the following specimens, the first as translated by Giles and the second by Williams.
(1) A clever man builds a city,
A clever woman lays one low;
With all her qualifications, that clever woman
Is but an ill-omened bird.
A woman with a long tongue
Is a flight of steps leading to calamity;
For disorder does not come from heaven,
But is brought about by women.
Among those who can not be trained or taught
Are women and eunuchs.
(2) Maiden fair, so sweet, retiring,
At the tryst I wait for thee;
Still I pause in doubt, inquiring
Why thou triflest thus with me.
Ah! the maid so coy, so handsome,
Pledged she with a rosy reed;
Than the reed is she more winsome.
Love with beauty hard must plead!
In the meadows sought we flowers,
These she gave me—beauteous, rare:
Far above the gift there towers
The dear giver—lovelier, fair!
The eighth ode in Book III., called Hiung Chi, or 'Cock Pheasant,' contains a wife's lament on her husband's absence. Legge's version is:
Away the startled pheasant flies,
With lazy movement of his wings;
Borne was my heart's lord from my eyes—
What pain the separation brings!
The pheasant, though no more in view,
His cry below, above, forth sends.
Alas! my princely lord, 'tis you,—
Your absence, that my bosom rends.
At sun and moon I sit and gaze,
In converse with my troubled heart.
Far, far from me my husband stays!
When will he come to heal its smart?
Ye princely men, who with him mate,
Say, mark ye not his virtuous way?
His rule is, covet naught, none hate:
How can his steps from goodness stray?
The Li Chi, or 'Book of Bites,' is a collection (cir B.C. 135) of rules of personal conduct in private and public life, every movement in official or social life being controlled by it. There are two other similar works of considerably greater antiquity, but this one alone is included in the classic canon of examination texts. The Board of Rites, an imperial department, concerns itself largely in expounding and
