Simians of various sorts (including the monkey, gibbon, and other primates of real or mythological nature) are an important motif in Chinese poetry. Examples of simian imagery have an important place in Chinese poetry ranging from the Chu Ci poets through poets such as Li Bai, Wang Wei, Du Fu, and more. Various poetic concepts could be communicated by the inclusion of simian imagery in a poem, and the use of simian allusions can help provide key insights into the poems. The use of simians in Chinese poetry is part of a broader appearance of macaques and other monkeys in Chinese culture as well as the gibbons and sometimes monkey- or ape-like creatures from Chinese mythology.
Background
Various types of primates are native to the area of what is now known as "China", among them being various genetic groups, which although distinguished by modern biology into distinct family, genus, and species, are not so clearly defined either by traditional Chinese language usage, nor by common usage within the modern English vocabulary.
Species The gibbon type of simian was widespread in central and southern China, until at least the Song dynasty; later deforestation and other habitat reduction severely curtailed their range. The macaque has the greatest range of any primate other than humans. Scientifically, humans do fall under the category of simians, and sometimes humans may be the subject of a literary reference to "simians".
Gibbons
Gibbons are apes in the family of the Hylobatidae. The gibbon family contains four genera. Today gibbons occur in tropical and subtropical rainforest from northeast India to Indonesia and north to southern China, but their range extended considerably north of their current habitat during the times of medieval China. Gibbons are predominantly arboreal, with a specialized ball-and-socket wrist structure. They are also known for their extensive vocalizations.
Macaques
Macaques constitute a genus, Macaca, of Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. Along with the gibbons, they were also well known in medieval China. Macaques are also known to vocalize.
Humans Humans are of the genus Homo, primates in the family Hominidae, and the only extant species within that genus. Their range has included all of China (by definition) from thousands of years ago, through medieval times, and into the present; although, with greater population densities near ocean coasts and river banks. In poetry, humans may be metaphorically alluded to by implicitly comparative reference to other simians: this is generally a pejorative allusion. The popular nature poetry genre often invokes images which idealize humans existing in their natural habitat versus the defects inherent in various artificial environments which humans are known to frequently construct, such as ones located in densely populated walled cities or those particularly related to the imperial court. Other examples include life in the environs of the heavily restricted confinement areas often made as habitats for concubines or wives, and the poorly supplied and frequently violent fortified mountain passes and frontier fortresses, cases in which themes of human-environmental dissonance developed into their own genres. In contrast are the natural human environments such as groves of trees or bamboo, pine clad mountains and hills, or upon the surface or by the shores or islands of lakes and streams, which are frequently depicted in the most beautiful words and phrases; and, nature poetry also developed as a major independent genre.
Mythological simians
Many mythological simians were also alleged to exist in medieval China. Some of their taxonomical descriptions defy modern zoology, and even some of the more wild speculations of cryptozoology. Often these mythological simians have features of birds, humans, or other creatures. Examples include the xiao, shanxiao, and xiaoyang.
Vocabulary
Various vocabulary terms for simians are encountered in Chinese poetry. Besides a certain pre-modern lack of modern bioscientific taxonomic precision, records of Chinese language usage in references to various simian species show evidence of variability over the ages. The terms for simians used in Tang and Song poetry may vary from the way the same words or characters are defined today. And, the modern vocabulary is often not what is encountered in classical poetry, for example the modern term 長臂猿/chángbìyuán for "gibbon". Modern 猩/xīng is used for orangutans, which were relatively unknown in ancient China.
Tang and Song One common character for monkey is 猴, representing the word hóu (Tang reconstruction hou), meaning "monkey, ape; monkey-like". In the Classical Chinese lexicon, some vocabulary distinctions were made that differ from those of later times, so that mí (獼, Tang: miɛ) tended to refer to macaques and yuán (猿, Tang: *hiuæn or iuæn) tended to refer to gibbons. However, the mainstream of Classical Chinese poetry was not primarily concerned with simian species distinctions.
Other vocabulary distinctions include:
猱 (Hanyu Pinyin: náo, Tang: nɑu), referring to simians of yellow hair,
猩猩 (Hanyu Pinyin: xīngxīng, Tang: *shræng-shræng, Schafer: hsing-hsing) is used to refer to a simian which Edward Schafer believes to refer to gibbons of various species, whose (somewhat mythologized) blood was referenced in relationship to describing a vivid red-coloured dye (the term fei-fei also confusedly encountered in this context: 狒狒 (Hanyu Pinyin: fèifèi, Tang: bhiə̀i-bhiə̀i or *b'jʷe̯i-b'jʷe̯i). Fèi is now used as a term for a baboon.
Poetry
Simians in Chinese poetry are a frequent theme. Many Tang dynasty and Song dynasty poems refer to various simians, using a varied vocabulary.
Chu Ci
One of the earliest collections of Chinese Poetry is the Chu Ci anthology, which contains poems from the Warring States period through the Han dynasty. It is particularly associated with the Chu region, thus being both more toward the ranges of various simian species than Northern China but also chronologically from a time when certain simians ranged to a greater extent than in later times. The classical tradition of the poet-in-exile originates with the archetypal protagonist Qu Yuan singing sad stanzas of poetry while wandering in the wilderness of Chu, lamenting his fate. The motif of the chorus of monkeys and apes crying in the background to emphasize the poetic mood which appears several times in the Chu Ci was adopted by many other poets over the following ages, and the typical use as a poetic allusion to this theme of exile, loneliness, and under-appreciated virtue and talent developed into one of the major Classical Chinese poetic genres. However, many of the other Chu Ci references are very obscure. Even many of the great deities and other beings prominently mentioned were barely known or no longer remembered at the time of its first publication. Some of the poems date back an unknown number of thousands of years, originated outside of the central cultural area from which later Chinese culture for the most part developed, and in some cases little or nothing is known about them except for what is found about them in the various verses of the Chu Ci collection. In terms of geography, sometimes names have changed and it is unknown what specific geographical feature or area is being referred to by a proper name no longer in use; and, in other cases the proper name is still in use, but may erroneously be thought to still refer to what or where it did in the distant past, as name transfers between locations have occurred often, and sometimes repeatedly for the same name.
"Mountain Spirit"
Mountain Goddesses frequently appear in poetry, in the Classical Chinese tradition many of the best known ones being associated with certain specific well-known mountains. One of the poems of the Nine Songs section of the Chu Ci bearing the title "The Mountain Spirit" ("Shan Gui") describes such a being; but, one known only by means of this poem, although various scholarly research plausibly suggests a relationship with the modernly named Wushan, famous for its cloud and rain, and simian sounds (Hawkes 1985, 115). Wushan (巫山, Wū Shān) is a range of mountains through whose deep gorges the rapids of the Wu River and the Yangzi River flow. Travel between the Sichuan Basin and the rest of what were then the other more populated areas of China was most frequently done by boat trips during which the poets or other passengers experienced the difficulties of navigating dangerous waterways, above which soared the dramatically scenic heights of Wushan, while their ears were impressed by the loud sounds of the indigenous population of gibbons and/or other simians. Wushan is sometimes translated as "Witch Mountain": wu literally means "shaman", and the manifest spirit of its Goddess was commonly believed to persist there, although perhaps not exactly being the Mountain Spirit of the poem. Typical attributes of mountain goddesses include her transportation by riding a chariot pulled by large members of the cat family, as does the Mountain Spirit of the poem—simian accompaniment being one of the more particularly distinctive features of this specific spirit or deity. The poet invokes the sound and image of simians while singing to his muse, in the poem's concluding lines (Hawkes translation, 116):
The thunder rumbles; rain darkens the sky: The monkeys chatter; apes scream in the night: The wind soughs sadly and the trees rustle. I think of my lady and stand alone in sadness.
From its time of first publication, this particular type of imagery from the Chu Ci would prove be an enduring one in Chinese literature through the ensuing ages.
Wang Wei and the sound of the night gibbon