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.