Song Zhiwen

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Song Zhiwen was probably born in 656, the first year of Xianqing under Emperor Gaozong of Tang, and did not come from an especially prominent lineage. His father Song Lingwen was highly accomplished and was described as “rich in literary talent, skilled in calligraphy, and unmatched in strength,” becoming known for these three excellences. He served as a commandant in the Left Valiant Guard and as an academician in the Eastern Terrace responsible for collating books and old texts. Under his influence, Song Zhiwen and his younger brothers Song Zhiti and Song Zhixun studied diligently. Each was said to have inherited one of their father's three talents: Song Zhiti excelled in martial prowess, Song Zhixun in cursive and clerical calligraphy, and Song Zhiwen in literary composition. The Old Book of Tang records this family reputation, noting that Song Lingwen was strong, skilled in calligraphy, and good at composition, while his three sons were each famed for one of these strengths.

Song Zhiwen's native place was disputed. The Old Book of Tang says he came from Hongnong in Guozhou, in the area of modern Lingbao, Henan; the New Book of Tang gives Fenzhou, in the region of modern Fenyang, Shanxi. Researcher Ma Douquan of the Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences argued that Song's poetry frequently mentioned Luoyang and Mount Song but almost never referred to Fenzhou, and that the Qing scholar Dai Zhen's Fenzhou Prefectural Gazetteer, despite detailed accounts of local historical figures and their residences, contained no trace of Song Zhiwen. Ma therefore inferred that Song's home should instead be placed in Luozhou, around Luoyang.

In 675, the second year of Shangyuan, Song Zhiwen, described as tall and handsome, passed the jinshi examination. His literary reputation led to his being summoned with Yang Jiong to serve in the Inner Literary Institute, after which he was sent out as an adjutant in Mingzhou. In 681, the second year of Yonglong, he and Yang Jiong entered the Chongwen Institute as academicians.

The Wu Zhou Period: Court Academician and the “Longmen Robe”

In the autumn of 690, the first year of Tianshou, Empress Wu proclaimed herself emperor and changed the dynastic title to Zhou. She summoned Song Zhiwen and Yang Jiong to serve in the western inner offices at Luoyang. During the next fifteen years Song rose rapidly from a subordinate ninth-rank palace post to a fifth-rank academician. Under Wu Zhou, he accompanied Wu Zetian at court audiences and excursions and also took part in entertainments involving favored courtiers and imperial relatives, later writing that “my ambitions had just been fulfilled, and body and self were both forgotten.”

When Wu Zetian visited Longmen, she ordered her officials to compose poems on the scenery and promised a brocade robe to the first to finish. The Left Historian Dongfang Qiu completed a poem first and received the robe. Wu Sansi and Shen Quanqi then submitted poems, and finally Song Zhiwen presented the long poem “Written by Imperial Command at Longmen.” After Shangguan Wan'er recited it, the assembled officials acclaimed it. Wu Zetian exclaimed that this poem was better, whereupon Shangguan Wan'er, understanding the ruler's intent, descended the steps, took the robe from Dongfang Qiu, and presented it to Song. The story became widely known as Song Zhiwen's “seizing the brocade robe at Longmen.”

In Wu Zetian's later years, Song successively served as assistant in the Directorate of the Masters of Writing and as an inner attendant of the Left Fengchen Office. The favored brothers Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong “greatly admired his talent” and summoned him, together with Du Shenyan, Yan Chaoyin, Shen Quanqi, Wang Wujing, Yin Yuankai, Li Shi, Fu Jiamo, Liu Yunji, and other writers, to help compile their literary collection. Song and Yan Chaoyin frequently composed pieces on Zhang Yizhi's behalf for inclusion in the collection. His eagerness to flatter the brothers became notorious; the source text even says that he was willing to hold Zhang Yizhi's chamber pot, drawing ridicule from contemporaries. In 703, the second year of Chang'an, after the collection was completed, he was transferred to registrar of the Court of Ceremonial.

According to Benshi Shi, Song once sought appointment among the “Northern Gate Scholars” but was rejected. He then submitted “The Silver River” to Wu Zetian, ending with lines expressing his wish to ride a raft across the Milky Way, seek the Weaver Girl's loom stone, and visit the fortune-teller of Chengdu. The source says Wu Zetian remarked to Cui Rong that she knew Song was talented and sensitive but disliked his bad breath. Humiliated when he learned of this, Song is said thereafter to have brushed his teeth many times a day and to have held clove in his mouth when attending court.

Under Emperor Zhongzong: Informing for Advancement and Demotion to Yuezhou

In the first month of 705, the first year of Shenlong, Chancellor Zhang Jianzhi and Wang Tongjiao, an official attached to the crown prince, forced Wu Zetian to abdicate, executed Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, and restored Emperor Zhongzong of Tang. Song Zhiwen and friends such as Du Shenyan were demoted. Song was sent to Longzhou as an adjutant. Finding conditions difficult and longing for his former status, he secretly escaped back to Luoyang the following spring and hid in the house of his friend Zhang Zhongzhi. At the time, Wu Sansi and other members of the Wu clan remained powerful. Zhang Zhongzhi and Wang Tongjiao were secretly plotting to kill Wu Sansi. After learning of the plot, Song sent a nephew to report it, leading to the destruction of Zhang Zhongzhi's family. Song's betrayal of his friend and attachment to Wu Sansi meant that his unauthorized return to Luoyang went unpunished; instead, he was promoted to registrar of the Court of State Ceremonial, and, in the words of the source, “was deeply despised by righteous men.”

In the seventh month of 707, the first year of Jinglong, Crown Prince Jiemin Li Chongjun killed Wu Sansi and his son but was himself killed. Song submitted a memorial praising the Wu father and son and requested construction of a stele glorifying Emperor Zhongzong's martial virtue. This won favor, and in the following year he was transferred to Vice Director in the Bureau of Merit Evaluation. Together with Du Shenyan, Wuping Yi, Shen Quanqi, Yan Chaoyin, and others, he was among the first chosen as direct academicians of the Xiuwen Institute. The source states that when he took charge of personnel selection he promoted younger men, many of whom later became well known. At a time of intense factional rivalry at court, Song aligned himself with Princess Anle, provoking the hostility of Princess Taiping. After Taiping spoke against him to Emperor Zhongzong, he was demoted in 709 to Chief Secretary of Yuezhou.

The political instability of Emperor Zhongzong's reign and Song's repeated reversals of fortune affected him deeply. Moving from a decayed court environment to the fresh scenery of the Jiangnan water country is described in the source as cleansing and elevating his spirit. In Yuezhou he wrote the “Sacrificial Essay at the Temple of Yu,” sincerely praising Yu the Great for controlling floods, rescuing people from disaster, and benefiting the populace. He traveled through mountains and difficult terrain, investigated local conditions, “made a considerable effort to govern,” and his poetry began to take on a healthier and fresher style. His works circulated in the capital and were widely recited.

Exile and Ordered Suicide

In the sixth month of 710, the first year of Jingyun, Li Longji and Princess Taiping killed Empress Wei and Princess Anle and restored Emperor Ruizong of Tang. Because Song Zhiwen had previously attached himself to the Zhang brothers and Wu Sansi, he was exiled by edict to Qinzhou, northeast of present-day Qinzhou in Guangxi, and after an amnesty his place of exile was changed to Guizhou.

In the eighth month of 712, the first year of Xiantian, after Emperor Xuanzong Li Longji took the throne, Song Zhiwen was ordered to commit suicide at his place of exile. The Old Book of Tang states simply that “during the Xiantian era he was ordered to die at his place of exile.” The New Book of Tang says that he was “ordered to die at Guilin” and gives a dramatic account: on receiving the order, Song broke into a cold sweat, paced back and forth, and could not bring himself to act. Zu Yong asked the envoy to allow Song time to settle matters because he had a wife and children. The envoy agreed, but Song remained terrified and unable to arrange his household. Zu Yong became angry and said that both of them had failed the state and deserved death, asking why Song hesitated. Song then ate, bathed, and went to his death.

Major Activities

Literary Contributions: A Founder of Mature Regulated Verse

In poetic practice, Song Zhiwen helped make the rules of regulated verse inherited from the Six Dynasties more precise, further perfected the system of five-character regulated verse, and, according to the source text, helped create a new form of seven-character regulated verse. Together with Shen Quanqi, he built on the development from Shen Yue and Yu Xin of the Qi and Liang periods through the Four Paragons of the Early Tang. Through practice and reflection they brought the forms of regulated verse to maturity and sharply distinguished old-style verse from recent-style regulated verse. Yuan Zhen wrote that the school of Shen and Song was “carefully refined and exact, steady and harmonious in sound and momentum,” and that its work came to be called regulated verse. Yan Yu of the Southern Song wrote in the Canglang Shihua that after the disappearance of the Airs, Odes, and Hymns, poetry transformed successively into the Li Sao, Western Han five-character verse, mixed song forms, and finally the regulated verse of Shen and Song. Ming critic Hu Yinglin said that seven-character regulated verse began with Shen and Song, while Wang Shizhen wrote that only with Shen and Song did five-character poetry fully deserve the name “regulated verse.”

Song was already famous when young and handled many poetic forms skillfully. The source text cites numerous admired lines: a short song dedicated to Sima Chengzhen expresses friendship; the five-character old-style poem “On an Old Pine” uses the isolated pine to symbolize moral integrity; “The Silver River” imagines a traveler crossing the Milky Way; the five-character quatrain “Seeing Off Du Shenyan” voices grief at parting; and the long five-character regulated poem “Lingyin Temple” includes the famous image of towers facing the sunrise over the sea and gates opening toward the tide of the Qiantang River. These pieces were praised for clarity, sincerity, and pictorial beauty.

Poems written during his exile in Lingnan, including “Inscribed at the North Post Station of Dayu Ridge,” “Crossing Dayu Ridge,” and especially “Crossing the Han River,” were considered particularly moving. The line from “Crossing the Han River,” “The nearer home, the more fearful the heart; I dare not ask those coming from there,” captures the complex feelings of a person returning after a long absence and loss of contact and has been widely quoted for centuries.

Political Activity: Attachment to Powerful Patrons and Informing for Advancement

Song Zhiwen's political career was deeply controversial. During Wu Zhou, he attached himself to Wu Zetian's favored courtiers Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, composed poetry for them, and, according to hostile accounts, even held a chamber pot for Zhang Yizhi, causing “all under Heaven to despise his conduct.” After Zhang Yizhi was executed in 705, Song was demoted to Longzhou but soon fled back to Luoyang and informed on his friend Zhang Zhongzhi's plot against Wu Sansi. He was promoted to registrar of the Court of State Ceremonial. Later he attached himself to Princess Anle, incurred Princess Taiping's hostility, and was demoted to Yuezhou. After Emperor Ruizong took power he was exiled to Qinzhou for his former conduct and was eventually ordered to commit suicide.

Travels and Movements

Song Zhiwen's life took him through the Central Plains, Lingnan, and Jiangnan. In his early career he was active at the courts of Luoyang and Chang'an. On the way to exile in Longzhou he crossed Dayu Ridge and wrote “Inscribed at the North Post Station of Dayu Ridge” and “Crossing Dayu Ridge.” While serving as Chief Secretary of Yuezhou, he traveled through mountains and difficult country, investigated the lives of the people, and wrote the “Sacrificial Essay at the Temple of Yu.” During his later exile he passed through Guizhou and was ultimately ordered to die there.

Contacts with Contemporaries

Song Zhiwen and Shen Quanqi were jointly famous as “Shen and Song,” and together were credited with helping regulated verse reach mature form. He was a close friend of Du Shenyan and wrote “Seeing Off Du Shenyan.” He was summoned with Yang Jiong to literary service and entered the Chongwen Institute with him. The source also groups Song with Chen Zi'ang, Lu Cangyong, Sima Chengzhen, Wang Shi, Bi Gou, Li Bai, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei, and He Zhizhang as the “Ten Friends of the Immortal School.” Together with Yan Chaoyin, Wang Wujing, Yin Yuankai, Li Shi, Fu Jiamo, Liu Yunji, and others, he participated in compiling the Zhang brothers' literary collection. He was friendly with Wuping Yi, who later compiled a ten-juan Collected Works of Song Zhiwen.

Controversial Episode: Alleged Killing of Liu Xiyi for a Poem

The most famous controversy associated with Song Zhiwen concerns the death of his nephew Liu Xiyi. A note appended to Liu Xiyi's “Ballad of the White-Headed Old Man” in the imperially commissioned Complete Tang Poems says that Liu, a skilled pipa player, wrote lines about flowers changing from year to year and later feared that they sounded ominous. He then wrote the famous couplet “Year after year the flowers are similar; year after year the people are different,” but again felt it sounded like a prophecy. Before a year had passed, he was killed by a villain. The note adds that “some say Song Zhiwen killed Xiyi and claimed the ‘White-Headed Old Man’ poem as his own,” and that some collections consequently included the poem under Song's name.

The Datang Xinyu preserves only an implication and does not establish the accusation. The phrase used by Liu Su, “killed by a villain,” does not identify Song, and the statement “some say Song Zhiwen harmed him” is too weak on its own to serve as decisive evidence.

Personal Relations

Family

• Father: Song Lingwen, known for literary skill, calligraphy, and exceptional strength, the “three excellences”
• Younger brother: Song Zhiti, exceptionally brave
• Younger brother: Song Zhixun, skilled in cursive and clerical calligraphy
• Nephew: Liu Xiyi, poet; one tradition alleges that Song killed him over a poem

Teachers and Associates

• Shen Quanqi: jointly famous as “Shen and Song”; together helped bring regulated verse to maturity
• Du Shenyan: friend; subject of Song's poem “Seeing Off Du Shenyan”
• Yang Jiong: summoned to literary service with Song and later served with him in the Chongwen Institute
• Wuping Yi: friend who compiled the ten-juan Collected Works of Song Zhiwen
• Chen Zi'ang, Lu Cangyong, Sima Chengzhen, Wang Shi, Bi Gou, Li Bai, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei, and He Zhizhang: grouped with Song as the “Ten Friends of the Immortal School”

Ruler–Subject Relations

• Wu Zetian: patron during Wu Zhou; associated with the “Longmen robe” anecdote
• Emperor Zhongzong of Tang: under whom Song served as Vice Director in the Bureau of Merit Evaluation and direct academician of the Xiuwen Institute
• Emperor Ruizong of Tang: ordered Song's exile to Qinzhou
• Emperor Xuanzong of Tang: ordered Song to commit suicide

Conflicts and Controversial Associations

• Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong: powerful patrons whom Song flattered and for whom he composed poetry
• Zhang Zhongzhi: friend whose plot Song reported, leading to his destruction
• Princess Anle: patron to whom Song attached himself
• Princess Taiping: hostile to Song and instrumental in his demotion to Yuezhou

Historical Assessment

Tang and Contemporary Assessments

• Yuan Zhen wrote that after the rise of Tang letters, “the school of Shen and Song refined and polished with precision and made sound and momentum steady and harmonious; this came to be called regulated verse. Thereafter the transformation of literary form reached its culmination.”
• Liu Xu, Zhao Ying, and others wrote in the Old Book of Tang that “Song Zhiwen was already famous in early adulthood and was especially skilled in five-character poetry; no one of the time surpassed him.”
• Contemporaries mocked his attachment to the powerful and his informing against friends; the sources say that “he was deeply despised by righteous men.”

Song and Yuan Periods

• Ouyang Xiu, Song Qi, and others described Song as impressive in appearance and powerful in debate. The New Book of Tang states that poetic regulation changed repeatedly after the Jian'an period; Shen Yue refined tonal harmony and antithesis, and Song Zhiwen and Shen Quanqi added further elegance, avoided prosodic faults, standardized lines and poems, and became models for later students. It records the saying “Su and Li came before; Shen and Song stood shoulder to shoulder,” comparing them to Su Wu and Li Ling.
• Yan Yu wrote in the Canglang Shihua that after the Airs, Odes, and Hymns disappeared, poetry changed through the Li Sao, Western Han five-character verse, mixed song forms, and finally the regulated verse of Shen and Song.

Ming and Qing Periods

• Hu Yinglin wrote: “Seven-character regulated verse begins with Shen and Song.”
• Wang Shizhen wrote: “Only with Shen and Song can five-character poetry properly be called regulated verse.”
• Qian Mu'an wrote that regulated verse began in the early Tang but that its form became complete only with Shen and Song.

Modern and Contemporary Assessments

• Ma Douquan, a researcher at the Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences, reexamined Song Zhiwen's native place and argued that his home lay in Luozhou, around Luoyang, rather than Fenzhou or Hongnong.
• Modern scholars generally recognize Song's key role in the formation of recent-style regulated verse while also criticizing his personal conduct, especially his flattery of powerful patrons and betrayal of friends, which makes him one of the more morally controversial literary figures of the early Tang.