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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 475.9.txt
Divined on Xinhai: Our lord said, “I, on a Bing day, will invite His High- ness.” His Highness commanded our lord, saying, “Go together with Lady Hao to plant wheat in Man.” Our lord will invite (him). Trusted.580 1 580 What the diviner wants an answer to in this pair of divination statements (8-9) is whether or not his lord should invite the king to drink ale some time before day Bing of the following week (perhaps day Renzi). The diviner uses an antithetical pair, first posing the proposition a negative mode and then following it with a proposition in the positive mode. The direct speech utterances preceding the focus of the charge statements provide a context. Originally the pro- tagonist planned to invite the king to drink on day Bingchen (53/60). The king however had said that he would not be going to plant wheat in Man, and commanded him to accompany HYZ 477A-477B | 375