1. When the sixth month had come, the turmoil of war Burst suddenly forth, and each quick-harnessed car Stood ready to move, with its steeds keen and strong, While heavier cars bore the baggage along. Fierce blazing, the Hsien-yun had mustered their men; No recreant there, all was urgency then. The king gave the word; we were mustered and gone, To rescue from foemen the kingdom and throne.

2. Well matched in their strength were the horses, and black, And trained to the reins, as they tighten or slack. Ere the sixth month was o'er, the field we could take; No more preparation we needed to make. With all our accouterments fully complete, Each day thirty li went our hurrying feet. The king gave the word; we were mustered and gone, With courage all ardent to help Heaven's son.

3. Long and stout were the steeds, attached to each car, With broad heads that scented the battle afar. We smote the Hsien-yun, and great merit obtained, Nor flagged in our efforts till triumph was gained. The eye of our leader was careful and stern, Discharging his service, bright glory to earn; Determined the war to such issue to bring, As would firmly establish the throne of the king.

4. For themselves badly judging, the Hsien-yun go, Bold to occupy Chiao, and seize upon Ho. Hao and Fang they o'erran, still issuing forth, Till, crossing the King, they pressed onto the north. Our flags showed the falcons in blazonry bright, And gayly their streamers all fluttered in white. Ten chariots of war, all imposing and strong, Led proudly the van of our conquering throng.

5. The workmen had labored to perfect each car, Well balanced, before and behind, for the war. Its four steeds were mighty, unmatched in their strain, And yielding at once to each touch of the rein. We smote the Hsien-yun; ay, we conquered, and then We pursued them in flight to the far T'a-yuan. As in peace, so in war, our Chi-fu is great, Affording a pattern to all in each state.

6. And now at the banquet, forgotten all care, He feasts with his friends, feeling happiness rare. The tedious marches are all over now,— The marches we traveled, returning from Hao. To his friends the bright spirits his welcome convey; Minced carp and roast turtle the mats all display. And who are the guests? There above every other Sits Chang Chung, renowned as a son and a brother.

About this reader

What is Scripture?

Scripture is a browser-based reader for sixteen sacred texts spanning multiple religious and literary traditions. It provides chapter-by-chapter navigation, full-text search across all works, word concordance with frequency analysis, verse-linked notes, text-to-speech, and deep linking to any chapter or verse.

Traditions Represented

The collection spans Abrahamic, East Asian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Finnish, and Norse traditions. It includes King James biblical text and Apocrypha, Pickthall's Quran, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, Legge's Four Books, Tao Te Ching, and Book of Poetry, Chamberlain's Kojiki, West's Bundahishn, Kern's Lotus Sutra, Haug and West's Arda Viraf, Crawford's Kalevala, and Bellows' Poetic Edda.

The committed manifests and chapter files currently describe 121 books, 2,724 chapters, and 63,141 verse records. In poetry and prose works, a verse record can represent a line or paragraph rather than a canonically numbered scriptural verse.

Licensing

The application source is AGPL-3.0. Generated text downloads and their structured arrangement are CC BY-SA 4.0; the underlying historic source texts are treated as public-domain inputs. The corpus metadata therefore describes the distributed arrangement with its CC BY-SA license rather than the Public Domain Mark.

Concordance and Related Passages

The concordance is an exact-word occurrence index with linked records grouped by work. Related Passages is separate: a TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency) cosine-similarity index compares chapter vocabulary after stop-word removal and stores up to five cross-book matches above its threshold. It is a lexical discovery aid, not a claim of historical or theological equivalence.

Deep Linking

Every chapter and verse has a permanent URL. Chapter links follow the pattern /scripture/{work}/{book}-{chapter} (e.g., /scripture/ot/gen-1 for Genesis 1). Verse links append the verse number (e.g., /scripture/ot/gen-1:26 for Genesis 1:26). These URLs can be shared, bookmarked, or cited directly.

Accessibility

Scripture supports keyboard navigation throughout: Tab moves between controls, Enter activates verse actions, and arrow keys navigate chapters. The reading pane has a skip-to-content link. All overlays (search, concordance) are focus-trapped ARIA dialogs. Dynamic content regions use aria-live for screen reader announcements. Light and dark themes are available through the theme toggle. Verse numbers are visible to assistive technology. No flashing content or motion hazards.

Scripture is part of a suite of educational simulations at a9l.im. Explore particle physics with Geon, redistricting with Gerry, or cellular metabolism with Cyano.