secures repose; The circle of (the king's) relatives is a fortified wall. We must not let the fortified wall get destroyed; We must not let (the king) be solitary and consumed with terrors.
Revere the anger of Heaven, And presume not to make sport or be idle. Revere the changing moods of Heaven, And presume not to drive about (at your pleasure). Great Heaven is intelligent, And is with you in all your goings. Great Heaven is clear-seeing, And is with you in your wanderings and indulgences.
The Third Decade, or that of Tang.
Ode 1. The Tang.
Warnings, supposed to be addressed to king Lî, on the issues of the course which he was pursuing, showing that the miseries of the time and the imminent danger of ruin were to be attributed, not to Heaven, but to himself and his ministers.
This ode, like the ninth of the second decade, is attributed to duke Mû of Shâo. The structure of the piece is peculiar, for, after the first stanza, we have king Wăn introduced delivering a series of warnings to Kâu-hsin, the last king of the Shang dynasty. They are put into Wăn's mouth, in the hope that Lî, if, indeed, he was the monarch whom the writer had in view, would transfer the figure of Kâu-hsin to himself, and alter his course so as to avoid a similar ruin.
How vast is God, The ruler of men below! How arrayed in terrors is God, With many things irregular in his ordinations. Heaven gave birth to the multitudes of the people, But the nature it confers is not to be depended on. All are (good)
