Week 5 - Peng Yue's Culpability and Sima Qian's Mirror

 

152m. Sima Qian’s appraisal of Peng Yue notes that “in [his] breast [he] nursed hopes of rebellion.” Yet when one examines the events of the end of Peng’s life as described by Sima, it is difficult to pinpoint precisely what justifies the assertion that Peng Yue desired to rebel. Peng’s narrative up to his enfeoffment as king of Liang seems to contain no suggestion of seditious desires or disaffection with the emperor. As soon as Chen Xi revolts, however, he makes the curious decision to support the emperor in crushing the rebellion by sending his troops while refusing to take to the field in person (151m). One could explain his refusal as arising from “fear…that [he] might lose life itself,” since fear of death is one of his shortcomings (152m), but strictly speaking, Sima gives no reason. Peng’s ultimate downfall occurs when he is accused of treason by his master of carriage with whom he is “angry” (151b). Although the carriage master has ample motivation for making a false accusation, the officials find “full evidence for revolt” (151b). Again, Sima makes no comment on what constitutes this incriminating evidence. To interpret Peng as one who “nursed hopes of rebellion,” it is necessary interpret the findings of the officials as accurate even though the reader is set up to disregard the accusation because of the carriage master’s ulterior motive. A final detail which may indicate the veracity of Sima’s claim is Peng’s plea of innocence before Empress Lü. Instead of requesting a removal of all punishment, he requests only to be removed from power but not exiled (152t). One would typically expect an innocent man to protest all punishment, so perhaps his request for leniency reveals a guilt that justifies the empress’ suspicion and Sima’s assertion that he has enough spirit to rise in revolt later on, even in reduced circumstances (152t&m). Again, pinpointing Peng’s culpability here in the text requires reading between the lines. If this is the only way to derive Peng’s ambitious motivations from the narrative, the question of why Sima chose to tell the story in such a way that hides Peng’s seditious motivations arises. This question is difficult to answer, but his arrangement of Peng’s life does, at the very least, force the reader to return and pay attention to subtleties, which has the pedagogical effect of training one in sensitive reading.

428b-429t. Sima Qian’s question, “[w]hat need is there to consult the traditions of antiquity” in relation to “finding the key to success and failure in his own age” seems to call into question the importance of his own historical project. It seems at odds with his assertion in the previous paragraph that the fiefs of the Han were not as long-lived as those of antiquity because the sons “[forgot] their duty to their fathers,” an assertion that could imply the importance of consultation with the traditions of the past. There are at least two possible interpretations of Sima’s question. First, his tone may be humorous and even ironic. Interpretation of tone is usually difficult to prove, especially when reading in translation. Let us suspend, then, this possibility on account of its difficulties. The second possible interpretation is that Sima asks the question honestly but has a limited notion of what “traditions” means (429t). Perhaps by traditions he means the “different rites and…things” which each king considers important – in other words, the day-to-day rituals and “restrictions of the times” upon which the current ruler insists, not the overarching patterns of history (428b). Sima implies that it is important to realize from looking at the past that “[diligence] in virtue and [attendance] to the laws of…superiors” is the general pattern for longevity, and “forgetting…duty to…fathers” is the general pattern for failure (428m). Yet it is equally important to realize that though these patterns hold in fact, the specific content of the traditions and duties to one’s fathers may change with time. Sima’s image of the “mirror wherein [one] may see that the [past and present] are not necessarily the same” may help illustrate this distinction (428b). A mirror allows one to look at one’s own face (the present) and what is in the background (the past) at the same time, but seldom will one confuse or conflate the foreground and background. Furthermore, one will necessarily see one’s own face in greater detail than the background, of which one will see the general outlines. Sima’s image and accompanying warning to avoid confusion of the past with the present may suggest that importance of attending to the particulars of the present against the more general, background truths that the study of history can give us (429t).

- Lauren Delucchi