CONCLUDING NOTE. The student, after this careful examination of 'Leu on Punishments,' will not wonder that many of the Chinese critics themselves should have been puzzled to account for its finding a place among the documents of the Shoo. They ask, 'Did Confucius mean that it should meet with approval or disapproval?' Ts'ae thinks he admitted it into his compilation by way of warning, and because in the kindly feeling of compassion for the people that breathes in it, it shows that the generous spirit of former times was not yet extinct. It is of no use speculating in this way. I suppose Confucius admitted the Book, because it was the best of the times that he could find. It is a pity that he did not accompany it with some exposition of his own views on the historical allusions in it, and on Muh's scheme for the redemption of punishments, Wang Pih's (Doubts' about this Book are: -呂刑訓刑始於帝舜 刑大辟之刑如可 凡有 該者甚廣,所 所制者甚 事者述此 世忽之 未嘗 而後 五刑 流各自有正麗芝靠 從宥之法宥之云 寬之也寬之者亦次 輕之爾以大辟 意刑至於不可不殺者是 矣而殺人者必死殺 必死非 非特爲 死者 也為生者戒也為死者報, 法為一人立也為生者戒 法為天下立也忍菸一个 忍者小不忍於天下 為好生也聖人不 心豈有一好殺之 流者後世 刑也蓋 蓋宮 艿所以為仁之至義之 者所以有大辟也判刑 刑所也呂刑之書首以爲 以有宮也劓刑所以有 創於有苗則是聖人之制 也墨刑所以也而流 荊反師有苗之虐也斯 乏中亦自有之義者也不大害於義哉愚謂 放者有竄也流者刑者律書也法吏之辭 看放也大辟之刑決不直 也能精察乎典獄 ·凡四哀和 矜惻 『三代之遺風聖 以其世之變法之變 而宥之矣 刑未 人告 刑之 輕而輕者 其審克之語凡 可疑穆王之刑亦 輕而輕者失於 不 宥舜之 刑者 可取也朱子謂穆王 陳旣日三細 宥叉 年無以為計乃為此一 以止辟乃辟未聞五 權宜之術以斂民財斯言 無赦之言, 度財匱民勞至其 俱贖也贖刑者贖鞭朴之足以得穆王之本情者與 THE BOOKS OF CHOW. BOOK XXVIII. THE CHARGE TO PRINCE WAN. 不辟正命下昭顯 王 率越克于惟升文若 從小至文時于武日 肆大石王上上克 先謀昭帝敷慎義 祖鱿事惟集聞明和 懷罔厥先厥在德丕 館 文侯之命 1 The king spoke to the following effect: “ Uncle E-ho, how illustrious were Wan and Woo! Carefully did they illustrate their virtue, till it rose brightly on high, and the fame of it was widely diffused here below. Therefore did God cause his favouring decree to light upon king Wăn. Thereafter there were ministers who aided and illustriously served their sovereigns, following and carrying out their plans and counsels great and small, so that my fathers sat tranquilly upon the throne. INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL NOTE. The Book of the Shoo at which we have now arrived is separated from the last by an interval of two hundred years. Between king Ping who gave the Charge to the prince Wăn and king Muh there had reigned seven sovereigns of the House of Chow; and it is remarkable that not a single document of the reign of any of them was incorporated by Confucius with this volume. Of such monuments there must have been many. No Books have here been lost. Those two hundred years in the dynasty to which he himself belonged were left by the sage a blank. This fact is sufficient to prove that Confucius did not compile the Shoo as a history of his country, or even intend that it should afford materials for such a history. His design, we may rather judge, was to bring together such pieces as might show the wonderful virtue and intelligence of ancient sovereigns and statesmen, who should be models to those of future ages. But in all the space of time of which I am writing, there was neither sovereign nor statesman to whom it could give him pleasure to refer. Indeed, king Woo, the first of the sovereigns of Chow, had no successor equal to him. self. But for his brother, the duke of Chow, the dynasty would have come to an early end. There was a constant degeneracy after king K'ang. Its progress was now and then temporarily, but feebly, arrested. Power and influence passed with a steady progress from the imperial court to one feudatory and another, till in the time of Confucius himself the successors of Woo were hardly more than 'shadows of an empty name.' According to my plan I introduce here the names of the sovereigns between Muh and Ping, and a few particulars of their reigns. his studs in the plains near the rivers Keen and Wei ), and was finally invested with a small territory of which the chief city was Tsin, still the name of an inferior department of Kan-suh. The king appointed him there to continue the sacrifices to Yih, as the head of the Ying clan or family [i] E-hoo(), the son of Muh, and, which thenceforth begins to make a known as king Kung (#), or 'The Re verent' (諡法旣過能 日共 succeetled to the throne B.C. 945, and reigned for 12 years, acc. to the common chronology. The only incident of his reign of which we find mention is given by Sze-ma Ts'een from the 語周語上, and is to the effect that the king was on one occasion rambling near the river King, in the pres. dep. of Ping-leang (), Kan-suh, attended by the duke K'ang of Meih(), a small principality in that part of the country, when three young ladies introduced themselves into their company. Duke K'ang's mother advised him to leave them to the emperor, but he appropriated them to himself. Within a year the king made an end of him and his principality, indignant, we are to suppose, at the duke's conduct in the matter of the three ladies. I do not know that this story, as I have given it, is entitled to much faith. None is due to the romantic account of it, which is found in the history of P. de Mailla. [ii.] King Kung was succeeded, B.C. 933, by his son Keen (), known as king E), great figure in the empire. [iv.] On the death of king Heaou, the princes raised a son of his brother and predecessor, of the name of See (K), to the throne, which he occupied for 16 years, till B.C. 878. He is known as king E(), or "The Peaceable' (諡法安心好靜日夷) He proved a weak sovereign, and was in bondage to the princes to whom he owed the empire. It is objected to him that, when he gave audience to them, he descended from the dais to meet them, as State of Tsoo extended the possessions of his if he were their equal merely. The chief of the House during this reign, and assumed the right reference to the court. He arrogated to himof investing his sons with his conquests without self, moreover, the title of king. The imperial authority was evidently but little cared for. [v.] King E was succeeded by his son Hoo ), known as king Le ), or 'The Cruel (諡法殺戮無辜厲) A long reign of 51 years is assigned to him, but during the last thirteen years he was a fugitive, nobles. In B.C. 841, the people rose in rebellion, and the govt. was administered by two of the or 'The Mild's, engendered by the avarice, suspicions, their patience exhausted by the various oppres , who reigned 25 years. All that Ts'een says of him is that in his time the royal House went on to decay, and poets made him an object of their satire.' He removed the capital to Hwae-le(), a place in the pres. dis, of Hing-p'ing (T), dep. of Segan. This seems, however, to have been merely a temporary measure. The Bamboo Books' speak of several irruptions of barbarous tribes in this reign. [iii.] A brother of king E, by name Peihfang), succeeded him, and is known as king Heaou (孝王), or The Filial (諡 法慈惠愛親日孝). Ts'een says nothing more of him than that he came to the throne and died. His reign, however, lasted from B.C. 908 to 894. During this period, the chiefs of the House destined to supersede that of Chow begin to make their appear. ance on the stage of affairs. They traced their lineage np to the baron Yih often called and cruelty of the sovereign. The king made his escape, and fled to Che (), in the pres. sub. dep. of Hoh), dep. of P‘ing-yang, Shanse, where he found a refuge. Disappointed by the escape of the tyrant, the people sought to wreak their fury on his eldest son, by name Tsing (), quite a youth, who had hidden himself in the house of the duke of Shaou, a descendant of Shih so famous in the early reigns of the dynasty. The loyalty of the ancestor had descended to the present Head of the family. As a minister, he had remonstrated, though in vain, with king Le, on his evil courses; he now sacrificed his own son to save the heir to the crown. The people surrounded the house, and insisted on Tsing being delivered to them that pieces. The duke gave his own son, of the they might satiate their fury by tearing him in same age as the prince, into their hands, and on the dukes of Shaou and Chow carried on the him they worked their pleasure. Subsequently, govt. for the prince until Le's death, which took place in Che in B.C. 827. [vi.] Prince Tsing commenced a long reign of 46 years in B.C. 826. He is known as king Seuen (宣王), or The Distinguished) (譲 பர் ), the Forester of Shun. One of them, named Fei-tsze (非子), had made himself famous at this time by his skill in rearing horses, and‡AHO). He had learned was taken into the king's service to superintend wisdom in the school of adversity, and from the statesmen who had protected his youth. Most of the princes returned in a measure to their allegiance, but the empire was distracted by irruptions of the barbarous tribes on every side. In B.C. 821, there was a great drought, and the misery of the people was extreme. The virtue of the king seems to have experienced a decay. In B.C. 815, he neglected, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his ministers, the custom of putting his own hand to the plough, and turning up a furrow in a field enclosed for the purpose, as an acknowledgment of the dependance of the empire on agriculture, and an example to all its husbandmen. He was proceeding to resign himself to idle habits, when the queen divested herself of her ornaments, and accused herself of seducing the king to selfindulgence, and to lie long in bed. This roused him to resume his early ways. In his 39th year, B.C. 788, he took the field against one of the western tribes, known by the name of the Keang (羌), as if they were sprung from the same stock as the princes of Ts'e, and sustained a great defeat at a place called Ts'een-mow ( 畝), or "The Thousand Acres.' From the cha grin of this he never recovered. A few years after, he was proceeding to number the people,' like king David of Israel, with a view to collect an immense force, and wipe out the disgrace he in the pres. sub. dep. of Tang, dep. of Nan-yang, Ho-nan); and his son by her, called E-k'ew (), was recognised as heirapparent of the throne. The rise of Paousze was followed by the degradation of the prince and his mother. E-k'ew was sent, as a preliminary measure, to the court of Shin, 'to learn good manners.' His mother was then reduced to a second place, and Paou-sze was declared queen in her room, and an infant son by her took the place and dignity of heir-apparent. Scenes were enacted like those of Këĕ and Me-he, or of Show and Tă-ke. To please Paousze the king made game of all the nobles. The prince of Shin called in the assistance of the Dog Jung, and attacked the capital. He did not intend the death of the king, but only that of the intruding favourite and her son, and the restoration of his daughter and grandson to their rights. His barbarian auxiliaries, however, could not be controlled; the king flying from Haou was pursued by them and put to death, while Paou-sze became the captive of their chief. Thus ended the away of what is called 'the expelled the Jung from the capital with some Western Chow.' The victorious nobles having difficulty, brought back E-k'ew from Shin, and hailed him as king. He is known as king Ping had incurred. His ministers succeeded in avert-(E), or The Tranquillizer'ȇ ing his purpose, but he became melancholy and capricious, put to death some of his most faithful advisers, and died in a fit of moody insanity, as we may judge, in B.C. 779. [vii.] Seuen was succeeded by his son Nëë (), known as king Yew (), or 【The Dark' (諡法動靜亂常日 K), who was slain by a tribe of barbarian invaders called “The Dog Jung' after an inglorious reign of 11 years. In the sixth year of his reign, on the 29th of August (new style), B.C. 775, occurred an eclipse of the sun. It is commemorated in the She King, Pt. II., Bk. IV., Ode iii., as an announcement of evils by the sun and moon.' Other symptomatic aberrations, as they appeared to be, in the order of nature are mentioned by the poet along with it : "The thunder roars, the lightning flashes ;- The tops and crags of the mountains fall. This eclipse gives us a point of chronological certainty for the history of this reign. It is the first of the long list of eclipses, by the mention of which Chinese history from the 8th century before Christ acquires more certainty than belongs to that of the earlier ages. The ruin and death of king Yew were brought about by the ascendancy which a female favourite, called Paou-sze(), gained over him. He had married and established as queen a daughter of the prince of Shin (. This principality was 事有制日平 His first measure was to transfer the capital eastwards to Lo-yang, fulfilling at length, but under disastrous circumstances, the wishes of the duke of Chow; and from this time, B.c. 769, dates the history of the Eastern Chow.' THE NAME OF THE BOOK.-文侯之命 The Charge to prince Wăn.' I have related in the above note how the Jung who had been called in by the prince of Shin to punish king Yew went far beyond his wishes, killing the king, and wishing to keep possession of the capital. To get rid of them he obtained the assistance of the princes of Tsin (), Teʻin (), Wei (1), and Ching (), who in the first place drove out the barbarians, and then sent for Yew's son from Shin to take possession of the vacant throne. Among his earliest measures was the rewarding of the princes who had come in this way to the relief of the royal House; and this Book is said to contain the appointment of the prince of Tsin to be president or chief of several of the other princes 侯爲方伯 The princes of Tsin were descended from king Woo's son, called Yu, and generally styled, from the name of his appanage, the prince of Tang (). His son removed from Tang to Tsin; and in course of time the principality came, though not without a struggle with a usurping uncle, to Ch'ow (f), in B.C. 780, and was held by him for 35 years. He received after death the title of Wăn, or 'The Accomplished;'-it was he to whom the Charge in this Book was given. See in the dictionary 2 T 下澤殄不造子予呼○在 民于賢愆天嗣小閔鳴位 漿 "Oh! an object of pity am I, who am but a little child. Just as I have succeeded to the throne, Heaven has severely chastised me, and cut off our resources of bounty to the inferior people; no fewer than six different descriptions of char- | Other explanations of the characters were atacter, any one of which might be considered to tempted by K'ang-shing, and Ma Yung, which be expressed by the title Wăn. In this account of the time and occasion of this may be seen in the 後案 Charge, I have followed the authority of the pre-(-- The Book is found in both the texts. 惟時 X-this is the common way of speaking about the origin of the Chow dynasty, that the divine appointment lighted on king Wăn. But as king Woo has just been mentioned along with him, as equally virtuous and distinguished, it seems strange that he should be dropt in this important declaration. The truth is that father and son in the persons of Wăn and Woo were blended together as one founder of the dynasty of Chow. If the appointment of Heaven lighted on Wăn, it would also have dropt from him to the ground but for the In interpreting the rest of character of Woo. the par. we may begin with the last clause, where the king must intend by my forefathers,' not Wăn and Woo, but those who succeeded them. The Daily Explanation' would limit them to Ching and K'ang, with whom the line of powerful monarchs of Chow may be said to have ceased. But king Ping might not have been willing to acknowledge this, and we may suppose that he speaks of his predecessors generally, as having fallen on better times than himself. Explaining CONTENTS. The Book is short, containing only four paragraphs, which are divided into three and one by the usual mark of change of subject in the 'Announcements' and 'Charges thus of the sovereigns subsequent to of the Shoo,-the compiler's statement of "The Woo, the same individuals are probably intendking said.' The king begins by celebrating the virtue and happy condition of Wan and Woo, and the services rendered to the State by the worthy ministers of subsequent reigns. He contrasts with this the misery and distraction of his own times, deploring especially his want of wise counsellors and helpers, and praising prince Wan for the services which he had rendered ed by 厥辟; and the phrase 先正 denotes their ministers;'-also generally, withtor, the prince of T'ang,' being included among out any special application, Wăn's own ancesthem. Comp. the 2d par. of the Keun-ya.' 謀猷 -see on Bk. XXI., p. 6. 懷 安‘to be tranquil’先祖懷在 to be tranquil.' The Book then concludes with the special Charge 位我先祖得安在位 by which the king would reward the prince's merit in the past, and stimulate him to greater exertions in the future. P. 1. The king celebrates the virtue of Wăn Uncle E-ho, P. 2. The king deplores the unhappiness of his own position, himself young and feeble, and the empire chastised by Heaven and torn by barbarian his ministers. 嗣造至下民-Gan kwo, Wang Suh, and Keang Shing, all take as -, 'to meet with,' so that it governs This is quite allowable; but when and Woo who founded their dynasty, and the hap-invaders, while he could expect little assistance from piness of their successors who were assisted by able ministers. The princes of Tsin, we have seen, were a branch of the imperial House; and hence the king addresses Wăn as his uncle;'- -see on Book XXIII., p. 6. But Wan's name, as has been mentioned, was Ch'ow (), so that we are brought to the conclusion that he is here called by his ‘style’(字) or marriage designation. Such is the view of Gan-kwŎ. we carry on the regimen of to the next clause,-ZZ, the construction becomes too forced. I therefore adopt the view of Ts'ae, that造=始and嗣造 |