Ode 3. The Hsüan Niâo.
Appropriate to a sacrifice in the ancestral temple of Shang;—intended specially to do honour to the king Wû-ting.
If this ode were not intended to do honour to Wû-ting, the Kâo Zung of Shang, we cannot account for the repeated mention of him in it. Kû Hsî, however, in his note on it, says nothing about Wû-ting, but simply that the piece belonged to the sacrifices in the ancestral temple, tracing back the line of the kings of Shang to its origin, and to its attaining the sovereignty of the kingdom. Not at all unlikely is the view of Kăng Hsüan, that the sacrifice was in the third year after the death of Wû-ting, and offered to him in the temple of Hsieh, the ancestor of the Shang dynasty.
Heaven commissioned the swallow, To descend and give birth to (the father of our) Shang[1]. (His descendants) dwelt in the land of Yin, and became great. (Then) long ago God appointed the martial Thang, To regulate the boundaries throughout the four quarters (of the kingdom).
(In those) quarters he appointed the princes, And grandly possessed the nine regions[2]. The
- ↑ The father of Shang is Hsieh, who has already been mentioned. The mother of Hsieh was a daughter of the House of the ancient state of Sung, and a concubine of the ancient ruler Khû (B.C. 2435). According to Mâo, she accompanied Khû, at the time of the vernal equinox, when the swallow made its appearance, to sacrifice and pray to the first match-maker, and the result was the birth of Hsieh. Sze-mâ Khien and Kăng make Hsieh's birth more marvellous:—The lady was bathing in some open place, when a swallow made its appearance, and dropt an egg, which she took and swallowed; and from this came Hsieh. The editors of the imperial edition of the Shih, of the present dynasty, say we need not believe the legends;—the important point is to believe that the birth of Hsieh was specially ordered by Heaven.
- ↑ 'The nine regions' are the nine provinces into which Yü divided the kingdom.
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