notes. Our ancestors will give ear. Our visitors will be there;--Long to
witness the complete performance.


ODE 6. THE KHIEN.


SUNG IN THE LAST MONTH OF WINTER, AND IN SPRING, WHEN THE KING
PRESENTED A FISH IN THE ANCESTRAL TEMPLE.

Such is the argument of this piece given in the Preface, and in which
the critics generally concur. In the Li Ki, IV, vi, 49, it is recorded
that the king, in the third Month of winter, gave orders to his chief
fisher to commence his duties, and went himself to see his operations.
He partook of the fish first captured, but previously presented some as
an offering in the back apartment of the ancestral temple. In the third
month of spring, again, when the sturgeons began to make their
appearance (Li Ki, IV, i, 25), the king presented one in the same place. On

[1. All the instruments here enumerated were performed on in the open
court below the hall. Nothing is said of the stringed instruments which
were used in the hall itself; nor is the enumeration of the instruments
in the courtyard complete.]

these passages, the prefatory notice was, no doubt, constructed. Choice
specimens of the earliest-caught fish were presented by the sovereign to
his ancestors, as an act of duty, and an acknowledgment that it was to
their favour that he and the people were indebted for the supplies of
food, which they received from the waters.