KËEN HE
1 Easy and indifferent! Easy and indifferent!
I am ready to perform in all dances,
Then when the sun is in the meridian,
There in that conspicuous place.
2 With my large figure
I dance in the ducal courtyard.
I am strong [also] as a tiger;
The reins are in my grasp like ribbons.
The old interpreters consider all the stanza as spoken of the officers of Wei, whose disordered dresses were an emblem of their disordered minds, and who had carriages in which they might have come eastwards to the help of Le; but they were not so inclined. That Le was on the west of Wei is a sufficient refutation of this view.
St. 4. The 1st two lines describe the piteous condition of the officers of Le. 瑣=細, 'anything small', a fragment. 尾, 'the tail',=末, 'the end', or last, of anything. 流離之子=children carried by a current and dispersed. Again Maou take these lines of the officers of Wei. 瑣尾 is with him 'the app. of being good-looking when young'. Then 流離 is the name of a bird, a kind of owl , which is beautiful when young, and ugly when grown. So had Wei falsified its promises. Wang T'aou spends pages in vindicating this absurd explanation. 褎 is defined by Choo 多笑貌, 'the app. of many smiles'. K'ang-shing seems to justify this definition, taking 如充耳= 'like a deaf man'. 'Such a person', he says, 'not hearing what you say, generally answers with a smile'. This account for the term, however, cannot be supported, and the dict. does not recognize it. We must take 褎 (yew) and 如 together (see Wang Yin-che on 如), as meaning 'the app. of being in full dress'. 充,—'to fill up', meaning to stop
The rhymes are—in st. 1, 葛 (prop cat. 15), 節, 日, cat. 12, t. 3; in 2, 處, 與, cat. 5, t. 2; 久*, 以*, cat. 1, t. 2:in 3, 戎, 東, 同, cat. 9: in 4, 子, 耳, cat. 1, t. 2.
Ode 13. Narrative and allusive. HALF IN SCORN, HALF IN SORROW, AN OFFICER OF WEI TELLS OF THE MEAN SERVICE IN WHICH HE WAS EMPLOYED. The 'Little Preface' says the piece censures Wei for not giving offices equal to their merit to its men of worth, but employing them as dancers. This is a correct view of the scope of the piece; but in bringing out the meaning of the different stanzas of it Maou and Choo are wide apart. The imperial editors do not touch upon their differences, and only call attention to Maou's peculiar interpretations in a portion of the 2d stanza, intimating in this way their opinion that they may without loss be consigned to oblivion. I shall copy their example, and make little reference to the old school in the notes. I believe with Le Kwang-te that in this instance, 'only Choo has caught the spirit of the ode'.
St. 1. 簡簡=簡易, giving the idea of taking things easily. 萬 is 'a general name for dancing', or posture-making, for such the dancing of the Chinese was and is. There were the civil and the military dances, 萬being applied more expecially to the latter, when it and舞 are contrasted. 方 in l.2 can hardly be translated.K'ang-shing says that 方將=方且, which Williams translates—'about to do', 'just then'. The phrase is in accordance with the idea of the speaker's indifference, which the 1st line gives. In l.3, 方 has the sense of 今,'now'.
3 In my left hand I grasp a flute
In my right I hold a pheasant's feather.
I am red as if I were rouged;
The duke gives me a cup [of spirits].
4 The hazel grows on the hills,
And the liquorice in the marshes.
Of whom are my thoughts?
Of the fine men of the west
O those fine men
Those men of the west!
Shin Le-lung (沈李龍, pres. dyn.) observes that the 3d and 4th lines are to be taken together, as indicating that the speaker would dance in a conspicuous place, and not as describing the former the time and the latter the place of his performance. 前上處 is, lit., 'the high place in front'.
St. 2. 碩=大, 'large'. There is no idea of 'virtue'in it, as Maou says. 俣俣= 'stout-like'. 公庭,—the open court of the duke or marquis. Here, and often elsewhere, we might render 公 by palace;—as in Ana.X.4. The speaker, in this stanza, is merely describing his various qualities which might have attracted the attention of the marquis of Wei, and made him aware of his abilities. The old school got great mysteries out of the last two lines, that the neglected officers of Wei had great military vigour and great civil capacity.This civil capacity is indicated, they thought, in the warp and woof of the ribbons to which the reins are compared!
St. 3. 籥, acc. to Williams, is 'a reed or pipe with 3 or more holes, resembling a flageolet'. It is more like a flute.翟=雉羽, 'a pheasant's feather'. The flute and the feather were carried in the hand in the civil dances (文舞). 赭 is the name of red ochre. Here, however, Choo defines it as simply赤色 'a red colour'. The speaker's countenance was red and flushed as if roughed with some red pigment;—with the spirits given him by the marquis, says Le Kwang-te. Rather, we may say, with his exercise in dancing, which the marquis rewarded with a cup. 渥—'to moisten', 'to be moistened'.
St. 4. The 榛 is described as a small tree, like the chestnut. Lacharme, however, translates the term by corylus arbor. It may, however, be a small variety of the castanaceoe. The 苓, acc. to the Pun-ts'aou, which is followed by Choo, is the 甘草, 'sweet grass', or liquorice. Maou calls it 大苦, 'the great bitter', which Seu Ting thinks may, notwithstanding the dissonance, be another name for the same plant. The hazel and the liquorice were to be found in the places proper to them; but it was not so with the speaker.
The last 4 lines show us the true character of all that precedes. The dancer might speak jestingly of his position, but he felt the degradation of it. He passes in thought from Wei to the early seat of the House of Chow, and from the incapable ruler who neglected him to the chiefs of that western region, who sought out merit, appreciated and rewarded it.
The rhymes are—in st. 1, 舞, 處, cat. 5, t. 2: in 2, 俣,舞, 虎, 組, ib.: in 3, 籥*, 翟*, 爵*, cat. 2: in 4 榛, 苓*,人, 人, 人, cat. 12, t. 1.
