Goblet word

The Zhuangzi text contains neologisms for three figures of speech: yùyán (寓言, lit. "lodged words"), chóngyán (重言, "repeated words") or zhòngyán (重言, "weighted words"), and zhīyán (卮言, "goblet words")—later referred to as the sānyán (三言, "three [kinds of] words").[1] These terms compound yán (言, "speech, talk; sayings; words") with yù (寓, "lodge, reside; dwell, sojourn; entrust; imply, contain"), chóng (重, "double, multiple; duplicate, repeat; accumulate") or zhòng (重, "heavy; weight, weighty, important; serious"), and zhī (卮 or 巵, "ancient wine goblet"). All three of these ancient Zhuangzian terms became part of modern Standard Chinese vocabulary; yuyan is a common word meaning "fable; allegory; parable", chongyan is a specialized linguistic term for "reduplication, reduplicated word/morpheme", and zhiyan is a literary reference to Zhuangzi, sometimes used in self-deprecatory titles, such as Wang Shizhen's (王世貞) 1558 Yìyuan zhiyan (藝苑卮言, Goblet Words on Art and Literature).

The first Chinese dictionary of characters, Xu Shen's c. 121 CE Shuowen jiezi, provides a representative set of ancient Han dynasty "wine vessel" names. Zhī (卮 or 巵) is defined as "a round vessel (圜器), also called dàn (觛), used to regulate drinking and eating (節飲食)", which is a classical allusion to the Yijing (27). Dàn (觛) is in turn defined as a "small zhì (小觶), and the shāng (觴, "wine-drinking cup") definition says shāng refers to a full zhì (觶) and zhì to an empty one. The Shuowen defines zhì (觶) as a "ceremonial wine-drinking horn used in the countryside (鄉飲酒角)", cites the Yili "The host then sits, takes the goblet, and washes it. (一人洗舉觶)",[2] and notes that one zhi was a liquid measure equivalent to four shēng (升, about half a gallon). Zhuǎn (𦓝) is defined as a "small zhi goblet" (小巵), and shuàn (𡭐) as a "small zhi goblet with handles and a cover" (小巵有耳蓋者).

Another Han scholar Ying Shao (140-206) said zhī (卮) and zhì (觶) refer to the same object, "A regional drinking-vessel for ritual use; formerly made holding four sheng; formerly the word zhi (卮 ) was written zhi (觶) or [also pronounced di] (觝)".[3] Lin Shuen-fu disagrees with Ying and suggests zhī (卮) and zhì (觶) denote different sizes vessels of the same type and function, specifically the type of wine goblets that have a "round, column-like body, a slightly flaring mouth, and a ring foot".[4]

The historian Wang Guowei linguistically equated the zhī (卮) goblet with four ancient wine vessels: zhì (觶), dàn (觛), shuàn (𡭐), and zhuǎn (𦓝).[5] The former two are written with the standard "horn radical" (角; no. 148 in the Kangxi radicals); and the latter two with the ancient "goblet radical" (卮; no. 337 in the Shuowen Jiezi radicals), a lexicographic category with only these two rare characters.

The Chinese epigrapher Rong Geng (容庚) archaeologically concluded that the original denotations of zhì or zhī are uncertain.[6] Within the Chinese ritual bronze terminology of Song dynasty (960-1127) antiquarians, zhì (觶) was a common Western Zhou era (c. 1045-771 BCE) wine vessel with a small, oval cross section, ring-feet, slender S-shaped profile, and often a cover; and zhī (卮 or 巵) was a rare Spring and Autumn period (771-476 BCE) wine drinking vessel with a squat oval cross-section, ring-feet, and annular handles.

Chinese ritual bronze wine vessels associated with zhī (卮) goblets

• 
  Jué (爵) tripod wine flagon, Shang dynasty, c. 12th century BCE
• 
  Jué (角) tripod wine flagon, Western Zhou, c. 7th century BCE
• 
  Gū (觚) tall wine beaker, Shang dynasty, c. 13th century BCE
• 
  Gōng (觥) zoomorphic covered wine pitcher, Shang dynasty, c. 13th–11th century BCE
• 
  Zhì (觶) wine goblet with ogre-mask motif, Western Zhou

Stoup is another English translation of Chinese zhī (卮 or 巵): "stoup, a cylindrical vessel reminiscent of a beer tankard or a coffee mug. It sometimes comes with a cover",[7] and "flagon, stoup, covered tankard, sometimes said to have capacity of 4 'pints' (shēng 升)".[8]

The oldest extant references to zhiyan (卮言, "goblet words") occur in chapters 27 and 33 of the c. 4th-3rd century BCE Daoist Zhuangzi. Both passages give metadiscursive analyses of the language used in Zhuangzi, namely, the sanyan three [kinds of] words, yùyán (寓言, "metaphors"), chóngyán (重言, "quotations"), and zhīyán (卮言, "impromptu words").[9] Note that unless otherwise identified, translations are by Victor H. Mair.[10]

Numerous academics, described as "phalanxes of scholars",[38] have analyzed and explained zhiyan "goblet words". A survey of recent Chinese-language scholarship about zhiyan variously explain it as allegorical dialogue, toast-like salutations to Zhuangzi readers, words as endless as a circle, a hypernym of yuyan and chongyan, and comparable to fu poetry.[39] As seen below, English-language studies of Zhuangzian goblet words are also wide-ranging, for instance comparing them with the writings of Euripides,[40] Plato,[41] and Kierkegaard.[42]

The sinologist and translator D. C. Lau proposed that Guo Xiang's commentary referred to the rare Chinese qīqì (欹器, "tilting vessel"), which is known in the Daoist tradition as yòuzhī (宥卮, "a cup for urging wine on a guest", or "warning goblet")[43] and in the Confucian tradition as yòuzuò zhī qì (宥座之器, "a cautionary vessel placed beside one's seat on the right"). In the Daoist version illustrating the value of emptiness (e.g., Huainanzi), the vessel is upright when empty and overturns when full. By contrast, in the Confucian version illustrating the value of the mean (e.g., Xunzi), the vessel tilts to one side when empty, remains upright when filled to the middle, and overturns when filled to the brim.[44]

John Allen Tucker, professor of East Asian history at East Carolina University, says the zhi goblet, which repeatedly fills and empties itself, does not remain in any particular condition, its equilibrium exists in disequilibrium, and zhiyan "goblet words" are a metaphor for the dialectic in the Zhuangzi that goes from one possibility to the next, assuming perspectives often in order to ridicule them, but never clinging to any position itself. This particular goblet is also a Zhuangzian metaphor that expresses the semantic relationship between words and their meanings. "The goblet is like a word, the meaning is like the wine. Though the goblet can hold wine, and a word, meaning, this kind of goblet continuously spills its wine, just as words spill their meaning, and then both wait for another use. But like the goblet, there is no particular meaning which is statically filling the word, never being emptied or renewed.".[45]

The University of Michigan professor of Chinese literature Shuen-fu Lin correlates zhi, the empty goblet that does not hold onto anything, with xin "heart-mind" and explains how zhiyan "goblet words" can adapt the meaning of any term:

[T]he zhi—a wine vessel used as a metaphor for the mind [xin]—is originally empty and gets temporarily filled with liquid—a metaphor for words—which comes from a larger wine container only when the occasion requires one to do so.... Since the mind is like the zhi vessel without any fixed or constant rules or values of its own stored in there, and takes ideas always from outside when the occasion for speech arises, it will never impose artificial distinctions and discriminations upon things. This is what [is meant by] "mindless"—the "mind" to be done away with here is, of course, the chengxin or "fully formed heart/mind" ... Zhiyan [spillover sayings], then, is speech that is natural, unpremeditated, free from preconceived values, always responding to the changing situations in the flow of discourse, and always returning the mind to its original state of emptiness as soon as a speech act is completed.[46]

Lee H. Yearly, a Stanford University professor of religious studies, extends the Zhuangzian sanyan "three kinds of language" to a basic issue in religious ethics, how to persuasively represent a transcendent world central to our fulfillment that exceeds our normal understanding. Zhiyan "goblet or spillover language" is described as "that kind of fluid language in which equilibrium is kept despite (or perhaps because of) the presence of changing genres, rhetorical forms, points of view, and figurative expressions".[47] Yearly traces out ways in which Zhuangzi's three kinds of language appear in Dante's 1320 Divine Comedy to illustrate universals of presentation and persuasion in religious ethics texts. Exemplifying goblet language in the Inferno, Dante presents "dazzling shifts in locale, perspective, and even physical structure", as in the case of Pietro della Vigna's appearance as a bush, or Vanni Fucci's metamorphoses into a snake.[48]

Kim-Chong Chong, professor of comparative philosophy at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, says the paradoxical nature of "goblet words" teaches one to "be open to multivalence, and not attached to specific views", and explains this in terms of Donald Davidson's (1978) philosophical hypothesis that a metaphor has no cognitive content beyond its literal meaning, and thus Zhuangzi is able to "stay free of (being attached to) any distinctions".[49]

Yangshao cord-marked amphora with carrying handles, Banpo Phase, c. 4800 BCE, Shaanxi.

Shang dynasty oracle bone script for yǒu (酉 or 酒 "wine jug; wine"), c. 1250-1046 BCE

Daniel Fried, professor of Chinese and comparative literature at the University of Alberta, combined Chinese textual and archeological evidence to propose a "speculative history" of the Zhuangzian zhīyán "goblet words" trope as a reference to an ancient irrigation device known as the qīqí (欹器, "tipping vessel", cf. Lau above), which tipped and spilled its contents once it reached capacity. In the 1950s, Chinese archeologists excavating the Banpo site in Shaanxi discovered narrow-mouthed, narrow-bottomed amphora jugs dating from Neolithic Yangshao culture (c. 5000-c. 4000 BCE). One researcher[50] first identified this particular shape of narrow-bottomed jug as the referent in both the Xunzi passage on the qiqi, and the Guo Xiang commentary on the zhi. The use of the vessel in irrigation "was driven by its ability to deliver a constant, low-flow stream of water, without the attention of the farmer, who held strings attached to the handles while the jugs tipped over of themselves".[51] Fried's agricultural reading of zhiyan as meaning "tipping-vessel words" instead of "goblet words" explains several hermeneutical problems with the Zhuangzi context. For instance, the word mànyǎn (曼衍, "spread out far and wide") is inappropriate to the goblet metaphor, and would be an "awful mess if meant to describe alcohol".[52] It is figuratively translated as "effusive elaboration" in the sentence "Consequently, there is effusive elaboration so that they may live out their years [因以曼衍 所以窮年]". However, if zhi refers to a tipping-vessel anciently used for irrigation, then manyan is a natural extension of the basic metaphor. "Spreading out" water over an entire field is simply the definition of irrigation.[53] Fried asks what Zhuangzian zhi words could be irrigating and answers zhǒng (種, "seeds"). "The myriad things are all from seeds, and they succeed each other because of their different forms [萬物皆種也 以不同形相禪]." This abstruse metaphor of all objects as seeds makes little sense in the context of wine goblets, but it is "entirely sensible if one has been speaking of agriculture from the beginning". A final example is that Confucius' disciples fill the vessel with water, not wine.[54]

The religious studies scholar Jennifer R. Rapp identifies the sanyan "three kinds of language" in the Zhuangzi as a "chorus-like" discursive strategy comparable with the Greek chorus in Euripides' The Bacchae. "Goblet language", for instance, deflects attention from the exemplar sage figure Zhuang Zhou, while also "dissolving the static notion of authorial position or authority", which Wang calls the "structural disappearance of the author the shift and multiplying of meanings and viewpoints".[55] In the Bacchae, the chorus is certainly in the shadow of the authority Dionysus, which creates a third voice in relation to the audience, allowing them to enter the world of the play.[56]

Youru Wang, professor of Religion Studies at Rowan University, describes zhiyan "goblet words", "They adapt to and follow along with changes in things and people. They are not fixed signifiers or signifieds. Therefore, though they seem outlandish or absurd, deviating from common sense or formal logic, they are in harmony with what is natural (what is spontaneously so), with the flux of all things and circumstances."[57] "Goblet communication" is a type of indirect communication (a central theme in Søren Kierkegaard's Practice in Christianity), broadly defined as "listener- or reader-oriented, and non-teleological; it assumes an interactive relation between the speaker and the listener; it abandons the correspondence theory of language; it is concerned with the existentio-practical dimension of what is communicated; it considers meaning open-ended and indeterminate"; indirect communication particularly adopts indirect language, such as metaphor, denegation, paradox, and irony.[58]

Chinese glazed earthenware rhyton, Tang dynasty, c. 675-750 CE

E. N. Anderson, professor of anthropology at University of California, Riverside, proposes that the unstable zhi was originally some kind of drinking horn or rhyton designed to tip over when set down, so that anyone who drinks from one must empty it.[59] The jiǎo (角) "horn radical" semantic indicator in zhì (觶) and dàn (觛) above is a recurring element in ancient Chinese wine vessel names, such as the gōng (觥, "zoomorphic covered wine pitcher"). Besides this character's usual jiǎo "horn" reading, it was also pronounced jué (角) as the name of an ancient wine vessel similar to a jué (爵), except the spout and brim extension are identical and there is a cover.

The University of Delaware professor of Asian and comparative philosophy Alan Fox says the willingness to surrender one's own perspective to the perspective of another person is "a prerequisite to effective communication", and quotes the final passage in Zhuangzi chapter 26, "A fish-trap is for catching fish; once you've caught the fish, you can forget about the trap. .... Words are for catching ideas; once you've caught the idea, you can forget about the words. Where can I find a person who knows how to forget about words so that I can have a few words with him?".[60]

To forget words is to surrender allegiance to one's own perspectives and sense of meaning. This is difficult because we tend to identify strongly with our familiar perspectives. We take them personally. Forgetting words involves really listening to the other. A person capable of this is a desirable partner for conversation, because he or she has no preferences at stake and will not insist on projecting any inappropriate meanings onto our statements—unlike most people who seem all too eager to misinterpret each other. A person who has forgotten words will come to terms with us, understand us as we understand ourselves by using language without being hampered by or fixated on any favorite or popular sage. This flexibility limits misunderstanding and, since clarity is a privileged cognitive mode, is thus of value.[61]

Fox describes zhiyan (卮言, "goblet words"), which Mathews' Chinese–English Dictionary translates as "all-embracing expressions, words which flow from the heart like water overflowing from a goblet" (930), to be the "most sophisticated use of language" in the Zhuangzi. Chapter 27 recommends to, "Speak nonspeech." If you speak nonspeech, you may speak till the end of your life without ever having spoken. If till the end of your life you do not speak, you will never have failed to speak.".[62] Accordingly, "This kind of mercurial or fluid language use empties itself of meaning in order to refill itself; it adapts to, and follows along with, the fluctuating nature of the world, communicating meaning in any given circumstance more accurately and appropriately".[63]

The Lingnan University philosophy professor Wai-wai Chiu analyzes three logical forms of Zhuangzian "goblet words", all of which serve to preserve indeterminacy and prevent reaching a definitive answer to any conceptual disputation. First, dilemmatic questions in the Zhuangzi are typically "Is X acceptable? Or is not-X acceptable?", where the excluded middle suggests that we can accept either one, but not both.[64] For example, "Speech is not merely the blowing of air. Speech is intended to say something, but what is spoken may not necessarily be valid. If it is not valid, has anything actually been spoken? Or has speech never actually occurred? We may consider speech to be distinct from the chirps of hatchlings, but is there really any difference between them?".[65] Second, oxymorons combining contradictory terms are common in the text.[66] For instance, "The great Way is ineffable, great disputation is speechless, great humaneness is inhumane, great honesty is immodest, and great bravery is not aggressive.".[67] Third, "double denial" is a type of goblet word that doubts or criticizes a view and then immediately doubts its original doubt, and which, unlike an oxymoron, can have a consistent literal reading.[68] Master Tall Tree tells Master Timid Magpie, "Someone who dreams of drinking wine at a cheerful banquet may wake up crying the next morning. Someone who dreams of crying may go off the next morning to enjoy the sport of the hunt. When we are in the midst of a dream, we do not know it's a dream. Sometimes we may even try to interpret our dreams while we are dreaming, but then we awake and realize it was a dream. Only after one is greatly awakened does one realize that it was all a great dream, while the fool thinks that he is awake and presumptuously aware.".[69] The Zhuangzi employs goblet words to display various theses without arriving at a definite conclusion. Chiu discusses the effects of reading Zhuangzian goblet words. Readers may become more open-minded by "reflecting on all sides of any distinction made in the text and through their awareness of the absence of an ultimate answer".[70]

University of Hawaii at Manoa researcher Jeremy Griffith compares Zhuangzian zhiyan "spillover-goblet words" with Plato's image of "leaky-pots" symbolizing the impossibility of language in a state of flux. In the Cratylus, Plato rejects the Heraclitean hypothesis that the world is in ever-present change. "[S]urely no man of sense can put himself and his soul under the control of names, and trust in names and their makers to the point of affirming that he knows anything; nor will he condemn himself and all things and say that there is no health in them, but that all things are flowing like leaky pots, or believe that all things are just like people afflicted with catarrh, flowing and running all the time" (440).[71] Griffith describes a zhi spillover-goblet as a vessel hinged below its center of gravity, and as the vessel fills, its center of gravity raises above the level of the hinge, and it tips over, spilling its contents, only to right itself to be filled again. "In contrast with the image of the 'leaky pot,' forever losing its meaning, we have now the 'spillover-goblet,' emptying itself purposely so that it may always be refilled.".[72]

Wim De Reu, National Taiwan University philosophy professor, argues against the general academic consensus that zhiyan are a Zhuangzian literary stylistic form and suggests instead they are definite yet provisional everyday speech acts that enable one to avoid or dissolve conflicts, thus reducing the risk of untimely death. Recent studies on zhiyan tend to converge on three points. First, the notion refers to a Zhuangzian philosophical style that includes the use of paradox, denegation, dilemmatic questions, genre mixing, and seemingly unconnected passages.[73] Second, zhiyan are characterized by instability or indeterminacy.[74] And third, they create an openness that potentially transforms the reader's personality as well as his or her understanding of the world.[75] The author says it is unfortunate that recent literature on "goblet words" has not given much attention to qiongnian (窮年, "to live out your years") because it is identified as the main function of zhiyan.[76] Chapter 27 describes zhiyan with the phrases qióngnián (窮年, tr. "live out their years") in "Impromptu words pour forth every day and harmonize within the framework of nature. Consequently, there is effusive elaboration so that they may live out their years."; and dé qí jiǔ (得其久, "last long") in "If it were not for the impromptu words that pour forth every day and harmonize within the framework of nature, who could last long?".[62] De Reu prototypically describes "goblet words":

Zhiyan are simple-form verbal utterances located on the level of everyday human interaction (what they are); by virtue of being both provisional and definite, they adapt to the unambiguous position of an opponent in a dispute (how they work); by thus removing the source of conflict, they reduce the risk of untimely death and allow the language user to complete his natural life span in peaceful coexistence with others (the function they perform).[77]

Cross section of a Pythagorean cup being filled: at B, it is possible to drink all the liquid in the cup; but at C, the siphon effect causes the cup to drain

Christopher C. Kirby, professor of philosophy at Eastern Washington University, interprets zhiyan goblet words in terms of non-cognitive moral realism, a conception of truth largely unfamiliar to Western philosophical traditions, and introduces the phrase "tipping toward the truth" to characterize its distinctively metaphorical moral discourse.[78] Textual passages suggest Zhuangzi believed that moral reals (i.e., attitude-independent norms) exist, but they are propositionally ineffable in a dynamic world. He employed "intentionally open-ended" goblet words as signposts pointing to the moral lessons he sought to convey, despite the factual inaccuracies of the words themselves. "These 'truths', which Zhuangzi's goblet words 'tip toward', might be accessed non-cognitively through attuning with the natural world, listening to one's body, and refining technical skill. The goal of these practices is the transformation of the self in harmony with the constant changes of nature – an emergent 'bringing forth' of normativity that cannot be put into words".[79] Following the construal of Fried,[80] Kirby says the zhīyán name refers to the ancient qīqí (欹器) irrigation vessel, which tipped and spilled its contents once it reached capacity. Zhuangzian goblet words are drained of their content once their usefulness has been exceeded, like the ancient Pythagorean cup, a practical-joke goblet, which when filled beyond a certain point, siphons its entire contents through the base.[81]

A self-tipping and self-righting shishi-odoshi breaks the quietness of a Japanese garden with the sound of a bamboo container hitting a rock.

• Dribble glass, a prank drinking glass with hidden holes that spill the drink when tilted
• Fuddling cup, a three-dimensional puzzle drinking vessel made of multiple cups linked together by holes and tubes, making it difficult to drink from without spilling
• Puzzle jug, a practical-joke vessel with pierced holes around its neck, challenging users to drink without spilling the contents on themselves
• Shishi-odoshi (lit. "animal scarer") a traditional device found in Japanese gardens, with a bamboo tube that gradually fills with water and then tilts to drain, making a clanking sound to scare away any crop-eating animals

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Footnotes

• Koo Hao Wei (2018), Zhuangzi's "Perfect Words" – A Variation of "Goblet Words", Nanyang Philosophy Review.
• Ray, Tyler (2012), Putting the World Outside Himself: Metaphorical Meaning in the Zhuangzi, Chrestomathy.