THE SHE KING; OR, THE BOOK OF ANCIENT POETRY

36 PEINCIPLE ON WHICH PKESENT .VEESION IS MADE.
Chinese writers presented to them faithfully, with as
little introduction of ideas of my own or of my helpers as
it was possible to attain to. Rhyme is often a hard
master, and as it was our endeavour to give the pieces
in as good English verse as the nature of the case would
permit, it was necessary to employ occasionally epithets
which are not found in the Chinese text, but this has
been done sparingly. While much amplification would
have been a misrepresentation of the original, a bad
translation would often have been mere doggerel. And
not only so; it would also have been unfaithful. There
is more in the words of the text than meets the ear;
it might be more correct to say, from the peculiar nature
of the Chinese characters, than meets the eye. Apart
even from the satirical pieces, and the allusive pieces on
which I shall presently touch, in translating Chinese
poetry one has constantly to regard what was in the
mind of the writer. It was my object to bring this out
in the notes in my larger work; and what was brought
out there had to be transferred to the stanzas of the
present version. But this also has been done only so
far as seemed indispensable.
I had some difficulty in getting rny nephews, of whose
valuable assistance I have spoken in the Preface, to
enter fully into my views of what their versions should
be; and occasionally I had to re-cast their versions, the
result being pieces inferior in poetical merit to what
they had produced, but which I thought better repre
sented the original Chinese. A correspondent in Hong-
Kong, having himself no little of the poetical faculty,
and condemning the adherence to the letter of the text
even to the extent for which I contend, referred to the
words of Horace in his De Arte Poetica,
Et qua-
Dcaperat Iractata nitescere posse, relinqidt.
Horace, however, is giving his view of the course
which an. oi'igiual poet should pursue, and I agree in the
counsel which he suggests. But I was intending to
come before the public not as an original poet, but as a
translator in English verse of what Chinese poets wrote
between two and three thousand years ago. If they
PECTJLIAEITIES IN THEIE STECCTCEE. 37
dealt with themes which they could not make to shine,
it was still my duty to show how they load treated them.
Nor did it appear to me that there was anything in the
She, which might make me take warning from that other
advice of Horace, touching me more nearly,
Nee flcstties imitator in arctmn,
Undo pcdem prvferrc piidor