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.

II. v. 1.

WORTHLESS COUNSELLORS.

• • Bounteous Heaven its stern displeasure
  • Vents* upon this lower earth.
  • When shall we have done with counsels
  • And with schemes devoid of worth?†
  • Be a counsel good, ’tis slighted,
  • Be it ill, ’tis entertained.
  • When I see them at such tactics
  • I am sore distressed and pained.
• • In their concord and their discord
  • There is much to be deplored.
  • Be a policy a good one,
  • ’Tis by all of them ignored;
  • Let an ill one be brought forward,
  • Upon that they all depend.
  • When I see them at such tactics,
  • What, methinks, will be the end?
• • Our divining-shells, exhausted,
  • Tell no more what plan is right.
  • Counsellors are far too many,
  • So can never all unite.
  • Though the Court is filled with speakers,
  • Who himself dare implicate?*
  • Like men planning routes and never moving,
  • Thus it is they never get a-gate.
• • O the pity! in their counsels
  • Not the ancients are their guides,
  • Nor great policies their standards:
  • The last word they hear decides!†
  • The last word their sole contention!
  • Like men planning to erect
  • Homes to live in while on travel!
  • Nothing can they thus effect.
• • Though the country be unsettled,
  • There are wise men, and unwise;
  • Though the inhabitants be dwindling,
  • Some have sense, some can advise.
  • Some are grave, and some methodic.
  • Yet, meseems, are one and all—
  • Like the waters from a fountain—
  • Verging to a fatal fall!
• • Who will dare to rouse a tiger?
  • Who will dare to wade the Ho?
  • Sirs, ye know but one way only;
  • Not another do ye know.
  • Act as from a sense of danger,
  • With precaution and with care,—
  • As a yawning gulf o’erlooking,
  • As on ice that scarce will bear!

II. v. 2.

LAMENTS AND WARNINGS DURING AN EVIL TIME.

• • Though small be the turtle-dove,
  • It will high in the welkin soar.
  • My heart is wrung, as I muse
  • On our sires in the days of yore.
  • At the earliest dawn two forms*
  • Haunt my soul, and I sleep no more.
• • Sedate, shrewd men o’er their cups
  • Are sober and self-restrained;
  • More sottish from day to day
  • Grow these witless and cloudy-brained.
  • Give heed to decorum, all!
  • Heaven’s gifts are not twice obtained.
• • Wild beans that on commons grow
  • Are the people’s common quest.†
  • The mulberry-insect’s brood
  • By the sphex is borne (to her nest).‡
  • Instruct, then, and train your sons;
  • You will make them good as the best.
• • Take note how the wagtail sings
  • As she flutters from place to place.§
  • The days of our life speed on,
  • And the months are marching apace;—
  • Up early, and late repose;
  • So bring to your parents no disgrace.
• • The green-beaks,* hovering round,
  • Come pecking the grain in the yards.
  • Alas for our needy and lone—
  • Thought meet for prisons and wards!
  • With handfuls of grain I divine
  • Whether fortune aught better accords.
• • Our humble, respectful men
  • Are on tops of trees, as it were;
  • Or, as peering into a gulf,
  • Shrink nervously back with care;
  • Or softly and fearfully tread
  • As on ice that will scarcely bear.

II. v. 3.

LAMENT OF A DEFAMED AND BANISHED PRINCE.†

• • There go the rooks, all flying homeward,
  • Flock after flock, in bustling glee;
  • Around me there is none unhappy,
  • I am alone in misery!
  • Wherein have I offended Heaven?
  • My guilt—whence doth it then accrue?
  • My soul is full of heaviness:
  • Alas, I know not what to do.
• • Once trodden smooth was Chow’s great highway,
  • All o’er it now rank grasses grow.
  • It grieves, it pains my heart to see it:
  • Each thought comes like a stunning blow.
  • Sleep without comfort,* sighs continual,—
  • My sorrow brings on age amain;
  • My heart is full of heaviness,
  • And throbs as throbs an aching brain.
• • The trees† around his native village
  • A man with fond regard must view.
  • I looked to none as to my father,
  • None than my mother found more true.
  • Are not these very hairs my father’s?
  • Hung I not once on a mother’s breast?
  • O that, when Heaven thus gave me being,
  • My time had been in time of rest!
• • Amid the green luxuriant willows
  • With clamour the cicadas grind;
  • And o’er the deep dark standing water
  • Bend rush and reed before the wind.
  • Myself am like a drifting vessel,
  • And whither destined do not know;
  • My soul is full of heaviness;
  • E’en roughest rest* must I forego.
• • The stag, with all his wild careering,
  • Still runs reluctant (from the herd).
  • The pheasant, crowing in the morning,
  • Crows but for his companion bird.
  • Myself am like a tree death-stricken,
  • Reft of its branches by disease;
  • My soul is full of heaviness;
  • How is it none my trouble sees?
• • See the chased hare when seeking refuge;
  • Some, sure, will interpose to save.
  • Lies a dead man upon the highway,
  • Some, sure, will dig for him a grave.
  • And should a king suppress all feeling,
  • And bear unmoved the sight of woe?
  • My soul is full of heaviness:
  • My tears run down in ceaseless flow.
• • The king lends ear to the maligner,
  • Responding, aye, as to a pledge.*
  • He lacks the charitable spirit,
  • Stays not to test what men allege.
  • In felling trees men note their leanings,
  • In cleaving wood they note its grain;—
  • (Not so with him); he clears the guilty,
  • And I, the guiltless, bear the pain.
• • Nought may be higher than a mountain,†
  • Nought may be deeper than a spring.
  • Walls may have ears: let words not lightly
  • Be uttered even by a king.
  • “Yet leave alone my fishing dam;‡
  • “My wicker-nets—remove them not:
  • “Myself am spurned;—some vacant hour
  • “May bring compassion for my lot.”

II. v. 4.

A SLANDERED OFFICIAL.

• • O far Great Heaven! we call thee
  • Our Father and our Mother!
  • Alas that on the blameless
  • Such gross disorders gather!
  • I verily am guiltless,
  • Yet stern is thy displeasure.
  • I truly am offenceless,
  • Thou harsh beyond all measure.
• • Disorder first arises
  • On falsehood’s first receiving;
  • And gathers force when rulers
  • Deem slanders worth believing.
  • Showed but the king displeasure,
  • Disorder soon had vanished;
  • And favoured he (the worthy),
  • So too it soon were banished.
• • When kings make frequent compacts,*
  • Disorder grows with vigour;
  • When faith they put in villains,
  • Then cruel is its rigour.
  • When villains’ words are blandest,
  • Disorder (most) progresses;
  • While failure in their duty
  • The monarch but distresses.
• • Grand is the ancestral temple;
  • A master mind designed it.†
  • Well framed was our Great Charter;
  • Good men and wise defined it.
  • Whate’er be these men’s motive,
  • I’ll weigh it well and watch it:
  • Though sharp the hare, and cunning,
  • The dog will round and catch it!
• • What woods are soft and supple,—
  • Our wiser men will grow them.
  • What words are said at random,—
  • One’s inner sense should know them.
  • Ah, glib high-sounding language
  • But to the tongue one traces,
  • And artful dulcet* speeches
  • To men of brazen faces.
• • And these—who are they?—Dwellers
  • On a river’s swampy borders!
  • Yet these weak, nerveless creatures
  • Give rise to such disorders!
  • Ye ulcered, swollen-shinned ones!
  • How should ye be so daring?
  • But though ye make grand schemes, and many,
  • How few to follow you are caring?

II. v. 5.

ALIENATION OF AN OLD FRIEND.†

• • And who is this? A man whose heart
  • Is in great jeopardy.
  • How comes he to approach my dam,
  • And not come in to me?
  • Ah, who is he whose heels he dogs?
  • Pâu, surely, it must be!
• • The two pursue the selfsame road;
  • But whether deals this blow?
  • How pass my dam, and not come in
  • His sympathy to show?
  • I am beneath his notice now;
  • At first it was not so.
• • Ay who is this? Why comes he now
  • Along my path, more near?
  • I fail to see himself as yet,
  • Only his voice I hear.
  • Who cannot face a man for shame,
  • Of Heaven hath he no fear?
• • Ay who is this? The man is like
  • A gusty whirling wind.
  • Why blow not from the North, or South,
  • (In front, or else behind)?
  • Why didst thou come so near my dam—
  • Only to vex my mind?
• • While driving leisurely along,
  • Thou hast no time to stop!
  • E’en driving quickly, there are times
  • Grease in thy wheels to drop.
  • Cam’st thou but once! Why am I left
  • To look, and long, and hope?
• • If thou hadst turned and called on me,
  • Then ease of heart were mine.
  • To turn and not to call—’tis hard
  • Such halting to divine.
  • Cam’st thou but once! Then come had peace:
  • (No more should I repine).
• • The whistle once the elder one,
  • The flute the younger blew;*
  • We both were strung upon one string.
  • If now I seem untrue,
  • I will bring forth my victims three,†
  • And swear to thee anew.
• • Art thou a ghost, a watersprite?
  • That all approach is vain.
  • Could face meet face and eye meet eye.
  • All then were clear and plain.—
  • Here to thy tune of twist and turn
  • I set this goodly strain.‡

II. v. 6.

DEFAMATION.

• • How finely wrought! how exquisite!
  • You weave the perfectest brocade!
  • Ye scandal-weavers!—yet ye go
  • Too far with your tirade.
• • What gaping and wide-open mouths!
  • So many Southern Sieves,§ indeed!
  • Ye scandal-mongers!—Say, yet, who
  • Takes in these plots the lead?
• • With clitter-clatter, here and there,
  • Ye plot, ye seek to vilify,
  • Yet of the tales ye tell—beware,
  • For others say ye lie.
• • Adroit and shifty—so ye plot,
  • All eager till the scandal spreads.
  • True, ’tis believed; yet even now
  • Recoils on your own heads.
• • The haughty ones are overjoyed;
  • The men who toil are sore annoyed.
  • O azure Heaven! O azure Heaven!
  • Those haughty ones do Thou regard.
  • And pity those whose toil is hard.
• • The slanderers!—And yet I’d know
  • By whose support these plottings grow.
  • Seize the defamers!—banish them
  • To wolves and tigers forth!
  • If wolves and tigers spurn such prey,
  • Send them into the North.
  • And if the North should spare them still,
  • Give them to Heaven’s own will.
• • Up to the cultivated hill
  • Through willow-patches lies a way.*
  • And I, Mang-tse the Eunuch, am
  • The author of this lay.
  • All ye of higher grade, take heed
  • And list to what I say.

II. v. 7.

FRIENDSHIP VEERS WITH FORTUNE.

• • It blows, it blows, the East wind blows,
  • First softly, then the rains ensue.
  • Once were alarms and anxious fears,
  • And I was all in all to you;
  • Now there is peace and all that cheers
  • You turn and spurn me from your view.
• • It blows, it blows, the East wind blows,
  • First softly, then with fierce hot blast
  • Once, in alarm, with anxious fears,
  • You held me to your bosom fast;
  • Now there is peace and all that cheers
  • Away like refuse I am cast.
• • It blows, it blows, the East wind blows,
  • And on the rugged rock-crowned height
  • There’s not a plant it fails to kill,
  • And not a tree it fails to blight.
  • Blind to my excellences still,
  • My little faults you keep in sight.

II. v. 8.

THE ORPHAN.

• • How tall and strong the southernwood has grown!
  • Ah no!—the tansy* rather.
  • O mother mine! O father!
  • And for my life what travail ye have known!
• • Yea, tall and strong the southernwood I see;
  • Nay, wormwood—somewhat other.
  • O father mine! O mother!
  • And for my life what toil and pain had ye!
• • Ah, when no more the flagon is supplied,
  • Disgrace befals the jar.*
  • O better lot by far
  • Than orphaned life, to long ago have died!
• • The fatherless—in whom shall he confide?
  • The motherless find rest?
  • Abroad, with grief suppressed
  • He goes; returns,—none hastens to his side
• • O father, thou didst give my life to me!
  • O mother, thou didst nourish
  • And comfort me, and cherish
  • And rear and train me from my infancy,
• • And watch and tend and to thy bosom press
  • At parting or return!
  • To requite such love I burn,
  • But, like Great Heaven itself, ’tis measureless.
• • Around South Hill’s bleak eminences moan
  • The battling, wheeling winds!
  • Ah, while none other finds
  • Life robb’d of joy, why suffer I alone?
• • Yea, round South Hill’s acclivities and bluffs
  • The circling storm-wind beats.
  • Round me is none but meets
  • With joy in life: I only meet rebuffs.

II. v. 9.

THE NEGLECTED EASTERN STATES.*

• • Once supped we from well-laden trenchers,
  • And thornwood spoons bent to the loads!
  • ’Twixt here and Chow, worn smooth as whetstones,
  • And straight as arrows, were the roads.
  • Thereon the great officials travelled,
  • Plebeians there to gaze would go:—
  • When I look back and contemplate it,
  • My tears in very torrents flow.
• • Here in the East, whate’er the Province,†
  • Shuttle and distaff none may use;‡
  • And sparsely-woven fibre-sandals
  • Must serve to walk on frozen dews.
  • There, dainty tender sons of nobles
  • Are journeying on those roads of Chow.
  • Alack! their goings and their comings
  • Fill me with sickening sorrow now.
• • Ye ice-cold rills, from springs escaping!
  • Do not the gathered fuel soak.
  • Sore harassed, troubled, sleepless, sighing,—
  • Enough have our afflicted folk.
  • Their firewood is cut down and bundled:
  • Had they but strength to get it in,
  • Poor toiling miserable people,
  • Then some repose perchance they’d win.
• • Here in the East the sons of nobles
  • For service hard remain unpaid;
  • There in the West the sons of nobles
  • Are in most gorgeous garb arrayed.
  • There, too, the very sons of boatmen
  • Apparelled are in furs of bears;
  • Yea, those of humblest antecedents
  • Are charged with all the land’s affairs.
• • Let some of them have wine before them,
  • They take no count yet of its strength;
  • And their long-dangling girdle-trinkets
  • In their opinion lack in length!
  • —There, looking down with radiant brightness,
  • Appears in Heaven the Milky Way;*
  • There, too, stand out the Weaving Sisters,†
  • Seven stages making through the day—
• • Yet, weaving through their stages seven,
  • Nought bright for us do they produce.
  • And the Draught Oxen‡ shimmering yonder
  • For waggon-draught are scarce of use!
  • Though in the East be the star of morning,
  • Though in the West the evening star,
  • And though the Hare-net§ show its foldings,
  • —All keep their paths (nor mend nor mar)!
• • There in the South the Sieve* is shining,
  • Yet not for sifting was it made.
  • There in the North appears the Ladle,†
  • Yet ne’er a liquor will it lade.
  • Though southward there the Sieve be shining,
  • Here points its Tongue‡ beyond the rest!
  • Though northward there appear the Ladle,
  • It hoists its Handle in the West!

II. v. 10.

EVIL TIMES.

• • With the fourth month cometh Summer,
  • With the sixth its heats decline.—
  • Are my sires§ no longer human,
  • Feeling not for me and mine?
• • Chilly grow the days of Autumn,
  • Nature fading everywhere.—
  • Sick of tumults and desertions,—
  • Whither should one yet repair?
• • Now the Winter days grow colder,
  • And the storm-winds round us moan.—
  • Ah, while all around are happy,
  • Why am I distressed alone?
• • On the heights the trees grow grandly,
  • Chestnuts here, and plum-trees there.—
  • Our high∥ places breed despoilers,
  • Of their mischief none aware.
• • See the waters of the fountain,
  • Turbid now, then crystalline.—
  • Daily wedded to Misfortune,
  • When shall I make Fortune mine?
• • Han and Kiang are noble rivers,
  • Regents of the Southern States!—
  • Why do I now count for nothing,
  • Whom long service enervates?
• • I am not a hawk, an eagle,
  • That may soar into the sky.
  • Nor am I an eel or lamprey,
  • In the deep to lurk and lie.
• • Hills grow royal fern and bracken,
  • Vales the medlar and the sloe.—*
  • I, a great one, write these verses,
  • Let them tell my tale of woe!

[* ]Lit., diffuses over.

[† ]Lit., all-perverse.

[* ]i.e., incur or take upon himself any responsibility.

[† ]Lit., only the last word do they hearken to (or follow).

[* ]Those of the two parents.

[† ]The bearing of these opening lines upon what follows is not sufficiently obvious. But see next note.

[‡ ]The young of the mulberry-insect was, according to popular belief, stolen by the sphex, or solitary wasp, carried off to its hole, and trained up as a wasp! Perhaps we are to understand that the wild beans were in this way sought by the people in order that they might be domesticated and brought to perfection.

[§ ]Learn, i.e., from it how to be energetic and active. Few birds sing on the wing.

[* ]These are birds that feed usually on the fat of meat; in these straitened times they were struggling for existence like the people, and eating what they could get.

[† ]This prince was Yi-k‘iu, the son of King Yiu. He was heir to the throne; but on Pau-sze becoming the king’s favourite the young prince was banished, his mother degraded, and a son of Pau-sze named as successor to the throne.

[* ]Sleep without undressing, or unreal sleep.

[† ]Two kinds of trees are specified, the mulberry-tree and another, which, from being planted round the homestead and sheltering the house like father and mother, have become the symbolical expression for “home.”

[* ]A pledge-cup.

[† ]Evidently these two lines allude to the difficulty of approach to the king; yet there were those who did manage to get near him, and it behoved him to be careful in his speech.

[‡ ]These last four lines are quoted from I. iii. 10, and are used here figuratively.

[* ]Alluding, evidently, to compacts or leagues which the king had made with inferior princes, putting himself thereby on an equal footing with them.

[† ]Lit., made it.

[* ]“Organ-tongue-like.”

[† ]The writer is said to have been a duke of Su, who had been much maligned by a duke of Pâu. Through the slanders uttered against him by Pâu, an old friend was deserting him, and attaching himself to the slanderer. The friend comes into the neighbourhood of the writer’s dwelling, but hesitates to visit him.

[* ]See III. ii. 10, stanza 6.

[† ]The three victims were a dog, a pig, and a fowl. By the mingling of the blood of these animals it was the ancient custom to ratify bonds or agreements.

[‡ ]“I have made this goodly song to follow thee to the utmost through thy twistings and turnings.”

[§ ]The “Southern Sieve” is a Chinese constellation of four stars, two of which are near each other, and are called “The Heels,” and two wide apart, called “The Mouth.”

[* ]The meaning would seem to be that though the persons aimed at were in high places, and the writer in a lowly one, yet there was a way by which he could reach them, viz., by this song.

[* ]This plant and the “wormwood” of the second stanza are in the original names of other species of southernwood, evidently inferior in value, and the grown-up son sees in them, on second thoughts, some resemblance to himself.

[* ]The smaller vessel which supplies the larger; as the son should provide for the parent.

[* ]The writer seems to have been an official in the East during the time of King Yiu.

[† ]Lit., in the Lesser East or Greater East, referring to the States.

[‡ ]Lit., are empty.

[* ]The Ode from this point is full of satire, even against the supposed powers in the sky.

[† ]Three stars in Lyra. The “seven stages” are seven out of the twelve of two hours each into which a day was divided. On the constellation rising it would be in the seventh.

[‡ ]The “Draught Oxen” are a Chinese constellation in the upper part of Aquila.

[§ ]The Hyades.

[* ]See on Ode 6, verse 2, p. 230.

[† ]A constellation in Sagittarius.

[‡ ]So, literally, but in Ode 6 it is called the Mouth.

[§ ]The spirits of ancestors were supposed to be capable of assisting men in trouble.

[∥ ]The line is rather obscure: “Degenerating, becoming despoilers”; but being evidently in apposition to the first line it will bear this rendering.

[* ]What is here meant is doubtful; some think the lines express a contrast between the writer’s circumstances and the hills and vales in nature, each of which had its appropriate growths; others suppose that he was now thinking of retiring to lead the life of a recluse, and would look for his sustenance in growths like these.