TS'EUEN SHWUY
1 How the water bubbles up from that spring,
And flows away to the K'e
My heart is in Wei;
There is not a day I do not think of it.
Admirable are those, my cousins;
I will take counsel with them.
2 When I came forth, I lodged in Tse,
And we drank the cup of convoy at Ne.
When a young lady goes [to be married],
She leaves her parents and brothers;
[But] I would ask for my aunts,
And then for my elder sister.
Ode 14. Allusive and narrative. A DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE OF WEI, MARRIED IN ANOTHER STATE, EXPRESSES HER LONGING TO REVISIT WEI. The 'Little Preface' does not say who this princess was, nor into what State she married; but it assumes that her parents were dead. It would have been allowable for her, according to the custom at least which prevailed in the Ch'un Ts'ew period, to visit them at stated times, so long as they were alive.
St. 1. 毖 (al. 必 with 水, 示, and目at the side) denotes'the app. of water issuing from a spring'. 泉水 is taken by K'ang-shing and Choo as the name of a stream,—the 'Hundred springs (百泉)' of the pres. day. But it is better to take the characters as in the translation.Those waters, wheresoever they rose, flowed into the K'e, and so traversed Wei. The speaker, debarred from Wei, could have wished that her lot had been theirs. I can make out no reasonable allusion to her condition in the fact of one river of Wei running into another.The K'e was a famous river of Wei, rising at the hill of Ta-haou (大號), and flowing eastwards from the pres. dis. of Lin (林), dep. Chang-tih. The Shwoh-wăn says it fell into the Ho, but it now pursues a difft.course to the sea. 有懷,—'I have my cherishing', i.e.,my affections. 孌= 'good-like' and may be used with reference to the body or mind. 諸姬,—'all the Ke'.The lady herself was a Ke, for that was the surname of the House of Wei. By 'all the Ke' she means her cousins, and the other ladies from States of the same surname, who had accompanied her to the harem. 聊 is explained by Maou by 願, 'to wish'. Its meaning is not so substantive. K'ang-shing calls it且略之辭, 'a particle lightly indicating a purpose'. The lady will consult with her cousins on the subject of her wish to revisit Wei.
St. 2. K'ang-shing says that Tse and Ne were places in the State where the lady was married. Rather we may think, with Choo, that they were in Wei, not far from its capital city, and that the speaker is referring to her departure from her native State. People going on a journey offered a sacrifice to the spirit of the way,and when that was concluded, the friends who had escorted them so far, drank with them, and feasted them close by.
3 I will go forth and lodge in Kan,
And we will drink the cup of convoy at Yen.
I will grease the axle and fix the pin
And the returning chariot will proceed.
Quickly shall we arrive in Wei;—
But would not this be wrong?
4 I think of the Fei-ts'euen,
I am ever sighing about it.
I think of Seu and Ts'aou,
Long, long, my heart dwells with them.
Let me drive forth and travel there,
To dissipate my sorrow.
This was called 飲餞. 行=出嫁, 'to go or come forth to be married'. There is a difficulty with the 4th line,and to see its connection with the whole piece, we must supplement it by the assumption which I have noticed above, that the speaker's parents were dead.Thus Choo explains, and adds:—'When I came here to be married, I left my parents and brothers; how much more can this be said, now that my parents are dead?Can I in this case return to Wei again?' He then takes the last two lines as equivalent to the last two of the prec. stanza. The aunts and the elder sister here are the same, he says, as the cousins there. It is impossible to agree with him in this. from Tso-she's narrative on p. 6 of the 2d year of duke Wăn, we see that he understood姑 and 姊 as really meaning 'aunts and sisters'. We cannot suppose that any of these had accompanied the lady to the harem. As the imperial editors say,Choo can adduce no usage of terms in support of his view. We must then take 問 not in the sense of 'asking and consulting with', but of 問安, 'asking about their welfare'. The lady allows that she cannot see her parents and brothers; but there are aunts remaining and her sister. May she not go to Wei and see them?
St. 3. The lady supposes now that she can accomplish her purpose, and is on the way to Wei,her departure to it escorted as that from it had been.Kan and Yen are two places outside the capital of the State where she was married. 牽 is the iron ends of the axle, that enter the nave of the wheels. If we suppose that only one act is described in the 3d line, the lady says that she will grease the ends of the axle. If there are two acts in it, as the repetition of the particle 載suggests, the meaning must be that which I have given. 還車,—K'ang-shing and Choo supposes that the carriage is called 'returning', because the lady purposed to go back to Wei in the same carriage that she had come from it in. This does not seem to be necessary. 邁=行, 'to go', 'to proceed'. 遄=疾, 'rapidly'.臻=至, 'to come to'. The last line has greatly vexed the critics. Maou took 瑕 in the sense of 遠 'to be far from', as if the meaning were—'For me thus to go back to Wei will not be anything so injurious as going far from what is right.' Ying-tah also adduces Wang Suh in support of this view; but it is too strained. Choo takes 瑕 as=何, 'how', and makes the moral value of the whole ode then turn on the line. The lady has in fancy arrived in Wei, but she suddenly arrests her thoughts and says to herself,—'But would not this be injurious to—contrary to—right and reason?' And so she will not think seriously any more of going back to Wei.
PIH MUN
1 I go out at the north gate,
With my heart full of sorrow.
Straitened am I and poor,
And no one takes knowledge of my distress.
So it is!
Heaven has done it;—
What then shall I say?
2 The king's business comes on me,
And the affairs of our government in increasing measure.
When I come home from abroad,
K'ang-shing took 瑕 in its ordinary sense of 'a flaw', 'a fault'; and though his explanation of the line (taking 害=何) is otherwise inadmissible, he probably suggested to Yen Ts'an a view of it, according to which we should translate.
'It would not be wrong with any harm in it.'
The difficulty, however, with this is that we cannot so translate the same words elsewhere, as in XIX. 2, where we are forced to take 不瑕 as=何不, a question, expressing a doubt in the mind. So Wang Yin-che, on the term 遐.
St. 4. In this the lady repeats her longing desire to revisit Wei; and we cannot say from it positively whether her desire was gratified or not. The Fei-ts'euen was a river of Wei, which she had crossed, probably, on her departure from it. Many identify it with what it now called 'the Water of a hundred streams'. The account of it given by Maou, from the Urh-ya, is all but unintelligible; and does not affect our understanding of the ode. 兹=此;—'this is what I am ever sighing for'. Seu and Ts'aou were two cities of Wei which the lady had passed on her leaving. Ts'aou—see on VI.1. 駕,—'to yoke', 'to put the horses to the carriage'. 寫,—lit., 'to overturn', as a vessel, and so empty it of its contents,= 'to remove', 'to dissipate'.
The rhymes are—in st. 1, 淇, 思, 姬, 謀*, cat. 1, t. 1: in 2, 泲, 禰, 弟, 姊, cat. 15, t. 2: in 3, 干, 言, cat.14; 牽,邁, 衛, 害, cat. 15, t. 3: in 4, 泉, 歎, cat. 14; 漕*, 悠, 游,憂, cat. 3, t. 1.
Ode 15. Metaphorical and narrative. AN OFFICER OF WEI SETS FORTH HIS HARD LOT, AND HIS SILENCE UNDER IT IN SUBMISSION TO HEAVEN. The object of the piece, acc. to Maou, is to expose the government of Wei, which neglected men of such worth.
St. 1. The south is the region of brightness, and the north of darkness, and so the officer here represents himself as passing from light to darkness. So, Maou and Choo. If we suppose, with Yen Ts'an and others,that the speaker had quitted the capital by the north gate on some public service, then the ode is all narrative.
The members of my family all emulously reproach me.
So it is!
Heaven has done it;—
What then shall I say?
3 The king's business is thrown on me,
And the affairs of our government are left to me more and more.
When I come home from abroad,
The members of my family all emulously thrust at me.
So it is!
Heaven has done it;—
what then shall I say?
殷殷=憂, 'sorrowful'; it denotes 'the app. of grief'.終,—see on V.1. This line should be decisive as to the meaning of 終 in the She when followed by 且. 窶and 貧 are of cognate signification. The critics try to distinguish between them here, and say that the former denotes 'the want of money to make presents', and the latter, 'the want of it to supply one's own wants'. In l.4 the ruler of Wei may be specially intended; but the terms are quite general.
St. 2. 王事,=王所命之事, 'affairs ordered by the king',—committed by him to Wei for execution. 政事refers to the affairs of the government of Wei. We must suppose, however, that they are not great affairs which are intended, but vexation and trivial matters. The speaker would not have been in such poverty if he had been high in office.適=至, 'to go or come to'. 一both by Choo and Wang Yin-che, is explained by 皆, 'all'.Wang T'aou prefers the meaning of 乃, 'are', which一also has. 埤=厚 or 增, as in the translation. 室人=家人,'the members of the family'. 交,—as in Mencius I . Pt. i. I. 4. 讁=責, 'to reproach'.
St. 3. Choo follows K'ang-shing in reading 敦 tuy,and explaining it by 投擲,—as in the translation.Maou's 敦 (tun),=厚, is not so appropriate. 遺, 'to be left to',=加, 'to be laid upon'. 摧, both by Maou and Choo is explained by 沮, 'to repress'. The word means'to press upon', 'to throw down', 'to push'.
The rhymes are—in st. 1, 門, 殷*, 貧*, 艱*, cat. 13;in 2, 適, 益, 讁, cat. 15, t. 3; in 3, 敦 (prop. cat. 13), 遺,摧, cat. 15, t. 1; in all the stt., 哉之, 哉, cat. 1, t. 1.
