Ode 9. The Tâ Tung.
An officer of one of the states of the east deplores the exactions made from them by the government, complains of the favour shown to the west, contrasts the misery of the present with the happiness of the past, and appeals to the stars of Heaven idly beholding their condition.
I give the whole of this piece, because it is an interesting instance of Sabian views. The writer, despairing of help from men, appeals to Heaven; but he distributes the Power that could help him among many heavenly bodies, supposing that there are spiritual beings in them, taking account of human affairs.
Well loaded with millet were the dishes, And long and curved were the spoons of thorn-wood. The way to Kâu was like a whetstone, And straight as an arrow. (So) the officers trod it, And the common people looked on it. When I look back and think of it, My tears run down in streams.
In the states of the east, large and small, The looms are empty. Then shoes of dolichos fibre Are made to serve to walk on the hoar-frost. Slight and elegant gentlemen[1] Walk along that road to Kâu. Their going and coming makes my heart sad.
Ye cold waters, issuing variously from the spring, Do not soak the firewood I have cut. Sorrowful I awake and sigh;—Alas for us toiled people! The firewood has been cut;—Would that it were
- ↑ That is, 'slight-looking,' unfit for toil; and yet they are obliged to make their journey on foot.
is no doubt as to the propriety of doing so; and, moreover, the peculiar phraseology of the line shows that the poet did not rest in the thought of the material heavens.
