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L ANCIENt HIS_rORY. I_
the shamelessness of his consort, and which was k_ be
succeeded in its turn by a third, which time and luxury
would also emasculate and destroy.
The dynasty of Shang with its 28 sovereigns, lasting
644 years from t3. C. I766 to II23, was brought to an
awful close with the reign of the tyrant Chou _-I"_/_,
Noted like his prototype Chieh for his great physical
prowess, he was in addition a man of mental alertness,
"both of which gifts he prostituted to the gratification of
his passions, inventing orgies that put those of Nero into
the shade. Like Chieh, too, his debauchery arose from a •
passionate attachment to the woman who became his wife,
by name Ta Chi _ _, the beautiful daughter of the
Chief of Su _ against whom Chou had once marshalled
his troops. Again unbridled extravagance and disgraceful
revelry, to which was added horrible inhumanity,
plunged the country into the miseries of tyrannical ntis-
government. The wild excesses of Chi_n being insufficient
to gratify the voluptuous palate of this monster and his
evil wife, others were invented. A lake of wine in which
men and women wallowed and perished intoxicated, trees
hung with the choicest delicacies, naked men and women
drunk with wine chasing each other round the palace
gardens ; tortures of the most cruel description ; the heartless
bi'eaking of men's shin bones to see which had the
most marrow, the young or the old; the Heater for
burning men, the Roaster for grilling them alive; tile
disembowelling of men to examine their hearts, the chopping
of others to minced meat,--such a tale of debauchery,
callousness and woe as, if not exaggerated, has never been