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With the old Greeks, the chariot of Helios was equally provided with fleet horses. Apollo had four white steeds before the sun's chariot, for which Aurora opened in the morning the gates in the East, and during the night the sungod and his chariot were put to rest in the palace of Tethys, in the West of the universe.

In consequence of the misapprehension of the term "white colt", Wells Williams 1) has translated the saying by "the bright racer quickly disappears", which is in the first place incorrect as in Chinese the adjective precedes the substantive, and if this was really the meaning the phrase would stand "the bright colt", and not, which has to be translated by the light of the colt", i. e. "the gleam of the Sun". The metaphorical sense is "time gone cannot be recalled", as W. Williams himself says, but appearently without understanding the metaphor.

As soon, however, as we translate here by Sun and by the sun's light, the gleam of the sun, the metaphor, which evidently is inspired by Chwang-tsz's saying, becomes quite clear, and we can translate it by "the sun's gleam easily passes away"; or tempus fugit as the Romans said, which is also literally rendered in Chinese by 光陰一去再不還,“time gone never comes back", or by, "time easily passes away", or by ,"time is swift", etc. 2)

The desert horses are mentioned by Chwang-tsz in his Perigrinations, Book I, Part I, Section 1) in the phrase 野馬也、塵埃也。生物之以息相吹也, which simply means "Desert-horses are (only) dust; it are natural productions 3) blown against each other by a breath".

1) Chinese Dictionary, p. 438 B.

2) See my Nederlandsch-Chineesch Woordenboek i. v. Tijd (time) and Vliegen (fly). 3) We cannot translate here by living things; for the sand of the desert is here meant, which is a natural production of the desert.

De Rosny paraphrases: (et cependant cet animal prodigieux 1), comparé à l'univers, n'est) qu'un peu d'air, un peu de poussière; c'est un souffle de la création. In a uote he adds: Cette phrase est d'une extrême concision, et l'expression ye-ma (vulg. "cheval des champs"), qu'il faut interpréter par "l'air qui circule dans les champs" (), appartient à ce style figuré, allégorique, souvent ampoulé, dont l'intelligence présente d'ordinaire de sérieuses difficultés 2).

Legge (Texts of Taoïsm, I, 165) paraphrases: "(But similar to this is the movement of the breezes which we call) the horses of the fields, of the dust (which quivers in the sunbeams), and of living things as they are blown against one another by the air". The difficulty lies not only in the interpretation of the term ye-ma, but in the use of the particle ye, which has been taken in the sense of "to be", by the translators. Now has in this whole chapter of Chwang-tsz the meaning of ; and a modern writer would say 野馬者、塵埃也

Prémare says in his Notitia linguae sinicae (Ed. Bridgman, p. 187, § 3): Yé is sometimes found in the end of the first member of a sentence; e.g. 道之不行也,吾知之矣,if -t,

reason be at fault, I know the cause; and § 6:

there is not a particle of difference;則一也,無異也, there is then no difference. In the same piece Chwang-tsz says: A 水之積也、不厚,則屓大舟也,無力,“moreover, when the accumulation of the waters of heaven is not deep enough, then it will not have the strength to support a large ship". In this phrase again ye makes the subject concrete, which is generally

1) Chwang-tsze has first spoken of the fabulous bird Rokh; but the phrase has no connection with that in which he speaks of this bird, and so we can dispense with the paraphrase in brackets given by de Rosny and Legge.

2) Textes chinois traduits en Français, Paris 1875, p. 74.

expressed by, as in the definition of the word Humanity: *. ***, Humanity is the root of justice; literally "that which constitutes humanity, is that it is the root of justice". Von der Gabelentz (Chinesische Grammatik, §§ 811, 1166, 1188ʊ) quotes several examples of the use of for; as e. g. pag. 449: 陽也、剛也、仁也、物之始也。陰也、柔也,義 也,物之終也, where 也 stands for 者: Compare also St. Julien's Syntaxe nouvelle de la langue chinoise, Vol. I, p. 163, where several quotations are given of the use of ye for che.

Wells Williams' definition of ye ma, "a column of dust flying

over the desert", is pretty correct; that of Medhurst "the simoon of the desert" and that of Giles "a sunbeam" are wrong, for a simoon is a dust-storm, which is called in Chinese ; whilst the ye-ma is light dust hovering over the desert upon which the sun shines, and affecting the wellknown form of mirage so ordinary in all deserts and tantalizing to the poor wanderer parched with thirst.

The famous pilgrim Hiuen-ts ang suffered frighfully from the fantastic visions appearing suddenly and disappearing as quickly in the desert Mo-kia yen-tsih '), when on his way to the

the "Well of mirage", and not, as St. Julien has translated it, the "Well of wild horses".

Ye-ma are also the little motes or atoms of dust, dancing in a beam of the sun. The chinese poet Han-oh (1) says: A

я, "In the sun's beams through my window the motes dance"). It were ridiculous to take here the term ye ma as "wild horses" or as a Simoon or dust-storm.

Chinese is difficult; not on account of its easy and transparent syntax, but on account of the figurative use of characters, which

1) In Mongol Makkai Gobi, the ugly desert.

2) See my "Nederlandsch-Chineesch Woordenboek" i. v. Zonnestofje (Sun-motes).

are wanting in our dictionaries, and so can even lead the most experienced sinologues into error. Before we have a complete chinese dictionary in the fullest sense of the word, we will all be liable to misunderstandings and errors in our translations of chinese texts. But it is impossible for one man to make such a dictionary, and we want a special commission of Sinologues, unfettered by material wauts, to compile it. The expenses, divided over a goodly number of years, would not be so heavy, that the British government, which is most concerned with it, could not easily bear them.

VARIÉTÉS.

INTERVIEW AVEC LE CHARGÉ D'AFFAIRES

CHINOIS A BERLIN

PAR

G. SCHLEGEL.

Le «Berliner Tageblatt» rapporte un interview intéressant avec le chargé d'affaires de l'ambassade chinoise à Berlin, par rapport aux réformes à introduire en Chine. Ce diplomate chinois disait que la première réforme à faire est celle d'abolir l'heure excessivement matinale à laquelle les ministres doivent actuellement présenter leurs rapports, ce qui force également l'empereur de se lever à 2 heures du matin. Le ministre disait que cette réforme devait venir du dehors; et il a raison. L'Empereur de la Chine est le symbole du soleil, et le soleil reçoit l'hommage de la nature et des êtres vivants le matin. L'empereur doit donc, comme représentant le soleil, en faire autant. Au dernier siècle, les ambassadeurs hollandais se plaignèrent amèrement d'être tirés de leur lit de si grand matin pour être reçus en audience.

Ils ne savaient pas que ce n'était pas

par tracasserie qu'on fit cela, mais en observation des anciens rites. Le mot même d'audience en Chinois Tchao signifie au propre matin 1). En Chine, comme ailleurs, les réformes doivent sortir du gouvernement.

Le ministre chinois considérait comme une des meilleures preuves de la bonne volonté de son gouvernement le fait qu'il avait nommé Tching-Tchang comme ambassadeur à Paris. Tching-Tchang est catholique et sort d'une famille catholique depuis 2 siècles. Autrefois une pareille nomination aurait été impossible. Mais on fera plus: on enverra en Europe une grande quantité de jeunes gens, en partie de famille princière, et en partie choisis d'entre les grands de l'empire. Ils s'y livreront à l'étude de la jurisprudence, de l'administration, de la chimie, de l'économie rurale, des sciences militaires, etc. Mais le ministre chi

1) Voir mon Uranograpkie chinoise, p. 94. La belle explication que l'interviewer nous donne, que les audiences étaient tenues le matin, afin d'arracher l'empereur à ses femmes, est encore une de ces belles fantaisies européennes. L'erapereur chinois, toujours comme représentant du soleil, s'occupe de ses femmes l'après-midi, de même que le soleil caresse la nature le jour et non la nuit. Les missionnaires se sont assez plaints dans le temps que leur grand Kang hi passait tous ses après-midis dans ses jardins particuliers avec un troupeau de femmes. On peut en lire la relation détaillée dans les Mémoires du P. RIPA (traduction anglaise de Fortunato Prandi, pp. 72 et 115-117, nouvelle édition de 1861).

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