191. 夏傳子

 

Hsia4 ch'uan2 tsu3

Hsia transmit child 

Under the Hsia dynasty the throne was transmitted from father to son

Hsia see line 57. 

Ch'uan see line 163. 

Tzu see line 11. [Up to the time of the Great Yü, some virtuous man had always been chosen as successor to the reigning monarch, a system, which Yü himself strove to carry on. After his death, however, his nominee was set aside and his own son was appointed.] 

192. 家天下

Chia1 t'ien1 hsia4

Family heaven below 

making a family possession of the empire. 

Chia is composed of 冖 mien shelter as radical, and 豭 chia a boar, abbreviated, as phonetic. It is the equivalent of our word home, a pig under a roof forming an ideogram which should be especially suggestive to our neighbours in the sister isle. 

T'ien see line 50. 

Hsia is composed under its old form of a line below a line, thus forming an ideogram (line 75). It is now classed under radical —  i one. [Under heaven, all beneath the canopy of the sky, is the common term for the empire, as being commensurate with the world. For the above two lines Eitel has, "(As to the time occupied by each Dynasty,) as the founder of the Hsia delivered the throne to his son (B.C. 2197), his family possessed all the country to Heaven subject."] 

193. 四百載

Ssu4 pai3 tsai3

Four hundred year

After four hundred years, 

Ssu see title. 

Pai see line 46. 

Tsai4 is composed of 車 ch'e cart as radical, and an obsolete phonetic (line 151), and originally meant to contain, to load, full, complete, etc. Read tsai 3 it means a year, which sense seems to have been derived from full, complete. There are however other and more fanciful explanations. [Four hundred is a round number. The Hsia dynasty lasted from B.C. 2205—1766. Eitel says to 1818, but this was the date of the accession of the last Emperor.] 

194遷夏社

Chien1 hsia4 she4 

Move Hsia sacrifice 

the Imperial sacrifice passed from the House of Hsia. 

Ch'ien see line 6. 

Hsia see line 57. 

She is composed of 示 shih divine manifestation as radical, and 土 t'u earth, and originally meant lord or spirit of the earth; hence, sacrifices to such spirits, the sacrificial communion of the Emperor, the Son of Heaven, with the Supreme Being. [Eitel has, "When at last Heaven removed Hia's tutelary altar. " But there is no need to supply Heaven as a subject to ch’ien; the root idea is sufficient.]