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BOOK II. THE SPEECH AT MUH.

以右左野于爽時

麾秉杖乃商王 土 曰白黃誓郊朝子

之逖鉞王牧至味

On

1 I. The time was the grey dawn of the day keă-tsze. that morning the king came to the open country of Muh in the

borders of Shang, and addressed his army. In his left hand he carried a battle-axe, yellow with gold, and in his right he held a white ensign, which he brandished, saying, “ Far are ye come, ye THE NAME OF THE BOOK.-牧誓, (The selves in the fight. The speech proper begins Speech at Muh.' Muh [Keang Shing edits instead of Muh] was in the south of the

pres. district of Ke (淇縣), dep. of Wei

with the 5th paragraph. The four parr. that precede may be considered as forming a preliminary chapter.

Ch. I. Pp. 1–4. THE TIME AND CIRCUM1. The time; and

STANCES OF THE SPEECH.

hwuy, Ho-nan. It was a tract of open country, the appearance of the king.

stretching into the pres. dis. of Kein (泥), and

at no great distance from the capital of Show.

King Woo had, no doubt, made choice of it as a
favourable field for the decisive battle between
him and the tyrant.
I return here to the

rendering of 誓 by 'Speech,' as in the (Counsels

of the great Yu,' p. 20, and other places. It

the day 甲子

時甲子昧

was six days later than

mow-woo (The Great Speech’Pt. ii., p. 1), which was, we saw, the 28th of the 1st month. The speech at Muh, therefore, is held to have been spoken on the 4th day of the second month.

昧=冥‘dark;’爽=明,light;’昧

would have been well if the term ' Declaration', 'the dark and the light,' — the grey dawn.

had not been used instead of it in the last Book.

The Speech at Muh is found in both texts. There is more of the martial spirit in it than in any other of the speeches of the Shoo.

CONTENTS. It is the morning of the day of battle, for which the king had prepared his host in the three speeches of the last Book. Once more he addresses the confederate princes, his officers, and his men. He sets forth, much as before, but more briefly, the intolerable wickedness of Show, and then instructs and warns the troops on how they should behave them

杖=持, (to hold in the hand.' Its

tone in this sense was difft. at one time from that which it had in its more common signification of ‘a staff.' It now seems to be used only with the 3d tone. 秉(from a hand grasping stalks of grain) is of similar signification to 杖

The 'axe' is supposed to be called 'yellow,' from its having been ornamented with gold. The ensign consisted (according to the figures

矛戈彭長亞司友人。

予比 比濮蜀百旅徒邦

人羌夫師司冢王福 長氏馬君 君.1

稱微○千司御嗟

王爾爾盧及夫空事我

2 men of the western regions!” He added,“ Ah! ye hereditary rulers of my friendly States; ye managers of affairs, the ministers of instruction, of war, and of public works: the many officers subordinate to them: the master of my body-guards: the captains of thousands, 3 and captains of hundreds; and ye, O men of Yung, Shuh, Keang, 4 Maou, Wei, Loo, Pang, and Po;-lift up your lances, join your shields, raise your spears:–I have a speech to make.

of it, which agree with the component parts of the character) of several ox-tails, suspended as streamers from a staff. By means of this Woo could intimate his wishes as to the order of their position, &c., to the troops, and therefore he carried it in his right hand. Gan-kwo says the axe was in the left hand and the flag in the right, to show that Woo considered his work was not so

much to kill as to teach. This is being absurdly

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ingenious. We may be sure that Woo had his, multitude,' 'many.' I do not find it pos

these characters the 'multitude of inferior

such. Gan-kwŏ had the former view. He

axe in his right hand in the battle. 逖: sible to say whether we are to understand by 遠, ‘far,’‘distant.’The ‘Daily Explanation' | officers' generally, or two distinct classes of paraphrases the clause thus:-爾等皆西 土之人,我以伐暴救民之 故率爾至此其行亦已遠 矣:Ts'ae observes that he spoke thus to

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the last Book, Pt. i., p. 2. The ‘managers of

affairs' were the officers immediately after

phrase denotes all the great officers, whose says:-衆大夫其位次卿, (The posts were inferior to those of the ministers.. 亞 were the 大夫 or great officers,' below,

Ts'ae on the other hand supposes that the

but next in rank to, the ministers, and five of whom filled up the space between each minister and his 士, or‘officers,' of whom there were 旅

27, denoted in the text by the term

an officer thus designated are given at length

specified, belonging to Woo's own govt., 師氏the Instructor.' The functions of the State of Chow. The 司徒司馬 and 司空 were three of the 'six ministers' in the 13th Book of the Chow Le (地官司 (六卿) under the imperial govt. of Chow,徒第二之六). Hewasa ta-fooorgrent of

when the dynasty was fully established, and whose duties are described in Bk. XX., parr. 7–13. Agreat State, such as Chow was before the extinction of the Shang dyn., had only three principal ministers, whose names are here given. But we may inquire what the ministers of instruction and works had to do in the camp. Ying-tă says that the former superintended all orders given to the troops, and the latter all

ficer of the second grade, and the Tutor of the heirapparent, at the same time executing various duties about the sovereign, and specially having charge of the guard of foreign-barbarian-mercenaries who kept watch outside the royal gate. In time of war, or when the sovereign went abroad for any other cause, he followed in attendance, with the whole or a portion of that guard. It must have been in this capacity

302

之惟之牝無

今索家晨

言人曰

晨雞日有古

II. The king said, "The ancients have said, 'The hen does not

5

announce the morning. The crowing of a hen in the morning

that he was present at Muh;-if indeed the of the the text was the same officer

who is so designated in the Chow Le. Ts'ae

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follows Gan-kwo in saying that the of Nan-chang (W), dep. of Seang-yang

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長一 -we can only translate these designations literally as I have done. According to the Chow Le, five men formed a woo (1); five woo, or 25 men, formed a leang (); four lëang, or 100 men, formed a tsuh (); five tsuh, or 500 men, formed a leu ; five leu, or 2,500 men, formed a sze (B); and five sze, or 12,500 men, formed a keun (). Gan-kwo and Wang Suh both say that the, were 'leaders of tsuh,' which of course is literally correct; but they say also that the

were leaders of sze,' commanded 2,500 men each. K'ang-shing agrees with them in this, but makes the to have been leaders of leu',' commanding 500 men each. It seems absurd to insist on such explanations. The arrangements of Woo's army much more probably corresponded with the terms which he employed. 3. The names

Yung, Shuh, &c., enumerated here, are said generally to be those of eight kingdoms of the rude tribes on the west and south'

南夷八國名). The first and last are

found associated together in the 左傳文

+, in an attack upon the great State

of Ts'oo. It is said that 'the people of Yung.... led the hundred tribes of the Po to invade Ts'oo;' and from this description of the Pŏ by 'hundreds' it is supposed that they were under no general Head or chieftain, but consisted of many clans, each acknowledging its own chief. The site of the Yung was in the pres.

dis. of Chuh-shan (D), dep. of Yun-yang C), Hoo-pih; that of the Po was in the same prov., dep. of King chow of Shih-show

), dis. The country of

Shuh was the pres. dep. of Shing-too

in Sze-ch'uen. West and north from this was the country of Keang: while that of Maou and

), in Hoo-pih.

The name of Pang remains in P'ang-shan dis., dep. of Mei , Sze-ch'uen. All these tribes, we

may suppose, acknowledged the supremacy of the princes of Chow, and had been summoned to assist king Woo in his enterprise against Show. Some critics, like Wang Loo-chae (

; see his 'Doubts about the Shoo,' on the Specch at Muh), say that they had come to his banner of their own accord, without being called; which is very unlikely.

[Gaubil says in a note on this par. (Le Chouking, p. 157), that Yung, Shuh, &c., were the and Yun-Dan. To this M. de Guignes appends countries on the south-west,-e.g., in Sze-ch'uen a very bold and sweeping remark:-'I will add,' he says, 'that all the peoples in the text bear the name of, or barbarians. Thus, this conquest of China, made by king Woo, was a conquest effected by the foreigners on the west of China.' The remark is unwarranted. So far as we learn from the Shoo, these tribes were only an inferior and auxiliary force on the occasion.]

4. Attitude in which the troops were required to listen. 'to lift up;' apparently

稱=舉

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6 indicates the subversion of the family. Now Show, the king of Shang, follows only the words of his wife. He has blindly thrown away the sacrifices which he should present, and makes no response for the favours which he has received; he has blindly thrown away his paternal and maternal relatives, not treating them properly. They are only the vagabonds of the empire, loaded with crimes, whom he honours and exalts, whom he employs and trusts, making them great officers and nobles, so that they can tyrannize over the people, exercising their villainies in the city of Shang.

nounce the day' 索 is defined by Gan-kwǒ | better, Woo Ching says that王父母弟 by and by Keang Shing, after Kang-shing, =王之諸諸母諸弟, the royal

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The two definitions are much akin.

Woo's language may seem rather undignified;

but it was, no doubt, suited to his audience.

And we must bear in mind the character and

uncles, royal aunts, royal cousins.’ I think

we must join together, and agree with

Wang Ts'eaou that 王父母弟=王

deeds of Tă-ke against whom it was directed. The general meaning is plain

6. 昏(64昏)棄频肆視不

-comp. the last Book, Pt. i., 6; Pt. ii., 5.

enough, that Show separated himself from all

his relatives, both by blood and by affinity, who

would naturally have the interests of the impe

rial House at heart. 不迪迪一道, and 不迪=不以道遇之, as in the

肆 陳‘to set forth;肆=其 所當陳之祭礼 ‘the sacrifices which he ought to offer.' Kang-shing understood by translation. Keang Shing takes 迪=進 肆氾‘the name of a sacrifice';–but incor

rectly.答, ‘to answer,' ' to make an acknow

ledgment for favours received,' such being the

common meaning of sacrifice with the Chinese;

or

登and不迪=不用, does not em

ploy them. The meaning is not unsuitable;

but it is not so good as that which I have followed.

says:

逋逃‘refugees. Woo Ching -Tung-po says,祭所以報也,故謂 四方多罪之人逃亡而 之答 Here also Kang-shing incorrectly, the great criminals of all quarters defines 答 by 問 ; and 不答=不問, make their escape, and betake themselves to 'without asking any questions, or thinking Chow.' 商邑,the city of Shang,, about them.' 王父母弟-Gan-kwǒ probably meaning the capital of Show. We takes 王殳as租 or grandfather,' say- might translate 邑, however, in the plural. Keang Shing takes it as = 國,‘kingdom’or

ing that if he thus treated his grand-uncles, we may be sure he did not treat his uncles any

'State.'

爾夫貔夫伐O步日子 躬子克如子七不乃之發 有O奔熊 ◎伐愆 事

戮爾以如尙乃于

所役罷桓

弗西于桓齊伐夫
夫于

最土商如焉 五

最郊虎最

發惟恭行天之罰今

于哉弗如哉六
哉六哉七今

7 “ Now I, Fă, am simply executing respectfully the punishment appointed by Heaven. In to-day's business do not advance more than six or seven steps; and then stop and adjust your ranks:-my 8 brave men, be energetic! Do not exceed four blows, five blows, six blows, or seven blows; and then stop and adjust your ranks:9 my brave men, be energetic! Display a martial bearing. Be like tigers and panthers, like bears, and grisly bears;–here in the border of Shang. Do not rush on those who fly to us in submission, but receive them to serve our western land:-my brave men, be 10 energetic! If you are not thus energetic, you will bring destruction on yourselves.’

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Pp. 7–10. Directions about the rules to |步即便止駐以整齊部伍 first part of this par. had better be joined to 然後復從而伐之‘In advancing

be observed in the impending battle.

the one preceding. King Woo speaks in it of himself in contrast with Show;-of himself as engaged on behalf of Heaven to punish one who was an enemy to both Heaven and men. Ts'ae

to meet the enemy, take no more than six or seven steps. Then stop and adjust your ranks, and go forward again to smite them.'

and others, prefixing it to this and the succeed- 夫子

ing parr., make a milder spirit breathe in them

than the reader will easily perceive. The stop

ping at every seven steps and seven blows was, they think, that as few of the enemy as possible might be killed. In this way the tyrant would

be overthrown and Heaven's justice would be

-see the last Book, Pt. ii., p. 9.

8.伐=擊刺‘to strike and thrust. They are thus admonished, it is said, lest they should be hurried on in their rage by a desire for slaughter. 9. 桓桓=威武貌

satisfied with the sacrifice of comparatively few ‘the appearance of martial prowess.' The 說

lives! The cautions were evidently given that

the order of battle might be preserved unbroken.quotes the passage with

愆一過,‘to exceed..

趨‘to advance hurriedly.,

步進 of桓

齊齊

instead

貔 is described as 豹屬 弗

克奔一

‘a kind of panther.’
'do not meet those who are able to-who really

整, ‘to adjust and put in order.' The para- do-run.' The meaning is as in the translation. phrase of the‘Daily Explanation' is: 其| Këang Shing, however, edits 興 instead of 進而迎敵不過于六步七 after K'ang-shing. Ma Yung also read 禦

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