CHAPTER XXI.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Zhuangzi and Giles, Herbert Allen
Prince Yüan of Sung desiring to draw a map, the officials of that department presented themselves, and after making obeisance stood waiting for the order, more than half of them already licking their brushes and mixing their ink.
One of them arrived late. He sauntered in without hurrying himself; and when he had made obeisance, did not wait but went off home.
The Prince sent a man to see what he did. He took off his clothes and squatted down bare-backed.
"He will do," cried the Prince. "He is a true artist."
The commentators do not get much out of this episode. Lin Hsi Chung damns it as a forgery.
When Wên Wang was on a tour of inspection in Tsang, he saw an old man fishing. But his fishing was not real fishing, for he did not fish to catch fish, but to amuse himself.
Wherefore, from the standpoint of Tao, he was the more likely to succeed.
So Wên Wang wished to employ him in the administration of government, but feared lest his own ministers, uncles, and brothers, might object. On the other hand, if he let the old man go, he could not bear to think of the people being deprived of such an influence.
Accordingly, that very morning he informed his ministers, saying, "I once dreamt that a Sage of a black colour and with a large beard, riding upon a parti-coloured horse with red stockings on one side, appeared and instructed me to place the administration in the hands of the old gentleman of Tsang, promising that the people would benefit greatly thereby."
The ministers at once said, "It is a command from your Highness' father."
"I think so," answered Wên Wang. "But let us try by divination."
"It is a command from your Highness' late father," said the ministers, "and may not be disobeyed. What need for divination?"
So the old man of Tsang was received and entrusted with the administration. He altered none of the existing statutes. He issued no unjust regulations. And when, after three years, Wên Wang made another inspection, he found all dangerous organisations broken up, the officials doing their duty as a matter of course, while the use of measures of grain was unknown within the four boundaries of the State. There was thus unanimity in the public voice, singleness of official purpose, and identity of interests to all.
So Wên Wang appointed the old man Grand Tutor; and then, standing with his face to the north,
An attitude of respect. Facing the south was the conventional position of a ruler.
asked him, saying, "Can such government be extended over the empire?"
The old man of Tsang was silent and made no reply. He then abruptly took leave, and by the evening of that same day had disappeared, never to be heard of again.
Yen Yüan said to Confucius, "If Wên Wang was unable to do this of himself, how was he able to do it by a dream?"
"Silence!" cried Confucius: "It is not for you to criticise Wên Wang who succeeded in fulfilling his mission. The dream was merely to satisfy the vulgar mind."
The whole episode is of course spurious.
Lieh Yü K'ou
Or Lieh Tzŭ. See ch. i.
instructed Po Hun Wu Jên
See ch. v.
in archery. Drawing the bow to its full, he placed a cup of water on his elbow and began to let fly. Hardly was one arrow out of sight ere another was on the string, the archer standing all the time like a statue.
"But this is shooting under ordinary conditions," cried Po Hun Wu Jên; "it is not shooting under extraordinary conditions. Now I will ascend a high mountain with you, and stand on the edge of a precipice a thousand feet in height, and see how you can shoot then."
Thereupon Wu Jên went with Lieh Tzŭ up a high mountain, and stood on the edge of a precipice a thousand feet in height, approaching it backwards until one-fifth of his feet overhung the chasm, when he beckoned to Lieh Tzŭ to come on. But the latter had fallen prostrate on the ground, with the sweat pouring down to his heels.
"The perfect man," said Wu Jên, "soars up to the blue sky, or dives down to the yellow springs,
The infernal regions.
or flies to some extreme point of the compass, without change of countenance. But you are terrified, and your eyes are dazed. Your internal economy is defective."
You have not Tao.
Chien Wu
See ch. i.
said to Sun Shu Ao,
A famous minister of the Ch'u State.
"Sir, you have been three times called to office without showing any elation, and you have been three times dismissed without displaying any chagrin. At first, I doubted you; but now I notice that your breathing is perfectly regular. How do you manage thus to control your emotions?"
"I am no better than other people," replied Sun Shu Ao. "I regard office when it comes as something which may not be declined; when it goes, as something which cannot be kept. To me both the getting and losing are outside my own self; and therefore I feel no chagrin. How am I better than other people?
"Besides, I am not conscious of office being either in the hands of others or in my own. If it is in the hands of others, my own personality disappears; if in mine, theirs. And amidst the cares of deliberation and investigation, what leisure has one for troubling about rank?"
When Confucius heard this, he said, "The perfect Sages of old!—cunning men could not defeat them; beautiful women could not seduce them; robbers could not steal from them;
They were unmoved in the face of danger.