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This ode, like the ninth of the second decade, is attributed to duke Mu of Shao. The structure of the piece is peculiar, for, after the first stanza, we have king Win introduced delivering a series of warnings to Kau-hsin, the last king of the Shang dynasty.
They are put into Win's mouth, in the hope that Li, if, indeed, he was the monarch whom the writer had in view, would transfer the figure of Kau-hsin to himself, and alter his course so as to avoid a similar ruin. How vast is God, The ruler of men below! How arrayed in terrors is God, With many things irregular in his ordinations.
"It is true," said Mencius, "for it is so written in the 'Shu King. But if a sovereign acts as Kieh did he is no longer a sovereign but a robber, and to be dealt with as such. And if a ruler is, like Kau-hsin, the enemy of his people, he is no longer their ruler, and therefore to be put out of the way, and how better than by death?"
According to Sze-mg Khien the marquis of Khung had slandered the lord of Kau, who was president of the states of the west, to Kau-hsin, the king of Shang, and our hero was put in prison. His friends succeeded in effecting his deliverance by means of various gifts to the tyrant, and he was reinstated In the west with more than his former power.
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