Section III. The Decade of Min Yü Hsiao Tzŭ: VI. Liang Ssŭ

VI The Liang Ssŭ; narrative. Much akin to the preceding:—presumably an ode of thanksgiving in the autumn to the spirits of the land and grain. With sharp and well-shaped glittering share, The toilers turn, with patient care, The southern acres to prepare. The different kinds of grain they sow. Each seed, though hid the earth below, Its form of life will quickly show. Behold their wives and children there! These the cooked millet to them bear, Carried in baskets round and square. In light splint hats their hoes they speed, Clearing the ground for fruitful seed, And rooting out the noisome weed. The weeds, uprooted, die away, And feed the ground by their decay. The millets grow from day to day. p. 458 And now the golden stalks and tall Before the reapers, rustling, fall. Straightway they're built up like a wall. High as a wall the sheaves are placed, Like comb teeth close, and interlaced. Anon the grain is stored in haste. Hundreds of houses hold the store; The wives and children fret no more; The labors of the year are o’er. This black-lipped tawny bull we slay, Whose horns the well-known curve display, The rites of husbandry to pay. Thus to the future hand we down These rites long held in high renown, Glad the ancestral ways to own.