Sima Qian: Jing Ke

 

[Q176t]  As a kid, I learned my history through comic books; thus, both the First Emperor and Jing Ke were heroes.  As an old adult, I find Sima Qian’s nuanced take on Jing Ke surprising both for its underlying message and its verdict.  Why would Sima Qian honor a man who really had no political or moral agenda?  I do not whole-heartedly agree with his judgment, but nevertheless I want to salvage the folk hero.    

Jing Ke is a scholar and a swordsman.  He is learned, he consorts with dog butchers, he drinks, he loves music, he is emotional.  He also runs off when insulted – or does he?  Perhaps Sima Qian is pointing out that Jing Ke is no ordinary man – he has pride, and he chooses to not engage with those he does not respect.  Then Prince Dan hires Jing Ke to kill the Qin king, for he is threatening the state of Yan.  But the Prince’s immediate motivation seems to be to get back at the king who had treated him with disrespect while he had been the political hostage in Qin.  I think Jing Ke’s dithering is true to his character: the Prince has recognized his worth, but is the Prince worth him killing the king?  Once he decides to go (although I am not convinced he has decided to kill the king), he is resolute – he knows he will never come back [Q174m]. 

Jing Ke fails, but he does something impressive:  for a few minutes, he, a commoner, has the king on the run.  In a very short display of power, he lets the king live [Q176t], and the king knows it.  His death speech could have been bravado, or truly an act of chivalry because the king could not reach his sword, but none of the different interpretations would have been out of character for the man Sima Qian described.  He had decided to act, and it was almost irrelevant exactly what the actual action was to be.  Jing Ke was true to himself, and incidentally, rule by traditional hierarchy would eventually end as commoners, noble in their own way and “not false to their intentions,” would become part of the new order. 

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