Corpus Viewer
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 290.7.txt
Divined on Jiawu: (We) should make an exorcism rite and provide viands441 in the afternoon; in the afternoon of Yiwei there will be an Yi-rite and ale libation to Da Yi. Used. 1 438 This divination account implies that Wei was not a member of the group called “our lord’s servitors” Zi chen 子臣. Lady Hao’s order for the protagonist to follow Wei and not to follow one of his own servitors further suggests that Wei belonged to the duo chen 多臣 “Many Servitors”, that he primarily served the king and queen, and that he was ordered by them to safeguard their son. 439 The graph is spelled by reduplicating bing 丙 and is an early form of geng 更. I read it as a name and as the recipient of the ale libation. The syntax 子祼更 is the same as 子祼妣庚 “Our lord will libate ale (to) Ancestress Geng” (490.6) and 子祼小示 “Our lord will libate ale (to) the Lesser Altars” (459.9). A man called Geng, Elder 伯Geng, and Captain 師Geng appears in Wu Ding’s divination accounts dating from his early to early-middle period. After death this person was referred to in Wu Ding’s divinations as Geng Father Ren 更父壬 (HJ 1823); see Lin Huan and Sun Yabing 2010: 328-330. Jao Tsung-I (1959: 368) associates Geng with the Spring and Autumn period toponym Geng 郠, and locates in the area of modern Linshui county, Shandong 山東沂水縣. 440 Sun Yabing 2011a: 148, note 3. 441 Yao Xuan (2005: 27) reads 御as it is written yu 御 “present, attend”, and not as the ances- tral form of 禦 “exorcise, protect”. 御 does have a verbal meaning of “attend” in Western Zhou language, as in Yu gui 遹簋: 王饗酒, 遹御亡遣 “The king feasted and drank ale. Yu provided service without error.” As I understand it, the focus of this divination is the clause headed by HYZ 290 | 283