In a pine garden beside a rocky stream with small falls, one man kneels at a low table playing a zither while a listener sits on a mat opposite; at the left a table holds a zither in a blue silk cover, a blue-and-white teapot with cups, and a smoking incense burner.
Sound Without Emotion
Ji Kang's dialogue arguing that sound itself holds no sorrow or joy
Introduction
“Sound Has No Sorrow or Joy” is by Ji Kang of Cao Wei and is collected in volume 5 of the Collected Works of Ji Kang. The whole piece is a dialogue between a guest from Qin and the master of the eastern fields. The guest first cites “the music of a well-governed age is calm and joyful; the music of a failing state is sorrowful and anxious,” and the master replies that “sound has a natural harmony and is not bound to human feeling,” holding that sorrow and joy lie in the listener and not in the sound.