HING LOO

1 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.

2 Who can say the sparrow has no horn?

How else could 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

3 Who can say that the rat has no molar teeth?

How else could it bore through my wall?

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 of Shaou; and Choo does not contradict them. Lëw Heang (烈女傳, 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 the 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.

St. 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 be understood 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. 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 be rothal (以媒聘求為室家之禮).

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.