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THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK. XVII.
BOOK XVII.
Part II. SECTION X. Khill Shui, or 'The Floods of Autumn ?' 1. The time of the autumnal floods was come, and the hundred streams were all discharging themselves into the Ho. Its current was greatly swollen ?, so that across its channel from bank to bank one could not distinguish an ox from a horse. On this the (Spirit-) earl of the Ho 3 laughed with delight, thinking that all the beauty of the world was to be found in his charge. Along the course of the river he walked east till he came to the North Sea, over which he looked, with his face to the east, without being able to see where its waters began. Then he began to turn his face round, looked across the expanse, (as if he were) confronting Zo?, and said with a sigh, What the vulgar saying expresses about him who has learned a hundred points (of the Tâo), and thinks that there is no one equal to himself, was surely spoken of me. And moreover, I have heard
1 See pp. 148, 149.
3 here perhaps means "turbid.' It has nothing to do with the river King.
s See Mayers's Manual, p. 54. Our author adopts the common beliefs or superstitions of his time, and after his fashion puts his own reasonings into the mouths of these mythological personages. It is more difficult to collect the legends about Zo of the sea, or of the Northern Sea. See the Khang-hsi Thesaurus under
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