Some people say that Confucius deleted only 300 poems from The Book of Songs. Why did he delete them?

The Book of Songs, written about 1000 BC, is China's first poetry collection. It was first called "poem". Because it was handed down by Mao Gong, also known as "Biography of Mao", it was a ballad of the slave age. There are more than 3,000 volumes of The Book of Songs, which record the ballads of the ancient three generations and the mid-Spring and Autumn Period.

Confucius began to sort out the Book of Songs around 500 BC, deleting about 90% of the length, and finally only 305 articles were left, so later people called it "Poetry 300". According to various historical records, there are many songs in the 3000 articles of The Book of Songs in the Yellow Emperor's era, such as "Breaking bamboo and continuing bamboo to fly the soil and eat meat" and "I plow the fields and eat, but I dig wells and drink. What is Dili to me? " And Shun Di's poems about "Qing Yun Ge", such as "Qing Yun is brilliant, awkward, the sun shines, Fudan Xi", were all deleted by Confucius. Then why did Confucius delete these?

Confucius is a man with ideals. He and his horse-drawn carriage lobbied in various countries for 14 years, and finally returned to Shandong. At this time, Confucius was old, but he was not willing to fail and began to sort out ancient books in order to create a yardstick for future generations. The Book of Songs is the first ancient book compiled by Confucius. His criteria for deletion and revision are: first, to remove duplication, just like the "de-duplication" mechanism of our headline posting, so as to remove part;

Second, you can use teaching materials to teach etiquette, and get rid of it that does not conform to etiquette; Third, materials can be used in kingcraft, and those that do not conform to kingcraft can be removed; Fourth, strive to make every article worthy of the voice of the temple string songs, and the people are vulgar; Sixth, delete impure content, such as "Zheng Sheng fornication, release Zheng Sheng"; Therefore, the Book of Songs compiled by Confucius reached such a high standard: "Poetry is 300, in a word, thinking is innocent!"