The roles the body organs play in Chinese and Western literature

Mei-Yu and Charles showed me some examples of the beautiful exaggeration in Chinese literature and that stirred my interest in writing this post.

Bone

没有骨氣 is the same as “spineless”, referring to someone who has no moral character.

Bones are often used to refer to soldiers perished in battle in Chinese and Western literature alike.  It is fitting to read the line of “And those that leave their valiant bones in France” (in Act 4 Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Henry V) on D-Day.

隴西行 陳陶

誓掃匈奴不顧身，五千貂錦喪胡塵。

可憐無定河邊骨，猶是春閨夢裡人。

 (So sad/pitiful is that the bones scattered along the River Wu-Ding are still the Prince Charming in the dream of a fair lady in her romantic bed chamber.)

一將功成萬骨枯 (for one general to achieve fame, ten thousand skeletons must lie exposed.)

天將降大任於斯人也，必先苦其心志，勞其筋骨 (If Heaven wants to assign great hard work to one, it will put utmost stress and burden to one’s body and mind.)

Heart

Dr. William Harvey was the one first described correctly the heart and circulation not even 400 years ago; that is why most of the uses of 心 are not correct physiologically, such as  用心, 小心, 細心,  粗心大意 , 勞心, 傷心 all of these are function of the brain. 

感時花濺淚，恨別鳥驚心 (by 杜甫), which is about 1,000 years before Harvey discovered the heart being the center of circulation.

We even throw in a liver (肝) to the heart (心), when call someone lacking conscience,  沒心肝.   Combination of heart and liver is at times of importance, you are my 心肝寶貝 (you’re my heart’s  

desire), not 心寶貝.

I never know it is 心花怒放 or 心發怒放, but I know it is exalted, burst with joy, rapture or even ecstasy.

I don’t know when or how heart and love are associated; the heart shape must have come from the shape of the “heart”.

When one has a heavy heart, one does feel heavy in the area one’s heart is located.

Teeth

咬牙切齒 is “gnashing one’s teeth”, displaying extreme anger.

Upon taking the duty of the prime minister, Churchill said, “I received in so full a measure from my colleagues the authority necessary to give a unified direction. . . This was accomplished in teeth of the air attacks.”  In teeth of the air attack is in defiance of the London Blitz, taking it as it came. London can take it.

Bile

“Having bile” (有膽量) in Chinese means “courageous”.  We got it wrong as far as the bile function is concerned.  When we eat fat, bile is released and that is the first step of fat digestion, which is mechanical, not yet chemical; no enzymes involved yet.

So scared that one “ruptures the gall bladder” (驚得破膽) is really scared to death.

Combined use of two organs makes a good emphasis

Combined use of two organs makes a good emphasis, examples abound, the likes of  心驚膽顫 (frightening, fearful, nerve-racking, scared), 心惊肉跳 (palpitation due to anxiety and fear; trepidation in face of danger), 赤膽忠心 (wholehearted loyalty).

肝膽相照 is showing the deepest sincerity and candor to each other. It is a good idiom considering the interrelationship between the liver (肝) and the gall bladder (膽) anatomically and functionally.

Shakespeare also didn’t get it right when he wrote in The Comedy of Errors,

“Lest it make you choleric”.  Chole is bile in Latin; choleric means hot-tempered, irascible or easily irritable.

Spleen

East and West got the spleen (脾) wrong in the same way.

We say “發脾氣” (exasperated, got upset), and that is exactly the way Charles Dickens and Shakespeare interpreted the function of the spleen (脾).

In a letter to Maria Beadell (his first love), Charles Dickens wrote,

“I shall be the mark at which all the anger and spleen will be directed--and I shall take it very quietly, for whatever she may say I shall positively decline to enter into any further controversy with her.”

Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar uses the spleen to describe Cassius' irritable nature.

Must I observe you? must I stand and crouch

 Under your testy humour? By the gods

 You shall digest the venom of your spleen,

Brain

“ 絞盡腦汁 用腦筋 洗腦” are, I am sure, relatively modern as they got the physiology right.

Kidney

The traditional Chinese medicine says 腎虧 is impotency; kidney (腎) is of course, innocent to get this blame.

Stomach, intestine or bowel

Charles said “historically, food is a paramount necessity since ancient China 民以食為天” thus we see, not surprisingly, many literary use of the digestive organs.  Napoleon also said, “An army marches on its stomach”, though.

When England stood alone in facing the mighty Nazi Germany, Churchill wrote like a Chinese, obsessed with their digestive tract (stomach and bowel), “But this mortal danger to our life-lines gnawed my bowels.”

Chinese do have many terms and idioms related to the digestive tract: 胃口大開, 開胃, and 笑破肚皮 are just a few examples.  Then again Chinese may not be the only one obsessed with their digestive tract.

We read in a D.H. Lawrence’s letter, “. . . but my stomach, my stomach, it has a bad habit of turning a complete somersault when it finds itself in the wrong element, like a dolphin in the air.”

The Saint Crispin’s Day speech by Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt is the best “pep talk” to rally the troop; we heard,

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart. His passport shall be made,

While the Armada was still off the coasts of England Queen Elizabeth I reviewed the army at Tilbury and addressed them; the followings are among the stirring words we heard,

“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, . . .”

It was said the literary use of our organ systems reflects our understanding of physiology at the time when the use began.  I myself am not too convinced that was the case; otherwise we got more physiology wrong than the western literary world.  Cheng [our friend] said Chinese are more imaginative and romantic whereas the western literature is more realistic.

Su Tungpo had a penchant of using “斷腸” (“ruptured intestines”) describes extreme sadness or sorrow

臨江仙（送王緘）

忘卻成都來十載，因君未免思量。憑將清淚洒江陽。故山知好在，孤客自悲涼。

坐上別愁君未見，歸來欲斷無腸。殷勤且更盡離觴。此身如傳舍，何處是吾鄉。

臨江仙

冬夜夜寒冰合井，畫堂明月侵幃。青缸明滅照悲啼。青缸挑欲盡，粉淚還垂。

未盡一尊先掩淚，歌聲半帶清悲。情聲兩盡莫相違。欲知腸斷處，樑上暗塵飛

鷓鴣天

笑捻紅梅翠翹。揚州十裡最嬌饒。夜來綺席親曾見，撮得精神滴滴嬌。

嬌後眼，舞時腰。劉郎幾度欲魂消。明朝酒醒知何處，腸斷雲間紫玉簫。

浣溪沙

縹緲紅妝照淺溪。薄雲疏雨不成泥。送君何處古台西。

廢沼夜來秋水滿，茂林深處晚鶯啼。行人腸斷草淒迷。

天仙子

走馬探花花發末。人與化工俱不易。千回來繞百回看，蜂作婢。鶯為使。谷雨清明空屈指。

白發盧郎情未已。一夜翦刀收玉蕊。尊前還對斷腸紅，人有淚。花無意。明日酒醒應滿地。

We also read 「雲雨巫山枉斷腸」in 李白的「清平調」

The movie “D-Day the Sixth of June” is “六月六日斷腸時”.

柔腸寸斷 depicts the deepest sorrow that is almost unbearable.  Charles said “ 斷腸比傷心更傷心”, I couldn’t agree more.

Even Lin Yutang (who is 滿肚子學問) wrote,

“A thinker's writing consists of borrowings from idea in his own intestines, and the greater thinker a man is, the more he depends on his own intestinal juice.”

vein

I never figure out why “vein”, instead of “artery”, is used in western literary language.

When John Adams went to London as the American Ambassador.  Knowing his ancestors were from England, the British asked about his British ancestors, Adams responded saying his father was an American, his grandfather was an American and “I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American.”

Churchill once wrote his encounter with the wife of Ribbentrop before the war broke out.

“At one time I came in contact with Frau von Ribbentrop, and in valedictory vein I said, ‘I hope England and Germany will preserve their friendship.’ ‘Be careful you don't spoil it,’ was her graceful rejoinder.”

Shakespeare’s knowledge of physiology

In Shakespeare’s time, it was believed that human nature was governed by four fluids called ‘humours’: blood (sanguine), black bile (melancholy), yellow bile (choleric), and phlegm (phlegmatic).  Out of balance among these humours are responsible for the change of temperament (complexion).

sanguine 
Sanguineus in Latin is blood, thus sanguine complexion is having a healthy, red color; it is naturally cheerful or hopeful. The 30-year War of Roses were actually the Civil War of England fought between the two branches of the same family (House of York and House of Lancaster) between 1455 and 1485. In the Temple Garden scene of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, the contending factions pluck red (Lancaster) and white (York) rose to choose side. Shakespeare might be the one to blame to link the exquisitely beautiful rose to the war.

Basset to King, of the red rose of Lancaster:
Crossing the sea from England into France,
This fellow here, with envious carping tongue,
Saying the sanguine color of the leaves.
                Part 1 Henry VI Act 4 Scene 1

melancholy 
Melanos in Latin is black, thus melancholic is ‘black bile’, which is due to higher bilirubin concentration, leading to gloomy mood, ill-temper or sullenness for sure. King John to Hubert: if that surly spirit, melancholy, / Had baked thy blood.

phlegmatic 
Phlegm in Latin means sputum, cold and moist, phlegm is supposed to cause sluggishness; thus phlegmatic means sluggish bordered on indifference. We read “I beseech you be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth of it” in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

In The Riverside Shakespeare, it was explained that Shakespeare’s use of ‘phlegmatic’ here is a blunder, he meant to use ‘choleric’ (angry).  Shakespeare might have mixed up with the physiology of his days!

choleric (this was mentioned above)

buttock (屁股)

There is no better organ than buttock (屁股)—at the end of our body—to end this post.  This idiom is unique to the vernacular Taiwanese.

If one cannot answer so easy a question, the questioner would say, “you can get the answer just thinking with your buttock” (“用屁股想”,of course, Taiwanese said “用Ka-Tseng 想”).  That is to say the question is so easy; one doesn’t have to use brain (用腦) or even heart (用心) to think.

Buttocks may be “in good shape”; but they’re always treated disparagingly and unfairly, “用屁股想” for the simple, easy question is to belittle 屁股, 放屁 (to say something untrue, irrelevant or stupid) is to treat the 屁股 (buttock) with contempt.  I am hoping you do not think this writing is a “屁股文章”.