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Shih King. Major Odes. The Third Decade. Part 02

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Ode 5, Stanzas 1, 2, And 4. The Sung Ko.

Celebrating The Appointment By King Hsan Of A Relative To Be The Marquis Of Shn, And Defender Of The Southern Border Of The Kingdom, With The Arrangements Made For His Entering On His Charge.

That the king who appears in this piece was king Hsan is sufficiently established. He appears in it commissioning 'his great uncle,' an elder brother, that is, of his mother, to go and rule, as marquis of Shn, and chief or president of the states in the south of the kingdom, to defend the borders against the encroaching hordes of the south, headed by the princes of Kh, whose lords bad been rebellious against the middle states even in the time of the Shang dynasty;--see the last of the Sacrificial Odes of Shang.

Grandly lofty are the mountains, With their large masses reaching to the heavens. From those mountains was sent down a spirit, Who produced the birth of (the princes of) F and Shn 1. F and

p. 424

[paragraph continues] Shn Are the support of "K"u, Screens to all the states, Diffusing (their influence) over the four quarters of the kingdom.

Full of activity is the chief of Shn, And the king would employ him to continue the services (of his fathers), With his capital in Hsieh 1, Where he should be a pattern to the states of the south. The king gave charge to the earl of Sho, To arrange all about the residence of the chief of Shn, Where he should do what was necessary for the regions of the south, And where his posterity might maintain his merit.

Of the services of the chief of Shn The foundation was laid by the earl of Sho, Who first built the walls (of his city), And then completed his ancestral temple 2. When the temple was completed, wide and grand, The king conferred on the chief of Sho Four noble steeds, With the hooks for the trappings of the breast-bands, glittering bright 3.

Footnotes

423:1
Shn was a small marquisate, a part of what is the present department of Nan-yang, Ho-nan. F, which was also called L, was another small territory, not far from Shan. The princes of both were "K"iangs, descended from the chief minister of Yo, called in the first Book of the Sh, 'the Four Mountains.' Other states were ruled by his descendants, particularly the great state of "Kh". When it is said here that a spirit was sent down from the great mountains, and produced the birth of (the princes of) F and Shn, we have, probably, a legendary tradition concerning the birth of Yo's minister, which was current among all his descendants; and with which we may compare the legends that have come under our notice about the supernatural births of the ancestors of the founders of the Houses of Shang and "K"u. The character for p. 424 'mountains' in lines 1 and 3 is the same that occurs in the title of Yo's minister. On the statement about the mountains sending 'down a spirit, Hwang Hsn, a critic of the Sung dynasty, says that it is merely a personification of the poet, to show how high Heaven had a mind to revive the fortunes of "K"u, and that we need not trouble ourselves about whether there was such a spirit or not!

424:1
Hsieh was in the present Fng "K"u of the department of Nan-yang.

424:2
Compare with this the account given, in ode 3 of the first decade, of the settling of 'the ancient duke Than-f' in the plain of "K"u. Here, as there, the great religious edifice, the ancestral temple, takes precedence of all other buildings in the new city.

424:3
The steeds with their equipments were tokens of the royal favour, usually granted on occasions of investiture. The. conferring of them was followed immediately by the departure of the newly-invested prince to his charge.
enclosed and enchaned garden which| truth or dare turning into sex
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