The Shih King | Page 8

a collection of poetical pieces before the time of Confucius[1]. In order to complete this Introduction to it, it is desirable to give some account of the various subjects indicated in the heading of the present chapter.
How were the odes collected in the first place? In his Account of a Conversation concerning 'a Right Regulation of Governments for the Common Good of Mankind' (Edinburgh, 1704), p. 10, Sir Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, tells us the opinion of 'a very wise man,' that 'if a man were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who should make its laws.' A writer in the Spectator, no. 502, refers to a similar opinion as having been entertained in England earlier than the time of Fletcher. 'I have heard,' he says, 'that a minister of state in the reign of Elizabeth had all manner of books and ballads brought to him, of what kind soever, and took great notice how they took with the people; upon which he would, and certainly might, very well judge of their present dispositions, and of the most proper way of applying them according to his own purposes [2].'
[1. As in the case of the Sh?, Confucius generally speaks of 'the Shih,' never using the name of 'the Shih King.' In the Analects, IX, xiv, however, he mentions also the Ya and the Sung; and in XVII, x, he specifies the Kau Nan and the Shao Nan, the first two books of the Kwo Fang. Mencius similarly speaks of 'the Shih;' and in III, i, ch. 4, he specifies 'the Sung of L?,' Book ii of

Part IV. In VI, ii, ch. 3, he
gives his views of the Hsiao Phan, the third ode of decade 5,

Part II,
and of the Khai Fung, the seventh ode of Book iii of

Part I.
2 This passage from the Spectator is adduced by Sir John Davis in his treatise on the Poetry of the Chinese, p. 35.]
The theory of the Chinese scholars about a collection of poems for governmental purposes.
In harmony with the views thus expressed is the theory of the Chinese scholars, that it was the duty of the ancient kings to make themselves acquainted with all the poems current in the different states, and to judge from them of the rule exercised by the several princes, so that they might minister praise or blame, reward or punishment accordingly.
The rudiments of this theory may be found in the Sh?, in the Canon of Shun; but the one classical passage which is appealed to in support of it is in the Record of Rites, III, ii, parr. 13, 14:--'Every fifth year, the Son of Heaven made a progress through the kingdom, when the Grand Music-Master was commanded to lay before him the poems of the different states, as an exhibition of the manners and government of the people.' Unfortunately, this Book of the L? K?, the Royal Ordinances, was compiled only in the reign of the emperor Wan of the Han dynasty (B.C. 179 to 155). The scholars entrusted with the work did their best, we may suppose, with the materials at their command they made much use, it is evident, of Mencius, and of the ? L?. The Kau L?, or the Official Book of Kau, had not then been recovered. But neither in Mencius nor in the ? L? do we meet with any authority for the statement before us. The Sh? mentions that Shun every fifth year made a tour of inspection; but there were then no odes for him to examine, for to him and his minister Kao-yao is attributed the first rudimentary attempt at the poetic art. Of the progresses of the Hsia and Yin sovereigns we have no information; and those of the kings Of Kau were made, we know, only once in twelve years. The statement in the Royal Ordinances, therefore, was probably based only on tradition.
Notwithstanding the difficulties that beset this passage of the L? Ki, I am not disposed to reject it altogether. It derives a certain amount of confirmation from the passage quoted from the Official Book of Kau on p. 278, showing that in the Kau dynasty there was a collection of poems, under the divisions of the Fang, the Ya, and the Sung, which it was the business of the Grand, Music-Master to teach the musicians of the court. It may be accepted then, that the duke of Kau, in legislating for his dynasty, enacted that the poems produced in the different feudal states should be collected on occasion of the royal progresses, and lodged thereafter among the archives of the bureau of music at the royal court. The same thing, we may presume �� fortiori, would be done, at certain other stated times, with those produced within