There are those who come to see them, With their baskets round and square, Containing the provisions of millet.
With their light splint hats on their heads, They ply their hoes on the ground, Clearing away the smartweed on the dry land and wet.
The weeds being decayed, The millets grow luxuriantly.
They fall rustling before the reapers. The gathered crop is piled up solidly, High as a wall, United together like the teeth of a comb; And the hundred houses are opened (to receive the grain)[1].
Those hundred houses being full, The wives and children have a feeling of repose.
(Now) we kill this black-muzzled tawny bull[2], with his crooked horns, To imitate and hand down, To hand down (the observances of) our ancestors.
Ode 7. The Sze Î.
An ode appropriate to the preparations and progress of a feast after a sacrifice.
The Preface and the editors of the Yung-khăng Shih say that the piece has reference to the entertainment given, the day after a
- ↑ 'The hundred houses,' or chambers in a hundred family residences, are those of the hundred families, cultivating the space which was bounded by a brook;—see note on the second ode of the preceding decade. They formed a society, whose members helped one another in their field work, so that their harvest might be said to be carried home at the same time. Then would come the threshing or treading, and winnowing, after which the grain would be brought into the houses.
- ↑ It has been observed that under the Kâu dynasty, red was the
