Nine Longings (Chinese:九思; pinyin:Jiǔ sī; lit. 'Nine Longings') form one of the 17 major sections of the ancient Chinese poetry collection, theChu ci. The "Nine Longings" consists of ten poems (or, nine plusluanenvoi), each individually titled, written according to the style of the earlier pieces in theChu ci anthology. It is one of the several collections of poems grouped under the title of "Nine" something-or-others, most but not all of which consist of 9 pieces of poetry. One of the older of them,Jiu ge ("Nine Songs") consists of 11 individual pieces: "nine" in antiquity was often used as a synonym for "many", and in the context of theChu ci generally refers to a musical arrangement with "nine" modal changes. (Hawkes, 2011 [1985]: 36–37) The "Nine Longings" poems were written by theHan dynasty royal librarianWang Yi, who is more famous for his commentary on theChu ci than he is for these original works which he appended to his published annotated copy. (Hawkes, 2011 [1985]: 307)
Wang Yi manages to produce somewhat of aConfucian version ofChuci poetry, using its conventionalized symbolism. In nine verses with an envoi:
(Hawkes 1985, 307-321)
