BOOK IX. THE DAY OF THE SUPPLEMENTARY SACRIFICE TO KÂO ȜUNG.
KÂO ȜUNG was the title given to Wû-ting, after his death, in the ancestral temple. A supplementary sacrifice was offered on the day following the regular and more solemn service. What special idea was connected with it, it would be difficult to say;
1. Ȝû Kî said, 'To rectify this affair, the king must first be corrected.' He delivered accordingly a lesson to the king, saying, 'In its inspection of men below, Heaven's first consideration is of their righteousness, and it bestows on them (accordingly) length of years or the contrary.* It is not Heaven that cuts short men's lives; they bring them to an end themselves. Some men who have not complied with virtue will yet not acknowledge their offences, and when Heaven has by evident tokens charged them to correct their conduct, they still say, "What are these things to us?"
'Oh! our Majesty's business is to care reverently for the people. And all (your ancestors) were the heirs of (the kingdom by the gift of Heaven;--in attending to the sacrifices (to them), be not so excessive in those to your father.'*
Footnotes
119:1 Sze-mâ Khien, after the prefatory notice, says that the pheasant sat on the ear--one of the handles--of a tripod.
