Thang), There was a time of shaking and peril[1]. But truly did Heaven (then) deal with him as a son, And sent him down a high minister, Namely, Â-hăng[2], Who gave his assistance to the king of Shang.
Ode 5. The Yin Wû.
Celebrating the war of Wû-ting against King-khû, its success, and the general happiness and virtue of his reign;—made, probably, when a special and permanent temple was built for him as the 'High and Honoured' king of Shang.
The concluding lines indicate that the temple was made on the occasion which I thus assign to it. After Wû-ting's death, his spirit-tablet would be shrined in the ancestral temple, and he would have his share in the seasonal sacrifices; but several reigns would elapse before there was any necessity to make any other arrangement, so that his tablet should not be removed, and his share in the sacrifices not be discontinued. Hence the composition of the piece has been referred to the time of Tî-yî, the last but one of the kings of Shang.
Rapid was the warlike energy of (our king of) Yin, And vigorously did he attack King-Khû[3].
- ↑ We do not know anything of this time of decadence in the fortunes of Shang between Hsieh and Thang.
- ↑ Â-hăng is Î Yin, who plays so remarkable a part in the Shû, IV, Books iv, v, and vi.
- ↑ King, or Khû, or King-Khû, as the two names are combined here, was a large and powerful half-savage state, having its capital in the present Wû-pei. So far as evidence goes, we should say, but for this ode, that the name of Khû was not in use till long after the Shang dynasty. The name King appears several times in 'the Spring and Autumn' in the annals of duke Kwang (B.C. 693 to 662), and then it gives place to the name Khû in the first year of duke Hsî (B.C. 659), and subsequently disappears itself altogether. In consequence of this some critics make this piece out to have been composed under the Kâu dynasty. The point cannot be fully cleared up; but on the whole I accept the words of the ode as sufficient proof against the silence of other documents.
