Does the Bush Protect the Little Bird?

In 1719, when the Hungarian rebel prince Rakoczi fled to the Ottoman Empire, the vizier used a proverb in his argument for granting asylum:

"There is no shrub that would not, by all means that it has, defend the little bird that flies into it" [i]

This was a traditional Turco-Mongol theme, and it also figures in the life of Temujin (the future Genghis Khan), who was forced to flee for his life during his middle teens. His rescuers explained themselves with a different form of the proverb:

“When a sparrow-hawk causes a sparrow to take shelter in a bush, the bush saves its life"

"The kite that takes refuge in the thicket from the talons of the falcon is safe from its fury".[i]

In the Bible (Ezekiel 31:3-10) a cedar of Lebanon is the place of refuge:

All the birds of the air

made their nests in its boughs;

under its branches all the animals of the field

gave birth to their young;

and in its shade

all great nations lived.

For the Chinese poet, Cao Zhi (Ts’ao Chih), a little bird is also the symbol of vulnerability, though there is no real refuge unless a rescuer appears:

Have you ever seen a bird from a hedge
flee the hawk and fly into a net ?
The huntsman rejoices to see the trapped bird --
but a young man is sorry.

He pulls his sword and slashes the net,
and the little bird flies away.
Flapping his wings he soars to the heavens,
and then comes down to thank the young man.[ii]

When I first read of the “struggle to the death” in Hegel, or Heidegger’s “being toward death”, I thought that they were going on a bit, but anyone who reads history knows that life in the old days was perilous. Rebels like Rakoczi were normally punished with death. As for Cao Zhi, one of his half-brothers was poisoned by another brother, the Emperor Cao Bi, and he himself lived in continual fear once his brother ascended the throne (though this did not prevent him from becoming one of the greatest of Chinese poets -- the chief founder of the shi 詩 style with which Westerners are most familiar).

But ordinary folk were not exempt. In the Biblical Middle East rulers in walled cities waged continual intermittent warfare, and whenever a city fell its inhabitants would be slaughtered or enslaved. Occasionally one of these cities would subjugate or destroy all the others and found an empire, ruthlessly bringing peace at the price of freedom. (The great tree referred to above is, ironically, the terrible Assyrian empire).

For little birds hoping for refuge, by and large, the odds are not really good. Cao Zhi and Prince Rakoczi escaped with their lives, but the Chinese poet had to sit helplessly and watch while his friends, one by one, were murdered by the his brother the Emperor. (The almost mawkish pathos of the poem here is very rare in the Chinese poetry). Temujin escaped too, but he devoted his life to tracking his enemies down and killing them. He was not a sparrow, but the fiercest of sparrowhawks, and from him there was no refuge -- he followed the Assyrian example when dealing with captured cities.

In the Bible, too, there is ultimately no refuge. Here's what ended up happening to the tree:

I have handed it over to the mightiest of the nations, which has dealt with it in keeping with its wickedness. I humiliated it.

Foreigners, the most ruthless of the nations, cut it down and left it on the mountains. Its foliage was brought low in all the valleys, its branches lay broken in all the ravines of the land, and all the peoples of the land withdrew from its shade, abandoning it.

On its fallen trunk rested all the birds of the air, and by its branches were all the beasts of the field.

Most of us live safely in our little bushes or our proud cedars, but we only have to read the newspapers to learn of people much like ourselves who have fallen into the net, or who have been caught by the hawk, without finding asylum.

ADDENDUM:

In Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina, the villain Andrei Khovansky says of Emma, the Lutheran girl he is trying to rape, "Hear her cry! Poor turtle-dove is caught in the talons of the falcon...." Later, he says to her "You know, your anger makes you more lovely, just like a mother bird defending her little ones". (Khovanschina: The Khovanschina Affair, Jennifer Batchelor and Nicholas John, Calder, 1994, p. 64.)

As it happens, Emma does escape from the claws of the falcon. Andrei, the most ineffectual villain that the world has ever seen (but indefatigable as the Energizer Bunny), chases Emma all through the opera without any success, desperately calling calls out her name at the and as he dies.

NOTES:

[i] Gyorgy Kara, “The Bush Protects the Little Bird”, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientarium Hungaricae, 1991, Vol. XLVIII, #3, pp. 421-428; Igor de Rachelwitz, tr., Secret History of the Mongols, Brill, 2004, #85; J. A. Boyle, tr., History of the World-Conqueror (Juvaini), Washington, 1997, p. 242. The Ottoman speech was reported in Latin: “non esse arbustulum, quod aviculam refugientum ad se non defendat pro posse suo.”

[ii] My translation from the text in Zhao Futan, Cao Wei Fu Zi Shi Xuan, 1988, p. 166; see also George Kent, tr., Worlds of Dust and Jade, Philosophical Library, 1969, p. 71.

TEXTS

Wild Oriole

(Cao Zhi)

The mournful wind blows through the trees

and raises waves on the sea.

Without a sword in my hand

of what use can I be to my friends?

Have you ever seen a bird on a hedge

flee the hawk but fly into a net?

The huntsman rejoices to see the trapped bird,

But a young man is sorry.

He pulls his sword and slashes the net,

so the little bird can fly away.

Flapping his wings he soars to the heavens,

and then comes down to thank the young man.

Ezekiel 31: 3-100

(New Revised Standard Version)

Consider Assyria, a cedar of Lebanon

with fair branches and forest shade

and of great height, its top among the clouds.

The waters nourished it,

the deep made it grow tall,

making its rivers flow

around the place where it was planted,

sending forth its streams

to all the trees of the field;

its boughs grew large

and its branches long,

from abundant water in its shoots.

All the birds of the air

made their nests in its boughs;

under its branches all the animals of the field

gave birth to their young;

and in its shade

all great nations lived.

It was beautiful in its greatness,

in the length of its branches;

for its roots went down

to abundant water.

Ezekiel 31: 3-10

(New American Bible)

Behold, a cypress (cedar) in Lebanon, beautiful of branch, lofty of stature, amid the very clouds lifted its crest.

Waters made it grow, the abyss made it flourish, sending its rivers round where it was planted, turning its streams to all the trees of the field.

Thus it grew taller than every other tree of the field, and longer of branch because of the abundant water.

In its boughs nested all the birds of the air, under its branches all beasts of the field gave birth, in its shade dwelt numerous peoples of every race.

It became beautiful and stately in its spread of foliage, for its roots were turned toward abundant water.

The cedars in the garden of God were not its equal, nor could the fir trees match its boughs, Neither were the plane trees like it for branches; no tree in the garden of God matched its beauty.

I made it beautiful, with much foliage, the envy of all Eden's trees in the garden of God.

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because it became lofty in stature, raising its crest among the clouds, and because it became proud in heart at its height,

I have handed it over to the mightiest of the nations, which has dealt with it in keeping with its wickedness. I humiliated it.

On its fallen trunk rested all the birds of the air, and by its branches were all the beasts of the field.

Thus no tree may grow lofty in stature or raise its crest among the clouds; no tree fed by water may stand by itself in its loftiness. For all of them are destined for death, for the land below, For the company of mortals, those who go down into the pit.

(More on Ezekiel 31)

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Original materials copyright John J Emerson

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