Sacred Books of the East/Volume 3/The Shih/Odes of the Temple and the Altar/The Sacrificial Odes of Kâu/Decade 1/Ode 2

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

Odes of the Temple and the Altar, The Sacrificial Odes of Kâu, Decade i, Ode 2: The Wei Thien Kih Ming

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Wéi Tiān Zhī Mìng (維天之命) is the first line of the poem.

3742885Sacred Books of the East, Vol. III, The Shih King — Odes of the Temple and the Altar, The Sacrificial Odes of Kâu, Decade i, Ode 2: The Wei Thien Kih MingJames Legge

Ode 2. The Wei Thien Kih Ming.

Celebrating the virtue of king Wăn as comparable to that of Heaven, and looking to him for blessing in the future.

According to the Preface, there is an announcement here of the realization of complete peace throughout the kingdom, and some of the old critics refer the ode to a sacrifice to king Wăn by the duke of Kâu, when he had completed the statutes for the new dynasty. But there is nothing to authorize a more definite argument of the contents than I have given.

The ordinances of Heaven,—
How deep are they and unintermitting!
And oh! how illustrious
Was the singleness of the virtue of king Wăn^[1]!

How does he (now) show his kindness?
We will receive it,
Striving to be in accord with him, our king Wăn;
And may his remotest descendant be abundantly the same!

↑ See what Zze-sze says on these four lines in the Doctrine of the Mean, XXVI, par. 10.

[1] See what Zze-sze says on these four lines in the Doctrine of the Mean, XXVI, par. 10.

[1]