6. 桃夭 T’aou Yaou
《桃夭》，后妃之所致也。不妬忌，則男女以正，婚姻以時，國無鰥民也。
桃之夭夭、灼灼其華。
之子于歸、宜其家室。
桃之夭夭、有蕡其實。
之子于歸、宜其室家。
桃之夭夭、其葉蓁蓁。
之子于歸、宜其家人。
The peach tree is young and elegant; Brilliant are its flowers. This young lady is going to her future home,
And will order well her chamber and house.
The peach tree is young and elegant; Abundant will be its fruits. This young lady is going to her future home,
And will order well her chamber and house.
The peach tree is young and elegant; Luxuriant are its leaves. This young lady is going to her future home,
And will order well her family.
Ode 6. Allusive. Praise of a Bride
Going to be Married.
The critics see a great deal more in the pice than this; -- the happy
state of Chow, produced by king Wan (acc. to Choo), or by T'ae-sze (acc. to
Maou), in which all the young people were married in the proper season, i.e.,
in the spring, when the peach tree was in flower, and at the proper age, i.e.,
yong men between 20 and 30, and girls between 15 and 20. It was a rule of the
Chow dyn. that marriages should take place in the middle of spring (Chow , II.
.54). This marriage would be about that time, and the peach tree was in flower;
but it was only the latter circumstance which was in the poet's mind.
St. 1. L. 1. 之 may be
taken as the sign of the genitive, the whole line being = 'in the young and
beautiful time of the peach tree.' Still, 之 is so constantly used throughout the She in the
middle of lines, where we can only regard it as a particle, eking out the
number of feet, that it is, perhaps, not worth while to resolve such lines as
this in the above manner. 夭夭(Shwoh-wăn,
with 木 at the
side) denotes 'the appearance of youth and elegance.'
L.2. 灼灼 is
descriptive rather of the brilliance of the flowers than of their luxuriance,
as Choo has it. The young peach tree is allusive of the bride in the flush of
youth, and its brilliant flowers of her beauty.
L.3. 之 = 是, 'this;'
子 = 'young
lady.' Maou and Ch'ing take 于 as = 往, 'to go to.' But it is better to regard
it as a particle, as in Ode II. 1. 歸 here is used of the bride going to her husband's house. As Choo says,
women speak of being married as going home (婦人謂嫁曰歸). Should we take 之子 in the singular or plural? Lacharme translates it
by puelloe nobiles, and Heu Hëen (許謙; Yuen dyn.) says, 'The poet saw the thing going on from the flowering
of the peach tree till the fruit was ripe; -- the young ladies were many.' This
seems to me very unpoetical.
L.4. 室 is the
chamber appropriated to husband and wife; 家 is 'all within the door,' = our house. 室家 here, 家室 in st.2, and 家人 in st.3. convey the same idea, the terms being
varied for the sake of the rhyme. Tso-she says that when a couple marry, the
man has a 室, and the
woman a 家; so that 室家 are equivalent to husband and wife.
Accordingly, Maou takes the line as meaning, 'Right is it they should be
married without going beyond their proper years;' and in this view he is
followed by K'ang-shing. But to this there are two objections. 1st, the
antecedent to 其 is 之子, the girl, and the girl only. 2d, in the
4th line, 宜 must be
construed as an active verb. So it is in the 'Great Learning,' comm. ix.6,
where the passage is quoted.
St.2. L.2. Choo says fun
denotes the abundance of the fruit, intimating that the young lady would have
many children. Maou makes the term = ' the appearances of the fruit.'
intimating, that the lady had not beauty only, but also 'woman's virtue.' Fun is properly the seeds of hemp, which
are exceedingly numerous; and hence it is applied to the fruit of other plants
and trees to indicate its abundance. So, Lo Yuen (羅願; sung dyn.), Wang T'aou, and others.
St. 3 L.2. Ts'in-ts'in sets forth the luxuriance of the foliage, --至盛貌.
The rhymes are --in st.1, 華*, 家*, cat. 5,
t.1: in 2, 實, 室, cat. 12, t.3; in 3, 蓁, 人, ib., t.1.