93. 自子孫 Tzu4 tzu3 sun 1 From son grandson from son and grandson Tzu was originally a picture of the human nose, and it is still found in the ordinary word 鼻 pi a nose. Its earliest known sense seems to have been to follow; hence, from. Its later sense of self may have grown up by attraction, i.e. attraction of the self in 自己 tzu chi (= from self) from the chi to the tzu, the former being gradually dropped. Tzu see line 11. Sun see line 92. 94 至元曾 Chih4 yuan 2 tseng 1 Arrive original add on to great grandson and great great grandson. Chih under its old form was supposed to resemble birds flying downwards and reaching the earth. It is often used as a superlative = very, extreme. Yuan (line 254 E) is here used for 玄 hsuan black (line 79), a character which is taboo under the present dynasty, having been part of the personal name of the Emperor K'ang Hsi, A.D. 1662 — 1723. It means great great grandson, preceding tseng merely for the jingle's sake. The son of this descendant is called 耳孫 erh sun ear grandson, being one who can only have heard of his ancestor, not seen him. Tseng see line 89. 95. 乃九族 Nai3 chiu 3 tsu2 Then nine agnates These are the nine agnates, Nai see line 6. Chiu see line 33. Tsu is composed of an obsolete word meaning to bend, to wave, and 矢 shih an arrow, but is now classed under radical 方 fang square (line 14). It seems to have originally meant a bundle of arrow-heads, from which it is easy to reach such meanings as clan, family. It came to be used in the sense of agnatic relatives, especially of these nine degrees, as early as the 書經 Shu Ching Canon of History (lines 135, 146). 96. 人之倫 Jen2 chih1 lun2 Man arrive relationship constituting the kinships of man. Jen see line 1. Chih see line 1. Here obviously of possessive influence. Lun is composed of jen man as radical, and an important phonetic (see line 115) made up of an old radical ,亼, now used for 集 chi collected together, and 册 ts'e (see line 116), which phonetic means to think, to arrange. The primary sense of lun was constant, invariable; then it came to mean classes, relationships (see line 105), obligations, etc. [Eitel strangely renders this line by "which constitute mankind's determined order.''] |
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