Liang kiang, siang niang, yang hiang tsiang,
Ki ní, pí chí, lí hí mí, etc.
Lines consisting of characters all containing the same radical are also constructed in this manner, in which the sounds are subservient to the meaning. This bizarre fashion of writing is, however, considered fit only for pedants.
The Augustan age of poetry and letters was in the ninth and tenth centuries, during the Tang dynasty, when the brightest day of Chinese civilization was the darkest one of European. No complete collection of poems has yet been translated into any European language, and perhaps none would bear an entire version. The poems of Lí Tai-peh form thirty volumes, and those of Su Tung-po are contained in one hundred and fifteen volumes, while the collected poems of the times of the Tang dynasty have been published by imperial authority in nine hundred volumes. The proportion of descriptive poetry in it is small compared with the sentimental. The longest poem yet turned into English is the Hwa Tsien Kí, or ‘The Flower’s Petal,’ by P. P. Thoms, under the title of Chinese Courtship; it is in heptameter, and his version is quite prosaic. Another of much greater repute among native scholars, called Lí Sao, or ‘Dissipation of Sorrows,’ dating from about B.C. 314, has been rendered into French by D’Hervey-Saint-Denys.[339]
CHINESE SONGS AND BALLADS.
It is a common pastime for literary gentlemen to try their skill in versification; epigrams and pasquinades are usually put into metre, and at the examinations every candidate must hand in his poetical exercise. Consequently, much more attention is paid by such rhymesters to the jingle of the words and artificial structure of the lines than to the elevation of sentiment or copiousness of illustrations; it is as easy for them to write a sonnet on shipping a cargo of tea as to indite a love-epistle to their mistress. Extemporaneous verses are made on every subject, and to illustrate occurrences that are elsewhere regarded as too prosaic to disturb the muse.
Still, human emotions have been the stimulus to their expression in verse among the Chinese as well as other people; and all classes have found an utterance to them. Ribald and impure ditties are sung by street-singers to their own low classes, but such subjects do not characterize the best poets, as they did in old Rome. A piece called ‘Chang Liang’s Flute’ is a fair instance of the better style of songs:
’Twas night—the tired soldiers were peacefully sleeping,
The low hum of voices was hushed in repose;
The sentries, in silence, a strict watch were keeping