Known to have a strange personality and alcohol problems, Li Bo writes interesting poems and seeks for freedom from the social convention and reality limits.  An example is shown through “South of the Walls We Fought.”  He mentions about the hardships of the warriors’ deaths as well as criticize the warfare in the north and northwest parts of China against the Tibetans.  He says “Beacon fires blaze without ceasing,/ the marching and battle never end./ They died in fighting on the steppes,/ their vanquished horses neigh,/ mourning to the sky./ Kites and ravens peck men’s guts,/ fly with them dangling from their beaks/ and hang them high/ on boughs of barren trees.” (lines 14-22).  He describes the gruesomeness of the battle through the example of the birds picking the soldiers’ guts.  The detail about dragging the guts and hanging them on the tree enhances the cruelty of the birds.  They probably keep the guts for extra food, but overall the after effect of the battle is very violent.  The description of the horses is an addition to the horrible deaths of the men.  The author displays the brutality of the continuous battle.  He mentions about his opinion of weapons: “Now I truly see that weapons/ are evil’s tools:/ the Sage will use them only/ when he cannot do otherwise.” (25-28). I find an ambiguous part in that the author just realized that the weapons inflict harm to people.  Weren’t weapons in battle always having a meaning of death in the first place? And if the Sage has no other choices in a situation except using a weapon as self-defense, then shouldn’t this action be seen as good rather than evil?

Du Fu, another great Chinese poet, has an interesting poem “Spending the Night in a Tower by the River.”  It seems like the author has many thoughts: “No sleep for me. I worry over battles./ I have no strength to right the universe.” (7-8). Perhaps he is looking for peace not war.  How can a single man impact the world? Shouldn’t there be a larger group of people to accomplish the goal?

In class we discussed for The Thousand and One Nights the King Shahzaman throwing his wife from the top of the palace into the ground far below. This action was symbolic of the king casting his wife out of his favor, among other things, such as her fall from grace or Shahzaman’s wife being cast into the dirt, where Shahzaman thinks she belongs.

This theme repeats over the rest of The Thousand and One Nights throughout the stories which Shahrazad is telling to prevent the king from killing her. In the Story of the Merchant and the Demon,   the Merchant falls from his wealth and status to weeping and groveling for his life in front of the demon.

Seeing this repeat in the text does raise questions, such as why this theme is repeated and if it is revealing a cultural value to us readers. I believe it is. I think that these stories serve as a warning; don’t get used to rank and privilege because you can lose it in an instant. Shahzaman’s wife was careless and was caught by her husband and then was killed and thrown out. The merchant was careless, throwing seeds left and right, and then had to pay for it by crying and almost losing his life.

This theme of fleeting wealth is one which is common and exists to this day. Even Bob Dylan touched on this theme in his song Like a Rolling Stone, writing “Once upon a time you dressed so fine,/ you threw the bums a dime in your prime,/ didn’t you? But now you don’t talk so loud /Now you don’t seem so proud/About having to be scrounging your next meal.” So it is interesting to see that this theme does date back so far.

By finishing the reading for Shakuntala, I realized that the play had a wheel which brought things back to their original state. Unlike the other epics that we have read, i.e. Madea and Gilgamesh, the characters do not learn a lesson of any sort, and instead just face challenges in the way to restoring them to their original positions in life. For Shakuntala, it was her return to her social status, Kshatriya, and for the King Dushyanta, it was the return of his love for Shakuntala.

Unlike the other epics, this play also didn’t have a moral to it. It is clear that this was written for the purpose of entertainment, opposed to the educational motives of the Ancient European plays of Madea and Gilgamesh, where young men were even sat towards the front of the theater, so as to learn better and more easily.

I, too, like most readers did not feel much morally aware after reading this, unlike the mini- enlightenment that I experienced after Madea and Gilgamesh. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it for its poems, songs, and metaphors that stand incomparable in their beauty and phrasing.

While reading Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollections, I found it interesting how each act emphasizes a specific emotion. Before the play begins, each act is described as a different emtotion. Act 1 being love and excitement, Act 2 combining love and anticipation, and so on (Page 875). The play is broken up so that you can kind of know what will be happening in each act due to the beginning explanation of Sakuntala and The Ring of Recollections.

Through Act 2 and 3, Sakuntala is described in different ways by the king. In Act 2 on line 27, the King says “her heavy hips swayed,” although the play never said that she was thin, are heavy hips a compliment for a woman? In Act 1, she is described as “her arms are tendrils” (Page 882 Line 179), which makes me thinks she is a slender woman, as tendrils are threadlike. Is there a reason the king decided to use the word “heavy,” was heavy hips something a women wanted during this time period? Perhaps the writer used the word “heavy” to foreshadow how Sakuntala will later be pregnant in the play from Dusyanta. Later in Act 3, the king says, “her waist is thin” (Line 73) but in this context she is described this way because she is “lovesick” for the king.

Another passage that I found interesting was in Act 1 on line 158-159, the king describes Sakuntala’s father’s rules about the hermitage as “trying to cut firewood/with the blade of blue-lotus leaf.” This line seems very specific, it seems that the kind could have just said “leaf” instead of adding in the specific type of leaf it would. Is this a metaphor that was used commonly in this time period? Or is there a reason for this word usage? The blue-lotus might be something that the ascetics often water, or perhaps use as herbs of some sort. Or did the king use this metaphor because he was in the presence of ascetics and thought this wording would be appropriate?