repair; the gates of towns and villages are looked after; bolts and nuts are put to rights; locks and keys are carefully attended to; the field-boundaries are strengthened; the frontiers are well secured; important defiles are thoroughly defended; passes and bridges are carefully seen after; and narrow ways and cross-paths are shut up.
16. The rules for mourning are revised; the distinctions of the upper and lower garments are defined; the thickness of the inner and outer coffins is decided on; with the size, height and other dimensions of graves. The measures for all these things are assigned, with the degrees and differences in them according to rank.
17. In this month orders are given to the chief Director of works to prepare a memorial on the work of the artificers; setting forth especially the sacrificial vessels with the measures and capacity (of them and all others), and seeing that there be no licentious ingenuity in the workmanship which might introduce an element of dissipation into the minds of superiors; and making the suitability of the article the first consideration. Every article should have its maker s name engraved on it, for the determination of its genuineness. When the production is not what it ought to be, the artificer should be held guilty and an end be thus put to deception.
18. In this month there is the great festivity when they drink together, and each of the stands bears
half its animal roasted[1].
- ↑ Wang Thâo understands this paragraph as meaning that at this season all, both high and low, feast in expression and augmentation of their joy. The characters will bear this interpretation. The kǎng, of the text however, has also the meaning which appears in the translation; though on that view the statement is not so general. See the "Narratives of the States," I, ii. 8.
