Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/147

Rh common interjection is the exclamation hü, with the variations hsü and yü (written 吁 and occasionally 于). This expresses alarm, terror, or mental anguish, and comes to mean to sigh or grieve. It also often indicates merely displeasure or dissatisfaction, but the sound which it gives is an uncertain one. Hence it frequently needs the help of another interjection to render its use distinct and precise. With it, for example, we find the sound now tsie or chie (嗟) but formerly tso or ts'o or cho. Thus Hü-tso-ming-pu-shu (吁嗟命不淑) is, "alas for the premature death!" This tso or tsie is also originally only an exclamation, and in the mouth of an emperor it is a mere Lo! or Ah! to call attention or head an utterance. Then it becomes an exclamation of pity or distress, sometimes used singly, and sometimes repeated, and sometimes with hü, tsŭ or some other interjection preceding. So we find such expressions as Tsie-wo-fu-tzŭ (嗟我婦子), "Ah! our wives and childenchildren [sic]." Then it is verb meaning to pity, as in tsie yuan-shĭ-nü (嗟遠士女) "I pity the wife of the far-off warrior." In the line tsie-tsie-shi-yü-shên (世與身) it means to sigh or grieve for. "I sigh sadly for the world and myself."

As an example of the heaping up of interjections for the sake of force, let us take the first line of a celebrated poem on the Hardships of travelling in Ssŭchuan. The poet says of the road, I-hü-hi-wei-hu-kao-tsai (噫吁嚱危乎高哉), He hie-hu! how perilous, how high! But let us take the old sigh expressed in sound by ei, ai, wa, and represented in writing by the character now read ai (哀). In the fortunes of this word we seem to be able to trace the ideal progress of language from the brute cry to the speech of civilised man. We find it as a mere exclamation, an interjection of pity or pain or sorrow on the part of the speaker, like the ouai, guai, wo of other languages. Thus ai-ai-fu-mu is "alas! alas! my parents!" Here the repetition of the sound serves to express the subjective feeling of deep distress, as the commentator says, it "emphasizes the sad affliction of the person" (重自哀傷也). Then ai is used in the sense of a sighing, a sadness, as in the phrase, Wu-hu-yu-ai (於乎有哀 said to be i here), "Oh! alas," in Dr. Legge's translation. Here yu-ai means, "It is sad, it is