תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

smiled and said, 'Now, indeed, shall I be without anxiety! My undertakings will not come to nought. They will be carried on and flourish1.'

After the death of Confucius, Chî became a pupil, it is said, of the philosopher Tsăng. But he received his instructions with discrimination, and in one instance which is recorded in the Li Chî, the pupil suddenly took the place of the master. We there read:Tsăng said to Tsze-sze, "Chî, when I was engaged in mourning for my parents, neither congee nor water entered my mouth for seven days." Tsze-sze answered, "In ordering their rules of propriety, it was the design of the ancient kings that those who would go beyond them should stoop and keep by them, and that those who could hardly reach them should stand on tiptoe to do so. Thus it is that the superior man, in mourning for his parents, when he has been three days without water or congee, takes a staff to enable himself to rise 2.""

[ocr errors]

While he thus condemned the severe discipline of Tsăng, Tsze-sze appears, in various incidents which are related of him, to have been himself more than sufficiently ascetic. As he was living in great poverty, a friend supplied him with grain, which he readily received. Another friend was emboldened by this to send him a bottle of spirits, but he declined to receive it. You receive your corn from other people,' urged the donor, and why should you decline my gift, which is of less value? You can assign no ground in reason for it, and if you wish to show your independence, you should do so completely.' 'I am so poor,' was the reply, 'as to be in want, and being afraid lest I should die and the sacrifices not be offered to my ancestors, I accept the grain as an alms. But the spirits and the dried flesh which you offer to me are the appliances of a feast. For a poor man to be feasting is certainly unreasonable. This is the ground of my refusing your gift. I have no thought of asserting my independence 3.'

To the same effect is the account of Tsze-sze, which we have from Liû Hsiang. That scholar relates:When Chî was living in Wei, he wore a tattered coat, without any lining, and in thirty days had only nine meals. Tien Tsze-fang having heard of his

See the P, in the place just quoted from. For the incident we are

indebted to K'ung Fû; see note 3, p. 36.

四書集證 , as above.

2 Li Chî, II. Sect. I. ii. 7.

3 See the

distress, sent a messenger to him with a coat of fox-fur, and being afraid that he might not receive it, he added the message,—“ When I borrow from a man, I forget it; when I give a thing, I part with it freely as if I threw it away." Tsze-sze declined the gift thus offered, and when Tsze-fang said, “I have, and you have not; why will you not take it?" he replied, "You give away as rashly as if you were casting your things into a ditch. Poor as I am, I cannot think of my body as a ditch, and do not presume to accept your gift'."

Tsze-sze's mother married again, after Lî's death, into a family of Wei. But this circumstance, which is not at all creditable in Chinese estimation, did not alienate his affections from her. He was in Lû when he heard of her death, and proceeded to weep in the temple of his family. A disciple came to him and said, ‘Your mother married again into the family of the Shû, and do you weep for her in the temple of the K'ung?' 'I am wrong,' said Tsze-sze, 'I am wrong;' and with these words he went to weep elsewhere".

[ocr errors]

In his own married relation he does not seem to have been happy, and for some cause, which has not been transmitted to us, he divorced his wife, following in this, it has been wrongly said, the example of Confucius. On her death, her son, Tsze-shang3, did not undertake any mourning for her. Tsze-sze's disciples were surprised and questioned him. 'Did your predecessor, a superior man,' they asked, 'mourn for his mother who had been divorced?' 'Yes,' was the reply. Then why do you not cause Pâi1 to mourn for his mother?' Tsze-sze answered, 'My progenitor, a superior man, failed in nothing to pursue the proper path. His observances increased or decreased as the case required. But I cannot attain to this. While she was my wife, she was Pâi's mother; when she ceased to be my wife, she ceased to be Pâi's mother.' The custom of the K'ung family not to mourn for a mother who had been divorced, took its rise from Tsze-sze 5.

These few notices of K'ung Chi in his more private relations bring him before us as a man of strong feeling and strong will, independent, and with a tendency to asceticism in his habits.

* See the 四書集證,

[blocks in formation]

Ź⇓ must be understood as I have done above, and not with Chẳng Hsüan,

[blocks in formation]

As a public character, we find him at the ducal courts of Wei, Sung, Lû, and Pî, and at each of them held in high esteem by the rulers. To Wei he was carried probably by the fact of his mother having married into that State. We are told that the prince of Wei received him with great distinction and lodged him honourably. On one occasion he said to him, 'An officer of the State of Lû, you have not despised this small and narrow Wei, but have bent your steps hither to comfort and preserve it;-vouchsafe to confer your benefits upon me.' me.' Tsze-sze replied, 'If I should wish to requite your princely favour with money and silks, your treasuries are already full of them, and I am poor. If I should wish to requite it with good words, I am afraid that what I should say would not suit your ideas, so that I should speak in vain and not be listened to. The only way in which I can requite it, is by recommending to your notice men of worth.' The duke said, 'Men of worth are exactly what I desire.' 'Nay,' said Chî, 'you are not able to appreciate them.' 'Nevertheless,' was the reply, 'I should like to hear whom you consider deserving that name.' Tsze-sze replied, 'Do you wish to select your officers for the name they may have or for their reality?' 'For their reality, certainly,' said the duke. His guest then said, 'In the eastern borders of your State, there is one Lî Yin, who is a man of real worth.' 'What were his grandfather and father?' asked the duke. 'They were husbandmen,' was the reply, on which the duke broke into a loud laugh, saying, 'I do not like husbandry. The son of a husbandman cannot be fit for me to employ. I do not put into office all the cadets of those families even in which office is hereditary.' Tsze-sze observed, 'I mention Li Yin because of his abilities; what has the fact of his forefathers being husbandmen to do with the case? And moreover, the duke of Châu was a great sage, and K'ang-shû was a great worthy. Yet if you examine their beginnings, you will find that from the business of husbandry they came forth to found their States. I did certainly have my doubts that in the selection of your officers you did not have regard to their real character and capacity.' With this the conversation ended. The duke was silent1.

Tsze-sze was naturally led to Sung, as the K'ung family originally sprang from that principality. One account, quoted in The

1 See the 氏姓譜,卷一百二,孔氏,孔伋.

Four Books, Text and Commentary, with Proofs and Illustrations',' says that he went thither in his sixteenth year, and having foiled an officer of the State, named Yo So, in a conversation on the Shû Ching, his opponent was so irritated at the disgrace put on him by a youth, that he listened to the advice of evil counsellors, and made an attack on him to put him to death. The duke of Sung, hearing the tumult, hurried to the rescue, and when Chî found himself in safety, he said, 'When king Wăn was imprisoned in Yû-lî, he made the Yî of Châu. My grandfather made the Ch'un Ch'iû after he had been in danger in Chăn and Ts'âi. Shall I not make something when rescued from such a risk in Sung?' Upon this he made the Chung Yung in forty-nine p'ien.

According to this account, the Chung Yung was the work of Tsze-sze's early manhood, and the tradition has obtained a wonderful prevalence. The notice in 'The Sacrificial Canon' says, on the contrary, that it was the work of his old age, when he had finally settled in Lû, which is much more likely2.

Of Tsze-sze in Pi, which could hardly be said to be out of Lû, we have only one short notice,-in Mencius, V. Pt. II. iii. 3, where the duke Hûi of Pi is introduced as saying, 'I treat Tsze-sze as my master.'

We have fuller accounts of him in Lû, where he spent all the latter years of his life, instructing his disciples to the number of several hundred3, and held in great reverence by the duke Mû. The duke indeed wanted to raise him to the highest office, but he declined this, and would only occupy the position of a 'guide, philosopher, and friend.' Of the attention which he demanded, however, instances will be found in Mencius, II. Pt. II. xi. 3; V. Pt. II. vi. 4, and vii. 4. In his intercourse with the duke he spoke the truth to him fearlessly. In the 'Cyclopædia of Surnames,' I find the following conversations, but I cannot tell from what source they are extracted into that Work.-'One day, the duke said to Tsze-sze, "The officer Hsien told me that you do good without

1 This is the Work so often referred to as the 4, the full title being 四書經註集證. ⠀⠀. The passage here translated from it will be found in the place 2 The author of the 四書拓餘說

several times referred to in this section.

adopts the view that the Work was composed in Sung. Some have advocated this from ch. xxviii. 5, compared with Ana. III. ix, 'it being proper,' they say, 'that Tsze-sze, writing in Sung, should not depreciate it as Confucius had done out of it!' 3 See in the 'Sacri4 This is the Work referred to in note 1, p. 40.

ficial Canon,' on Tsze-sze.

wishing for any praise from men;-is it so?" Tsze-sze replied, "No, that is not my feeling. When I cultivate what is good, I wish men to know it, for when they know it and praise me, I feel encouraged to be more zealous in the cultivation. This is what I desire, and am not able to obtain. If I cultivate what is good, and men do not know it, it is likely that in their ignorance they will speak evil of me. So by my good-doing I only come to be evil spoken of. This is what I do not desire, but am not able to avoid. In the case of a man, who gets up at cock-crowing to practise what is good and continues sedulous in the endeavour till midnight, and says at the same time that he does not wish men to know it, lest they should praise him, I must say of such a man, that, if he be not deceitful, he is stupid."

[ocr errors]

Another day, the duke asked Tsze-sze, saying, 'Can my state be made to flourish?' 'It may,' was the reply. And how?' Tsze-sze said, 'O prince, if you and your ministers will only strive to realise the government of the duke of Châu and of Po-ch'in; practising their transforming principles, sending forth wide the favours of your ducal house, and not letting advantages flow in private channels;—if you will thus conciliate the affections of the people, and at the same time cultivate friendly relations with neighbouring states, your state will soon begin to flourish.'

On one occasion, the duke asked whether it had been the custom of old for ministers to go into mourning for a prince whose service and state they had left. Tsze-sze replied to him, 'Of old, princes advanced their ministers to office according to propriety, and dismissed them in the same way, and hence there was that rule. But now-a-days, princes bring their ministers forward as if they were going to take them on their knees, and send them away as if they would cast them into an abyss. If they do not treat them as their greatest enemies, it is well.-How can you expect the ancient practice to be observed in such circumstances1?'

These instances may suffice to illustrate the character of Tsze-sze, as it was displayed in his intercourse with the princes of his time. We see the same independence which he affected in private life, and a dignity not unbecoming the grandson of Confucius. But we miss the reach of thought and capacity for administration which belonged to the Sage. It is with him, how

This conversation is given in the Li Chi, II. Sect. II. Pt. ii. 1.

« הקודםהמשך »