Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/148

134 ." As a noun, ai denotes sorrow, distress, affliction, and so used it is of very common occurrence. One name for the staff or rod borne by a son at a parent's funeral, as will be seen presently, is ai-chang, the staff of sorrow. And in the "Shi-ching" we find the statement "Our hearts are sorely distressed and mo-chih-wo-ai, no one knows our sadness." As an adjective, ai means sad, mournful, to be pitied, compassionate. In this use it sometimes has the adjectival particle cho added, as in ai-cho, the compassionate. The particle is not needed, however, and we find ai-t'ai (駘), a "sorry jade." So also ai-ko (歌), are woeful ditties, sad songs which sung-k'u-yen (送苦言), "go with words of misery." It will be remembered also that Confucius characterised the first poem in the "Shi-ching" as "joyful but not licentious, sad but not painful" (哀而不傷). To those who die young this word is given as a posthumous epithet by way of reverence. So used it means "the regretted," desideratissimi. The phrase ai-tsai is sometimes simply equivalent to wo! alas! or some such exclamation. But it has also the force of "to be pitied," " it is hard with" or "ill for." In the "Shi-ching" we find it contrasted with ko (哿), which means "to be well with." Thus the rich are said to be well off while the desolate are ai-tsai, in a pitiable plight. Then ai becomes a verb, and it is now explained as a synonym for shang (傷), to be afflicted, or min (閔), to mourn for or with. So the expression jen-chie-ai-chih (人皆哀之) means "everybody mourned for him." It is laid down also that in the religious services to one's parents the mourner must ai, and in this connection the word is interpreted as meaning "to weep aloud." Hence comes the expression ai-hsiang (響), the noise of wailing, that is, in a house of mourning. It was perhaps from being used in this way the word came to have the meaning of death, or to die. For reporting to Peking the decease of a tributary ruler, the prescribed term is kao-ai (告哀), to announce mourning. The word is further used in the sense of to pity, as when it is said of an emperor that he ai-wu-ku (無辜), pities the innocent. It is also applied to a horse, and we read in a popular poem of a good horse pei (悲) ai,