When any of his friends died, if he had no relations who could be depended on for the necessary offices, he would say, 'I will bury him.' 2. When a friend sent him a present, though it might be a carriage and horses, he did not bow. 3. The only present for which he bowed was that of the flesh of sacrifice.
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The Master said, 'The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress.'
[“No man is more fragile than another: no man more certain than another of to-morrow.”--Seneca, Ep., 91.]
[Literally, "get the advantage of the ground," which means not only securing good positions, but availing oneself of natural advantages in every possible way. Chang Yu says: "Every kind of ground is characterized by certain natural features, and also gives scope for a certain variability of plan. How it is possible to turn these natural features to account unless topographical knowledge is supplemented by versatility of mind?"]
The Master said, 'There is Hui! He has nearly attained to perfect virtue. He is often in want. 2. 'Ts'ze does not acquiesce in the appointments of Heaven, and his goods are increased by him. Yet his judgments are often correct.'
“Life in itself is neither good nor evil; it is the scene of good or evil as you make it.’ And, if you have lived a day, you have seen all: one day is equal and like to all other days. There is no other light, no other shade; this very sun, this moon, these very stars, this very order and disposition of things, is the same your ancestors enjoyed, and that shall also entertain your posterity:
Although it be no new thing to see horns grown in a night on the forehead of one that had none when he went to bed, notwithstanding, what befell Cippus, King of Italy, is memorable; who having one day been a very delighted spectator of a bullfight, and having all the night dreamed that he had horns on his head, did, by the force of imagination, really cause them to grow there. Passion gave to the son of Croesus the voice which nature had denied him. And Antiochus fell into a fever, inflamed with the beauty of Stratonice, too deeply imprinted in his soul. Pliny pretends to have seen Lucius Cossitius, who from a woman was turned into a man upon her very wedding-day. Pontanus and others report the like metamorphosis to have happened in these latter days in Italy. And, through the vehement desire of him and his mother:
Chi Tsze-zan asked whether Chung Yu and Zan Ch'iu could be called great ministers. 2. The Master said, 'I thought you would ask about some extraordinary individuals, and you only ask about Yu and Ch'iu! 3. 'What is called a great minister, is one who serves his prince according to what is right, and when he finds he cannot do so, retires. 4. 'Now, as to Yu and Ch'iu, they may be called ordinary ministers.' 5. Tsze-zan said, 'Then they will always follow their chief;-- will they?' 6. The Master said, 'In an act of parricide or regicide, they would not follow him.'
With all the sharpness of the Way of Heaven, it injures not; with all the doing in the way of the sage he does not strive.
The Duke Ching, of Ch'i, asked Confucius about government. 2. Confucius replied, 'There is government, when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son.' 3. 'Good!' said the duke; 'if, indeed; the prince be not prince, the minister not minister, the father not father, and the son not son, although I have my revenue, can I enjoy it?'
[“Mortals, amongst themselves, live by turns, and, like the runners in the games, give up the lamp, when they have won the race, to the next comer.--” Lucretius, ii. 75, 78.]
The Master said, 'Abroad, to serve the high ministers and nobles; at home, to serve one's father and elder brothers; in all duties to the dead, not to dare not to exert one's self; and not to be overcome of wine:-- which one of these things do I attain to?'
To omit fevers and pleurisies, who would ever have imagined that a duke of Brittany,--[Jean II. died 1305.]--should be pressed to death in a crowd as that duke was at the entry of Pope Clement, my neighbour, into Lyons?--[Montaigne speaks of him as if he had been a contemporary neighbour, perhaps because he was the Archbishop of Bordeaux. Bertrand le Got was Pope under the title of Clement V., 1305-14.]--Hast thou not seen one of our kings--[Henry II., killed in a tournament, July 10, 1559]--killed at a tilting, and did not one of his ancestors die by jostle of a hog?--[Philip, eldest son of Louis le Gros.]--AEschylus, threatened with the fall of a house, was to much purpose circumspect to avoid that danger, seeing that he was knocked on the head by a tortoise falling out of an eagle’s talons in the air. Another was choked with a grape-stone;--[Val. Max., ix. 12, ext. 2.]--an emperor killed with the scratch of a comb in combing his head. AEmilius Lepidus with a stumble at his own threshold,--[Pliny, Nat. Hist., vii. 33.]-- and Aufidius with a jostle against the door as he entered the council-chamber. And betwixt the very thighs of women, Cornelius Gallus the proctor; Tigillinus, captain of the watch at Rome; Ludovico, son of Guido di Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua; and (of worse example) Speusippus, a Platonic philosopher, and one of our Popes. The poor judge Bebius gave adjournment in a case for eight days; but he himself, meanwhile, was condemned by death, and his own stay of life expired. Whilst Caius Julius, the physician, was anointing the eyes of a patient, death closed his own; and, if I may bring in an example of my own blood, a brother of mine, Captain St.
And seeing that no temper of arms is of proof to secure us:--
[Tu Mu explains: "Though the enemy may have clever and capable officers, they will not be able to lay any plans against us."]
The Master said, 'I returned from Wei to Lu, and then the music was reformed, and the pieces in the Royal songs and Praise songs all found their proper places.'
[Chang Yu quotes Wei Liao Tzŭ as saying that we must not break camp until we have gained the resisting power of the enemy and the cleverness of the opposing general. Cf. the "seven comparisons" in I. § 13.]
[“Consider how as nothing to us is the old age of times past.” --Lucretius iii. 985]
“Nam vera; voces turn demum pectore ab imo Ejiciuntur; et eripitur persona, manet res.”
By discovering the enemy’s dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated, while the enemy’s must be divided.