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POOK IV.
THE PUNITIVE EXPEDITION OF YIN.
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reckoning) is behind the time, let them be put to death without mercy.”
Now I, with you all, am entrusted with the execution of the punishment appointed by Heaven.* Unite your strength, all of you warriors, for the royal House. Give me your help, I pray you, reverently to carry out the dread charge of the Son of Heaven.
When the fire blazes over the ridge of Khwăn', gems and stones are burned together; but if a minister of Heaven exceed in doing his duty, the consequences will be fiercer than blazing fire. While I destroy, (therefore), the chief criminals, I will not punish those who have been forced to follow them; and those who have long been stained by their filthy manners will be allowed to renovate themselves.
'Oh! when sternness overcomes compassion, things are surely conducted to a successful issue. When compassion overcomes sternness, no merit can be achieved. All ye, my warriors, exert yourselves, and take warning, (and obey my orders)!'
1 Khwăn is perhaps a part of the Khwăn-lun mountain in the west of the Ko-ko-nor, where the Ho has its sources. The speaker evidently thought of it as volcanic.
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