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Recluse at court

Zhao Mengfu’s family, descendants of one of the Song emperors, had settled in Wuxing in the twelfth century and had enjoyed the privileges of members of the imperial clan. Zhao’s acceptance of Kublai Khan’s offer of an official post, then, was regarded by some as dishonorable collaboration. An anecdote was even told in which he visited his uncle Zhao Mengjian, who afterwards directed his servant to wash the seat in which Mengfu had sat; but since Zhao Mengjian had been dead nearly twenty years by the time Zhao accepted the post, the story is obviously apocryphal. At the Mongol court Zhao served as division chief in the Ministry of War, using his position, as those who made this choice always claimed to do, to benefit his own people: first by opposing a powerful Uighur minister whose economic policies were harmful to the Chinese, and later by working to reinstitute the civil service examination system, which would give them a fairer chance at employment in the administration. The anti-Chinese minister was condemned to death in 1291, and the examination system was reinstated in 1315. Zhao went on to serve under four more emperors, govern two provinces, and hold a number of other high posts, including the directorship of the Hanlin Academy, the court academy for historical compilation and other imperially sponsored scholarship. He reconciled his career with his conscience by adopting the stance of the chaoyin, “recluse at court,” and expressing it in poems and paintings. The concept of chaoyin was based on the belief that someone could be engaged in a political career in the outside world while preserving internally the mentality of the recluse, spiritually remote from the contamination of public life. Similarly, the shiyin, or “recluse in the marketplace,” remained aloof in his mind from the commerce in which he necessarily engaged.

© 1997 by Yale University Press and Foreign Language Press. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press.

Letters home

My dear Catherine I have only ¼ of an hour to write this—Sullivan will put it in his parcel, so that it will only cost common postage.—I have received your letter directed Monte Video & previous to it one from Caroline from Maer.—Tomorrow we sail for Mon: Video.—If the wind is not directly against us, we shall touch at Cape Frio, the celebrated scene of diving for the Thetis wreck.—They have fished up 900000 dollars.—If we are lucky enough (& it is very probable) to have a gale off St Catherines we shall run there.—I expect to suffer terribly from sea-sickness—as we are certain to have bad weather.—After lying a short time at MV: we cruise to the South—but not I believe below Rio Negro—The geography of this country is as little known as interior of Africa. —I long to put my foot, where man has never trod before—And am most impatient to leave civilized ports:—We are all very anxious about reform: the last news brought intelligence that Lord Grey would perhaps re-continue in.—Would ask Erasmus to add to the books—Pennants quadrupeds (if not too late) in my bedroom. —& Humboldt tableaux de la nature.—You cannot imagine what a miser-like value is attached to books, when incapable of procuring them.—

We have been 3 months here: & most undoubtedly I well know the glories of a Brazilian forest.—Commonly I ride some few miles, put my horse & start by some track into the impenetrable—mass of vegetation.—Whilst seated on a tree, & eating my luncheon in the sublime solitude of the forest, the pleasure I experience is unspeakable.—The number of undescribed animals I have taken is very great—& some to Naturalists, I am sure, very interesting.—I attempt class after class of animals, so that before very long I shall have notion of all.—so that if I gain no other end I shall never want an object of employment & amusement for the rest of my life.—(Sullivan only gives me 5 minutes more—).—I am now writing in my own snug corner.—& am as comfortable as man can be. —I am only obeying orders in thus writing a short letter.—When on the deserts coasts of Patagonia.—you will be a long time before hearing from me.—My journal is going on better; but I find it inconvenient having sent the first part home on account of dates— Give my best love to my Father & all others Most affection Chas Darwin.—

 

How to lose weight and gain power

From The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture, © 2008 by Jerrilynn D. Dodds, María Rosa Menocal, and Abigail Krasner Balbale. Few stories better illustrate the intricate relations between the barely choate Christian monarchies of the tenth century and the Umayyads than the legendary Cordoban sojourn of the unfortunate king remembered by the Cervantine name of Sancho the Fat. The obese Sancho I inherited the throne of León in 956, and then spent his entire lifetime defending it, involved in little else besides the murderous politics of succession and power that often led Christian princes and kings to seek protections and strategic alliances with the Umayyads. Sancho’s journey to the great metropolis of Cordoba took place in 958—during the reign of Abd al-Rahman III—and was engineered by one of Pamplona’s most formidable figures: his grandmother, Toda, queen mother of the royal Navarrese house. Toda had both personal and political interest in finding a cure for her heir’s obesity, which, among other things, prevented him from riding a horse—essential to military, and thus political, leadership, as well as honor, where mobility was a cardinal virtue. But her net spread even wider; Toda, queen mother of Navarre was also great-aunt of Abd al-Rahman III himself. In refined, urban Cordoba, Sancho was apparently transformed, rendered if not thin at least more able-bodied, and able to ride again, and in some accounts this was thanks to Hasdai ibn Shaprut, the caliph’s physician and head of the Jewish community of the Islamic capital. But whether or not the advanced medical establishment of the newly declared caliphate managed to cure Sancho’s morbid obesity, Sancho came away with useful political ties to the Cordoban leadership, and they helped restore him to the throne he and his brothers and half brothers had violently disputed throughout their lives. Published by Yale University Press. Reprinted by permission. Humanities, March/April 2009, Volume 30, Number 2 Subscribe to Humanities magazine hereSee www.neh.gov.