Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 3.djvu/314



Sze-mâ Khien, in his memoir of Confucius, says:—'The old poems amounted to more than 3000. Confucius removed those which were only repetitions of others, and selected those which would be serviceable for the inculcation of propriety and righteousness. Ascending as high as Hsieh and Hâu-kî, and descending through the prosperous eras of Yin and Kâu to the times of decadence under kings Yû and Lî, he selected in all 305 pieces, which he sang over to his lute, to bring them into accordance with the musical style of the Shâo, the Wû, the Yâ, and the FăngSung [sic].'

In the History of the Classical Books in the Records of the Sui Dynasty ( 589 to 618), it is said:—'When royal benign rule ceased, and poems were no more collected, Kih, the Grand Music-Master of Lû, arranged in order those that were existing, and made a copy of them. Then Confucius expurgated them; and going up to the Shang dynasty, and coming down to the state of Lû, he compiled altogether 300 Pieces.'

Kû Hsî, whose own standard work on the Shih appeared in 1178, declined to express himself positively on the expurgation of the odes, but summed up his view of what Confucius did for them in the following words:—'Royal methods had ceased, and poems were  no more collected. Those which were extant were full of errors, and wanting in arrangement. When Confucius returned from Wei to Lû, he brought with him the odes that he had gotten in other states, and digested them, along with those that were to be found in Lû, into a collection of 300 pieces.'

I have not been able to find evidence sustaining these