Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CONFUCIAN
ODES
T H E C L A S SI C
A N T H O L O G Y
D E FI N E D BY
C O N F U C I U S
EZRA
POUND
FIFTH PRINTING
-K'ung-fu-tsy
A clever young man once asked Po-yii, Confucius' son, if his father
had ever favored him with anything he did not impart to hls disciples.
Po-yii answered:
"No, he was standing alone one day as I was going by the court
yard, he said: 'Studied the Odes?'*
"I replied: 'No.'
'"Not study the Odes, won't be able to use words.' I went out and
studied the Odes.
"Another day he was again standing alone, I went by the court.
Said: 'Studied the Rites?'
"Replied: 'No.'
"'If you don't study the Rites you won't be established.' I went out
and studied the Rites."
On still another occasion Confucius told his son, when Po-yii pre
sumably had made some progress with the Odes: "A man who hasn't
worked on the Chou-nan [Odes 1-11] and ..Shao-nan [Odes 12-25] is
like one who stands with his face to a wall /With his disciples, some of
whom must have been rather recalcitrant, Confucius remonstrated in
these words: "Why don't you study the Odes? The Odes will arouse you,
give you food for thought, teach you how to make friends, show you the
way of resentment, bring you near to being useful to your parents and
sovereign, and help you remember the names of many birds, a.nlmals,
plants and trees."
What exactly, then, was the role Confucius played with regard to the
Book of Odes which he prized more than any other? It used to be thought
that he selected the 305 pieces from a corpus of some 3000 songs gathered
over the centuries -a theory now generally rejected. In all probability
rm �
�MmJ11i· �-��13T1lli!.lll!:7t;(713-74l�al
��� a a y
a--g
�
.. II .. " n
a ., ., ., ., .,
Lfll Ill If 14. « M .2: 811• u n a *· .tr .:r � lt.
� •
� •,•..
e n tol
II n
I� h • h .. it
"
� •b, e II
I! h .. 5! Cf " 0 9
a.- .z. 1'i "' a • ·m ):II; iii � 111 ;ft, • " li fill,
., . v
f*·
s
0
..
u n
I u s I' u ., .. "
I
'·. .l i} llo t;; 6 ::1! .z.. 1!1 ft � *· !II! B 11: :t.
v .. t
n
f PI e "
a
' a
ii
if
u: II "
n
I 1:1
h II
se j! " .. le 6 it %. 1!1 R Ill *· fll ii "' :t.
lf?@rl Ql" I
£#!Jj I JCJ I
IJ Jf 'It
II
f4,
I fr tJ I rfft I e
morsel of food; yet Confucius went on plucking the lute (k'in)* and
singing the Odes.
xili INTRODUCTION
odes (nos. 1, 2, 3, 12, 13, 15, 161, 162, 163, 170, 171, 172) written dpwn
in the eighth century. Two versions of Ode 1 are printed here; one based
on the original notation and the second on the revision proposed by
K'iu Chy-lu in the nineteenth century.
For the reader who wishes to try the music, a syllable-for-syllable
transcription of the ode as pronounced in North China ("a maunderin
tongue in a pounderin jowl"- Finnegans Wake) is given here:
For the past twenty centuries Chinese students have intensely oc
cupied themselves in the study of the Odes; in this respect they were
true Confucians. In fact, they could not but familiarize themselves with
a book which happened to be approved as a canonical text. It was per
haps unavoidable that the philological problems embedded in their
Classic Anthology were not seriously discussed. Research into these
problems has been made only during the past three centuries. There is
no doubt that most of them were solved by Ts'ing Dynasty scholars,
who were forriiidable philologists. But it was only in recent years that
scholars like the late Weri I-to have succeeded, with the help of compara-
* A volume containing a sound key to the 305 Odes (transcription of each syllable of the
poems), along with the Chinese text in seal script and the present English translation,
will be published by the Harvard University Press. Ezra Pound, who has agreed to the
publicati�n of the present volume as a step toward this fuller presentation, does not
believe that "there can be any real understanding of a good Chinese poem without
knowledge both of the ideogram reaching the eye, and the metrical and melodic form
reaching the ear or aural imagination."
xiv INTRODUCTION
tive mythology and ethnology, in clarifying points left untouched by
mere philologists. Unfortunately, more spade-work is yet to be done
before we can claim to understand the Odes satisfactorily. Thus all
translators of the Odes must take courage in their hands; after all, trans
lators are interpreters among other things.
A translator of the Odes suffers from another handicap: Chinese
scholars do not have much to tell him about the poetry and poetics of
the Odes. Although men like Yii P'ing-po and Chu Tsy-ts'ing have
recently contributed much to our w1derstanding of the Odes as poetry,
the translator still must shift for himself; he must, as Rossetti says in
the preface to his Early Italian Poets, "cut various knots, and make
arbitrary decisions" on his own. Furthermore, "mais d'abord il faut
etre un poete."
The poet Ponnd's career as a translator of Chinese poetry was
launched with the publication of Cathay (1915), with which volume he
became, says T. S. Eliot, "the inventor of Chinese poetry for our time."
(The first poem of that slim volume is actually Ode 167; the appreciable
difference between the present version and the "Song of the Bowmen of
Shu" is understandable because in the earlier version Pound was at the
mercy of Ernest Fenollosa's notes.)
As for Ponnd as Confucian, it is not known when he was converted;
by the time he published his translation of Ta Hio (1928) he certainly
was a Confucian to all intents and purposes. As the translator of the
Classic Anthology, Pound now emerges as a Confucian poet. Instead of
taking the present volume merely as another addition to the long list of
Sinological translations, we have to "try with thoughts to comprehend.
the intention:," as Hien-k'iu Meng was told by Mencius.
In tllis translation Pound, the Confucian, "the old hand as stylist
still holding its cunning," is intent on fusing words and music. For this
purpose the choice of the ball ad meter is a happy one, as it not only
makes the translation readable but accurately brings out the original
rhythm of the Odes. For the Odes are essentially ballads; they were all
sung, and some of them were probably dance-songs as well.
The Classic Anthology is divided into four parts: Feng, Siao Ya, Ta
Ya, and Sung. The Feng or "Winds" (Part I, Odes 1-160) are folk
songs of fifteen states in North China, of which four (Chou, Shao, vVang,
Pin) were within the royal domain of the House of Chou. It has never
been satisfactorily explained why songs from other states are not in
cluded. Conspicuously absent from the Feng section are the two states
of Lu and Sung; it is hardly conceivable that no folk songs existed there.
The absence of songs from Wu and Ch'u, however, has been explained
XV INTRODUCTION
by the fact that these two southern kingdoms were not within the orbit
of China Proper- an explanation based on the political motiv�tion
that supposedly lies behind the Feng. It is said that there were Court
Anthologists in the early days of the Chou Dynasty (1134-247) whose
function was to collect songs through the length and breadth of the
land for the sake of supplying the king with data for gauging the ll)C> res
({eng) of his realm; in other words, the Odes served as straw votes.fl'his
Gallup-poll theory has some plausibility; since ancient Chinese were
noted for their love of the arts and for their obsession with politics, to
the extent of making a fine art of playing politics, it is not hard to be
lieve that they managed to combine politics with poetry.
The difference between Parts II and III of the Anthology (together
known as Ya) is far from obvious. The generally accepted view is that
both are concerned with the political life ofi the day and that matters
of lesser importance are in Siao Ya or "Elegantiae Minores" (Part II,
Odes 161-234), while more serious matters went into Ta Ya or "Ele
gantiae Majores" (Part III, Odes 235-265). Be that as it may, some of
theTa Ya poems resemble those contained in Part IV, Sung.
Most of the Sung or "Lauds" (Odes 266-305) are hymns sung on
formal occasions, such as offering sacrifices to the royal manes, or spirits,
in ancestral temples. The inclusion of the Odes of Lu (297-300) and
Shang (301-305) in this section needs some explanation. The Duchy of
Lu was, of course, Confucius' home state; but this fact hardly justifies
the exclusion of sacrificial hymns of other states from the Sung section
or the omission of folk songs of Lu in the Feng section. Obviously some
thing is amiss here. The same applies to the Shang poems, which have
nothing to do with the defunct dynasty known as Shang or Yin. "Shang"
here stands for the Duchy of Sung, which was ruled by the scions of the
Shang Dynasty and from which an ancestor of Confucius, a royal prince,
had migrated to the State of Lu. Possibly Confucius could be responsible
for the inclusion of the four Lu poems and the five "Shang" poems in
the Sung section instead of in theTa Ya section of the Anthology.
Instead of trying to explain the three terms, feng, y a and sung, by
,
the content of the poems, some would accept them in a musical sense,
taking the four parts of the Anthology as four modes with which to sing
the poems. Ancient music being lost, such a theory must remain un
proved.
Besides puzzling over the tripartite division of the Anthology, Chinese
scholars since the second century B.C. have been cudgeling their brains
in an effort to unravel the meanings of a triplet of terms applied to the
nature of tropes involved in each poem and even in each stanza. Fu is
narrative, pi metaphorical, and hing allusive. There is not only disagree-
xvi INTRODUCTION
ment about the precise definition of these terms, but different writers
have had different notions of applying them. These terms, however,
cannot be lightly brushed off. Take Ode 6, for instance. What part is
the peach tree supposed to play in a bridal song? Possibly there was
some mythological connection between the peach tree and marriage;
perhaps marriages were usually held at the time when peach trees were
in flower, say in May. But the reader of that poem as a poem would not
be too demanding if he insisted on knowing the poetic function of the
prunus persica, uar. vulgaris in an epithalamium. Literary scholarship
should devote some effort to the perplexing problem of poetics; Chinese
scholars have not yet made any systematic exploration of the world of
imagery.
The Odes are said to give expression to chy. But the statement shy
yen chy is essentially an etymological definition: the ideogram shy (Odes)
is composed of yen (speech, to speak, to express) and chy (feeling, aim,
wish, will). Even so, Chinese poetics has been dominated by this defini
tion since the second century B.c., just as European poetics used to be
dominated by the Aristotelian terms mimesis and katharsis. For the word
shy soon came to mean, by extension, poetry par excellence.
Since the word chy is ambivalent, different writers could deduce dif
ferent types of poetics from the definition. By emphasizing the emotive
side of the word, Lu Ki in the third century wrote that shy, which he
took as lyric poetry, should trace emotions daintily; this sounds very
much like Pound's definition: "Poetry is a verbal statement of emotional
values; a poem is an emotional value verbally stated." Usually, however,
emphasis was laid on the volitional aspect of chy, with the result that
the Odes (at least the Feng poems) were understood to be an expression
of the wishes and desires of the often anonymous poets who wrote them.
Supported by the Gallup-poll theory, this school of interpreters would
stress the politico-ethical content of the Odes. Until the great neo
Confucian Chu Hi in the twelfth century discouraged this tendency,
"orthodox" Confucians, who took the Classic A nthology as one of their
canonical books, could not see poetry for politics. James Legge's transla
tion of the definition, "Poetry is the expression of earnest thought," is
based on the interpretation advanced by such "orthodox" Confucians.
Moreover, even before Confucianism received official sanction from
the State, such interpretation seems to have been rampant. As a matter
of fact, the Odes were sung or quoted on all possible occasions: in in
formal conversations, at convivial gatherings, on diplomatic missions.
(And it was owing to this practice that the Odes survived the book
burning orgy of 213 B.C., for they were engraved in the memory of
JtVii INTRODUCTION
scholars.) Naturally it often happened that lines were lifted 0ut of cpn
text. A certain Hien-k'iu Meng, for example, quoted two lines from the
second stanza of Ode 205,
to prove that a king should enjoy homage from everyone in the realm,
not excluding his own father. It was on this occasion that Mencius (372-
289) counseled against literal and dismembered interpretation of the
Odes: "Do not insist on their rhetoric so as to distort their language,
nor insist on their language so as to distort their intention (chy), but try
with your thoughts to comprehend that intention."
In thus insisting on the importance of context and sympathy, Mencius
was merely following Confucius' precept. In the Analects Confucius says:
"The anthology of 300 poems can be gathered into the one statement:
Have no twisty thoughts."* This statement should be read in the light
of another saying of his quoted as the epigraph of this introduction.
Read in that context, Confucius must be understood as trying to inte
grate music with "rites" (li), just as he tried to integrate poetry with
music; poetry, rites, and music were a single unit in Confucius' thinking.
The word li, essentially a code of behavior, is generally rendered as
"rites" when that behavior is directed toward the supernatural or the
manes, and as "etiquette" when it concenlS man's relation with his
fellow men. Without going into a lengthy discussion of the term, we may
recall Confucius' rhetorical question: "Are gems and silk all that is
meant by rites (li)? are bells and drums all that is meant by music?"
Perhaps the late Ku Hung-ming had an insight when he rendered li
as "tact." It could, as well, be translated "character."
Confucius' statement at the beginning of this Introduction, then,
may be paraphrased thus: A man wakes up with the study of the Odes,
stands on his feet if he has tact (not only in the handling of men and gods,
but in the reading of the Odes), and becomes perfect through musical
pursuit. "Music," says the Li-ki, "is what unifies."
* Sy wu sie. which appears at the end of this volume. The three words seem to mean the
same thing as "directio voluntatis" of Dante (De vulgari eloquentia, II, 2). The sentence
occurs also in the final stanza of Ode 297, but Pound has apparently seen fit to leave it
untranslated; he too insists on the importance of context.
P A R T
ONE
In fifteen books
F 0 L K S 0 N G S
simple lyrlca
PART I FOLK SONOS (KUO FENO)
II 2
Ill 3
She:
Curl-grass, curl-grass,
to pick it, to pluck it
to put in a bucket
never a basket load
Here on Chou road, but a man in my mind!
Put it down here by the road.
He :
Pass, pass
up over the pass,
a horse on a mountam road!
A winded horse on a high road,
give me a drink to lighten the load.
As the cup is gilt, love is spilt.
Pam lasteth long.
IV 4
v 5
VI 6
VIII 8
IX 9
2
I've piled high her kindling wood
and cut down thorns in plenty;
to get the gal to go home with me.
I've fed the horse she lent me.
X 10
By the levees of Ju
I cut boughs in the brake,
not seeing milord
to ease heart-ache.
XI
MYTHICAL BEAST 11
12
II 13
Plucking quinces
in service of princes,
in vale, pluck again
and carry to fane.
In high wimple
bear to the temple
ere dawn light,
then home
for the night, leisurely, leisurely.
Ill 14
2
I climb South Hill to pick the turtle-fern,
seeing no man
such climb's heart-burn
3
To climb South Hill picking the jagged fern
and see no man, who shall not pine and yearn?
IV 15
v 16
VII 18
VIII 19
X 21
XI 22
XII 23
XIII
EPITHALAMIUM 24
XIV
THE GAMEKEEPER
(model game conservation or It lacks point)* 25
26
II 27
Ill
LIMPIDITY :za
Swallows in flight
on veering wing,
she went to bridal so far over the waste,
my tears falling
like rain, as she passed from sight.
IV 29
VI 31
VII 32
VIII 33
X
THE EFFICIENT WIFE'S COMPLAINT 35
XI
(KING CHARLES) 36
Why? why?
Worse, worse!
Say that we could
go home but for his noble blood.
Sleeping in mud,
why? why?
XII 37
XIII
GUARDSMAN IN BALLET 38
XIV
BRIDE'S NOSTALGIA FOR HOME FOLKS 39
18 1· 3 AIRS OF PEl
"By Fei-Ts' iian's winding stream "
of Sii and Ts'ao is all my dream,
and all I can get is a p.m. drive
to keep my inner life alive.
XV 40
XVI 41
Sougheth to North,
Sleeteth cold snow,
Kindly who love me, take hands and go!
19 1· 3 AIRS OF PEl
XVII
THE APPOINTMENT MANQU E 42
XVIII
"Satire on 1he marriage
of Duke Siian" 43
XIX
"Rumours as to the death
of s U ah•s sons" 44
The boat floats past the sky's edge, lank sail a-flap;
and a dark thought inside me: how had they hap?
45
II
(Three &lrophes with negligible
variations) 46
"'
CAESAR'S WIFE 47
IV
THE CONSTANT LOVER 48
v 49
22 I· 4 YUNG WIND
Pies and quails
tear each other's entrails
and there's a fair lady would do no less:
Let me present our Marchioness.
VI
liNG
the star of quiet course, marking the time
to end field work 50
VII
NO TRUST IN RAINBOWS 51
VIII
SANS EQUITY AND SANS POISE
"Dentes habet."
Catullus 52
IX 53
X
Baroness Mu Impeded in her wish
to help famine victims in Wei 54
In coves of K'i,
bamboo in leaf abWld antly.
As metal tried is fine
or as sceptre of jade is clean;
stern in his amplitude,
magnanimous to enforce true laws, or lean
over chariot rail in humour
as he were a tiger
with velvet paws.
II 56
Ill
EPITHALAMIUM
57
27 1· 5 WEI WINO
her teeth as melon seeds,
a forehead neat as is a katydid's,
her brows and lids, as when you see her smile
or her eyes turn, she dimpling the while,
clear white, gainst black iris.
IV
PEDLAR 58
v
SEHNSUCHT, LONG POLES 59
Oars (and are they of juniper?) lift and fall in the K'i
in my mind's eye the pine boat swerves
as I drive in the park
to quiet my nerves.
VI
WOLF 60
Feeble as a twig,
with a spike so big
in his belt, but know us he does not.
Should we melt
at the flap of his sash ends?
VII 61
Wide, Ho?
A reed will cross its flow;
Sung far?
One sees it, tip-toe.
VIII 62
Baron at arms,
ten-cubit halbard to war is
in the front rank
of the king's forays
driving, driving :
Eastward,
Eastward.
Why oil my hair, that's like a bush flying }
Or pile it high
If he come not forbye.
Rain, oh rain,
in drought's time,
Or the bright sun quickens;
and a rhyme in my thought of him:
For sweetness of the heart
the head sickens.
IX
(STRIP-TEASE?) 63
* Said to be by the divorced wife of Huan of Sung, after her son's accession, decontm
forbidding her to return to court.
X 64
ALITER
From the commentary:
"Where once was palace
now Is straggling grain."
* According to tradition, a lament on the overgrown site of the old capital. Including
parts of the commentary one would get the refrain :
B y the far heaven's dark canopy
What manner of man hath wrought this misery?
t The heaven is far off, there is here a human agency. One very often comes round to old
Legge's view. after devious by-paths.
Ill 67
IV
Troops transferred from
one mountain area lo another 68
VI 70
ALITER
VIII
TAEDIUM 72
IX 73
Hemp on hill ,
tell me, pray:
What keeps young Tsy Tsie away?
On mid slope
wheat grows fine,
Why doesn't Tsy Kuo come to dine?
75
II 76
Ill 77
Shu 's in the wild field, there 's no hitched horse in town;
though if you might
find someone driving there
'twere no such knight.
IV 78
MANOEUVRES
*'D'un air bonasse."
Vlaminck 79
VI 80
39 I ·7 SONGS OF CHENG
Note that lamb coat, fleecy to leopard cuff,
a dude, but he knows hls stuff.
VII 81
VIII 82
IX 83
XI 85
ALITER
XII 86
XIV 88
XV 89
42 I ·7 SONGS OF CHENG
XVI
"As on the last day of the moon" 90
XVII
THE STUDENT'S BLUE
COLLAR OR LAPEL 91
XVIII 92
XIX 93
XX 94
XXI
SAY IT WITH PEONIES 95
II
TOUJOURS LA POLITESSE 97
Ill 90
IV
TOWN LIFE 99
v 1 00
Still dark,
mistaking a kilt for a coat
upside down:
" To the Duke, sir, since . . . "
VI 101
VII
"Their eyes are in the ends of I he Earth." 1 02
VIII 103
IX 1 04
X
LA MADONE DES WAGON5-LITS 105
* Legge says the satire is against her son the Duke of Lu for not keeping the dowager
in order. Karlgren dissents. " Loose Fish," usual term for unattached males.
XI
''An alar an albus" . . ..
Cotulluc 106
107
50 1 •9 SONGS OF NGWEJ
Goodman? or mean? we mean
good to accumulate and accumulate,
noted of late at her left hand
on formal occasions, meticulous
with an ivory pin in a belt *
which cramps him, we mean
the tightening has an inner cause
II
ENCROACHMENT
"Families who use iee, do not etc."
Ta Hie 108
To gather sorrel
in swamplands of Fen,
is a suitable act for local men,
but for a resplendent officer
who moves in charge of a ducal car?
lll
JE BOIS DANS MON VERRE 109
IV 1 10
v 111
VI
"SILK-DINE"
that Is, In idleness 1 12
K'an, k'an,
axes clank.
From oak to spoke,
we pile the planks by Ho bank,
steady as the waters flow.
They never sow nor reap
nor hunt, yet keep
grain as much as three hundred krores
and have yards full of young, hung wild boars
to help 'em dine in milk-white silk
(Idle food for the nobleman!)
VII
RATS 1 13
RATS,
stone-head rats lay off our grain,
three years pain,
enough, enough, plus enough again.
RATS,
big rats, lay off our wheat,
three years deceit,
and now we're about ready to go
to Lo Kuo, happy, happy land, Lo Kuo, good earth
where we can earn our worth.
RATS,
stone-head rats, spare our new shoots,
three years, no pay.
We're about ready to move away
to some decent border town.
Good earth, good sown,
and make an end to this endless moan.
1 14
54 1 - 10 SONGS OF T'ANG
Cricket's in hall, the killers' carts put by,
Rejoice and now, tho' suns be insolent.
Too-much sires woe, be mindful of thine extent.
Enjoy the good yet sh1k not in excess,
True scholar stands by his steadfastness.
II 1 15
Ill 1 16
Water dashing
on sharp-edged rocks;
silk robe and red lapel
followed to Wu
and saw Milord there,
wasn't that a happy affair!
55 1 - 10 SONGS OF T'ANG
Water dashing
on white flare of stone;
We hear it is ordered and dare tell none. *
IV
"Evviva Ia torre di Plsal" 117
v
TS'AN
the three stars of Orion 118
She says:
I've tied the faggots round,
Three stars are in the sky,
a night, a night,
to see my man, and hold him pleasantly.
* Tradition that this concerns the conspiracy of Ch'eng-shy against Chao, Marquis of
Tsi n ; commentators at loggerheads as to its bearing: pro-rock, pro-water, loyalty to legal
insignia, warning, irony, incitement, taunt to Ch'eng-shy who had illegally assumed the
insignia. Which wd/ come to: We hear you have the appointment (from heaven) but
fear to proclaim (kao) it openly. 74<1-738 a.c. The obscurity undoubtedly intentional.
t Traditionally refers to rising power of Huan-Shu, co-rebel with Ch'eng-shy.
56 1 - 10 SONGS OF T'ANG
He says:
Now I've bound the thorns together,
Three stars above the door
have brought me to tie with such a lass
as never I saw before.
VI 119
VII
(Meaning wholly conjectural) 1 20
VIII
PAO
That carrion crow has advantage. 121
57 1· 10 SONGS OF T'ANG
Buzzards fly and nest in thorns,
thick the thorns as the king's affairs.
Neglect of grain no man spares.
How shall a father and mother eat
with this deficient grain supply?
Shall the far arched heaven defend
mankind from such an end?
IX 1 22
X
At the road's bend
dare say he'd make a
nice gentleman-friend. 123
5 11 1 · 10 !lONGS OF T'ANG
XI
ALBA 1 24
A summer's day,
winter's night, a hundred years
and we come to one house together.
XII 1 25
59 1 · 10 SONGS OF T'ANG
BOOK 1 1 . SONGS OF TS'IN
Feudal stale from 897-221 , rising to
dynasty after Chou. As the Cbou
capital moved eastward, Ts'ln subject
to wild infiltration from the West.
1 26
II
WINTER HUNT 1 27
60 I· 1 1 SONGS OF TS'IN
double teams J
neat in their rounds
with the tinkling sounds
of bells, and the long and short-nosed hounds.
Ill 128
IV
PHANTOM 129
61 I· I I SONGS OF TS'IN
Chill, chill be the reeds,
the white dew not yet dry;
What manner of man is he
under the hanging bank?
Up stream heavily.
gin I swim down,
on tufted isle
distantly.
v
The outdoor chief
establishes court 1 30
62 1· 1 1 SONGS OF TS'IN
VI
THE THREE SHAY BROTHERS
Funeral sacrince far Duke Mu, 621 B.C. 131
VII
"Long wind, the dawn wind" 132
VIII 1 33
What! No clothes?
Share my cloak, at the Iring's call
spear, lance and all
prepare
and advance
with axes, together.
What! no clothes?
My underwear is just your size.
Levies arise,
at the Iring's call
we rise all
with lances and halbards, together.
What! no clothes?
Take my spare kilt. Shine mail-coat and axe!
Lift we our packs
and out together.
IX 134
64 H1 SONGS OF TS'IN
X
WELCOME OUTSTAYED 1 35
II
HILARE DIE 1 37
66 I· 12 SONGS OF CH'EN
Ill 138
IV
THE THIRD DAUGHTER OF Kl 139
v
,
RENDEZ-VOUS MANQUE 1 40
67 I· 12 SONGS O F CH'EN
Neath thick willow boughs
'twas for last night.
Thick the close shade there.
The dawn is axe-bright.
VI 141
ALITER
VII 142
68 1· 1 2 SONGS OF CH'EN
VIII 1 43
IX
THE DIVERSIVE 1 44
X 145
* A few transpositions but I think the words are all in the text.
t Legge says: a satire on Duke Ling"s intrigue with Hia Nan. I take it with play on
meaning of her name " Summer South."
69 1· 1 2 SONGS O F CH'EN
Marsh edge, valerian in sedge
and a ladye;
Hard head she hath.
I lie a-bed
afHicted.
ALITER
146
II
Sad 'tis to see good cualoms In neglect,
Our mourners now be no more circumspect. 1 47
Ill 1 48
IV
THE KETTLE-DRUMS * 149
71 I• 13 SONGS O F KUEI
Not the storm's whirling
nor the war cars' surging
But the ruin of highways in Chou,
and rmpitied.
If a man can boil fish
let him wash out his cauldron,
If a man would home West
let him cherish this tone.
POLONIUS ON OSTENTATION
(The banner-fly wears proper
mourning In season?) 150
II
.
OUTDOORS VERSUS THE COURT
(Conjeclurolly: country girl's
advice to the guardsman) 151
72 1· 14 SONGS O F TS'AO
Pelican on the dam
wets not a wing,
she 's less important than
hef furnishing.
South Mount, East Slope, you scarce can see thru the mist
when the dawn 's half alight.
Pleasant, yes, ready, yes,
the youngest girl has an appetite.
Ill
THE YOUNG IN NEWFANGLENESSE 1 52
IV 1 53
73 1 · 14 SONGS OF TS'AO
Cold waters flood and. rot the sandal root;
By night I wake and sigh:
Chou 's down.
1 54
2
Sinketh the fiery sign neath the seventh moon;
ninth, we get clothes; when spring 'gins quicken
orioles in broom and bracken
cry to basket-bearing girls
trapsing about field-paths in Wei
to strip leaves from the mulberry;
74 I · 15 SONGS O F PIN
3
August moon marks the heat's edge,
September is for reed and sedge
when the silkworms start to hatch
we'll go twig the mulberry patch
with little axe and small hatchet
lop the splay boughs, to keep she-trees tight set.
So in August shrilleth shrike,
in September they'll spin belike
to make such yellow, stark red and black
as befits young lordling's back.
4
May is for grass seed,
June, Cicada's joy;
September, harvest, November to destroy
dead leaves,
Badger's in season when the year goes out,
wild-cat can make a young lord's coat.
In great hunts (March) that ready men for wars,
commons get piglets; nobles, the full-size boars.
5
June's green hopper moves a thigh,
" sedge-cock" wings it in July,
cricket 's a-field one month,
next, neath our eaves, and ere two more be sped,
he's over lintel, and crawls beneath thy bed.
6
July 's to eat red plums, start on wild-vine.
Sunflower and bean in August pot combine;
strip, next, the dates, and neath November moon
take rice for saki that in spring eftsoon
shall keep old age and eyebrows from all need .
7
Ninth month, beat hard
the space that was thy swnmer garden-yard
and in the tenth bring here field-sheaves to stack.
Early millet and late, hemp, beans nor wheat shall lack,
so tell the farm-hands: all the harvest 's in,
lets to our town, that indoor work begin.
Get grass by day, twist this by night to rope the thatch
lest any roof lack patch against the rain
whereneath to bide, till we sow next year's grain.
8
d'j,ong, d't.ong (clash, crash) chop ice neath the second moon,
store it neath third, and in fourth month
when dawn's claw scratcheth sky
offer yonng lamb and leek roots pnngently
if thou 'ldst have sheep to kill come next still frost,
asperge the yard for the twin-bottle feast
and with killed beasts then move processional
to lift great horn in the high ducal hall
and toast:
ten thousand years, Milord, to time's utmost.
II 1 55
2
Ere the sky was dark with rain
I set my trees to provide and tithe mulberries,
and with silken skein
bound door and lattice frame,
0 you, down there,
who shall despise my name?
76 I· 1 5 SONGS O F PIN
3
Hand that laboured, worn to the bone
clutching at thistles to build up the rent
and with a sore mouth,
shall I not have roof of my own?
4
Wings unfeathered, my tail unplwned,
a house in fragments, doomed,
shaken with wind and rain,
a-wash, afloat, Aude me! *
Ill
GAG, said to have been used
in night attack to insure silence 1 56
* The Duke of Chou against the uncles in the rebellion. Mencius II.i.IV, 3; Shu V.vi, 15.
77 I· 15 SONGS OF PIN
levy comes home; bitter gourds over wood-pile
of chestnut boughs,
three years sin.ce the soldier has seen his house.
From the long East Mount campaign
we came west again under the rain.
Then the flash of an oriole's wing:
a new wife with dapple team come to meeting.
Her duenna has tied her formal sash, set
to the ninety rules of her etiquette;
piebal'd sorrels and bays a-dash to prove
a new love's glory - and no love
like an old love.
IV 1 57
v 158
78 1· 1 5 SONGS O F PIN
To hack an axe-haft
an axe
hacks;
the pattern 's near.
VI 1 59
VII 160
HE.
T W 0
In eight books
ELEGANTI A E
or Smaller Odes
PART II ELEGANTIAE, OR SMALLER ODES (SIAO YA)
161
" Salt
lick! " deer on waste sing:
grass for the tasting, guests to feasting;
strike lute and blow
pipes to show how
feasts were in Chou,
drum up that basket-lid now.
"Salt
lick ! " deer on waste sing:
sharp grass for tasting, guests to feasting.
In clear sincerity,
here is no snobbery.
This to show how
good wine should flow
in banquet mid true
gentlemen.
" Salt
lick ! " deer on waste sing,
k'in plants for tasting, guests to feasting;
beat drum and strumm
lute and guitar,
lute and guitar to get
deep joy where wine is set
mid merry din
let the guest in, in, in, let the guest in.
II
REQUEST FOR FURLOUGH 162
Ill
Where the dunes come down from the lowland plain,
bright Rowen, a legale's train
keen on their errand. 1 63
83 11 - 1 DEER SING
IV
FRATERNITAS 164
Splendom recurrent
in cherry-wood,
in all the world there is
nothing like brotherhood.
Brothers m,eet
in death and sorrow;
broken line, battle heat,
Brothers stand by;
VI
The nobles reply to one of
the preceding "Deer Odes" 1 66
VII 167
86 11 · 1 DEER SING
When it's cherry-time with you,
we'll see the captain's car go thru,
four big horses to pull that load.
That's what comes along our road,
What do you call three fights a month,
and won 'em all?
VIII 168
87 11 - 1 DEER SING
Grasshoppers jumpin' chirruppy-churrp
'' Not seen our men. Wish they'd come ! ''
That's what the women are sayin' at home.
Nan Chung 's a terror against the Jung.
Spring days gettin' long,
Now be the orioles in song,
Leaf-pickin' nearly done,
We pluckin' captives to learn what they know;
Goin' home, and the goin' is slow
But Nan Chung 's rolled out the rovin' hun.
IX 169
X
SOUTH TERRACE, no text.
88 IH DEER SING
BOOK 2. THE WHITE FLOWER DECAD
Title poem and four others lost, there being some discussion as to
whether texts once existed, or whether the titles refer to the
music only.
The " lost odes " have left their titles and numerals:
Ill 170
Fish to trap,
bream, tench,
Milord has wine
to drink and quench.
Food in plenty
say good food
v
(? ROUND IN CANON) 171
VII 1 72
IX
THE SHINING DRAGON
(? of royal favour) 173
Thick southernwood
dew drenches,
the sight of Milord gives serenity,
on feasting benches
revelry;
lasting shall his praises be.
Thick southernwood
dew-soaked the night;
He's here all right
princely to sight;
tho' the dragon gleam
his eye stays straight
nor in old age
shall divagate
(unswerving honesty
not undermined in senility. )
Thick southernwood
dew-drenched the night;
he's here all right
dining fraternally.
When elder and younger brothers agree
age shall but strengthen their honesty.
X 1 74
ALITER
1 75
II 176
93 11 · 3 RED BOWS
"'
IV 178
94 11 · 3 RED BOWS
Swift flying hawk in heaven's gate
droppeth to stance and state, Fang Shu
to command
3000 cars
by band, manned, trained;
wheeled under flag, tumed,
and, as the sun draws, Fang Shu:
to the deep of the drum, to forward and then
drew back the men
scattered in raiding.
v 179
But good light field cars with the bull horses, pull thru
to the grassland and parkage near Fu.
95 II · 3 RED BOWS
Thumb-ring and wrist-shield, bows bent in the same
instant, one volley heaps up the game.
VI 1 80
VII 181
IX
CH'AO TSUNG *
Churning of water,
Homage to Thetis. 1 83
X
ON DECLINING OFFICE 1 84
* The Tsung is the ancestral temple : pay court to, or come to the court.
t A mistranslation, but it may keep the student from coming to rest.
98 11 · 3 RED BOWS
The crane cries over the nine pools of the Jllarshland
and its sound carries up toward the sky,
fishes lie by isles or go seaward;
1 8S
II
SCALE ALTRUI 1 86
* The prayer ideogram composed of the two radicals : axe; and the light de
scending. Last character in the song explained in commentary as meaning that
the old women would be worn out getting in kindling wood etc., work properly
done by the filial sons. Commentary cites tradition that the Palace Guards
were sent to the north frontier for defence after the disgraceful defeat of King
Siian's regular forces there in 788 B.c.
99 11 · 4 MINISTER O F WAR
Garden beans for these brilliant wee'WlS,
tether and tie a welcome guest
for a good night's rest.
Ill
HUANG NIAO 1 87
IV 1 88
1 00 11 · 4 MINISTER OF WAR
I walk the waste, these weeds my food;
I came invited, as I construed,
Let me go as I had come,
You do not feed me,
let me go home.
ALITER
v 1 89
By curved bank
in South Mount's innerest wood
clamped as the bamboo root, rugged as pine,
let no plots undermine
this brotherhood.
VI 1 90
1 02 11 · 4 MINISTER O F WAR
Your herders rustle fagots, hens and cocks,
hemp-twigs to kindle fires; your flocks
'thout murrain, neck and neck,
sound mutton, solid,
rush to the pent-hold at the shepherd's beck,
such was their care.
VII 191
Yin, viceroy
" foundation stone " of Chou
to judge and bind state's weal
as on a potter's wheel
the Emperor's " Next " defined
by title but not by fact,
Unmuddle the mass,
Make it possible for folk to be honest.
Fell glare of sky, pitiless
caving our troops to but a hollow shell,
this is unright.
Heaven in dither
wrangles rain hither.
Glare sun's wilindness
sendeth great (moral) blindness.
When gentles attain,
people regain
quiet; be gentles just,
hates must
go out.
Prodded of hate
lancing today who is
next day's cup-mate.
2
Begat me, you twain, to pain
in the mid cult of mouth-talk,
nor before, nor yet shall be
that grief, the more it's real,
draws more insult.
3
In doleful dumps, having no salary,
vacant in thought, tills thought comes over me:
other non-criminals may soon be vexed
- hack-driving - to find paid jobs,
nor know where crow lights next.
4
Mid-wood now scrub and bare deforested,
mere fagot-twigs where once the tall trees stood;
the heaven 's in nightmare, yet it once was able
to run smooth course, to all men merciable,
none to withstand it. And it hates what man?
5
Call mountain mole-rull, the high crest says: you lie.
Double-talk runs, not even in jeopardy.
Call the diviners, and their vapid blocks
emit: We're wise, who knows crow-hens from -cocks?
6
" The heaven's lid high," not dare to stand up straight;
" The earth's crust thick," not dare to not tread light;
and mark these words that have both order and spine,
while you chameleons turn more serpentine:
8
Sorrow at heart, as tho' by cords constricted;
grind of his reign whereby are all afflicted
to quench that lamp whereby wide earth was lit,
Proud hall of Chou.
Pao Sy 'll abolish it.
9
Thought's tread at end beneath the cold of rain,
knock off the cart-props till the load fall od,
and then cry : Lord, is there no help about?
10
not slip the cart poles, that be true spokes-men?
Keep eye on driver in perils, and you won't overturn
but reach hard track's end.
That's not your concern.
11
A shallow basin gives the fish no shade,
dive as they will, there's flash of fin's knife-blade;
Sorrow in heart for any shred or flaw
to see the state, and all, neath tiger's claw.
12
Good wine, good victuals;
neighbours, come to dine,
praise from feeding kin.
I've but my skin
alone, to keep grief in.
13
The low have houses and the mean get tips,
Folk with no salary
the heavens swat,
While ploots can manage
and the " outs " cannot.
2
Snn, moon, foretell
evil? run wild,
State without rule,
good men exiled.
�
Moon's gnawe out in normal course,
What imprecise force
swallows the snn?
3
Flame-flower flasheth
with dire lashing
of cloud's tail in all-quake;
no covered quiet,
no sky's seal.
The 100 rivers o'erftow,
monntains are fallen,
high crests become valleys,
vale reared into summit,
and as for man now:
none changeth a fault.
4
Not Huang-fu the Premier,
nor Fan at the Cultura Popolare,
nor Kia-Po of the Interior,
5
Will Huang-fu say:
Not the moment?
Does he stir us without representation;
to shift our roofs and our house-walls?
Plow-land to bent and waste moor,
mid which vexations he says:
" I am not tyrannous,
These are the regulations. "
6
Our prudent Huang has had a building scheme
and three contracting lords are now enriched,
There 's no police chief left for royal guard,
the hunting set has been, all, led Hiang-ward.
(To Huang's new town, that is.)
7
I dare not post a monthly works report,
knowing the mare's-nest it would raise in court.
It is not heaven has sent these torments down,
this devil'a brew boils from the talk of town. *
8
Far, far my village
in cark of care,
there 's a state surplus, I alone
worry, everyone else resigns.
Sole not to rest, impenetrable
word of the sky
that says not why I presume
not to copy these friends of mine:
Resign!
Damn'd if I will, I were as ego'd as they.
* Gush of conversation, back biting and interoffice contentions come UP out of men.
2
Chou's breed washed out, nowt to hitch to,
The big shots quit, there's none to know
if I do my bit; how I sweat.
The three top men cut short their office hours,
fief courts don't sit to hour or date,
All talk duty and turn to hate.
3
Light over sky if princes lie
what hath man to steer thereby?
An hundred lords respect themselves? Not even!
By that the less revere each other, or heaven.
4
From war learned nothing, nor from famine either,
two plagues to warn him and he learned from neither.
Will you hear truth from a poor worn-out groom
when coward princelings fear to use the broom,
nor dare speak truth when asked for their advice,
but at the least whisper vanish in a trice?
5
Ill 's beyond speech. Speak truth and suffer for it,
Fat jobs to those who, with flow of words, ignore it.
6
Accept an office? That is thorns and death,
that to refuse will be lese-Emperor;
to take? a peril that even your friends incur.
2
First say yes, then say no; *
3
Tired turtles, clean petered out
decline to bother with human doubt
(poked hot sticks into tortoise shells t
which answer us no oracles)
planners and planners pullulate
concluding nothing (not even debate).
Worders are it
in the king's abode,
no one dares put his name on a chit;
all maps and no marching
covers no road.
* Aliter :
Dirty water and slanders run
together in yes-men and drain pits.
t Answer given by the way the shell splits from the heat.
1 10 11 · 5 LESSER COMPLEYNTS
4
Our active designers
don't "like old ways -
irked by the solid symmetrical -
but let 'em hear the sound of a phrase,
they'll quarrel over it days and days
as builders who change for the last thing told 'em
never get a house to hold 'em.
5
State
all a wobble,
scanners and boobs -
a few left to gobble
bright boys and planners,
some who'll " take trouble "
all of a bubble
down into quick-sand.
6
No tool 'gainst tiger,
no boat for river,
That much, no more,
and they know it;
but above all to be precise
at the gulf's edge
or on thin ice.
II
GNOMIC VERSES 196
2
The wise drink and hold their wine, but topers say
that to be drunk is to be rich for a day.
Yield men, all men, this advice:
Heaven speaks once and never twice.
4
Collaboration will never fail
between the two ends of the bright wag-tail,
first to sing and then to fly
as the days and the moons pass by
a slug-a-bed shames his family.
5
Orioles flicker across the sky
and then pick grain from the threshing floor,
We get jailed if we pick up more;
good and evil run nip and tuck
so I'll scatter this grain to try my luck. *
(responsus est?)
6
Man ought to sit quiet as bird on bough,
cagey as edging a precipice,
light-foot as treading on thin ice.
Ill 1 97
2
Chou road that level was,
now hidden under wild grass,
heart-ache, unsleeping a-bed,
old before time, grieved body and head.
* Some form of divination answered by noting how the birds pick up the scattered grain,
or rice.
1 12 11 • 5 LESSER COMPLEYNTS
3
Mulberries and catalpas of farm-stead be to revere,
Father and mother more dear;
am I not carnal and uterine?
What birth-hour ill-chosen as mine?
4
Thick are the willows, the broad locust thin of voice,
cool are the reeds about the dark-deep pool,
I, like a boat a-drift, come to no rest;
sleep not for worry burrowing in my breast.
5
So easy a-foot in wild-wood the stags run,
Pheasant aloft seeks mate as moon fades from the sun,
I, like a sickened tree losing its boughs,
with ache at heart now dark as no man knows.
6
Men shelter the hunted hare,
bury the corpse by wayside,
but the prince (my father) has gripped his heart.
Tears, tears, never dried!
7
As if sworn on the wine cup
he gives credence to lies he has not examined,
compassionless. But men fell trees by their lean,
where they be thick; split fagots by grain.
He shelters the guilty,
Mine is the pain.
8
Naught stands higher than mount,
nor is hollow deeper than water-fount;
that the Prince have not light nor dark in his words -
ears be in echoing wall,
Let him keep from my weir and fish-trap who hath
neither examined my case
nor the aftermath.
2
Chaos in sperm
usurped submergedly
soaking in, secretly ;
burst to twice life when Milord
believed calumny.
Would he show preference,
Joy, rage,
crooks would hence ; it would all stop,
and speedily.
3
Multiple treaties drag confusion out,
belief in thieves adds violence to doubt,
Bandits' sweet talk but more enftames the blaze,
mid which incoherence
'twill be the King who pays.
4
A superior man
raised the great bric-a-brac,
the temple's apse and fore;
great plan needeth great architect.
I can but track
plain man, plain crook, hot-foot in plain affair
as hounds run a sly hare,
my similar.
5
Gentlemen, as I've heard tell
plant trees that are workable; *
many minds among wayfarers, mind 'ee,
* " II n ' y a rien d e plus desagreable q u e l'acajou." - French cabinet-maker in 1924.
6
Which kind teeters here on the stream's brink,
no fist, no force, making mess
in already muddled offices?
Swollen legs give 'em acumen?
Planning lots of things they'll do when,
they get what they haven't, namely: men.
v 1 99
2
There were two in this devilment,
to pass in silence evil meant and
There was a different tale to tell
before you found me "impossible.''
3
What can he be, on my garden path
unseen, but heard talking as they went by,
no shame before men, no awe of sky.
4
Neither North nor South, can't blow straight,
but as whirl-wind
come to my dam to disturb my mind.
5
Travelling easy, that's the rub
and no time to come in. Hurried you'd stop to grease hub
and wheel, and you haven't called once
to see how I feel.
7
Old duets with flute and pipe,
we used to play 'em stripe by stripe;
Believe you don't know me? Dog, pig and cock
mark my oath on the chopping-block.
8
If you were a devil or water-sprite
one couldn't see you by daylight,
but looking you eye to eye
one can see all that there is to see
and get, in out and out prosody,
eh? a near-total silhouette.
VI 200
2
Stitch a-sky, dot, the South Sieve's made.
Who loves to aid
these smearers in the smearing trade?
3
Winging,
gad about,
tittling, tattling
to be found out.
4
The quickness of the hand deceives the eye
and repetition suaves mendacity,
Non obstat, you'll be ousted bye and bye.
1 16 11 · 5 LESSER COMPLEYNTS
5
Proud men ride high to watch the workers sweat,
O'er-hanging heaven look down upon their pride
and pity those on whom the yoke is set.
6
Take therefore, I say, these smearers
and fellow travellers, chuck 'em
to wolves and tigers, and if the striped cats spew 'em forth,
offer 'em to the Furthest North.
If the old pole decline to spare 'em place,
kick 'em clean off it into stellar space.
7
And here's my address, I am still
at Willow Hollow Road by Acre Hill,
Meng Tsy has lost his balls but makes this verse,
let the administration heed it, or hear worse.
VII
EAST WIND 201
2
Idle the valley wind, hot tempest then,
far in your pleasure, near in your pain.
Came time of quiet revelry
You cast me from your company.
3
Scorching breath on the height, grief,
all grass must die, no tree but loseth leaf
Soft is the valley wind, harsh on the crest,
You remember the worst of me
Forgetting the best.
1 17 II · S LESSER COMPLEYNTS
VIII
THE ORPHAN 202
IX
Of the old barbecues and a new
plutocracy, adorned but useless
as the constellations. Ascribed
to time of King Liu. 203
1 18 II · 5 LESSER COMPLEYNTS
2
In small states of the East, and in great
no loom clicketh.
Shuttles are still , rollers turn not, the frost pricketh
thru the thin fibre of espadrilles.
Spindly duke's sons on Chou road now,
What hath been here, to and fro,
to outlast it?
The mind's sorrow.
3
Let not the flow of this chill melancholy
rot the cut wood;
tax on tax, tally on tally,
I wake and sigh for our poor folk,
small cut wood to pile and carry,
then can they rest from cart and yoke?
4
Down east the boys can't draw their service pay,
while western youth's a luxury display,
Where boatmen's sons are sporting bear-skin coats
the farm-boy bureaucrat tries, fails, and gloats.
5-6
Some will for wine who won't for broth
and wear great belt-gems, whose worth 's but froth.
A river of stars is lit across the heaven,
Trine Damsels * weave to the seventh house at even
with seven ply
for us nor cloth nor sign.
That eye-full of led oxen in the sky
draws not our farm carts here terrestrially.
Dawn's in the East, in West, Hyads nestle at ease.
East Venus, West Hesperus
to open and date the day,
Sky hath a rabbit-net that takes
naught save its way.
1 19 11 · 5 LESSER COMPLEYNTS
7
South hath a Sieve that sifts us out no grain,
The northern Ladle dips us up no wine.
As the unsieving sieve might give tongue to attest
The handle of the Ladle is in the west.
X 204
2
Autumn sees the plants wither,
wild beauties decline together;
all things cold now as pain,
I turn to go home again.
3
Winter day sparkles with snow, turning winds moan,
Others have luck, all of them. I am alone.
4
There be fine growths a-mountain,
Lord of the Chestnut, Marquis Plum
by ruin of roof-tree come
to banditry, and none to guess
their curdle of bitterness.
5
Spring water fl.oweth, both to clear and in mud,
my days are but built up calamity; how call this good?
6
Floods of the Kiang and Han,
churning, South States record.
Worn out with service
I get no reward.
7
The quail and kite take air,
sturgeon hath lair
in deep waters evading.
205
2
Under the scattered sky all lands are fief,
all men to the sea's marge serve but one chief
and there is no justice known to the great,
I go alone but straight.
3
Four stallions, bang, bang, hither and yon,
isn't it fine that I'm " not old "
and so few ready to do what I'm told
and my back still strong and straight
enough for a border state.
4
That some men loll in banquet bout
and others work till clean wom out;
Some for the state in bed to lie,
others on road incessantly.
5
Some root mid ladies in luxury,
all in the king's cause naturally
and never hear a harsh command,
6
Some wine deep in rich luxury,
others be tom by anxiety;
fear blame, driven in, driven out
as the winds jerk,
year long, year long, nothing but work.
II 206
Ill 207
3
Sun and moon in their ingle
when we set out, now we'd about
in longing for home, work here piled on
more miserable
now's the year's end, to get harvest in,
of that harvest I pick not a bean
nor get southernwood;
think of their ease in offices
and go as far as the first night's inn,
lose nerve:
" be sent back again."
4
Haro! ye gentles, think 'ee that ease endures
and that no quake shall shake your sinecures?
Best take an honest colleague now and then
to attract the favouring spirits of the air
and keep the official process in repair.
5
Ergo, milordlings, loaf not too much
but look upon your jobs as really such,
Show sometimes liking for clean government
that the airy powers concede your preferment.
IV 201
3
Bells, drwns, over the three isles of Huai
till the heart is moved that we see not their like
who were here before us.
4
" Ch-in, ch-in " of the bells,
two lutes, organ and stone
in even tone,
so shall the " Elegantiae,"
so shall the " South " be sung,
nor flutes shall mar.
v . 209
2
Here move we quiet in order
here be led cattle spotless and rams
for the rites of winter and autumn,
fl.ayers, boilers and carvers
and they who lay out and make ready
to invoke the spirit of banners,
to invoke the spirit of light,
to the spirits outspaced like banners,
to the glory of brightness,
to the source of the dynasty
here in his cartouche
white-shining, our sovran.
1 24 11 • 6 NORTH MOUNT
May the spirits aid in the banquet,
may the filial line never fail,
all this in the aim of plenty
10,000 years and with no bound.
3
That they be alert at the pyres and ovens of barbecue
slow moving near the tall stands
for the baked meats and the grilled meats,
that they care for small trays,
no flaw, tho' they be many;
that the guests take the communion cup in due turn
each back to each, thus reciprocal
a rite for the observance of equity
that there be ease and good confidence
the word spoken smiling;
that the sustainers, spirits, also come in due order
that the end be abundance,
good vintage, 10,000 years.
4
We have gone thru with the fire rite
and no fault, the :flamen has made the announcement,
he conveys this to the heir
at the second stance by the altar,
the fumes of the :filial incense-are perfume,
the souls in the air lust after your drink and victuals,
your luck is an hundred fold.
As is the hidden so is the pattern,
as the service was orderly
there shall be early harvest.
There has been order,
there has been promptness
(we have beaten the ground for the grain spirit.)
You have brought basket-offering and in order
there shall be yield to the maximum
thru time without end .
5
The service of the equities has been carried out in detail
gong and drum have alerted,
the heir sits to receive the augur's announcement
1 25 11 • 6 NORTH MOUNT
the airy spirits (the spirits who go upward)
have all drunk and stand upright (cease drinking)
The representative of the White Splendour (the halo'd )
has risen
drum and gong sound: (nunc dimittis)
the spirits, sustainers, have instantly ascended back to their dwelling.
All the servants and noble dames
clear away with celerity,
the men of the patronymic
repair to their private feast. *
6
Enter musicians playing adagio
quieting music tor favours to follow.
Your victuals are served,
no one grumbles, all is congratulation (or jollity),
they have drunk and eaten their fill ,
the airy souls lust for your drink and victuals,
may they give you years and old age,
very benevolent, very timely
and in totality, sons' sons and grandsons
that they go not out of lordship in leading.
VI
Vii'S CONTOUR FARMING, BONIFICA 210
2
The heaven above stands as one arch of cloud,
falls snow, fine sleet
plus drizzle and soak
riching, by mulch, full favour the grain
of all our folk.
1 26 11 • 6 NORTH MOUNT
3
Field by field as feather by feather
with ditch and dykes
sleek millet spikes (shu and tsi)
high harvested
give the heir wine and bread,
aye, to ten thousand years
to honour the manes of his ancestors,
they as guests to his offering,
he in ripe age.
4
Huts in mid field and melons by the banks,
candy their pulp also for offering
to his line's source, our thanks
and this shall bring sky's grace in age.
5
Clear wine in sacrifice to heaven's light
an healthy bull, red, to the great tablet's lord
with tinkle of bells at the knife's hilt
parting the hair, fat and blood spilt.
6
An holy reek to rich the temple air
in honour of Brightness
and to ten thousand years, invoke
our halo'd sires: exchange
luck for this smoke,
unbroke by time.
VII 21 1
3
Antient of line, here now's the Heir.
Wives, weeuns, bear
lunch baskets out.
The inspector 's about
south fields now to see what's good
and dips his hand
in everyone's food,
left, right, he says, to taste
what is dainty and what waste.
Grain even high o'er all we scan.
Cahn lord maketh a ready man.
4
Heir mid his crop,
Grain flows over the reapers' scythes
as water over dam's top, or as thatch
to stack like humpy islands in the field.
A thousand barnes be filled,
10,000 carts,
millet, rice, maize, reapers have taken
be thus 10,000 years' prosperity,
and unshaken.
VIH 212
2
Come sprout, come ear,
hard grain and good
let every weed and tare,
gnaw-bug and worm,
caterpillar, slug
fall dead in flame,
honour to T'ien Tsu,
in fact and name,
God of the field.
3
Thickens the cloudy sky
that rain like a slanting axe
feed our Duke's field
then bless our yield,
We reap not miserly,
old women and poor follow our spoor.
To their relief
leave loosened sheaf,
short stock and unripe ear.
4
Now's come Greatgrandsire's heir,
women and yoWlgsters bring
lunches to the men labouring
on the south slope, the overseer
does reverence to the four Corners of Air;
pours back the wine to earth (that gave the wine)
red bullock and black
pay for the millet crop;
by offer imd sacrifice
funnel us further felicities.
1 29 11 • 6 NORTH MOUNT
IX
OLE MAN RIVER
keeps flowing In mid-channel 213
2
Glinting Lo with never a drought,
as sword fills the jewelled scabbard's mouth,
so is he fit to last ten thousand years
and pillar up his house.
3
Waters of Lo, never a break in your flow
or his equity; that he bring
10,000 years
to all his clans prosperity.
X 214
BOOK 7, SANG HU
The Haw Finch, ar bird rather like
an oriole that arrives when tho
mulberry comes Into leaf.
neither in rashness,
neither fearful of hardness,
neither boastful in the day of good fortw1e.
* A prince welcomes o r replies to the feudatories who may have spoken the foregoing
in fact or in pantomime.
131 11 · 7 SANG HU
II
The Nobles reply to the foregoing
"Kun tsy wan nien"
That the gentleman last 10,000 years 216
Big duck fly yellow over hand nets and wide nets spread even
" Kiin tsy wan nien "
May his happiness flow in harmony with earth and with heaven.
2
Big duck stand on the dam, and stretch left wings * in amity
" Kiin tsy wan nien "
May we have, in leisure, felicity.
3
Teams in his stable, stall feed and war grain
" Kiin tsy wan nien "
May his wealth be doubled again.
4
Steeds in his stable, war grain and stall feed
" Kiin tsy wan nien "
That he have, ever, abundance over his need.
Ill 217
* Left wings : Legge says ducks head to tail. Similar defence manoeuvre of bulls i n ring,
able to watch approach of attack from either direction.
1 32 11 · 7 SANG HU
Leather on head, food good, wine sound,
gathered round, so many a-kin;
melting flakes fall ere hard snow sets in,
sorrow and death attend no man's desire.
Slake well thy thirst before the even come
while ye have brothers' eyes to see
and ere ye tire.
Princely is leisure,
no man drinks here for hire.
IV
Hot axle, I drove, drove
to my love
has ling,
neither food nor drink
tasting.
I thought of her inwit,
No friends wllh me
feasting.
Pheasant tlnds home
in flat forest,
My heart a nest
in her thought
resting. 218
2
In level forest pheasant makes nest
a level head to lesson me
how a model feast is laid
that long love unwearied be.
3
Our wine but vin ordinaire,
we share spare
food but with jollity
and my inferior character
will serve to sing and dance with her.
1 33 11 - 7 SANG H U
4
On ridge my stroke
lops bough from oak
fagots for fire wood
mid the thick underbrush where was leaves riot
if so thou come to eye
my heart hath quiet.
5
This I foresaw a-drive
when I went forth to wive, urging my horses
over mount, over hill , my six reins as lute-strings tight,
I drove aright
nnder Hesper, thee to meet,
so is my heart made suave with the heat.
v 219
VI 220
1 34 11 · 7 SANG HU
2
With six-holed flutes
that were bamboo shoots,
drum time, with pantomime
to our line's root:
Noel! Noel! that fiery rite delight
HIM, the flame, our light
in flow, in rite
till the hundred rites all
be done here in hall
to phallus' and forest's purity
that thy line enduring be
deep as all continuity;
so deep the lust
each man here must
laud thy coherence.
Rivals grasp hands, ere hence
comes One from ingle:
·" Let no man drink single,
but dip and pour
great cup's honour
welding thy seasons."
3
Guests start eatin', mild and even,
The sober sit an' keep behavin',
but say they've booz'd then they do not.
When they've booz'd they start a-wavin' an' a-ravin ' ,
Yas' sir they rise up from the ground
and start dancin' an' staggerin' round
each to his own wild fairy fancy
as they never would when sober.
Sobers sit and drunks go gay
elegant or with display
in order or in indecency.
Drunks never know sufficiency.
4
When they've drunk they'll stagger and yell
and upset their plates as well,
dancing like devil masks from hell,
don't know the post house (where to stop)
1 35 11 · 7 SANG H U
with their crooked caps a-top
they canna ' dance, but stagger and flop.
They'd be welcome to their pleasure
if they'd go when wholly soused
but to be booz'd and not to go
we define as lese virtu
(failure, that is, to correlate
outward act with mental state)
But drink.in' 's great
up to proper measure.
5
And as at every drinking bout
some can hold it and some pass out,
we appoint, at every rally,
a toast-master and his keep-tally
so that those who can't hold their liquor
or, as we say, run true to form,
are kept from worse enormity
of word or of activity;
after three cups cannot tell lamb
from horned ram, but still
want more liquor ardently.
VII
THE CAPITAL IN HAO
Nol lo slir !rouble from down up,
or vice-vena. 221
VIII
The founlain of honour is nol
lhe founlain of produce. 222
1 36 11 · 7 SANG HU
be the baskets round or square
as they come with car and four.
A black or an ax-coat * to wear?
2
Mid horned bubbles at the spring's threshold
as the leaves of cress t unfold
nobles come, their flags a-flap
jangle of bells at bridle strap
of trace horse or pole horse in harness,
princes coming to pluck the cress.
3
Red leather (aprons) above the knees
and , below them, side-cut puttees,
and with cordial alacrities;
Sky's Son's command
can renew rents and titles to land.
4
Oak's thick-leaved boughs,
Welcome, welcome !
that shade this -house
welcome!
ten thousand lucks alight
on ye, to left and right,
cohort and liegemen,
rear guard and flank
Justice and order
guard the Imperial House.
5
Willow boat by a mooring rope,
Welcome, Lords, to these assizes
in the hope of richer prizes,
easier rents that ever more
ye may lie snug as dog neath door.
* Insignia of rank.
t Take cress, i.e. examination with prizes.
1 37 11 - 7 SANG H U
IX
GNOMIC VERSES
Snow that is watery dust
2
So hast 'ou wrong to keep thy kin afar,
whom will they copy, if not their officer?
3
Elder to younger should indulgence show
and aid his brothers in their fortnne also:
good brothers in their mutual relations
should not augment their cares and exacerbations.
4
Turgid is grutch
who clutching honours
learns no manners. One such will
ruin a canton to end all in ill.
5
Old horse plays colt,
old dolt steps out of line,
eats for three men
and is an ass in wine.
6
Teach not the ape to climb,
thou Bing'st not mud
at whomso lies in mire, an thou but plan
decently
small men will swarm to thee.
1 38 11 · 7 SANG H U
7
Thick cloud moults snow
that melts before the sun
yet none
would stand aside from preferment
thinking to mount more high on falling pride.
8
Deep drifted snow the sun's eye melts away,
Man and Mao * had their day,
My heart! their day !
X 224
2
Better stay 'neath the willow bough
than crush a toe beneath the Imperial car,
if he gave me a lift, it would take me too far.
3
A bird can circle high over cloud,
a man's mind will lift above the crowd
reaching employ on high above us all
to dwell in deeper misery when he fall.
225
For an officer
in the old Capital, fox fur
(yellow) his manner without pretense;
his speech made sense
Ergo ten thousand now
yearn to return to Chou.
* Tribes.
3
In the old Capital officers wore ear-plugs fittingly
of seu stones (common jade) and the dames seemed
as to the manner born of Yin or Ki.
None such do we see pass
today, and my heart is
as smothered beneath wild grass.
4
The scholars' sash ends in the older court
had a certain grace in severity,
their ladies' side hair curved like a scorpion's tail,
something to follow, tho' we never see.
6
There was no fuss about the fall
of the sash ends, there was ju.<>t that much to spare
and it fell, and ladies' hair
curved, just curved and that was all
the like of which, today, is never met;
And I therefore
express regret.
II 226
2
The morning 's over and I have got
less than a skirt-full of indigo, five days to come;
sixth: he comes not.
1 40 11 · 8 T H E OLD CAPITAL
3
When he wanted to hunt
I cased his bow,*
when he'd a-fishing go
I carded his :fishing line also.
4
Then folk would stand to watch him pull out
tench or bream, bream or trout.
Ill
Soft rain
High grain. 227
2
We pushed and heaved and prodded our oxen,
crowding the road, saying how home was good
to come back to.
3
Massed men about cars moved in close order
saying: this done, we'll go home from the border.
4
Close was the work at Sie under Shao's urging.
Shao's Earl planned it,
manned it, :finished it all with due ardour.
5
We cleared the slope and the plain,
cleared streams and the springs, by Shao was the settlement;
the King's heart is now content.
* Graph is " long leather" meaning presumably that she took the bow off the rack where
it had been tied to keep from warping, and put it in a leather hunting sheath.
v 229
2
White cloud and white dew shun,
amid all flowers, none.
Steep are the steps of heaven
to him unknown.
3
The overflow seeps north from the pool,
rice hath its good therefrom;
singing I sigh
for a tall man far from home.
4
Are mulberries hacked to firewood for the stove?
A tall man, hard of head, wrecks my love.
5
Drums, gongs in the palace court
are heard by passers by,
yet if you think at all
of my pain, you think but scornfully.
VI 230
VIII 232
IX 233
X 234
THREE
in three books
THE
GREATER ODES
PART Ill THE GREATER ODES (TA YA)
2
Untiring Wen that hath untiring fame,
such order and such resource by him came
to Chou with sons and grandsons of Wen,
to sons of grandsons and collateral,
root, branch, an hundred generations ; and all
Chou's officers; is it not said:
Such source is as of light a fountainhead?
3
Is he not so the sun above his clan,
and they the radiant wings gleaming to flank?
Think on the lustre of our officers
born in the kingly state,
whom this state bred and holds; Chou's pace
orders them all - to King Wen's quietness.
4
Wen, like a field of grain beneath the sun
when all the white wheat moves in unison,
coherent, splendid in severity,
Sought out the norm and scope of Heaven's Decree
5
Now stand in livery for Chou's defence, that all
may know Sky's favour is not perpetual,
so no man's luck shall hold.
Yin men, now, when we pour
wine to our manes, stand about the door
with tiger's grace and ease,
clad in their antient splendid broideries,
faith:ful at court and in the battle line,
mindful what NUMEN stands within the shrine.
6
Mindful what manes stand here to preside;
what insight to what action is conjoint,
long may we drink the cup of fellowship,
Yin's pride in mind, always to show the point,
a tub of water wherein to note
thy face. Had Yin not lost the full assembly's vote
He had long held to drink with the Most High,
yet mistook fate for mere facility.
7
High destiny 's not borne without its weight
(equity lives not save by constant probe)
Be not thy crash as Yin's from skies, foreseen.
The working of Heaven hath neither sound nor smell,
Be thy cut form of justice as Wen's was, shall rise
ten thousand states, thine, and with candour in all.
II
Referring to Yln-Shang as Yin to
avoid confusion with Ta-Sheng, names
having very dilferent ideograms which
do not confuse the eye in the Chinese
text. 236
4
The Skies looked down and two fates came to nest,
Wen began action, Heaven raised up his mate
on the North Banks where Hia meets with the Wei,
Wen laudable in his stance and she
heraldric heiress of the Palatinate,
5
of that great House, who seemed
a younger sister of Heaven. Wen after smooth augury
went out to meet her at the ferry of Wei,
bridging that stream with boats and pageantry.
6
The seal was from heaven, to Wen this destiny
in Chou's high seat, and Hsin's first born Iris queen
who in her strength bore Wu, the augmenter of fate
who, after the " Flame of Words " * laid Yin prostrate.
7
The hosts of Yin
were as a forest in route.
For the oath at Mu spoke out: I begin this
and well. Shang-Ti is near you now,
let no man doubt.
"' I take it, the Great Declaration. Shu V.l(3).
Ill 237
2
Old Duke T'an Fu galloped his horses t
along the western water courses
along their banks to the slopes of K'i
and took Lady Kiang for his company
to set up the House of Dynasty.
3
Dark violets filled the Chou plam
and thistles sweet as an artichoke t
where T'an 'gan plan
and to invoke
the scorched divining shell.
" Tllne: now; place: here; all's well,"
said the shell, " Build wall ad hoc."
4
Gave men comfort and quietness;
settled, right, left, with boundaries;
with laws, drainage and harvesting,
from West to East all was to his ordering.
* The battle order to the troops at Mu (Shu V.2) was to stop and reform after a maximum
of six or seven steps forward and at most four, five, six, or seven blows struck.
t 1326 B.C.
:t " as a dumpling," what other thistle?
6
Earth in baskets for the wall , lime at call;
whacked it with paddles, scraped and beat,
scrape and repeat,
each day 5000 feet,
moving faster than the drum beat.
7
Reared they a great draw-bridge and gate
and a gate of state with a portcullis;
built also the great chthonian altar
for hecatomb ere they went to war
or did any other large business,
8
Some trash T'an could not annihilate
but held to his honour at any rate;
cleared out the bushy thorn and oak
to make road for travelling men
and so discouraged the hunting hun.
9
Then King Wen brought to civility
the lords of Yii and of Ju-i;
taught 'em to bow and stand aside,
say : after you, and: if you please,
and: this is no place for barbarities.
IV 238
And as
v 2311
2
The great jade cup holds yellow wine,
a fraternal prince can pour
blessing on all his line.
3
High flies the hawk a-sky,
deep dives the fish,
far, far, even thus amid distant men
shall a deferent prince have his wish.
4
The red bull stands ready, and
clear wine is poured,
may such rite augment the felicity
of this deferent lord.
5
Thick oaks and thorn give folk fuel to spare,
a brotherly prince shall energize
the powers of air.
VI
Three generations to make a gent 240
2
Kind to the manes of the ducal hall,
He nagged not against their timing,
gave no offence at all in any season;
patterned his mate,
which pattern his brothers caught;
thru whom he managed clans and the state.
3
In court suave concord,
at rites, reverence;
as the sun draws up
presence invisible, the vapour's thread
effortle8s support. tho' unseen.
4
Mid swirl of great evils not to be set aside, t
had courage to respect perfection,
a pattern till then that none
had heard tell of; and to investigate
abuses not codified.
VII
How King Wen received the
succession, his attack on Ch'ung.
All this before the battle of Mu. 241
2
Raised up a screen,
cleared brush and vine,
levelled the land's lay
(terraced the slopes)
dug ditch, set hedge trees,
whip-stalk and tamarisk;
drove out the Kuan horde
(the " string tribes ")
Light to lead action
heaven shifted,
Drinking with heaven
Chou had the lordship;
* The ode is full of terms that become technical in Confucian ethics. Analects XVI.xiv;
Chung Yung XV; Mencius 1.1. 7, 12. " Don't lie down on it."
4
Sky gauged the mind of Ki,
silently fame
marked out his straightness,
which then shone out
and shining knew to choose;
advanced in technique
lordly to attend the voices,
then was king,
ruled a great state, obeyed
and knew proportions.
And so we come to Wen
inwit and act conjoint -
anointed of the sky;
sons of his grandsons
still hold empery.
5
Out of the Welkin
came the word to Wen:
Burn not to deviate,
to kindle and grab
at every lust's desire.
* T'ai convinced that his nephew Wen was most fit to rule, abdicated in favour of Wen's
father Ki, presumably the third brother of T'ai, not next in seniority. Thus eliminating
both his own sons and senior nephews.
6
His base the capital;
invaders from Yuan's edge
climbed to high crag and ridge
but got no slopes
or upland pasture dales,
neither our springs to be their water supply.
Pools, springs, ours, south of Mount K'i
the pick of the plain
measured in homestead, in land made fit by the river Wei ;
Wen suzerain
over the ten thousand fiefs of the plain
(and measuring square).
7
Then God to Wen: I mind me the equipoise
bright in thy act and thought,
a decor wi�hout great noise,
neither mnemonic nor as a lesson taught
but following fluid the pattern cut aloft.
Sky then to Wen, the king:
Wru:e of thine enemy; bring
brethren, hooks,
battering rams, all
great carrochs and go
against Ch'ung wall.
8
Great cru:rochs and the ru:balasts creaked slow,
giving Ch'ung time to pru:ley beneath the wall;
Questioned the prisoners, slow, one by one,
almost in silence the left ears fall,
seeking the sanction from the Father of Wru:
that all in the four squru:es be rightly done,
first in the camp-site; second, before the town.
Then to the catapults! and Ch'ung is down.
High Ch'ung is down and hath no exequies,
her rites are out
and to land's end no man defies.
IX
WU, AS THE GREAT FOOT-PRINT 243
2
Drinking King's cup in capital,
seeks their insight where right to drink must
hatch from folk's trust, he
builds for long dynasty.
3
Perfect the trust.
A map to man,
thinking what sonship could be,
he taught all sons :filiality.
5
Lasting light is ours like a great rope
from W u " the spoor "
nnto ten thousand years, while skies endure.
6
Luck down from heaven,
homage from the four coigns in, to pack
ten thousand years. Shall he lack
acolytes?
X
WANG HOU CHENG TSAI 244
2
Wen had the Decree and war-merit;
when he carried the attack against Ch'ung
he made Feng capital of the province.
Wen! avatar, how!
3
He solidified the walls of its moat;
He raised Feng on the pattern
not hasting at whim, but in conformity, filial,
A sovran, avatar, how!
4
The king's justice was cleansing
and the low-walls were four-square at Feng
even throughout the kingdom
the kingly house was their bulwark,
A sovran, avatar, how!
_
6
In Hao was the capital and the half-circlet of water, *
From West from East from South from North
none thought to break order
(no man but wore Wu's insignia)
Emperor, avatar, how!
7
He divined, to the 9th straw of ten in the casting
that Hao be the capital for his dwelling;
The tortoise confirmed it; Wu brought it to finish,
WU, avatar, how!
8
Feng water makes the white millet;
Did Wu not choose his officials?
He bequeathed the design to his dynasty
that their line feast and at leisure.
Wu, avatar, how!
* 1134 B.C.
THE CREATION
(of monkind, or of the Chou clan)
2
Saith legend: was full moon, and effortless
the first birth was as a lamb's, no pain, no strain,
�'!lit, rent, in auspice of the happy spirit in the child;
the upper sky unstill, unslaked by sacrifice? lamb,
burning
ktent on this kindling birth. babe
3
:t\nd, by tradition, he was " Cast-away "
� narrow lane to lie
�uckled between the legs of kine and ewes.
There be to attest
that he was Cast-away in flat forest
4
Then crept aloft to the hill-paths of K'i
and to High Crag
whereon, to eat and mouth, planted broad beans
which gave leaf suddenly.
Rice was his servant, ripe, more ripe;
hemp and wheat stood
over the fields like tent cloths,
melons gat laughing brood.
5
Was Hou Tsi's harvest mutual process?
Howkt out thick choking grass,
put in the sound yellow grain
that squared to husk, filled out its sleeve to full
as it would burst the ears, urunoulding and tasteable
bent there with weight of head
durable; so had in T'ai his stead.
6
From him we have first-class seed, our classic grain:
blacks, doubles, reds and whites.
To keep blacks, doubles, they be stacked a-field.
Red and white yield
we bear a-back to barn
or shoulder high,
wherefore Hou made the rite yclept " return."
7
What is our rite, become traditional?
Some hull, some take from mortar, winnow or tread,
some soak (or sift with ever shifting sound)
and boil till steam and rising fumes abound.
8
From heaped plate and clay dish the odours rise
to p lease, in season, the power above the skies
by their far-searching smell that fits the time.
Jlou Tsi began these rites. The folk of Chou
unblemished have maintained them until now.
II
FESTAL 246
2
Put a soft straw mat on a bamboo mat
let lackeys bring in the stools,
toast against toast, wine against wine
observant of all the rules,
then rinse the cups and bring catsups *
with pickles, roast and grill,
'trype and mince-meat and while drums beat
let sinl!ers show their skill.
3
The trusty bows are tough, my lads,
each arrow-point true to weight
and every shot hits plumb the spot
as our archer lines stand straight.
:�- Karlgren fancies a bit of tongue in the menu and someone else has a note on kidney
sliusa�e.
4
An heir to his line is lord of this wine
and the wine rich on the tongue.
But by the great peck-measure, pray in your leisure
that when you're no longer young
your back retain strength to susteyne
and aid you kin and clan.
Luck to your age! and, by this presage,
joy in a long life-span.
Ill
"Per plvra diafana"
slrophe 3 247
2
Drunk is thy wine and ready is thy food,
May'st 'ou for ten thousand years give light to thy brood,
3
With a clarity that doth as vapour rise,
Good moon enjoin such ends
as be from planting the ghost's voice commends.
4
What such commending?
5
Who honoureth right order, timely,
His line shall last olim de
filial, enduring, not to be declassed. Malatestis
7
What is succession, what posterity?
May heaven quilt soft thy rent
and for ten thousand years let there be
cortege and host to follow thy decree.
8
Ilow shall be cortege?
IV
ON WEI NEAR HAO 248
2
Ducks land on sand,
Dukes' ghosts in hall,
where all is as all should be
many wines make much revelry,
and who eats as the Sire's ghost
shall know prosperity's utmost.
3
Ducks by isle,
the dukes' ghosts come to hall
to have quiet withal,
4
Ducks there where the rivers meet,
the ducal manes come to eat,
wherefore in templed hall
Felicity makes festival.
5
Ducks in the gorge, as thru the fragrant fume
the ghost is come,
Wine to taste, baked meats to nose,
where ghosts feed come no future woes.
2
A thousand rents, an hundred luck's intake;
his grandsons multiply.
White wheat a-field and glory upon high,
fit prince, fit king
errs not, forgets not, but leads men by
antient legality.
3
Respect for equity keeps well defined the crown,
fame of clear conscience fructifies the deed.
No grudge, no hate,
leading as though on parity
with the multitude, luck comes unboundedly.
He makes, to the four coigns, all orderly.
VI 250
2
Duke Liu, the frank
looked to the plain afar
to help his many and multitude,
conforming (to geography)
he issued an order accordingly.
They grumbled a bit and then clomb high
to the ridge and echo of Yen Mount and then
came down to the plain beneath.
His only boat was of green jaspar
that gleamed at the tip of his sword-sheath.
3
Frank Duke Liu
passed by the Hundred Founts,
saw the wide watershed,
clomb to the South Mount's head;
scanned site for capital
to o'erhang the wild:
a time to dwell in house, a time is meant
to live in bivouac, a time to tell
tales and make argument.
5
Duke Liu, the frank,
measured the hills to know the light and shade,
dark female and light male, the wide and long,
where land would answer, where to prod in seed ;
how the springs drained, and to three army corps
measured the marsh and plain
all to be channelled fields for tithe and grain,
measured the South West slope,
so dwelt in Pin
where desert waste had been.
6
So lodged, in Pin, Duke Liu
fixed fords on Wei,
whetstone and anvil rock (for stepping stones) .
Gave them based house and laws,
assembly and land-tenure
even to Huang Vale and the torrents of Kuo
both banks, to river bend,
many were housed and all was made secure.
VII 251
VIII 252
2
Say is friendship leisure's test,
best of leisure giveth rest,
Prince, for your young-brotherliness
in such life as rest confers
may you live and drink wine with your ancestors
and so your life reach term.
3
May you to earth and sky at crux of winter,
Prince in all deference
reply, and set firm the calendar
when, turning beneath his cliff, the sun goes hence.
May an hundred spirits of the air allied
gather to banquet where you preside
and so your life reach term.
4
You have received it: dynasty
for how long? To enjoy great rent?
Prince deferent,
the candour of a House is its longevity.
6
0 source and height,
jade sceptre, bright fountainhead,
Think what your fame can be
and what men hope, Prince brotherly, that hold
the square of the realm on guiding rope.
7
Hark to the phoenix wings astir in the air,
Here is their bourne, here is their place of rest,
Old and tried officers crowd round the throne
to know thy will, now thou art Heaven's son.
8
Old and tried officers crowd round the throne,
Hark to the phoenix-wings at heaven's gate,
Let him appoint such as will keep touch
with the folk of his state.
9
Hark to the phoenix' song
o'er the high ridge amid dryandra boughs
that face the rising snn,
thick, thick the leaves,
so calm serene that song.
CODA
The Lord's wagons be many,
his fast horses trained better than any,
And a few verses will make a song
when there's a tune to drag it along. *
* I see no reason not to take this as a coronation ode in three parts. St/ 1-3; 4-6; 7-10.
Or 7-9 and 10 as coda. Circa 1109 or 1116 B.C. No one will deny the presence of ambig
uous passages in the original. The chapter in the Shte (V.12) is of particular interest in
bearing directly on the tradition.
2
Folk worn out need support,
Men gather round a kindly court;
Throw out the punks who falsify your news,
scare off the block-heads, thugs, thieves and screws.
Don't shove it off on the working man,
But keep on doing what you can
for the king's support.
3
Folk worked out need time for breath,
Kindness in capital
draws on the four coigns withal;
Sweep out the fakes and scare the obsequious
thugs, thieves and screws
and don't promote the snots to sin on sly.
Respect men who respect the right
and your own honesty may heave into sight.
4
Folk burnt out need a vacation,
Kind court alleviates people's vexation;
Throw out the flattering fakes,
scare blighters and crushers,
Don't ruin folk pretending it's government,
tho' you're mere babes in this business
and the job bigger than you can guess . .
X
Altributed to the Earl of Fan
In King Li's lime, 877-841 B.C. 254
2
The heavens send down the hard, pull in your smirk
Gainst sky's square kick, no man has time to shirk.
Words fit to fact
folk will enact;
Calm discourse
needeth no force.
3
From a different line of work, my colleagues,
I bring you an idea. You smirk.
It's in the line of duty. Wipe off that smile, and
as our grandfathers used to say:
Ask the fellows who cut the hay.
4
There is no joke in heaven's severity,
Old men clear ditches and young men step high.
My word 's not moss-grown. Your frivolity
is a muck heap's blaze.
Fagots, not to be saved, blaze higher,
Medicine grass puts out no :fire.
255
3
King Wen said: So!
Yin-Shang insatiate,
one honest appointment arouses hate,
The over-steppers of boundaries answer
with a flux of debate.
You set thieves in the core of yoUI state,
Then wait in wishful thinking
and make no move to investigate.
4
King Wen said: So!
You brawl in the middle kingdom;
collect resentments and call it sincerity.
There is no light in yoUI conscience
and yoUI acts shed. therefore, no light
in yoUI inwit and you are left without ministers,
without party.
5
King Wen said: So!
Yin-Shang not tanned of wind but of wine
red. Not in virtue's line
moving, wrong in your stance,
You have taken a tiger's roaring for pattern
and think that mere noise is a form.
Having neither light nor darkness to norm,
neither darkness nor light,
You bed at dawn and rise up with the coming of night.
6
King Wen said: Huh.
Yin-Shang aloft there,
cicada,
Your noise is like bugs in the grass, broad
as the bubbling of soup in a cauldron. locust
7
l{ing Wen said: So,
Woe to proud Yin up aloft,
It is not that skies are unseason'd,
Yin useth not the old wisdom.
Even tho' there are no old men and perfect,
the antient statutes remain and he does not hear them,
The great seal is broken, cast down.
8
King Wen said : So!
Damned Yin, there is a saying:
Utter destruction is knowable
'l'hl)' branch and leaf be unwitbered
the root is rotted away.
II
Ascribed Jo Duke Wv of Wei,
who reigned 81 1 -756 B.C.
He reproves himself, al Jhe age
of 95. Vide also Ode 220,
3
How stand we now? Confusion in government,
bemused chaos up, and conscience down,
flat down, be it on back or front,
but sunk at any rate - thou art so drunk
and deep in nothing save it be merriment.
Severed continuance, thou dunce,
shallow in law of antient kingly light
that might, in this darkness, tow thy bark aright.
With false diffuseness
in seeking precedent,
losing the clear
and penal laws intent.
4
Disorder hath no preferment from the sky;
as the spring's seepage that runs wallowing down
with no clear channels, it but sinks, is lost.
Wake with the sun and go thou late to bed,
dust out thy court-yard and sprinkle, folk will take
order. Attend to thy carts and nags,
bows, arrows and weapons, for the land's defence
'gainst the wild Mann and crude South's insolence.
5
Weigh your appointees to their natural weight,
measure your feudal lords attentively
lest ructions come upon you unaware.
Mean from the heart what flows out from the tongue;
respect your own respect for equity
nor lack true tenderness.
Flaw in jade sceptre can be ground away,
'gainst word ill-spoke there is no remedy.
7
Meet not thy friends with scowls,
Error 's yclept almost vicinity,
and when thou art thine own sole company
say not: No man can see thru the roof's air-hole,
In my north-west ingle is naught can make shame,
here is no eye.
The spirits have their own divisions of thought
not to our measure wrought,
· that ours yet shoot toward.
8
Prince, 'tis thy job to keep thy conscience clean
inducing so a probity
laudable.
;Care for the place you're in, plant there your tree,
�defect not toward men's rights in property
'either by theft or gentler usurpation
;and you'll be followed, almost, by the nation;
iPeach thrown to me, shall net a plum for thee
�and . . . lambs will have horns, my son,
"whAn fainbows turn to stone.
9
''Pough wood will bend
,,lf silk 's to make the string,
.,Calmness curves men and conscience is their base.
JV
2 ise, at these words, mere words, old saws,
'do right, while fools deny,
11
Bright is the light that gleams in over-sky
yet leaves me grumped in black stupidity,
grinding it out, over and over again,
the self-same lesson, which, if thou dost hear,
art bored contemptuous, not bored to tears.
Dost 'ou plead ignorance?
After these ninety years?
12
This is the spot, the old stand is not changed,
but can'st 'ou act? can'st do it? That 's the rub,
to keep the people from yet greater woe,
tho' heaven frowns pestilence and state 's to wrack?
Take parallel, thou hast not far to go
nor doth sky err.
Defilement of inner light
brings blight,
and dire, on all thy folk.
Ill
Ascribed to the Earl of Jui,
who died 827 B.C:. 257
2
Here be four hefty nags
with a flutter and flap of falcon flags
and an unendable hullabaloo,
every state government fallen thru,
nobody left wearing black hair,
jinx on the remnants everywhere,
howling and mourning and every grief
and the kingdom rotten to its last leaf.
3
Also the state's money has given out,
given out and flowed away
and heaven has nothing to say;
under suspicion, nowhere to stand.
Jump off? nowhere to land.
Gentlemen could of course combine to run the state
without acrimony and party line.
Well, who started it anyhow?
And who the devil can stop it now?
4
I brood on the land's woe and house woe
born out of date
to early grief,
from west to east no relief,
no quiet, and as for thotnB round the gate!
5
Think, damn it, on the brink
of ruin, I tell you to think,
and appoint solid officers, wet hand
for hot iron (you can drown
in a stream while discussing the best way to filter it)
even hot iron will sink.
6
North wind blows breath down the throat,
the people are decent, you head 'em off;
love hay-ricks because they are power
over the people, not because they are food stuff.
7
Death rains and chaos from heaven down
swamping the king and throne,
worms gnaw thru root and joint of the grain,
woe to the Middle Land, murrain and mould .
Prospect of plenty is sudden emptiness,
no strength for the troops in this distress
to think of over-arched nothingness.
8
A kind prince hath men's 1·espect
for his mind's grip, plans' scopes,
and for the care he sets to select
right men to aid him .
But this cantankerous top
thinks he alone is right
and guided by his own sole liver and lights
ascribes the trouble to the folk's uppishness,
grown uppish (and from him) over night.
9
Observe in the middle wood pair'd herds of deer
in contrast to false friends among us here.
Slander grows no good grain
and, as the old saw says:
Roads both ways
run thru valleys
(such is their natural route).
10
A wise man's words
axe heard an hundred li,
A fool delights
in his own jactancy.
Sans words, no power,
Why fear, why jealousy?
12
Great winds move clear
thru the great hollow vales,
Good men avail likewise
as if thought's form made the grain rise.
Dirty dog must
perforce find dust.
13
Great wind to tomb,
Greed, so, is doom.
Could he hear and reply
to what I mutter drunkenly
for his good,
utterly misunderstood?
14
And will you, friends, say that. I sing
in ignorance, that I know nothing, yet sing?
Beasties on wing
time's dart shall touch presently.
I was your goodly shade,
and your rage turns against me.
15
There is no limit to what some people will do,
Cool officials' shifty backs
do not make-good popular lacks.
They say they can't help what goes on,
alleging that people are twisty naturally
they seek force to enforce their authority.
16
The " people " are not in the least perverse
the high-ups rob, cheat 'em and do worse,
IV
DROUGHT 258
2
The great drought is come as parching,
quilted with locusts and swollen,
thete is no sacrifice I have not offered
neither have I neglected the bournes nor their altars,
Above, below, I have offered up offering
and I have buried.
There is no power I have not honoured,
The Lord Tsi· does not uphold us
Nor the power of heaven approach us,
Waste, devast the earth,
would that it fell upon me, on my person only!
3
For the great drought I offer no self-exculpation,
I quake as under the thunder,
that there be no whole man left in Chou,
God over heaven, neither that I survive.
Why will none join me in reverence
that the spirit of the ancestral cartouche,
the founder, the cult, come not to end?
* Or simply that he has buried all he has, to propitiate the powers of earth.
5
Great the drought, the high hills are parched
and their rivers withered away,
without and within the fire-demons consume us,
My heart is made barren with the sorrow of burning,
The pastoral dukes of aforetime will not hear us
neither will the bright god over heaven
permit me to lay down my charge.
6
The drought has parched into the depth,
I struggle, I labour and dare not retire.
Why comes this affliction upon us, mad with the heat,
We know not the reason.
We prayed early that there be harvest,
we have neglected no bourne of the Square,
0 light that is high over welkin
this is not what we expected ,
By my reverence for the bright spirits of air
they ought not to hate me.
I have had awe for the intelligence of the spirits
for the light in the air circumvolvent
they should not hold me under their anger.
7
The drought has parched deep into the earth,
the people are dispersed leaving no records,
the local governments are fallen to pieces,
the prime minister, the head of the horse-guards,
the head of the commissariat have broken down,
The great officers have done their utmost, no one has funked,
I look up to heaven, saying:
Where is the bourne?
v
SUNG, IN HONAN,
highest of the Five Peaks * 259
2
The King set task to Lord Shen
who is as a full altar
to carry on in his service; to set city at Sie;
to be pattern to all the South States.
To the Earl of Shao he commanded saying:
Make smooth the way of Lord Shen
that he set house in the South Land
there to form the South state
and that coming ages maintain this labour.
3
And the King said to Lord Shen:
Be thou pattern to all the lands of the South,
make use of these men of Sie;
lift a pivot that shall not shake.
• To celebrate King Slian's appointment of the Marquis of Shen to defend the South
Border, Ode by Yin Ki-fu. Stian's time 826-781 B.c.
4
To Lord Shen the labour, and to Earl Shao
the building construction
to begin the town wall and the inner temple
(to roof perfectly temple and fane)
And when this labour was ended
he gave to Lord Shen four horses,
high steppers with gleaming harness and breast-hooks,
5
and a car of state with the horses, saying:
Our plan is your shelter,
there is no land like the South
I give you this sceptre whereon to raise up your treasure,
Go forth, Uncle Royal,
and maintain the lands of the South.
6
At Mei was the feast valediction
and the Lord Shen turned south
to form true homestead in Sie
And to Earl Shao he commanded
that he lay out Lord Shen's land divisions
and set provision stations in mountain passes
that there be no undue delay.
7
So the Lord Shen came to Sie
in due order with cohorts
with footmen and charioteers
and through all Chou was united rejoicing
for such solid defence and good bulwark.
Was not the Lord Shen as a sun drawing vapours,
the Royal Uncle, ensample in peace as in war?
VI
Heaven of fire and water
making man
had stuff and plan;
put there maller and sheaf
took grip in seed
tD natural good diaposed. 260
2
Chung Shan was pattern of praise
handsome of face as of ways,
with a mind for the antient laws
ever detailed. In vigour of equity,
By his concord with the Sky's Child
an enlightened destiny prevailed.
(And Chou's rule spread ) .
4
System in Royal decree,
in Chung Shan, aptitude
to know the states, good and not good,
astute to use his light,
to keep himself himself, uninterruptedly *
day, night,
serving the Monarchy.
5
" Eat soft, spit hard out," so the proverb says,
In Chung Shan's case, the rule was put in doubt.
Poor widows and fatherless were not insulted
Nor to encroaching bojars indulgence granted.
6
Men have a saying: 'Ware,
virtue is light as a hair,
few can lift it, most gaze
(contemplatively) at honour's ways.
Chung lifted it, and wd/ rely
on no man's affectionate partiality,
where failed straight letter of the King's decrees
Chung Shan-fu filled in the deficiencies
(patched up the royal robe).
7
Cross-road sacrifice when
Chung Shan set out,
strong his teams.
* Ta Hio, K'ung 4 .
8
Four fleet stallions on rein the
eight rein bells jangled away
when Chung Shan-fu went out to Ts'i,
Here 's a hope for his quick return,
Ki Fu lifts this neat bordone
with clear sound as wind over wheat
That Chung Shan's mind from labour long
may come to quiet at least in a song.
VII 261
2
With four great stallions tense
on rein, the Marquis of Han went to audience,
By royal grace held tally-mace, flag, palio;
got chequered car-screen and embossed brass yoke,
black robe, red shoes, and for his team,
breast hooks and frontlets engraved,
a leathered front-board with tiger-fell
and metal rein-rings as well.
3
At the cross-roads Han sacrificed,
nighted at T'u. Hien gave him the parting feast,
4
Kuei-fu's daughter, King Fen's niece,
Han had by hand such royal piece
to meet at Kuei's with an hundred teams,
bells a-din, catching the light.
The escort girls about her were like clouds
unto the Marquis' eye,
and the great wall-gate flamed with
that splendour of pageantry.
5
Kuei-fu by war, then, had passed thru
all states, none missed, and, when he sought
site for his daughter's homestead, knew
none to match Han in pleasauntness.
Rivers tend great greenness to send there,
fish in abundance be mid this fertility,
bream, tench. Doe and deer cry mating where
roams many a bear and great bear,
lynxes and tigers there be. His child Han Ki
could have, thus, home there delightfully.
6
Wide be the walls of Han,
Yen troops had capped them tight.
Font of this dynasty got charge
in causal time, mid hundred tribelets, to be lord,
Marquis of Han, over the Chui and Mo horde
and great lands North, to be
their Earl because of solid wall and moat,
ploughed lot and register
and pay tribute in pelts
of the white fox, red pard and yellow bear.
2
Turgid the waters of Kiang and Han,
a glitter of men
flow rank upon rank.
As threads on a loom
done as to plan,
We sent dispatches up to the throne:
" The four coigns are quiet,
in four coigns no riot,
Let the King's commons live quiet."
There was, so, for a time no unsettlement
and the King's mind was content.
3
By green Kiang banks,
By green Han banks
The King ordered Shao Tiger
to make model state administration:
open it all four square
for cultivation,
tithe and define,
4
And the King commanded Hugh Shao :
Ten days, wide proclamation:
Wen and Wu received the Decree, and the Duke of Shao
was their bulwark.
Count me as a child, be thou like him,
go into function; judge;
make use of your fortune (the grant)
the light come to rest upon you.
5
" Measured to you that you should measure in turn
by sceptre-spoon, wine from the holy urn,
clear jade to lift out the black-millet's breath .
'
that Wen above (spirits above) may know in Earth beneath
hills, lands and fields are set in your account
as from the ancestral fount in just accrue
take up this charge from Chou (in Chou)."
And as the grain bows, Hugh bowed then:
" Ten thousand years, Sky's son, to be thy span."
6
Low as the grain falls, with his head to ground
bowed Hugh: " Royal grace manifest,
let it so rise that the Great Duke may attest
it unto ten thousand years, Sky's Son,
in the brightness of his mentality
may the fame of his mind know no end;
as an arrow may his civilized insight penetrate
by act the four realms of the state.
2
The King said to the Head of the Yin clan:
Order Hiu-fu Earl of Ch'eng to make flank defence
left bank and right bank,
to alert (police) all my regiments
that march by the reaches of Huai,
that he keep eye (care for) the lands of the Sii
that there be no dawdling and no billeting
and in the Three Services most exact cooperation
to the one end.
3
Splendid, dire, terrible in magnificence
the Imperial operation royally
stretched out, supported, aroused
with no gaps and no straggling,
ever deploying and prodding.
Sii land was shaken by the hooves of the cavalry
as sky under wings of thunder.
4
The King lifted his war might as a bird from a field nest,
as anger of thunder;
5
Many and thick moved the king's troops
as the wings of birds flying
(as the red plumes of the pheasant) ;
as flood of the Kiang and Han,
as the gnarled roots of the mountains,
as rivers o'erflowing
undulant as bright wheat, and continuous.
None could measure them, none could stay them
and they cleaned up Sii-land.
6
The king's candour was clear and continuous,
Sii land came into the kingdom
therein to have equal equities
by the work of Heaven's anointed,
Sii land was quiet,
The Sii came to the court-yard:
" In Sii there would be no twisting."
Whereon the King said they could go home.
X
Ascribed ro lhe Earl of Fan,
againsl King Yu, 780-770 B.C. 264
3
Wise man rears a wall
and a sly bitch downs it,
so nice to look at, elaborate in contriving?
No. Dirty, an owl, her tongue long as a dust-storm.
The stair-way, confusion not descended from heaven
but up-sprung from women and eunuchs
fro:QJ whom never good warning nor lesson.
4
They attack willful to injure, in this wise:
Their first slander passes unnoticed,
there is no bourne to their tattle,
as if a nobleman did not know the nature of usury
at three hundred per cent {" in the manner of trade " ) !
Keep the hens out o f public business,
let 'em stick to silk-worms and weaving.
5
Why is the welkin thorny
that the powers of air do not bless us?
you even shelter the wild tribes of the North
and turn hate against me,
you do not look to the signs of the times,
you disregard justice,
men resign from their offices
and the uprooted state is worn out.
6
Heaven is come down like a net
all-taking, and men go dolorous into exile,
heaven is come down like a net
hardly-visible,
and men go into exile heart-broken.
XI
Allributed to the Earl of Fan 265
2
Heaven has let down a drag-net of ill-doing,
the locusts have gnawed us with word-work,
they have hollowed our speech,
Perverse alliances and continuing crookedness have divided us,
evil men are set above us, in ease.
3
Amid slanders and vain disputations
they see themselves flawless,
they know not their en·ors
they count on their not being seen,
emulous, ostentatious, cantankerous in their ostentation
by long disorder
the high offices are brought down.
4
As grass in a drought year
with nothing to water its shoots,
as cress in dry tree fork, dry as a bird's nest
so in this state
there is none not given to sabotage.
6
Pool dry without inflow,
Fountain dry without inner spring,
they have overflowed wide with their injuring,
they have engrossed and expanded their functions,
may they not overwhelm me.
7
When the king (Siian) got the Decree here before you
he had a Duke of Shao to uphold him
who brought the state an hundred li in one day;
Today they lose daily similar holding,
and as to the nature of sorrow
there are men who do not strive to grasp the antique.
F 0 U R
In three books
O D E S O F T H E
T E M P L E A N D A L T A R
PART IV ODES OF THE TEMPlE AND ALTAR (SUNG)
'
SECTION I POEMS 266-275 TS ING MIAO
'
SECTION II POEMS 276-285 CH EN KUNG
266
II 267
.,,.
Ill
Fluid in clarity,
from mouth to ear binding, scintillant;
scrupulous, enkindling,
King Wen's classifications initially
tracing the lines of our worship,
the spirit moves in their use;
hath brought them to focus.
Chou maintained their enlightenment.
IV 269
ALITER
v 270
VII
Hymn for princes at audience in the
Hall of Light, end of Autumn, sacrifice
to God and King Wen. 272
We bring, we give
a ram and bull alive,
Let heav'n stand right.
King Wen's law is our light;
Sun clears four coigns,
that is Wen's joy.
He's accepted.
Day, night, in fear
of heaven's majesty,
our bread shall he be.
VIII
As spoken by the Duke of Chou
on lour of inspection after
Wu's overthrow af Shang,
and thence afterward at
commemorations (?)
"The legality of his kingship binds In
the continuity of the sovereignty." 273
276
Imperial wheat
receive their intelligence.
Ill 278
Egrets to fly
to this West Moat,
guests at my portal
be such cause for joy.
No hate roots there,
and here in court no irk,
but as the seeds of motion axe
to all their folk, early and late
cause praise.*
IV 279
v 280
VI
CONSERVATION HYMN,
far lhe flrsl manlh of wlnler 281
• • • (JE� lEpov lx()uv,
-
ov XEi)Kov Ko.A£outnv , o -y6.p (J' lEpro.ros ii}..}.w
. v.
VII 282
VIII 283
IX
Welcome to the representalive
of the former dynasty, Shang;
this Is shown by the dynastic
colour of the horses 284
X
Wu royal,
if we Inherit
age-old quiet
'tis by his merit. 285
Ill
CH'ENG, THE YOUNG KING,
on the monarch's duty to observe
the season& and calendar 288
IV 289
VI 291
VII
Probably for the day after
•acrifice to the representatives
of the ancestors 292
VIJI
0£Ka£OO'VJJ'I/
To conclude a dance in honour of Wu 293
IX
Sung in connection with a dance
to Wu, and, in declarations of war,
to the war god. Said to date
from the time of King K'ang. 294
Calm was
in his house
that its light gleamed up to heaven,
filling the space between. He was Emperor
as if at his ease. t
X
Said to co nta in the formula
used by Wu in granting fiefs
in the Dynastic Temple
* Shu V.vii.
t Analects VIII.xvii (VIII .xxi).
XI
"THE P'AN," thai is, the "lransparl song,"
which I lake to mean the one used
when carrying the !alley-jades
to Wu ond lo his successors
In his capital 296
In bright season
Chou was risen;
mounting High Mount,
passing Proud Mount
crag to echo on peak of Mount Yo.
Wings of water in Ho
packed thick, ever to flow
over all spread
neath Heaven's lid.
3
At graze over moor-land strong stallions
whites and bays with black manes
and white-maned black stallions
pull with due order, unwinded ;
Our lord's thought is unflagging
for the breeding of horses.
4
Wide ovm· moor-land at grass the bull horses
iron-grey, sleek, calico, dapple
fish-eyed great stallions for cars,
So our lord's thoughts bite
and his cavalry charges.
II
YU PI 298
2
Sleek stallions and strong
early and late to court
bring men, drums, wine. Men
come, go, come yet again
as egrets on the wing
and take their firm delight.
Ill
P'AN SHUI 299
2
As thought delights in water
by the half-circling pool
picking pond-weed,
hooves clicking clearly
high feet of horses:
clear his fame, clear his face,
clear his laugh is, to teach without anger
in this place.
3
mallows beside the pool are light to gather,
Lord Lu approaches for wine and feasting.
Heavy the wine to lighten age,
by the long pilgrimage
wild tribes were bent to the sage.
4
As a white field of grain, Lord Lu
acting by light
of his insight
respecting straightness
in awe of the equities, the people's canon and rule,
5
Clear was the mind of Lu, his insight
guided his acts aright;
raised then this college by the crescent pool.
The wild Huai came neath his rule.
Tiger dragoons bring trophies here;
captive by pool-brink risketh an ear;
as by Kao-Yao the questioning,
brought to the water's encircling.
6
Officers to assembly defined
spread Lu's type of mind,
inwit to act; so, when they attacked ,
swept out to East and South
by zeal and clarity o'erthrowing barbary,
neither with shouting nor with splurging
nor with recourse to military tribunals
as faithful retrievers brought their deeds to this pool.
7
The long, horned bows
volley compact,
in the cars' manege war-skill appears
rmiiing tmwinded
infantry and charioteers, overswept H uai.
Till here
be now tillers who were vagrant rebels aforetime,
as solidly planned, the Huai are now faithful dependents.
IV
LORD GRAIN 300
2
Of Hou Tsi's line came T'ai,
king on south slopes of K'i,
first to trim jactancy
of overweening Shang.
Then Wen and Wu concluded that King T'ai began,
neath heaven's governance and hour
by Wu's ado:
" Have no split aim, nor doubt "
in Mu
plain polished off Shang:
" God's eye, and Shang's at end ."
3
Thus was the Marquis made lord of the East,
to him the hills and streams in lasting fief.
Now Duke Chuang's son
of Chou duke's line
comes with the dragon-flags to sacrifice,
holding the six tough reins.
4
For the Autumnal rite,
in summer, bulls, one white
two red, wear boards across their horns
to keep them whole.
The great libation jars
are prepared and one 's shaped like a bull.
Boil'd and roast pig, minced meat and soup
are set on stand in great and little trays.
A thousand dancers in maze
assert the heir prosperous.
Thus, eager, in fane, wave after wave
of the dance portrays:
5
So the Duke has a thousand cars,
Red the tassel, green the bow-band,
heavy the bows, two lances stand
upright in every car,
thirty thousand of infantry,
casques with red strings of cowries' shells
in regiments compact, act;
breast the wild tribes, the dogs,
north, west, King, Shu, and war
none dares before
Chou's arms.
6
Honour and glory and long years to fleck
hair faded yellow, the plump round back
and old cronies for argument,
who still know what that glory meant,
to be old with you in governance
endless years as a thousand pass
and in those years
under old brows, no injuries.
7
Upholder of Yi and Fu, both,
overlord of the House where had fallen Sii
and so came to the salt sea coast
Huai and the wild men of Man and Mo
and yet further the southern hordes
acknowledged these overlords, Lu.
9
Pines of Tsu-lai,
Cypress of Sin
were trimmed to measure and brought in,
cut to eight feet by one foot square,
with their pine beam-horns and carven heads
lofty in chamber and corridor.
The new sun temple intricate
Hi Sy raised it, high and great,
ten thousand may it accommodate.
NA 301
II
KYRIE ELEJSON
father of all our line
Ill
BLACK SWALLOW 303
At heaven's command
came the black swallow down
and Shang was born;
came the black swallow down
that Shang should wear the crown
in Yin, mid bearded grain, Yin plenteous.
IV 304
2
Dark king of the ready hand
had state with little land,
made that great, and, in the greater state
trod down on no man's right;
followed the light with deeds.
Siang-T'u in those days
swept back the wild sea's Malays.
3
The Sky's decree inviolate
stood until T'ang all orderly.
T'ang, not a day too late
came, sage, full of awe to trace
footsteps of .the measuring sun
till to the very altar stone
came light deliberate.
As sky respects this order processional
so be it model, in fate,
to the earth's nine parts in all.
5
Had tribute jade in lesser and great assess,
stud stallion of lesser states, a favouring dragon cloud
spread round his power
not by the thunder shock
nor heaving abrupt
but with calm confidence in his mind's use
augmented an hundred-fold his revenues.
6
The warrior king set flag upon his car,
had pity, gripped his axe and blazed to war.
None dared
stand our shock.
Three sucking shoots clamped round the King of Hia,
a stump (a block, dead wood)
None moved, none understood
(had news) in Hia.
So all the nine great holds were ours utterly,
Wei, Ku, cut down; K'un's Wu and Hia's Kie.
7
Once with time's leaf half grown
came quake and shake
whereon the heavens sent down
A-Heng * to aid the Imperial Crown,
Shang's bulwark and defence to be
solid at all points dexterously.
* Yi-Yin. Shu IV.4, 5, 6.
" 0 ye of King-Ch'u
that dwell in the south parts of my kingdom,
whom T'ang of old set in true order
so that even unto Ti-Kiang (the far tribes)
none dared not come to the cauldron of sacrifice
nor avoid the king's judgement:
Say now that Shang endures."