Confucius, the greatest sage-philosopher in China, is generally assumed the compiler of Shih-ching 詩經, The Book of Odes. Though this has been disputed by Confucian scholars of different branches, yet viewing from Confucius' statement in The Analects 論語, "It was only after my return from Wei to Lu that music was revised, Court Pieces and Ancestral Recitations being at last properly discriminated," we come to the assumption that the compilation was done by him with his consideration of the musical decisiveness. That is, in Shin- ching, he rendered conformable the musical to the poetic. Yet inview of the functions of haing 興, kuan 觀, chUn 群yilan 怨, amongthe 305 poems, 70/160 of kuo-feng 國風, and 37/74 of hsiao-ya 小雅,are poems of ytlan, complaints, we then come to the conclusion thatConfucius, as he did not cross them off the Book, meant to achievethe immediate function of feng, satire. Confucius once said: "Women and people of low birth are veryhard to deal with." The sage's famous, negative comment on womenhas been widely assumed as a severe bias against them. Yet the 72poems about women in Shin-ching show an evidence contrary to thestatement. Among them, 12 poems are pieces condemning the womenof notoriety noted in Chinese history, the remaining 60 poems, arepieces written by both the poetesses and the poets that sang of theprecious virtues of women. This fact obviously manifests thatConfucius is himself the admirer, or at least sympathizer of thevirtuous women. The four norms set up are used to decipher the 72heroines' personalities. They may reveal Confucius' fair, impartialattitude toward women of virtue, while the condemned ones arewomen that influenced the history negatively, being deficient ofthese virtues.