JOO FUN

1 Along those raised banks of the Joo,

I cut down the branches and slender stems.

While I could not see my lord,

I felt as it were pangs of great hunger.

Choo says the phrase indicates 'the appearance of rising up flourishingly'; but how can this apply to bundles of faggots? Two other meanings of the phrase are given in the dict., either of which is preferable to this: viz, 'numerous (眾)', which I have adopted;and 'high-like (高貌)'. 楚is a species of thorn-tree (荊屬); and 蔞 is a species of artemisia. It is also called蔐蔞 and 蔞蒿, which last Medhurst calls 'a kind of southernwood'. It is described as growing in low places, and marshy grounds, with leaves like the mugwort, of a light green, fragrant and brittle. When young, the leaves may be eaten, and afterwards, they may be cooked for food. The reference to them in the text, however, is not because of their use for food,but, like the thorns, for fuel. The plant grows, it is said, several feet high; and even, with ourselves, the southernwood acquires a woody stem, after a few years. 秣 (Shwoh Wăn, )='to feed'. 馬 is a full-grown horse, six cubits high and upwards; 駒 is a colt, a young horse, 'between 5 and 6 cubits high'; but stress cannot be laid on the specific differences in the meaning of such terms, which are employed in order to vary the rhymes. But now, what relation was there between the piles of faggots, and cutting down the thorns and the southernwood? And how are the first two lines allusive of what is stated in the next two?Lacharme does not try to indicate this in his notes,and his translation is without Chinese sanction and in itself unjustifiable— ('Ex virgultorum variis fasciculis spinas resecare (St. 3, herbas silvestres avellere) satagunt. Puelloe matrimonio collocantur, et quorunt unde pascant equos suos (St. 3, pullos equinos).') The nearest approach to a satisfactory answer to those questions that I have met with, is the following:—Cutting down the thorns and the southernwood was a toilsome service performed for the faggots, but such was the respect inspired by the virtuous ladies whom the speaker saw, that he was willing to perform the meanest services for them. This I have endeavoured to indicate in the translation, though the nature of the service done to the faggots is not expressed by any critic as I have done. See the 'Complete Digest' inloc., and the various suggestions in the 'Collection of Opinions (集說)', given in the imperial edition.

The rhymes are—in st.1, 休, 求, cat.3, t.1: in 2, 楚, 馬*, cat.5, t.2: in 3, 蔞*, 駒*, cat.4: in all the stanzas, 廣,泳*, 永*, 方, cat.10.

2 Along those raised banks of the Joo,

I cut down the branches and fresh twigs.

I have seen my lord;

He has not cast me away.

3 The bream is showing its tail all red;

The royal House is like a blazing fire

Though it be like a blazing fire

Your parents are very near.

Ode 10. Mainly narrative. THE AFFECTION OF THE WIVES OF THE JOO, AND THEIR SOLICITUDE ABOUT THEIR HUSBAND'S HONOUR. The royal House, in the last stanza, like a blazing fire, is supposed to be that of Shang, under the tyranny of Chow. The piece, therefore, belongs to the closing time of that dyn., when Wăn was consolidating his power and influence. The effects of his very different rule were felt in the country about the Joo, and animated the wife of a soldier (or officer),rejoicing in the return of her husband from a toilsome service, to express her feelings and sentiments, as in those stanzas.

St.1. L.1. The Joo is not mentioned in the Shoo.It rises in the hill of T'een-seih (天息), in Joo Chow,Honan, flows east through that province, and falls into the Hwae, in the dep. of Ying-chow (潁州), Ngan-hwui. 墳=大防, 'great dykes', meaning the banks of the river, raised, or rising high, to keep the water in its channel. Some give the phrase 汝墳 a more definite meaning, and the site of an old city, which was so called, is pointed out, 50 le to the north east of the dis. city of Shëh (葉), dep. Nan-yang. L.2. 條=枝, 'branches'. 枚= 'small trees'. The speaker must be supposed to have been cutting these branches and trees for firewood. L.3. 君子,—the speaker's'princely man',= 'her husband'. She longed to see him,but she did not do so yet (未). L.4. 惄 in the Urh-ya is explained both by 思, 'to think', and by 飢, 'to be hungry'. Maou and Choo unite those definitions,and make it=飢意, 'hungry thoughts'. 調 (chow), with Maou,=朝, 'the morning', so that the meaning is 'I feel like one hungry for the morning mean.' Much better it is to adopt, with Choo, meaning 重, 'intense', 'long-continued'.

St. 2. L.2. 肄= 'fresh shoots"; a year had gone by. The branches lopped in the past par. had grown again, or fresh shoots in their place. The husband had long been away; but at length he has returned. So the 既in L.3. intimates. L.4. 遐=遠= 'distant', 'far'. 遐棄, together,= 'to abandon'. 不我遐棄=不遠棄我, 'has not abandoned me'; but whether this expression be= 'my husband is not dead', as K'ang-shing and many others take it; or= 'he comes back, with all the affection of our original covenant', it would be hard to say. On the latter view the stanza is allusive, and the husband has not yet returned. The fresh shoots awaken the speaker's emotion, and she exclaims, 'Another day, when I shall have seen my husband, perhaps he will not cast me off!' As Yen Ts'an puts it, 他日已見君子, 庶幾不遠棄我也.

St. 3. The stanza is metaphorical. L.1. The fang is the bream called also 魾 and 鯿. 赬=赤, 'red'. The tail of the bream, we are told, is not naturally red like that of the carp; the redness in the text must be produced by its tossing about in zhangfang redalert shallow water. So was the speaker's husband toiled and worn out in distant service. The other 3 lines are understood to be an exhortation to the husband to do his duty to the royal House of Yin, notwithstanding the oppressiveness of Chow its Head. 燬=火 'a fire', or to blaze as a fire. K'ang-shing and Ying-tah understand by 'parents' the husband's parents, so that his wife's idea is that he should do his duty at all risks, and not disgrace his parents whom he should think of as always near him.