Lament for Ying ( Chinese: 哀郢,

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

: ''Āi Yǐng'') is a poem which has sometimes been attributed to Chinese poet

Qu Yuan Qu Yuan ( – 278 BCE) was a Chinese poet and politician in the State of Chu during the Warring States period. He is known for his patriotism and contributions to classical poetry and verses, especially through the poems of the '' ...

, and dated to around 278 BCE. Lament for Ying is from the " Nine Declarations" (''Jiu Zhang'') section of the ''

Chuci 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 ...

'' poetry anthology, compiled in ancient China. The ''Ying'' in the title is a toponym (placename). The word ''Ai'' implies a post-destruction lamentation for this place. Hawkes, 163

Ying Ying may refer to: People * Yíng (嬴), a Chinese surname, the ancestral name of Qin Shi Huang, first Emperor of China in the Qin Dynasty, and some contemporary rival royal families such as the Zhaos * Yīng (应), a Chinese surname from the Z ...

was famous as the capital of the kingdom of Chu, Qu Yuan's homeland.

Background

According to tradition,

, a

patriot A patriot is a person with the quality of patriotism. Patriot may also refer to: Political and military groups United States * Patriot (American Revolution), those who supported the cause of independence in the American Revolution * Patriot m ...

of the

State of Chu Chu, or Ch'u in Wade–Giles romanization, (, Hanyu Pinyin: Chǔ, Old Chinese: ''*s-r̥aʔ'') was a Zhou dynasty vassal state. Their first ruler was King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BCE. Chu was located in the south of the Zhou ...

, his home country, wrote the work in anguish as the Qin general

Bai Qi Bai Qi (; – 257 BC), also known as Gongsun Qi (), was a Chinese military general of the Qin state during the Warring States period. Born in Mei (present-day Mei County, Shaanxi), Bai Qi served as the commander of the Qin army for more than 3 ...

marched his troops upon

, capital of Chu (in present-day

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The p ...

Province), threatening to invade. In the face of the imminent peril confronting his homeland, he was filled with fury and grief. The poem expresses his deep concern and worry for his country's fate, his pity for the people of Chu, and his anger at the country's self-indulgent ruler who had allowed this tragedy to befall them.

Notes

References

* Hawkes, David, translator and introduction (2011 985. Qu Yuan ''et al.'', ''The Songs of the South: An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets''. London: Penguin Books.

External links

Lament for Ying
(Chinese) -

Chinese Text Project The Chinese Text Project (CTP; ) is a digital library project that assembles collections of early Chinese texts. The name of the project in Chinese literally means "The Chinese Philosophical Book Digitization Project", showing its focus on books ...

Chinese poems {{china-lit-stub