Abstract: This paper uses the death of Socrates in Plato's Dialogues as reference to examine the chapter "The Metal-bound Coffer"(jinteng) of the Book of Documents and Zheng Xuan's annotation on the chapter "The Owls"(chixiao) of The Book of Odes. By comparing the story of the Duke of Zhou with the death of Socrates in Plato's Dialogues, the paper analyses the structural, social and individual significance of the texts. First of all, the types of ritual and language style in The Metal-bound Coffer are examined. As the substitute of King Wu, the Duke of Zhou was a pledge of the royal family, but because of his special role as the regent for his nephew King Cheng, he also easily became a scapegoat. Second, the Warring States scholars' writing showed that the Duke's regency had caused a great controversy in political philosophy at that time. Third, in his annotation of The Mental-bound Coffer and The Owls, Zheng Xuan portrayed the Duke as a moral exemplar, emphasizing on his susceptibleness of being made of a scapegoat but much more so on his strong character to overcome adversaries. On the whole, the stories of Socrates and the Duke are the result of a transformation from collective scapegoating to individual one. Socrates lived an "aloof" life, but his life style was difficult to be accepted by Athenians who did not develop an Indian"renunciation". However, unlike ancient Greeks, "retirement/seclusion" was popular philosophical position and political gesture in ancient China. To counter the image of the Duke as a tirannos, Zheng Xuan highlighted his political retirement(of seclusion), not once but twice in his writing. Through his annotation, Zheng praised the Duke's extraordinary political and military achievements and established him as a moral exemplar in Chinese history, and all this was accomplished through the Duke of Zhou's own poems as well as those written for him by others.

Key words: The Duke of Zhou, scapegoat, anti-scapegoat, substitute, exemplar, retirement