THE SHE KING; OR, THE BOOK OF ANCIENT POETRY

so CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE ODES.
which Choo accepts only the first,—the Hom-jin, the
Slie-kew, and the Sea ts'euen.
In Part IV., the 4 pieces of Book ii., in the occasion
assigned for the first and last of which Choo agrees,—
the Keuiig, the Yew peih, the P>van-s7nvuy, and the Pel
Tiling.
[xviii.] Of the tune of king Ting
Two pieces in Part I., viz.—
the Chou Hit, admitted by Choo, and the Tsih p'o in
Book xii.
B.C. 605—585.
The editors of the imperial edition of the present dynasty say :
" The dates of the composition of the odes it was found difficult to
examine thoroughly after the fires of Ts'in, and so we find them variously
assigned by the writers of the Han, T"ang, and other dynasties.
" But the old Preface made its appearance along with the text of the
Poems, and Maou, Ch'ing, and K'ung Ying-tah maintained and defended
the dates assigned in it, to which there belongs what authority may be
derived -from its antiquity.
" When Choo He took the She in hand, the text of the poems was
considered by him to afford the only evidence of their occasion and date,
and where there was nothing decisive in it, and no evidence afforded by
other classical Books, he pronounced these points uncertain ;—thus de
ciding according to the exercise of his own reason on the several pieces.
" Gow-yang Sew followed the introductory notices of Ch'ing, but dis
puted and reasoned on the subject at the same time. Heu K'cen, and
Lew Kin followed the authority of Choo, now and then slightly differing
from him.
" In the Ming dynasty appeared the ' Old meanings of the text of the
She,' chronologically arranged by Ho K'eae, adducing abundance of
testimonies, but with many erroneous views. We have in this work
collected the old assignments of the Preface, supported by Maou, Ch'ing,
and K'ung, and given due place to the decisions of Choo. The opinions
of others we have preserved, but have not entered on any discussion of
them."
THE RHYME AND METEE OF THE PIECES. 81
CHAPTER III.
| THE RHYME AND METRE OE THE PIECES; THEIR POET
ICAL VALUE; PRINCIPLE ON WHICH THE PRESENT
VERSION OE THEM HAS BEEN MADE; CERTAIN
PECULIARITIES IN THEIR STRUCTURE.
1. I HAVE written at length on the Prosody of the
Book of Poetry in my larger work. In this volume, in-
lended for English readers, it is not necessary to say
much about it.
Rhyme has always been a characteristic of verse in
China ; and all the earliest attempts at poetical composi
tion were of the same form,—in lines con- Metre and
sisting of four words, forming, from the Ehvme-
nature of the language, four syllables. Wherever there
is any marked deviation from this type, the genuineness
of the piece as a relic of antiquity becomes liable to sus
picion.
This line of four words is the normal measure of the
She, but it is not invariably adhered to. We have in one
ode, according to the judgment of many native scholars,
a line of only one word in each of its stanzas. Lines of
two, of three, of five, of six, of seven, and even of eight
characters, occasionally occur. When the poet once de
parts from the normal law of the metre, he often con
tinues his innovation for two or three more lines, and
then relapses into the usual form. He is evidently
aware of his deviation from that, and the stanzas where it
takes place are in general found to be symmetrically
constructed and balanced.
2. The pieces, as printed, appear divided into stanzas ;
—and properly so, though the Han scholars say that
such division was first made by Maou. Chang.
He did his work well, guided mainly by the anzas'
rhyme, and by the character of the piece as narrative,
allusive, or metaphorical.
In most pieces the stanzas are of uniform length, and