厭浥行露、豈不夙夜、謂行多露。 誰謂雀無角、何以穿我屋。 誰謂女無家、何以速我獄。 雖速我獄、室家不足。 誰謂鼠無牙、何以穿我墉。 誰謂女無家、何以速我訟。 雖速我獄、亦不女從。 Wet lay the dew on the path: -- Might I not [have walked there] in the early dawn? But I said there was [too] much dew on the path. Who can say the sparrow has no horn? How else can it bore through my house? Who can say that you did not get me betrothed? How else could you have urged on this trial? But though you have forced me to trial, Your ceremonies for betrothal were not sufficient. Who can say that the rat has no molar teeth? How else could it bore through my wall? Who can say that you did not get me betrothed? How else could you have urged on this trial? But though you have forced me to trial, I will still not follow you. Ode 6. Narrative; and allusive. A lady resists an attempt to force her to marry, and argues her cause. The old interpreters thought that we have here a specimen of the cases that came before the duke Shaou; and Choo does not contradict them. Lëw Hëang (列女傳, 貞順篇) gives this tradition of the origin of the piece: -- A lady of Shin was promised in marriage to a man of Fung. The ceremonial offerings from his family, however, were not so complete as the rules required; and when he wished to meet her and convey her home, she and her friends refused to carry out the engagement. The other party brought the case to trial, and the lady made this ode, asserting that, while a single rule of ceremony was not complied with, she would not allow herself to be forced from her parents' house. St. 1. Yeh-yih conveys the idea of 'being wet.' 行 = 道, 'way,' 'path.' 夙夜, -- see on II.3. The difficulty in interpreting and translating this stanza arises from 豈不 'How not,' which must be supplemented in some way. Maou takes the characters as 有是, 'there was this;' meaning, acc. to K'ang-shing, that she might have been married at this dewy season of the year in the early morning. But on this allusive view, I cannot understand the last line, and hold, therefore, that the lady is here simply giving an illustration of the regard for her safety and character which she was in the habit of manifesting. Stt.2.3 contain the argument. Appearances were against the lady; but to herself she was justified in her course. People would infer from seeing the hole made by a sparrow, that it was provided with a horn, though in reality it has none. Her 2d illustration is defective, if we take 牙 to mean, as is commonly said, only 'the grinders,' in opposition to 齒, the front or incisor teeth, for the rat has both incisors and molars, wanting only the intermediate teeth. But by 牙 is probably to understand all the other teeth but the incisors. People might infer from seeing what it did, that its mouth was full of teeth, which is not the case. So they might infer, from her being brought by her prosecutors to trial, that their case was complete; but in reality it was not so. [James Legge translates 牙 by molar teeth, and thinks the defendant’s argument was defective, actually it’s not so. 牙 in Shwo-wăn (說文): “牡齒也,” means ‘male tusk’, the character belongs to the pictograms category, and resembles the criss-cross of tusks. Both 牙 and 齒 belongs to the category of phono-semantic compound characters, the lower part radical resembles a mouth full of teeth, it has two rows of 从 separated by a 一, which in turn are encircled by 凵, the appearance of a lower lip of the mouth. We can easily see the difference between the 齒 and 牙. The 牙 comprises of two curly elongated tusks, which criss-cross with each other. Tusks can be canines, such as warthog, wild boar, pig, and walruses, or in the case of elephants, elongated incisors. Boars or pigs are commonly seen digging through field to search for food, and believed to be very powerful. But a domesticated pig, which is castrated, although has big tusk, it becomes very weak, and useless. So in the Book of Change (Yi Jing), hexagram 26th, the fifth Six, 豶豕之牙, ‘the teeth of a castrated hog’, this has the same meaning as ‘toothless tiger,’ but it occupies the right and central place, there will be ‘good fortune’, and ‘occasion for congratulation.’ In this case, the rat lacks the tusks as a hog or an elephant does, and not as powerful as these animals, but it still bore through the wall. This makes a parallel argument of the hornless sparrow, ‘Who can say that the rat has no molar teeth? How else could it bore through my wall?’ – note by editor.] The 3d line is very perplexing, --女 (=汝, 'you') 無家; but all the critics agree that we are to understand by 家 all the formalities of engagement and betrothal (以媒聘求為室家之禮). We must take 室家 is the last line of st.2 in the same way. 速 = 召致, 'to summon and bring to.' 獄 and 訟 are both = 'trial.' Maou give for the former 埆, which should be, as in the Shwoh-wan, 确, the place where the defendant was confined while the case was pending. The rhymes are --in st.1, 露, 夜*; in 2. 角, 屋, 獄, 足; in 3, 牙, 家, 墉, 訟, 從. |