TSOW-YU

1 Strong and abundant grow the rushes;

He discharges [but] one arrow at five wild boars

Ah! he is the Tsow-yu!

2 Strong and abundant grows the artemisia;

He discharges [but] one arrow at five wild boars

Ah! he is the Tsow-yu!

What there was about the carriages to indicate these virtues in the bride, we are not told. She is called a royal Ke, 姬 being the surname of the House of Chow.Evidently she was a king's daughter. Most naturally we should translate the 2d and 3d line of st. 2,

'The grand-daughter of king P'ing,

And the son of the marquis of Ts'e;'

but, so taken, the piece must be dated about 400 years after the duke of Shaou, and is certainly out of place in this Book of the She. Choo, indeed, is not sure but they may be correct who find here king P'ing and duke Seang of Ts'e; but the imperial editors sufficiently refute that view. We must take 平 and 齊 as two epithets, the former designating, probably, king Wăn, and the latter some one of the feudal princes.

St. 3 L.2. 伊 has no more force here than the 維. Yin-che says it is synonymous with 維, but the examples he adduces have the sense of 'but', 'only'. The case in the text is sufficient to show that the two particles are synonymous only when they have that sense. 缗=綸, 'a cord', 'a string'. The allusion in the silk twisted into fishing lines would seem to be simply to the marriage—the union—of the princess and the young noble. I cannot follow Maou and his school, when they make it out to be to the lady's 'holding fast of wifely ways to complete the virtues of reverence and harmony'.

The rhymes are—in st. 1, 穠, 雝, cat. 3; 華*, 車*, cat. 5, t. 1: in 2, 矣, 李, 子, cat. 1, t. 2: in 3, 缗*, 孫, cat. 13.

Ode 14. Narrative. CELEBRATING SOME PRINCE IN THE SOUTH FOR HIS BENEVOLENCE. There is a general agreement as to the object of this short piece, though there are great differences, as we shall see, in the explanation of it in detail. Its analogy to the concluding ode in the 1^st Book is sufficiently evident,and must be allowed to have the turning weight in settling the interpretation.

L1. 1. 茁 expresses the fresh, vigorous appearance of plants, as they first rise above the ground.葭 is another name for 蘆, which Williams calls—'high rushes along river courses'. When full-grown and flowered, they are called 葦. We must suppose that the prince, who is the subject of the ode, is hunting in spring, by some lake or stream where such rushes were common. Maou and Choo say nothing more about 蓬 than that it is the name of a grass. According to the Shwoh-wăn, it should be a kind of Artemisia. One account of it says that its flowers grow like the catkins of the willow, and fly about it the wind, like hair

L1. 2. Maou gives 豝 as 'the female of the swine';and in the connection we must understand the wild animal. Choo makes it just the opposite,—the male,Maou took his account from the Urh-ya; but in both cases I imagine there is an error of the text,—牝 for牡. To shoot female animals would be inconsistent with the benevolence which the piece is understood to celebrate. The Kwang-ya, without reference to the sex,says, 'the pa is a pig two years old', and all authorities agree in taking ts'ung, as one, 'one year old'. But we cannot suppose that the poet laid any stress on these special distinctions of the terms. He varied them to suit his rhymes merely. 一發= 'by one discharge',i.e, of his arrows, acc. to Choo. The prickers, it is understood, had driven together a herd of the animals;but the noble would not kill them all. He contented himself with discharging the four arrows, which constituted what we may call a round. But could he kill 5 boars with 4 arrows? Choo supposes that one of the arrows transfixed two of them. This does not seem very likely; and I am inclined to adopt the view of K'ang-shing, as expounded by Ying-tah, that out of 5 boars driven together the prince would shoot only one(君止一發, 必翼五豝者, 中則殺一而已).

L1.3. The great battle of the ode, however, is over騶虞. Maou and Choo, after him, take these terms as the name of a wild beast, 'a righteous beast; a white tiger, with black spots, which does not tread on live grass, and does not eat any living thing, making its appearance when a State is ruled by a prince of perfect benevolence and sincerity. Being a tiger, it might be expected to kill animals, like other tigers, but it only eats the flesh of such as have died a natural death'. This view of the terms was not challenged till Gow-yang Sëw of the Sung dyn., who contended that we are to understand by them the huntsman of the prince's park. Since his time this interpretation has been variously enlarged and insisted on. One of the ablest assertors of it is Yen Ts'an, who appeals to the fact that the Urh-ya says nothing of the fabulous animals, as a proof that it was not heard of before Maou. The imperial editors, however, refute this statement, and I agree with them that the old view is not to be disturbed. The analogy of the Lin che che is decisive in its favour. 于嗟乎 here=于嗟…兮 of that ode.

The rhymes are—in st. 1, 葭*, 豝*, 虞, and 虞 of st. 2, cat. 5, t. 1: in 2, 蓬, 豵, cat. 9.

CONCLUDING NOTE. Confucius once (Ana. XVII. x.) told his son to study the Chow-nan and Shaou-nan, adding that 'the man who has not done so is like one who stands with his face right against a wall'. Like many more of the sayings of the sage, it seems to tell us a great deal, while yet we can lay hold of nothing positive in it.

Choo He says, 'The first four odes in this 2d Book speak of the wives of princes and great officers, and show how at that time princes and great officers had come under the transforming influence of king ăn, so that they cultivated their persons and regulated rightly their families. The other pieces show how the chief prince among the States spread abroad the influence of king Wăn, and how other princes cultivated it in their families and through their States. Though nothing is said in them about king Wăn, yet the wide effects of his brilliant virtue and renovation of the people appear in them. They were so wrought upon, they knew not how. There is only the 13^th piece which we are unable to understand, and with the perplexities of which we need not trouble ourselves.' One of the Ch'ings says,'The right regulation of the family is the first step towards the good govt. of all the empire. The two Nan contain the principles of that regulation, setting forth the virtues of the queen, of princesses, and the wives of great officers, substantially the same when they are extended to the families of inferior officers and of the common people. Hence these odes were used at courts and village gatherings. They sang them in the courts and in the lanes, thus giving their tone to the manners of all under heaven.'

These glowing pictures do not approve themselves so much to a western reader. He cannot appreciate the institution of the harem. Western wives cannot submit to the position of T'ae-sze herself. Western young ladies like to be married 'decently and in order',according to rule, with all the ceremonies; but they want other qualities in their suitors more important than an observance of formalities. Where purity and frugality in young lady and wife are celebrated in these pieces, we can appreciate them. The readiness on the part of the wife to submit to separation from her husband, when public duty calls him away from her, is also very admirable. But upon the whole the family-regulation which appears here is not of a high order, and the place assigned to the wife is one of degradation.