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The warm, humid, and plague-ridden regions south of the Yangzi have always stimulated the imagination of northerners, providing them with a romanticized, alien Other to serve as a foil to their own supposedly more orthodox culture. In early China, the states of Wu and Yue reliably elicited images of labyrinthine watercourses traversing luxuriant jungles swarming with tribal warriors who employed suicidal tactics and proudly exposed their tattooed bodies and blackened teeth. In pre-imperial times, political interactions and military conflicts between the Central States and southern polities were frequent, and cultural exchange among elites was lively, if the Wu prince Jizha's profound understanding of the Odes is anything to go by (Zuozhuan: Duke Xiang, 29). Yet texts conveying a more detailed, emic picture of the south are scant.
Olivia Milburn has now made a crucial source on Wu and Yue available in a carefully executed and meticulously annotated English translation with detailed interpretations. Its obscure history and high degree of textual corruption make the Yuejue shu a difficult work to study in a philologically responsible manner. However, Milburn succeeds admirably in discussing and solving many of the various textual and interpretative problems, while also pointing out those that are so far intractable. Probably compiled during the Xin dynasty from older Warring States, Qin, and Han texts, the Yuejue shu reflects an early imperial infatuation with southern culture and history that is also expressed in artefacts such as bronze mirrors or tomb decorations...