Classic of Poetry

Of generous devotion to the people was duke Lëw. Unable to rest or take his ease [where he was], He divided and subdivided the country into fields; He stored up the produce in the fields and in barns; He tied up dried meat and grain, In bottomless bags and in sacks;— That he might hold [the people] together, and glorify [his tribe]. Then with bows and arrows all ready, With shields and spears, and axes, large and small, He commenced his march.

Of generous devotion to the people was duke Lëw. He had surveyed the plain [where he was settled]; [The people] were numerous and crowded; In sympathy with them, he made proclamation [of his contemplated measure], And there were no perpetual sighings about it. He ascended to the hill-tops; He descended again to the plains. What was it that he carried at his girdle? Pieces of jade, and yaou gems, And his ornamented scabbard with its sword.

Of generous devotion to the people was duke Lëw. He went there to [the place of] the hundred springs, And saw [around him] the wide plain. He ascended the ridge on the south, And looked at a large [level] height, A height affording space for multitudes. Here was room to dwell in; Here might booths be built for strangers; Here he told out his mind; Here he entered on deliberations.

Of generous devotion to the people was duke Lëw. When he had found rest on the height, With his officers all in dignified order, He caused mats to be spread, with stools upon them; And they took their places on the mats and leaned on the stools. He had sent to the herds, And taken a pig from the pen. He poured out his spirits into calabashes; And so he gave them to eat and to drink, Acknowledged by them as ruler, and honoured.

Of generous devotion to the people was duke Lëw. [His territory] being now broad and long, He determined the points of the heavens by means of the shadows; and then, ascending the ridges, He surveyed the light and the shade, Viewing [also] the [course of the] streams and springs. His armies were three troops; He measured the marshes and plains; He fixed the revenue on the system of common cultivation of the fields; He measured also the fields west of the hills; And the settlement of Pin became truly great.

Of generous devotion to the people was duke Lëw. Having settled in temporary lodging houses in Pin, He crossed the Wei by means of boats, And gathered whetstones and iron. When his settlement was fixed, and all boundaries defined, The people became numerous and prosperous, Occupying both sides of the Hwang valley, And pushing on up that of Kwo; And as the population became dense, They went on to the country beyond the Juy.