History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0438/04386.txt

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$Unique_ID{how04386}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Sayings Of Confucius, The
Part V}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Confucius}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{master
asked
duke
love
how
confucius
tzu-lu
right
three
footnote}
$Date{478bc}
$Log{}
Title:       Sayings Of Confucius, The
Author:      Confucius
Date:        478bc

Part V

Section 1

     [1] Tzu-lu asked how to rule.

     The Master said: "Lead the way: take pains."

     Asked to add more, he said: "Never flag."

     [2] When steward of the Chi, Chung-kung asked how to rule.

     The Master said: "Let officers act first: overlook small faults: raise
worth and talent."

     Chung-kung said: "How shall I learn to know the worth and talent I have
to raise?"

     "Raise those thou dost know," said the Master; "and those unknown to
thee, will other men pass by?"

     [3] Tzu-lu said: "The King of Wei ^1 looks to you, Sir, to govern. How
shall ye begin?"

     "If need were," said the Master, "by putting names right."

     "Indeed," said Tzu-lu, "that is far fetched, Sir! Why put them right?"

     "Yu," said the Master, "thou art ill-bred. On matters beyond his ken a
gentleman speaks with caution. If names are not right, words are misused. When
words are misused, affairs go wrong. When affairs go wrong, courtesy and music
droop. When courtesy and music droop, law and justice fail. And when law and
justice fail them, a people can move neither hand nor foot. So a gentleman
must be ready to put names into speech, to put words into deed. A gentleman is
nowise careless of words."

     [4] Fan Ch'ih asked to be taught husbandry.

[Footnote 1: See note to vii. 14. Tzu-lu was his officer.]

     The Master said: "I cannot rank with an old husbandman."

     He asked to be taught gardening.

     The Master said: "I cannot rank with an old gardener."

     After Fan Ch'ih had left, the Master said: "How small a man! If those
above love courtesy, none will dare to slight them: if those above love right,
none will dare to disobey: if those above love truth, none will dare to hide
the heart. Then, from the four corners of the earth, folk will gather, their
children on their backs; what need will there be for husbandry?"

     [5] The Master said: "Though a man have conned three hundred poems; if he
stand helpless when put to govern; if he cannot answer for himself, when sent
to the four corners of the earth; despite their number, what have they done
for him?"

     [6] The Master said: "The man of upright life is obeyed before he speaks:
commands even go unheeded where the life is crooked."

     [7] The Master said: "The governments of Lu and Wei are brothers."

     [8] Speaking of Ching, of the ducal house of Wei, the Master said: "He
was wise in his private life. When he had begun saving, he said, 'This is
much.' When he grew better off, he said 'Now we lack nothing.' And when he
was rich, he said 'We live in splendour.'"

     [9] Whilst Jan Yu was driving him on the road to Wei, the Master said:
"What numbers!"

     Jan Yu said: "Since numbers are here, what next is needed?"

     "Wealth," said the Master.

"And after wealth, what next were needed?"

"Teaching," said the Master.

     [10] The Master said: "Had I power for a twelvemonth only, much could be
done. In three years all were ended."

     [11] The Master said: "'Could good men govern for an hundred years,
cruelty would be vanquished, putting to death an end.' How true are these
words!"

     [12] The Master said: "Had we a king among men, a lifetime would pass ere
love dawned!"

     [13] The Master said: "What is governing to him who can rule himself? Who
cannot rule himself, how should he rule others?"

     [14] As the disciple Jan ^2 came back from court, the Master said to him:

     "Business of state kept me," he answered.

     "Household business," said the Master. "Though I am out of office, I had
heard were there business of state."

     [15] Duke Ting asked: "Is there any one saying that can prosper a
kingdom?"

     Confucius answered: "That is more than words can do. But a proverb says
'Hard it is to be king, nor yet light to be minister.' And did one know how
hard it is to be king, might not this saying all but prosper a kingdom?"

     "And is there any one saying that can wreck a kingdom?"

     "That is more than words can do," Confucius answered. "But a proverb says
'My one joy as king is that none withstand what I say.' Now if none withstand
him when right, will it not be well? But if none withstand him when wrong,
might not this saying all but wreck a kingdom?"

     [16] The Duke of She asked, What is kingcraft?

     The Master said: "To gladden those around us and draw men from afar."

     [17] Tzu-hsia, when governor of Chu-fu, asked how to rule.

     The Master said: "Never be in a hurry: shut thine eyes to small gains.
Nought done in a hurry is thorough, and an eye for small gain means big things
undone."

     [18] The Duke of She told Confucius: "Among the upright men of my home if
the father steal a sheep his son will bear witness."

     Confucius answered: "Our people's uprightness is unlike that. The father
screens his son, the son screens his father. There is uprightness in this."

     [19] Fan Ch'ih asked, What is love?

     The Master said: "To be respectful at home, painstaking at work, faithful
to all. Even among savages none of this may be dropped."

     [20] Tzu-kung asked, When can a man be called a good crown servant?

[Footnote 2: Jan Yu. He was in the service of the Chi, not of the Duke of Lu.]

     The Master said: "In private life he wants a sense of shame: if sent to
the four corners of the earth he must not disgrace the king's commands."

     "May I ask who would rank second?"

     "A man who his clansmen call dutiful, and his neighbours call modest."

     "May I ask who would rank next?"

     "A man who clings to his word and sticks to his course, a flinty little
fellow, would perhaps come next."

     "And how are the crown servants of to-day?"

     "What! The weights and measures men!" said the Master. "Are they worth
reckoning?"

     [21] The Master said: "As followers of the golden mean are not to be
found, I have to work with ambitious and headstrong men. Ambitious men push
ahead, and there are things that headstrong men will not do."

     [22] The Master said: "The men of the south say, 'Unless steadfast a man
will make neither a wizard nor a leech.' This is true. 'A falling off in merit
will reap disgrace.'"

     The Master said: "Neglect of the omens, that is all."

     [23] The Master said: "A gentleman is pleasant, not fulsome: the vulgar
are fulsome, but not pleasant."

     [24] Tzu-kung said: "Would it be right if a man were liked by all his
neighbours?"

     "No," said the Master.

     "And would it be right if a man were hated by all his neighbours?"

     "No," said the Master. "It would be better if the good men of the
neighbourhood liked him, and the bad men of the neighbourhood hated him."

     [25] The Master said: "A gentleman is easy to serve, and hard to please.
Nought but what is right pleases him: he fits his behests to the man. The
vulgar are hard to serve, and easy to please. What is wrong may yet please
them: but of their men they expect all things."

     [26] The Master said: "A gentleman is high-minded, not proud: the vulgar
are proud, but not high-minded."

     [27] The Master said: "Strength and courage, simplicity and meekness are
akin to love."

     [28] Tzu-lu asked, When can a man be called educated?

     The Master said: "A man who is earnest, encouraging, and kind may be
called educated. Earnest with friends and encouraging; kind towards his
brothers."

     [29] The Master said: "Could a good man teach the people for seven years,
they would be fit for arms also."

     [30] The Master said: "To take untaught men into battle is to cast them
away."

Section 2

     [1] Hsien ^1 asked, What is shame?

     The Master said: "Hire when right prevails, hire when wrong prevails,
hire is always shame."

     [2] "To eschew strife and boasting, spite and greed, can that be called
love?"

     The Master said: "I call that hard to do: I do not know that it is love."

     [3] The Master said: "A scholar who loves comfort is not worthy the
name."

     [4] The Master said: "When right prevails, be fearless of speech and
fearless in deed: when wrong prevails, be fearless in deed but soft of
speech."

     [5] The Master said: "A man of worth can always talk, but talkers are not
always men of worth. Love is always bold, though boldness is found without
love."

     [6] Nan-kung Kuo said to Confucius: "Yi ^2 was good at archery, Ao could
push a boat overland; each died before his time. Yu and Chi toiled at their
crops, and won the world."

     [7] The Master said: "Gentlemen without love there may be, but the vulgar
must ever be strangers to love."

     [8] The Master said: "Can one love, yet take no pains? Can he be faithful
who gives no counsel?"

[Footnote 1: The disciple Yuan Ssu.]

[Footnote 2: Yi was killed by his best pupil, who thought within himself, "In
all the world Yi alone shoots better than I," and so he slew him.]

     [9] The Master said: "The decrees were drafted by P'i Shen, criticised by
Shih-shu, polished by the Foreign Minister Tzu-yu, and given the final touches
by Tzu-ch'an of Tung-li."

     [10] Being asked what he thought of Tzu-ch'an, the Master said: "A
kind-hearted man."

     Asked what he thought of Tzu-hsi, the Master said: "Of him! What I think
of him!"

     Asked what he thought of Kuan Chung, ^3 the Master said: "He was the man
who drove the Po from the town of Pien and its three hundred households, to
end his days on coarse rice, and no word of wrong could he find to say."

     [11] The Master said: "It is hard not to chafe at poverty, a light thing
not to be proud of wealth."

     [12] The Master said: "Meng Kung-ch'o is more than fit to be steward to
Chao or Wei, but is not fit to be minister of T'eng or Hsieh."

     [13] Tzu-lu asked what were a full-grown man.

     The Master said: "A man wise as Tsang Wu-chung, greedless as Kung-ch'o,
bold as Chuang of Pien, skilful as Jan Ch'iu, and graced with courtesy and
music, might be called a full-grown man. But to-day who asks the like of a
full-grown man? Who in sight of gain remembers right, in face of danger will
risk his life, and cleaves to his word for a lifetime, however old the bond,
him we must call a full-grown man."

     [14] Speaking of Kung-shu Wen, the Master said to Kung-ming Chia: "Is it
true that thy master does not speak, nor laugh, nor take a gift?"

     Kung-ming Chia answered: "That is saying too much. My master speaks when
it is time to speak, so none weary of his speaking: he laughs when he is
merry, so none weary of his laughter: he takes what it is right to take, so
none weary of his taking."

     "It may be so," said the Master; "but is it?"

     [15] The Master said: "When Tsang Wu-chung holding Fang asked Lu to
appoint an heir, though he said that he was not forcing his prince, I cannot
believe it."

[Footnote 3: See note to iii.22.]

     [16] The Master said: "Duke Wen of Chin was deep, but dishonest: Duke
Huan of Ch'i was honest, but shallow."

     [17] Tzu-lu said: "When Duke Huan slew the young duke Chiu, Shao Hu died
with him, but not Kuan Chung, was this not want of love." ^4

     The Master said: "Duke Huan gathered the nobles together, without help
from chariots of war, through the might of Kuan Chung. What can love do more?
What can love do more?"

     [18] Tzu-kung said: "In becoming minister, instead of dying with the
young duke Chiu, when he was slain by Duke Huan, Kuan Chung showed want of
love, it would seem."

     The Master said: "Through Kuan Chung helping Duke Huan to bend the
nobility, and tame the world, men have fared the better from that day unto
this. But for Kuan Chung we should wear our hair down our backs and the left
arm bare: or should he, like the ploughboy and his lass, their troth to keep,
have drowned in a ditch, no man the wiser?"

     [19] The minister Hsien, once steward to Kung-shu Wen, went to audience
of the duke together with Wen.

     When the Master heard of this, he said: "He is rightly called Wen
(cultured)."

     [20] The Master spake of the wickedness of Ling, Duke of Wei.

     K'ang ^5 said: "If that be so, how does he escape ruin?"

     Confucius answered: "With Chung-shu Yu in charge of the guests, the
reader T'o in charge of the Ancestral Temple, and Wang-sun Chia in charge of
the troops, how should he come to ruin?"

     [21] The Master said: "If the tongue have no fear, words are hard to make
good."

[Footnote 4: Huan and Chiu were brothers, sons of the Duke of Ch'i. When the
father died, their uncle seized the throne. To preserve the rightful heirs
Shao Hu and Kuan Chung fled with Chiu to Lu, whilst Huan escaped to another
state. The usurper having subsequently been murdered, Huan returned to Ch'i
and secured the throne. He then required the Duke of Lu to kill his brother
and deliver up to him Shao Hu and Kuan Chung. This was done. But on the way,
to Ch'i, Shao Hu cut his throat. Kuan Chung, on the other hand, took service
under Duke Huan, became his Prime Minister, and raised the state to greatness
(see note to iii. 22

[Footnote 5: Chi K' ang.]

     [22] "Ch'en Ch'eng murdered Duke Chien. ^6

     Confucius cleansed himself, went to court, and told Duke Ai, saying:
Ch'en Heng has murdered his prince. Pray chastise him."

     The duke said: "Tell the three chiefs."

     Confucius said: "Following in the wake of the ministry I dared not leave
this untold; but the prince says, 'Tell the three chiefs.'"

     He told the three chiefs. It was vain.

     Confucius said: "Following in the wake of the ministry I dared not leave
this untold.'

     [23] Tzu-lu asked how to serve the king.

     The Master said: "Never cheat him: withstand him to the face."

     [24] The Master said: "A gentleman's life leads upwards; a vulgar life
leads down."

     [25] The Master said: "Men of old learned for their own sake: the men
of to-day learn for show."

     [26] Ch'u Po-yu sent an envoy to Confucius.

     As they sat together, Confucius asked him: "How is your lord busied?"

     He answered: "My lord tries to pare his faults, and tries in vain."

     When the envoy had left, the Master said: "An envoy, an envoy indeed!"

     [27] The Master said: "When not in office discuss not policy."

     [28] Tseng-tzu said: "A gentleman is bent on keeping his place."

     [29] The Master said: "A gentleman is shamefast of speech: his deeds go
further.

     [30] The Master said: "In three ways I fall short of a gentleman. Love
is never vexed; wisdom has no doubts; courage is without fear."

     Tzu-kung replied: "That is what ye say, Sir."

     [31] Tzu-kung would compare one man with another.

     The Master said: "What talents Tz'u has! Now I have no time for this."

     [32] The Master said: "Sorrow not at being unknown: sorrow for thine own
shortcomings.

[Footnote 6: B.C. 481, two years before the death of Confucius, who was not at
the time in office. Chien was Duke of Ch'i, a state bordering on Lu. The three
chiefs were the heads of the three great clans, all powerful in Lu.]

     [33] The Master said: "Not to expect falsehood, nor look for mistrust,
and yet to forestall them, shows worth in a man."

     [34] Wei-sheng Mou said: "How dost thou still find roosts to roost on,
Ch'iu, unless by wagging a glib tongue?"

     Confucius answered: "I dare not wag a glib tongue; but I hate
stubbornness."

     [35] The Master said: "A steed is not praised for his strength, but
praised for his mettle."

     [36] One said: "To mete out good for evil, how were that?"

     "And how would ye meet good?" said the Master. "Meet evil with justice:
meet good with good."

     [37] The Master said: "Alas! no man knows me!"

     Tzu-kung said: "Why do ye say, Sir, that no man knows you?"

     The Master said: "Never murmuring against Heaven, nor finding fault with
men; learning from the lowest, cleaving the heights. I am known but to one,
but to Heaven."

     [38] Liao, the duke's uncle, spake ill of Tzu-lu to Chi-sun. ^7

     Tzu-fu Ching-po told this to Confucius, saying: "My lord's mind is surely
being led astray by the duke's uncle, but strength is yet mine to expose his
body in the market-place."

     The Master said: "The doom has fallen if truth is to win: it has fallen
if truth is to lose. Can Liao, the duke's uncle, fight against doom?"

     [39] The Master said: "Men of worth shun the world; the next best shun
the land. Then come men who go at a look, then men who go at speech.

     [40] The Master said: "Seven men did so."

     [41] Tzu-lu spent a night at Shih-men.

     The gate-keeper asked him: "Whence comest thou?"

     "From Confucius," he answered.

     "The man who knows it is vain, yet cannot forbear to stir?" said the
gate-keeper.

     [42] When the Master was chiming his sounding stones in Wei,
a basket-bearer said, as he passed the door: "His heart is full, who chimes
those stones!" But then he added: "For shame! What a tinkling note! If no one
heed thee, have done!

[Footnote 7: The head of the Chi clan, in whose service Tzu-lu was.]

'Wade the deep places,
Lift thy robe through the shallows.'"

     The Master said: "Where there's a will, that is lightly done."

     [43] Tzu-chang said: "What does the book mean by saying that Kao-tsung,
^8 when mourning his predecessor, did not speak for three years?"

     The Master said: "Why pick out Kao-tsung? Men of old were all thus. For
three years after the king had died, the hundred officers acted each for
himself, and obeyed the chief minister."

     [44] The Master said: "When those above love courtesy, the people are
easy to lead."

     [45] Tzu-lu asked, What is a gentleman?

     The Master said: "A man bent on shaping his mind."

     "Is that all?" said Tzu-lu.

     "On shaping his mind to give happiness to others."

     "And is that all?"

     "On shaping his mind to give happiness to the people," said the Master.
"To shape the mind and give happiness to the people, for this both Yao and
Shun still pined."

     [46] Yuan Jang awaited the Master squatting.

     The Master said: "Unruly when young, unmentioned as man, undying when
old, spells good-for-nothing!" and hit him on the leg with his staff.

     [47] When a lad from the village of Ch'ueh was made message-bearer, some
one asked, saying: "Is it because he has made progress?"

     The Master said: "I have seen him sitting in a man's seat, seen him
walking abreast of his elders. This shows no wish to improve, only hurry to be
a man."

[Footnote 8: An emperor of the house of Yin.]