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Of generous devotion to the people was duke Liu, |
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Unable to rest or take his ease [where he was], |
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He divided and subdivided the country into fields; |
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He stored up the produce in the fields and in barns; |
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He tied up dried meat and grain, |
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In bottomless bags and in sacks; -- |
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That he might hold [the people] together, and glorify [his tribe]. |
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Then with bows and arrows all ready, |
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With shields and spears, and axes, large and small, |
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He commenced his march. |
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Of generous devotion to the people was duke Liu, |
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He had surveyed the plain [where he was settled]; |
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[The people] were numerous and crowded; |
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In sympathy with them, he made proclamation [of his contemplated measure], |
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And there were no perpetual sighings about it |
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He ascended to the hill-tops; |
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He ascended again to the plains. |
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What was it that he carried at his girdle? |
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Pieces of jade, and yao gems, |
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And his ornamented scabbard with its sword. |
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Of generous devotion to the people was duke Liu, |
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He went there to [the place of] the hundred springs, |
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And saw [around him] the wide plain. |
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He ascended the ridge on the south, |
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And looked at a large [level] height, |
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A height affording space for multitudes. |
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Here was room to dwell in; |
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Here might booths be built for strangers; |
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Here he told out his mind; |
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Here he entered on deliberations. |
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Of generous devotion to the people was duke Liu, |
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When he had found rest on the height, |
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With his officers all in dignified order, |
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He caused mats to be spread, with stools upon them; |
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And they took their places on the mats and leaned on the stools. |
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He had sent to the herds, |
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And taken a pig from the pen. |
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He poured out his spirits into calabashes; |
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And so he gave them to eat and to drink, |
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Acknowledged by them as ruler, and honoured. |
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Of generous devotion to the people was duke Liu, |
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[His territory] being now broad and long, |
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He determined the points of the heavens by means of the shadows; and then, ascending the ridges, |
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He surveyed the light and the shade, |
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Viewing [also] the [course of the] streams and springs. |
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His armies were three troops; |
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He measured the marshes and plains; |
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He fixed the revenue on the system of common cultivation of the fields; |
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He measured also the fields west of the hills; |
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And the settlement of Bin became truly great. |
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Of generous devotion to the people was duke Liu, |
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Having settled in temporary lodging houses in Bin, |
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He crossed the Wei by means of boats, |
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And gathered whetstones and iron. |
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When his settlement was fixed, and all boudaries defined, |
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The people became numerous and prosperous, |
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Occupying both sides of the Huang valley, |
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And pushing on up that of Guo; |
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And as the population became dense, |
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They went on to the country beyond the Ju. |