The Online Library of Liberty

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• Introduction to the Shi King. *
• Part I.: Characteristics of the States.
• Book I.: The Odes of Chow and the South. *
• Book II.: The Odes of ShÂu and the South. *
• Book III.: The Odes of P‘ei.
• Book IV.: The Odes of Yung. *
• Book V.: The Odes of Wei.
• Book VI.: The Odes of the Royal Domain. *
• Book VII.: The Odes of Ch‘ing. *
• Book VIII.: The Odes of Ts‘i. *
• Book IX.: The Odes of Wei. *
• Book X.: The Odes of T‘ang. *
• Book XI.: The Odes of Ts‘in. *
• Book XII.: The Odes of Ch‘in. *
• Book XIII.: The Odes of Kwai. *
• Book XIV.: The Odes of Ts‘Âu. *
• Book XV.: The Odes of Pin. *
• Part II.: The Minor Festal Odes.
• Book I.
• Book II.
• Book III.
• Book IV.
• Book V.
• Book VI.
• Book VII.
• Book VIII.
• Part III.: The Greater Festal Odes.
• Book I.: The “wĂn Wong” Decade. *
• Book II.: The “shang Min” Decade.
• Book III.: The “tang” Decade.
• Part IV.: Festal Hymns and Songs.
• Book I.: The Hymns of Chow. * First Section.
• Book II.: The Hymns of Chow. Second Section.
• Book III.: The Hymns of Chow. Third Section.
• Book IV.: The Festal Songs of Lu. *
• Book V.: The Festal Odes of Shang.

BOOK V.

THE ODES OF WEI.

I. v. 1.

PRAISE OF DUKE WU OF WEI. (bc 811-757.)

• • See in that nook, where bends the K‘i,
  • The green bamboos, how graceful grown!
  • Ay, and a gifted prince have we,
  • Polished,—as by the knife and file,
  • The graving-tool, the smoothing-stone!
  • What grace, what dignity is there!
  • What splendour, bruited everywhere!
  • A gifted prince indeed have we,
  • And ne’er forgotten shall he be.
• • See in that nook, where bends the K‘i,
  • The green bamboos, so stout, so fine!
  • Ay, and a gifted prince have we:—
  • Rare costly stones his ears adorn,
  • Gems on his bonnet starlike shine!
  • What grace, what dignity is there!
  • What splendour, bruited everywhere!
  • A gifted prince indeed have we,
  • And ne’er forgotten shall he be.
• • See in that nook, where bends the K‘i,
  • The green bamboos, how thick they stand!
  • Ay, and a gifted prince have we:
  • Pure as the gold or tin refined,
  • Sound as the sceptre in his hand!
  • What ease, what freedom in his gait!
  • Yet see him in his car of state!
  • In pleasantry and jest expert,
  • Withal so careful none to hurt!

I. v. 2.

THE HAPPY RECLUSE.*

• • His cabin rearing† by the mountain stream,
  • There the great man finds freedom now:
  • There all alone he muses‡ night and day,§
  • Ne’er false to his perpetual vow.∥
• • His cabin rearing on the mountain side,
  • There the great man his pleasure takes:
  • There all alone he sings both night and day.
  • Nor e’er his life-long vow forsakes.
• • His cabin rearing there among the hills,
  • The great man’s world¶ is that alone:
  • There by himself he sojourns night and day,
  • Nor lets his life-long vow be known.

I. v. 8.

AN EPITHALAMIUM.*

• • Stately her person—tall and fair,
  • Clad in her robes embroidered and plain:—
  • Child of the lord of Ts‘i,
  • Bride of the lord of Wei,
  • Sister of one who is Ts‘i’s next heir,
  • Sister of wife of the lord of Hing,
  • Same of the lord of the T‘an domain!
• • Fingers, as softest buds that grow!
  • Skin, as an unguent, firm and white!
  • Neck, as the tree-worm’s breed!
  • Teeth, as the gourd’s white seed!
  • Mantis’ front, and the silk-moth brow!
  • Dimples playing in witching smile;
  • Beautiful eyes, so dark, so bright!
• • Stately in person—proud and free,
  • Halts she awhile in the lands close by,
  • Her four male steeds, full-fed,
  • Bright in their trappings red;
  • Screened by her plumes, then to court comes she.
  • Haste, ye councillors, quick depart;
  • Do not your chieftain’s patience try!
• • Wide and deep is the river, the Ho,
  • Northwards flowing, majestic, grand.
  • Broad nets splash for a haul!
  • Sturgeons are in, big and small!
  • Tall, too, its reeds and sedges grow.—
  • Richly adorned are her maids, the Kiang!
  • Martial the men that round her stand!

I. v. 4.

BETRAYED.*

• • Rustic simpleton you seemed,
  • Hawking cloth, for silk to sell;
  • ’Twas for no such thing you came,
  • ’Twas to me your plan to tell:
  • Would I cross with you the K‘i?
  • Would I follow to Tun K‘iu?
  • Would I not forego the time?
  • No good go-between† had you.—
  • Nay, but be not wroth, I cried;
  • Let it be at harvest-tide.
• • Yonder ruined walls I’d climb
  • For a glimpse of far Fu-kwan;‡
  • When Fu-kwan I could not see,
  • Down the tears incessant ran;
  • When Fu-kwan had been in sight,
  • Ah, how I would laugh and cry!
  • You were questioning the straws;§
  • “Nothing wrong” they gave reply:—
  • You must with your waggon come,
  • I must pack, and with you home.
• • Ere the mulberry leaves are fall’n,
  • They are fresh and fair to see.
  • Ah for thee, thou little dove!*
  • Eat not fruit upon that tree.
  • Ah for thee, thou tender maid!
  • Dally not with gentlemen.
  • Gentlemen may do rash deeds,
  • Yet be pardoned even then;
  • Maidens, if they do the same,
  • Never can escape the blame.
• • When the mulberry leaves are cast,
  • Yellow fall they from the tree.
  • After joining you, three years
  • Ate I bread of poverty.
  • Foamed the K‘i, and reached the hood
  • Of my (then returning) cart.
  • Never change had been in me:
  • ’Twas your own divided heart!
  • For restraints you could not brook,
  • And to changeful courses took.
• • Three years lived I as your wife;
  • Nought for household toil I cared:
  • Early rising, late to sleep,
  • Never morning was there spared.
  • So did I my vow fulfil,
  • Till began your cruelty;
  • And my brothers do not know,
  • And they only laugh at me.
  • On my silent thought I’m thrown,
  • Bearing all my hurt alone.
• • “Live united to old age?”†
  • Age to me but discord yields.
  • By its banks the K‘i is held,
  • By their bounds the swampy fields.
  • O my happy maiden days!
  • Days of mirth and converse sweet.
  • —Daily true, yet, to that vow,
  • Never dreamt I of retreat.
  • Thought of breaking it I’d none;
  • Yet, ah me! ’tis done, ’tis done!

I. v. 5.

HOME RECOLLECTIONS.*

• • Rods of long and lithe bamboo,†
  • Used for angling in the K‘i,
  • Go not back my thoughts to you,
  • Now too far away to see?
• • To the left the Fountains‡ flow,
  • To the right that river K‘i.
  • Ah, when maids a-marrying go,
  • Parents, brothers, far must be.
• • To the right that river K‘i,
  • To the left those purling Springs.
  • Sweet bright smiles (I seem to see),
  • Thinkling gems on girdle strings,
• • And the K‘i’s swift waters bear
  • Boats of pine with oars of yew.
  • O to drive and wander there,
  • Then my frettings would be few!

I. v. 6.

A CONCEITED LORDLING.

• • O the sparrow-gourd* its pod (would show)!
  • At the stripling’s girdle a bodkin† see!
  • The bodkin may at his girdle be,
  • Yet of us can the stripling nothing know.
  • What calm conceit, what a swaggering air!
  • With ends of his girdle dangling there!
• • O the sparrow-gourd is now in leaf!
  • At the stripling’s waist is an archer’s ring!‡
  • Let him wear at his waist the archer’s ring,
  • Over us can a stripling ne’er be chief.
  • What calm conceit, what a swaggering air!
  • With ends of his girdle dangling there!

I. v. 7.

SO FAR, AND YET SO NEAR.§

• • Who saith the Ho is wide?
  • A single rush will span it.
  • Who saith that Sung is far?
  • On tiptoe I can scan it.
• • Who saith the Ho is wide?
  • —E’en narrow boats impeding!
  • Who saith that Sung is far?
  • —Not a morning walk exceeding!

I. v. 8.

THE ABSENT HERO-HUSBAND.

• • My lord, a warrior bold is he,
  • The hero of the land!
  • Before his king he speedeth on,
  • With spear and lance in hand.
• • Since East he went, my hair has flown
  • Like flax-weed in the breeze.
  • I might anoint and dress it now,
  • —But whom were this to please?
• • ‘Come rain, come rain!’ yet still the sun
  • Appears in cloudless sky.
  • Thoughts of my lord my fond heart fill,
  • My head, too, sorely try.
• • O for the herb that memory kills,
  • To plant behind my wall!
  • Thoughts of my lord my fond heart fill,
  • And anguish are they all.

I. v. 9.

WIFELESS AND FORLORN.*

• • Poor fox, so friendless
  • There by the weir across the K‘i!
  • Ah me, ’twas pity
  • The goodman trouserless to see!
• • Poor fox, so friendless,
  • There as the K‘i’s deep ford he faced
  • Ah me, the pity!
  • No girdle had he to his waist.
• • Poor fox, so friendless,
  • There by the margin of the K‘i!
  • Ah me, the pity!
  • For garments none at all had he!

I. v. 10.

RECOMPENSE.

• • Some quinees once to me were sent,
  • A ruby* was my gift again;
  • Yet not as gift again;—
  • Enduring love was its intent.
• • Peaches were sent me; I a stone
  • Of jasper sent as gift again;
  • Nay, not as gift again,—
  • Enduring love it meant alone.
• • Plums I had sent me; and I sent
  • A dusky gem for gift again;
  • Yet not as gift again;
  • But long enduring love it meant.

[* ]Said to be directed against Duke Chwang (bc 756-734). Under his rule men of virtue and talent withdrew from public service and lived in obscurity.

[† ]The two first characters may be translated a dozen different ways; but they do not seem important.

[‡ ]Lit., speaks or talks.

[§ ]Lit., sleeping and waking.

[∥ ]I have ventured to differ from all commentators and translators I have seen in the rendering of this line. I take the “vow” as the object and not as the verb, for as a verb it has no object in any of the three verses.

[¶ ]Pivot—centre.

[* ]On the reception of Chwang-Kiang as bride at the Court of Wei. See note on the first Ode of Book III.

In the first stanza the lady’s high connections are proclaimed; in the second (in true Chinese metaphor!) her personal charms; in the third her arrival in Wei; and in the last the splendour of her new surroundings.

[* ]This pathetic Ode tells its own tale. The Chinese say that in it “a lewd woman who has been rejected by her husband repeats her story to herself, and so expresses her repentance”! All that can be said against her is that after much resistance she consented to marry her lover at last without going through all the prescribed forms of marriage.

[† ]The arranger of marriages between the parents—an indispensable personage; see I. viii. 6 and I. xv. 5.

[‡ ]The lover’s place of abode.

[§ ]Divining—trying his fortune.

[* ]There is a small dove that suffers from eating these berries.

[† ]An allusion to the words of the marriage vows.

[* ]A lady of Wei, married in some other State, recalls here the scenes of her youth.

[† ]The K‘i valley seems to have been noted for its bamboos (see Ode 1 of this Book).

[‡ ]The Ts‘ün-yün, known as the Hundred Springs.

[* ]The hwan lan is a delicate creeping plant, full of milky juice, unable, it is said, to rise from the ground without support,—introduced therefore here to characterize the weak youth, otherwise so precocious.

[† ]An ivory or horn stiletto, worn by adults for the loosening of knots about the dress; said to be an emblem also of capacity for difficult business.

[‡ ]This ring, also of ivory or horn, was worn by archers on the right thumb in shooting, but at other times was one of the girdle ornaments.

[§ ]A daughter of Swân-Kiang had been married to Duke Hwan of Sung. She bore him a son, but was afterwards divorced, and returned to her native Wei. On her son’s succession to the dukedom, she desired to go back to him, but the terms of her divorce, and probably her own sense of the proprieties, forbade her doing so. The river was wide, and the way long, that separated her from the son, but she regards these as nothing to overcome, had there been no other obstacle.

[* ]In a time of anarchy and confusion in Wei, there were many who could not marry. Here a widow or unmarried woman has met with a vagabond male, and his forlorn condition has so roused her matronly instincts that she is willing to marry him and look after him! Such is the usual interpretation of the piece. In the ancient Preface to the Book of Poetry it is said to be directed against the times. “The males and females of Wei were losing the time for marriage. . . . Anciently, when a State was suffering from the misery of famine, the rules were relaxed so that there might be many marriages; and men and women who had no partners were brought together, in order to promote the increase of the people.”

[* ]The names of the stones in all three stanzas are difficult to give. Known ones are given for the unknown.