The Han folksomgs are believed to be collected by the Music Bureau established by Empero Wu To begin with, the Music Bureau worked on the composition of musical tunes for the courtly ceremonies, banquets and sacrificial rites. And itproceeded to the collection of new music, or folk songs because some noblity enjoyed folk songs But it is for a political purpose that the fullscale collection of folk songs took place in the late Han This collection is based on the idea of the roling class which looks on folk songs as tangible materials to each the popular sentiment and the political success and failure. They reckoned that the political life of a kingdom depends on the popular sentirnent， given the nurnerous given the numerous popular revolts in the former Han. By reciprocity, it seems that the collection of popular songs by the govemment officials functioned as an indirect channel to the ruling class on the part of the people. The fact that many of the popular songs of the Han takenarrative form reflecting the social reality evidences this plausiblity. The popular songs of the Southern dynasties， Qi and Liong were collected for the entertainment of the ruling class which is historically infamous for their epicurean life style which is regarded to lead to their collapse. On accaunt of their indulgence in pursuit for sensual pleasures, the collected folk songs naturally concem sensual and erotic themes such as love between the two sexes, sorrow of parting, longing for the beloved, rather than he social reality. In contrast with most of the Han folk songs taking ballad form, the Southern folk songs take short lyric form in four lines, each line with five characters. The folk songs of the Northern dynasties are seen to put together under the title of Gufia Hengchutiqu of the Liang dynasty in the YuejJ Shifi edited by Guo Maoqian. It seems that they are not intentionally collected， left scattered in historical and geographical literatures. in style and theme, they stand in contrast with their counterpart of the Southern dynasties.