[Prev][Next][Index]

[bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic): Just So You'll Know, If Asked]

Some people had it rough...

------- Forwarded Message

Date:    Tue, 02 Oct 90 09:19:34 -0700 
From:    bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
To:      /dev/null@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Just So You'll Know, If Asked

The appearance of alternate astrological theory here has reminded me of a
passage from Daniel Boorstin's _The Discoverers_, p76 (1983).  The context
in the book is the invention by Su Sung of the first great mechanical
clock, about 1180 AD (CE).

     "The Emperor himself had an especially intimate need for calendrical
timekeepers.  For every night the Emperor in his bedchamber had to know the
movements and positions of the constellations at every hour - in precisely
the way Su Sung's Heavenly Clockwork made possible.  In China the ages of
individuals and their astrological destinies were calculated not from the
hour of birth but from the hour of conception.
     "When Su Sung constructed his imperial clock, the Emperor had as
attendants a large number of wives and concubines of various ranks.  These
women totaled 121 (one-third of 365, to the nearest round number),
including one empress, three consorts, nine spouses, twenty-seven
concubines, and eighty-one assistant concubines.  Their rotation of duty,
as described in the Record of the Rites of the Chou dynasty, was as
follows:

    "The lower-ranking [women] come first, the higher-ranking come last.
    The assistant concubines, eighty-one in number, share the imperial couch
    nine nights in groups of nine.  The concubines, twenty-seven in number,
    are allotted three nights in groups of nine.  The nine spouses and the
    three consorts are allotted one night to each group, and the empress
    also alone one night.  On the fifteenth day of every month the sequence
    is complete, after which it repeats in reverse order.

"By this arrangement, the women of highest rank would lie with the Emperor
on the nights nearest to the full moon, when the Yin, or female, influence
would be the most potent, and so best able to match the potent Yang, or
male, force of the Son of Heaven.  So timely a combination, it was
believed, would assure the strongest virtues in the children then
conceived.  The main function of the women of lower ranks was to nourish
the Emperor's Yang with their Yin.

     "A corps of secretarial ladies kept the records of the Emperor's
cohabitations with their brushes dipped in imperial vermilion.  The proper
order of these proceedings in the imperial bedchamber was believed
essential to the larger order and well-being of the empire.  In the
disorderly days of the ninth century writers lamented that the ancient
tradition of 'nine ordinary companions every night, and the empress for two
nights at the time of the full moon' was no longer respected, with the
result that 'alas, nowadays, all the three thousand [palace women] compete
in confusion.'"

------- End of Forwarded Message