The Book of Songs, written around 1 BC, is the first collection of poems in China. It was first called "Poetry". Because it was handed down by Mao Gong, also known as "Biography of Mao", it was a ballad of the slave age. There were more than 3, books in The Book of Songs, which recorded the ballads of the three ancient generations and the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period.
Confucius began to sort out the Book of Songs around 5 BC, and about 9% of its length was deleted, leaving only 35 articles, so it was called "Three Hundred Poems" in later generations. According to various historical data, the 3 articles of The Book of Songs include many ballads of the Yellow Emperor's era, such as "Breaking bamboo, continuing bamboo, flying soil, eating meat by meat" and "I plow the fields and eat, but I dig wells and drink. What is Dili for me?" As well as the poem "Qing Yun Ge" written by Emperor Shun, such as "Qing Yun is rotten, awkward, the sun and the moon are shining, and Fudan Xi" were all deleted by Confucius. Then why did Confucius delete these?
Confucius is a man with ideals. He and Zilu took a carriage to lobby in various countries, which lasted for 14 years without success, and finally returned to Lu. At this time, Confucius was old, but he was not willing to fail, and began to sort out ancient books, with the aim of creating a criterion for future generations. The Book of Songs is the first ancient book compiled by Confucius. His criteria for deletion and revision are as follows: first, to remove duplicates, just like the "duplication elimination" mechanism of our headline posting, thus removing a part;
second, take materials that can be used to teach etiquette, and remove those that do not conform to etiquette; Third, the materials can be used in the king's way, and those that do not conform to the king's way are removed; Fourth, strive to make every article worthy of the voice of the temple string songs, and the people are too vulgar to get rid of it; Sixth, remove the impure content, such as "Zheng Sheng's fornication, releasing Zheng Sheng"; Therefore, the Book of Songs compiled by Confucius has reached such a high standard: "Poetry is 3, in a word, thinking is innocent!"