________________
L
BOOK XXXV.
SAN NIEN WĂN
OR
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MOURNING FOR THREE YEARS1.
1. What purposes do the mourning rites for three years serve?
The different rules for the mourning rites were established in harmony with (men's) feelings. By means of them the differences in the social relations are set forth, and the distinctions shown of kindred as nearer or more distant, and of ranks as more noble or less. They do not admit of being diminished or added to; and are therefore called The unchanging rules.'
2. The greater a wound is, the longer it remains; and the more pain it gives, the more slowly is it healed. The mourning of three years, being appointed with its various forms in harmony with the feelings (produced by the occasion of it), was intended to mark the greatest degree of grief. The sackcloth with jagged edges, the dark colour of the sackcloth and the staff, the shed reared against the wall, the gruel, the sleeping on straw, and the clod of earth for a pillow-these all were intended to set forth the extremity of the grief.
3. The mourning of the three years came really to an end with (the close of) the twenty-fifth month. The sorrow and pain were not yet ended, and the
1 See the introductory notice, vol. xxvii, pp. 49, 50.
Digitized by
Google
