How the game comes to the ground,
When his arrows kill and wound
Wheresoe’er they go.
Still they go; but, now, they’re few;
Now, the quiver’s empty too.
Home! The steeds the stable view,
Yet they’re coming slow!
In the classical texts, these ancient hunting-songs appear as here translated; but in singing them, if there is time to spare, the first may well be sung after the second as well as before it. It is at once a fit introduction and a fit conclusion.
These two songs are taken from a collection of Chinese Songs and Sayings, not published yet, and put here to show a kind of tiger-killing deserving as much honour as men can ever give a fellow-man.
In those days hunting was more like work than sport, and tigers were still a menace to humanity, such as we can hardly now conceive. There was great merit in hindering a tiger from escaping then; but to-day that matters little. Such an event as the song describes is not uncommon still. I have heard credibly of about a dozen like it among contemporaries in Burma in the last twenty-four years. Men seeking deer or other [310] ]game are suddenly confronted by a tiger similarly engaged. If the men make way for him, he merely shows his teeth and swiftly escapes, and that is what generally happens. But if any one of the hunters hurts him, or his road seems blocked, then there is danger; and that is how fatal accidents often happen.