國風 -, 'Part I., among the wild tribes of the west and north;

requires that it should be placed first. The(), the site of which is pointed out, 30 le to

而其言又足以感人,如物 因風之動以有聲而其聲 | principal supporters. Tan is known from this 又足以動物也). He goes on to

'Chow Nan, Book I. of Part I.' The first by fresh immigrations from its own earlier seats,

左荇参反輾悠悠思

不

右菜差側轉哉哉服寐得。

He sought her and found her not,

And waking and sleeping he thought about her.

Long he thought; oh! long and anxiously;

On his side, on his back, he turned, and back again.

She we become extensively acquainted with the
We do
names of birds, beasts, and plants.
learn names enow, but the birds, beasts, and
plants, denoted by them, remain in many cases
to be yet ascertained. The student, knowing
kew to mean the wild dove, is apt to suppose
that some species of dove is intended; but
no Chinese commentator has ever said so.

Maou makes it the 王睢, adding 鳥摯

So, Yang Heung. Died A. D 18, at
the age of 71), and Wang Suh. (has displaced
the more ancient form with ▲ at the side)

is explained in the Shwoh-wăn by, 'good,'
'virtuous.' The young lady, according to the
traditional interpretation (on which see below),
is Tae sz', a daughter of the House of
Yew-sin(), whom king Wăn married.
君子好逑-if
#h-if we accept T'ae-sz' as

the young lady of the Ode, then the keun-tszꞌ
of course is king Wăn. and (in Odo
VII.) are interchangeable,, a mate.'
K‘ang‐shing explains the line by

, which means. probably, ‘a bird of prey, of which the male and female keep much apart.' He followed the Urh-ya, the annotator of which, Kwoh P'oh (), of the Tsin dynasty, further describes it as a kind of eagle (鵰類), now, east of the Këang, called the ngoh (H).' This was for many centuries the view of all scholars; and it is sustained by a narrative in the Tso Chuen, under the 17th year, who could for of duke Ch'aou, that the Master of the Horse or Minister of War, was anciently styled Tseu Kew (h). The introduction of a bird of prey into a nuptial ode was thought, however, to be incongruous. Even Ching Kang-shing, would appear to have felt this,

and explains Maou's 攀by至, as if his words=

our prince harmonize the resentments of all the concubines.' He was led astray by the Little Preface. [There is a popular novel called the, the name of which is taken from this line. Sir John Davis has translated it under the misnomer of 'The Fortunate Union.']

參差(read chin tsze)荇菜

St.2. 參差

expresses the irregular appearance of the

plants, some long and some short.

is probably the femna minor. It is also called duck-mallows,' that name being given for it in the Pun-ts'aou and the Pe-ya (; ; a work on the plan of the Urh-ya, by Luh Teen

'a bird most affectionate, and yet most undemonstrative of desire;'-in which interpretation Choo He follows him. But it was desirable to discard the bird of prey altogether; and this was first done by Ching Ts'ëaou (E), an early writer of the Sung dyn., who makes the bird to be a kind of mallard.' Choo He, no doubt after him, says it is 'a water bird, in appearance like a mallard,' adding that it is only seen in pairs, the individuals of which keep at a distance from each of the Sung dyn.),-. It other! Other identifications of the ts'eu-k'ëw have been attempted. I must believe that the author of the ode had some kind of fish hawk

in his mind.

is described as growing in the water, long or short according to the depth, with a reddish leaf, which floats on the surface, and is rather more than an inch in diameter. Its flower is

(the Shwoh-wan has yellow. It is very like the shan, which Medf,

without then is the general denomination of streams and rivers in the north.

We

need not seek, as many do, to determine any particular stream as that intended.

is an islet, habitable ground, surrounded by the water

(水中可居之地)

- is to be understood

of the lady's mind, and of her deportment.

hurst calls the 'maish-mallows,' but its leaves

are not so round, being a little pointed. We

are to suppose that the leaves were cooked

and presented as a sacrificial offering.

i 流之-the analogy of 采之芼之

in the next stanza, would lead us to expect an

active signification in, and an action proceeding from the parties who speak in the Ode. This, no doubt, was the reason which made Maou, after the Urh-ya, explain the character

4

女穿右荇之琴窕采 鐘窕芼菜參瑟淑之,

之。鐘

鼓淑之。左差友女窈

3 Here long, there short, is the duckweed;

On the left, on the right, we gather it.

The modest, retiring, virtuous, young lady:

With lutes, small and large, let us give her friendly welcome.

Here long, there short, is the duckweed;

On the left, on the right, we cook and present it.

The modest, retiring, virtuous young lady:

With bells and drums let us show our delight in her.

by, 'to seek ;' but this is forcing a meaning
on the term.
simply the current
bears it about.' The idea of looking for the
plant is indicated by the connection.

of

-we have to supply the subject

and the other verbs; which I have done by he', referring to king Wan. The commentators are chary of saying this directly, thinking that such lively emotion about such an object was inconsistent with Wan's sagely character; but they are obliged to interpret the passage of him. To make, with Kangshing and others, the subject to be the lady herself, and the object of her quest to be virtuous young ladies to fill the harem, surely is absurd. ——, 'to cherish in the breast.'

-, here, acc. to Maou,-, 'to think.' In other places, in these Odes, it, 'to be anxious,' 'sorrowful'; and also— 'remote,' 'a long distance.' Choo He prefers this last meaning, and defines it by, 'long'. The idea is that of prolonged and anxious

thought. 輾轉反側the old interpret

ers did not distinguish between the meaning of these characters. The Shwoh-wăn, indeed,

defines 輾 (it gives only 展) by 轉. Choo

He makes 輾轉之半, half a chuen or

turning; 轉=輾之周, 'the completion of the 輾;' while 反and 側 are the rever

sing of those processes. This is ingenious and elegant; but the definitions are made for the passage.

The Pe-che(), however, would refer all the in the stanza to the young lady, and the verbs to king Wan, advising him so to welcome and cherish her; and this interpretation is also allowable. Maou, further on, explains by, to take', and here,

by, to pick out', to select'. But the selection must precede the taking. It was not till the time of Tung Yew in the Sung Dyn., that the meaning of, which I have given, and which may be supported from the Le Ke, was applied to this passage. 之一 -'we friend her,' i.e., we give her a friendly The kin and shih were two inwelcome. struments in which the music was drawn from strings of silk. We may call them the small lute and the large lute. The kin at first had only 5 strings for the 5 full notes of the octave, but two others are said to have been added by kings Wăn and Woo, to give the semi-notes. The invention of a shih with 50 strings is ascribed to Fuh-he, but we are told that Hwang-te found the melancholy sounds of this so overpowering, that he cut the number down to 25.

In Chinese editions of the she, at the end of every ode, there is given a note, stating the number of stanzas in it, and of the lines in each stanza.

stanza. Here we have 關雎三章
章四句二章章八句(The

Kwan-ts'eu consists of 3 stanzas, the first con-
taining 4 lines, and the other two containing 8
lines each.' This matter need not be touched
on again.

The rhymes (according to Twan Yuh-tsae, whose authority in this matter, as I have stated in the prolegomena, I follow) are-in stanza 1,

St.3. As the subject of and the other verbs, we are to understand the authors or sing-, category 3, tone 1: in 2. ers of the Ode,-the ladies of king Wan's harem. ib.; 14. M. W cat. 1, t. 3: in 3, ..

ib. t. 2. cat. 2. The, after a character denotes that the ancient pronunciation of it, found in the odes, was different from that now belonging to it. A list of such characters, with their ancient names, has been given in the prolegomena, in the appendix to the chapter referred to.

INTERPRETATION OF THE ODE. I have said that the Ode celebrates the virtue of the bride

of king Wăn. If I had written queen instead

of brice, I should have been in entire accord, so far, with the schools both of Maou and Choo He. During the dyn. of Han a different view was widely prevalent,-that the Ode was satirical,

and should be referred to the time when the Chow dyn. had begun to fall into decay. We find this opinion in Lew Heang,

仁智篇), Yang Heung (法言孝至

, and up and down, in the histories of Sz-ma Tseen, Pan Koo, and Fan Yeh.-By the E Le, however, IV., ii. 75, we are obliged to refer the Kwan-ts'eu to the time of the duke of Chow. That a contrary opinion should have been so prevalent in the Han dyn., only shows how long it was before the interpretation of the odes became so definitely fixed as it now is. Allowing the ode to be as old as the duke of Chow, and to celebrate his father's bride or queen, what is the virtue which it ascribes to her? According to the school of Maou, it is her freedom from jealousy, and her constant anxiety and diligence to fill the harem of the king with virtuous ladies to share his favours with her, and assist her in her various duties; and the ode was made by her. According to the school of Choo He, the virtue is her modest disposition and retiring manners, which so ravished the inmates of the harem, that they sing of her, in the 1st stanza, as she was in her virgin purity, a flower unseen; in the 2d, they set forth the king's trouble and anxiety while he had not met with such a mate; and in the 3d, their joy reaches its height, when she has been got, and is brought home to his palace. In this way, thinks Choo, the ode, in reality, exhibits the virtue of king Wăn in making such a choice; and that is with him a very great point.

The imperial editors, adjudicating upon these two interpretations, very strangely, as it seems to me, and will also do, I presume, to most of my western readers, show an evident leaning to that of the old school 'It was the duty,' they say, of the queen to provide for the harem 3 wives , ranking next to herself),

nine ladies of the 3d rank), 27 of the 4th (+), and 81 of the 5th 十一御妻)' Only virtuous ladies were

fit to be selected for this position. The anxiety of Tae-sz' to get such, her disappointment at not finding them, and her joy when she succeeded in doing so:-all this showed the highest female virtue, and made the ode worthy to stand at the head of all the Lessons from the Manners of the States.

Confucius expressed his admiration of the ode (Ana.III. xx.), but his words afford no help towards the interpretation of it. The traditional

interpretation of the odes, which we may suppose is given by Maou, is not to be overlooked; and, where it is supported by historical confirmations, it will often be found helpful. Still it is from the pieces themselves that we must chiefly endeavour to gather their meaning. This was the plan on which Choo He proceeded; and, as he far exceeded his predecessors in the true critical faculty, so China has not since produced another equal to him.

It is sufficient in this Ode to hear the friends of a bridegroom expressing their joy on occasion of his marriage with the virtuous object of his love, brought home in triumph, after long quest and various disappointments. There is no mention in it of king Wăn and the lady Sz'. I am not disposed to call in question the belief that that lady was the mistress of Wan's harem; but I venture to introduce here the substance of a note from the Annals of the Empire', Bk. I., p.14, to show how uncertain is the date at least of their marriage.-In the Le of the elder Taé, king Woo is said to have been born in Wăn's 14th year, while, in the standard chronology, Wan's birth is put down in B. C. 1,230, and Woo's in 1,168, when Wan was 62. But both accounts have their difficulties. First, Wăn had one son-Pih Yih-k'aou-older than Woo, so that he must have married Tae-sz' at the age of 12 or thereabouts, when neither he nor she could have had the emotions described in the Kwan-ts'eu. Further, as Wăn lived to be 100 years old, Woo must then have been 85. He died 20 years after, leaving his son, king Ching, only 14 years old. Ching must thus have been born when his father was over 80, and there was a younger son besides. This is incredible. Again, on the other account, it is unlikely that Wan should only have had Pih Yih-kacu before Woo, and then subsequently seven other sons, all by the same mother. And this difficulty is increased by what we read in the 5th and 6th Odes, which are understood to celebrate the numerousness of Wăn's children.

These considerations prove that the specification of events, as occurring in certain definite years of that early time, was put down very much at random by the chronologers, and that the traditional interpretation of the Odes must often be fanciful.

CLASS OF THE ODE; and NAME. It is said to be one of the allusive pieces (). At the same time a metaphorical element (H) is found in the characters of the objects alluded

to: the discreet reserve between the male and female of the osprey; and the soft and delicate nature of the duckweed. The name is made by combining two characters in the 1st line.

So, in many other pieces. Sometimes one character serves the purpose; at other times, two or more. Occasionally a name is found, which does not occur in the piece at all. The names of the Odes were attached to them before the time of Confucius, of which we have a superfluity of evidence in the Ch'un Tsew. From the Shoo, V., vi. 15, some assume that the writers of the pieces gave them their names themselves; and this may have been the case at times.The subject of the name need rarely be referred to hereafter.

6

二章

維施葛

其

II. Koh t'an.

鳴于鳥葉于 覃喈灌于萋中

莫容兮喈木飛萋。谷。今。

1 How the dolichos spread itself out,

Extending to the middle of the valley!

Its leaves were luxuriant;

The yellow birds flew about,

And collected on the thickly growing trees,
Their pleasant notes resounding far.

2 How the dolichos spread itself out,
Extending to the middle of the valley!
Its leaves were luxuriant and dense.

Ode 2.

AND It is supposed to have been made, and, however that was, it is to be read as if it had been made, by the queen herself.

CELEBRATING THE INDUSTRY DUTIFULNESS OF KING WAN'S QUEEN.

St.1. 葛之票兮-葛 is the general

name for the dolichos tribe; here the D. tuberosus, of whose fibres a kind of cloth is made. Ķ -E, 'to stretch out.'is of very frequent occurrence in the she; a particle of song

). According to the Shwoh-wăn and the gloss of Seu in it, it denotes an affection of the mind, over and above what has been expressed in

words. (read e,=
=移于中谷-中
谷‘mid-valley,'谷中, the middle of the

valley'. Ying-tah says that such inversion of
the characters was customary with the ancients,

黃鶯&c. Twice in this st, 于

葛覃

occurs as a

preposition,-in, on; but in this line, we can only take it as a particle which we need not try to translate. So, Wang Yin-che (E); the Urh-ya also, defining it by =聿职

Ying-tah erroneously explains it by, to go.’ L.5.trees growing together,' shrubs. L.6. pp is explained as ‘their harmonious notes heard far off.' The characters are probably like in the last ode, onomatopoetic.—I translate the verbs here in the past tense, because the things referred to all belong to the season of the spring, and the speaker is looking back to them.

the idea of denseness to tse ts'e above. L.4.

especially in poetry. *-*- 'to boil. The boiling was neces

sary in order to the separation of the fibres,
which could afterwards be woven, the finer to
and the coarser to form the
翰·
form the
L.5. Kang-shing takes to make,' to
work at', giving not a bad meaning.—' Tae-sz'
worked at this cloth-making without weariness."

--

here, and nearly every where else in the she, is simply an initial character which it is not possible to translate. expresses the appearance of luxuriant growth.' This repetition of the character is constantly found, giving intensity and vividness to the idea. Often, the characters are different, but of cognate meaning. The compound seems to picture the sub-is interchanged with, both=) ject of the sentence to the eye in the colours be satiated with,' and then to conceive a disof its own signification. This is one of the taste for,'' to dislike.' characteristics of the style of the she, which

the student must carefully attend to. 黃鳥 the yellow bird' is, probably, an ori

many names,-搏黍黃麗

⚫ to

St.3. Ll.1,2. Choo He takes here as a

particle, untranslateable(言辭也): Maou

and Kang-shing make it='I,' 'me,' which is a meaning the Ur-ya gives for the term.