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Root / 中國漢文 / clean / 商殷朝 / 花園庄（洹北） / 花园庄东地甲骨 / 英譯文 / HYZ 226.7.txt
On Gengshen, sacrifice (to) Ancestress Geng one bull. Our lord read the crack and said, “Watch in person…346 and return on my own. 347 The Many Servitors will kill (it).348 1 this instance, the wife of Ancestor Yi, who had a lower ritual status than her husband, is incor- porated into her husband’s Yi-rite. The form of these divinations are identical. Each contains two clauses that start with the date of the ritual event and continue as: Sacrifice + ancestor name + animal type and quantity (initial clause) Carve + ancestor name + name of event (final clause) The days of the ritual carving event match the day names of the ancestors in the second clause, whereas the names of the ancestors mentioned in the initial clause, and for whom the sacrifices were made, do not match the date. The ram, cow, and sow were contributory sacrifices made in the name of one ancestor to another who was intimately related and senior to him/her. See Schwartz 2019. 342 Based on dates in divinations before and after this one, Wu 戊 is shorthand for Wuwu 戊 午, day 55/60. 343 I read this graph as a variant form of guan 祼 “ale libation”. The ritual combination of an ale libation and a beheading occurs elsewhere in this corpus and regularly in divinations for the Shang kings. See 236. 鬯一is parallel with 又(有)鬯 (236). This comparison suggests that the verb phrase 鬯 could be written in shorthand (minus the “altar” classifier) as 又鬯. 345 Kou you fa 口有伐 also occurs on 255 in a divination dated Jiayin, day 51/60. The rarity of this word-ordering and the fact that both shells were found close to one another in Pit H3 implies they originally formed a set. I read 口 as the graphically similar yue 曰 “utter, say, declare”. There are numerous instances in Shang oracle bone and bronze inscriptions of this interchange; for instance, the sentence Wang kou si 王口司(祀), which occurs on period V oracle bone inscriptions, is read by Qiu Xigui ([1999] 2012: 467-472) as though it wrote 王曰司 (祀) “The king said, ‘Offer sacrifice’”. The subject of the declaration was likely the patron of the divination practice, “our lord”. I understand it as part of the divination charge, but it is also possible to interpret it as a judgment (i.e., “Said, ‘There will be/Have a beheading’”), since it comes at the end of the account. 346 The missing graph in the prognostication is still partially visible: . The top part (the “horns”) resembles “sheep” yang 羊or Qiang 羌, and the lower part looks like 儿. The ZSKY Editors read it 羌. Yao Xuan’s transcription leaves it blank 囗. HYZ 227 | 229