燕燕于飛、差池其羽。 之子于歸、遠送于野。 瞻望弗及、泣涕如雨。

燕燕于飛、頡之頏之。 之子于歸、遠于將之。 瞻望弗及、佇立以泣。

燕燕于飛、下上其音。 之子于歸、遠送于南。 瞻望弗及、實勞我心。

仲氏任只、其心塞淵。 終溫且惠、淑慎其身。 先君之思、以勗(xù)寡人。

The swallows go flying about, With their wings unevenly displayed.  The lady was returning [to her native state], And I escorted her far into the country.  I looked till I could no longer see her, And my tears fell down like rain.

The swallows go flying about, Now up, now down.  The lady was returning [to her native state], And far did I accompany her.  I looked till I could no longer see her, And long I stood and wept.

The swallows go flying about; From below, from above, comes their twittering.  The lady was returning [to her native state], And far did I escort her to the south.  I looked till I could no longer see her, And great was the grief of my heart.

Lovingly confiding was lady Zhong; Truly deep was her feeling.  Both gentle was she and docile, Virtuously careful of her person.  In thinking of our deceased lord, She stimulated worthless me. 

Ode 3. Narrative and allusive. Chwang Keang relates her grief at the departure of Tae Kwei, and celebrates that lady's virtue.

It has been related on the last ode, how Tae Kwei bore Hwang to duke Chwang of Wei; and how he was brought up by Chwang Keang and finally succeeded to his father. In B. C. 718, he -- duke Huan, 恒公 -- was murdered by his half-brother Chow-yu, and his mother then returned -- was obliged, probably, to return -- to her native State of Ch'in. Chwang Keang continued in Wei, the marchioness-dowager; and she is understood to bewail, in this piece, her sorrow at the departure of her cherished and virtuous companion.

Stt. 1, 2, 3. L1. 1, 2. 燕 is still the common name in China for the swallow. Maou and Choo take the reduplication of the character here as still singular; -- after the Urh-ya. It seems more natural, however, to take it as plural. So Yen Ts'an, and others. The figure of the creature in illustrations of the She is that of the Hirundo daurieus. Synonyms of 燕 are 鳦 and 玄鳥. 差(read as in i.I)池 = 'the app. of being uneven.' To the spectator, the wings of the swallow, in its rapid and irregular flight, often present this appearance. 頡頏 (al. with 羽 on the right) denote the appearance of the birds in flying, their darting upwards being specially signified by the former character, and their sudden turns downwards by the latter. So says Maou, 飛而上曰頡, 飛而下曰頏。Wang T'aou, however, calls attention to an argument of Twan Yuh-tsae, that 上 and 下 should here change places. '頡,' he says, 'takes its meaning from 頁, = 頭, "the head," and 頏 its meaning from 亢 = 頸, "the neck." When a bird is flying downwards, we see its head; when it is rising in the air, we see its neck. And moreover, that it is the downward flight which is first described appears from the 下上 of the next stanza.' It is not worth while to try and settle the point. The migratory habits of the swallow, probably, lie at the basis of the allusion. Chwang Keang and Tae Kwei had been happy together as two swallows, and now one of them was off to the south, and the other was left alone.

L1. 3,4. 歸 is here 'the great return (大歸)'; not the visit of a wife to see her parents, but her return for good to her native State. 之子, -- 子 here is 'a lady,' one who was a widow. In 于歸, 于將, 于 is the particle. 將 = 送, 'to escort.' Ch'in lay south from Wei, and therefore we have 于南.

L1.5.6. We must take 泣 and 涕 together as ='to weep'; though 泣 is defined as 'the emission of tears without any sound.' 佇 = 久, 'a long time.'

St.4. By 仲氏, 'the lady Chung,' we are to understand Tae Kwei. She was called 仲, as the 2d of sisters or of cousins, to distinguish her in the family and the harem; and the designation becomes here equivalent to a surname. 只 occurred before, an untranslatable particle, in i.IV., in the middle of a line; here it is at the end. We find it with 尺 and 車 at the side, used in the same way, and also interchanged with 旨. 仁 has the meaning in the translation. One definition of it is -- 信于友道, 'sincere in the ways of friendship.' 塞 = 實, 'really.' Throughout the She, 終, followed by 且 is merely = 既, and may be translated by 'both.' We must not give it the sense of 'ever.' By 先君 is intended duke Chwang. Considering all the evils which he had brought on the two ladies, it is matter of astonishment that they should be able to think of him with any feeling but that of detestation. But, according to Chinese ideas, though the husband have failed in every duty, the wife must still cherish his memory with affection.

The rhymes are -- in st. 1, 羽, 野*, 雨; in 2, 頏, 將; 及, 泣; in 3, 音, 南; 心; in 4, 淵, 身, 人.

綠兮衣兮、綠衣黃裏。 心之憂矣、曷維其已。

綠兮衣兮、綠衣黃裳。 心之憂矣、曷維其亡。

綠兮絲兮、女所治兮。 我思古人、俾無訧兮。

稀兮綌兮、淒其以風。 我思古人、實獲我心。

Green is the upper robe, Green with a yellow lining!  The sorrow of my heart, -- How can it cease?

Green is the upper robe, Green the upper, and yellow the lower garment!  The sorrow of my heart, -- How can it be forgotten?

[Dyed] green has been the silk; -- It was you who did it.  [But] I think of the ancients, That I may be kept from doing wrong.

Linen, fine or course, Is cold when worn in the wind.  I think of the ancients, And find what is in my heart.

Ode 2. Metaphorical. The complaint, sad but resigned, of a neglected wife.

We said that the last piece was explained by Choo of Chwang Këang, one of the marchionesses of Wei. This ode and several others are, by the unanimous consent of the critics, assigned to her, though it is only in ode 3 that we have internal evidence of the authorship, or subject at least, that is of weight.

The marquis Yang(揚), or duke Chwang (莊), succeeded to the State of Wei in B.C. 756. In that year, he married a Këang, a daughter of the House of Ts'e -- the Chwang Këang of history. She was a lady of admirable character, and beautiful; but as she had no child, he took another wife, a kwei(厲嬀) of the State of Ch'in. She had a son, who died early; but a cousin who had accompanied her to the harem, called Tae Kwei (戴媯), gave birth to Hwan (完), whom the marquis recognized as destined in due time to succeed him. At his request, and with her own good will, Chwang Këang brought this child up as her own. Unfortunately, however, another lady of the harem, of quite inferior rank, bore the marquis a son, called Chow-yu (州吁), who became a favourite with him, and grew up a bold, dashing, unprincipled young man. The marquis died in 734, and was succeeded by his son Hwan, between whom and Chow-yu differences soon arose. The latter fled from the State; but he returned, and in 718 murdered the marquis, and attempted, without success, to establish himself in his place. -- The above details we have from Sze-ma Ts'ëen, and from Tso-she under the 3d and 4th years of duke Yin. The odes lead us further into the harem of Wei, and show us the dissatisfactions and unhappiness which prevailed there.

Stt. 1,2. L1.1,2. 'Yellow' is one of the 5 'correct' colours of the Chinese (see on Ana. X. vi.), and 'green' is one of the intermediate,' or colours that are less esteemed. Here we have the yellow used merely as a lining to the green, or employed for the lower and less honourable part of the dress; --and inversion of all propriety, and setting forth how the concubine, the mother of Chow-yu, had got into the place of the rightful wife, and thrust the latter down. The old interpreters take the lines as allusive, while with Choo they are metaphorical; but they understand them in the same way. Choo's view seems the preferable: 'Like a green robe with yellow lining, &c, so is the state of things with us.' L1. 3.4 describe Chwang Këang's feeling 已 = 止, 'to stop;' 亡 is equivalent to 忘, 'to forget,' 'to be forgotten.'

St.3. The green garment was originally so much silk on which the colour had been superinduced by dyeing; -- intimating how the marquis had put the concubine in the place of the wife. 女 = 汝, 'you,' referring to the marquis or husband. So, Choo; -- better than K'ang-shing, who takes 女 = 女人. 治 has the meaning of 'to do,' 'to bring about.' The 'ancients' are wives of some former time, who had been placed in similarly painful circumstances, and set a good example of conduct in them. K'ang-shing makes them out to be simply the ancient authors of the rules of propriety, with whom Chwang Këang was in accord, while the marquis had turned those rules upside down.  訧 = 尤, 'extraordinary,' 'to go beyond what is right.'

St.4. 稀 and 綌, -- see on i II.2. 'Linen' in the translation is not quite accurate, as this cloth was made of dolichos fibre. 淒, is the rec. text; but we should read 凄, meaning 'cold'; 淒 denotes 'the app. of clouds rising.' See K'ang-shing, as quoted by Yen Ts'an in loc. It is not easy to construe the 2nd line. Wang T'aou would take both 其 and 以 as particles; but we might give it literally: --'cold is it because of the wind.' The speaker represents herself as wearing a cold dress in cold weather, when she should be warmly clad. All this are against her. 實 (=是) 獲我心, 'and get my mind'; meaning apparently, that by her study of the examples of antiquity, Chwang Këang, found herself strengthened to endure, as she was doing, her own painful experience.

The rhymes are -- in st. 1, 裹, 已; in 2, 裳, 亡; in 3, 絲, 治, 訧; in 4, 風, 心.

汎彼柏舟、亦汎其流。 耿耿不寐、如有隱憂。 微我無酒、以敖以遊。

我心匪鑒、不可以茹。 亦有兄弟、不可以據。 薄言往愬、逢彼之怒。

我心匪石、不可轉也。 我心匪席、不可卷也。 威儀棣棣、不可選也。

憂心悄悄、慍于群小。 覯閔既多、受侮不少。 靜言思之、寤辟有摽。

日居月諸、胡迭而微。 心之憂矣、如匪澣衣。 靜言思之、不能奮飛。

It floats about , that boat of cypress wood ;  Yea , it floats about on the current .  Disturbed am I and sleepless ,  As if suffering from a painful wound .  It is not because I have no wine ,  And that I might not wander and saunder about .

My mind is not a mirror ; --  It cannot [equally] receive [all impressions] .  I , indeed , have brothers ,  But I cannot depend on them ,  I meet with their anger .

My mind is not a stone ; --  It cannot be rolled about .  My mind is not a mat ; --  It cannot be rolled up .  My deportment has been dignified and good ,  With nothing wrong which can be pointed out .

My anxious heart is full of trouble ;  I am hated by the herd of mean creatures ;  I meet with many distresses ;  I receive insults not a few .  Silently I think of my case ,  And , starting as from sleep , I beat my breast .

There are the sun and moon , --  How is it that the former has become small , and not the latter ?  The sorrow cleaves to my heart ,  Like an unwashed dress .  Silently I think of my case ,  But I cannot spread my wings and fly away . 

Title of the Book. --邶, 一之三 'P'ei, Book III. of Part I.' 

Of P'ei which gives its name to this Book, and of Yung which gives its name to the next, we scarcely know anything. Long before the time of Confucius, perhaps before the date of any of the pieces in them, they had become incorporated with the State of Wei, and it is universally acknowledged that the odes of Books III., IV., and V. are odes of Wei. Why they should be divided into three portions, and two of them assigned to P'ei and Yung is a mystery, which Choo declares it is impossible to understand. It would be a waste of time to enter on a consideration of the various attempts which have been made to elucidate it. In the long narrative which is given by Tao-she under p.8 of the 29th year of duke Seang, they sing to the Ke-chah, their visitor from Woo at the court of Loo, the odes of P'ei, Yung, and Wei, and that nobleman exclaims, 'I hear and I know: -- it was the virtue of K'ang-shuh and of duke Woo, which made these odes what they are, -- the odes of Wei,' This was in B. C. 543, when Confucius was 8 years old. Then there existed the division of these odes into 3 Books with the names of different States, all, however, acknowledged to be odes of Wei.

When king Woo overthrew the dynasty of Shang, the domain of its kings was divided by him into three portions. That north of their capital was P'ei; that south of it was Yung; and that east of it was Wei. These were constituted into three principalities; but who among his adherents were invested with P'ei and Yung has not been clearly ascertained. Most probably they were assigned to Woo-kăng, the son of the last king of Shang, and the 3 brothers of king Woo, who were appointed to oversee him. What was done with them, after the rebellion of Woo-kăng and his overseers, is not known; but in process of time the marquises of Wei managed to add them to their own territory.

The first marquis of Wei was K'ang-shuh, a brother of king Woo, of whose investiture we have an account in the Shoo, V. ix., though whether he received it from Woo, or in the next reign from the duke of Chow, is a moot point. The first capital of Wei was on the north of the Ho, to the east of Ch'aou-ko, the old capital of Shang. There it continued till B. C. 659, when the State was nearly extinguished by some northern hordes, and duke Tae (戴公) removed across the river to Ts'aou (漕邑); but in a couple of years, his successor, duke Wăn (文公), removed again to Ts'oo-k'ew (楚邱),-- in the pres. dis. of Shing-woo (城武) dep. Ts'aou-chow, Shan-tung. The State of Wei embraced the territory occupied by Hwue-k'ing, Wei-hwuy, Chang-teh, --all in Ho-nan, and portions of the depp. of K'ae-fung in the same province, of Ta-ming in Chih-le, and of Tung-chang in Shan-tung.

Ode 1. Mostly narrative. An officer of worth bewails the neglect and contempt with which he was treated.

Such is the view taken of the piece by Maou, who refers it to the time of duke K'ing (頃公: B.C. 866 - 854); of the difft. view of Choo I will speak in a concluding note.

St.1. L1. 1,2. 汎 denotes 'the app. of floating about.' 柏 is the cypress, whose wood is said to be good for building boats. The two lines are, by the school of Maou, understood to be allusive, representing the 'state of the officer unemployed, like a boat floating uselessly about with the current.' Yen Ts'an thinks the allusion is to the sad condition of the State left to go to ruin, as a boat must do with no competent person in it to guide it. Choo takes the lines as metaphorical. L1. 3,4. Maou takes 耿耿 as = 儆儆, meaning 'restless,' 'disturbed.' 隱 = 痛, 'a pain.' L1. 5, 6, 微 = 非 'not,' 'it is not that.' The two lines are construed together, --as Choo explains them, 非為無酒可以敖遊而解之也,' 'It is not because I have no spirits, or that I could not dissipate my grief by wandering about.' To the same effect Yen Ts'an: --'This sorrow is not such as can be relieved by drinking or by rambling.' Lacharme quite mistakes the meaning: --ego deambulo, ego iter facio, non quia vino careo.

St. 2. L1.2 The difficulty in these lines is with 茹, which both Maou and Choo explain here by 度, 'to estimate,' 'to measure,' as if the meaning were, 'A glass can only shew the outward forms of things; but there is more than what appears externally in my case, and the causes of my treatment are too deep to be examined by a glass.' I must adopt another meaning of 茹, which is also found in the dict., -- that of 受 or 容, 'to receive,' 'to admit.' A glass reflects all forms submitted to it, with indifference; but the speaker acknowledged only the virtuous. Bad men he rejected, and would have nothing to do with them.

L1. 3 - 6. Here, and in st. 1, we can allow some connective force to 亦. By 'brothers' we must understand 'officers of the same surname with speaker (同姓臣).' Choo's view of the ode enables him to take 兄弟 in its natural meaning. 據 = 依, 'to rely, or be relied, on.' 薄言, --as in i. VIII.

St. 3. In the first 4 lines, the speaker says his mind was firmer than a stone, and more even and level than a mat. 威儀 denotes his whole manner of conducting himself. 棣棣 (read tae) = 'the app. of complete correctness and long practice.' 選 = 'to select.' The meaning is that nothing in the speaker's deportment could be picked out, and made the subject of remark.

St.4. 悄悄 denotes 'the app. of sorrow.' The 于 after 慍 gives to that term the force of the passive voice. 群小, 'the herd of small people,' denotes all the unworthy officers who enjoyed the ruler's favour. 閔 = 病, 'distress;' here probably meaning blame or slander. In 1.5, 言 is the particle, so frequent in the She. L.4, 辟 is explained by 拊心, 'to lay the hand on the heart.' or 'to beat the breast,' and 摽, as 'the app of doing so.'

In this acceptation the 有 may have its meaning of 'having'; but it rather has a descriptive power, making the word that follows very vivid, as if it were repeated.

St 5. L1. 1,2. 居 and 諸 are used as particles which we cannot translate, unless we take them as = 乎, and render, -- 'O sun,' 'O moon.' So Choo on ode 4, where he says, 日居月諸, 呼而訴之也. 迭 = 更. 'to change,' 'in altered fashion.' The meaning seems to be: --The sun is always bright and full, while the moon goes through regular changes, now full, and now absent from the heavens. In Wei the ruler was at this time obscured by the unworthy officers who abused his confidence and directed the govt. The sun had become small, and the moon had taken its place.

The rhymes are -- in st. 1, 舟, 流, 憂, 酒, 遊; in 2, 茹, 據, 愬, 怒; in 3, 石*, 席*; 轉, 卷; 選; in 4, 悄, 小, 少, 摽; in 5, 微, 衣, 飛.