《诗经·无羊》疑难训诂一则

对《诗经·无羊》篇“牧人所梦，众维鱼矣，旒维稿（旗）矣”后两句诗的理解，诸家歧义互出，迄无定论，关键是对“众”（聚）和“维”的解释各持己见。该文认为，“众”通“竦”，指蝗虫；维，与也，是个连词。牧人所梦者，竦与鱼，旒与稿也。竦，成群的东西；旒，所以使众也，声符兆有众义。鱼字与稿字皆与剩余的余字谐音。综上所述，牧人所梦为丰年和室家繁衍之征就不难理解了。

Explaining the words of dispute in No Sheep of The book of Odes

In No Sheep of The book of Odes,there is a line poem which is “What the herdsmen dreamed were Zhong（衆） Wei（维） fishes （鱼）, as well as Zhao（旐） Wei （维） Yu （旟）”. Different scholars have different explanations about it and until now there has been no agreement. The principal cause is that there are different opinions about the explanation of Zhong （衆） and Wei （维）. The au- thor of this paper takes the point that Zhong（衆） is interchangeable with Zhong （衆）, meaning locusts; Wei （维） is interchangeable with the conjunction ‘and’（与）. What the herdsmen dreamed of were locusts and fishes, as well as Zhao（旐） and Yu（旟） banners. Yu （旟） indicates massed things. Zhao（旐） is a flag to command the masses, and the symbol to denote the pronunciation of Zhao （旐）,—Zhao（兆） means multitudes. Fisher（鱼） and Yu（旟） sound the same as surplus（余）. From the analysis above, it wouldnt be difficult to understand that the herdsmen＇s dream is a symptom of bumper crop and the family＇s faster multiplication.