This week my podcast 93 The Health of Western Democracy in the Eyes of China refers to Mencius and the idea of Menbin in Chinese political thought.
But I have yet to read Mencius directly, so instead of his texts, I offer this remarkable fragment of the Burning Archive from a poem that appeared in Frankopan, The Earth Transformed (p. 290).
In 1127 Jurchen nomads sacked the city of Kaifeng, leading to the collapse and flight of the Song dynasty. Emperor Huizong was deported to Manchuria. Empress Zhu was raped, held captive, and marched through the snow to the deep north. She lamented,
“Once I lived in heaven above, in pearl palaces and jade towers; now I live among grass and brambles, my blue robes soaked in tears. I hate the drift of snow.”
But the poet Li Qingzhao, while lamenting the disaster, reproached sternly the Song dynasts for not learning the lessons of history,
And you should’ve been more cautious,
Better educated by the past.
The ancient bamboo books of history
Were there for you to study.
But you didn’t see.
Image: Empress Zhu, Empress Consort of Song Dynasty, wikimedia commons