### English Translation

I. Introduction

The passage highlights the significance of the silk motif in Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, exploring how it connects individual destinies with grand historical events. Through the narrator's travels along the English east coast, Sebald evokes associations between Eastern and Western historical events and personal fates, with the silk theme serving as a thread linking disparate narratives. Scholars widely acknowledge the silk motif as a crucial element in the book, yet there has been insufficient attention to its connection with late Qing China's history. Chapter Six of The Rings of Saturn delves into late Qing history, weaving together individual destinies and historical events through variations of the silk motif, revealing the rise and fall of China's late imperial dynasty and the vicissitudes of personal lives.

II. Silkworms: Conservative Rulers and the Exploited Masses

This section examines Empress Dowager Cixi's admiration for silkworms and its symbolic meaning in Sebald's The Rings of Saturn. Cixi viewed silkworms as ideal subjects, and her rule over them symbolized the traditional feudal political system, contrasting with Emperor Guangxu's reformist intentions. Her fondness for silkworms stemmed from her idealized vision of the populace—diligent, loyal, and relentless unto death. In Cixi's eyes, silkworms represented the perfect model of the ruled: serfs bound to unpaid servitude. Her extravagant expenditures demonstrated her detached supremacy, while silkworms symbolized the masses forced to live under the ruler's shadow. Ultimately, Cixi herself became mere dust in the torrent of history, as ephemeral as the silkworms.

III. Traditional Chinese Silk Fabrics: Power and Loss

This section explores the symbolic significance of traditional Chinese silk textiles in Sebald's The Rings of Saturn and their role in late Qing history. It notes that Western scholars often overlook the importance of these fabrics in the late Qing period. Chapter Six details how dragon robes, Nanjing brocade, and white silk played pivotal roles in key historical events of the Qing dynasty's rise and fall, serving as witnesses to imperial power and its decline. The dragon robe, a symbol of imperial authority, was strictly regulated in its use of yellow dye and dragon motifs. During the Taiping Rebellion, Hong Xiuquan reformed clothing regulations but ultimately embraced dragon culture, decreeing that only the Heavenly King could wear yellow satin robes embroidered with nine dragons. Hong's corpse was wrapped in a dragon-patterned silk robe, reflecting Sebald's balanced assessment—praising the rebels for challenging feudal authority while noting their failure to break free from its constraints. The Anglo-French looting of the Old Summer Palace, plundering silk treasures, was not merely an act of material theft but a cultural invasion, symbolizing the Qing dynasty's crumbling rule. The evolution of Nanjing brocade was closely tied to the dynasty's fate, and its use in Emperor Xianfeng's funeral hinted at imperial decline. Empress Dowager Cixi's use of white silk to execute the disempowered during the Xinyou Coup underscored brutal political struggles and the Qing regime's crisis. Through these silk textiles, Sebald examines the relativity of civilization and barbarism, asserting that history belongs not only to rulers but also to the weak and the defeated.

IV. Conclusion

This section discusses how Sebald, in The Rings of Saturn, employs variations of the silk motif—such as silkworms and textiles—to symbolize historical events and individual destinies in late Qing China. Dragon robes, Nanjing brocade, and white silk functioned as instruments of power and funerary objects for the fallen in events like the Taiping Rebellion, Emperor Xianfeng's funeral, and the Xinyou Coup. Silkworms symbolized Cixi's exploitation of the masses and her conservative stance, contrasting with Emperor Guangxu's embrace of railways, reflecting the conflicts of the Hundred Days' Reform and precipitating the Qing dynasty's decline. Sebald intricately connects the fate of late Qing China with individual lives through the silk motif, paying homage to Hebel in the process.

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