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NAN-CHING
 COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF HEALTH SYSTEMS AND
M E D I C A L CARE

General Editor
JOHN M . JANZEN

Founding Editor
CHARLES LESLIE

Editorial Board

D O N B A T E S , M.D., McGill University

FREDERICK L. D U N N , M.D., University of California, San Francisco
K R I S H E G G E N H O U G E N , University of L o n d o n
P A T R I C I A L. R O S E N F I E L D , World Health Organization
M A G D A L E N A S O K O L O W S K A , Polish Academy of Sciences
P A U L U . U N S C H U L D , University of M u n i c h
F R A N C I S Z I M M E R M A N N , Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales, Paris

For a list of books in the series Comparative

Studies of Health Systems and Medical
Care, see back of book.
 The Chinese Medical Classics

NAN-CHING
The Classic of Difficult Issues
With commentaries by Chinese and Japanese authors
from the third through the twentieth century

translated and annotated by

Paul U. Unschuld

U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

Copyright © 1986 by The Regents of the University of California

L i b r a r y o f C o n g r e s s C a t a l o g i n g in P u b l i c a t i o n D a t a
Pien Ch'io, 5th cent. B.C.
Nan-ching—the Classic of Difficult Issues
(Comparative studies of health systems and medical
care)
Chinese text of Nan-ching with translation,
commentaries, and notes in English.
Includes index.
1. Medicine, Chinese—Early works to 1800.
2. Pien Ch'io, 5th cent. B.C. Nan-ching. I. Unschuld,
PaulU. (Paul Ulrich), 1943- . II. Title.
III. Series. [DNLM: WZ 290 P614n]
R127.1.P5413 1985 610 84-28049
ISBN 0-520-05372-9
Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Contents

P A R T I. PROLEGOMENA I
1. Introductory Remarks 3
2. The Historical Significance of the Nan-ching 11
3. The Contents of the Nan-ching 17
4. The Origin of the Nan-ching 29
5. The Reception of the Nan-ching in Later
Centuries 35
Notes to Part I 53

P A R T II. T E X T , TRANSLATION, COMMENTARIES,

AND N O T E S 6I
Preliminary Note 62
Chapter One: T h e Movement in the Vessels and
Its Diagnostic Significance 65
The First Difficult Issue 65
The Second Difficult Issue 81
The Third Difficult Issue 91
The Fourth Difficult Issue 101
The Fifth Difficult Issue 113
The Sixth Difficult Issue 118
The Seventh Difficult Issue 122
The Eighth Difficult Issue 130
The Ninth Difficult Issue 140
The Tenth Difficult Issue 147
The Eleventh Difficult Issue 157
The Twelfth Difficult Issue 163
The Thirteenth Difficult Issue 170
The Fourteenth Difficult Issue 181

v
 CONTENTS

The Fifteenth Difficult Issue 200

The Sixteenth Difficult Issue 219
The Seventeenth Difficult Issue 237
The Eighteenth Difficult Issue 243
The Nineteenth Difficult Issue 259
The Twentieth Difficult Issue 268
The Twenty-First Difficult Issue 273
The Twenty-Second Difficult Issue 278
Chapter Two: The Conduits and the Network-
Vessels
The Twenty-Third Difficult Issue 285
The Twenty-Fourth Difficult Issue 300
The Twenty-Fifth Difficult Issue 310
The. Twenty-Sixth Difficult Issue 317
The Twenty-Seventh Difficult Issue 322
The Twenty-Eighth Difficult Issue 327
The Twenty-Ninth Difficult Issue 333
Chapter Three: The Depots and the Palaces
The Thirtieth Difficult Issue 341
The Thirty-First Difficult Issue 347
The Thirty-Second Difficult Issue 358
The Thirty-Third Difficult Issue 361
The Thirty-Fourth Difficult Issue 367
The Thirty-Fifth Difficult Issue 374
The Thirty-Sixth Difficult Issue 382
The Thirty-Seventh Difficult Issue 387
The Thirty-Eighth Difficult Issue 395
The Thirty-Ninth Difficult Issue 399
The Fortieth Difficult Issue 403
The Forty-First Difficult Issue 411
The Forty-Second Difficult Issue 416
The Forty-Third Difficult Issue 425
The Forty-Fourth Difficult Issue 428
The Forty-Fifth Difficult Issue 433
The Forty-Sixth Difficult Issue 441
The Forty-Seventh Difficult Issue 446
Chapter Four: On Illnesses
The Forty-Eighth Difficult Issue 449
The Forty-Ninth Difficult Issue 457
The Fiftieth Difficult Issue 474
The Fifty-First Difficult Issue 480
The Fifty-Second Difficult Issue 483
 CONTENTS vii

The Fifty- Third Difficult Issue 485

The Fifty-Fourth Difficult Issue 492
The Fifty-Fifth Difficult Issue 495
The Fifty-Sixth Difficult Issue 499
The Fifty-Seventh Difficult Issue 510
The Fifty-Eighth Difficult Issue 515
The Fifty-Ninth Difficult Issue 527
The Sixtieth Difficult Issue 532
The Sixty-First Difficult Issue 539
Chapter Five: Transportation Holes 545
The Sixty-Second Difficult Issue 545
The Sixty-Third Difficult Issue 551
The Sixty-Fourth Difficult Issue 554
The Sixty-Fifth Difficult Issue 558
The Sixty-Sixth Difficult Issue 560
The Sixty-Seventh Difficult Issue 571
The Sixty-Eighth Difficult Issue 577
Chapter Six: Needling Patterns 583
The Sixty-Ninth Difficult Issue 583
The Seventieth Difficult Issue 589
The Seventy-First Difficult Issue 595
The Seventy-Second Difficult Issue 599
The Seventy-Third Difficult Issue 605
The Seventy-Fourth Difficult Issue 609
The Seventy-Fifth Difficult Issue 617
The Seventy-Sixth Difficult Issue 626
The Seventy-Seventh Difficult Issue 630
The Seventy-Eighth Difficult Issue 635
The Seventy-Ninth Difficult Issue 641
The Eightieth Difficult Issue 646
The Eighty-First Difficult Issue 648

APPENDIXES 65I
A. Survey of Commentated Nan-ching Editions
by Chinese Authors from the Third through
the Twentieth Century 653
B. Chinese Twentieth-century Essays on the
Nan-ching 662
C. Commentated Nan-ching Editions by Japanese
Authors in the Takeda and Fujikawa Libraries,
as well as Lost Titles from Past Centuries 665
viii CONTENTS

D. Chang Shih-hsien's (1510) Graphs Depicting

the Eighty-One Difficult Issues 670

Glossary of Technical Terms in the

Nan-ching ill

Index to Prolegomena, Commentaries,

and Notes 749
Introductory Remarks

The Nan-ching is an ancient Chinese medical classic; it was compiled,

probably, at some time during the first or second century A.D. For the
past eight or nine centuries, the Nan-ching has been overshadowed by
the reputation and authority of the "original" classic, the Huang-ti
nei-ching ("The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic") with its two large-
ly different segments, the Huang-ti nei-ching su-wen (or Su-wen) and
the Huang-ti nei-ching ling-shu (or Ling-shu). The present edition of
the Nan-ching combines a translation of its textus receptus and of
selected commentaries by twenty Chinese and Japanese authors of
the past seventeen centuries with an interpretation by this author.
One of its goals is to demonstrate that the Nan-ching should once
again (as was the case until early this millennium) be regarded as a
significant and innovative work that marks the apex, and also the
conclusion, of the developmental phase of the conceptual system
known as the medicine of systematic correspondence. The contents
of the Nei-ching texts, in contrast, should be appreciated as a collec-
tion of extremely valuable transitory stages in this developmental
phase—valuable because they reflect various historical steps as well
as a wide range of diverging (and even contradictory) theoretical
arguments. 1 These arguments characterize the genesis of a system of
therapeutic ideas and practices which has a formative period that can
be traced from its first documented sources extant (the so-called Ma-
wang-tui texts of about the late third century B.C.) to the hetero-
geneous contents of the Nei-ching texts and, finally, to the homo-
geneous and highly systematized message of the Nan-ching.
The origin and contents of the Nan-ching justify an identification
of this work as the classic of the medicine of systematic correspon-
3
4 PROLEGOMENA

dence. Whether this was intended by its original (unknown) author or

whether it is the result of editorial work by later scholars, the Nan-
ching covers—in an unusually systematic fashion—all aspects of
theoretical and practical health care perceivable within the confines of
the yinyang and Five Phases doctrines, as defined by the original
medicine of systematic correspondence. I speak here of the
"original" medicine of systematic correspondence because later ad-
mixtures to this conceptual system—such as the utilization of drugs
(attempts to create a pharmacology of systematic correspondence
were not undertaken before the twelfth century A.D.)2—do not appear
in the Nan-ching. Such persistent elements of traditional Chinese
health care as demonological medicine and religious healing were not
taken into consideration either (apparently irreconcilable with the
classic concepts of systematic correspondence, a demonology of sys-
tematic correspondence was developed only as late as the early Ch'ing
dynasty). 3
The Nan-ching is comprehensive: it addresses questions concern-
ing the location, size, and normal functions of the basic units that
constitute the organism; discusses the origins and the nature of ill-
nesses; outlines a system of therapeutic needling; and develops—in
great detail—an innovative approach to diagnosis.
To date, no seriously philological translation of the Nan-ching has
existed in any Western language (the same applies to other classic and
ancient texts of traditional Chinese medicine, with one exception).4
This might be regretted for a number of reasons. While a number of
the classical writings of ancient European medicine (such as the Cor-
pus Hippocraticum of the sixth century B.C. through the first century
A.D. and Galen's works of the second century A.D.) are available in
philologically mature and dependable renderings in modern lan-
guages5, no Chinese equivalents exist that could serve as a solid basis
for comparative and analytical research for those who cannot read the
ancient Chinese texts themselves.
Also, in recent years various factors have contributed to an in-
creasing interest in the West in Chinese traditions of health care. An
impressive array of books has been published in English and other
Western languages on the theory and practice of "Chinese medicine"
(with only an extremely limited number of their authors having ac-
cess to Chinese primary sources), and Chinese medicine (mostly
acupuncture) is practiced in almost every American and Western
 PROLEGOMENA 5

European city. Yet one may wonder whether these developments

occur on a firm basis in terms of a valid understanding of the origins,
nature, and history of the concepts and practices that constitute tra-
ditional Chinese medicine. One can hardly escape the impression that
the so-called theoretical foundations of Chinese medicine outlined in
these books remain closer to an occidental mode of thinking than to
the Chinese way of understanding health and health care which they
purport to convey.
On the level of individual concepts, one of the most commonly
encountered distortions has resulted from attempts to employ a con-
cept of "energy" in order to illustrate traditional Chinese notions of
human physiology and illness etiology. Historically, though, even the
core Chinese concept of ch'i bears no resemblance to the Western
concept of "energy" (regardless of whether the latter is borrowed
from the physical sciences or from colloquial usage).6
A second major distortion is unavoidable where attempts are un-
dertaken to render the conceptual contents of traditional Chinese
medicine in more or less artificially created terms borrowed from
ancient Greek or Latin. This approach is questionable for various
reasons. It creates the incorrect notion that one set of clearly defin-
able technical terms has accompanied the medicine of systematic
correspondence for the past two thousand years. However, even a com-
parison of the Nei-ching and the Nan-ching demonstrates that a sig-
nificant number of identical terms was employed to express rather
different ideas. The use of a Greco-Latin terminology in Western
secondary literature not only generates a false image of conceptual
stringency in traditional Chinese medical terminology but also neg-
lects the internal dynamics of traditional Chinese medicine over time.
Another reason for the inadequacy of Greco-Latin terminology in
rendering traditional Chinese medical texts is that the core terms of
the medicine of systematic correspondence (and many terms of sec-
ondary importance) rarely reached the level of abstraction from the
vernacular that is characteristic of modern Western medical termi-
nology. A number of Chinese terms appear to have been created
deliberately to denote a specific concept without carrying a colloquial
meaning. Such terms are quite difficult to render in Western lan-
guages, especially when they do not correspond to any established
Western concept. In these cases it is left to the discretion of the
philologist whether to use a transcription of the Chinese pronunci-
6 PROLEGOMENA

ation of the term in question (accompanied by a definition of its

meaning) or whether to introduce a newly created Western term. In
all other cases, though, the vernacular terms employed in traditional
Chinese medical literature serve a specific metaphorical function in
addition to their technical purpose. They carry specific images that
come immediately—consciously or subconsciously—to the mind of
the Chinese reader. These images are most important. They have
been, as I have shown elsewhere,7 quite decisive for the acceptance
of the medicine of systematic correspondence by certain strata of
Chinese society because they reflect both a recognizable environ-
mental reality and a specific social ideology, which they then project
into the organism. The more a conceptual system of health care con-
cerning the nature, origin, prevention, and treatment of crises (i.e.,
illnesses) of the individual organism corresponds to notions con-
cerning the nature, origin, prevention, and treatment of crises of the
social organism harbored by a group in society, the more plausible
and acceptable this conceptual system of health care—and the prac-
tices it recommends—will be to that group. If we wish, in our ren-
derings of ancient Chinese medical texts, to recreate as much as
possible their original messages and imagery, we will prefer a trans-
lation that does not bury Chinese references to a desired or existing
everyday social and physical reality under the pseudo-scientific guise
of Greco-Latin terminology.
A third major distortion encountered in nearly all European and
American attempts to characterize traditional Chinese medicine is
related to this issue of terminology; it results from efforts to squeeze
the enormous array of concepts and schools of thought in traditional
Chinese medicine (which are sometimes mutually contradictory, an-
tagonistic, or exclusive) into the kind of homogeneous, logically co-
herent system of ideas and practices that is so attractive to the Western
mind. Here we encounter a most fundamental misunderstanding. In
contrast to the notion of science that dominated the West for centuries
(and corresponding only to some developments in modern physics),
over the past two millennia the Chinese rarely attempted to generate
one coherent worldview designed to embrace—without logic inco-
herences—as many phenomena perceived in the world as possible,
thus neglecting (or even denigrating) all phenomena that do not
fit into it (Thomas Kuhn's notions of "scientific revolution" and
"periods of normal science" are hardly applicable to Chinese history
 PROLEGOMENA 7

of science). One might argue that such aspirations in the West have
been fostered by an extreme sense of confidence in the perceptive
faculties of the human species; it might also be worthwhile to con-
sider whether what one might call mono-paradigmism is not somehow
linked to the Judeo-Christian emphasis on monotheism.
Traditional Chinese medicine differs from European science in
that it appears to be based on what one might call patterned knowl-
edge. Various patterns of knowledge—sometimes overlapping, some-
times antagonistic and mutually exclusive—exist side by side in the
literature and probably, in the minds of the people. There have been
Chinese authors who, for reasons about which we can only speculate,
have rejected some and accepted only a limited number of other very
specific patterns. This is true both on the level of macro-patterns (in
that some intellectuals objected to demonological knowledge while
acknowledging the paradigm of systematic correspondence) and on
the level of micro-patterns (in that some proponents of the paradigm
of systematic correspondence rejected the Five Phases concepts,
which represent one pattern of knowledge within the paradigm of
systematic correspondence, while relying solely on the yinyang doc-
trine which represents another pattern within that paradigm). In
general, however, a notion seems to have prevailed in China which
lent some justification to all patterns of human knowledge. A specific
pattern might be useful for handling a certain issue or situation suc-
cessfully, and it might be contradicted logically by another pattern of
knowledge that had also proven to be useful for handling the same (or
another) issue. Both patterns—and this seems to have been the domi-
nant attitude in Chinese history—were therefore legitimized. T h e
"either/or" approach that springs to a mind trained in the Western
tradition appears to have been posed with much less persistence in
traditional Chinese medicine. Hence authors did not find it difficult
to propose, in one and the same book, therapeutic guidelines derived
from mutually exclusive paradigms or patterns of knowledge. Such
"pragmatic" tendencies have been observed in the behavior of pa-
tients and practitioners all over the world: wherever two or more
conceptual systems of health care coexist, the population is known to
oscillate between these systems and utilize them eclectically or syn-
cretically according to its perceived needs. What appears particularly
characteristic of China is the fact that this conciliatory attitude to-
ward differing patterns of knowledge is so enormously pervasive.
8 PROLEGOMENA

T r u e , heated polemics were exchanged between the proponents of

contradictory paradigms, but once a new pattern had existed long
enough, its antagonistic relation with older paradigms tended to de-
crease in importance until it was accepted into the heterogeneous
pool of patterns from which a patient or practitioner could select the
one most suitable for coping successfully with the specific problem at
hand.
In its outline of diagnosis, the Nan-ching itself provides ample
evidence of a harmonious coexistence of micro-patterns within the
paradigm of systematic correspondence—micro-patterns that have a
common theoretical basis but that are, nevertheless, difficult to re-
concile with one another. Within his accepted conceptual framework,
the author of the Nan-ching linked differing patterns of diagnosis
without posing the either/or question that is implicit in all Western
secondary literature on traditional Chinese medicine. Western
authors seem to be continually forced to decide which single pattern
of knowledge (whether on the macro- or on the micro-level) they
should present to their readers. Almost unanimously, they have not
accepted Chinese demonological and religious therapies as facets of
traditional or contemporary Chinese medicine, despite the fact that
these patterns of knowledge have exerted a tremendous impact on
health care in China from remote antiquity up to the most recent
times. On a smaller scale, to give another example, the either/or
approach demands an answer to whether terms like hsin ("heart"),
kan ("liver"), and p'i ("spleen") must be understood solely as refer-
ences to abstract functional systems that do not necessarily corre-
spond to tangible anatomical structures (as some passages in ancient
Chinese literature suggest) or as designations of concrete structures
within the organism (as other passages suggest). Clearly, both notions
have coexisted in traditional Chinese medical literature, so it should
be a moot point as to which interpretation of the Chinese terms is
correct.
As a consequence of decisions in favor of one or another notion
or pattern of knowledge, Western authors writing on traditional
Chinese medicine tend to be selective and to omit all patterns of
knowledge that fail to correspond to the demands of conceptual
coherency or stringency (perhaps this attitude is motivated by an
underlying fear that Chinese medicine otherwise might appear " u n -
scientific" to a contemporary audience). In the short run, such a
 PROLEGOMENA 9

streamlined Chinese medicine may indeed generate the attraction

intended by its advocates, especially if it appears clad in Greco-Latin
terminology and based on the Western concept of energy. In the long
run, however, this does a disservice not only to those who wish to
learn about the real nature of traditional Chinese medicine but also
to the traditional conciliatory worldview underlying the patterned
knowledge of traditional Chinese health care—and to whatever bene-
ficial effects that worldview may still promise to humanity in general.
The present edition of the Nan-ching shall point to a different
direction. Because it includes not only the entire text itself but also
selected commentaries from twenty authors of the third through the
twentieth century, the reader will become familiar both with the
contents and general history of the reception of this text through the
centuries and with differences in opinion voiced by medical authors
over time. Consequently, a vivid portrait of an ongoing discussion
should emerge which reflects some (and only some) of the dynamics
inherent in traditional Chinese medicine and which documents some
of the strengths and weaknesses of the concepts that underlie the
medicine of systematic correspondence.
However, this edition of the Nan-ching should serve primarily as a
research tool. It is hoped that the publication of this book will stimu-
late others to embark on the difficult task of philological analysis of
other writings from the history of Chinese medicine, and to develop
ever-improving methodologies for conveying the concepts they con-
tain to a Western readership. It is only with the understanding result-
ing from such analysis that historians, anthropologists, sociologists,
and others concerned with the exploration of science and knowledge
will have the tools that permit them to pose comparative and other
questions. And it is only with this kind of access to the primary
sources that those interested in the practice of Chinese medicine as an
alternative to Western medicine will be in a position to determine
whether the concepts of traditional Chinese medicine are indeed ap-
plicable to a contemporary Western clientele in any meaningful way.
In conclusion I should like to point out, with sincere gratitude, the
unconditional support I received from the China Research Institute
for the History of Medicine and Medical Literature at the Academy
of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing, where I enjoyed ideal
working conditions during two study periods in 1982 and 1983. My
special thanks go to Professors Ma Jixing and Ma Kanwen, who
10 PROLEGOMENA

found the time to discuss with me a number of problematic passages,

and who enabled me to gain access to rare sources unavailable in the
United States or Europe. Similar thanks go to the Research Institute
for Humanistic Studies of Kyoto University, and especially to Dr.
Akira Akahori for his valuable suggestions and for his part in compil-
ing the list of commentated Nan-ching editions published by Japa-
nese authors. Financial assistance for conducting this study and
traveling to East Asia was provided by a Heisenberg grant and by
travel subsidies awarded by the German Research Association
(DFG), to whose officers and consultants I am most grateful for the
understanding my project received. Finally, my thanks go to the aca-
demic editorial board of the Miinchener Medizinische Wochenschrift
for a grant that assisted in the production of this volume.
Historical Significance of the Nan-ching

The prehistory of the Nan-ching as a work marking the apex of the

application of the concepts of yinyang and of the Five Phases to
medicine in Chinese antiquity may have begun at some time in the
third century B.C. with the emergence of the medicine of systematic
correspondence. As far as we can judge from the evidence available
today, before the third century B.C., health care in China was based
on a recognition of an ancestral responsibility in matters of illness and
health (a doctrine that seems to have dominated during the Shang
and early Chou), and on an awareness of the activities of malevolent
demons as causative agents of human illness.8 In addition, although
less well documented, it must be assumed that pharmaceutical drugs
played an important role in health care (without necessarily being
linked to either demonological or ancestral concepts). Historical
sources, such as the Tso-chuan, contain many references to nonmeta-
physical concepts of etiology which allegedly date back as far as the
sixth century B.C. Yet whether, for instance, the remarks made by the
physician Ho (when he reproached the Marquis of Chin for his
excessive intercourse with women) to the effect that "the six heavenly
influences [i.e., yin, yang, wind, rain, obscurity, and brightness]—
when they are in excess—produce the six diseases" do indeed reflect
a mode of thinking existing at that time—or whether (as I assume)
they constitute a retrospective political metaphor phrased from the
perspective of half a millennium later—can hardly be decided as long
as no evidence from the era in question has come to light. 9
The earliest Chinese medical texts extant (which are also the ear-
liest ones we know of) are the texts discovered at Ma-wang-tui. To-
gether with the data in historical and philosophical sources of the last
11
12 PROLEGOMENA

centuries B.C., these texts suggest that, concurrently with the first
unification of the Chinese empire between the third and the first
centuries B.C., ancestral and demonological concepts of health care
were supplemented by—and lost their dominant position to (at least
among most members of the literate strata in society)—a conceptual
system employing nonmetaphysical notions of natural law.10 This
new medicine appears to have been developed as a consequence of the
emergence of at least two philosophical schools (with origins trace-
able to the fifth century B.C.) that introduced paradigms of systematic
correspondence to China. The doctrines they expounded were based
on the yinyang and Five Phases paradigms. The representatives of
the two doctrines opposed each other vehemently in the beginning,
and yet—in a manner typical of subsequent developments—neither
was the contradiction between the two doctrines solved in a true
synthesis, nor did one paradigm win over the other. Rather, the two
were linked (although this proved by no means an easy task). There-
after, the rise, transformation, and disappearance of any phenomenon
in the real world or in the world of concepts could be interpreted by
referring to its correspondence to the interactive dynamics of the
yinyang categories of all existence, to the interactive dynamics of the
Five Phases of all existence, or to both—whichever appeared to be
most conclusive. A Western scientist might ask (as a few Chinese
writers did): "Are there five or six basic functional systems in the
organism?" A proponent of the pattern approach characteristic of
traditional Chinese medicine might have answered: "It depends! Five
if you wish to apply the Five Phases pattern, and six if you prefer to
apply the yinyang pattern."
Throughout its history of two thousand years, the medicine of
systematic correspondence has been transformed and expanded. It
has even been linked to originally rivaling paradigms—when the Zeit-
geist allowed for such bridges. The medicine of systematic correspon-
dence has always been the subject of probing debates among in-
tellectuals and practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine; over the
centuries, there have been countless attempts to reconcile its basic
tenets with thoughts and experiences gained by physicians in actual
clinical therapy. Yet the formative period of the medicine of systema-
tic correspondence appears to have been marked by extraordinary
dynamics within a relatively short span of time—dynamics that were
 PROLEGOMENA 13

unsurpassed even by the developments between the twelfth and fif-

teenth century. The medicine of systematic correspondence may be
traced from a collection of individual writings of the late third or
early second century B.C. (unearthed from the tombs at Ma-wang-tui
in the early 1970s) which recommend health care and therapy based
on demonology, concepts of magic and systematic correspondence,
as well as surgical and pharmaceutical knowledge that may have
been derived in part from experience and observation (without
theoretical underpinnings). 11 From here, it may be traced to the
Huang-ti nei-ching anthology of systematic correspondence of the
second or first century B.C., in which only a few allusions to demon-
ology and drug lore remain and thence to its conclusion—that is, to the
compilation of the Nan-ching around the first century A.D.
This early phase of development included the struggle between
the yinyang and Five Phases doctrines and their merger in the field of
medicine; the transition of the concept of "wind" from a spirit entity
to a nonmetaphysical natural phenomenon responsible for illness;
and the supplementation—and partial replacement—of the concept
of "wind" by a concept of "vapors" (ch'i §0 or "finest matter in-
fluences" that underlie all physiological and pathological change.
This phase also included an innovative understanding of the func-
tional structure of the organism and the introduction of a therapeutic
technique hitherto unknown (or at least undocumented) in China—
namely, needling or acupuncture.
The significance of the Nan-ching in this historical context is two-
fold. First, its unknown author contributed to the formative period of
the medicine of systematic correspondence by creating a conceptual
system of medical theory and practice that for the first time consis-
tently accounted for the "discovery" of a circulatory movement in the
organism (documented earlier in the Huang-ti nei-ching texts).12 Sec-
ond, the Nan-ching marks the end of this formative epoch because it
discarded all the irrelevant ballast of the past and concentrated—in a
most coherent manner—on nothing but the most advanced concepts
of systematic correspondence. No similar work has since been
written.
In devising his conceptual system, the author of the Nan-ching
adopted, with no change, a number of concepts from the Huang-ti
nei-ching texts. In addition, he borrowed some older terms but
14 PROLEGOMENA

adapted them to his own ideas by presenting them with a modified

meaning. Finally, he introduced a series of innovative terms and
concepts to complete the doctrine he intended to teach.
T h e core idea around which the entire Nan-ching appears to be
centered is a modification of diagnosis and therapy in accordance
with the "discovery" of a circulatory movement of vapor-influences
(and blood) in the organism—a discovery that may have occurred
some time during the second century B.C.13 Two of the Ma-wang-
tui manuscripts of around 200 B.C. (i.e., the Shih-i mo chiu ching
i" texts) refer to eleven vessels that permeate—separately
and without mutual interconnection—the human body. Six of these
vessels extend upward from the feet into abdomen and chest (some of
them reaching the head); five are described as extending from the
hands into the chest or head. These vessels are filled with ch'i-vapor;
they may suffer from depletion or repletion, or from unusual move-
ments of their contents. Each of these vessels has its own illnesses
that produce a characteristic set of symptoms. T h e sole treatment
recommended for manipulating the contents of the eleven vessels is
heat, applied by burning a particular herbal substance on the courses
the afflicted vessels are believed to take. No specific points at which to
conduct such treatment are identified.
By the time those sections of the Huang-ti nei-ching texts were
compiled that are concerned with physiology and needling, signifi-
cant changes had taken place. Twelve vessels were named which take
different courses in comparison to the eleven vessels of the Ma-wang-
tui scripts and which form an interconnected system of "streams" or
"conduits" (ching M) that extends throughout the body. T h e circuit
of these conduits represented only the central structure of a fine net of
passageways formed—in addition to the main conduits—by so-called
network-vessels (lo-mai $§$K) and "secondary vessels" (sun-mai
i^flj). Through these conduits, an endless flow of vapor-influences
was believed to pass, partially taken in from the outside environment
and partially generated by the organism itself. Each of the vessels was
known to correspond to one of the basic functional units in the body,
and to signal—through changes occurring in the movement inside
it—illnesses affecting the corresponding unit. T h e movement in the
vessels caused the vessels themselves to pulsate in a particular way.
Points were defined all over the body where the individual conduit-
vessels could be palpated to assess, through the condition of their
 PROLEGOMENA 15

movement, the condition of the functional units with which they

were associated. For treatment, the Huang-ti nei-ching recommended
primarily the insertion of needles at specific locations on all twelve
conduit-vessels. Since needling was first mentioned in China in the
Shih-chi JliB of 90 B.C., and since it obviously was not known to the
authors of the manuscripts unearthed from the Ma-wang-tui tombs
(who recorded every other possible mode of treatment), we may as-
sume that the acupuncture sections of the Nei-ching were concep-
tualized and compiled some time during the late second or first cen-
tury B . C . 1 4
The author of the Nan-ching may have recognized a contradiction
between the notion of an ongoing circulatory movement in the vessels
and the idea that each vessel has to be diagnosed and treated as if it
constituted an individual entity. If the influences pass through an
endless circle of conduits again and again, it is difficult to imagine that
the quality of their movement changes when they leave one section of
the circuit to enter the next. Hence it is almost irrelevant where the
movement is examined: one point on the circuit should reveal all the
information needed. Consequently, the author of the Nan-ching dis-
carded all locations on the body hitherto used for palpating the ves-
sels, with the exception of one (or, under certain circumstances, two).
A problem arose from this concentration, however—that is, how
could one gain from a single point the same information on the condi-
tion of the individual functional units of the organism which had
been gathered previously from locations spread all over the body?
The information needed to assess a patient's health and to devise and
conduct a proper treatment on the basis of the concepts of systematic
correspondence was quite complex. It is one of the merits of the
author of the Nan-ching that he developed adequately sophisticated
diagnostic patterns by linking some forty-seven perceivable types of
movement in the conduit-vessels (palpable in various surface or verti-
cal sections at the wrist of one or both hands) to all the normal and
abnormal states known to affect the functional units of the organism
in the course of the annual seasons. All these patterns were, of course,
grounded in the concepts of systematic correspondence.
In devising his system of therapy, the author of the Nan-ching may
have started from conclusions similar to those upon which he based
his diagnostic system. Why prick the individual sections of the cir-
cuit through holes scattered all over that circuit if the vapor-
16 PROLEGOMENA

influences passing through the sections are one and the same? Hence
it should be no surprise that the Nan-ching does not mention conven-
tional circuit-needling at all, but recommends, first, the needling of
"accumulation points" on the back and front of a patient where
certain undesired influences gather and can be removed. Second, the
Nan-ching outlines what we may call "extremities needling," a
scheme previously documented in the Ling-shu. In this scheme,
twelve streams (running from hands or feet to elbows or knees, re-
spectively) are conceptualized, with five (or six) holes on each. These
streams (ching H ) are associated with the basic functional units of the
organism, but they are not seen as part of a circuit. Through inserting
needles into the holes (bearing such telling names as "well,"
"brook," "rapids," "stream," and "confluence"), it is possible, ac-
cording to the Nan-ching, to influence the organism's basic functional
units in any way desired.
The Contents of the Nan-ching

An innovative diagnostic approach and a coherent concept of needling

therapy are, on first glance, the two central messages conveyed by the
Nan-ching; they represent, however, but two ingredients of a virtu-
ally complete conceptual system of medical care that also includes a
detailed discussion of physiology, etiology, and pathology.
As is the case with the editions of the Su-wen and the Ling-shu that
are extant, the textus receptus of the Nan-ching consists of eighty-one
sections. In the Su-wen, all eighty-one sections are designated by a
specific topic to which is added consistently the term lun ("dis-
cussion" or simply " o n . . . " ) ; in the Ling-shu, only a fraction of the
eighty-one section titles carries the adjunct lun, while the majority
have only the topic discussed as their title. In the Nan-ching, in
contrast, all eighty-one sections are merely called nan fg, a n d they
are numbered consecutively with no topics appearing as titles. The
term nan has been interpreted by Eastern and Western authors in
various ways. Hsü Ta-ch'un A ü h an eminent eighteenth century
author of conservative medical writings and a commentator on the
Nan-ching, read nan as "question-and-answer dialogue" or "exami-
nation." He concluded: "The aim [of the Nan-ching] is to explain
difficult issues in the text of the classic. Hence it poses questions
concerning these difficult issues (wen-nan and, then, clarifies
them. Therefore it is called Nan-ching."15 Okanishi Tameto
[®JSBA, the late Japanese historian of Chinese medical literature,
followed Hsü Ta-ch'un here when he identified nan as wen-nan, 16
and so, most recently, did Ku Wei-ch'eng MIS the editor of San-
pai chung i-chi lu H S S ^ I I . "
Rather than emphasizing the question-and-answer structure of the
17
18 PROLEGOMENA

Nan-ching, other authors have understood nan as referring to the

"difficult" nature of the issues discussed. Li Chiung a thir-
teenth century author of a commentated Nan-ching edition, wrote in
his preface that the Nan-ching "was structured as a fictitious dialogue
in order to elucidate doubtful and difficult meanings. In all, it con-
sists of eighty-one sections. Hence it is called the 'Classic of Eighty-
One Difficult Issues.'" 1 8
A third noteworthy explanation of the title was offered by Ito
Kaoru f ^ R i f , author of a thoughtful etymological Nan-ching com-
mentary (which was never published; his original manuscript is in the
Fujikawa Library of Kyoto University). Ito may have had in mind
the title of section twelve of Han-fei-tzu f t ^ i ("Shuo nan" iftH)
when he stated: " T h e meaning of the character nan is that of shuo
[here 'to instruct', 'to persuade'] as in shuo nan ['the difficulties of
persuasion'].19 It was used in antiquity to express the meaning of
'instruction'. It is, therefore, quite appropriate to consider [the word-
ing] pa-shih-i nan A + —ft as carrying the meaning pa-shih-i shuo
A + —IS ['eighty-one instructions']." 20
Over the centuries, various schemes have been introduced to
group the eighty-one difficult issues. Allegedly dating back to the
T'ang commentator Yang Hsiian-ts'ao (eighth century) is a
system of thirteen chapters that was repeated by the Nan-ching chi-
chu M.BiM si edition of the early sixteenth century.21 Other editions
followed a classification initiated by Wu Ch'eng (1247-1331), a
literatus who grouped the eighty-one difficult issues into only six
chapters.22 These two approaches to dividing the eighty-one sections
of the Nan-ching into meaningful groups or related subjects adopted
an identical order of the individual difficult issues. Yet a few com-
mentators, especially those of more recent times, have felt the need to
rearrange—and even cut apart—a number of difficult issues to re-
combine segments of the text they interpreted as originally belonging
together.23 And concurrent with contemporary attempts to filter out
of the entirety of traditional Chinese medicine those elements that
some authors consider worth preserving and utilizing in practice,
a few editions have been published recently which—in contrast to
all former editions (which included even those sections of the Nan-
ching considered to be wrong or absurd)—present not the complete
text but only selected passages.29 In the present edition of the com-
plete text, the eighty-one difficult issues are presented in the tra-
 PROLEGOMENA 19

ditional order adopted by all the pre-eighteenth-century editions I

have seen. Since the original division of the text into "chapters" prior
to Yang Hsiian-ts'ao—if there was one—is no longer known, I have
adopted the six-chapter scheme introduced by Wu Ch'eng for its
conciseness and clarity.
T h e following is a survey of the contents of each of the eighty-one
difficult issues grouped in six chapters.

C H A P T E R ONE: T H E M O V E M E N T I N T H E VESSELS
AND ITS DIAGNOSTIC SIGNIFICANCE

The first difficult issue

Explanation of the significance of the "inch-opening" for diagnosing
illnesses through investigating the movement in the vessels.

The second difficult issue

Introduction of the first subdivision of the inch-opening into an
"inch-section" and a "foot-section," divided by a line called "gate."

The third difficult issue

Discussion of the terms "great excess," "insufficiency," "mutual
takeover by yin and yang," "turnover," "overflow," "closure," and
"resistance" as diagnostic parameters indicated by specific move-
ments in the vessels.

The fourth difficult issue

Explanation of yin and yang patterns of movement in the vessels, and
introduction of the concept of three longitudinal levels in the move-
ment in the vessels.

The fifth difficult issue

Introduction of the concept of five longitudinal levels in the move-
ment in the vessels, and of a method to distinguish these levels.

The sixth difficult issue

Discussion of the terms "yin abundance, yang depletion" and "yang
abundance, yin depletion" as diagnostic parameters indicated by
specific movements in the vessels.
20 PROLEGOMENA

The seventh difficult issue

Explanation of the significance of the appearance of any of the three
yin and three yang kinds of movement in the vessels as they are
related to the six periods within one year.

The eighth difficult issue

Explanation of the significance of the "moving influences" (also
called "vital influences") in the organism, as appearing at the inch-
opening.

The ninth difficult issue

How to distinguish illnesses in the depots and palaces by the speed of
the movement in the vessels.

The tenth difficult issue

Introduction of the concept of "ten variations" in the movement in
the vessels, as can be felt in the different sections at the wrist that are
associated with specific depots.

The eleventh difficult issue

Explanation of the concept that one depot is void of influences if the
movement in the vessels stops once in less than fifty arrivals.

The twelfth difficult issue

Introduction of the concept that the internal or external parts of the
organism may be cut off from the movement in the vessels.

The thirteenth difficult issue

Introduction of the concept of a correspondence between a person's
complexion, the movement in the vessels as felt at the inch-opening,
and the condition of the skin in the foot-section of the lower arm.

The fourteenth difficult issue

Introduction of the concepts of "injured" (i.e., slower than usual)
and "arriving" (i.e., faster than usual) movements in the vessels; also,
discussion of the significance of the presence of a movement in the
vessels at the inch-section when no movement can be perceived at the
foot-section, and vice versa.
 PROLEGOMENA 21

The fifteenth difficult issue

Elucidation of the changes in the movements in the vessels in ac-
cordance with the passing of the four seasons.

The sixteenth difficult issue

Discussion of various methods to diagnose illnesses by taking internal
and external evidence into account.

The seventeenth difficult issue

How to predict a patient's impending death or survival by comparing
the movement in his vessels with other manifestations of his illness.

The eighteenth difficult issue

Systematized presentation of the correspondences of the yin and yang
conduits with the inch-, gate-, and foot-sections near the wrist where
the movement in the vessels can be felt, on the basis of the mutual
generation order of the Five Phases. Also, discussion of methods for
recognizing internal accumulations and chronic illnesses through the
movement in the vessels.

The nineteenth difficult issue

Introduction of the concept of differences in the movement in the
vessels in males and females.

The twentieth difficult issue

Introduction of the concepts of hidden and concealed movements in
the vessels, of doubled influences and of lost influences.

The twenty-first difficult issue

On the prognostic significance of situations where a patient's bodily
appearance shows signs of illness while the movement in his vessels
does not, and vice versa.

The twenty-second difficult issue

Elaboration of the concepts of illnesses in the vessels that are
"excited" and of those that are "generated."
22 PROLEGOMENA

CHAPTER TWO: T H E CONDUITS AND T H E

NETWORK-VESSELS

The twenty-third, difficult issue

Systematized presentation of the lengths and courses of the conduit
vessels as sections of a large circulatory system. Also, reference to
the significance of feeling the movement in the vessels at the wrists
of both hands, and explanation of the concepts of " e n d " and
"beginning."

The twenty-fourth difficult issue

Systematized presentation and prognostic evaluation of external
symptoms indicating that a specific conduit-vessel has been cut off
from the movement in the vessels.

The twenty-fifth difficult issue

Explanation of the concept of "twelve conduits" in the presence of
only five depots and six palaces through the introduction of the con-
cepts of "heart-enclosing network" and "Triple Burner" as carrying
a name (i.e., fulfilling a function) without having a form (i.e., an
anatomical substratum).

The twenty-sixth difficult issue

Remarks on the fifteen network-vessels.

The twenty-seventh difficult issue

Introduction of the term "eight single-conduit vessels," and of the
concept that they function as "ditches and reservoirs" absorbing
surplus contents of the main conduits.

The twenty-eighth difficult issue

Description of the courses of the eight single-conduit vessels in the
organism.

The twenty-ninth difficult issue

List of signs and symptoms caused by illnesses in the eight single-
conduit vessels.
 PROLEGOMENA 23

C H A P T E R T H R E E : T H E D E P O T S A N D T H E PALACES

The thirtieth difficult issue

Elucidation of the concepts of constructive and protective influences,
and introduction of the idea that the depots and palaces are supplied
with influences by the stomach directly.

The thirty-first difficult issue

Innovative reinterpretation of the concept of the Triple Burner as a
functional description of the upper, central, and lower groups of
organs in the body.

The thirty-second difficult issue

Explanation of why the heart and the lung are the only depots located
above the diaphragm.

The thirty-third difficult issue

Discussion of apparent contradictions resulting from the association
of the liver and kidneys with the phases wood and metal, respectively.

The thirty-fourth difficult issue

Pattern of the five depots and their corresponding sounds, complex-
ions, odors, liquids, and tastes. Association of the five depots with the
seven spirits.

The thirty-fifth difficult issue

Discussion of theoretical issues concerning the functions and lo-
cations of the six palaces, especially as they are related to the five
depots.

The thirty-sixth difficult issue

Introduction of the concept that the organism has two kidneys, one of
them constituting the "gate of life."

The thirty-seventh difficult issue

Elucidation of the concept that the influences of the five depots pass
through specific orifices, thus maintaining the functions of these
24 PROLEGOMENA

orifices. Also, further discussion of the concepts of closure and re-

sistance, and reference to the concepts of turnover and overflow.

The thirty-eighth difficult issue

Further elucidation of the nature and function of the Triple Burner
as an answer to the question of why there are six palaces but only five
depots in the body.

The thirty-ninth difficult issue

Further elucidation of the nature and function of the gate of life and
of the Triple Burner in reference to the existence of six palaces but
only five depots.

The fortieth difficult issue

Discussion of apparent contradictions resulting from the association
of the nose with the lung (which is responsible for the sounds, while
the nose is responsible for distinguishing the odors) and from the
association of the ears with the kidneys (which are responsible for the
liquids, while the ears are responsible for distinguishing the sounds).

The forty-first difficult issue

Explanation of why the liver is the only depot that has two lobes.

The forty-second difficult issue

Description of all depots and palaces in terms of length, diameter,
weight, and capacity.
The forty-third difficult issue
Explanation of the phenomenon that someone who does not eat or
drink will die after seven days.

The forty-fourth difficult issue

List of the names and locations of the seven through-gates.

The forty-fifth difficult issue

Introduction of the concept of the eight gathering-points.

The forty-sixth difficult issue

On different sleeping patterns in old and young people.
 PROLEGOMENA 25

The forty-seventh difficult issue

Why the face can stand cold.

C H A P T E R FOUR: O N I L L N E S S E S

The forty-eighth difficult issue

Introduction of various diagnostic patterns allowing one to distin-
guish whether a person suffers from a depletion or from a repletion.

The forty-ninth difficult issue

Introduction of the concepts of primary affection by the five evil
influences from outside the organism, and of secondary affection by
evil influences transmitted within the organism.

The fiftieth difficult issue

Introduction of the concepts of "depletion evil," "repletion evil,"
"destroyer evil," "weakness evil," and "regular evil," denoting the
five possibilities of internal secondary affliction.

The fifty-first difficult issue

Explanation of different preferences and aversions on the side of the
patient permitting one to distinguish whether an illness is located in
the depots or palaces.

The fifty-second difficult issue

On the static nature of illnesses in the depots and on the mobile
nature of illnesses in the palaces.

The fifty-third difficult issue

Introduction of the concepts of "transmission of an illness through
seven depots" and of "transmission skipping a depot."

The fifty-fourth difficult issue

Illnesses in the depots are difficult to cure; illnesses in the palaces are
easy to cure.

The fifty-fifth difficult issue

Reinterpretation of the concepts of "accumulation" and "concen-
tration" illnesses.
26 PROLEGOMENA

The fifty-sixth difficult issue

Reinterpretation of terms and concepts related to accumulation ill-
nesses, and introduction of a systematic theory of the generation of
the five accumulation illnesses.

The fifty-seventh difficult issue

Introduction of a fivefold classification of different diarrheas.

The fifty-eighth difficult issue

Introduction of a fivefold classification of "harm caused by cold"
illnesses and of the different movements in the vessels resulting from
these illnesses. Also, a list of signs and symptoms allowing for a
diagnosis of illnesses caused by heat and cold.
The fifty-ninth difficult issue

How to distinguish falling sickness from madness.

The sixtieth difficult issue

Discussion of the concepts of "stagnant pain" and "true pain" in
head and heart.
The sixty-first difficult issue
Introduction of a categorization of healers as "spirits," "sages," "ar-
tisans," and "workmen," based on their respective approaches to
diagnosing an illness.

C H A P T E R FIVE: T R A N S P O R T A T I O N H O L E S

The sixty-second difficult issue

Explanation of why the conduits associated with the palaces have six
transportation holes, while those associated with the depots have only
five.

The sixty-third difficult issue

Explanation of why each conduit has a "well" as its first transpor-
tation hole.
 PROLEGOMENA 27

The sixty-fourth difficult issue

Introduction of a systematic categorization of the transportation
holes according to yin and yang and the Five Phases.

The sixty-fifth difficult issue

Remarks concerning the "well" and "confluence" transportation
holes.

The sixty-sixth difficult issue

Discussion of the "origin" transportation holes as outlets of the
"original influences" of the six depots and six palaces.

The sixty-seventh difficult issue

Explanation of the location of "concentration holes" on the front and
of "accumulation holes" on the back of one's body.

The sixty-eighth difficult issue

Introduction of a list of illnesses that can be cured by needling the
respective transportation holes associated with them.

C H A P T E R SIX: N E E D L I N G P A T T E R N S

The sixty-ninth difficult issue

General advice on how to fill a depletion and drain a repletion, and
when to remove an illness from an affected conduit itself.

The seventieth difficult issue

Introduction of a pattern of two different needling techniques to be
applied during the spring-summer and autumn-winter seasons,
respectively.

The seventy-first difficult issue

Advice for needling the constructive and the protective influences.

The seventy-second difficult issue

Reinterpretation of the terms "moving against" and "following" as
concepts referring to the direction of the movement in the vessels.
28 PROLEGOMENA

The seventy-third difficult issue

Advice to needle a "brook" transportation hole if theory requires
needling a "well" hole.

The seventy-fourth difficult issue

Introduction of a pattern of needling different holes in the course of
the five seasons.

The seventy-fifth difficult issue

Elucidation of the theoretical basis underlying the therapeutic ap-
proach of filling a so-called depletion and of draining a so-called
repletion.

The seventy-sixth difficult issue

Discussion of the concepts of "filling" and "draining."

The seventy-seventh difficult issue

Introduction of a classification of healers as "superior" or
"mediocre" practitioners according to their understanding of the
transmission of illnesses within the organism.
The seventy-eighth difficult issue
Reinterpretation of the techniques of filling and draining by means of
needling.

The seventy-ninth difficult issue

Further elucidation of the theoretical basis underlying the treatment
of states of depletion and repletion.

The eightieth difficult issue

Comments on the techniques of inserting and withdrawing a needle.

The eighty-first difficult issue

Warning against "replenishing a repletion" and "depleting a
depletion."
The Origin of the Nan-ching

T h e compilation date of the Nan-ching remains a matter of con-

troversy. Three decades ago, Fan Hsing-chun suggested that the
Nan-ching was written at some time during the era of the Six Dy-
nasties, probably during the fifth or sixth century A.D.25 In an essay
elucidating his arguments, Fan Hsing-chun quoted Liao P'ing IJI
(1851-1914?), who was the first to propose such a late compilation
date. Among other arguments, Liao P'ing pointed out that a new
attitude toward women, beginning at the time of the Ch'i and Liang
dynasties, had forced physicians to modify their diagnostic tech-
niques: "Since the times of Ch'i and Liang it was no longer a matter
of course to touch the throat or feet of women for diagnosis. Hence
this method [of pulse diagnosis at the wrist] was established so that
[physicians could continue] to earn their livelihood." 2 6
Taki Mototane (Tamba Genkan) ^ l E x i l L author of a compre-
hensive medical bibliography (Chung-kuo i-chi k'ao ^ l l l f ) , had
reached different conclusions when he suggested a compilation date
during the Eastern Han dynasty (that is, during the first or second
century A.D.). He pointed out that the concept of yiian-ch'i
("original influence"), although introduced by T u n g Chung-shu of
the second century B.C., found entrance into common usage only
during the Eastern Han. Similarly, the concepts of "males are born at
yin; females are born at shen,"27 "this is why wood sinks into the
depth, while metal floats at the surface," 2 8 and "metal is generated at
chi, water is generated at shen; drain the fire of the south, fill the water
of the north" 2 9 —none of which had been included in either the Su-
wen or the Ling-shu—should also be regarded as facets of Eastern
Han thought. 3 0

29
30 PROLEGOMENA

A later compilation date had already been excluded by Taki

Mototane's father, Taki Motohiro ^ l E x ® , who had interpreted a
line in the preface to the Shang-han lun ifi % m of Chang Chi
(142-220?) as referring to the Nan-ching.31 This line is worded hstian
yung Su-wen Chiu chiian Pa-shih-i nan Yin yang ta-lun T'ai-lu yao-lu
Mm m m A + - m m m ± § 5 S I m ». It had been read by Chang
Chih-ts'ung ^I/fei® (1610-1674) as "in compiling [the Shang-han lun]
I made use of the Su-wen with its eighty-one difficult issues discussed
in nine chapters." Chang failed to realize that Chiu chiian referred
to a separate book—quoted, for instance, by the Mai-ching f f t g and
in the I-shin-po li<L\jJ as Chiu chiian yiin A S S ("The Nine Chap-
ters state..."), possibly for lack of a proper title. 32 Also, in the
eleventh century edition of the Shang-han lun (preserved in Japan),
the line quoted appears as a commentary added to Chang Chi's text
by a later editor. Still later editors may have included these remarks
in the main text. Hence, as Fan Hsing-chun concluded, there is no
evidence that Chang Chi knew of the Nan-ching, and the first ten
characters of the line in question should be read as "in compiling [the
Shang-han lun] I made use of the Su-wen and of the Chiu chiian, both
having eighty-one sections." 33
Soon after Fan Hsing-chun had voiced his views, Ho Ai-hua—in
two essays published in 1958 and 1960—rejected these arguments and
suggested a compilation date at some time during the Western Han
dynasty (that is, during the second or first century B.C.). He pointed
out that in analysing the line in the preface to the Shang-han lun, one
should take into account not only its first ten characters but also the
entire sentence, because two more book titles were mentioned in it,
and he saw no reason not to interpret Chiu chiian and Pa-shih-i nan as
book titles too. Ho Ai-hua suggested reading the line in question as
follows: "in compiling [the Shang-han lun] I made use of the Su-wen,
the Chiu chiian, the Pa-shih-i nan, the Yin yang ta-lun, and the T'ai-
lu yao-lu."34 Ho took it for granted that this phrase had been written
by Chang Chi himself (he did not discuss the "commentary" inter-
pretation), and he quoted another sentence from Chang Chi's preface
to prove that the Nan-ching had been written earlier. T h e Nan-ching,
Ho argued, had introduced pulse diagnosis at the wrists, an inno-
vation that had led to the disregard of the Nei-ching methods of vessel
diagnosis—that is, of pulse feeling at the side of the larynx and at
the feet, in addition to palpation of the wrists. Ho stated that this
 PROLEGOMENA 31

development must have taken place before Chang Chi's time because
in his preface, Chang complained:

Today's physicians do not take great pains to seek instructions from

the classics in order to expand their knowledge; they rely only on
abilities transmitted in their families. From beginning to end they
follow their old precepts. When they are confronted with an illness,
they approach the patient with smart speeches. Disregarding what
would be essential in such [a situation], they simply prescribe decoc-
tions and feel [the vessels at] the inch [-section]—but not even at the
foot [-section]. They rely on [an examination of the vessels at] the
hands and disregard the feet; they do not care about an investigation of
all three diagnostic sections [of the body, which would include an
examination] at the jen-ying [points at the throat] and at the ankles, in
order to assess the frequency [of the movement in the vessels] and of
[the patient's] breathing They act like someone who gazes through
a narrow tube in order to observe heaven! 35

Ho Ai-hua saw further evidence for Chang Chi's awareness of the

teaching of the Nan-ching in numerous references, in the Shang-han
lun itself, to wrist diagnosis at the inch-, gate-, and foot-sections,
arguing that Chang Chi was most probably quoting from the Nan-
ching (since these concepts had been introduced by the Nan-ching).
Similarly, Ho Ai-hua regarded Wang Shu-ho's (210-285) Chia-i
ching and Huang-fu Mi's (214-282) Mai-ching as influenced, beyond
any doubt, by various Nan-ching innovations in vessel diagnosis. 36
A significant number of the questions raised in the eighty-one
sections of the Nan-ching are introduced by the phrase ching-yun
("the scripture states" or "the classic states"). An exact title of that
scripture or classic is not mentioned. Also, while some of the issues
referred to as statements quoted from that scripture may indeed be
found—in identical or somewhat altered wording—in the Su-wen or
the Ling-shu, other statements introduced by ching yiin do not appear
in the textus receptus of these ancient classics. Ho Ai-hua did not
consider the possibility, voiced by other authors, that these state-
ments may have been part of Su-wen or Ling-shu passages that have
been lost in the meantime, or that they may be fictitious quotations
designed merely to raise and discuss a specific issue. He wrote:

When the text of the Nan-ching quotes the text of the Nei-ching, it does
not distinguish between Su-wen and Ling-shu but says in all instances
32 PROLEGOMENA

merely "the classic states." This is sufficient evidence not only to fully
disclose the erroneous and commonly held view that the Su-wen ap-
peared first while the Ling-shu is of later origin, but also to prove that
the Nan-ching must have been written before the Nei-ching was split
into Su-wen and Ling-shu.17

Ho Ai-hua, in contrast to Taki Mototane, considered the diagnos-

tic scheme outlined in the Nan-ching to be identical with the scheme
followed by the physician Shun-yii I, whose approach to diagnosis is
referred to (if in less detail than is needed to substantiate Ho's conclu-
sion) in the Shih-chi. Thus Ho concluded that the Nan-ching was
written either by Shun-yii I himself or by some other author of
Shun-yii I's school.38 Traditionally, though, most commentators
have attributed the Nan-ching to semi-legendary or legendary per-
sonalities, who are assumed to have lived and spread their wisdom
many centuries before Shun-yii I. Pien Ch'io, a shadowy physician of
about the fifth or sixth century B.C. whose biography appears in the
Shih-chi, seems to have been linked to the Nan-ching since the Sui-
T'ang era. The name Pien Ch'io has been associated with itinerant
shaman-healers from Shantung province who clad themselves in
feathers, suggesting an ability to rise into the skies;39 it may also have
been a designation conferred upon or adopted by various healers
during the time of the Chou (this is suggested by records hinting at
the existence of a Pien Ch'io in different centuries). 40 In his Shih-chi
of 90 B.C., Ssu-ma Ch'ien identified Pien Ch'io as a man called Ch'in
Yiieh-jen, but he did not give any details concerning Pien's actual
dates. According to Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Ch'in Ytieh-jen "made himself a
name especially with vessel diagnosis," and "to this time, whoever
discusses vessel [diagnosis] bases [his arguments] on Pien Ch'io." 4 1
Yet no reference appears in this biography to a specific book written
by Pien Ch'io. (According to the biography, Pien Ch'io promised to
his mysterious teacher Ch'ang-sang chun not to transmit his knowl-
edge to anyone else before the latter transferred his abilities to Pien
Ch'io.) At the time of the Han, at least two texts existed which had
allegedly been compiled by Pien Ch'io himself. The official history of
the Han dynasty lists a Pien Ch'io nei-ching and a Pien Ch'io wai-ching
(in addition to a Huang-ti nei-ching, a Huang-ti wai-ching, and other
nei- or wai-ching titles), but we have no clues suggesting any re-
lationship between these Pien Ch'io titles and the Nan-ching that is
extant. In fact, Taki Mototane discovered what is currently regarded
 PROLEGOMENA 33

as the earliest known reference to Pien Ch'io as the author of the

Nan-ching. Wang Tao EEil, in his Wai-t'aipi-yao ^flEiftl? (ca. A.D.
725), quoted from the Shan-fart fang PJ f j , a prescription work
compiled around A.D. 600 by Hsieh Shih-t'ai HidtS who, in turn,
quoted a Pien Ch'io as making statements that appear in today's Nan-
ching.*2 Not much later, Yang Hsiian-ts'ao |§;£fji (seventh or eighth
century) began the preface to his Nan-ching commentary with the
unambiguous statement: " T h e Huang-ti pa-shih-i nan ching was com-
piled by Ch'in Yiieh-jen from Po-hai," i.e., by the Pien Ch'io of the
Shih-chi.43
The appearance of a reference to the Yellow Emperor in the title
named by Yang Hsiian-ts'ao may indicate a separate—and possibly
earlier—tradition crediting the legendary Huang-ti (the Yellow
Emperor) with the authorship. In what may be the earliest known
reference to the Nan-ching and its origin (if we disregard the con-
troversial line in the Shang-han lun for a moment), the Yellow Em-
peror appears as the originator of the Nan-ching because the text
resulted from a discussion between Huang-ti and two of his consul-
tants. Huang-fu Mi I L ^ I S (214-282) wrote in his Ti wang shih chi
tit Id: "Huang-ti ordered Lei-kung and Ch'i Po to discuss [with
him] the courses of the conduit-vessels. He questioned them about
eighty-one issues and created the Nan-ching."44
Wang Po ZEfi (648-676), an exceptionally gifted scholar of the
T'ang era, may have attempted a compromise between the Yellow
Emperor tradition and the Pien Ch'io tradition when he wrote:

The Huang-ti pa-shih-i nan ching is a secretly recorded medical classic.

In ancient times [this text] was handed over by Ch'i Po to [the Yellow
Emperor] Huang-ti. From Huang-ti it was handed over, through nine
[generations of] instructors, to I Yin. I Yin handed it over to T'ang,
and from T'ang it was handed over, through six [generations of] in-
structors, to T'ai-kung. T'ai-kung handed it over to Wen wang. From
Wen wang it was handed over, through nine [generations of] instruc-
tors, to the physician Ho. From the physician Ho it was handed over,
through six [generations o f ] instructors, to Ch'in Yiieh-jen. Ch'in
Yiieh-jen was the first to put [this text] down in writing. 45

It was only in the late nineteenth century that Liao P'ing, the con-
servative author of the Nan-ching ching-shih pu-cheng (see the follow-
ing section of this Introduction and appendix A), found it difficult to
34 PROLEGOMENA

link a work that he considered to be in many respects far from the truth
conveyed by the "classic" Huang-ti nei-ching with an author who had
lived in classical antiquity. T o make his point, Liao did not shrink
from manipulating the preface of his conservative but far less rigid
predecessor Hsu Ta-ch'un, whose Nan-ching commentary entitled
Nan-ching ching-shih Liao had selected as a basis for his own com-
ments. While Hsii had attributed the Nan-ching to a pre-Han origin,
Liao changed the line in his edition of Hsii's work so that Hsii ap-
peared to have suggested a Western Chin (265-317) origin of the
Nan-ching. In his own commentary to this line, Liao then refuted this
as too early and suggested an even later compilation date during the
era of the Six Dynasties (i.e., during the fifth or sixth century). 46
Earlier in these prolegomena, I have referred to the Nan-ching as a
work of the first or early second century A.D.; it may even have been
written a few decades before the first century A.D. I concur with the
opinion that the Shang-han lun was influenced by the Nan-ching, and
I agree with those commentators who saw a significant gap between
the language and the concepts used by the Nan-ching and those found
in the Nei-ching—a gap that signals development as well as differ-
ence. I am convinced (as shall be elucidated further in my notes to the
individual difficult issues) that the Nan-ching was compiled to over-
come the heterogeneity and unsystematic nature of the Huang-ti nei-
ching anthology of medical schools and concepts—and especially to
draw the conceptual and clinical consequences from the "discovery"
of the circulation of vapor-influences in the organism. In my opinion,
the Nei-ching texts on needling and diagnosis reveal a stage of develop-
ment that is not only later than that indicated by the texts unearthed
from the Ma-wang-tui tombs (168 B.C.) but also later than that in-
dicated in the biography of Shun-yii I (216-150?) in the Shih-chi
(compiled in 90 B . C . ) . Thus the Nei-ching texts cannot have been
compiled before the late second or first century B.C. (although some
parts of the Nei-ching—for instance, those on wind divination—
appear to be older, and some are much younger). 47 T h e Nan-ching,
then, could have been written after the appearance of the Nei-ching
texts on needling and vessel diagnosis, and before the appearance of
the Shang-han lun in the second century and of Huang-fu Mi's Ti
zvang shih-chi in the third century A.D.
The Reception of the Nan-ching in
Later Centuries

The message offered by the Nan-ching must have been quite convinc-
ing in at least one respect. Vessel diagnosis concentrating on the
wrists was adopted not only by many physicians (who were criticized
by Chang Chi—or by a later commentator to his preface—for an all
too simplistic practice both of diagnosis in general and of wrist diag-
nosis as well) but also by the leading pre-Sung authors of medical
works with sections on diagnosis that have been transmitted to us
from pre-Sung times. This applies—in addition to the Shang-han
lun—to the Chia-i ching 1 f1 J?;', and the Mai-ching IjlK 8? (both of the
third century A.D.), as well as to Sun Ssu-miao's Ch'ien-chin i
fang T" Ife % )i of the early seventh century.
The impact of and interest in the Nan-ching must have been con-
siderable in subsequent centuries: the Nan-ching provoked an endless
series of commentaries attempting to plumb the depths of its mes-
sage. The bibliographical section of the Sui History (compiled during
the seventh century) mentions a Huang-ti pa-shih-i nan ching and
adds the remark: "The Liang (Ch'i-lu) refers to a Huang-ti chung nan
ching, 1 ch., with a commentary by Lii Po-wang B tillS- [The work
is] lost." If the usual interpretation that this remark in the Sui His-
tory was indeed based on Juan Hsiao-hsii's i c ^ ( 4 7 9 - 5 3 6 ) Ch'i-lu
t i l is correct, one should assume that the first commentary on the
Nan-ching was published before the year 500, but did not survive (at
least as an independent work) until the early T'ang era. Yang Hsiian-
ts'ao, the second Nan-ching commentator, referred to his predecessor
as "Wu t'ai-i-ling Lii Kuang" tl lie- As Japanese scholars
have pointed out, several persons are known whose personal name
35
36 PROLEGOMENA

Kuang @f was changed into Po fil following a taboo placed on the

former after the ascension to the throne of the Sui emperor Yang-ti
in 605.48 And Fan Hsing-chun observed that it was quite common,
during the era of the Six Dynasties, to drop the central or final char-
acter of a person's name in literary references. Hence the original
name of the man who is generally considered to have written the first
Nan-ching commentary may have been Lii Kuang-wang 0 JH If. 4 9
The dating of Lii's lifetime, though, is more problematic than the
identification of his personal name. The usual reading of Wu t'ai-i-
ling would be "Head of the Imperial Physicians during the Wu
dynasty." This interpretation appears to be substantiated by a state-
ment found in section I ssu UlZH of chapter 724 of the Sung ency-
clopedia T'ai-p'ing yii-lan of 983, where the preface to a "Needle
Scripture from the Jade Chest" ( Yii kuei chen ching EEKUfi?) is
quoted with the following information:

Lii Po was still young when he made himself a name with his medical
practice. He was an expert in the differentiation of illnesses on the basis
of vessel diagnosis. He wrote a lot about this. In the second year of
ch'ih-wu of the [dynasty] Wu he became Head of the Imperial
Physicians (t'ai-i'ling). He compiled the Yii-kuei chen ching and wrote
a commentary on the Pa-shih-i nan ching. [His works] became very
popular.

Accordingly, Lii Po—alias Lii Kuang (-wang)—was a man of the

Eastern Wu dynasty; the second year of ch'ih-wu corresponds to A.D.
239.
This dating of Lii's lifetime was contested in 1957 by Fan Hsing-
chun, who had at least one earlier witness for a different opinion. In a
book by the Sung author Tang Yung-nien JSTK^- entitled Shen-mi
ming-i lu % ¿gl§ one Fan Shu-mi ffi fts wrote that the Nan-
ching "was transmitted until the time of the Sui when Lii Kuang from
Wu wrote a commentary on it." 50 (Lii Fu's remarks from the Yuan
era—also quoted by Fan Hsing-chun—that "during the times of the
Sui a commentary version by Lii Po-wang existed, but is no longer
transmitted" cannot be taken as hinting at Sui dates for Lii himself.)
Fan Hsing-chun went a long way to prove his point that "Wu" £
refers to a place name, and that "second year of ch'ih-wu" and "Head
of the Imperial Physicians" are data that were made up by unknown
authors of the sixth, seventh, or early eighth century.
 PROLEGOMENA 37

Fan Hsing-chun construed two arguments. First, Fan interpreted

the wording of the title of a third book associated with Lii—the
"Golden Sheath and Jade M i r r o r " (Chin-t'ao yii-chien <¡2 ¥fiR IS)—
as well as a reference to "obscure teachings" (hsuan tsung ¿C'tk j in
Yang Hsiian-ts'ao's characterization of Lii's commentary, as
evidence that Lii had been an adherent of the doctrines of Taoism.
Fan concluded that because the Eastern Wu under Emperor Sung
Ch'iian were known to have been opposed to Taoism, no follower of
Taoism could have risen to a dominant position in the medical offices
of the court. 51 Yet even if Lii had been a Taoist and Sung Ch'iian an
anti-Taoist, one could point out examples of emperors disregarding
such ideological discrepancies when they called in a physician who
had demonstrated superior clinical abilities.
Secondly, Fan Hsing-chun argued that Lii's Yii-kuei chen ching
must have been written later than the fourth century for the following
reason. T h e bibliographical section of the Sui History mentions a
Ch'ih-wu shen-chen ching (but without naming an
author). T h e two T ' a n g histories attributed this book to a man named
Chang Tzu-ts'un ^E -f-fa (without providing details on his lifetime).
T h e Ta-t'ang liu tien i? A" ft, compiled in the early eighth century,
referred to this book as a teaching manual on needling for professors
and students of the imperial medical office. And the Ming author Yao
Chen-tsung ftjg^, stated: " T h e Ch'ih-wu shen-chen ching seems to
have been written on the basis of Lii Kuang's Yii-kuei chen ching.
Hence the title of the reigning period [during which Lii Kuang
served as t'ai-i ling] was added [to the title Shen chen ching]."52 Fan
Hsing-chun identified Chang Tzu-ts'un—the otherwise unknown
author of the Ch'ih wu shen-chen ching—as Chang T s ' u n , the author
of a treatise on needling who may have lived during the fourth cen-
tury. Fan concluded that if the Ch'ih-wu shen-chen ching and the Yii-
kuei chen-ching did indeed show similarities (both texts have been lost
for centuries), then the former was written first (during the fourth
century by Chang Ts'un) and the latter was written afterward (but
prior to the Sui dynasty). Fan explained the Ch'ih-wu in the title as a
reference to an ancient place name, used centuries before Chang
T s ' u n ' s lifetime for an area where Chang may have lived (he also
provided further examples where place names associated with an
author had been adopted to precede the title of a book). Later, Ch'ih-
wu was misinterpreted by authors, Fan wrote, as a reference to the
38 PROLEGOMENA

ch'ih-wu reigning period of the Eastern W u dynasty; similarly,

because Lii's work was so similar in contents to the Ch'ih-wu shen-
chen ching, Lii's own native town of Wu was misinterpreted as an-
other reference to the Eastern Wu dynasty. Finally, Fan suggested,
someone invented the "second year" and the official title t'ai-i-ling,
thus laying the foundations for the "erroneous" statements by Yang
Hsiian-ts'ao and the authors of the T'ai-p'ing yu-lan.
Perhaps the facts are as complicated as Fan Hsing-chun saw them.
We should, however, keep in mind that it must have been rather
difficult for him to reconcile Liao P'ing's and his own idea of a fifth or
sixth century origin of the Nan-ching with a third century appearance
of the first Nan-ching commentary. If we assume an Eastern Han
compilation date for the Nan-ching, there is little reason to doubt
Yang Hsiian-ts'ao of the eighth century and the T'ai-p'ing yu-lan of
the tenth century and to follow instead a hint by the obscure Fan
Shu-mi of the eleventh century. Until further evidence to the con-
trary has come to light, I shall consider Lii Kuang (-wang) as a third
century author.
Yang Hsiian-ts'ao i l ^ f H , the author of the second Nan-ching
commentary, has been surrounded by much less controversy than his
predecessor. In the closing words of the preface to his commentary,
he identified himself as a district military official. He is commonly
assumed to have lived during the first century of the T ' a n g era (sev-
enth and early eighth century) because a first reference to his work
appeared in Chang Shou-chieh's Shih-chi cheng-i 12 IE H ,
53
which was written during the first half of the eighth century.
Although the remark, in the Sui History, on Lii Kuang (-wang's)
Nan-ching commentary classified Lii's work as "lost," at least frag-
ments of it must have come to the attention of Yang Hsiian-ts'ao.
Yang's reference, in his preface, to his predecessor's work leaves it
open as to whether Lii himself had commented on only a fraction of
the Nan-ching or whether the "missing h a l f " had been lost in the
meantime:

[Lii's] explanations do not even comprise half of the entire [text of

the Nan-ching], the rest is missing.... I have commented on those
parts [of the text] now that had not been elucidated by Mr Lii;
where Mr. Lii's comments remained insufficient, I have expanded
them." 54
 PROLEGOMENA 39

In addition to this commentary, Yang wrote a second treatise on

the Nan-ching, the Pa-shih-i nan yin i A + — S l W f t , in which he
analyzed, as we learn from the title of the long-lost book, "the pro-
nunciation and meaning" of individual characters appearing in the
Nan-ching.
Yang Hsiian-ts'ao may have been a virtuous Confucian because his
career as an official did not prevent him from continuing a profound
interest in medicine. "I am very much interested in therapeutics," he
wrote, "and I have always sought instruction in its principles. In
particular, I have been taught the contents of this classic, and I have
been absorbed in its analysis for the past ten years without interrup-
tion. Although I still have not penetrated its deepest levels of mean-
ing, I think I have been able to grasp its general message." 55
Yang Hsiian-ts'ao accepted the message of the Nan-ching without
reservation. His own and Lii's commentary (as well as some early
Sung commentaries) mark the first phase in the reception of the
Nan-ching in Chinese medical history—a phase characterized by
an unquestioned faith in the Nan-ching as the authoritative exegesis
of the fundamental principles of the medicine of systematic
correspondence:

The Huang-ti pa-shih-i nan ching was compiled by Ch'in Yiieh-jen

from Po-hai. Yiieh-jen had been instructed by [Ch'ang] Sang-chiin in
his secret arts and, as a result, he understood the principles of medi-
cine. He was quite capable of penetrating [the body with his eyes], of
recognizing the depots and the palaces, and of opening the intestines
and exposing the heart. Because he stood on one level with the Pien
Ch'io of the times of Hsien Yiian, he was given the honorary name Pien
Ch'io. His home was the state of Lu. Hence he was called the "physi-
cian from Lu." Some people believe that the [physician from] Lu and
Pien [Ch'io] were two different persons. That is a mistake, though.
The Huang-ti nei-ching consists of two volumes with nine chapters
each. Its meaning is quite obscure, and it is extremely difficult to
analyze it in its entirety. Hence Yiieh-jen selected only the most essen-
tial elements [of the Nei-ching], and he combined its two sections in
[this Nan-] ching, with its total of eighty-one sections. [Ch'in Yiieh-
jen] wrote scroll after scroll in order to widen access to the [principles
of medicine]; he inquired about the obscure and traced out hidden
meanings in order to transmit them to posterity. He called [his work]
"Eighty-One Difficult Issues" because the principles [dealt with in this
book] are very profound and comprehensive, and not easily under-
 Another Random Document on
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Familiar
Studies in Homer
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Title: Familiar Studies in Homer

Author: Agnes M. Clerke

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMILIAR

STUDIES IN HOMER ***
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
FAMILIAR STUDIES IN HOMER
 PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
FAM IL IAR STU DIES
IN

HOMER

BY

AGNES M. CLERKE

AB HOMERO OMNE PRINCIPIUM

LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET
 1892

All rights reserved

 PREFACE.

Homeric archæology has, within the last few years, finally left the
groove of purely academic discussion to advance along the new
route laid down for it by practical methods of investigation. The
results are full of present interest, and of future promise. They
already imply a reconstruction of the Hellenic past; they vitalise the
Homeric world, bringing it into definite relations with what went
before, and with what came after, and transforming it from a
poetical creation into an historical reality. Excavations and
explorations in Greece, Egypt, and Asia Minor, have thus entirely
changed the aspect of the perennial Homeric problem, and afford
reasonable hope of providing it with a satisfactory solution.

These remarkable, and promptly-gathered fruits of an

experimental system of inquiry deserve the attention, not of scholars
alone, but of every educated person; nevertheless, their value has
as yet been realised by a very limited class. The following chapters
may then, it is hoped, usefully serve to illustrate some of them for
the benefit of the general reading public, while making no pretension
to discuss, formally or exhaustively, the wide subject of Homeric
antiquities. For the proper discharge of that task, indeed,
qualifications would be needed to which the writer lays no claim.
The object of the present little work will be attained if it contribute
to stir a wider interest in the topics it discusses; above all, should it
in any degree help to promote a non-erudite study of the noble
poetical monuments it is concerned with. Greek enough to read the
Iliad and Odyssey in the original can be learned with comparative
ease; and what trouble there may be in its acquisition meets an
ample reward in mental profit and enjoyment of a high order. These
ancient epics have a unique freshness about them; they are still
open founts of animating pleasure for all who choose to apply to
them; one cannot, then, but regret that so few have intellectual
energy to do so.

The author’s best thanks are due to Messrs. Macmillan, and to

Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, for their courteous permission to
reprint the chapters entitled ‘Homeric Astronomy,’ ‘Homer’s Magic
Herbs,’ and ‘The Dog in Homer,’ originally published in the pages of
Nature, Macmillan’s Magazine, and the British Quarterly Review
respectively.

In quoting illustrative passages from the Homeric poems,

considerable use has been made of the admirable prose version of
the Iliad by Messrs. Lang, Leaf, and Myers, and of the Odyssey by
Messrs. Butcher and Lang. With the object, however, of securing a
certain variety of effect, versified translations have also been
resorted to, their authors being duly specified in foot-notes. The
citations of Helbig’s valuable work, Das Homerische Epos aus den
Denkmälern erläutert, refer to the second enlarged edition published
in 1887.
 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. HOMER AS A POET AND AS A 1

PROBLEM

II. HOMERIC ASTRONOMY 30

III. THE DOG IN HOMER 58

IV. HOMERIC HORSES 84

V. HOMERIC ZOOLOGY 116

VI. TREES AND FLOWERS IN HOMER 150

VII. HOMERIC MEALS 176

VIII. HOMER’S MAGIC HERBS 207

IX. THE METALS IN HOMER 231

X. HOMERIC METALLURGY 258

XI. AMBER, IVORY, AND ULTRAMARINE 283

FAMILIAR STUDIES IN HOMER.
 CHAPTER I.

HOMER AS A POET AND AS A PROBLEM.

The perennial youth of the Homeric poems is without a parallel in

the history of art. No other imaginative works have so nearly
succeeded in bidding defiance to the ‘tooth of time.’ Like the golden
watch-dogs of Alcinous, they seem destined to be ‘deathless and
ageless all their days.’ Nor is theirs the faded immortality of Tithonus
—the bare preservation of a material form emptied of the glow of
vitality, and grown out of harmony with its environment. Their
survival is not even that of an ‘Attic shape’ whose undeniable beauty
has, in our eyes, assumed somewhat of a recondite coldness, very
different from the loveliness of old, when connoisseurship was not
needed for appreciation. The Iliad and Odyssey are still auroral.
They have the charm of an ‘unpremeditated lay,’ springing from the
very source of our own life; they appeal alike to rude sensibilities
and to cultivated tastes; their splendour and pathos, their powerful
vitality, the strength and swiftness of their numbers, require to be
accentuated by no critical notes of admiration; they strike of
themselves the least tutored native perception. These vigorous
growths out of the deep soil of humanity have not yet been
transported from the open air of indiscriminate enjoyment into the
greenhouse of æstheticism; delight in them lays hold of any
schoolboy capable of reading them fluently in the original as
naturally as enthralment with ‘Cinderella’ or ‘Jack the Giant-Killer’
commands the unreflecting nursery. For they combine, as no other
primitive poetry does, imaginative energy with sobriety of thought
and diction. The ne quid nimis regulates all their scenes. They are
simple without being archaic, fervid without extravagance, fanciful,
yet never grotesque. The strict proprieties of classic form effectually
restrain in them the exuberance of romantic invention. Not that any
such distinctions in the mode of composition had then begun to be
thought of. The poet was unconsciously a ‘law unto himself.’ Indeed
the very potency of his creative faculty prescribed retrenchment and
moderation; the images conjured up by it with much of the plastic
reality of sculpture subjecting themselves spontaneously to the laws
of sculpturesque fitness. Clear-cut and firm of outline, they move in
the transparent ether of definite thought. Projected into the
vaporous atmosphere of a riotous fancy, they might show vaster, but
they could hardly be equally impressive.
But these matchless productions are not merely the ‘wood-notes
wild’ of untrained inspiration. They imply a long course of free
development under favourable conditions. The vehicle of expression
used in them might alone well be the product of centuries of pre-
literary culture. Greek hexameter verse was by no means an obvious
contrivance. It is an exceedingly subtle structure, depending for its
effect—nay, for its existence—upon unvarying obedience to a
complex set of metrical rules. These could not have originated all at
once, by the decree of some poetical law-giver. They must have
been arrived at more or less tentatively by repeated experiments,
the recognised success of which led, in the slow course of time, to
their general adoption.
Moreover, the legendary materials of the Epics were not dug
straight out of the mine of popular fancy and tradition. They had
doubtless been elaborated and manipulated, before Homer took
them in hand, by generations of singers and reciters. The ‘tale of
Troy divine’ was already a full-leaved tree when he plucked from it
and planted the branches destined to flourish through the ages. His
verses display or betray acquaintance with many ‘other stories’ of
public notoriety besides those completely unfolded in them. The fate
of Agamemnon, the death of Achilles, the madness of Ajax, the
advent of Neoptolemus, the slaying of Memnon, son of the Morning,
the ambush in the Wooden Horse, the mysterious wanderings of
Helen, the last journey of Odysseus, furnished themes of surpassing
interest, all or most of which had been made into songs for the
pastime of lordly feasters and the solace of noble dames, before the
wrath of Achilles suggested a more adventurous flight.
Inexhaustible, indeed, was the store of romantic adventure furnished
by the famous ten years’ siege.
A castle built in cloudland, or at most
A crumbling clay-fort on a windy hill,
Where needy men might flee a robber-host,
This, this was Troy! and yet she holds us still.[1]

1. Lang’s Helen of Troy, vi. 21.

But the saga-literature of the Greeks did not begin with the
mustering of the fleet at Aulis. The ‘ante-Troica’ were not neglected.
Many a ballad was chanted about the doings of those ‘strong men’
who ‘lived before Agamemnon,’ although it was not their fortune to
be commemorated by a supreme singer. That supreme singer,
however, knew much concerning the Argonauts, the War of Thebes,
the Calydonian Boar-hunt, the sorrows of Niobe, and the betrayal of
Bellerophon; ante-Trojan lays served as parables for the instruction
of Clytemnestra, and the recreation of Achilles in that disastrous
interval when he doffed his armour and strung his lyre. And a small
but privileged class of the community was devoted, under the
presumed tuition of the Muses, to the perfecting and perpetuation of
these treasures of poetic lore.
Homer was accordingly no unprepared phenomenon. He rose in a
sky already luminous. The flowering of his genius, indeed, marked
the close of an epoch. His achievements were of the definitive and
synthetic kind; they summed up and surpassed what had previously
been accomplished; they were the outcome—although not the
necessary outcome—of a multitude of minor performances.
Now it is impossible to admit the prevalence of such sustained
poetical activity as the Homeric Epics by their very nature postulate,
apart from the existence of a tolerably widespread and well-
regulated social organisation. They besides describe a polity which
was certainly not imaginary, and thus lead us back to a pre-Hellenic
world, different in many ways from historical Greece, and separated
from it by several blank and silent centuries. The people who moved
and suffered, and nurtured their loves and grudges in it, were called
‘Achæans’—the ethnical title given by Homer to his countrymen from
all parts of the Greek peninsula and its adjacent islands. Homer
himself was evidently an Achæan; Achilles, Agamemnon, and
Odysseus, Helen and Penelope, sprang from the same race, which
was an offshoot from the general Hellenic stock. They were a
seafaring people, but not much given to commerce; active,
energetic, sensitive, highly imaginative, they showed, nevertheless,
receptivity rather than inventiveness as regards the practical arts of
life. Their great national exploit was probably that bellicose
expedition to the Troad upon which the Ilian legend, with all its
mythical accretions, was founded; and some records of attacks by
them on Egypt have been deciphered on hieroglyphically-inscribed
monuments; but they can claim no assured place in history. As a
nation, they ceased indeed to exist before the dim epoch of fables
came to an end; the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnesus brought
about their political annihilation and social disintegration, impelling
them, nevertheless, to establish new settlements in Asia Minor, and
thus setting on foot the long process by which Greek culture became
cosmopolitan.
Homeric conditions do not then represent simply an initial stage in
classic Greek civilisation. There was no continuous progress from the
one state of things to the other. Development was interrupted by
revolution. Hence, much irretrievable loss and prolonged seething
confusion; until, out of the chaos, a renovated order emerged, and
the Greece of the Olympiads comes to view in the year 776 B.C.
For this reason Homeric Greece is strange to history; the relative
importance of the states included in it, the centre of gravity of its
political power, the modes of government and manners of men it
displays, are all very different from what they had become in the
time of Herodotus. But it is only of late that these differences have
come to have an intelligible meaning. Until expounded by
archæological research, they were a source of unmixed perplexity to
the learned. The state of society described by Homer could certainly
not be regarded as fictitious; yet it hung suspended, as it were, in
the air, without definite limitations of time or place. These
uncertainties have now been removed. The excavations at Mycenæ,
undertaken by Dr. Schliemann in 1876, may be said to have had for
their upshot the rediscovery of the old Achæan civilisation, the
material relics of which have been brought to light from the ‘shaft-
tombs’ of Agamemnon’s citadel, the ‘bee-hive tombs’ of the lower
city, in the palaces and other coeval buildings of Tiryns, Mycenæ,
and Orchomenos. The points of agreement between Homeric
delineations and Mycenæan antiquities are, in fact, too numerous to
permit the entertainment of any reasonable doubt that the poet’s
experience lay in the daily round of Mycenæan life—of life, that is to
say, governed by the same ideas and carried on under approximately
the same conditions with those prevailing through the ancient realm
of the sons of Atreus.
The detection of this close relationship has lent a totally new
aspect to what is called the Homeric Question, widening its scope at
the same time that it provides a sure basis for its discussion. For this
can no longer be disconnected from inquiries into the status and
fortunes of the great confederacy, out of the wreck of which the
splendid fabric of Hellenic society arose. The civilisation centred at
Mycenæ covered a wide range; how wide we do not yet fully know:
the results of future explorations must be awaited before its limits
can be fixed. It undoubtedly spread, however, beyond Greece proper
through the Sporades to Crete, Rhodes, the coasts of Asia Minor, and
even to Egypt. The traces left behind by it in Egypt are of particular
importance.[2] From the Mycenæan pottery discovered in the
Fayûm, tangible proof has been derived that the Græco-Libyan
assaults upon that country were to some extent effective, and that
the seafaring people who took part in them were no other than the
Homeric Achæans, then in an early stage of their career. The fact of
their having secured a foothold in the Nile Valley accounts, too, for
the strong Egyptian element in Mycenæan art; and the evidence of
habitual intercourse is further curiously strengthened by the
presence of an ostrich egg amid the other antique remains in the
Myceneæan citadel graves.[3] Above all, the Egypto-Mycenæan
pottery, from its association with other objects of known dates, is
determinable as to time. And it appears, as the outcome of Mr.
Flinders Petrie’s careful comparisons, that one class of vases,
adorned with linear patterns, goes back to about 1400 B.C., while
those exhibiting naturalistic designs were freely manufactured in
1100. The culminating period, however, of pre-Hellenic fictile art is
placed considerably earlier, in 1500-1400 B.C., and there are
indications that its development had occupied several previous
centuries. Mr. Petrie, indeed, finds himself compelled to believe that
the Græco-Libyan league was already active in or before the year
2000 B.C. Achæan predominance may, then, very well have boasted a
millennium of antiquity when the Dorians crossed the Gulf of
Corinth. Its subversion drove many of the leading native families
over the Ægean, where they found seats already doubtless familiar
to them through their own and their ancestors’ maritime and
piratical adventures, and the colonising impulse once given, did not
soon cease to promote the enlargement of the Greek domain. But
the mass of the Achæan people lived on in their old homes, in a
state of subjection resembling that of the Saxons in England after
the Norman Conquest. They were designated ‘Periœci’ by their
Dorian rulers.
2. Flinders Petrie, Journal of Hellenic Studies, vols. xi. p. 271; xii. p. 199.

3. Schuchhardt and Sellers, Schliemann’s Excavations, p. 268.

Archæological discoveries have thus shown the largeness of the
historical issues embraced in the Homeric Question; they also afford
the possibility, and still more, the promise, of satisfactorily answering
it. The problem is threefold. It includes the consideration of where,
when, and how the great Epics were composed.
Seven cities—
 Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodos, Argos, Athenæ—

competed for the honour of having given birth to their author.

Wherever, in short, their study was localised by the foundation of a
school of ‘Homerids,’ there was asserted to be the native place of the
eponymous bard. The truth is that no really authentic tradition
regarding him reached posterity. The very name of ‘Homer,’ or the
‘joiner together,’ is obviously rather typical than personal; and it
gradually came to aggregate round it all that was antique and
unclaimed in the way of verse. The aggregation, it is true, was
presumably formed in Asiatic Ionia; the ‘Cyclic Poems,’
supplementary to the Iliad, were mainly the work of Ionic poets; and
the Epic was substantially an Ionic dialect. Yet the inference of an
Asiatic origin thence naturally arising now clearly appears to be
invalid. The linguistic argument, to begin with, has been completely
disposed of by Fick’s remarkable demonstration that the Iliad and
Odyssey underwent an early process of Ionicisation.[4] So far as
metrical considerations permitted, they were actually translated from
the Æolic, or rather Achæan tongue, in which they were composed,
into the current idiom of Colophon and Miletus. Objections urged
from this side against their production in Europe have accordingly
lost their force; and the reasons favouring it, always strong, have of
late grown to be well-nigh irresistible. Some of the more cogent
were briefly stated by Mr. D. B. Monro in 1886;[5] and others might
now be added. One only, but one surely conclusive, need here be
mentioned. It is this. Homer could not have been an Asiatic Greek,
because Asiatic Greece did not exist in Homer’s time. He was aware
of no Achæan settlements in Asia Minor; not one of the twelve cities
of the Ionian confederacy emerges in the Catalogue, Miletus only
excepted, and Miletus with a special note of ‘barbarian’ habitation
attached to it.[6] The Ionian name is, in the Iliad, once applied to
the Athenians[7] (presumably), but does not occur at all in the
Odyssey; where, on the other hand, Dorians, unknown in the Iliad,
are casually named as forming an element in the mixed population
of Crete.[8] The reputed birthplaces of Homer, then, on the eastern
coast of the Ægean, were, when he had reached his singing prime,
still occupied by Carians and Mæonians; and we must accordingly
look for his origin in the West. There is no escape from this
conclusion except by the subterfuge of imagining the geography of
the Epics to be artificially archaic. They related to a past time, it
might be said, they should then reproduce the conditions of the
past. But this is a notion essentially modern. No primitive poet ever
troubled himself about such scruples of congruity. Nor if he did,
could the requisite detailed information by possibility be at his
command, while his painful care to avoid what we call anachronisms
would cause nothing but perplexity to his unsophisticated audience.
Homer’s map of Greece must accordingly be accepted as a true
picture of what came under his personal observation. It is, indeed,
as Mr. Freeman says, ‘so different from the map of Greece at any
later time that it is inconceivable that it can have been invented at
any later time.’[9] Since, however, it affords the Greek race no
Asiatic standing ground, it follows of necessity that Homer was a
European.
4. Die Homerische Odyssee in der ursprünglichen Sprachforme wiedergestellt,
1883.

5. English Historical Review, January, 1886.

6. Iliad, ii. 868.

7. Ib. xiii. 685.

8. Od. xix. 177.

9. Historical Geography, p. 25.

This same consideration helps to determine the age in which he
lived. Homeric geography is entirely pre-Dorian. Total
unconsciousness of any such event as the Dorian invasion reigns
both in the Iliad and Odyssey. Not a hint betrays acquaintance with
the fact that the polity described in them had, in the meantime,
been overturned by external violence. A silence so remarkable can
be explained only by the simple supposition that when they were
composed, the revolution in question had not yet occurred. Other
circumstances confirm this view. Practical explorations have shown
pre-Hellenic Greece to have been the seat of a rich, enterprising,
and cultivated nation. They have hence removed objections on the
score of savagery, inevitably to be encountered, formerly urged
against pushing the age of Homer very far back into the past. The
life carried on at Mycenæ, in fact, twelve or thirteen centuries before
the Christian era, was in many respects more refined than that
depicted in the poems. It was known to their author only after it had
lost something of its pristine splendour. But the Mycenæan
civilisation of his experience, if a trifle decayed, was complete and
dominant; and this it never was subsequently to the Dorian
conquest. To have collected, however, into an imaginary organic
whole the fragments into which it had been shattered by that
catastrophe, would assuredly have been a task beyond his powers.
Nothing remains, then, but to admit that he lived in the pre-Dorian
Greece which he portrayed. Moreover, the state of seething unrest
ensuing upon the overthrow of the Mycenæan order must have been
absolutely inconsistent with the development of a great school of
poetry. If Homer, then, was a European—as appears certain—the
inference is irresistible that he flourished before the society to which
he belonged was thrown by foreign invaders into irredeemable
disarray—that is, at some section of the Mycenæan epoch.
There are many convincing reasons for holding that section to
have been a late one. One of the principal is the familiar use of iron
in the poems, although none has been met with in the old shaft-
tombs within the citadel of Mycenæ, and only small quantities in the
less distinguished graves below. It is, to be sure, conceivable that a
substance introduced as a vulgar novelty devoid of traditional or
ancestral associations might have been employed for the ordinary
purposes of everyday life long before it was allowed to form part of
sepulchral equipments; a similar motive prescribing its virtual
exclusion from the Homeric Olympus. Still, the discrepancy can
hardly be explained away without the concession of some lapse of
time as well.
 The Homeric and Mycenæan modes of burial, too, were different.
Cremation is practised throughout the Epics; the Mycenæan dead
were preserved intact. ‘The contrast,’ Dr. Leaf remarks,[10] ‘is a
striking one; but it is easy to lay too much stress upon it. It may well
be that the conditions of sepulture on a campaign were perforce
different from those usual in times of peace at home. The
mummifying of the body and the carrying of it to the ancestral
burying-place in the royal citadel were not operations such as could
be easily effected amidst the hurry of marches or the privations of a
siege; least of all after the slaughter of a pitched battle. It is
therefore quite conceivable that two methods of sepulture may of
necessity have been in use at the same time. And for this
assumption the Iliad itself gives us positive grounds. One warrior
who falls is taken home to be buried; for to a dead son of Zeus
means of carriage and preservation can be supplied which are not
for common men. Sarpedon is cleansed by Apollo, and borne by
Death and Sleep to his distant home in Lycia, not that his body may
be burnt, but that his brethren and kinsfolk may preserve it ‘with a
tomb and gravestone, for such is the due of the dead.’
10. Introduction to Schliemann’s Excavations, p. 26.

He said; obedient to his father’s words,

Down to the battle-field Apollo sped
From Ida’s height; and from amid the spears
Withdrawn, he bore Sarpedon far away,
And lav’d his body in the flowing stream;
Then with divine ambrosia all his limbs
Anointing, cloth’d him in immortal robes;
To two swift bearers gave him then in charge,
To Sleep and Death, twin brothers; in their arms
They bore him safe to Lycia’s widespread plains.[11]

11. Iliad, xvi. 676-88 (Lord Derby’s translation).

The Mycenæan custom of embalming corpses was not, then,
strange to Homer; and the Homeric custom of burning them has
perhaps—for the evidence is indecisive—left traces in the more
recent graves of the Mycenæan people. What is certain is that
simple interment was everywhere primitively in use, and that the
pyre was a subsequent innovation, at first only partially adopted,
and perhaps nowhere exclusively in vogue.
The plastic art of Mycenæ seems to have been on the decline
when the ‘sovran poet’ arose. This can be inferred from the
wondering admiration displayed in his verses for what must once
have been its ordinary performances, as well as from the marked
superiority assigned in them to foreign over native artists. They
include besides no allusion to the signet-rings so plentiful at
Mycenæ, no notice, in any connexion, of the art of gem-engraving,
nor of the indispensable luxury—to ladies of high degree—of toilet-
mirrors. Active intercourse with Egypt, again, had evidently ceased
long prior to the Homeric age. The Nile is, in the poems, not even
known by name, but only as the ‘river of Egypt;’ and the country is
reached, not in the ordinary course of navigation, but through
recklessness or ill-luck, by adventurers or castaways.
We can now gather the following indications regarding the date of
the Homeric poems. They must have originated during the interval
between the Trojan War—which, in some shape, may be accepted as
an historical event—and the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus.
They probably originated not very long before the latter event, when
the Mycenæan monarchy was of itself tottering towards a fall
precipitated by the frequently repeated incursions of ruder tribes
from the north. The generally accepted date for the final event is
eighty years after the taking of Troy, or 1104 B.C. But this rests on no
authentic circumstance, and may very well be a century or more in
error. A preferable chronological arrangement would place Homer’s
flourishing in the eleventh century, and the overthrow of Mycenæ
near its close. Difficulties of sundry kinds can thus be, in a measure,
evaded or conciliated, without encroaching overmuch on the
voiceless centuries available for the unrecorded readjustment of the
disturbed elements of Greek polity.
 As to the mode of origin of the two great poems which have come
down to us from so remote an age, much might be said; but a few
words must here suffice. It is a topic on which the utmost diversity
of opinion has prevailed since F. A. Wolf published, in 1795, his
famous ‘Prolegomena,’ and as to which unity of views seems now for
ever unattainable. For demonstrative evidence is naturally out of the
question, and estimates of opposing probabilities are apt to be
strongly tinctured with ‘personality.’ Prepossessions of all kinds warp
the judgment, even in purely literary matters, and, in this case
especially, have led to the learned advocacy of extreme opinions.
Thus, partisans of destructive criticism have carried the analysis of
the Homeric poems to the verge of annihilation; while ultra-
conservatives insist upon a seamless whole, and regard the Iliad and
the Odyssey as the work of Homer, in the same sense and with the
same implicit confidence that they hold the Æneid and the Eclogues
to be Virgilian, or ‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘Samson Agonistes’ to be
Miltonic productions. Between these widely diverging paths,
however, there is a middle way laid down by common sense, which it
is tolerably safe to follow. A few simple considerations may help us
to find it.
We must remember, in the first place, that the Homeric poems
were composed, not to be privately read, but to be publicly recited.
They remained unwritten during at least a couple of centuries, flung
on the waves of unaided human memory. Oral tradition alone
preserved them; and not the punctilious oral tradition of a sacerdotal
caste like the Brahmins, but that of a bold and innovating class of
‘rhapsodes,’ themselves aspiring to some share in the Muse’s
immediate favours, and prompt to flatter the local vanities and
immemorial susceptibilities of their varied audiences. Within very
wide limits, they were free to ‘improve’ what long training had
enabled them to appropriate. Their licence infringed no literary
property; there was no authorised text to be corrupted; one man’s
version was as good as another’s. It is not, then, surprising that the
primitive order of the Epics became here and there disarranged, or
that interpolated and substituted passages usurped positions from
which they could not afterwards easily be expelled. Expository
efforts have, indeed, sometimes succeeded only in adding fresh
knots to the already tangled skein. Pisistratus, however, did good
service by for the first time editing the Homeric poems.[12]
Scattered manuscripts of them had doubtless existed long
previously; but it was their collection and collation at Athens, and
the disposal in a determinate succession of the still disjointed
materials they afforded, which placed the Greek people in the
earliest full possession of their epical inheritance.
12. German critics doubt the fact. See Niese, Die Entwickelung der Homerischen
Poesie, p. 5.
As the general result of a century of Homeric controversy,
instinctive appreciation may be said broadly to have got the better of
verbal criticism. Not but that the latter has done valuable work; but
it is now pretty plainly seen to have been, in some quarters, carried
considerably too far. The triumphs enjoyed by German advocates of
the ‘Kleinliedertheorie’—of the disjunction, that is to say, of the Epics
into numerous separate lays—are generally recognised to have been
merely temporary. A large body of opinion was, at the outset,
captivated by their arguments; it has of late tended to swing back
towards some approximation to the old orthodoxy. There is, indeed,
much difficulty in conceiving the profound and essential unity
apparent to unprejudiced readers of the Iliad and Odyssey to be
illusory; nor should it be forgotten that the evoking of a cosmos from
a chaos implies a single regulative intelligence. And a cosmos each
poem might very well be called; while the ‘embryon atoms’ from
which they sprang, of legends, stories, myths, and traditions,
constituted scarcely less than an
Ocean without bound,
Without dimension; where length, breadth, and highth,
And time, and place, are lost.

The Odyssey and the Iliad, however, stand in this respect by no

means on the same footing. In the former, fundamental unity is