''Ju Song'' () is a Classical Chinese poem which has been preserved in the '' Nine Pieces'' (''Jiu Zhang'') section of the ancient Chinese poetry anthology, the ''

Chu ci The ''Chu Ci'', variously translated as ''Verses of Chu'', ''Songs of Chu'', or ''Elegies of Chu'', is an ancient anthology of Chinese poetry including works traditionally attributed mainly to Qu Yuan and Song Yu from the Warring States period, ...

'', or ''The Songs of Chu''. The poem has been translated into English by David Hawkes as "In Praise of the Orange-Tree". In the poem, the orange-tree is used as a metaphor for certain human qualities, such as "steadfastness". Hawkes explains this by the tradition that this type of orange tree is supposed to grow naturally only in the part of China of which the ancient land of Chu was included in (as opposed to the northern plain). The particular orange-tree (''ju'') mentioned is what David Hawkes calls "''citrus nobilis''"; but, this type of orange (or, its hybrids) is now usually botanically referred to as ''Citrus reticulata'', or else by the common name of "

mandarin orange A mandarin orange (''Citrus reticulata''), often simply called mandarin, is a small, rounded citrus tree fruit. Treated as a distinct species of orange, it is usually eaten plain or in fruit salads. The mandarin is small and oblate, unlike the ...

Symbolism

The word ''ju'', meaning "orange (fruit or tree)" is phonetically reminiscent of the word ''zhù'' (祝), which means "to wish or pray for", as in the phrase ''zhù fú'' (祝福), "to wish or pray for good luck", thus the orange is symbolically a "harbinger of good luck". Also in ancient times the emperor gave oranges to his officials,; thus the emperor could be said to be like an orange tree, both being a source of orange fruits (and the metaphor could be extended).

Meter

"''Ju Song''" is written throughout in what David Hawkes calls "7-plus" meter; that is, each line has 7 regular syllables, augmented by a refrain word repeated in each line. In this case, the final syllable of each line is the exclamatory particle 兮 (''xī'').

Context

"Ju Song" is one of the nine poems of the ''Jiu Zhang'' (''Nine Pieces'') section of the ''Chu Ci'', but is quite different from the other poems in this section; so that, as David Hawkes puts it "it is hard to see how it came to be included in the same collection".Hawkes 1985, 153

Poem

The poem appears to praise a prince or other young man, according to David Hawkes (178), by an extended comparison between the young man and an orange tree. David Hawkes describes the poem as being "charming". The author is unknown, although as usual with the ''Chu ci'' pieces, Qu Yuan has been given attribution, although in this case, this is not to likely given the evidence of the advanced metrical style (Hawkes 1985, 178). The final line of the poem makes an allusion to " Bo Yi", referring to the pair of brothers whose loyalty to the previous

Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou d ...

resulted in that they preferred to starve to death than to symbolically submit to the succeeding

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military ...

by eating the produce of the land, which Zhou in their view had usurped from Shang.

Notes

References