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后欽○辟大瘢 貨

于哉王惟弗

克官

憲嗚汝 祇惟

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乃呼辜。尿 爾 寺惟

8 disregard the statutes of the former kings. If you choose your not for the goodness of their personal qualities, but for the sake of their bribes, the offices will thus be all made of no effect. Your great want of reverence for your sovereign will be apparent, and to you I will impute the blame."

men

9

The king said, "Oh! be reverent! Ever help your sovereign to follow the regular laws of duty which he should exemplify."

in Men., VI., Pt. I., xv., 2. 8. Let Keung | should be explained in accordance with this choose his officers on the ground of what they are,

and not for what they have or can give him.

貨 is here=賂, ‘to bribe,' 'a bribe.’ 非 人其吉惟貨其吉,this is ad

dressed directly to Pih-keung.-'If it be not the man in whom is the excellence, but it is the bribe in which you see the excellence.' Gan-kwŎ

missed the point and terseness of the language:

-若非其人實吉良惟以貨 財配其吉良以求入于僕 侍之中, 若時=如是,‘thus 瓌一曠, ‘to make void,' 'to leave as it were

.

text.

P. 9. The conclusion. 彝憲常法

'the regular or constant laws of conduct,' which

the sovereign should observe.

CONCLUDING NOTE. The character of king Muh does not stand high with Chinese historians. Towards the end of his long reign, for 55 years are assigned to him, he took it into his head that he should travel, without any

pire, wherever he

definite purpose of usefulness, all over the empire, wherever he could go. He did not prove the man that the critics say might have been expected from the language of his Charges to

Keun-ya and Pih-keung. Lin Che-k'e thinks empty. This is difft. from its use in Bk. IX., mind these two addresses betray a tendency to his fallings off have been exaggerated. To my

Pp. 6, 17. Perhaps 瘰 在, Bk. XII, p. 10, | exaggeration, and betoken a feebleness of mind.

THE BOOKS OF CHOW.

BOOK XXVII. THE PRINCE OF LEU UPON PUNISHMENTS.

詰刑度耄百享命

四以作荒年國王呂 刑

1 I. In reference to the charge to the prince of Leu:-When the king had enjoyed the throne till he was the age of a hundred years, he gave great consideration to the appointment of punish

ments, in order to restrain the people of all quarters.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The two last Books,, there was reason to believe, were to be referred to the commencement of king Muh's reign; this, we learn from the Book itself, was the work of its close, when the king was not less than a century old. During the half century that he occupied the throne, the House of Chow went on to decline. Acc. to Sze-ma Ts'cen, the king would engage in hostilities with the wild tribes 'round about, contrary to the counsels of his advisers, losing consequently the former reverence with which they had regarded the sovereigns of Chow, and the good-will also of many of the princes. As to the character of his enactments about punishments, which were the work of his hundredth year, opinions are greatly divided, some critics condemning it so much that they cannot understand why Confucius gave the Book a place in the Shoo. I will reserve the expression of a judgment in the case till we have considered its different parts in detail.

tions which the king announces had in the first place been digested by him.

is to be taken as =

侯) (The prince) of Leu,' being itself the name of a principality, the place of which cannot be clearly ascertained. The Book is quoted in the Le Ke several times, and in other works, by the name of "The Punishments of the prince of Foo.' Indeed this was the prevailing name of it during the Han dynasty. The truth seems to be, that the descendants of the prince of Leu were appointed to the principality of Foo, and their territorial title was transferred to him and to this Book. The Houses of Ts'e ), Shin (), Heu

), and Foo (), all traced their descent to Yaou's president of the Four Eminences, surnamed Keang (). He or his son was to the great Yu a minister who served the purpose of his heart and backbone'

THE NAME OF THE BOOK.-, 'The prince of Leu upon Punishments,' or 'The Punishments of the prince of Leu.' The Prefatory note says that Leu received the orders. In this way the surname of of king Muh to set forth the lessons of Hea on the redemption of punishments, and there was made LEU ON PUNISHMENTS' (see page. 13., n. 64). We can hardly say that any of this appears in the Book, for Leu, or the prince of Leu, is

mentioned only once. The king is the speaker

throughout. Nothing is said of Hea. We may accept the tradition, however, that Leu was Mul's minister of Crime, and that the regula

arose

among his descendants, and was retained by the princes of Tse, the most distinguished family of them. Possibly the prince of Leu, with whom we have here to do, may have had the same title from his importance to king Muh. How

ever this may be, Z was the older and the

proper title of this Book. Mih Teih quotes it by that name. It was found in both the texts.

CONTENTS. I confine myself for the present to the account of these given in the 'Complete Digest.'-'Par. 1 is the historiographer's account

subjoins Mencius' account of it,Pursuing the chase

無厭謂之荒

without satiety is what I call being wild;'see Men. I., Pt. II., iv. 7. On this construction, the two characters are strongly condemnatory of the king's character, and would go to show that the enactments about punishment which the Book relates were stigmatised by the historiographer as made by him in his dotage, and the licentiousness of his reign. Leu Tso0heen and Ch'in Leih, whose opinions are appended in Yung-ching's Shoo, construing

of the circumstances in which these lessons on
punishments were made. Parr. 2-12 relate
the lessons of antiquity for the information of
the judges and princes, being a historical resumé
which it was important for them to be acquaint-
ed with. Par. 13 is addressed specially to the
princes, admonishing them of the diligence and
carefulness to be employed in the use of punish-
ments. Parr. 14-20 tell them how they should
proceed in that use so as to make punishments
a blessing. Par. 21 insists again on the rever-
ence with which punishments should be employ
ed. The last par. is addressed to future genera-
tions, and directs them to the ancient models,
that punishments may never be but a blessing
to the empire. Throughout the Book, "virtue"
and "exact adaptation" are the terms which
carry the weight of the meaning. Virtue must
underlie the use of punishments, and exact
adaptation will be the manifestation of it'at

也,中其用也)

It will be seen that I have divided the king's address into six chapters, each of which commences with the words-The king said.' This differs only in one trifling point from the arrangement of the 'Complete Digest.'

Ch. I. P. 1. INTRODUCTION :-The TIME AND

OBJECT FOR WHICH THE ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT
PUNISHMENTS WAS MADE.

and together like Ts'ae, yet endeavour to make them have a difft. bearing on the statement which follows;—but unsuccessfully.

Soo Shih adopted the second method of point. ing which I have indicated. He put a stop

耄, and joined 莊 to the verb 度

as an

adv., signifying greatly;'-referring, in sup-
port both of the construction and of that mean-

ing of 莊 to the words of Yu in the Yih
and Tseih., p. 8,
±

kept planning with all my might my labour on
the land.' I have followed this view in the
translation. Ts'ae admits that it is ingenious
and admissible), saying, however, that

the character alone is one of condemnation'

惟呂命(耄亦貶之之辭. But in this

this clause has no syntactical connection with the rest of the par. Ts'ae says that the characters are used in the same way as

in 'The Charge to Yue,' Pt. ii., p. 1; but the student will perceive that the cases are not at

all analogous. 惟說命 is an integral

part of the par. where it stands, and supplies the nominative to the first verb in the par. which follows. We may suppose that the prince of Leu had received charge to digest the subject of punishments in acc. with his own views and those of king Muh; that he had done so; and that the king published the result as is subsequently narrated. In this way we may give the meaning which appears in the

translation.

It is not certain how the rest of the par.

latter criticism he is incorrect. We have the character used by Shun of himself in 'The Counsels of Yu,' p. 9, where it simply expresses the fact of his great age, and I do not think that we are to seek for any other meaning for it in the text.

The general rhythm of the par. also satisfies me that Shih's construction is to be preferred, unless indeed we should introduce a before

as Këang Shing does, but on insufficient authority. Thus taken, the historiogaprher in this par. indicates neither censure nor approbation of king Muh's labours on the subject of punishments; and this is a recommendation of the

view.

It still remains to direct attention to the

ought to be pointed. Should and peculiarity of the language-074

be joined together and stand intermediately, which, on the analogy of Bk. XV., p. 4, between what precedes and what follows, qualiet al., and most naturally too, would be under

fying more especially what follows? or should

stood as saying that king Muh occupied the

we put a stop at, joining it to throne for a hundred years. Such a view has its supporters. Wang Ch'ung, for instance,

百年, and make 荒 an adv., qualifying maintains it, in his¬ÃBS

? Gan-kwo took the former method, in which he is followed by Ts'ae, who says that is the designation of one who is old, with

the weakness and mental disorders of age

adding that Muh lived altogether to the age of about 140. This cannot be admitted. Szema Ts'een says he was 50 when he succeeded to the throne, and that he reigned 55 years. has a meaning here intermediate between

mahe defines, after that in Bk. XX., p, p. 22, and that in XX., p. Gan-kwo, by, sudden,' ' neglectful,' and | 11, = *.

奪義寇民及作尤有曰方。 攘姦賊罔于亂惟訓若◎ 矯宄鴟不平延始蚩古王

2 II. The king said, "According to the teachings of ancient times, Ch'e-yew was the first to produce disorder, which spread among the common people, till all became robbers and murderers, owllike in their conduct, traitors and villains, snatching and filching, dissemblers and oppressors.

Ch. II. Pp. 2-11. THE FIRST PART OF THE KING'S ADDRESS ;-INTRODUCTORY. THE FIRST RISE OF DISORDER IN THE EMPIRE; THE CASE OF THE PEOPLE of MeAoU; HOW SHUN DEALT WITH THEM; AND HOW HE WENT ON TO LABOUR BY HIS MINISTERS FOR THE PEOPLE, ENDING

WITH THE SUBJECT OF PUNISHMENTS. 2. Ch'eyew, the first author of disorder in the empire.

若古有訓-this clause is equivalent to the 日若稽古, with which the Canons 若 may be

of Yaou and Shun commence.

considered a historical personage. The two characters of the name may be translated-The Stupid and Extraordinary.' According to Szema Ts'een, when the power of the descendants of Shin-nung, the second of the five Tes, with whom he commences his history, was declining, great confusion prevailed, and the princes all turned their arms against one another. Then the star of Hwang-te began to rise, and the well inclined gathered around him as their leader. Of all the princes Ch'e-yew was the most violent and oppressive. He attempted to seize the imperial power, when Hwang-te took the taken with Woo Ch'ing, as an introductory field against him, and put him to death after three particle." Then From of old engagements, and himself superseded the House of Shin-nung. Many fables about dragons, there are the lessons.' Gaubil translates-mists, and the invention of the compass, have 'Selon les anciens documents.' But that is more than the text says. He adds in a note,-"These ancient documents are without doubt some books of history which subsisted in the time of king Muh.' Possibly so; but then we know nothing about them, their author, or their authority. There has been no allusion hitherto in the Shoo, if we except the words of Shun in the Yih and Tseih,' p. 4, to anything anterior to the time of Yaou; and here all at once king Muh carries us, as will be seen, three centuries farther back, even to before the year 1 of the calendared history of the empire.

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been mixed up by subsequent writers with the struggle between Hwang-te and Ch'e-yew.

One tradition, indeed, makes Ch'e-yew later than Hwang-te. Gan-kwŏ says he was 'the ruler of Kew-le'); and in the 國語楚語, we read that‘Kew

le became disorderly and vicious during the decay of Shaou-haou'

衰也九黎亂德). Now Shaou

haou was the son of Hwang-te. It is true that
Gan-kwo says, on the next par., that 'Ch'e-yew
was destroyed by Hwang-te;' but the impres-
sion which we get from the is that
Fi
the speaker conceived of the first interruption
of good order and vritue as having taken place

in the time of Shaou-haou.

The authority of Confucius again is pleaded for making Che-yew a common man, and the

greediest of all men (蚩尤庶人之

See Wang Ming-shing, in loc.

See also the 16th chapter of Premare's prelimi-
nary discourse, prefixed to Gaubil's Shoo-king,
where he has given all the information that
Lo Peih (
has collected about Ch'e-

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罔麗極淫無 曰五以弗虔。 差刑黥為辜法虐刑用◎ 有并越劓殺之惟靈苗 辭制兹聆始戮刑作制民

3 "Among the people of Meaou, they did not use the power of good, but the restraint of punishments. They made the five punishments engines of oppression, calling them the laws. They slaughtered the innocent, and were the first also to go to excess in cutting off the nose, cutting off the ears, castration, and branding. All who became liable to those punishments were dealt with without distinction, no difference being made in favour of Perhaps he meant to indicate, as the Daily |堯典又誅之). This pedigree of the Explanation' says, that it was this rebel who first gave occasion for the use of punishment at all. (言古人制刑之由)

Second, It is plain that at the commencement of human history Chinese tradition placed a period of innocence, a season when order and virtue ruled in men's affairs.

chiefs of the Meaou is ingenious, but I can only regard it as a fancy of the learned scholar.

Equally fanciful is his explanation of the char

acter as applied to the ruler of the Mesou, that it is indicative of contempt, and stigmatises him as no better than one of the common herd. Gan-kwǔ, who is followed by Woo Ching, for

Pp. 3, 4. The wickedness of the people of 苗民 gives 三苗之君:‘the ruler of

Meaou; and the excessive use of punishments among them. The king appears to pass over a period of three or four hundred years; and from the time of Ch'e-yew, anterior, acc. to the prevailing accounts, to the invention of the cycle by Hwang-te, he comes down to the time of Shun. So, it will be seen, we must understand these and

the following paragraphs. 苗民-Ido not see how we can take these characters otherthat they mean ‘the ruler of Kew-le. T

wise than in the translation. K'ang-shing says

prince so denominated,' he says, 'giving trouble in the days of Shaou-haou, was dealt with by Chien-heuh (顓頊),一afterwards the successor to the throne, who put Kew-le to death, and

removed a portion of his family to the outskirts of the empire on the west. There they reappeared as the chiefs of San-mëaou, and in the reign of his or the em

successor Kaou-sin(高辛氏)

San-meaou.' As I said above, I do not see how
this can be allowed. Of course it is the ruler
or rulers who are spoken of, and this can be
indicated, as I have done, by using the indefinite

they as the subject of. 弗用靈
meaning of this seems to be
制以刑,一the
that given by Gan-kwǔ,不用善化民

‘they did not use what 而制以重刑,

was good to transform the people, but restrain

ed them by heavy punishments.' 惟作 五虐之刑—we cannot be surprised that

some of the critics should argue from this that the invention of the five punishments' is here attributed to the chiefs of the Meaou. But the conclusion is not warranted by the language, nor by history. The five punishments ' cuting off the nose, and the ear, castration, branding, Shun, p. 11). They used those same punishand death-are all recognised by Shun (Can. of ments in Meaou, but excessively and more

peror Kuh (帝嚳), B.c. 2,431, displayed their hereditary wickedness, when it devolved finally on Yaou to take them in hand. (苗民謂 九黎之君也九黎之君于 barbarously. The use of 虐 and 淫 sufficient少昊氏衰而棄善道上效 ly show this to be all that is taught in this par. See the remarks of Chin Leih in the 集說 蚩尤重刑必變九黎言苗 民者有苗九黎之後 日法名之曰法; or, as Woo Ching gives it, 非法而為之法也 代少誅九黎分流 殺戮 (they killed and slaughtered ') 孫居于西裔者為 無辜,this was the way in which they

高辛之衰又復九黎

苗頊子至惡

言顓其苗之

abused the heaviest punishment, that of death.

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