Some may love not fearing shame, But my lot is scarce the same. I must go when stars are brightly Twinkling in the eastern sky, Tripping swiftly, treading lightly, To escape each envious eye. 7 Save the Pleiades above, 1
With long trains fly the meteors, By threes and fives in the East.
Whistling they rush through the empyrean, Asmorningand night we attend the prince; Truly the omen is uncanny, 2
With long trains fly the meteors, From Orion to Pleiades, Whistling they rush through the empyrean; Let us cover ourselves up in our blanketoy Truly the omen is not to be divined.
Legge's work, he has certainly not taken Mr. Allen has availed himself of Dr,
to heart the dictum of the learned Doctor (Chun Chin Preface) that paraphrase is "slovenly and unscholarly practice." We think that all who have read thenew metrical translations of these ballads made by Bir, Kingemuill will agree with us thatis render ing of them is far and away thebest, to judge from the isolated specimens which he has published in the Asiatic Society'
His metrical translation" the. only one which really renders the spirit of the original, and which can conv astern readers an iden of what the Chin Classic of Pootry" is really like, and it only make us regret that he has not found sue a translation of the whole, The ballad seems indeed to be nothing more than " naive exclamation at an unusnaily alarming shower of. falling afara, The Perseids, which cross our.earth's orbit probably the flight. of asteroids meant: in the tenth century B, C, the constellation of Orion and the Pleiades would be visible on the Eastern horizon shortly before dawn, The courtiers then, as now, rising at 3.a.m, to proceed to the Prince's levee, would see thi flight of meteors with and might well, thinking the going to fall on them, have their beds for shelter, Surely this simple fous, back to and obvious rendering is the more natural, But the commentators and the Sinologues who follow them seldom or never adopt the simple and obvious meaning where a text from the Classics is concerned.
This astronomical explanati indirect confirmation in-a passage in th Chun Chin (Spring and Autumn annal being the History of China from B, C. 721 to about 460) the author of which spares few of his meagre words to atate, Book TI, year VII eon midnight there was a fall of stare ike rain, This shows the attention paid to such pheno na in early times. Of this text, Dr. Legge remarks in " foot-not The phra-s0 Baws "the stars fell as plain enough." Yet the comment tators are not satisfied; one makes the meaning.—'The stars fell along with the another There fell stars and it another makes the original entry to have been It rained stars to within a four of the earth, when they re-ascended On the whole, these so-called Odes are, many of them, not unlike the Scotch ballads with a refrain running through them, aa in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.