14 THE SILK GODDESS 



afterwards introduced into the Record of R i t e s or Li ki.. where it 

 forms the fourth book 60 , by a renowned scholar named Ma Yung (79-166 (/~ 

 a.d.) "In the last month of spring 61 , — the son of Heaven presents 

 robes yellow like the young leaves of the mulberry tree to the ancient 

 Ti or divine ruler 62 ." As the queens were not called Ti, this may in- 

 dicate a sacrifice not to the queens, but to the ancient Emperors, if not 

 perhaps to Huangti himself, looked upon as the initiator of the silk-worm v 

 f— industry. "In the same month, — the queen after vigil and fasting, 

 goes in person to the eastern fields to work on the mulberry trees. She 

 orders the wives and younger women (of the palace) not to wear their 

 ornamented dresses, and to suspend their woman's work, thus stimulating 

 them to attend to the business with the worms. When this has been 

 completed, she apportions the cocoons, weighs out (afterwards) the silk, 

 on which they go to work, .to supply the robes for the solsticial and other 

 great religious services, and for use in the aucestral temple; not one is 

 I allowed to be idle 63 ." 



" In the first month of summer, — when the work with the silk -worms 

 is over, the queen presents her cocoons ; and the tithe-tax of cocoons 

 generally is collected, according to the number of mulberry trees ; for 

 noble and mean, for old and young there is one law. The object is with 

 such cocoons to provide materials for the robes to be used at the sacrifices 

 in the suburbs and in the ancestral temple 64 ." 



25. Other parts of the same Ritual, the Li ki, refer to sericulture. 

 They are not nninteresting to read. In the chapter on Tsi-y or M e a n- 

 ing of sacrifice s 65 , it is said : 



Anciently the Son of Heaven and the feudal lords had their own mul- 

 berry trees anl silkworms' house ; the latter built near a river, ten 

 cubits in height, the surrounding walls being topped with thorns and 

 the gates closed on the outside. In the early morning of a very brighf 

 day, the ruler, in his skin cap and the white skirt, divined for the most 

 auspicious of the honourable ladies in the three palaces of his wife, who 

 were then employed to take the silkworms into the house. They washed 

 the seeds in the stream, gathered the leaves from the mulberry trees, and 

 dried them in the wind to feed the worms. 



When the (silkworm) year was ended, the honourable ladies had 

 finished their work with the insects, and carried the cocoons to show 

 them to the ruler. They then presented them to his wife, " Will not 

 these supply the materials for the ruler's robes ?" She forthwith received 

 them, wearing her head dress and the robe with pheasants on it, and 



