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THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
OK, VI.
a lute was struck, and there came the words, O Father! O Mother! O Heaven! O Men!' The voice could not sustain itself, and the line was hurriedly pronounced. Zze-yü entered and said, 'Why are you singing, Sir, this line of poetry in such a way?' The other replied, 'I was thinking, and thinking in vain, how it was that I was brought to such extremity. Would my parents have wished me to be so poor? Heaven overspreads all without any partial feeling, and so does Earth sustain all ;—would Heaven and Earth make me so poor with any unkindly feeling? I was trying to find out who had done it, and I could not do so. But here I am in this extremity !—it is what was appointed for me?!'
1 Here is the highest issue of Taoism ;-unquestioning submission to what is beyond our knowledge and control.
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