eight years of age. Julien rightly saw that chuan could not refer to the pupil, but he wrongly limited its function to the schoolmaster.]
| 9. | 昔 | 孟 | 母 | Of old, the mother of Mencius | |
| Hsi1 | Mêng4 | mu3 | |||
| Old | Mencius | mother |
Hsi is composed of 日 jih sun (line 52) and the corruption of an obsolete character meaning stale meat. It originally meant dried meat, and is now used in the sense of formerly, of yore.
Mêng is composed of 子 tzŭ child as radical, with 皿 min or ming dishes as phonetic. It means chief, eldest, but is here the surname of the philosopher 孟子 Mêng Tzŭ (line 119), latinised by the Jesuit missionaries as above. He flourished B.C. 372—289, and his teachings are contained in the last of the Four Books (line 119).
Mu has been regarded (1) as the picture of a woman embracing a child, or (2) as representing the breasts of a woman. It becomes 媽 ma or ma-ma to the child, as with us (line 18).
| 10. | 擇 | 鄰 | 處 | chose a neighbourhood; | |
| Tsê2 | lin2 | ch'u4 | |||
| Choose | neighbour | place |
Tsê is composed of 手 shou hand (扌 in combination), and a phonetic for which see line 344.
Lin is composed of 邑 i a town or district (⻏ in combination, always on the right) and 粦 lin lights which flit over old battle-fields, will-o'-the-wisps, as phonetic.
Ch'u is composed of radical 虍 hu a tiger and 処 as phonetic. This latter appears to have been the original character. It is explained as 夂 sui to walk (obsolete) and 几 chi a bench, = to walk to a bench, q.d. to stop, to abide, which are still meanings of 處 when read ch'u3, as also are to decide, to punish.
