Notes
1. SHANG was the name under which the dynasty that
superseded Hsiâ (B.C. 1766) held the kingdom for fully 300 years. Yin then
began to be used as well as Shang, and the dynasty was called indifferently
Shang or Yin, and sometimes Yin-Shang by a combination of the two names. The
ruling House traced its origin into the remote times of antiquity, through
Hsieh, whose appointment by Shun to be Minister of Instruction is related in
the Canon of Shun. For his services Hsieh was invested with the principality of
Shang, corresponding to the present small department of the same name in
Shen-hsî. From Hsieh to Thang, thc founder of the dynasty, there are reckoned
fourteen generations, and we find Thang, when he first becomes prominent in
history, a long way from the ancestral fief, in 'the southern Po,'
corresponding to the present district of Shang-khiû, department Kwei-teh,
Ho-nan. The tide of the dynasty, however, was derived from the original
Shang. There were in the Shû, when the collection was
formed, thirty-one documents of Shang in forty Books, of which only eleven
remain in seventeen Books, two of them containing each three parts or sections.
The Speech of Thang, that is now the first Book in the Part, was originally
only the sixth. Thang was the destination of the hero, whose surname, dating
from Hsieh, was Dze, and name Lî. Thang may be translated, 'the Glorious One;
His common style in history is as Khang Thang, 'Thang the Completer,' or 'Thang
the Successful.' He had summoned his people to take the field with him
against Kieh, the cruel and doomed sovereign of Hsiâ, and finding them backward
to the enterprise, he sets forth in this Book his reasons for attacking the
tyrant, argues against their reluctance, using in the end both promises and
threats to induce them to obey his orders.
2.
'The little child' is a designation used humbly of themselves by the kings of
Shang and Kâu. It is given also to them and others by such great ministers as Î
Yin and the duke of Kâu.
3.
Kieh, it is said, had on one occasion, when told of the danger he was incurring
by his cruelties, pointed to the sun, and said that as surely as the sun was in
the heavens, so firm was he on the throne.