{"collection":"cfu","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cfu/sbe03/sbe03148.htm","path":"cfu/sbe03/sbe03148.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cfu/sbe03/sbe03148.htm","text":"That the king who appears in this piece was king Hs\u00fcan 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 Sh\u0103n, 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\u00fb, 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.\nGrandly 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\u00fb and Sh\u0103n 1. F\u00fb and\n[paragraph continues] Sh\u0103n Are the support of K\u00e2u, Screens to all the states, Diffusing (their influence) over the four quarters of the kingdom.\nFull of activity is the chief of Sh\u0103n, 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 Sh\u00e2o, To arrange all about the residence of the chief of Sh\u0103n, Where he should do what was necessary for the regions of the south, And where his posterity might maintain his merit.\nOf the services of the chief of Sh\u0103n The foundation was laid by the earl of Sh\u00e2o, 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 Sh\u00e2o Four noble steeds, With the hooks for the trappings of the breast-bands, glittering bright 3.\n423:1 Sh\u0103n was a small marquisate, a part of what is the present department of Nan-yang, Ho-nan. F\u00fb, which was also called L\u00fc, was another small territory, not far from Shan. The princes of both were Kiangs, descended from the chief minister of Y\u00e2o, called in the first Book of the Sh\u00fb, 'the Four Mountains.' Other states were ruled by his descendants, particularly the great state of Kh\u00ee. When it is said here that a spirit was sent down from the great mountains, and produced the birth of (the princes of) F\u00fb and Sh\u0103n, we have, probably, a legendary tradition concerning the birth of Y\u00e2o'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\u00e2u. The character for p. 424 'mountains' in lines 1 and 3 is the same that occurs in the title of Y\u00e2o's minister. On the statement about the mountains sending 'down a spirit, Hwang Hs\u00fcn, 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\u00e2u, and that we need not trouble ourselves about whether there was such a spirit or not!\n424:1 Hsieh was in the present F\u0103ng K\u00e2u of the department of Nan-yang.\n424:2 Compare with this the account given, in ode 3 of the first decade, of the settling of 'the ancient duke Than-f\u00fb' in the plain of K\u00e2u. Here, as there, the great religious edifice, the ancestral temple, takes precedence of all other buildings in the new city.\n424:3 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.","title":"SBE 3: Shih King: Major Odes: The Third Decade, or that o...","type":"page"}