Sacred Books of the East/Volume 3/The Shih/Odes of the Temple and the Altar/The Sacrificial Odes of Kâu/Decade 1/Ode 10

 

Ode 10. The Sze Wăn.

 

Appropriate to one of the border sacrifices, when Hâu-kî was worshipped as the correlate of God, and celebrating him.

Hâu-kî was the same as Khî, who appears in Part II of the Shû, as Minister of Agriculture to Yâo and Shun, and co-operating with Yü in his labours on the flooded land. The name Hâu belongs to him as lord of Thâi; that of Kî, as Minister of Agriculture. However the combination arose, Hâu-kî became historically the name of Khî of the time of Yâo and Shun, the ancestor to whom the kings of Kâu traced their lineage. He was to the people the Father of Husbandry, who first taught men to plough and sow and reap. Hence, when the kings offered sacrifice and prayer to God at the commencement of spring for his blessing on the labours of the year, they associated Hâu-kî with him at the service.

O accomplished Hâu-kî,
Thou didst prove thyself the correlate of Heaven.
Thou didst give grain-food to our multitudes:—
The immense gift of thy goodness.
Thou didst confer on us the wheat and the barley,
Which God appointed for the nourishment of all.
And without distinction of territory or boundary,
The rules of social duty were diffused throughout these great regions.