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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Some of the other pieces in that Part, of which the historical interpretation may be considered as sufficiently fixed, are written in the first person; but the author may be personating his subject. In Part II, the seventh ode of decade 2 was made by a Kia-fO, a noble of the royal court, but we know nothing more about him; the sixth of decade 6, by a eunuch styled Mang-jze; and the sixth of decade 7, from a concurrence of external testimonies, should be ascribed to duke Wa of Wei, B.c. 812 to 758. In the third decade of Part III, the second piece was composed by the same duke W2Q; the third by an earl of Zui in the royal domain; the fourth must have been made by one of king Hsiian’s ministers, to express the king’s ) Analects, IT, fi. 2 See the Sh, V, vi, par. 2. 296 THE SHIH KING. feelings under the drought that was exhausting the kingdom ; and the fifth and sixth claim to be the work of Yin Ki-fQ, one of Hsiian’s principal officers. _ 4 The ninth ode of the fourth Book, Part II, gives us a note of time that enables us to fix the year of its composition in a manner entirely satisfactory, and proves also the correctness, back to that date, of the ordinary Chinese chronology. The piece is one of a group which their contents lead us to refer to the reign of king Yd, the son of Hsiian, B.C. 781 to 771. When we examine the chronology of his period, it is said that in his sixth year, B.C. 776, there was an eclipse of the sun. Now the ode commences :— ‘At the conjunction (of the sun and moon) in the tenth month, on the first day of the moon, which was Hsin-méAo, the sun was eclipsed.’ This eclipse is verified by calculation as having taken place in B.C. 776, on August 29th, the very day and month assigned to it in the poem. 5. In the Preface which appeared along with MAo’s text of the Shih, the occasion and authorship of many of the odes are given; but I do not allow much weight to its The Prefaceto testimony. It is now divided into the Great the Shih. = Preface and the Little Preface; but Md4o himself made no such distinction between its parts. It will be sufficient for me to give a condensed account of the views of A Hsi on the subject :— ‘Opinions of scholars are much divided as to the authorship of the Preface. Some ascribe it to Confucius; some to (his disciple) 3ze-hsid; and some to the historiographers of the states. In the absence of clear testimony it is impossible to decide the point, but the notice about Wei Hung (first century) in the Literary Biographies of Han! would seem to make it clear that the Preface was 1 The account is this: ‘ Hung became the disciple of Hsieh Man-zhing, who was famous for his knowledge of M4o’s Shih; and he afterwards made the P eface to it, remarkable for the accuracy with which it gives the meaning of the pieces in the Fang and the YA, and which is now current in the world.’ INTRODUCTION. 297
2297 his work. We must take into account, however, on the other hand, the statement of Kang Khang - &Aang, that the Preface existed as a separate document when M4o appeared with his text, and that he broke it up, prefixing to each ode the portion belonging to it. The natural conclusion is, that the Preface had come down from a remote period, and that Hung merely added to it, and rounded it off. In accordance with this, scholars generally hold that the first sentences in the introductory notices formed the original Preface, which M4o distributed, and that the following portions were subsequently added. ‘ This view may appear reasonable; but when we examine those first sentences themselves, we find that some of them do not agree with the obvious meaning of the odes to which they are prefixed, and give only rash and baseless expositions. Evidently, from the first, the Preface was made up of private speculations and conjectures on the subject-matter of the odes, and constituted a document by itself, separately appended to the text. Then on its first appearance there were current the explanations of the odes that were given in connexion with the texts of Ld, K/i, and Han Ying, so that readers could know that it was the work of later hands, and not give entire credit to it. But when Mo no longer published the Preface as a separate document, but each ode appeared with the introductory notice as a portion of the text, this seemed to give it the authority of the text itself. Then after the other texts disappeared and Mao’s had the field to itself, this means of testing the accuracy of its prefatory notices no longer existed. They appeared as if they were the production of the poets themselves, and the odes seemed to be made from them as so many themes. Scholars handed down a faith in them from one to another, and no one ventured to express a doubt of their authority. The text was twisted and chiseled to bring it into accordance with them, and no one would undertake to say plainly that they were the work of the scholars of the Han dynasty.’ There is no western sinologist, I apprehend, who will 298 THE SHIH KING. not cordially concur with me in the principle of AQ Hsi that we must find the meaning of the poems in the poems themselves, instead of accepting the interpretation of them given by we know not whom, and to follow which would reduce many of them to absurd enigmas. THE SHIH KING. ODES OF THE TEMPLE AND THE ALTAR. Ir was stated in the Introduction, p. 278, that the poems in the fourth Part of the Shih are the only ones that are professedly religious; and there are some even of them, it will be seen, which have little claim on internal grounds to be so considered. I commence with them my selections from the Shih for the Sacred Books of the Religions of the East. I will give them all, excepting the first two of the Praise Odes of Lf, the reason for omitting which will be found, when I come to that division of the Part.
3I commence with them my selections from the Shih for the Sacred Books of the Religions of the East. I will give them all, excepting the first two of the Praise Odes of Lf, the reason for omitting which will be found, when I come to that division of the Part. The Odes of the Temple and the Altar are, most of them, connected with the ancestral worship of the sovereigns of the Shang and Xu dynasties, and of the marquises of LO. Of the ancestral The ancestral worship of the common people we have almost no worship of information in the Shih. It was binding, however, the common pn all, and two utterances of Confucius may be People. given in illustration of this. In the eighteenth chapter of the Doctrine of the Mean, telling how the duke of Au, the legislator of the dynasty so called, had ‘ completed the virtuous course of Wan and W4, carrying up the title of king to W&n’s father and grandfather, and sacrificing to the dukes before them with the royal ceremonies,’ he adds, ‘ And this rule he extended to the feudal princes, the great officers, the other officers, and the common people. In the mourning and other duties rendered to a deceased father or mother, he allowed no difference between the noble and the mean.’ Again, his summary in the tenth chapter of the Hsiao King, of the duties 300 THE SHIH KING. of filial piety, is the following :—‘A filial son, in serving his parents, in his ordinary intercourse with them, should show the utmost respect; in supplying them with food, the greatest delight ; when they are ill, the utmost solicitude ; when mourning for their death, the deepest grief; and when sacrificing to them, the profoundest solemnity. When these things are all complete, he is able to serve his parents.’ Of the ceremonies in the royal worship of ancestors, and perhaps on some other occasions, we have much information in the pieces of this Part, and in many others in the second and third Parts. They were preceded by fasting and various purifications The royal On the part of the king and the parties who worship of were to assist in the performance of them. There
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Some of the other pieces in that Part, of which the historical interpretation may be considered as sufficiently fixed, are written in the first person; but the author may be personating his subject. In Part II, the seventh ode of decade 2 was made by a Kia-fO, a noble of the royal court, but we know nothing more about him; the sixth of decade 6, by a eunuch styled Mang-jze; and the sixth of decade 7, from a concurrence of external testimonies, should be ascribed to duke Wa of Wei, B.c. 812 to 758. In the third decade of Part III, the second piece was composed by the same duke W2Q; the third by an earl of Zui in the royal domain; the fourth must have been made by one of king Hsiian’s ministers, to express the king’s ) Analects, IT, fi. 2 See the Sh, V, vi, par. 2. 296 THE SHIH KING. feelings under the drought that was exhausting the kingdom ; and the fifth and sixth claim to be the work of Yin Ki-fQ, one of Hsiian’s principal officers. _ 4 The ninth ode of the fourth Book, Part II, gives us a note of time that enables us to fix the year of its composition in a manner entirely satisfactory, and proves also the correctness, back to that date, of the ordinary Chinese chronology. The piece is one of a group which their contents lead us to refer to the reign of king Yd, the son of Hsiian, B.C. 781 to 771. When we examine the chronology of his period, it is said that in his sixth year, B.C. 776, there was an eclipse of the sun. Now the ode commences :— ‘At the conjunction (of the sun and moon) in the tenth month, on the first day of the moon, which was Hsin-méAo, the sun was eclipsed.’ This eclipse is verified by calculation as having taken place in B.C. 776, on August 29th, the very day and month assigned to it in the poem. 5. In the Preface which appeared along with MAo’s text of the Shih, the occasion and authorship of many of the odes are given; but I do not allow much weight to its The Prefaceto testimony. It is now divided into the Great the Shih. = Preface and the Little Preface; but Md4o himself made no such distinction between its parts. It will be sufficient for me to give a condensed account of the views of A Hsi on the subject :— ‘Opinions of scholars are much divided as to the authorship of the Preface. Some ascribe it to Confucius; some to (his disciple) 3ze-hsid; and some to the historiographers of the states. In the absence of clear testimony it is impossible to decide the point, but the notice about Wei Hung (first century) in the Literary Biographies of Han! would seem to make it clear that the Preface was 1 The account is this: ‘ Hung became the disciple of Hsieh Man-zhing, who was famous for his knowledge of M4o’s Shih; and he afterwards made the P eface to it, remarkable for the accuracy with which it gives the meaning of the pieces in the Fang and the YA, and which is now current in the world.’ INTRODUCTION. 297
2297 his work. We must take into account, however, on the other hand, the statement of Kang Khang - &Aang, that the Preface existed as a separate document when M4o appeared with his text, and that he broke it up, prefixing to each ode the portion belonging to it. The natural conclusion is, that the Preface had come down from a remote period, and that Hung merely added to it, and rounded it off. In accordance with this, scholars generally hold that the first sentences in the introductory notices formed the original Preface, which M4o distributed, and that the following portions were subsequently added. ‘ This view may appear reasonable; but when we examine those first sentences themselves, we find that some of them do not agree with the obvious meaning of the odes to which they are prefixed, and give only rash and baseless expositions. Evidently, from the first, the Preface was made up of private speculations and conjectures on the subject-matter of the odes, and constituted a document by itself, separately appended to the text. Then on its first appearance there were current the explanations of the odes that were given in connexion with the texts of Ld, K/i, and Han Ying, so that readers could know that it was the work of later hands, and not give entire credit to it. But when Mo no longer published the Preface as a separate document, but each ode appeared with the introductory notice as a portion of the text, this seemed to give it the authority of the text itself. Then after the other texts disappeared and Mao’s had the field to itself, this means of testing the accuracy of its prefatory notices no longer existed. They appeared as if they were the production of the poets themselves, and the odes seemed to be made from them as so many themes. Scholars handed down a faith in them from one to another, and no one ventured to express a doubt of their authority. The text was twisted and chiseled to bring it into accordance with them, and no one would undertake to say plainly that they were the work of the scholars of the Han dynasty.’ There is no western sinologist, I apprehend, who will 298 THE SHIH KING. not cordially concur with me in the principle of AQ Hsi that we must find the meaning of the poems in the poems themselves, instead of accepting the interpretation of them given by we know not whom, and to follow which would reduce many of them to absurd enigmas. THE SHIH KING. ODES OF THE TEMPLE AND THE ALTAR. Ir was stated in the Introduction, p. 278, that the poems in the fourth Part of the Shih are the only ones that are professedly religious; and there are some even of them, it will be seen, which have little claim on internal grounds to be so considered. I commence with them my selections from the Shih for the Sacred Books of the Religions of the East. I will give them all, excepting the first two of the Praise Odes of Lf, the reason for omitting which will be found, when I come to that division of the Part.
3I commence with them my selections from the Shih for the Sacred Books of the Religions of the East. I will give them all, excepting the first two of the Praise Odes of Lf, the reason for omitting which will be found, when I come to that division of the Part. The Odes of the Temple and the Altar are, most of them, connected with the ancestral worship of the sovereigns of the Shang and Xu dynasties, and of the marquises of LO. Of the ancestral The ancestral worship of the common people we have almost no worship of information in the Shih. It was binding, however, the common pn all, and two utterances of Confucius may be People. given in illustration of this. In the eighteenth chapter of the Doctrine of the Mean, telling how the duke of Au, the legislator of the dynasty so called, had ‘ completed the virtuous course of Wan and W4, carrying up the title of king to W&n’s father and grandfather, and sacrificing to the dukes before them with the royal ceremonies,’ he adds, ‘ And this rule he extended to the feudal princes, the great officers, the other officers, and the common people. In the mourning and other duties rendered to a deceased father or mother, he allowed no difference between the noble and the mean.’ Again, his summary in the tenth chapter of the Hsiao King, of the duties 300 THE SHIH KING. of filial piety, is the following :—‘A filial son, in serving his parents, in his ordinary intercourse with them, should show the utmost respect; in supplying them with food, the greatest delight ; when they are ill, the utmost solicitude ; when mourning for their death, the deepest grief; and when sacrificing to them, the profoundest solemnity. When these things are all complete, he is able to serve his parents.’ Of the ceremonies in the royal worship of ancestors, and perhaps on some other occasions, we have much information in the pieces of this Part, and in many others in the second and third Parts. They were preceded by fasting and various purifications The royal On the part of the king and the parties who worship of were to assist in the performance of them. There
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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