it was sung over to Ki Ka of Wu, when he visited the court of Lu in the
boyhood of Confucius. There was, probably, a regular communication from
the royal court to the courts of the various states of the poetical
pieces that for one reason or another were thought worthy of
preservation. This is nowhere expressly stated, but it may be contended
for by analogy from the accounts which I have given, in the Introduction
to the Shu, pp. 4, 5, of the duties of the royal historiographers or
recorders.

How the Shih is so small and incomplete.

2. But if the poems produced in the different states were thus collected
in the capital, and thence again disseminated throughout the kingdom, we
might conclude that the collection would have been far more extensive
and complete than we have it now. The smallness of it is to be accounted
for by the disorder into which the kingdom fell after the lapse of a few
reigns from king Wu. Royal progresses ceased when royal government fell
into decay, and then the odes were no more collected[1]. We have no
account of any progress of the kings during the Khun Khiu period. But
before that period there is a long gap of nearly 150 years between kings
Khang and I, covering the reigns of Khang, Kao, Mu, and Kung, if we
except two doubtful pieces among the Sacrificial Odes of Kau. The reign
of Hsiao, who succeeded to I, is similarly uncommemorated; and the
latest odes are of the time of Ting, when 100 years of the Khun Khiu
period had still to run their course. Many odes must have been made and
collected during the 140 and more years after king Khang. The
probability is that they perished during the feeble reigns of I and the
three monarchs who followed him. Then came the long and vigorous reign
of Hsuean (B.C. 827 to 782), when we may suppose that the ancient custom
of collecting the poems was revived. After him all was in the main