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ODE 1.
THE SACRIFICIAL ODES OF KÂU.
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over the states, And he made his happiness grandly secure.
The capital of Shang was full of order, The model for all parts of the kingdom. Glorious was (the king's) fame; Brilliant his energy. Long lived he and enjoyed tranquillity, And so he preserves us, his descendants.
We ascended the hill of King !, Where the pines and cypresses grew symmetrical. We cut them down and conveyed them here; We reverently hewed them square. Long are the projecting beams of pine; Large are the many pillars. The temple was completed, the tranquil abode (of the martial king of Yin).
II. THE SACRIFICIAL ODES OF Kâu. In this division we have thirty-one sacrificial odes of Kâu,
arranged in three decades, the third of which, however, contains eleven pieces. They belong mostly to the time of king Wăn, the founder of the Kâu dynasty, and to the reigns of his son and grandson, kings Wa and Khăng. The decades are named from the name of the first piece in each.
The First Decade, or that of Khing Miâo.
ODE 1. THE KHING MIÃO. CELEBRATING THE REVERENTIAL MANNER IN WHICH A SACRIFICE TO
KING WĂN WAS PERFORMED, AND FURTHER PRAISING HIM. Chinese critics agree in assigning this piece to the sacrifice men
tioned in the Shů, in the end of the thirteenth Book of Part V, when, the building of Lo being finished, king Khăng came to
See on the last line but two of ode 3.
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