{"collection":"cfu","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cfu/bop/bop198.htm","path":"cfu/bop/bop198.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cfu/bop/bop198.htm","text":"The Book of Poetry, tr. by James Legge, [1876]\n2Ancestral sway is his. The walls they rear,\n \u00a0\u00a0Five thousand cubits long; and south and west\n The doors are placed. Here will the king appear,\n \u00a0\u00a0Here laugh, here talk, here sit him down and rest.\n3To mold the walls, the frames they firmly tie;\n \u00a0\u00a0The toiling builders beat the earth and lime.\n The walls shall vermin, storm, and bird defy;\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0Fit dwelling is it for his lordly prime. p. 232\n4Grand is the hall the noble lord ascends;\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0In height, like human form most reverent, grand;\n And straight, as flies the shaft when bow unbends;\n \u00a0\u00a0Its tints, like hues when pheasant's wings expand.\n5High pillars rise the level court around;\n \u00a0\u00a0The pleasant light the open chamber steeps;\n And deep recesses, wide alcoves, are found,\n \u00a0\u00a0Where our good king in perfect quiet sleeps.\n6Laid is the bamboo mat on rush mat square;\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0Here shall he sleep, and, waking, say, \"Divine,\n What dreams are good? For bear and grisly bear\n \u00a0\u00a0And snakes and cobras, haunt this couch of mine.\"\n7Then shall the chief diviner glad reply,\n \u00a0\u00a0\"The bears foreshow that Heaven will send you sons.\n The snakes and cobras daughters prophesy.\n \u00a0\u00a0These auguries are all auspicious ones.\" p. 233\n8Sons shall be his,\u2014on couches lulled to rest.\n \u00a0\u00a0The little ones, enrobed, with scepters play;\n Their infant cries are loud as stern behest;\n \u00a0\u00a0Their knees the vermeil covers shall display.\n As king hereafter one shall be addressed;\n \u00a0\u00a0The rest, our princes, all the states shall sway.\n9And daughters also to him shall be born.\n \u00a0\u00a0They shall be placed upon the ground to sleep;\n Their playthings tiles, their dress the simplest worn;\n \u00a0\u00a0Their part alike from good and ill to keep,\n And ne\u2019er their parents\u2019 hearts to cause to mourn;\n \u00a0\u00a0To cook the food, and spirit malt to steep.","title":"The Book of Poetry: Book IV. The Decade of Ch\u2018i Fu: V. Ss\u016d Kan","type":"page"}