17. Confucius said, "The practice of archery to
the notes of music (is difficult). How shall the
archer listen, and how shall he shoot, (that the two
things shall be in harmony)?"
Confucius said, "When an officer is required to shoot, if he be not able, he declines on the ground of being ill, with reference to the bow suspended at the left of the door (at his birth)[1]."
18. Confucius said, "There are three days' fasting on hand. If one fast for the first day, he should still be afraid of not being (sufficiently) reverent. What are we to think of it, if on the second day he beat his drums[2]?"
19. Confucius said, "The repetition of the sacrifice next day inside the Khû gate; the searching for the spirits in the eastern quarter; and the holding the market in the morning in the western quarter:—these all are errors."
20. At the Shê, they sacrificed to (the spirits of) the land, and on the tablet rested the power of the darker and retiring influence of nature. The ruler stands (in sacrificing) with his face to the south at the foot of the wall on the north, responding to the idea of that influence as coming from the north. A kiâ day is used (for the sacrifice),—to employ a
commencing day (in the Cycle)[3].
- ↑ Every gentleman was supposed to learn archery as one of the "six liberal arts;" and a bow was suspended near the door on the birth of a boy in recognition of this. The excuse in the paragraph is a lame one. See the "Narratives of the School," article 28; and Book XLIII, 19.
- ↑ "Narratives of the School," XLIV, 9.
- ↑ There are of course six decades of days in the Cycle, each beginning with a kiâ day.
