Some hull (the grain); some take it from the mortar; Some sift it; some tread it. It is rattling in the dishes; It is distilled, and the steam floats about. We consult[1]; we observe the rites of purification; We take southernwood and offer it with the fat; We sacrifice a ram to the spirit of the path[2]; We offer roast flesh and broiled:—And thus introduce the coming year[3].
We load the stands with the offerings, The stands both of wood and of earthenware. As soon as the fragrance ascends, God, well pleased, smells the sweet savour. Fragrant it is, and in its due season[4]. Hâu-kî founded our sacrifices, And no one, we presume, has given occasion for blame or regret in regard to them, Down to the present day.
Ode 2. The Hsin Wei.
A festal ode, celebrating some entertainment given by the king to his relatives, with the trial of archery after the feast; celebrating especially the honour done on such occasions to the aged.
This ode is given here, because it is commonly taken as a prelude to the next. Kû Hsî interprets it of the feast, given by the
- ↑ That is, we divine about the day, and choose the officers to take part in the service.
- ↑ A sacrifice was offered to the spirit of the road on commencing a journey, and we see here that it was offered also in connexion with the king's going to the ancestral temple or the border altar.
- ↑ It does not appear clearly what sacrifices the poet had in view here. I think they must be all those in which the kings of Kâu appeared as the principals or sacrificers. The concluding line is understood to intimate that the kings were not to forget that a prosperous agriculture was the foundation of their prosperity.
- ↑ In this stanza we have the peculiar honour paid to Hâu-kî by his descendants at one of the great border sacrifices to God,—the same to which the last ode in the first decade of the Sacrificial Odes of Kâu belongs.
