These famous lines, supposed to be found on the back of a tortoise, are the following:
Who does not perceive, at a single glance, in this figure the common schoolboy's trick of the magic square, or placing the nine digits so that they shall make the sum of fifteen every way, thus,
and what are the perfect and imperfect numbers, but the odd and even digits distinguished by open and close points? In like manner, I am inclined to believe, the several ways of placing these open and close points that occur in Chinese books are literally nothing more than the different combinations of the nine numerical figures, for which they are substituted.
Most of the other king have been translated, wholly or in part, and published in France. It may be observed, however, that all the Chinese writings, translated by the missionaries, have undergone so great a change in their European dress, that they ought rather to be looked upon as originals than translations. It is true, a literal translation would be nonsense, but there is a great difference between giving the meaning of an author, and writing a commentary upon him. Sir William Jones observes that the only method of doing justice to the poetical compositions of the Asiatics, is to give first a verbal and then a metrical version. The most barren subject, under his elegant pen, becomes replete with beauties. The following stanza, from one of the odes of the Shee-king, is an instance of this remark. It is calculated to have been written about the age of Homer; and it consists of fifteen characters.
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The peach-tree, how fair, how graceful, its leaves, how blooming,
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how pleasant; such is a bride, when she enters her bridegroom's
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house, and attends to her whole family.
This is a fair translation, as no more expletives are inserted than such as were necessary to make up the sense, and it is thus paraphrased by Sir William Jones.
"Gay child of Spring, the garden's queen,
Yon peach-tree charms the roving fight;
Its fragrant leaves how richly green!
Its blossoms, how divinely bright!
"So softly smiles the blooming bride,
By love and conscious virtue led,
O'er her new mansion to preside,
And placid joys around her spread."
The late Emperor Kien-Long was considered among the best poets of modern times, and the most celebrated of his compositions is an ode in praise of Tea, which has been painted on all the teapots in the empire. The following is a verbal translation, with such auxiliaries only as were necessary to make the sense complete.