue shi, 659.

20. According to Guo Maoqian’s 郭茂倩 (1041–1099) Yuefu shiji 樂府詩集 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1979), 61.884, there were eight genres of musical pieces that all arose in the time after the Zhou House had fallen into decay, the cao and yin being two of them.

21. My favored rendering of the title of Qincao would be “Qin Exercises.” For more on this topic, see Schaab-Hanke, , “Qin Pieces Made by Gentlemen in Misery: Reconsidering the Meaning of Cao in Cai Yong’s Qincao,” minima sinica, 30.2 (2018), 23–40Google Scholar.

22. See the “Qinlun” 琴論 (probably mixed up with Huan Tan’s “Qindao” 琴道, a chapter of his Xinlun 新論), as referred to in Yuefu shiji 57.822: 引者進德修業申達之名也.

23. However, not all of the nine pieces in the Yin section of the Qincao are of a sad character.

24. Since a Zouyu is a mythical animal whose exact appearance nobody can know, I prefer to leave the term untranslated, as Arthur Waley, The Book of Songs, ed. Joseph R. Allen and Stephen Owen (New York, NY: Grove, 1996), 22, did in his translation.

25. Note the difference of the term used here (“geshi” 歌詩) compared with that in the (received) Duhua zhai congshu edition of the Qincao (“shige” 詩歌).

26. See “Yueshu” dianjiao 《樂書》點校, ed. Zhang Guoqiang 張國强 (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou, 2019), 143.728–29; the passage also gives summaries of all pieces of the sections Cao and Yin, the latter being also included in Cai Yong’s Qincao. Because of the congruent summaries for the pieces of the Cao and Yin, it seems quite plausible to me that the Yueshu author Chen Yang had taken this passage from a reliable source in which that part of Cai Yong’s preface had been preserved. The Yueshu passage is also quoted in Wenxian tongkao 文獻通考 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2011), 137.4185, where the text relating to the fourth piece has zhennü 貞女 (virtuous woman) instead of zhengnü 正女 (upright woman).

27. For the idea that the odes assigned to the Ya 雅 sections of the Classic—the court songs—supply “a pattern and a model” rather than “hailing the legitimate state power of the true kings of Early Western Zhou,” see Nylan, Michael, The Five Confucian Classics (New Haven: Yale University, 2001), 84–87Google Scholar (“The Court Songs and Hymns”).

28. See, e.g., Shi ji (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959), 47.1936. This gains credence, since he divided the Qincao text into four parts, by analogy with the Odes classic.

29. See Qinshi, in Lianting cangshu shi’er zhong 楝亭藏書十二種, compiled by Cao Yin 曹寅. (Yangzhou shiju, 1706), 6.8a (“Lun yin” 論音); cf. Luca Pisano, The Qinshi 琴史 (History of the Qin) by Zhu Changwen 朱長文 (1041–1098) (Gossenberg: Ostasien, scheduled for 2023). According to Jinshu 22.684–685, in the late Eastern Han only four odes could be reconstructed for performance by Du Kui 杜夔, the music master taken captive by Cao Cao, namely “Luming,” “Zouyu,” “Fa tan,” and “Wenwang.” I owe this information to Achim Mittag.

30. One often finds references to “Cai Yong’s Qincao” in literature anthologies, such as the Wenxuan 文選, or in encyclopedias, such as the Chuxue ji 初學記, the Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚, and the Taiping yulan 太平御覽.

31. The text included here is that of the first stanza of Ode 161 of the Classic. For the translation, see Arthur Waley, Book of Songs, 133.

32. Qincao 1.2b–3a; cf. Shi sanjia yi jishu 14.552.

33. See Zuo zhuan, in Chunqiu Zuo zhuan zhuzi suoyin 春秋左傳逐字索引 (Hong Kong: Shangwu, 1995), Xiang 4.3/232/17; cf. Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li, and David Schaberg, trans., Zuo Tradition/ Zuozhuan: Commentary on the “Spring and Autumn Annals” (Seattle: University of Washington Press), 911.

34. Zuo zhuan, “Xiang” 29.13/303/10; cf. Durrant, Li, and Schaberg, Zuo Tradition, 1245; cf. Kenneth J. DeWoskin, Music for One or Two: Music and the Concept of Art in Early China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1982), 21–27; cf. David Schaberg, A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2001), 87–89.

35. Xunzi 荀子, in Xunzi zhuzi suoyin 荀子逐字索引 (Hong Kong: Shangwu, 1996), 27/135/8–9; for the (slightly modified) translation, see John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works. Vol. III: Books 17–32. (Stanford: Stanford University, 1994), 230–31.

36. Hightower, “The Han-shih wai-chuan and the San Chia Shih,” 251, writes that Shen Pei had studied the Odes with Fuqiu Bo (cf. n. 7) “who is elsewhere mentioned as a disciple of Xunzi.” This interesting information is also mentioned by Achim Mittag, “Odes Scholarship in Its Formative Stage,” in The Homeric Epics and the Chinese Book of Song: Foundational Texts Compared, edited by F.-H. Mutschler (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2018), 137n79.

37. According to Chen Tongsheng, Shi ji yu Shi jing, 21, the Lu reading is even the primary reading of the Odes in the Shi ji. According to Sima Qian’s autobiographical remarks preserved in the last chapter of the Shi ji, he had received training in both the capitals of Qi and Lu, the most important centers for classical scholarship in early to mid-Western Han. See Shi ji, 130.3293: 講業齊魯之都.

38. See Shi ji, 14.509. This ode, of course, is “Guanju” 關雎.

39. See Shi ji, 47.1936. According to a further passage recorded in the Shi ji, which one of the journal’s anonymous readers has pointed out to me, the songs of the Airs of the Kingdoms section were “sensual, but not lascivious,” while the songs of the Lesser Court Hymns “complained about slander but were not rebellious.” See Shi ji, 84.2482: 國風好色而不淫，小雅怨誹而不亂.

40. Due to his bad rule, King Li 厲王 (trad. r. 877–841 or 857–842) was forced to live in exile at Zhi, a site along the banks of the Wei River (modern Shanxi province) from c. 842 b.c.e. until his death. King You 幽王 (r. 781–771) was forced to move his capital to Luoyang from its first base in the Guanzhong basin.

41. The chronological order of these kings is reversed here, the correct order being King Li as the tenth king of the Zhou, reigning 857/53–842 b.c.e., and King You as the twelfth king of the Zhou reigning from 781–771 b.c.e. For these dates, see Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, eds., The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins to 221 B.C. (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1999), 331, 348.

42. For the question of how it came to the division between the Xiaoxu 小序 (Little Prefaces) and their relation to the Daxu 大序 (Great Preface), see Zoeren, Steven van, Poetry and Personality: Reading, Exegesis, and Hermeneutics in Traditional China (Stanford: Stanford University, 1991), 90–95Google Scholar; for the historical development from Confucius’s disciple Zixia 子夏 (Bu Shang 卜商, the alleged author of these prefaces), to Master Mao and Zheng Xuan, see Allen’s Postface to Waley, Book of Songs, 348f.

43. See Mao shi, “Xiaoxu” 小序, in Mao shi zhuzi suoyin 毛詩逐字索引 (Hong Kong: Shangwu, 1995), 161/71/5–6.

44. Qincao 1.3a; cf. Shi sanjia yi jishu 7.407.

45. Mao shi, 112/49/5; cf. Waley, Book of Songs, 87f.

46. Mao shi, 112/49/5; cf. Legge, James, The She King, or, The Book of Ancient Poetry (London: Trübner, 1871)Google Scholar, Proleg., 55.

47. Mengzi, in Mengzi zhuzi suoyin 孟子逐字索引 (Hong Kong: Shangwu, 1995), 13.32/70/23–26; cf. D. C. Lau, Mencius (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979), 277f (slightly mod.).

48. In Ariel’s translation K’ung-Ts’ung-tzu: The K’ung Family Masters’ Anthology: A Study and Translation of Chapters 1–10, 12–14 (Princeton: Princeton University, 1989), Wang Su 王肅 (195–256) is cautiously identified as the compiler, which does not preclude the possibility that the text included earlier traditions.

49. Kongcongzi, in Kongcongzi zhuzi suoyin 孔叢子逐字索引 (Hong Kong: Shangwu, 1996), 1.3/7/27; cf. Ariel, K’ung-Ts’ung-tzu, 91 (slightly mod.).

50. See Qincao 1.3ab; cf. Shi sanjia yi jishu 2.18.

51. Cf. Waley, Book of Songs, 22.

52. Mao shi, 25/11/24–25; cf. Legge, The She King, Proleg., 41.

53. See Qincao 1.3b–4a; cf. Shi sanjia yi jishu, 16.645.

54. 白駒，大夫刺宣王也。 Mao shi, 186/85/11; cf. Legge, The She King, Proleg., 67.

55. Cf. Waley, Book of Songs,159.

56. See his references to the Qincao narratives in Shi Sanjia yi jishu, 14.552 (“Lu ming”), 7.407 (“Fa tan”), 2.18 (“Zouyu”), and 16.645 (“Boju”).

57. Cai Yong’s act to create persons out of previously anonymous song text may perhaps be compared with the Shi ji author’s decision to create biographies of persons of whom only texts were preserved. This is, e.g., explicitly stated in the historiographer’s personal remark at the end of chap. 84, as the wish to see what kind of person the statesman and poet Qu Yuan 屈原 (c. 340–278 b.c.e.) had been. See Shi ji, 84.2503.

58. For the excellent formulation that the task of a qin player is the “reenacting and thus reliving of the emotional processes of the person described in a given tune,” see DeWoskin, Music for One or Two, 176.

59. For a closer analysis of what I have proposed to call “empathy training” in early Confucian texts, see Schaab-Hanke, “Empathietraining im Alten China: Texte zur Schulung des Einfühlungsvermögens und ihr Verhältnis zur konfuzianischen Lehre,” Orientierungen 30 (2018), 17–42.

60. See Hightower, Robert, trans., Han shi wai chuan: Han Ying’s Illustrations of the Didactic Applications of the Classic of Songs. An Annotated Translation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1952)Google Scholar.

61. Two stories of the Cao section and three stories of the Yin section of the Qincao show such close parallels with the Hanshi waizhuan.

62. For a full modern translation of the Lienü zhuan, see Anne Behnke Kinney, Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lienü Zhuan of Liu Xiang (New York: Columbia University, 2014).

63. Four stories of the Cao section have close parallels with anecdotes in the Shuoyuan and at least one with the Xinxu, and four stories of the Yin section are closely parallel with stories of the Lienü zhuan. For the Shuoyuan, see the new translation by Henry, Eric, Garden of Eloquence: Shuoyuan (Seattle: University of Washington, 2022)Google Scholar.

64. That stories often circulate, accumulating new protagonists, has also been shown in Jens Østergaard Petersen, “What’s in a Name? on the Sources concerning Sun Wu,” Asia Major, Third Series, 5.1 (1992), 1–31.

65. For the view confirming mine on Cai Yong’s role as author rather than merely compiler of the Qincao, that Liu Xiang did not merely compile previous narratives but should be regarded as author of the narratives contained in the Shuoyuan, Lienü zhuan, and Xinxu, see Christian Schwermann, “Anecdote Collections as Argumentative Texts: The Composition of the Shuoyuan.” In: Between Philosophy and History: Anecdotes in Early China. Ed. by Paul van Els and Sarah A. Queen (Albany: State University of New York, 2017), 147–192, esp. p. 148. This opinion had already been expressed by Du Jiaqi 杜家祁 in his Liu Xiang bianxie Xinxu, Shuoyuan yanjiu 劉向編寫《新序》、《說苑》研究, Ph.D. dissertation (Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999).

66. Master Yuqiu 虞丘子 was another name of Shen Zhu 沈竺, style Zijing 子桱.

67. Soon after having been appointed to the office of counselor, Sunshu Ao 孫叔敖 is said to have supported King Zhuang of Chu 楚莊王 (r. 613–591) in becoming one of five hegemons.

68. Probably alluding to the verse “In your thoughts there should be nothing depraved” 思無邪 from Ode 297, “Jiong” 駉, as well as to the same formulation in Lun yu 2.2.

69. Qincao 1.9b–10a.

70. Hanshi waizhuan, in Hanshi waizhuan zhuzi suoyin 韓詩外傳逐字索引 (Hong Kong: Shangwu, 1992), 2.4/7/28–8/7; cf. Hightower, Han shi wai chuan, 41–43.

71. See Lienü zhuan, “Chu Zhuang Fan Ji” 楚莊樊姬, 2.5/15/9–28; in Gu Lienü zhuan zhuzi suoyin 古列女傳逐字索引 (Hong Kong: Shangwu, 1993), 2.5/15/11–28; cf. Kinney, Exemplary Women, 31f.

72. Hanshi waizhuan, 2.4/8/86f; Lienü zhuan 2.5/15/21.

73. Hanshi waizhuan, 2.4/8/6–7.

74. Both works make the ties to the Fan Ji story explicit, via the respective Odes verses.

75. Lienü zhuan, 2.5/15/9.

76. That said, the Lienü zhuan formulations are more closely related to those in the Qincao than to the Hanshi waizhuan.

77. Qincao, 1.11b–12a. The first two lines of the lyrics are almost verbatim quotations; the third and fourth verse lines are verbatim quotations from Ode 39.

78. Lienü zhuan, 4.3/33/14–26, “Wei gua furen” 衛寡夫人; cf. Kinney, Exemplary Women, 70–71.

79. Lienü zhuan, 3.14 /30/22–31/9, “Wei Quwo fu” 魏曲沃負; cf. Kinney, Exemplary Women, 62–64.

80. The reign dates for King Ai are not entirely clear, but we know when his father, King Xiang 襄王 reigned (318–296 b.c.e.).

81. Lienü zhuan, 3.14/30/27.

82. Lienü zhuan, 3.14/30/30–31/1.

83. See Lienü zhuan, 3.14/31/2–3.

84. See, e.g., in the above-mentioned story of the widowed woman of Wei, Lienü zhuan, 4.3/33/18.

85. Qinshi, 6.7b; cf. Pisano, The Qinshi. The reason why Zhu Changwen speaks of only ten instead of twelve cao is probably because the Tang poet Han Yu 韓愈 (768–824) wrote a cycle of poems entitled “Qincao, shi shou” 琴操十首. See Quan Tangshi 全唐詩 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1960), 336.3760–3. According to Liao Yi zhong 廖瑩中 and Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), the last two pieces of the Qincao were supposedly composed by Boya after he met with immortals, which was not acknowledged by all classicists. See Han Changli quanji 韓昌黎全集 (Shanghai: Guoxue zhengli she, 1935), 1.11. For more on Han Yu’s reception of the Qincao, see Schaab-Hanke, “Das Stück ,Orchidee’ – fünffach beschworen: Zur Bedeutung lyrischer Narrative in der Qin-Tradition,” minima sinica 33 (2021) (forthcoming).

86. 詩者，志之所之也，在心為志，發言為詩。 情動於中而形於言，發言為詩，言之不足故嗟歎之，嗟歎之不足故永歌之，永歌之不足，不知手之舞之足之蹈之也。 Mao shi, “Daxu,” 1/1/6–8; cf. van Zoeren, Steven, Poetry and Personality: Reading, Exegesis, and Hermeneutics in Traditional China (Stanford: Stanford University, 1991), 140–41Google Scholar, and Allen in his Postface to Waley, Book of Songs, 365. Mittag, “Odes scholarship,” 132–36, interprets the “Great Preface” as the confluence of the “‘aim’-oriented” and the “‘emotions’-centered” approaches of early Odes exegesis. Van Zoeren has decided to keep the term zhi in his rendering untranslated; Mittag, “Odes scholarship,” 133, renders zhi in the “Daxu” passage with “disposition,” which is in my view the term that also fits the above rendered Qinshi passage best.

87. See Chuxue ji (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1962), 19.465; Yiwen leiju (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1965), 35.635–36 (the latter, however, strongly deviating from the version of the Chuxue ji starting with line 9); Guwen yuan 古文苑 (Taibei: Dingwen, 1973), 6.12b–15a.

88. See Gong, “Cai Yong pingzhuan,” 301, cf. Asselin’s translation in Gong, Han Fu, 381.

89. Asselin, A Significant Season, 51.

90. Asselin, “Lu-School Reading of ‘Guanju,’” 427; A Significant Season, 211.

91. Based on the version of Zhang Chao’s fu in Chuxue ji, I am rendering de 德 as “virtue,” while Asselin translates as “by nature,” based on Guwen yuan 6.14a, which has xing 性 instead. Cf. Asselin, “Lu-School Reading of ‘Guanju,’” 441f, 442, fn. 27; A Significant Season, 381–82.

92. Asselin (“Lu-School Reading of ‘Guanju,’” 439; A Significant Season, 381–82) has rendered these verse lines with “With the purity of the ‘Calling Ospreys,’ / She does not act perverse or contrary.” In my view, however, it is important to make clear in the translation that what is expressed here with regard to the ode is the idea of how something should be ideally rather than describing the status quo.

93. For the translation of that passage in the “Guanju,” see Jeffrey Riegel, “Eros, Introversion, and the Beginnings in Shi jing Commentary,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 57 (1997), 149.

94. Gong Kechang, “Cai Yong pingzhuan,” 301. The idea that Cai Yong was the originator of pornographic literature in China, is dismissed by Gong, Han Fu, 383, however, and likewise by Asselin, A Significant Season, 184.

95. See Xunzi 27.135/7–9; cf. Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. III, 230. For the information that Xun Qing 荀卿 (c. 313–238) was the teacher of Shen Pei who taught in the kingdom of Lu and after whom the designation “Lu interpretive line” was coined, see also n. 36, above.

96. Asselin, “Lu-School Reading of ‘Guanju,’” 438, lines 47–48.

97. Asselin, “Lu-School Reading of ‘Guanju,’” 429.

98. For this anecdote, see Cai Yong’s biography in Hou Han shu, 60B.2004–2005.

99. Asselin does not seem to have a problem with what I call the missing fu 賦, as he merely notes in A Significant Season, 204, “the work may be considered a fu though the presence of that word in the title equally refers to Cai Yong’s fu.”