This praise poem to King Wen, with an accompanying address to the officers of the vanquished Shang-Yin state, is commonly attributed to the Duke of Zhou, as instructions to his young sovereign King Cheng (see Zhu Xi). Cheng-Jiang (745) accept this as a credible attribution, suggesting that the quality of the poem, both in its structure and language, indicates that it is a production of the later part of the Western Zhou. The only general disagreement of the early commentators is that Mao, Zheng Xuan and Kong Yingda imply that the poem describes a time when King Wen received Heaven’s mandate, whereas Zhu Xi believe it describes his spirit in heaven (shen zai shang 神在上) long after he had passed. The latter now seems to be the accepted interpretation, including by Cheng-Jiang, Legge, and Karlgren, and that is how I have translated.

The first stanza presents few problems. The references in LL 3-4 are explained fully by Zhu Xi that the Zhou was a socio-political entity (bang 邦, realm) for generations before King Wen received the mandate, but his receiving the mandate and vanquishing the Shang-Yin (posthumously, through the military action of his son, King Wu), established/created a new status for the state—ruler of the empire. The bu 不 (not) of LL 5-6 is explained in several ways, most as the common substitute for pi丕 (great, very), which would turn the negative into a strong positive (Cheng-Jiang, 747); or elided as meaningless (Mao); or turned into a rhetorical question, Zheng Xuan. I have followed Zheng Xuan here. Shi 時 (time/season) L 6 is glossed in a variety substitutions: correct (是) by Mao, beautiful (mei 美 ) by Ma Ruichen, which is elaborated by Cheng-Jiang as fine and great (meihao er weida美好而偉大), but Karlgren (Odes) takes it at face value, translating “timely.” Interpretations of LL 7-8 depend on whether the subject is King Wen as a living ruler (performing in rituals) or as a spirit (moving in the heavens).

The second stanza opens with a reduplicative descriptor wei wei 亹亹. Wei is a common term of praise with the sense of exertion in action (mian免, per Mao), Karlgren reviews and translates “vigorous.” L 3, understanding chen 陳 in sense of display and zai 哉 as 在 (per Cheng-Jiang, Karlgren), the question is who distributes the benefits on the Zhou people: God (per Kong Yingda, Zhu Xi) or King Wen? The “grandsons and sons” (sunzi孫子 is a reversal of the more common term zisun, both generally mean “progeny”—here zi enters the rhyme, thus this form. The arbor metaphor for the Zhou clan and its branches (L 14) begins with Mao’s gloss (benzong本宗, zhizi 支子) and is accepted throughout. The readings of bu不 and yi 亦in L 16 are disputed, although the general meaning of the verse is not. Wang Yinzhi (Cheng-Jiang, 748) says that the terms are both particles, and the verse simply means, the generations are illustrious. Yet Mao and those who follow seem to understand both terms as substantives: reading 不 as pi (great) and yi as “also,” or “generation after generation” 世世—see Karlgren for a review; he translates, “They are greatly illustrious for (ample=) many generations.”

The third stanza is linked with the preceding one by the variation on the verse concluding and beginning, what Cheng-Jiang refer to as chanlian ge 蟬聯格 (continuation form), and is seen throughout the poem. The reduplicative reduplicative yi yi 翼翼(with care and caution, L 18) is found in various formations in Ode section of the text, with no occurrences in the Airs, and only smattering in the Hymns. Huang 皇 (august, L 19) is usually reserved to describe heaven and the gods/emperors, but here modifying mere mortals, thus Zhu Xi translates as mei 美 (fine); I retain its original meaning, “august”—per Karlgren. Royal Kingdom or royal states (wang guo 王國LL 20, 21) are those states directly under Zhou purview. Zhen 楨 (pillar, L 22) is glossed gan 幹 (tree trunk) by Mao, rendered gugan 骨幹 (backbone) by Cheng-Jiang. Legge says it is an abbreviation of zhengan 楨幹, part of the framework for building walls. Ji ji 濟濟 (solid and stately, L 24) in is found throughout the text, including in poem 105 describing horses; it is glossed both as many in number and as stately in bearing, both which apply here.

Stanza 4 continues the praise of King Wen, this time with the descriptor mu mu 穆穆 (solemn and strong, L 25) which has a wide range of readings, as fully reviewed by Karlgren, beginning with Mao’s weak gloss as “fine/beautiful” (mei 美), with others “great,” (da大) “reverent” (jing 敬), “harmonious” (he和). Legge follows Zhu Xi gloss (shen yuan 深遠), translating “profound”; Karlgren translates as “august.” Cheng-Jiang attempt to gather all this together, “A loan word for [the also obscure] mumu, with the appearance of dignified and good睦睦的假藉，莊嚴和善貌. L 26 includes the praise word jixi 緝熙 (luminous), which is used similarly in the earlier Hymns, poems 268, 271, 283, 288, but not elsewhere. LL 27-34 shift attention to the descendants of the Shang-Yin who have become subjects under Zhou rule; this is what the mandate has declared. You 有 (lit. to have) in L 28 seems to mean that these peoples have become our possession. I construe L 30 as a rhetorical negative question (following Karlgren) but Wang Yinzhi reads bu 不 as an empty particle (and Cheng-Jiang follow), yielding a straight positive. Either way it means that Shang descendants are great in number—yi 億 (in the thousands, lit. a hundred thousand, L 30) is used in a generalized sense of numerous, akin to “myriad.”

The fifth stanza opens again with a linking verse again, leading to what I understand as a rhetorical negative (L 34), as seen above; Zheng Xuan apparently understands mi chang 靡常 not constant, L 34) as meaning not impartial, thus: “if good it draws near; if evil it gets rid” 善則就之，惡則去之. Zhu Xi and others are silent. LL 35-38 are explained throughout (see Zhu Xi for fullest account) as how the subjugated Shang elite now help perform the Zhou rituals of libation, but they do so in their Shang ceremonial clothes (the white emblazoned xu 冔caps, L 38, per Mao and Zheng)—Cheng-Jiang, citing Yu Shenyu 于省吾, believe this points to their performance under duress. The jing 京 (high city L 36) is explained as either a reference to something great (per Mao), a hill/height, or the Zhou capital. Karlgren reviews fully, opting for capital, as do Cheng-Jiang. The king of L 39 is said (per Zheng Xuan and others) to be King Cheng. L 40, referring to the Shang descendants and their ancestors, has diverging interpretations as an imperative: think of the ancestors (that is, King Wen, per Kong Yingda), which requires reading wu 無as an empty particle; or, reading wu as a negative imperative, do not think of your ancestors (meaning the Shang ancestors). Zhu Xi has a another variant: How could you not think of your ancestor (i.e. King Wen). My rendering, “would you not think of your ancestors,” is meant to be strategically ambiguous.

L 41of the sixth stanza, repeated verbatim from the end of the previous stanza, opens the couplet, further complicating its reading above. The next verse’s use of the pronoun, jue (this, commonly, their/his/her, L 42) seems to refer to the ancestors of the previous line, but to do so, we must understand that verse in the positive (You should think of your [i.e. Shang] ancestors, per Karlgren, Odes) or that the “your ancestor” is King Wen, as it seems Cheng-Jiang understand (790). Legge rejects this idea and translates the phrase as “your virtue,” which seems divergent. I have translated ambiguously, “this virtue.” I follow Zhu Xi/Karlgren, understanding yu 聿 (then, L 42) as opening particle—Mao gives glosses as shu述 (to expound), which Cheng-Jiang translate as zunxing 遵行 (to act on). The shi 師of L 45 (its way, commonly, troops/lead), Zheng Xuan glosses as zhong 眾 (masses), which Cheng-Jiang say refer to the people (人民renmin), and Zhu Xi translates as tianxia 天下 (empire). By whatever formulation, it means before Shang-yin lost its right to rule, it did have Heaven’s mandate. Jian 鑒 (reflect on, L 46), is a term for mirror, or to look in a mirror, thus to investigate.

The last stanza, said to be instructions for King Cheng, uses the linking verse from the stanza above to exhort the continuation King Wen’s legacy, as first paraphrased by Zheng Xuan and followed throughout. Most of the multiple glosses offered by Mao are maintained up to Cheng-Jiang, and my translation follows. L 52 is understood to mean that the fate of Shang-Yin was Heaven’s doing. Zai 載 (task, L 53) was glossed by Mao as shi事 (affair/duty), and translated by Kargren as “The actions of Heaven.” Since the term also means “load,” I was tempted to translate it as “burden,” but instead diverged to “ways” to fit the sense of L 54. Zheng Xuan translates these lines as, “The Way of Heaven is difficult to understand, it has no sound, it has no smell. Model on the actions of King Wen, then the empire will have belief and follow along” 天之道，難知也。耳不聞聲音，鼻不聞香臭，儀法文王之事，則天下咸信而順之 .

Comment: This is one of any number of poems that promote the good governance of King Wen, which is said to have led to obtaining Heaven’s mandate, thus the destruction (posthumously for King Wen) of Shang-Yin by his son, King Wu. Note that during his lifetime King Wen was never called wang (king) but rather just Xibo 西伯 (Lord of the West). The language of the poem is not as stilted as the early Zhou Hymns, but still has a rather formal tone. I have on occasion relied on slightly stilted formal English forms, such as inversions, “from Heaven came,” to suggest this quality. As Cheng-Jiang argue, the poem displays a strict form and over all structure that contributes to its sense of narrative coherence.