THE BIOGRAPHY OF BAO SI, THE SPOUSE OF THE KING YOU OF ZHOU, IN THE CONTEXT OF NIEBIZHUAN, A PART OF LIENUZHUAN BY LIU XIANG

Abstract

In the article there is a study of the biography of Bao Si 褒姒, King You of Zhou’s 周幽 王 second wife, in the context of Niebizhuan 孽嬖傳, — the volume of biographical corpus Lienüzhuan 列女傳 by the Han scholar and litterateur Liu Xiang 劉向. The author set himself the task of identifying phrases that characterise Bao Si, comparing them with records about other depraved favourites, and finding out which female images of Niebizhuan are closest to the image of Bao Si and which biographies are the most textually close to the biographical note about her. A comparative analysis revealed that among the biographies of “favourites bearing calamities”, the note about Bao Si is the only one containing a fantastic element of the narrative. We suppose that by rewriting the story about the dragon ancestors of Bao Si, Liu Xiang rather expressed respect for the authority of the historical monuments he used, but did not need this story to support his argument against King You of Zhou’s favourite. Removing the backstory of Bao Si’s birth would not have affected the persuasiveness of the story, for the portrait of Bao Si already contains typical (according to Liu Xiang) features of a destroyer of state. Secondly, in Niebizhuan, the biography of Bao Si most of all echoes the biographies of Mo Xi and Da Ji. In these three biographies Liu Xiang in similar terms outlined the relationship between sovereigns and their favourites, enriching the text with such and psychological and everyday details that we do not find in the sources that Liu Xiang used and that have survived to the present day. By adding these details, the Han scholar and litterateur not only gave coherence and completeness to his story, he also, what is even more important, achieved the effect of mutual reinforcement of the impression made by separate biographies.