| | All life does not arise from the transformation of a single vital energy; growth is not the responsibility of a single thing; and completion is not the achievement of a single form. Therefore, where many uprightnesses accumulate, blessings will reach no one left behind. Where many evils accumulate, calamity will not fail to befall anyone. Their winds and rains are not timely; their sweet rain does not descend; their frost and snow do not occur at the proper time; cold and heat are out of season. Yin and Yang lose their order, the Four Seasons change their rhythms, the people indulge and decay without stability, birds and beasts fail to reproduce as their embryos dissolve, grasses and trees remain stunted and unthriving, and the five grains wither and do not mature. If this is considered music, how could it be so? Therefore, in the most chaotic transformation of society, rulers and ministers betray each other; elders and juniors kill one another; fathers and sons endure mutual cruelty; brothers falsely accuse one another; close friends turn against each other; husbands and wives deceive one another. Day by day they face danger, losing human norms. Their hearts become like those of beasts, nurturing evil for selfish gain, knowing nothing of righteousness or reason.
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| | The appearance of their clouds resembles dogs, horses, white cranes, and a multitude of chariots; There is one that appears like a human being, clad in blue robes with a red head, unmoving; its name is Tianheng. There is another whose appearance resembles a suspended cauldron and is red in color; its name is Yunjing. There is one that looks like many horses fighting, and its name is Huma. There is one whose appearance resembles numerous plants blooming and growing upward, yellow on top and white below; its name is the Banner of Chiyou. The sun has phenomena of eclipses, double halos, corona and earrings, lack of brightness, insufficient shadows, multiple suns appearing together, daylight blindness, and stars visible in the daytime. The moon has phenomena of partial eclipses, halos and earrings, partial blindness, four moons appearing together, two moons visible at the same time, a small moon following a large one, a large moon following a small one, an eclipse where the moon covers a star, and instances when it appears but emits no light. The stars include Yinghuo, comet stars, Tianbang, Tianzhan, Tianzhu, Tianying, Tiangan, zhaixing (bandit stars), douxing (fighting stars), and binxing (attending stars). The atmospheric phenomena include those that extend upward without connecting to the heavens and downward without reaching the earth, those broad at the top but narrowing below, those resembling waves of water, and those like sails on a mountain. In spring they appear yellow; in summer black; in autumn blue-green; and in winter red. The omens of calamity include things that grow like ribbons, ghosts throwing themselves against the city walls, hares giving birth to pheasants, and pheasants also producing small birds; swarms of caterpillars gathering in the state, their sound noisy and tumultuous. There are wandering snakes moving from west to east, horses and cattle speaking, dogs and pigs mating unnaturally, wolves entering the country, people descending from heaven, hawks dancing in the marketplace, creatures walking while flying in the land, horses growing horns, roosters with five feet, pigs born fully grown, many chicken eggs containing false forms, altars changing their locations, and pigs giving birth to dogs. If a state has such phenomena and its ruler does not feel alarmed or hastily reform, Heaven will send down calamity, and misfortune will surely come swiftly. Its people's destruction, death, and mourning will be total; they will perish without descendants and scatter in hunger with no day free from suffering. These are all phenomena born of a chaotic state; they cannot be fully counted, and even the bamboo from Jing and Yue would not suffice to record them all. Therefore, Zi Huazi said: "The people of a chaotic age are tall and short, uneven in stature, plagued by myriad illnesses. The populace suffers from many diseases and plagues; the roads are filled with infants in swaddling clothes carried by their parents, the blind, the bald, the hunchbacked, and the crippled—every kind of strange phenomenon is born." Therefore, how can a ruler in a chaotic age ever hear of true music? Not having heard of true music, their so-called music is not truly joyful.
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