Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Nature | One of the Airs of the States in the Book of Songs, from the region of Bin |
| Form | An agricultural poem in eight stanzas of eighty-eight lines |
| Core content | Farming, seasonal signs, sericulture, hunting and sacrifice month by month |
| Distinctive feature | The poem uses two systems of month-numbering together, those of Xia and Zhou |
The two month-systems in the poem
What most repays attention is that beside lines such as “in the seventh month the Fire star sinks, in the ninth month we give out clothes” there stand “in the days of the first, the wind is icy; in the days of the second, the cold is biting.”
The “seventh month” and “ninth month” follow the Xia calendar, while “the days of the first” and “the days of the second” mean the first and second months of the Zhou calendar —
two month-systems in one poem, the most direct literary corroboration for the doctrine of the three zheng.
The doctrine of the three zheng holds that the three dynasties began the year at different points: Xia took the first month as its head, Yin the twelfth, Zhou the eleventh. ⚠ Note that zheng here means the month that heads the year, not the month-name “first month.” To “rectify the first month” was therefore to move the start of the year a month earlier, not to rename the first month.
Seasonal signs and the order of time
The poem lays out the seasonal signs by month: “in the fourth month the weeds flower, in the fifth month the cicada sings”; “in the seventh month it is in the fields, in the eighth under the eaves, in the ninth at the door, in the tenth the cricket enters under my bed.”
Such lines match the changes of insects, birds and plants to the months — the poetic form of telling time by seasonal signs.
Farming and sacrifice
The farming order is orderly: ploughing in spring, weeding in summer, harvest in autumn, storage in winter, with sericulture, gathering white southernwood, hunting and cutting ice besides.
The stanzas close on sacrifice and feasting in the ancestral hall.
Value
The ancients read “Seventh Month” as setting out how the royal enterprise arose.
For the history of the calendar its value lies above all in carrying two month-systems within one poem, giving the three-zheng doctrine a corroboration in popular song beside the institutional record.
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.