grisly bears, and ministers of no double heart, who (helped them) to maintain and regulate the royal House. Thus (did they receive) the true favouring decree from God, and thus did great Heaven approve of their ways, and give them the four quarters (of the land).* Then they appointed and set up principalities, and established bulwarks (to the throne), for the sake of us, their successors. Now do ye, my uncles[1], I pray you, consider with one another, and carry out the service which the dukes, your predecessors, rendered to my predecessors. Though your persons be distant, let your hearts be in the royal House. Enter thus into my anxieties, and act in accordance with them, so that I, the little child, may not be put to shame.'
3. The dukes and all the others, having heard this charge, bowed to one another, and hastily withdrew. The king put off his cap, and assumed again his mourning dress.
Book XXIV. The Charge to the Duke of Pî.
The king who delivers the charge in this Book was Khang, and the only events of his reign of twenty-six years of which we have any account in the Shû and in Sze-mâ Khien are it and the preceding announcement.
Book xxi relates the appointment of Kün-khăn by king Khăng, to the charge which was now, on his death, entrusted to the duke of Pî, who is mentioned at the commencement of 'the Testamentary Charge.' By the labours of the duke of Kâu and Kün-khăn a considerable change had been effected in the character of the people of Yin, who had been transferred to the new capital and its neighbourhood; and king Khang now
- ↑ Meaning the various princes, and especially those bearing the same surname as himself.
