nine fathoms, the work may be unfinished for want of one basket of earth. If you really pursue this course which I indicate, the people will preserve their possessions, and the throne will descend from generation to generation." Воок VI. THE METAL-BOUND COFFER 1 1. Two years after the conquest of Shang, the king fell ill, and was quite disconsolate. The two other great dukes 3 said, "Let us reverently consult the tortoise-shell about the king"; but the Duke of Chau 4 said, "You must not so distress our former kings." 5 He then took the business on himself, and reared three altars of earth on the same cleared space; and having made another altar on the south of these, and facing the north, he took there his own position. Having put a round symbol of jade on each of the three altars, and holding in his hands the lengthened symbol of his own rank, he addressed the kings Thai, Chi, and Wan. 1 King Wu is very ill, and his death seems imminent. His brother, the Duke of Chau, apprehensive of the disasters which such an event would occasion to their infant dynasty, conceives the idea of dying in his stead, and prays to "the three kings," their immediate progenitors, that he might be taken and King Wu left. Having done so, and divined that he was heard, he deposits the prayer in the metal-bound coffer. The king gets well, and the duke is also spared; but five years later, Wu does die, and is succeeded by his son, a boy only thirteen years old. Rumors are spread abroad that the duke has designs on the throne, and he withdraws for a time from the court. At length, in the third year of the young king, Heaven interposes. He has occasion to open the coffer, and the prayer of the duke is found. His devotion to his brother and to the interests of their family is brought to light. The boymonarch weeps because of the unjust suspicions he had harbored, and welcomes the duke back to court, amid unmistakable demonstrations of the approval of Heaven. 2 1121 В.С. 3 These were the Duke of Shao, to whom the preceding Book is ascribed, and Thai-kung, who became the first of the lords of Chi. 4 It is in this Book that we first meet in the Shu with the Duke of Chau, a name in Chinese history only second to that of Confucius. He was the legislator and consolidator of the dynasty of Chau, equally mighty in words and in deeds - a man of counsel and of action. Confucius regarded his memory with reverence, and spoke of it as a sign of his own failing powers, that the Duke of Chau no longer appeared to him in his dreams. He was the fourth son of King Wan; his name was Tan, and he had for his appanage the territory of Chau, where Than-fu, canonized by him as King Thai, first placed the seat of his family in 1327 B.C., and hence he is commonly called "the Duke of Chau." 5 He negatives their proposal, having determined to take the whole thing on himself. The grand historiographer had written on tablets his prayer, which was to this effect: "A. B., your great descendant, is suffering from a severe and violent disease; if you three kings have in Heaven the charge of watching over him, Heaven's great son, let me, Tan, be a substitute for his person. I was lovingly obedient to my father; I am possessed of many abilities and arts, which fit me to serve spiritual beings. Your great descendant, on the other hand, has not so many abilities and arts as I, and is not so capable of serving spiritual beings. And moreover he was appointed in the hall of God to extend his aid all over the kingdom, so that he might establish your descendants in this lower earth. The people of the four quarters all stand in reverent awe of him. Oh! do not let that precious Heaven-conferred appointment fall to the ground, and all the long line of our former kings will also have one in whom they can ever rest at our sacrifices. I will now seek for your determination in this matter from the great tortoise-shell. If you grant me my request I will take these symbols and this mace, and return and wait for your orders. If you do not grant it, I will put them by." The duke then divined with the three tortoise-shells, and all were favorable. He opened with a key the place where the oracular responses were kept, and looked at them, and they also were favorable. He said, "According to the form of the prognostic the king will take no injury. I, the little child, have got the renewal of his appointment from the three kings, by whom a long futurity has been consulted for. I have now to wait for the issue. They can provide for our One man." When the duke returned, he placed the tablets of the prayer in a metal-bound coffer, and next day the king got better. 6 Two things are here plain: first, that the Duke of Chau offered himself to die in the room of his brother; and secondly, that he thought that his offer might somehow be accepted through the intervention of the great kings, their progenitors. He proceeds to give his reasons for making such an offer. The divination apparently took place before the altars, and a different shell was used to ascertain the mind of each king. The oracular responses would be a few lines, kept apart by themselves, and consulted, on occasion, according to certain rules which have not come down to the present day. 2. Afterward, upon the death of King Wu, the duke's elder brother, he of Kwan, and his younger brothers, spread a baseless report through the kingdom, to the effect that the duke would do no good to the king's young son. On this the duke said to the two other great dukes, "If I do not take the law to these men, I shall not be able to make my report to the former kings." 8 He resided accordingly in the east for two years, when the criminals were taken and brought to justice. Afterward he made a poem to present to the king, and called it "The Owl." The king on his part did not dare to blame the duke. In the autumn, when the grain was abundant and ripe, but before it was reaped, Heaven sent a great storm of thunder and lightning, along with wind, by which the grain was all broken down, and great trees torn up. The people were greatly terrified; and the king and great officers, all in their caps of State, proceeded to open the metal-bound coffer and examine the writings in it, where they found the words of the duke when he took on himself the business of being a substitute for King Wu. The two great dukes and the king asked the historiographer and all the other officers acquainted with the transaction about the thing, and they replied, "It was really thus; but ah! the duke charged us that we should not presume to speak about it." The king held the writing in his hand, and wept, saying, "We need not now go on 8 Wu died in 1116 B.c., and was succeeded by his son Sung, who is known in history as King Chang, or "the Completer." He was at the time only thirteen years old, and his uncle, the Duke of Chau, acted as regent. The jealousy of his elder brother Hsien, "lord of Kwan," and two younger brothers, was excited, and they spread the rumor which is referred to, and entered into a conspiracy with the son of the tyrant of Shang to overthrow the new dynasty. These two years were spent in military operations against the revolters. reverently to divine. Formerly the duke was thus earnest for the royal House, but I, being a child, did not know it. Now Heaven has moved its terrors to display his virtue. That I, the little child, now go with my new views and feelings to meet him, is what the rules of propriety of our kingdom require." The king then went out to the borders to meet the duke, when Heaven sent down rain, and, by virtue of a contrary wind, the grain all rose up. The two great dukes gave orders to the people to take up the trees that had fallen and replace them. The year then turned out very fruitful. Воок Х.1 - THE ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT DRUNKENNESS 2 1. The king speaks to the following effect: "Do you clearly make known my great commands in the country of Mei.3 1 Several of the lesser books of the Shu have been omitted from our volume both before and after this important Book x. The omitted documents are of little general interest. 2 This Announcement was made to Fang, the Prince of Khang, about the time when he was invested with the principality of Wei. Mention has often been made in previous documents of the Shu of the drunken debauchery of Chieh as the chief cause of the downfall of the dynasty of Hsia, and of the same vice in Chau-hsin, the last of the kings of Shang. The people of Shang had followed the example of their sovereign, and drunkenness, with its attendant immoralities, characterized both the highest and lowest classes of society. One of Fang's most difficult tasks in his administration would be to correct this evil habit, and he is called in this Book to the undertaking. The title might be translated -"The Announcement about Spirits." The Chinese term Chiu, that is here employed, is often translated by "wine," but it denotes, it seems to me, "ardent spirits." As Gaubil says, "We have here to do with le vin du riz, the art of which was discovered, according to most writers, in the time of Yu, the founder of the First Dynasty. The grape was not introduced to China till that of the first Han." We find this story in the "Plans of the Warring States," a work covering about four centuries from the death of Confucius: "Anciently, the daughter of the Ti ordered I-ti to make Chiu. She admired it, and presented some to Yu, who drank it, and found it pleasant. He then discarded I-ti, and denounced the use of such generous Chiu, saying, 'In future ages there are sure to be those who by Chiu will lose their states." According to this tradition intoxicating Chiu was known in the time of Yu - in the twenty-third century B.c. The daughter of the Ti would be Yu's wife, and I-ti would probably be their cook. 3 There is a place called "the village of Mei," in the north of the He said, "Let my people teach their young men that they present district of Chi, department Wei-hui, Ho-nan-a relic of the ancient name of the whole territory. The royal domain of Shang, north from the capital, was all called Mei. Fang's principality of Wei must have embraced most of it. "When your reverent father, the King Wan, laid the foundations of our kingdom in the western region, he delivered announcements and cautions to the princes of the various regions, and to all his high officers, with their assistants, and the managers of affairs, saying, morning and evening, 'At sacrifices spirits should be employed.' When Heaven was sending down its favoring decree, and laying the foundations of the eminence of our people, spirits were used only at the great sacrifices. When Heaven sends down its terrors, and our people are thereby greatly disorganized and lose their virtue, this may be traced invariably to their indulgence in spirits; yea, the ruin of States, small and great, by these terrors, has been caused invariably by their guilt in the use of spirits.* "King Wan admonished and instructed the young nobles, who were charged with office or in any employment, that they should not ordinarily use spirits; and throughout all the States he required that such should drink spirits only on occasion of sacrifices, and that then virtue should preside so that there might be no drunkenness." 5 4 Ku Hsi says upon the meaning of the expressions "Heaven was sending down its favoring decree" (its order to make Chiu, as he understood the language), and "when Heaven sends down its terrors," in this paragraph: "Chang Nan-hsien has brought out the meaning of these two statements much better than any of the critics who went before him, to the following effect: Chiu is a thing intended to be used in offering sacrifices and in entertaining guests; such employment of it is what Heaven has prescribed. But men by their abuse of Chiu come to lose their virtue, and destroy their persons; such employment of it is what Heaven has annexed its terrors to. The Buddhists, hating the use of things where Heaven sends down its terrors, put away as well the use of them which Heaven has prescribed. It is not so with us of the learned (i.e., the Confucian, or orthodox) school; we only put away the use of things to which Heaven has annexed its terrors, and the use of them, of which it approves, remains as a matter of course." 5 In sacrificing, the fragrant odor of spirits was supposed to be acceptable to the Beings worshiped. Here the use of spirits seems to be permitted in moderation to the worshipers after the sacrifices. Observe |