Sacred Books of the East/Volume 3/The Shih/Odes of the Temple and the Altar/The Sacrificial Odes of Kâu/Decade 2/Ode 3

 

Ode 3. The Kâu Lû.

 

Celebrating the representatives of former dynasties, who had come to court to assist at a sacrifice in the ancestral temple.

This piece may have been used when the king was dismissing his distinguished guests in the ancestral temple. See the introductory note to this Part, pp. 300, 301.

A flock of egrets is flying,
About the marsh there in the west^[1].
My visitors came,
With an (elegant) carriage like those birds.

There, (in their states), not disliked,
Here, (in Kâu), never tired of;—
They are sure, day and night,
To perpetuate their fame.

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1. These two lines make the piece allusive. See the Introduction, p. 279.