Ah! Ah! ye assistants, It is now the end of spring; And what have ye to seek for? [Only] how to manage the new fields and those of the third year. How beautiful are the wheat and the barley, Whose bright produce we shall receive! TITLE OF THE SECTION.-臣工之什|They add that later scholars have urged that if 四一之二,(The Decade of Shin-kung; Section II. of Book I. of Part. IV. Choo's view be correct, the piece should have had its place among the Ya, and not among the Sung. But on the view of the Preface, the same thing might be urged, so far as the words of the ode themselves are concerned, There is no doubt in my mind that the old view is incorrect. Upon it we have an ode to the princes, and not a word in it is addressed to them. Nothing could be more far-fetched than Maou's method of accounting for this,-that the king chose to address the ministers of the princes, only the better to admonish the princes. Add to this the use of Ode 1. Narrative. INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN TO THE OFFICERS OF HUSBANDRY;-PROBABLY AFTER THE SACRIFICE IN THE SPRING TO GOD FOR A GOOD YEAR. According to the Preface, this was an ode sung in the ancestral temple, when the king was sending away the princes who had been at court and assisted him in the spring sacrifice to his ancestors. The imperial editors say that Choo himself at first accepted this view, but afterwards adopted that which I have given above in the first part of the argument, 'simply in 1. 13; and I do not see how any unprejudiced because the text only speaks of the business of student of the piece can hold to the account of husbandry (蓋以經文言農事耳: it in the Preface. 艾。觀鎛乃人。我年用帝昭 命康迄上 銍奄錢寿 The bright and glorious God Will in them give us a good year. Order all our men To be provided with their spuds and hoes: Anon we shall see the sickles at work. Ll. 1—4. The reduplication of E, ah! reference to the Hëa year. Ll.7,8. L. 7 may ah!' is emphatic. I-Ë, an officer.' I-E all ye ministers, all also be translated, ‘And what more do we re quire of you?" So, the 'Flower and Essence of ye officers;' but we must suppose that only the the Sheƒ**E officers of husbandry are intended., new fields;'—see on II.iii. IV. 1; 在公-敬爾在公之事,-asin 畬 denotes fields in the third year of their the translation. The meaning is apparent, but how to construe 在公 is difficult. Comp. 在 in I. vii. VIII. 2. -, 'to give,'—as in cultivation. A has to be understood before 新(所求者惟此新畬之田 III. ii. III. 8, et al. I do not see the necessity off). Ll. 9,10. is taking Eas―JE, ‘the former kings.' said by Choo to be an exclamation of admira=成法‘perfect rules' The redoubled來is tion;一於乎美哉 來麥,-as in [i.] simply, and is not to be translated 'come." X. His taken by Choo as - - 明賜,‘the 咨‘to deliberate;’茹 - as in II. iii. III. 4. "There would be many things,' says Ts'ëen T'eenseih; Ming dyn.), such as peculiarities of soil and situation, to be taken into account in the application of the general laws.' Ll. 5,6. The meaning of is quite undetermined, and has to be fixed by the connection. Maou says nothing on the terms. They occur in the Le Ke, IV. i. 13 in connection with the king's praying to God for a blessing on the labours of the year. There the king appears in his carriage, with his plough between the charioteer and a bright gift:' i. e., of God. But the meaning which I have given is more natural and suitable. Fan plains the phrase as meaning 勇士, or 車 of the husbandmen,=甸徒錢(2d tone) weeder or hoe.' Ts'ëen Teen-seih says it was , the mailed soldier who sat on the charioteer's right (and); and he insists on the same meaning here. But whether he be correct or not in his interpretation of the terms in that passage, such a signification of them is inapplicable here; and therefore Choo makes them a denomination of the assistant officers of husbandry (e, to distinguish it from the plant gae),-' to Even Keang accepts this determination, cut,' ' to reap.' and argues in favour of it (and =). late in spring,' i.e., the third month of the season, is to be understood with Rhymes are found in I, A, cat. 9; to which we may add,, cat. 3, t.1; and Œ, ^, cat. 12, t. 1. 亦服 十千維耦 II. E he. 終駿播率旣 發厥時照 爾百農假成 耦。耕。里。私。 穀。 夫爾。王。 Ode 2. Oh! yes, king Ching Brightly brought himself near. Lead your husbandmen To sow their various kinds of grain, Going vigorously to work on your private fields, All over the thirty le. Attend to your ploughing, With your ten thousand men all in pairs. Narrative. INSTRUCTIONS TO THE OFFICERS OF HUSBANDRY. PROBABLY, LIKE THE PRECEDING ODE, AFTER SOME SACRIFICE TO GOD FOR A GOOD YEAR. The Preface says that this was an ode sung on the occasions of sacrifice by the king to God, in spring and summer, for a good year. But there is no intimation of sacri. fice in it; nor would any one ever have thought of seeking for it but for the place of the ode in this Part of the She. Evidently the piece is of a kindred nature with the preceding one. Ll. 1, 2. form a compound exclamation; but it is not easy to determine its peculiar significance. The dict. says that e is an exclamation ' of pain,' ' of anger,' of perplexity;' none of which meanings suits this passage. Maou, again, defines he by I, and Ying-tah by with which meanings I cannot construe the line. Yen Sze-koo (Tang dyn.), however, explains the app. of satisfaction,' or 'self-possession.' So I understand the term as 噫嘻 嘗戒命之也,‘King Ching first ap pointed officers of the fields, and cautioned and charged them.' This also is quite unsatisfac tory Keang mentions an older view of Choo's -我之成其王業者旣昭假 Our establishment of our royal possession has been brightly approved by here Soo, of which he himself approves:-Ż F**KI✯ 所以成我王業者旣昭至矣 "The way in which Heaven has established our royal possession has been made brightly to apboth these views, besides other objections, there pear;'-taking simply as 一矣. But to applies especially this, that the interpretation ofis inadmissible. The view which I it; and the two together 'Oh! yes.' The have adopted in the translation is a modification 王旣昭假爾 That 成王 are all but unmanageable. can only mean king Ching seems clear. Maou gives for the terms , which become still more obscure in Ying of one suggested in 'The Flower and Essence of the She.' We are to suppose that king K'ang, in connection with his sacrifice at the border altar, had performed some service at the shrine of king Ching, asking, perhaps, what day would be propitious for the sacrifice (B tah's expansion of them. Ching makes out the. Then when the sacrifice officers of husbandry, he begins his address to . by saying that king Ching had come six characters to mean- -  œ œ Е had gone off happily, and he had assembled the 功其德已著至矣謂光被四 FLT. Choo, of course, takes 成王 correctly, but he says that 昭假爾 is like the of the Shoo, IV.i.1, brightly near, and directed them to a fortunate day. This is the only way in which I can make any sense out of these lines. 爾 is simply=矣. L. 3. 時=是‘these' L.4. 百穀‘the et al.; and expands - hundred kinds of grain, the various kinds. III. Chin loo. 譽。夜。。。○亦我于振 以在在有客彼鷺 振 永幾此彼斯西于 鷺 終夙無無容。止雝飛。 A flock of egrets is flying, About the marsh there in the west. My visitors came, With an [elegant] carriage like those birds. There, [in their States], not disliked; Here, [in Chow], never tired of;– They are sure, day and night, To perpetuate their fame. scale the harmony of a single pair of labourers L1. 5, 6. 駿發爾私=大發爾私| strength and attention, realizing on a grand 田,‘grandly turn up your private fields.' Choo (萬人畢出并力齊心如合 defines 發 by耕 (to plough;' but the term should be taken more generally. Ch'ing says, 'In the cultivation of the ground, the allotments of families were separated by a small ditch (遂); ten allotments, by a larger (溝); a hundred, by what we may call a brook ); a thousand by MAY HAVE BEEN SUNG WHEN THE KING WAS a small stream (燴); and ten thousand, by a river(). The space occupied by 10,000 fami lies formed a square of a little more than 33 le.' We may suppose that this space is intended by the round number of 30 le in the text. Ching DISMISSING THEM IN THE ANCESTRAL TEMPLE. The Preface simply says that in this ode we have the representatives of the two previous dynasties, who had come to court to assist at sacrifice (— 王之後來助祭);−to which account of the piece Choo adds nothing. The larger further says that it constituted a poo (-) argument which I have adopted is taken from and was under the charge of a special officer. Kang(二王之後來助 The mention of the 'private fields' seems to imply that there were also the public fields,廟之樂歌也). cultivated by the husbandmen in common on behalf of the government;-contrary to the view Ll.1-4. 于 -as in I. xii. I. 2, 3. The bird of Choo, that in the royal domain, in the portion was prized for the pure white of its plumage, and of it here contemplated, the public revenue its movements were also supposed to be remarka was derived from a different system. As the ble for their elegance (鷺本潔白,又 people are elsewhere introduced, wishing that the rain might first fall upon the public fields,善飛舞以爲容). 振 is defined by to show their loyalty, the king here speaks only of the private fields, to show his sympathy and consideration for the people. Ll. 7, 8. is flock.' the app. of the egrets flying in a is defined, from the connection, by 深 'a marsh or pool.' 'The loo,' says Ying tah, 'is a water-bird, and hence it could be flying ness of? 十千=一萬 萬, the ten thousand | only to a marsh. This gives us the meaning of holders of the 30 le. They were all to be called yung. The marsh in question was in the west; forth to labour, in pairs to each plough. Choo takes the meaning to be that, though so numerous, they were to work with good will and union of VOL. IV. but no stress is to be laid on the .' It is generally held that is the pool about 74 the IV. Fung nëen. 孔百 百祖為及高多 皆。禮。 Abundant is the year, with much millet and much rice; And we have our high granaries, With myriads, and hundreds of thousands, and millions [of measures in them]; For spirits and sweet spirits, To present to our ancestors, male and female, The blessings sent down on us are of every kind. of III. i. VIII. 3, 4, which, it is said, was in the western suburb of the capital; but this point cannot be determined. Wherever the pool was, the egrets were in their element at it, and so the visitors whom the piece celebrates were in their element at the court of Chow. Those visitors, it is affirmed in the argument, were the representatives of the dynasty of Höa, from and of the displaced Houses stood to one another in the relation of host and guest, without any consciousness of undue exaltation on the part of the former, or of shame on the part of the latter!' But this would require more than mortal virtue on both sides. The rhymes are- -雝容, cat. 9, and 斁*,夜,譽, cat. 5, t. 1. the principality of Ke(), and of Shang, from. Z., M. that of Sung. It is of course only from tradition that the term is thus restricted. = 至, ‘to come to.’止 is the final particle. 斯 - such. The deportment of the visitors was supposed to be as elegant as the movements of the birds), so there is a metaphorical as well as an allusive element in these lines. Ll. 5-8 are in praise of the two nobles, and contain assurance of the king's confidence in ;-as in Ode 4, Narrative. AN ODE OF THANKSGIVING FOR A PLENTIFUL YEAR. Both the Preface and Choo say further that the ode was used at the sacrifices in autumn and winter, and Choo adds that the thanksgiving was to the Father of Husbandry (Shin-nung,-see on II. vi. VII. 2,— the First Husbandman, or How-tseih), the Spirits of the land and those of the four quarters ; as also in II. vi VII. 2), &c. But opinions are endlessly divided as to the Spirits who were sacrificed to; and Fan Ch'oo-e, after enumerating half a dozen conflicting views, concludes by saying that the sum of the matter is that it was a piece to be sung at a sacrifice of (方社; L. 1. paddy or rice.' This line them and good will to them. 在彼在 Hthere, here;'-their own States, and at the court of Chow,無無無 thanksgiving (要之為報祭之樂 有惡之者無有厭之者 章) the translation. I, along with the wish of the king, convey his assurance, that so it would be with them. They would ever conduct themselves so as to deserve the praise which 11. 5. 6 expressed., together, to perpetuate.' Keang says, "The rise of the three dynasties was entirely from the appointment of Heaven, without the shadow of partiality displayed in it, The displacement of one arose from such men as Kech and Show; and the elevation of another from such men as Tang and Woo. The descendants of the occupying is understood as referring to the grain of the ed it in nearly all cases of its occurrence. 萬 is |