This was for atonement, for long ago by the Yang-tzekiang I should have died, and behold, I have lived until now.

To save my friends from the pain of killing me I fled and lived; but at last here at this place I said to myself that I must die.

So, secretly, I made this cellar into a temple.
"That was a year ago, and I sent to my brother the Duke Ki to speak to him what was in my mind, so that he might send my kinsmen to me, that when I came to die, it should be after the manner ordained by the Son of Heaven; that my body should be clothed according to the ancient rites by my own people, my mouth filled with rice, and the meats, and grains and fruits of sacrifice be placed on a mat at the east of my body when I died; that the curtain should be hung before my corpse; that I should be laid upon a mat of fine bamboo, and dressed, and prepared for my grave, and put into a noble coffin as becomes a superior man.

Did not the Son of Heaven say that we speak of the end of a superior man, but we speak of the death of a small man?
I was a superior man, but I have lived as a small man these many days; and now, behold, I am drawing near to my end as a superior man.
"I wished that nothing should be forgotten; that all should be done when I, of the house of the Duke Ki, came to my superior end.

So, these my kinsmen came, these of my family, to be with me at my going, to call my spirit back from the roof-top with face turned to the north, to leap before my death-mat, to wail and bare the shoulders and bind the sackcloth about the head.
"I have served among the low people doing low things, and now I would die, but in the correct way.