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BOOK XXIV. ÂI KUNG WĂN
OR
QUESTIONS OF DUKE ÂI'.
1. Duke Åiasked Confucius, saying, 'What do you say about the great rites ? How is it that superior men, in speaking about them, ascribe so much honour to them ?' Confucius said, 'I, Khiù, am a small man, and unequal to a knowledge of the rites. By no means,' said the ruler. “Tell me what you think, my Master. Then Confucius replied, 'According to what I have heard, of all things by which the people live the rites are the greatest. Without them they would have no means ofregulating the services paid to the spirits of heaven and earth; without them they would have no means of distinguishing the positions proper to father and son, to high and low, to old and young ; without them they would have no means of maintaining the separate character of the intimate relations between male and female, father and son, elder brother and younger, and conducting the intercourse between the contracting families in a marriage, and the frequency or infrequency (of the reciprocities between friends). These
* See the introduction, vol. xxvii, pp. 39, 40.
Âi (The Courteous, Benevolent, and Short-lived') was the posthumous title of the marquis Ziang C) of LQ (B.C. 494-468), in whose sixteenth year Confucius died. He seems to have often consulted the sage on important questions, but was too weak to follow his counsels.
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