In his collection Gu Yao Yan, Du Wen Lan described in detail the origin of each proverb and each ballad and cited the literary source from which it was taken. At present we are unable to include his accounts of historical sources; they are simply too many in number and would take up a good deal of space.  Perhaps in the future we may be able to do so. We do include the bibliographical information Du provided identifying the literary source of each ballad and proverb.

We have not been able to find authoritative English translations of the ballads and proverbs.  Instead we are providing summary translations of the proverbs. Though lacking in detail and ignoring the style of the original, we hope these ‘paraphrases’ may still give the reader some limited insight into the originals.  We welcome any suggestions.

The Chinese text created in this electronic version is based on the two-volume set from the (Zhong Guo Su Wen Xu Cong Kan Di Yi Ji), compiled by (Yang Jia Lo). Where characters are not available in the Chinese software we have substituted parallel or similar words in brackets.

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