Whispering in Early China

The word ouyu occurs with some frequency in early Chinese literature, signifying “to whisper” or “to murmur.” It is frequently associated with expressing dissatisfaction in a furtive manner and with behaving in an undisciplined or indecorous way. In this article, I cover all significant instances of this word that occur in Song and pre-Song sources and find them to be about whispering for different reasons, in different contexts and with different consequences. According to the Shiji, the First Emperor of the Qin banned ouyu about the Documents and the Odes (ouyu Shi Shu). This is the earliest attested use of the term and the passage is usually interpreted to mean that the First Emperor prohibited people from congregating to criticise his government by reference to past lore as narrated in the Documents and the Odes. This would make it the only instance in the available literature where ouyu is about anything. I argue that the commonly accepted interpretation rests on a misinterpretation of the early commentaries and suggest that the characters Shi Shu may be the result of a corruption in Shiji. What the Qin emperor outlawed was the activity of whispering as such – if people talked conspiratorially in a subdued voice, the regime saw this as proof that they harboured rebellious intentions and therefore deserved public execution, with no further evidence needed. In the last section, I discuss some literary senses of ou. I have previously argued that some of these are helpful to understanding the Qin Burning of the Books; I now dismiss them as irrelevant, since the widely attested use of ouyu as “to whisper” fully explains the Qin regime’s efforts to quell criticism of its rule, as well as all later uses of the word in similar contexts.