Sacred Books of the East/Volume 3/The Shih/The Minor Odes of the Kingdom/Decade 4/Ode 10

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Sacred Books of the East, Vol. III, The Shih King
translated by James Legge

The Minor Odes of the Kingdom, Decade iv, Ode 10: The Yü wû Kăng, Stanzas 1 and 3

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The exact meaning of Yǔ wú Zhèng (雨無正) is unknown. No similar phrase is found in the poem, and Legge offers no translation in The Chinese Classics, Vol. IV, saying, "There is evidently some mistake in the title[…], of which I have seen no satisfactory explanation."

3744599Sacred Books of the East, Vol. III, The Shih King — The Minor Odes of the Kingdom, Decade iv, Ode 10: The Yü wû Kăng, Stanzas 1 and 3James Legge

Ode 10, Stanzas 1 and 3. The Yü wû Kăng.

The writer of this piece mourns over the miserable state of the kingdom, the incorrigible course of the king, and other evils, appealing also to Heaven, and surprised that it allowed such things to be.

Great and wide Heaven,
How is it you have contracted your kindness,
Sending down death and famine,
Destroying all through the kingdom?
Compassionate Heaven, arrayed in terrors,
How is it you exercise no forethought, no care?
Let alone the criminals:—
They have suffered for their guilt.
But those who have no crime
Are indiscriminately involved in ruin.

How is it, O great Heaven,
That the king will not hearken to the justest words?
He is like a man going (astray),
Who knows not where he will proceed to.
All ye officers,
Let each of you attend to his duties.
How do ye not stand in awe of one another?
Ye do not stand in awe of Heaven.