husbandry[1]. There do you generously rule our people, and there is no distance from which they will not come to you.'
4. The king spoke to this effect[2]' O duke, you are the enlightener and sustainer of my youth. You have set forth the great and illustrious virtues, that I, notwithstanding my youth, may display a brilliant merit like that of Wăn and Wû, reverently responding to the favouring decree of Heaven; and harmonize and long preserve the people of all the regions, settling the multitudes (in Lo); and that I may give due honour to the great ceremony (of recording) the most distinguished (for their merits), regulating the order for the first places at the sacrifices, and doing everything in an orderly manner without display.
'But your virtue, O duke, shines brightly above and beneath, and is displayed actively throughout the four quarters. On every hand appears the deep reverence (of your virtue) in securing the establishment of order, so that you fail in nothing of the earnest lessons of Wăn and Wû. It is for me, the youth, (only) to attend reverently, early and late, to the sacrifices.'*
The king said, 'Great, O duke, has been your merit in helping and guiding me; let it ever continue so.'
- ↑ By this expression the duke indicates his wish and intention now to retire from public life, and leave the government and especially the affairs of Lo in the king's hands.
- ↑ From the words of the king in this chapter, we receive the impression that they were spoken in Lo. He must have gone there with the duke from Hâo. He deprecates the duke's intention to retire into private life; intimates his own resolution to return to Hâo; and wishes the duke to remain in Lo, accomplishing all that was still necessary to the establishment of their dynasty.
