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THE SHÛ KING.
PART V.

slaughtered the innocent, and were the first also to go to excess in cutting off the nose, cutting off the ears, castration, and branding. All who became liable to those punishments were dealt with without distinction, no difference being made in favour of those who could offer some excuse. The people were gradually affected by this state of things, and became dark and disorderly. Their hearts were no more set on good faith, but they violated their oaths and covenants. The multitudes who suffered from the oppressive terrors, and were (in danger of) being murdered, declared their innocence to Heaven. God surveyed the people, and there was no fragrance of virtue arising from them, but the rank odour of their (cruel) punishments.*

'The great Tî[1] compassionated the innocent multitudes that were (in danger of) being murdered, and made the oppressors feel the terrors of his majesty. He restrained and (finally) extinguished the people of Miâo, so that they should not con-


    these used them excessively and barbarously. From two passages in the Canon of Shun, we conclude that that monarch was acquainted with 'the five great inflictions or punishments,' and gave instructions to his minister Kâo-yâo as to their use.

  1. Here is the name—Hwang Tî—by which the sovereigns of China have been styled from B.C. 221, since the emperor of Khin, on his extinction of the feudal states, enacted that it should be borne by himself and his descendants. I have spoken of the meaning of Tî and of the title Hwang Tî in the note on the translation of the Shû appended to the Preface. There can be no doubt that it was Shun whom king Mû intended by the name. A few sentences further on, the mention of Po-î and Yü leads us to the time subsequent to Yâo, and there does not appear to be any change of subject in the paragraph. We get from this Book a higher idea of the power of the Miâo than from the Books of Part II.