76 FIR-FLOWER TABLETS 



Mr. Giles used both metre and rhythm in his translations 

 but only as media for transfusing the warm blood of the 

 original into his own lines. The charm of his work and the 

 permanency of its value lie in his imaginative conception 

 of the beauty of Chinese verse which remained in conceal- 

 ment from English readers. In other fields Giles has not 

 always shown himself sympathetic with the spirit of his 

 original sources, but in poetry he has shown such a response 

 to the Chinese emotional appeal that it is possible he might 

 have become that fortunate combination whose lack Miss 

 Lowell laments in her Preface. "A sinologue has no time to 

 write poetry; a poet has no time to learn how to read 

 Chinese." We venture the surmise, however, that without 

 Giles' preliminary work, the world would not now be the 

 happy possessor of "Fir-Flower Tablets." 



It was fortunate for both that Miss Lowell and Mrs. 

 Ayscough collaborated in producing this volume, and I find 

 it impossible anywhere between the two covers to apportion 

 the share which each had in the final form. Mrs. Ayscough 

 must have had poetic instinct of a high order, and surely 

 Miss Lowell has keen powers of discrimination in the choice 

 of correct English words to convey Chinese ideas. In Miss 

 Lowell's Preface Mrs. Ayscough 's hand appears just as in 

 Mrs. Ayscough 's Introduction Miss Lowell's broad scholar- 

 ship, especially in French literature, is in evidence. In the 

 poems themselves the separation into component parts of 

 the joint work of the authors is still more impossible. 

 Together they stand or fall; and certainly they stand. 



Everywhere there are evidences of intimate collabora- 

 tion. In the second stanza of the first poem "Songs of the 

 Marches" Mrs. Ayscough must have been responsible for the 

 line "swift as the three dogs' wind" in which the triplicate 

 use of the dog radical in the character p'ao suggested the 

 striking imagery of wind which resembles the convulsive 

 panting of heated dogs. She must also have suggested the 

 onomatopoeic lines, "Hsiao, hsiao the horse neighs" and 

 "Sheng! sheng ! it drips, cutting my heart in two" — which 

 remind one of Legge's line "Lin, lin go the hounds" (She 

 King Part I, VIII). It is also more than probable that 

 the drab translation of i shang as garments or clothes was 

 changed in the Peony Song (p. 16) and again in the Feng 

 Hsien Temple Visit (p. 103) to the more vivid picture of 

 "upper garments, lower garments" which is fully justified 

 by the essential meaning of these two characters. Mrs. 

 Ayscough doubtless favored, the unusual phrase "green 

 heavens" (p. 6) as an equally accurate description of the 



