Han shih wai chuan Han Ying's Illustrations of the didactic application of the Classic of songs |
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CHAPTER IX Han shih wai chuan | ||
28
The king of Ch`i offered his daughter with a rich dowry in
marriage to Butcher T`u.[1]
Butcher T`u declined on the pretext of
illness. His friend said,[2]
"You will just be in a stinking shop to
the end of your life. Why did you refuse him?"
T`u answered, "His daughter is ugly."
His friend said, "How do you know?"
T`u said, "From my butchery I know it."
His friend said, "What do you mean?"
T`u said, "When my meat is good I can dispose of it [by weight]
and regret only that there is too little.[3]
When my meat is not
good, even though I add on more meat[4]
to increase [the weight],
I still cannot sell it. Now if he offers his daughter with a rich
dowry, it is simply because she is ugly." Later on his friend saw
her, and she really was ugly. As the saying has it,
[OMITTED] is corrupt. Either invert [OMITTED] and [OMITTED], or follow Ch`u-hsüeh chi to read
[OMITTED] for [OMITTED].
[OMITTED] "teeth like shells in a row." Chu I-tung [OMITTED] (quoted by Chao 227-8) points out that this metaphor is frequently employed of a person's beauty, and so is not appropriate here. The quotation of this line in Lu T`ien's Pei ya reads [OMITTED] "insect larva" for [OMITTED], and I follow Chu to emend to that reading. Chao in adition cites TPYL 382.6b, which has [OMITTED] "crab," a possible graphic error for [OMITTED] *g'αng and [OMITTED] *χi̯ang rhyme.
CHAPTER IX Han shih wai chuan | ||