The Shih King, or, Book of Poetry Part 12

they have to think, And to cause no sorrow to their parents.

ODE 6, STANZA 4. THE Wu YANG.

THE Wu YANG IS SUPPOSED TO CELEBRATE THE LARGENESS AND EXCELLENT CONDITION OF KING HSuAN'S FLOCKS AND HERDS. THE CONCLUDING STANZA HAS REFERENCE TO THE DIVINATION OF THE DREAMS OF HIS HERDSMEN.

Your herdsmen shall dream, Of mult.i.tudes and then of fishes, Of the tortoise-and-serpent, and then of the falcon, banners[1]. The chief diviner will. divine the dreams;--How the mult.i.tudes, dissolving into fishes, Betoken plentiful years; How the tortoise-and-serpent, dissolving into the falcon, banners, Betoken the increasing population of the kingdom.

ODE 7. THE KIEH NAN SHAN.

A LAMENTATION OVER THE UNSETTLED STATE OF THE KINGDOM DENOUNCING THE INJUSTICE AND NEGLECT OF THE CHIEF MINISTER, BLAMING ALSO THE CONDUCT OF THE KING, WITH APPEALS TO HEAVEN, AND SEEMINGLY CHARGING IT WITH CRUELTY AND INJUSTICE.

This piece is referred to-the time of king Yu (B.C. 781, to 771), the unworthy son of king Hsuan. The 'Grand-Master' Yin must have been one of the 'three Kung,' the highest ministers at the court of Kau, and was, probably, the chief of the three, and administrator of the government under Yu.

Lofty is that southern hill [2], With its ma.s.ses of rocks! Awe-inspiring are you, O (Grand-)Master

[1. The tortoise-and-serpent banner marked the presence in a host of its leader on a military expedition. On its field were the figures of tortoises, with snakes coiled round them. The falcon banners belonged to the commanders of the divisions of the host. They bore the figures of falcons on them.

2. 'The southern hill' was also called the Kung-nan, and rose right to the south of the western capital of Kau.]

Yin, And the people all look to you! A fire burns in their grieving hearts; They do not dare to speak of you even in jest. The kingdom is verging to extinction;--How is it that you do not consider the state of things?

Lofty is that southern hill, And vigorously grows the vegetation on it!

Awe-inspiring are you,-O (Grand-)Master Yin, But how is it that you are so unjust? Heaven is continually redoubling its inflictions; Deaths and disorder increase and multiply; No words of satisfaction come from the people; And yet you do not correct nor bemoan yourself

The Grand-Master Yin Is the foundation of our Kau, And the balance of the kingdom is in his hands. He should be keeping its four quarters together; He should be aiding the Son of Heaven, So as to preserve the people from going astray. O unpitying great Heaven, It is not right he should reduce us all to such misery!

He does nothing himself personally, And the people have no confidence in him. Making no enquiry about them, and no trial of their services, He should not deal deceitfully with superior men. If he dismissed them on the requirement of justice, Mean men would not be endangering (the commonweal); And his mean relatives Would not be in offices of importance.

Great Heaven, unjust, Is sending down these exhausting disorders. Great Heaven, unkind, Is sending down these great miseries. Let superior men come (into office), And that would bring rest to the people's hearts.

Let superior men execute their justice, And the animosities and angers would disappear[1].

O unpitying great Heaven, There is no end to the disorder! With every month it continues to grow, So that the people have no repose. I am as if intoxicated with the grief of my heart. Who holds the ordering of the kingdom? He attends not himself to the government, And the result is toil and pain to the people.

I yoke my four steeds, My four steeds, long-necked. I look to the four quarters (of the kingdom); Distress is everywhere; there is no place I can drive to.

Now your evil is rampant [2], And I can see your spears. Anon you are pacified and friendly as if you were pledging one another.

From great Heaven is the injustice, And our king has no repose. (Yet) he will not correct his heart, And goes on to resent endeavours to rectify him,

I, Kia-fu, have made this poem, To lay bare a the king's disorders. If you would but change your heart, Then would the myriad regions be nourished.

[1. In this stanza, as in the next and the last but one, the writer complains of Heaven, and charges it foolishly. He does so by way of appeal, however, and indicates the true causes of the misery of the kingdom,--the reckless conduct, namely, of the king and his minister.

2 The parties spoken of here are the followers of the minister, 'mean men,' however high in place and great in power, now friendly, now hostile to one another.]

ODE 8, STANZAS 4, 5, AND 7. THE KANG YuEH.

THE KANG YuEH IS, LIKE THE PRECEDING ODE, A LAMENTATION OVER THE MISERIES OF THE KINGDOM, AND THE RUIN COMING ON IT; WITH A SIMILAR, BUT MORE HOPEFULLY EXPRESSED, APPEAL TO HEAVEN, 'THE GREAT G.o.d.'

Look into the middle of the forest; There are (only) large f.a.ggots and small branches in it [1]. The people now amidst their perils Look to Heaven, all dark; But let its determination be fixed, And there is no one whom it will not overcome. There is the great G.o.d,--Does he hate any one?

If one say of a hill that it is low, There are its ridges and its large ma.s.ses. The false calumnies of the people,--How is it that you do not repress them [2]? You call those experienced ancients, You consult the diviner of dreams. They all say, 'We are very wise, But who can distinguish the male and female crow[3]?'

Look at the rugged and stony field;--Luxuriantly rises in it the springing grain. (But) Heaven moves and shakes me, As if it could not overcome me [4].

[1. By introducing the word 'only,' I have followed the view of the older interpreters, who consider the forest, with merely some f.a.ggots and twigs left in it, to be emblematic of the ravages of oppressive government in the court and kingdom. Ka Hsi takes a different view of them:--'In a forest you can easily distinguish the large f.a.ggots from the small branches, while Heaven appears unable to distinguish between the good and bad.'

2 The calumnies that were abroad were as absurd as the a.s.sertion in line 1, and yet the king could not, or would not, see through them and repress them.

3. This reference to the diviners of dreams is in derision of their pretensions.

4. That is, the productive energy of nature manifests itself in the most unlikely places; how was it that 'the great G.o.d, who hates no one,' was contending so with the writer?]

They sought me (at first) to be a pattern (to them), (Eagerly) as if they could not get me; (Now) they regard me with great animosity, And will not use my strength.

ODE 9. THE SHIH YuEH KIH KIaO.

THE LAMENTATION OF AN OFFICER OVER THE PRODIGIES CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL, ESPECIALLY AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, THAT WERE BETOKENING THE RUIN OF KaU. HE SETS FORTH WHAT HE CONSIDERED TO BE THE TRUE CAUSES OF THE PREVAILING MISERY, WHICH WAS BY NO MEANS TO BE CHARGED ON HEAVEN.

Attention is called in the Introduction, p. 296, to the date of the solar eclipse mentioned in this piece.

At the conjunction (of the sun and moon) in the tenth month, On the first day of the moon, which was hsin-mao, The sun was eclipsed, A thing of very evil omen. Before, the moon became small, And now the sun became small. Henceforth the lower people Will be in a very deplorable case.

The sun and moon announce evil, Not keeping to their proper paths.

Throughout the kingdom there is no (proper) government, Because the good are not employed. For the moon to be eclipsed Is but an ordinary matter.

Now that the sun has been eclipsed,--How bad it is!

Grandly flashes the lightning of the thunder. There is a want of rest, a want of good. The streams all bubble up and overflow. The crags on the hill-tops fall down. High banks become valleys; Deep valleys become hills. Alas for the men of this time! How does (the king) not stop these things?

Hw.a.n.g-fu is the President; Fan is the Minister of Instruction; Kia-po is the (chief) Administrator; Kung-yun is the chief Cook; Zau is the Recorder of the Interior; Khwei is Master of the Horse; Yu is Captain of the Guards; And the beautiful wife blazes, now in possession of her place [1].

This Hw.a.n.g-fu Will not acknowledge that he is acting. out of season. But why does he call us to move, Without coming and consulting with us? He has removed our walls and roofs; And our fields are all either a marsh or a moor. He says, 'I am not injuring you; The laws require that thus it should be.'

Hw.a.n.g-fu is very wise; He has built a great city for himself in Hsiang.

He chose three men as his ministers, All of them possessed of great wealth. He could not bring himself to leave a single minister, Who might guard our king. He (also) selected those who had chariots and horses, To go and reside in Hsiang [2].

[1. We do not know anything from history of the ministers of Yu mentioned in this stanza. Hw.a.n.g-fu appears to have been the leading minister of the government at the time when the ode was written, and, as appears from the next two stanzas, was very crafty, oppressive, and selfishly ambitious. The mention of 'the chief Cook' among the high ministers appears strange; but we shall find that functionary mentioned in another ode; and from history it appears that 'the Cook,' at the royal and feudal courts, sometimes played an important part during the times of Kau. 'The beautiful wife,' no doubt, was the well-known Sze of Pao, raised by king Yu from her position as one of his concubines to be his queen, and whose insane folly and ambition led to her husband's death, and great and disastrous changes in the kingdom.

2. Hsiang was a district of the royal domain, in the present district of Mang, department of Hwai-khing, Ho-nan. It had been a.s.signed to Hw.a.n.g-fu, and he was establishing himself there, without any loyal regard to the king. As a n.o.ble in the royal domain, he was ent.i.tled only to two ministers, but he had appointed three as in one of the feudal states, encouraging, moreover, the resort to himself of the wealthy and powerful, while the court was left weak and unprotected.]