Chinese poem illustration: 召南 小星/Shao Wind – Little Stars by Anonymous
Full video also available at Bilibili: 召南 小星
Stellars and stars being believed as the mandate of heaven, a King would know his fate: the mandate of heaven by observing the movement of stars especially Sun(太阳), Moon(太阴) and five planets(五行). This poem is mainly about stars which aroused huge arguments through the history. The believing in stellars faded as well as bewildered since Spring and Autumn Period(春秋), this might be the main reason why the explainations to this poem vary in later generations.
When oberserving the stellars, the position of stellars is drawn at the moment just after the sunset, the key indicating stellar of the day is the stellar just rise up the east horizon or the stellar at the dead south at its peak of the orbit. In this poem, both paragraph most probabaly indicate the stars just rise up in the east. The Tristars(参宿) indicates the statutory season to open war. In the video, the second paragraph being deciphered as at its orbit peak in south is of less possiblility. A good reference to Tristars(参宿) at its orbit peak is the words in 唐风 绸缪: 三星在天, the Tristars is high up in the heaven which indicates the time of spring festival.
召南 小星
佚名
嘒彼小星，三五在东。
肃肃宵征，夙夜在公。寔命不同。
嘒彼小星，维参与昴。
肃肃宵征，抱衾与裯。寔命不犹。
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