assist (the government), and their sovereign became entirely intelligent." Every year, in the first month of spring, the herald, with his wooden-tongued bell, goes along the roads[1], (proclaiming), "Ye officers able to instruct, be prepared with your admonitions. Ye workmen engaged in mechanical affairs, remonstrate on the subjects of your employments. If any of you do not attend with respect (to this requirement), the country has regular punishments for you."
'Now here are the Hsî and Ho. They have allowed their virtue to be subverted, and are besotted by drink. They have violated the duties of their office, and left their posts. They have been the first to let the regulating of the heavenly (bodies) get into disorder, putting far from them their proper business. On the first day of the last month of autumn, the sun and moon did not meet harmoniously in Fang[2]. The blind musicians beat their drums; the inferior officers galloped, and the common people (employed about the public offices) ran about[3]. The Hsî and the Ho, however, as if they were (mere) personators of the dead in their offices, heard nothing and knew nothing;—so stupidly went they astray (from their duties) in the matter of the heavenly appearances, and rendered themselves liable to the death appointed by the former kings. The statutes of government say, "When they anticipate the time, let them be put to death without mercy; when (their
- ↑ A similar practice existed in the Kâu dynasty.
- ↑ See the Introduction, p. 13.
- ↑ Similar observances are still practised on occasion of an eclipse of the sun. See Biot's Etudes sur l'Astronomie Indienne et Chinoise, pp. 357–360.
