Friendship beyond death: Narratives from ancient China

Abstract Friendship occupies the last place in the five social relations in the Confucian tradition, yet it plays an important role in Confucian writings. In this article, I discuss the notion of friendship that lasts beyond death from ancient China. I examine how the friendship between Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi finds its continuation in that of Fan Shi and Zhang Shao, insofar as one of the two friends dies in both cases. These friendly bonds are tinged with a tragic tone and have fueled the imagination of the Chinese who sublimate or amplify them in all kinds of literary genres – poetry, theater, and novel – dating back to the pre-imperial period and to the Han Dynasty. All the authors underscore the faithfulness of these characters, which they consider to be the characters’ virtue. They also emphasize the spiritual link that transcends life and death. Based on the translation of these well-known and celebrated narratives, I intend to show how the exemplary nature of friendship is enhanced or mythologized, and how intertextuality has shaped the Chinese vocabulary itself in this regard.