Zǐ Yí Yú Niǎo 子遺余鳥
You Left Me Birds (modern editorial title from opening phrase; yí 遺 = “to leave behind, bequeath”)
(anonymous; excavated bamboo manuscript, no attributable author)
About the work
Zǐ Yí Yú Niǎo 子遺余鳥 is among the most fragmentary texts in the Shanghai Museum corpus of Warring States Chǔ 楚 manuscripts. Only approximately 2 bamboo strips survive, preserving roughly 40 graphs, published in 馬承源 Mǎ Chéngyuán ed., 《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書》 vol. 8/9, Shànghǎi gǔjí chūbǎnshè 上海古籍出版社, 2011–2012. Like KR2p0080, the text employs the jīn xī 今兮 refrain characteristic of a specific sub-register of Chǔ lyric verse, and it is a lament poem centered on birds (niǎo 鳥) used as vehicles of emotional evocation.
Abstract
Strip 1 opens: “You left me [留鳥/栗鳥, names of bird species, readings uncertain] (子遺余[留鳥][栗鳥]今兮) — the feet (zhǐ 趾) of the gull-like bird [鷗藕, editorial reading uncertain] (鷗藕之趾今兮); [the bird] wishes to wear [feathers] and dislikes the hemp (sī 枲, raw hemp fibers) (欲衣而惡枲今兮).” The mention of birds that wish to don feathers rather than coarse hemp suggests an allegory of the cultivated person longing for refinement.
Strip 2 continues: “The feathers of the cuckoo-like bird (juān ǒu 鵑藕, reading uncertain) (鵑藕之羽今兮); why have you abandoned me (子何捨余今兮)? The sparrow-hawk and falcon (yào gǔ 鷂鶻) flutter—” Here the text breaks off.
The emotional register is one of abandonment: the speaker laments that a companion (zǐ 子, “you, master”) has left behind only birds — emblems of freedom and flight — while the speaker remains behind, bereft. The imagery of bird species associated with water and sky, combined with the lament of abandonment and the jīn xī 今兮 refrain, connects this fragment to the broader Chǔ cí 辭 tradition of separation laments (lí sāo 離騷-type poetry). The predator hawk and falcon appearing at the poem’s end may represent threat or the finality of departure.
The extreme brevity of the surviving text precludes reconstruction of the full poem’s structure. The bird names (鷗藕, 鵑藕, 鷂鶻) present difficult philological problems; the first two contain the element ǒu 藕 (lotus root), which is orthographically anomalous for bird names and may represent phonetic borrowing. The editorial title was assigned from the opening phrase.
Translations and research
- 馬承源 ed., 《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書》 vol. 8/9, Shànghǎi gǔjí chūbǎnshè, 2011–2012 — editio princeps.
- Shaughnessy, Edward L. Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. SUNY Press, 2006.
No substantial secondary literature on this specific fragment located.
Links
- Wikipedia (Shanghai Museum bamboo texts): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Museum_bamboo_texts