Notes

1. Yî corresponds to Crater. Kien-hsing comprehends stars in Sagittarius (see page 257). Pî corresponds to the Hyades.

2. Shâo Hâo follows Hwang Tî, whose eldest son he was, as the fourth in the list of the five Tî, or divine rulers (B.C. 2594). His capital was at Khü-fâu, the city of Confucius; and I have seen, at a little distance from it, perhaps the only pyramid in China, which is in memory of him, and said to be on or near his grave. His personal appellation is Kin-thien (金天) or Thien-kin, the element to which he and his reign are assigned being kin, or metal. Zû-shâu was one of his sons.

3. Î Zeh, 'the equalization of the Laws,' is the tube giving the fifth of the upper musical accords.

4. White dew is a name for hoar-frost.

5. This cicada (Williams thinks the cicada viridis) is called 'the dumb.' Now it begins to chirp. Its colour is 'green and red.'

6. Compare what is said about the otter, page 251.

7. Zung-kang is made out to mean, 'all bright,' and the apartment was on the west; with mystical reference to the maturity and gathering of all things in the autumn, or season of the west. The vessels were rectangular, having sharp corners in harmony with the sharp weapons made of metal, to which element the season of autumn is referred; and they were deep, to resemble the deep bosom of the earth, to which things now begin to return.

8. Nan Lü, 'the southern spine,' is the tube that gives the fifth of the lower musical accords.

9. The wild geese are now returning to their winter quarters, from which they had come in the first month of spring; see page 251. So with the swallows, who had appeared in the second month of spring; see page 259.

10. The wild geese are now returning to their winter quarters, from which they had come in the first month of spring; see page 251. So with the swallows, who had appeared in the second month of spring; see page 259.

11. This sentence is hardly translatable or intelligible. Some would read as in paragraph 95 of 'the Brief Calendar of Hsiâ' (單鳥羞白鳥), translated by Professor Douglas: 'The red birds (i.e. fire-flies) devour the white birds (i.e. mosquitoes),' which he ingeniously supports by a reference to the habits of the fire-fly from Chambers' Encyclopædia. But his translation of hsiû by 'devour' is inadmissible. Wang Thâo says that this view is 'chisseling.' 'Sparrows and other birds,' he says, 'now collect seeds of grapes and trees, and store them in their nests and holes against the time of rain and snow.'

12. Kang says here: 'And if God accept them, of course there is no other spirit that will not do so.'

13. Callery translates this paragraph by: 'Toute personne ayant une chose importante à accomplir ne doit pas se mettre en opposition avec les grands principes (yin et yang); il doit se conformer au temps (propre à agir; mais il doit aussi) bien examiner la nature même de l'entreprise.' He appends to this the following note:--'Les deux principes yin et yang auxquels se rapportent tous les êtres, ayant tour-à-tour la prédominance dans certaines époques de l'année, le temps convenable pour une chose quelconque est celui auquel prédomine le principe dont cette chose dépend par son affinité naturelle. Ainsi, par exemple, les travaux de terrassement et de construction conviennent en automne, parce que le principe yin dont ils dépendent est en progrès pendant l'automne. Néanmoins, de ce que cette époque de l'année est favorable sous ce point de vue, il ne s'ensuit pas que toute entreprise de construction faite en automne soit avantageuse en elle-même; une foule de circonstances peuvent la rendre ruineuse, et c'est à l'entrepreneur de bien l'examiner, abstraction faite de la saison.'

The text rendered by Callery, 'les deux principes (yin et yang),' is simply tâ shû, 'the grand numbers,' the meaning of which I have endeavoured to bring out by the supplements in my version. The yin and yang are not mentioned in the text of the paragraph. They are simply a binomial phrase for the course of nature, with special reference to the weather and its conditions, as regulated by the action of the sun on the earth in the course of the seasons.

14. Fang comprehends {beta}, {delta}, {pi}, {rho} Scorpio. Hsü corresponds to {beta} Aquarius; and Liû comprehends {delta}, {epsilon}, {zeta}, {eta}, {rho}, {sigma}, {phi} Hydra.

15. Wû Yî, 'the unwearied,' is the tube giving the sixth upper musical accord.

16. The addition of guests here is a difficulty. It is said on the previous month that 'the wild geese come;' are these here the same as those, or are they others,--the younger birds, as some suppose, which had waited after the former, and still found it necessary to remain on their passage to recruit their strength?

17. Professor Douglas has made it more than probable that the 'small birds' here are sand-pipers. What is said about them, however, will, not admit of his version, that they 'go into the sea or lakes for crustaceae.' His 'crustaceae' should be 'mollusks.' According to all rules of Chinese composition, what he renders 'for' must be taken verbally,='to become.' It is not merely the Chinese 'commentators,' who consider the sentence to mean, 'Sparrows go into the sea and become crustaceae (? mollusks);' it is what the text says. It is indeed an absurd statement, but a translator is not responsible for that. The Khien-lung editors observe that there is no mention here of the little birds being 'transformed,' as in the paragraph about the 'hawks' on page 258, and hence they argue that we cannot understand the notice here metaphorically. They accept the fact (?). The marine Ko, which is mentioned here, as figured in the plates of the Pan Zhâo Kang-mû, is the Calyptroida Trochita.

18. Compare what is said. about the otter, page 251. Professor Douglas argues that the khâi is the polecat. But this identification cannot yet be received as certain. The khâi is 'dogfooted,' 'hunts in troops,' and has 'a voice like that of the dog.' In Japanese plates it is not at all like 'the polecat.' An English naturalist, to whom I submitted a Japanese work illustrative of the Shih King, many years ago, has written over the khâi, 'a wild dog or wolf.'

19. 'This,' says Hsü sze-zang (Ming dynasty), 'is the great rule of making provision for the sustenance of men and for serving spiritual beings,--two things demanding the utmost inward reverence and outward reverential vigour.' I suppose that the 'spirit-granary' contained the grain for all governmental sacrifices, as well as that gathered from 'the acres of God,' and to be used specially in sacrifices to Him.

20. This paragraph gives great trouble to the Khien-lung editors; but we need not enter on their discussions.

21. This last month of autumn, the ninth from the first month of spring, was the last month of the year with the dynasty of Zhin, when it was high time to give out the calendar for the months of the next year.

22. The sovereign's horses were divided into six classes, and every class had its own grooms, with one among them who had the superintendence of the rest. See a narrative in the Zo Kwan, under the eighteenth year of duke Khang.

23. Two of these insignia are mentioned in the text;--the Zing, which was only a pennant, and the Kâo, a large banner with a tortoise and serpent intertwined. No doubt the meaning is, 'the various banners.'