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THE Lî Kî.
BK. IV.
Section II. Part I.
1. In the first month of summer, the sun is in Pî; the constellation culminating at dusk being Yî, and that culminating at dawn Wû-nü[1].
2. Its days are ping and ting[2].
3. Its divine ruler is Yen Tî, and the (attending) spirit is Kû-yung[3].
4. Its creatures are the feathered.
5. Its musical note is Kih, and its pitch-tube is the Kung Lü[4].
6. Its number is seven[5]. Its taste is acrid. Its smell is that of things burning.
- ↑ Pî is the name for the Hyades, or, more exactly, of six stars in Hyades, with μ and ν of Taurus; it is the nineteenth of the Chinese constellations. Yî is crater. Wû-nü is not so well identified. Williams says that it is "a star near the middle of Capricorn," but others say in Hercules. The R Yâ makes it the same as Hsü-nü (須女). Probably it was a star in the constellation Nü of Aquarius.
- ↑ The third and fourth stem characters of the cycle.
- ↑ Yen Tî ("the blazing Tî") is the dynastic designation of Shǎn Nǎng, generally placed next to Fû-hsî in Chinese chronology, and whose date cannot be assigned later than the thirty-first century B.C. Kû-yung in one account is placed before Fû-hsî; in a second, as one of the ministers of Hwang Tî; and in a third, as a son of Khwan-hsü (B.C. 2510-2433). He was "the Director of Fire," and had the presidency of summer.
- ↑ Kih is the fourth of the notes of the Chinese scale, and Kung Lü ("the middle Spine") the third of the tubes that give the six lower accords.
- ↑ The number of fire is 2, which + 5, that of earth, = 7.
