《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書（二）•昔者君老》是一篇國君將要去世，太子朝君，銜悲在側的記錄。內容與《尚書•顧命》有相關之處，也有不同的重點。〈昔者君老〉說明了國君將要去世時，太子是隨侍在側的，而國君的弟弟則是擔任引導人的身分，全篇文字簡潔細膩，精準地傳達出周代王位繼承法的精嚴，及太子在君父去世前後應有的做為及態度。本文對〈昔者君老〉進行了全面的考釋，並且和《尚書•顧命》做了重點的比較。
The passage beginning with the line ”On the death of the king,” in the Warring States Period text, Chu Bamboo Strips (Ⅱ), in the collection of the Shanghai Museum, records that at the time the king was dying, his son, the crown prince, had an audience with him. The text portrays the crown prince as being present at the deathbed of the king. The king's younger brother had the duty of taking the crown prince to see the dying king. This passage is written succinctly, finely and smoothly; it describes the rigorous procedure for a solemn inheritance of the throne during the Zhou dynasty. The crown prince dutifully performed the mourning rites due to the king around the time he passed away. My paper conducts a thorough investigation of the passage and offers an explanation of the text and the ways it resembles and differs from the ”Guming” chapter of the Book of Documents.
