<ol>
<li>This is not a Waley phenomenon. The majority of English translators of <em>Shih-ching</em> (in the absence of 素以為絢兮) follow strictly the preachings of <em>Shuowen Jiezi</em> when interpreting 盼 in 美目盼兮, to varying extents of literality.</li>
</ol>
<div class="s-table-container">
<table class="s-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: center;">Translation</th>
<th style="text-align: left;"></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Legge 1871:95</td>
<td style="text-align: left;">How lovely her eyes, with the black and white so well-defined!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Legge 1876:104</td>
<td style="text-align: left;">With dark and lucid eyes, showed face beyond compare.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Jennings 1891:83</td>
<td style="text-align: left;">Beautiful eyes, so dark, so bright!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Waley 1937:80</td>
<td style="text-align: left;">The lovely eyes so black and white.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Karlgren 1950:38</td>
<td style="text-align: left;">Her beautiful eyes are well-defined black and white.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Pound 1954:28</td>
<td style="text-align: left;">Clear white, gainst black iris.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<p>Legge and Waley also translated III.8 of <em>The Analects</em> in the same manner. Some other translators of <em>The Analects</em> choose to interpret the quote (in the presence of 素以為絢兮) more liberally, but still do not use the more common verbal meaning 'to look' except Lau 1979. Note even in Lau's interpretation the much derived meaning 'to hope for' is not adopted.</p>
<div class="s-table-container">
<table class="s-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: center;">Translation</th>
<th style="text-align: left;"></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Lyall 1909</td>
<td style="text-align: left;">Her lovely eyes, So clear and bright</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Soothill 1910:191</td>
<td style="text-align: left;">Her bewitching eyes shew their colours so clear</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Lau 1979</td>
<td style="text-align: left;">Her beautiful eyes glancing</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<p>My take on this matter is that 素以為絢兮 may be a Confucian (in the sense that the dialogue between Confucius and Tzu-hsia that follows it centres on not the quoted poem, but 絢 as a metaphor for 禮) annotation of the preceding verse 美目盼兮; or a piece of <em>yishi</em> (逸詩, lit. lost poem). If the former be the case, the contrast of colour between 素 and 絢 may also help justify interpreting 盼 as 'black and white well defined'. See more of  素以為絢 <a href="https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/34309/how-has-%E7%B4%A0%E4%BB%A5%E4%B8%BA%E7%BB%9A-be-rendered-into-english">here</a>. Another weaker (and potentially flawed) justification is that in order for the couplet 巧笑倩兮，美目盼兮 to have matching parts of speech, 盼 should be adjectival.</p>
<ol start="2">
<li><a href="http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn/Web/Show/2255" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This article</a>, however, unearths several annotations of the phrase of concern that provide a different explanation:</li>
</ol>
<blockquote>
<p>通志堂本《经典释文·毛诗音义》作“盻”，并注“敷苋反，白黑分也。徐又敷谏反，《韩诗》云‘<strong>黑色也</strong>’，《字林》云‘<strong>美目也</strong>’，匹间反，又匹苋反。”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>阮刻《论语注疏》在原文下有小字注“马曰：‘倩，笑貌；盼，<strong>动目貌</strong>。”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Apparently, not every source listed above agrees with the <em>Shuowen Jiezi</em> school. Especially striking is the interpretation of Ma Rong, an Eastern Han scholar and a contemporary of Xu Shen. But this was not published until the Qing Dynasty in the <em>Ruan ke</em> annotation, which may weaken the credibility of the quote.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-25T13:25:26.423Z
Oh! I would no more fault Waley for this, or for anything, than I would fault the sun for  today being cloudy.  But I do believe Waley and many others follow Shuowen in following traditional Confucian readings of analect 3.8 here more than following the text of the poem.
Colin McLarty
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-25T06:54:52.073Z
2021-02-25T07:19:56.673Z
2021-02-25T07:19:56.673Z
L Parker
<p>in <a href="https://archive.org/details/06043734.cn/page/n107/mode/1up" rel="nofollow noreferrer">論語集解義疏 volume 2, by 何晏 (p108-110 of the pdf)</a>, the remark stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>馬融曰・倩・笑貌・盼・動目貌・絢・文貌也・此上二句在衛風碩人之二章・其下一句逸也</p>
</blockquote>
<p>mr 馬 [a scholar in han dynasty] said (馬融曰), . . . “盼” means “the appearance of moving eye [seeing]” (動目貌), . . . the [origin of the] last verse is lost (其下一句逸也)</p>
<p>judging from the question, i think that you’re “lost in translation”  the english translation provided by ctext.org is, imo, misleading.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>繪・畫文也・凡畫繪先布衆采・然後以素分其間・以成其文・喻美女雖有倩盼美質・亦須禮以成也</p>
</blockquote>
<p>roughly, in drawing, one first lay down the colours (凡畫繪先布衆采), then use white to separate them (然後以素分其間), in order to make the pattern (以成其文—-&gt;紋). the metaphor is (喻): thought a pretty woman smiles often and is smart (美女雖有倩盼美質), it’s still need (亦須) good manners (禮) to perfect it (以成也)</p>
<p>therefore, the text in analect 3.8, i would interpreted it as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>子夏問曰：「『巧笑倩兮，美目盼兮，素以為絢兮。』何謂也？」子曰：「繪事後素。」曰：「禮後乎？」子曰：「起予者商也！始可與言詩已矣。」</p>
</blockquote>
<p>子夏 didn’t understand the meaning of the three verses, he asked confucius “what does it mean” (子夏問曰：「『巧笑倩兮，美目盼兮，素以為絢兮。』何謂也？」)</p>
<p>confucius answered with a metaphor [of drawing, that in drawing, lay down colours first, then apply white colour] (子曰：「繪事<strong>後</strong>素。」)</p>
<p>子夏 get the meaning of this metaphor immediately, said “[so, it’s] good manners (禮) [is what we need] afterwards? (<strong>後</strong>乎)</p>
<p>confucius only answered with a metaphor of drawing; however, 子夏 was smart enough to understand “white” imply “good manners” (以素喻禮). so confucius exclaimed that “he can discuss with him about the book of odes” (子曰：「起予者商也！始可與言詩已矣。」)</p>
<p>have fun :)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-25T13:43:52.210Z
Wonderful.  He Yan's 動目貌 parallels a common phrase for impressive eyes in Ancient Greek: "Glancing eyed" (can be a man or woman).  You are surely right about the literal words of 3.8 but the heavily interpreted version seems to be very old in Confucian tradition.
Colin McLarty
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-25T13:48:48.193Z
@ColinMcLarty, indeed i checked several interpretations of analect 3.8, of 宋, 清 dynasty, the one i provided is the most straightforward, and easiest to comprehend 
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-25T06:40:36.893Z
2021-02-25T06:40:36.893Z
水巷孑蠻
<p>Analect 3.8 quotes from the Book of Songs, 碩人 - Shuo Ren which is Airs of Wei 57 in Waley's version.  
『巧笑倩兮，美目盼兮，素以為絢兮。』
But the last 5 characters do not occur in the Book of Songs as we have it.</p>
<p>Confucius seems to read that quote as saying something about black and white in the woman's eyes or complexion.   And Waley translates the poem in the form we do still have, where he interprets  盼 in the phrase 巧笑倩兮。
美目盼兮。as somehow referring to black and white.  </p>
<p>The Chinese Text Project website indeed finds a phrase in the Shuowen, and then in the Kangxi dictionary associating the character  盼  with 目黑白分明也。But I think that comes from interpretations of the Analects.  I do not see any examples of usage in the Pre-Han and Qin texts on that site, except for Analect 3.8, where  盼 seems to mean that.  Most often it means &quot;hoping,&quot; and most often that is hoping for a son.  They do once give 之馬之目盼則為之馬盼 as meaning a horse's eyes, and the horse, are blind.</p>
<p>I know from experience that I may well be missing something on the Chinese Text Project website.  But what is the reason for thinking that 美目盼兮，素以為絢兮 means a woman's eyes are distinctly black and white?  It seems to me more natural to associate it with &quot;longing&quot; in, or for, the woman's eyes.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-25T06:47:14.530Z
盼 does not appear to be associated with 盼望 until the Yuan Dynasty, and the character 盼 lacks paleogrpahic samples for us to determine specific on. "Black and white", well, I would have guessed it came from a verse-reading from 巧笑倩兮, and assuming that a stark contrast between the black and whites of eyes is somehow "美" in that era. Language-wise, maybe read 盼 as cognate to 分 (distinguish, contrast).
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-25T07:28:28.937Z
Perhaps 盼 is also a 亦聲字 (e.g. 授, 坪; the phonogram is also semantically relevant). However, would *Shuowen Jiezi* have included '分亦聲' in its definition if that were the case?
L Parker
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-25T16:02:12.617Z
@dROOOze It seems to me that both 太玄經 - Tai Xuan and  韓詩外傳 - Han Shi Wai  at ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=盼 are Han sources for 盼 as hope.  Is that wrong?
Colin McLarty
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-25T17:08:27.310Z
Oh, thanks for finding that - I didn't look deep enough. I'm a bit wary of Han & earlier appearances of 盼 though - unless it was a professional transcription from excavated texts, what appears as 盼 might be a misreading of 盻 (and this goes the other way too).
dROOOze
<classical-chinese>
How can 盼 refer to black and white?
# How can 盼 refer to black and white?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-02-25)

Analect 3.8 quotes from the Book of Songs, 碩人 - Shuo Ren which is Airs of Wei 57 in Waley's version.  
『巧笑倩兮，美目盼兮，素以為絢兮。』
But the last 5 characters do not occur in the Book of Songs as we have it.

Confucius seems to read that quote as saying something about black and white in the woman's eyes or complexion.   And Waley translates the poem in the form we do still have, where he interprets  盼 in the phrase 巧笑倩兮。
美目盼兮。as somehow referring to black and white.

The Chinese Text Project website indeed finds a phrase in the Shuowen, and then in the Kangxi dictionary associating the character  盼  with 目黑白分明也。But I think that comes from interpretations of the Analects.  I do not see any examples of usage in the Pre-Han and Qin texts on that site, except for Analect 3.8, where  盼 seems to mean that.  Most often it means "hoping," and most often that is hoping for a son.  They do once give 之馬之目盼則為之馬盼 as meaning a horse's eyes, and the horse, are blind.

I know from experience that I may well be missing something on the Chinese Text Project website.  But what is the reason for thinking that 美目盼兮，素以為絢兮 means a woman's eyes are distinctly black and white? It seems to me more natural to associate it with "longing" in, or for, the woman's eyes.

**Tags:** classical-chinese

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: 盼 does not appear to be associated with 盼望 until the Yuan Dynasty, and the character 盼 lacks paleogrpahic samples for us to determine specific on. "Black and white", well, I would have guessed it came from a verse-reading from 巧笑倩兮, and assuming that a stark contrast between the black and whites of eyes is somehow "美" in that era. Language-wise, maybe read 盼 as cognate to 分 (distinguish, contrast).  
> **username_2**: Perhaps 盼 is also a 亦聲字 (e.g. 授, 坪; the phonogram is also semantically relevant). However, would *Shuowen Jiezi* have included '分亦聲' in its definition if that were the case?  
> **username_0**: @username_1 It seems to me that both 太玄經 - Tai Xuan and  韓詩外傳 - Han Shi Wai  at ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=盼 are Han sources for 盼 as hope.  Is that wrong?  
> **username_1**: Oh, thanks for finding that - I didn't look deep enough. I'm a bit wary of Han & earlier appearances of 盼 though - unless it was a professional transcription from excavated texts, what appears as 盼 might be a misreading of 盻 (and this goes the other way too).  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2021-02-25. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

1. This is not a Waley phenomenon. The majority of English translators of *Shih-ching* (in the absence of 素以為絢兮) follow strictly the preachings of *Shuowen Jiezi* when interpreting 盼 in 美目盼兮, to varying extents of literality.

| Translation |  |
| --- | --- |
| Legge 1871:95 | How lovely her eyes, with the black and white so well-defined! |
| Legge 1876:104 | With dark and lucid eyes, showed face beyond compare. |
| Jennings 1891:83 | Beautiful eyes, so dark, so bright! |
| Waley 1937:80 | The lovely eyes so black and white. |
| Karlgren 1950:38 | Her beautiful eyes are well-defined black and white. |
| Pound 1954:28 | Clear white, gainst black iris. |

Legge and Waley also translated III.8 of *The Analects* in the same manner. Some other translators of *The Analects* choose to interpret the quote (in the presence of 素以為絢兮) more liberally, but still do not use the more common verbal meaning 'to look' except Lau 1979. Note even in Lau's interpretation the much derived meaning 'to hope for' is not adopted.

| Translation |  |
| --- | --- |
| Lyall 1909 | Her lovely eyes, So clear and bright |
| Soothill 1910:191 | Her bewitching eyes shew their colours so clear |
| Lau 1979 | Her beautiful eyes glancing |

My take on this matter is that 素以為絢兮 may be a Confucian (in the sense that the dialogue between Confucius and Tzu-hsia that follows it centres on not the quoted poem, but 絢 as a metaphor for 禮) annotation of the preceding verse 美目盼兮; or a piece of *yishi* (逸詩, lit. lost poem). If the former be the case, the contrast of colour between 素 and 絢 may also help justify interpreting 盼 as 'black and white well defined'. See more of 素以為絢 [here](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/34309/how-has-%E7%B4%A0%E4%BB%A5%E4%B8%BA%E7%BB%9A-be-rendered-into-english). Another weaker (and potentially flawed) justification is that in order for the couplet 巧笑倩兮，美目盼兮 to have matching parts of speech, 盼 should be adjectival.

2. [This article](http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn/Web/Show/2255), however, unearths several annotations of the phrase of concern that provide a different explanation:

> 通志堂本《经典释文·毛诗音义》作“盻”，并注“敷苋反，白黑分也。徐又敷谏反，《韩诗》云‘**黑色也**’，《字林》云‘**美目也**’，匹间反，又匹苋反。”

> 阮刻《论语注疏》在原文下有小字注“马曰：‘倩，笑貌；盼，**动目貌**。”

Apparently, not every source listed above agrees with the *Shuowen Jiezi* school. Especially striking is the interpretation of Ma Rong, an Eastern Han scholar and a contemporary of Xu Shen. But this was not published until the Qing Dynasty in the *Ruan ke* annotation, which may weaken the credibility of the quote.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Oh! I would no more fault Waley for this, or for anything, than I would fault the sun for  today being cloudy.  But I do believe Waley and many others follow Shuowen in following traditional Confucian readings of analect 3.8 here more than following the text of the poem.  

---

### Answer by username_3 on 2021-02-25. Score: 2

in [論語集解義疏 volume 2, by 何晏 (p108-110 of the pdf)](https://archive.org/details/06043734.cn/page/n107/mode/1up), the remark stated:

> 馬融曰・倩・笑貌・盼・動目貌・絢・文貌也・此上二句在衛風碩人之二章・其下一句逸也

mr 馬 [a scholar in han dynasty] said (馬融曰), . . . “盼” means “the appearance of moving eye [seeing]” (動目貌), . . . the [origin of the] last verse is lost (其下一句逸也)

judging from the question, i think that you’re “lost in translation” the english translation provided by ctext.org is, imo, misleading.

> 繪・畫文也・凡畫繪先布衆采・然後以素分其間・以成其文・喻美女雖有倩盼美質・亦須禮以成也

roughly, in drawing, one first lay down the colours (凡畫繪先布衆采), then use white to separate them (然後以素分其間), in order to make the pattern (以成其文—->紋). the metaphor is (喻): thought a pretty woman smiles often and is smart (美女雖有倩盼美質), it’s still need (亦須) good manners (禮) to perfect it (以成也)

therefore, the text in analect 3.8, i would interpreted it as:

> 子夏問曰：「『巧笑倩兮，美目盼兮，素以為絢兮。』何謂也？」子曰：「繪事後素。」曰：「禮後乎？」子曰：「起予者商也！始可與言詩已矣。」

子夏 didn’t understand the meaning of the three verses, he asked confucius “what does it mean” (子夏問曰：「『巧笑倩兮，美目盼兮，素以為絢兮。』何謂也？」)

confucius answered with a metaphor [of drawing, that in drawing, lay down colours first, then apply white colour] (子曰：「繪事**後**素。」)

子夏 get the meaning of this metaphor immediately, said “[so, it’s] good manners (禮) [is what we need] afterwards? (**後**乎)

confucius only answered with a metaphor of drawing; however, 子夏 was smart enough to understand “white” imply “good manners” (以素喻禮). so confucius exclaimed that “he can discuss with him about the book of odes” (子曰：「起予者商也！始可與言詩已矣。」)

have fun :)

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Wonderful.  He Yan's 動目貌 parallels a common phrase for impressive eyes in Ancient Greek: "Glancing eyed" (can be a man or woman).  You are surely right about the literal words of 3.8 but the heavily interpreted version seems to be very old in Confucian tradition.  
> **username_3**: @username_0, indeed i checked several interpretations of analect 3.8, of 宋, 清 dynasty, the one i provided is the most straightforward, and easiest to comprehend   

---

