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Our lord ought not assist dancing with axes, for (in) that will be favorable. Used. The Many Dancers had a calamity drawing in a trident.328 325 An alternative is to read 女 as it is written, but in the plural— “women”, and meaning “women” of the house. For the graph 女as writing the word 母—and then as a rebus for the negative 毋, see 208.3. 326 Perhaps meaning “continue” to make test divinations about other people; see 339 and 441. A less likely alternative is to read the word as the name of a person. 327 is likely the ancestral form of zhuan 轉 “whorl”, to be read here as a phonetic loan for zhu 助 “assist” (Li Xueqin 2011: 2). It is an elaborated form of the modal copula hui 叀. This same graph occurs parallel with you 右 “assist” in the Western Zhou bronze inscription Lu Bo Dong gui 录伯冬簋 (JC 4302): 右闢四方,叀(助) 大命 “Aided in opening up the four quarters; assisted in extending the great command.” 328 I read ji 棘 “thorns” as a phonetic loan for ji 戟 “trident”. The choice of 棘 as a loan for 戟 was precisely because both had multiple branch protrusions that could stab (ci 刺). The defini- tion for 戟in the Shuowen jiezi says: 戟, 有枝兵也…《周禮》：戟，長丈六尺。讀若棘 “Ji is a branched weapon…The Zhou Li: ‘Ji, a long stick of six feet.’ Read like ji 棘”. This Eastern Han definition reveals an image association between 戟 “trident”, 枝 “branches” and 棘 “thorns”. According to the Da Dai Liji 大戴禮記 (“Xia Xiaozheng” 夏小正), performers called “Wan” 万 danced with weapons: 万也者, 干戚舞也 “Wan dance with shield and axe”; see 450.4 commen- tary. 218 | HYZ 208