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128
THE LÎ kt.
BK. XVII.
ministers, high and low, listen together to the music, and all is harmony and reverence; at the district and village meetings of the heads of clans, old and young listen together to it, and all is harmony and deference. Within the gate of the family, fathers and sons, brothers and cousins, listen together to it, and all is harmony and affection. Thus in music there is a careful discrimination (of the voices) to blend them in unison so as to bring out their harmony; there is a union of the (various) instruments to give ornamental effect to its different parts; and these parts are combined and performed so as to complete its elegance. In this way fathers and sons, rulers and subjects are united in harmony, and the people of the myriad states are associated in love. Such was the method of the ancient kings when they framed their music.
29. In listening to the singing of the Yâ and the Sung, the aims and thoughts receive an expansion. From the manner in which the shields and axes are held and brandished, and from the movements of the body in the practice with them, now turned up, now bent down, now retiring, now stretching forward, the carriage of the person receives gravity. From the way in which (the pantomimes) move to their several places, and adapt themselves to the several parts (of the performance), the arrangement of their ranks is made correct, and their order in advancing and retiring is secured. In this way music becomes the lesson of Heaven and Earth, the regulator of true harmony, and what the nature of man cannot dispense with
30. It was by music that the ancient kings gave elegant expression to their joy; by their armies and
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