10. The ice is now abundant; thick and strong to
the bottom of the waters and meres. Orders are
given to collect it, which is done, and it is carried
into (the ice-houses).
11. Orders are given to make announcement to the people to bring forth their seed of the five grains. The husbandmen are ordered to reckon up the pairs which they can furnish for the ploughing; to repair the handles and shares of their ploughs; and to provide all the other instruments for the fields.
12. Orders are given to the chief director of Music to institute a grand concert of wind instruments; and with this (the music of the year) is closed[1].
13. Orders are given to the four Inspectors[2] to collect and arrange the faggots to supply the wood and torches for the suburban sacrifices, those in the ancestral temple, and all others.
14. In this month the sun has gone through all his mansions; the moon has completed the number of her conjunctions; the stars return to (their places) in the heavens. The exact length (of the year) is nearly completed, and the year will soon begin again. (It is said), "Attend to the business of your husbandmen. Let them not be employed on anything else."
15. The son of Heaven, along with his ducal and
- ↑ Compare paragraph 16, p. 261, et al. Wind instruments were supposed to suit the quiet and meditativeness of autumn and winter, better than the drums and dances of the other seasons.
- ↑ "The four Inspectors." Compare paragraph 8, p. 277. Some read thien (田) for sze (四). "Inspectors of the fields."
p. 263, the sovereign gets himself into a boat, a thing now impossible through the ice. Fish are in their prime condition in winter and spring.
