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SANG TÂ KỈ.
177
When a Great officer came himself to condole with an ordinary officer, the latter wailed along with him, but did not meet him outside the gate.
10. The wife of a ruler went out (of her apartment) on a visit from the wife of a refugee ruler.
The confirmed wife (of a Great officer) went out (in the same way) on the arrival of a message from the ruler's wife.
SECT. I.
The wife of an officer, if not engaged in the dressing, (also) went out to receive the confirmed wife (of a Great officer).
II. At the slighter dressing, the presiding mourner took his place inside the door (on the east of it), and the presiding wife had her face to the east. When the dressing was ended, both of them made as if they leant on the body, and leaped. The mourner unbared his breast, took off the tufts of juvenility, and bound up his hair with sackcloth. The wife knotted up her hair, and put on her sackcloth girdle in her room.
12. When the curtain (which screened the body) was removed, the men and women carried it and put it down in the hall, (the eldest son) going down the steps and bowing (to the visitors).
13. The (young) ruler (who was mourning) bowed to refugee lords, and to ministers, commissioners from other states. Great officers and other officers bowed to ministers and Great officers in their respective places. In the case of (the three grades of) officers, they received three side-bows', one for each grade. The ruler's wife also bowed to the wife of a refugee
1 The side-bows were somehow made, without the ruler's turning directly towards the officers.
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