THE SHE KING; OR, THE BOOK OF ANCIENT POETRY

,
188 TUB BOOK OP POETET. [PAET I.
3 Back to the land now fly the geese;
The duke comes not again.
'Twas only for two passing nights
He could with us remain.
4 Short time the single dragon robe
Among us we have had.
Our duke 0 take not to the west,
Nor bid our hearts be sad !
VII.
The Lang poh; allusive. THE PRAISE OF THE DUKE OF CHOW,
MORE DISTINGUISHED THROUGH HIS TRIALS.
The wolf in this piece is supposed to be an old one, in which the dew
lap and tail have grown to a very large size. He is further supposed to
be making frantic efforts to escape ;—all in vain, for his own dewlap and
tail are in his way.
1 Dewlap o'ergrown and heavy tail
Th* impatient wolf impede or trip.
But see the duke, humble while tried !
Along his red shoes quiet slip.
2 Tail heavy and dew-lap o'ergrown,
Th' impatient wolf trip or impede.
But see the duke, humble while tried,
His fame unflawed by hasty deed !
THE BOOK OF POETEY.
PART II.
MINOE ODES OF THE KINGDOM.
BOOK I. Decade of Luh Ming.
TITLE OF THE PART. This in Chinese is Seaou Ya, which I have ex
pressed by " Minor odes of the Kingdom." " Odes of the Kingdom " is
not, indeed, a translation of Ya; but the phrase approximates to a de
scription of what the pieces in this and the next Part are more nearly than
any other I could think of. Ya is explained as meaning—Correct; and
Lacharme translates the title by " Parmtm Rectum" adding—"guiain hac
parte meres describuntur, recti illi qiAHem, gni tamen nonnlMl a recto
deflectunt." But the pieces in this Part, as descriptive of manners, are
not less correct, or less incorrect, as the case may be, than those in the
next. The difference between them is—that the pieces in Part III. were
appropriate to greater occasions, and those of Part II. to lesser. The
former, as Choo He says, were sung at festal entertainments in the court;
the latter, at gatherings of the feudal princes, and at their appearances
at the royal court. The names "small" and "great," "major" and
"minor," may have had reference also to the length of the pieces taken
as a whole, and to the style of the music to which they were sung, which
is now lost; but we shall find that in the subject matter of tlie pieces
there is a sufficient ground for such a distinction. As the Fling, or the
compositions in the first Part, were produced in the different feudal States,
the Ya were produced in the royal territory. The first twenty-two pieces
of this Part are attributed, indeed, to the duke of Chow himself, and are
distinguished from those that follow, as the odes of " Chow and the
South " and of " Shaou and the South " are distinguished from those
in the other Books of Part I. As there were " the correct Fang " and
the " Fung degenerate," so there are the " correct Ya " and the " degener
ate Ya; " but as I have observed in the prolegomena, this distinction is of
no importance. It was proper to sing the Ya only on great and solemn
occasions at the royal court; in course of time they were used at the
feudal courts, and even by ministers of these, as in the services of the Ke
family in Loo, in the time of Confucius (Ana. III. ii.) ; but this was a
usurpation, a consequence of the decay into which the House of Chow
fell.