Part 1 (1/2)

The s.h.i.+h King.

by James Legge.

CHAPTER I.

THE NAME AND CONTENTS OF THE CLa.s.sIC.

1. Among the Chinese cla.s.sical books next after the Shu in point of antiquity comes the s.h.i.+h or Book of Poetry.

The meaning of the character s.h.i.+h.

The character Shu, as formed by the combination of two others, one of which signified 'a pencil,' and the other 'to speak,' supplied, we saw in its structure, an indication of its primary significance, and furnished a clue to its different applications. The character s.h.i.+h was made on a different principle, that of phonetical formation, in the peculiar sense of these words when applied to a large cla.s.s of Chinese terms. The significative portion of it is the character for 'speech,'

but the other half is merely phonetical, enabling us to approximate to its p.r.o.nunciation or name. The meaning of the compound has to be learned from its usage. Its most common significations are 'poetry,' a poem, or poems,' and a collection of poems! This last is its meaning when we speak of the s.h.i.+h or the s.h.i.+h King.

The earliest Chinese utterance that we have on the subject of poetry is that in the Shu by the ancient Shun, when he said to his Minister of Music, 'Poetry is the Expression of earnest thought, and singing, is the prolonged utterance of that expression.' To the same effect is the language of a Preface to the s.h.i.+h, sometimes ascribed to Confucius and certainly older than our Christian era: 'Poetry is the product of earnest thought. Thought cherished in the mind becomes earnest; then expressed in words, it becomes poetry. The feelings move inwardly, and are embodied in words. When words are insufficient for them, recourse is had to sighs and exclamations. When sighs and exclamations are insufficient for them, recourse is had to the prolonged utterance of song. When this again is insufficient, unconsciously the hands begin to move and the feet to dance..... To set forth correctly the successes and failures (of government), to affect Heaven and Earth, and to move spiritual beings, there is no readier instrument than poetry.'

Rhyme, it may be added here, is a necessary accompaniment of poetry in the estimation of the Chinese. Only in a very few pieces of the s.h.i.+h is it neglected.

The contents of the s.h.i.+h.

2. The s.h.i.+h King contains 305 Pieces and the t.i.tles of six others. The most recent of them are a.s.signed to the reign of king Ting of the Kau dynasty, B.C. 606 to 586, and the oldest, forming a group of only five, to the period of the Shang dynasty which preceded that of Kau, B.C. 1766 to 1123. Of those five, the latest piece should be referred to the twelfth century B.C., and the most ancient may have been composed five centuries earlier. All the other pieces in the s.h.i.+h have to be distributed over the time between Ting and king Wan, the founder of the line of Kau. The distribution, however, is not equal nor continuous.

There were some reigns of which we do not have a single Poetical fragment.

The whole collection is divided into four parts, called the Kwo Fang, the Hsiao Ya, the Ta Ya, and the Sung.

The Kwo Fang, in fifteen Books, contains 160 pieces, nearly all of them short, and descriptive of manners and events in several of the feudal states of Kau. The t.i.tle has been translated by The Manners of the Different States, 'Les M?urs des Royaumes,' and, which I prefer, by Lessons from the States.

The Hsiao Ya, or Lesser Ya, in eight Books, contains seventy-four pieces and the t.i.tles of six others, sung at gatherings of the feudal princes, and their appearances at the royal court. They were produced in the royal territory, and are descriptive of the manners and ways of the government in successive reigns. It is difficult to find an English word that shall fitly represent the Chinese Ya as here used. In his Latin translation of the s.h.i.+h, p. Lacharme translated Hsiao Ya by 'Quod r.e.c.t.u.m est, sed inferiore ordine,' adding in a note:--'Siao Ya, latine Parvum r.e.c.t.u.m, quia in hac Parte mores describuntur, recti illi quidem, qui tamen nonnihil a recto deflectunt.' But the manners described are not less correct or incorrect, as the case may be, than those of the states in the former Part or of the kingdom in the next. I prefer to call this Part 'Minor Odes of the Kingdom,' without attempting to translate the term Ya.

The Ta Ya or Greater Ya, in three Books, contains thirty-one pieces, sung on great occasions at the royal court and in the presence of the king. p. Lacharme called it 'Magnum r.e.c.t.u.m (Quod r.e.c.t.u.m est superiore ordine).' But there is the same objection here to the use of the word 'correct' as in the case of the pieces of the previous Part. I use the name 'Major Odes of the Kingdom.' The greater length and dignity of most of the pieces justify the distinction of the two Parts into Minor and Major.

The Sung, also in three Books, contains forty pieces, thirty-one of which belong to the sacrificial services at the royal court of Kau; four, to those of the marquises of Lu; and five to the corresponding sacrifices of the kings of Shang. p. Lacharme denominated them correctly 'Parentales Cantus.' In the Preface to the s.h.i.+h, to which I have made reference above, it is said, 'The Sung are pieces in admiration of the embodied manifestation of complete virtue, announcing to the spiritual Intelligences their achievement thereof.' Ku Hsi's account of the Sung was--'Songs for the Music of the Ancestral Temple;' and that of Kiang Yung of the present dynasty--'Songs for the Music at Sacrifices.' I have united these two definitions, and call the Part--'Odes of the Temple and the Altar.' There 'is a difference between the pieces of Lu and the other two collections in this Part, to which I will call attention in giving the translation of them.

Only the pieces of the fourth Part have professedly a religious character.

From the above account of the contents of the s.h.i.+h, it will be seen that only the pieces in the last of its four Parts are professedly of a religious character. Many of those, however, in the other Parts, especially the second and third, describe religious services, and give expression to religious ideas in the minds of their authors.

Cla.s.sification of the pieces from their form and style.

3. Some of the pieces in the s.h.i.+h are ballads, some are songs, some are hymns, and of others the nature can hardly be indicated by any English denomination They have often been spoken of by the general name of odes, understanding by that term lyric poems that were set to music.

My reason for touching here on this point is the earliest account of the s.h.i.+h, as a collection either already formed or in the process of formation, that we find in Chinese literature. In the Official Book of Kau, generally supposed to be a work of the twelfth or eleventh century B.C., among the duties of the Grand Music-Master there is 'the teaching,' (that is, to the musical performers,) 'the, six cla.s.ses of poems:--the Fang; the Fu; the Pi; the Hsing; the Ya; and the Sung.' That the collection of the s.h.i.+h, as it now is, existed so early as the date a.s.signed to the Official Book could not be; but we find the same account of it given in the so-called Confucian Preface. The Fang, the Ya, and the Sung are the four Parts of the cla.s.sic described in the preceding paragraph, the Ya embracing both the Minor and Major Odes of the Kingdom. But what were the Fu, the Pi, and the Hsing? We might suppose that they were the names of three other distinct Parts or Books. But they were not so. Pieces so discriminated are found in all the four Parts, though there are more of them in the first two than in the others.

The Fu may be described as Narrative pieces, in which the writers tell what they have to say in a simple, straightforward manner, without any hidden meaning reserved in the mind. The metaphor and other figures of speech enter into their composition as freely as in descriptive poems in any other language.

The Pi are Metaphorical pieces, in which the poet has under his language a different meaning from what it expresses,--a meaning which there should be nothing in that language to indicate. Such a piece may be compared to the aesopic fable; but, while it is the object of the fable to inculcate the virtues of morality and prudence, an historical interpretation has to be sought for the metaphorical pieces of the s.h.i.+h.

Generally, moreover, the moral of the fable is subjoined to it, which is never done. in the case of these pieces.

The Hsing have been called Allusive pieces. They are very remarkable, and more numerous than the metaphorical. They often commence with a couple of lines which are repeated without change, or with slight rhythmical changes, in all the stanzas. In other pieces different stanzas have allusive lines peculiar to themselves. Those lines are descriptive, for the most part, of some object or circ.u.mstance in the animal or vegetable world, and after them the poet proceeds to his proper subject. Generally, the allusive lines convey a meaning harmonizing with those which follow, where an English poet would begin the verses with Like or As. They are really metaphorical, but the difference between an allusive and a metaphorical piece is this,--that in the former the writer proceeds to state the theme which his mind is occupied with, while no such intimation is given in the latter.