Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 27.djvu/75

 the country districts which form the subject of the last Book, and probably others of a less public and distinguished character. We have references in this Book to at least one of the archery trials at the royal court; to that at the feudal courts; and to one presided over by Confucius himself, of which it is difficult to assign the occasion. The object of the author is to show the attention paid to archery in ancient times, and how it was endeavoured to make it subservient to moral and educational purposes.

He had before him the accounts of the archery for officers in Books VIII, IX, and X of the Î Lî; but he allows himself more scope, in his observations on them, than the authors of the two preceding Books, and explains several practices in his own way,—unsatisfactorily, as I have pointed out in my notes.

The Yen Î, or "Meaning of the Banquet," is a fragment of only five paragraphs, which, moreover, are inartistically put together, the first having no connexion with the others. The Book should begin with paragraph 2, commencing:—"The meaning of the Banquet at the feudal courts was this." It was of this banquet that the compiler intended to give his readers an idea.

The greatest of all the ancient banquets was that which immediately followed the sacrifices in the ancestral temple, given to all the kindred of the same surname as the ruler, and to which there are several references in the Shih King. Thang San-jhâi (Ming dynasty) specifies four other occasions for the banquet besides this:—It might be given by a feudal prince, without any special occasion,—like that described in the second of the Praise Songs of Lû; or to a high dignitary or Great officer, who had been engaged in the royal service,—like that in the Minor Odes of the Kingdom, iii, 3; or when a high dignitary returned from a friendly mission,—like that also in the Minor Odes, i, 2; or when an officer came from one state to another on a friendly mission. Many other occasions,