Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 27.djvu/299

 11. The nets used in hunting animals and birds, hand nets, archers' disguises, and injurious baits should not (in this month) issue from (any of) the nine gates.

12. In this month orders are given to the foresters throughout the country not to allow the cutting down of the mulberry trees and silk-worm oaks. About these the cooing doves clap their wings, and the crested birds light on them. The trays and baskets with the stands (for the worms and cocoons) are got ready. The queen, after vigil and fasting, goes in person to the eastern fields to work on the mulberry trees. She orders the wives and younger women (of the palace) not to wear their ornamental dresses, and to suspend their woman's-work, thus stimulating them to attend to their business with the worms. When this has been completed, she apportions the cocoons, weighs out (afterwards) the silk, on which they go to work, to supply the robes for the solstitial and other great religious services, and for use in the ancestral temple. Not one is allowed to be idle.

13. In this month orders are given to the chiefs of works, to charge the workmen of their various departments to inspect the materials in the five storehouses:—those of iron and other metals; of skins