BOOK XIX. SANG TÂ KÎ

OR

THE GREATER RECORD OF MOURNING RITES[1]

SECTION I.

1. When the illness was extreme, all about the establishment was swept clean, inside and out. In the case of a ruler or Great officer, the stands, with the martial instruments suspended from them, were removed; in that of an officer, his lute and cithern. The sufferer lay with his head to the east, under the window on the north. His couch was removed (and he was laid on the ground). The clothes ordinarily worn at home were removed, and new clothes substituted for them. (In moving the body) one person took hold of each limb. Males and females changed their dress[2]. Some fine floss was put (on the mouth and nostrils), to make sure that the breath was gone. A man was not permitted to die in the hands of the women, or a woman in the hands of the men.

2. A ruler and his wife both died in the Great chamber, a Great officer and his acknowledged wife in the Proper chamber[3]; the not yet acknowledged

SECTION II.

1. The slighter dressing was performed inside the door (of the apartment where the body was); the fuller dressing (at the top of) the steps (leading up to the reception hall) on the east. The body of a ruler was laid on a mat of fine bamboo; of a Great officer, on one of typha grass; and of an ordinary officer, on one of phragmites grass.

2. At the slighter dressing one band of cloth was laid straight, and, there were three bands laid cross-wise. The sheet for a ruler's body was embroidered; for a Great officer's? white; for an ordinary officer's, black:--each had one sheet.

There were nineteen suits of clothes[1]; those for