Part 6, Chapter 1

Apologies for the long absence. I went fishing ;). Anyways, I'm back, and here's the rest of the Nerdy Fengshen Translation Blog!!

One morning, King Zhou attended to his Courtly duties, and met with the martial officers and the literati. This was the sight that day:

On a Throne of auspicious clouds and golden gilt sat the King
The martial officers and the literati were surrounded with lights of good fortune as they stood before the stage of white jade.
Heavy smoke from stoves of gold met with pearly drapes as they rose
[The next line is particularly obscure and I shall not bother with it. I'm sure you will get the gist of this piece of doggerel.]

The King, the Son of Heaven, then said to his men, ‘Speak up if you have any business; if not, you may leave this morning.’ As he uttered the last of his words, he saw a man, who was to his right, approach his gilded throne and prostrate himself before it.

The man cried out in a loud voice, ‘I am your servant and your Prime Minister, Shang Rong, and I am in charge of Courtly Duties. If I have any business, I will not hesitate to inform you of it; I should not dare to keep it to myself. Tomorrow is the 15th day of the Third Moon, and the birthday of the Goddess Nuwa, and I beg of my liege to go to her temple to burn incense!’

‘And why is this Nuwa great? Why should we burn incense to her?’ asked the King.

Shang Rong replied, ‘The Goddess Nuwa is the daughter of Shangdi, the Lord from On High; she was born with wisdom and grace. At the beginning of time, the head of the God Gonggongshi could not reach around each and every mountain, and the sky tilted to the northwest, and the earth sunk to the southeast. Nuwa then took some five-coloured stones and patched up the blue sky, and that was how she helped us mortals, and henceforth we made sacrifices of hemp and corn to her as a token of our gratitude. If our capital Chaoge were to continue with our worship of this benevolent Goddess, we will be assured of good fortune, stable rule, good weather, and riddance of pestilance. This is one protective, benevolent and just Goddess, and my liege would be wise to burn incense to her!’

‘Then I shall do so,’ said the King, and he gave his command to do so as he retired.

The next day, the King set off in his carriage, accompanied by his martial officers and his literati, for the Temple of the Goddess Nuwa.

At this instance, it would have been better if King Zhou had not gone to burn incense at the Temple of Nuwa; it took but the burning of only a few sticks of incense to invite chaos to the world and for this King to lose his Kingdom.