KEIH KOO

1 Hear the roll of our drums!

See how we leap about, using our weapons!

Those do the fieldwork in the State, or fortify Ts'aou,

While we alone march to the south.

2 We followed Sun Tsze-chung,

Peace having been made with Ch'in and Sung;

[But] he did not lead us back,

And our sorrowful hearts are very sad.

There is a difficulty wit te, which means 'to sneeze'; and Morrison, under the character, translates the line,—'I think with anxiety, till indisposition makes me sneeze.' We must cast about surely for some other meaning. Now Maou has 疐 without the 口 by the side, and it would appear that this was the reading till the time of Wăn-ts'ung (文宗) of the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 827-840), when 嚏 got into the stone tablets of the classics which were then cut. Maou further explains疐 by 跲, or, acc. to Luh The-ming, by 㰦 meaning 'to open the mouth wide', 'to gape'. I venture, therefore, to give the meaning in the translation.

Maou explains 懷 by 傷, 'to be pained'; and Choo, by 思, 'to think'. The speaker cherished her husband despairingly in her thoughts.

The rhymes are—in stt. 1, 暴, 笑, 敖, 悼, cat. 2: in 2,霾*, 來, 來, 思, cat. 1, t.1: in 3, 曀*, 曀*, 疐*, cat. 12, t.3: in 4, 靁, 懷, cat. 15, t. 1.

Ode 6. Narrative. SOLDIERS OF WEI REPINING BITTERLY OVER THEIR SEPARATION FROM THEIR FAMILIES, AND ANTICIPATING THAT IT WOULD BE FINAL. We read in the Ch'un Ts'ew (I. iv. 4, 5) that, in B. C. 718, Wei twice joined in an expedition against Ch'ing. Chow-yu had just murdered duke Hwan, and the people were restless under his rule. He thought it would divert their minds, and be acceptable to other States, if he attacked Ch'ing; and having made an agreement with Sung, Ch'in and Ts'ae, a combined force marched against that State. Its operations lasted only 5 days; but very soon, in autumn, the troops, having been joined by a body of men from Loo, returned to the south, and carried off all the grain of Ch'ing from the fields.—It is supposed that it is to these operations that the ode refers, and I would assign it to the period of the second expedition.The soldiers had hoped to return to their families at the conclusion of the former service; and finding that another was to be preformed, they gave vent to their aggrieved feelings in these stanzas. We must bear in mind, however, that this interpretation of the piece is only traditional.

St. 1. 鏜 denotes the sound of the drums. The line is twice quoted in the Shwoh-wăn, and once we have this character with 鼓 instead of 金;—probably the more correct form. The demonstrative force of the其 justifies the translation 'Hear!' 兵 denotes sharp,pointed weapons. The drum gave the signal fro action or advance. The troops are here represented as bestirring themselves on hearing it. 土=土功, 'field labour'. 國=國中, 'in the State'. 漕 was the name of a city of Wei, that to which duke Tae removed the capital for a short time in B .C. 659, as mentioned in the note on the title of the Book. It was in the pres.dis. of Hwah (滑), dep. Wei-hwuy. The 獨 in the last line leads us to refer this 3d line away from the troops which were in march southwards to Ch'ing, to the rest of the people.

3 Here we stay; here we stop;

Here we lose our horses;

And we seek for them,

Among the trees of the forest.

4 For life or for death, however separated,

To our wives we pledged our word.

We held their hands;—

We were to grow old together with them.

5 Alas for our separation!

We have no prospect of life.

Alas for our stipulation!

We cannot make it good.

As the 'Complete Digest' expands it,—顧彼衛國之民,或役土功於國, 或築城於漕. They were toiled too, but not to the peril of their lives, as the troops were.

St. 2. Sun Tsze-chung was the name of the commander. Maou, in his introductory note on the ode, says he was the Kung-sun Wăn-chung. There was a noble family in Wei having the surname of Sun,of which we read much in the Ch'un Ts'ëw. L. 2. See the note above, on the interpretation of the piece. L.3,以 is here explained by 與, 'with'. See the same note.L.4. Maou explains 有忡 by 忡忡然, 'very sad-like'. It is another of the many instances where 有 makes the word that follows it vividly descriptive.

St. 3. 爰 is defined by Choo by 於, which he immediately expands to 於是, 'here'. We must take it as a particle,=於, which takes the place of it in the 3d line. So, Wang Yin-che. 於以,—see on ii. II. 1, 2.This stanza sets forth, acc. to Choo, the disorder in the ranks of the troops, who had no heart to fight. Wang Suh (王肅; of the kingdom of Wei) considered that in this and the two next stanzas we had the words of the farewell taken by the soldiers of their families:—'We shall not return from this expedition. We know not where we shall finally rest ourselves, nor where we shall lose our horses. You will have to look for us and them in the forests.'

St. 4. The soldiers think here of their engagements with their wives at the time of their marriage, and go on, in the next stanza, to mourn because they cannot now be carried out. 契 (read k'ëeh) 闊 express the idea of separation. Maou explains the phrase by 勤苦, 'toil and suffering'. The dict., on 契, gives both this meaning of the phrase and that which I have adopted.與子,—子 must refer to their wives. The last two lines seem to necessitate this. K'ang-shing, very unnaturally,refers it to the 'comrades' of the speakers, (從軍之士,與其伍約, 云云). Perhaps this was the idea of Maou,who explains 說 by 數, as if the 與子成說= 'with you we will complete the number in our ranks'. 成說= 'we pledged our word'.