[1. Trees are not the proper. place for geese to rest on; and the attempt to do so is productive of much noise and trouble to the birds. The lines would seem to allude to the hardships of the soldiers' lot, called from their homes to go on a distant expedition.
2. See note 2 on ode I of Book vi, where Heaven is appealed to in the same language.
3. These two lines are taken as allusive, the speaker being led by the sight of the weak plants supported by the trees, shrubs, and tombs, to think of her own desolate, unsupported condition. But they may also be taken as narrative, and descriptive of the battleground, where her husband had met his death.]
man of my admiration is no more here;--With whom can I dwell? I abide alone.
The dolichos grows, covering the jujube trees; The convolvulus spreads all over the tombs. The man of my admiration is no more here;--With whom can I dwell? I rest alone.
How beautiful was the pillow of horn! How splendid was the embroidered coverlet[1]! The man of my admiration is no more here;--With whom can I dwell? Alone (I wait for) the morning.
Through the (long) days of summer, Through the (long) nights of winter (shall I be alone), Till the lapse of a hundred years, When I shall go home to his abode.
Through the (long) nights of winter, Through the (long) days of summer(shall I be alone), Till the lapse of a hundred years, When I shall go home to his chamber.
BOOK XI. THE ODES OF KHIN.
THE state of Khin took its name from its earliest principal city, in the present district of Khing-shui, in Khin Kau, Kan-sû. Its chiefs claimed to be descended from Yî, who appears in the Shû as the forester of Shun, and the assistant of the great Yü in his labours on the flood of Yâo. The history of his descendants is very imperfectly related till we come to a Fei-Dze, who had charge of the herds of horses belonging to king Hsiâo (B.C. 90989.5), and in consequence of his good services. was invested with