How Tseih began to wail.
His cry was long and loud
So that his voice filled the whole way.
No indication is given in the ode as to who was responsible for exposing the infant to these dangers, but just as in other mythologies in which the heroes or near-gods survive the dangers of infancy, there is no doubt that this Chinese hero was pictured as having overlived dangers that were the common lot of the average child. The commentators take different views of the person responsible for the dangers to which How Tseih was subjected, Maou believing that it was the father, the Emperor K’uh; Ch’ing on the contrary holding that it was Keang Yuen, the mother, who did it herself but not for the purpose of getting rid of the child so much as to show what a “marvellous gift he was from Heaven.”[85]
It is not that there are not occasional tender strains in the ode. Number seven in the Odes of Ts’e, the poet, sings:
How young and tender
Is the child with his two tufts of hair.
When you see him after not so long a time
Lo! He is wearing the cap.[86]