leader among the princes and therefore to take precedence over Î. In his seventh year he died, and his son Sïang went away and dwelt in Shang-k'iu, where he was supported by the prince of P'ei. That is the court annalist's way of stating that the new emperor fled to a distant city, leaving Î in possession of the capital. Î's usurpation is recorded by Tso and is the consistent Chinese tradition. Seventy years were destined to elapse before the imperial family recovered the capital. It seems then that the proclamation against Hsî and Ho was followed by a brief war of two years, which ended in the victory not of the emperor, but of the usurper, and I suspect that the astronomers who had been singled out for attack, would have their share in the triumph.
Eclipse of Odysseus.
The next oldest eclipse to which I would refer is the disputed eclipse in Homer's Odyssey on the day of the slaughter of the suitors. We are prepared for it in two passages where the unrecognized Odysseus predicts his own return first to the swineherd Eumaeus and afterwards to Penelope. I use Professor A. T. Murray's translation, except that I render λνκάβας literally 'journey of light' ', instead of, with Professor Murray, 'day'. The new moon was on the fourth day after the evening when Odysseus spoke to Eumaeus, the day after the evening when he addressed Penelope. The first passage (ξ 158–64) runs:—
'Now be my witness Zeus, above all Gods, and this hospitable board, and the hearth of noble Odysseus to which I am come, that verily all these things shall be brought to pass even as I tell thee. In the course of this self-same journey of the light Odysseus shall come hither, as the old moon wanes, and the new appears.
