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THE TEXTS OF TAOISM.
for the prince, but could not find him, till (at last) they followed him to the cave of Tan. The prince was not willing to come out to them, but they smoked him out with moxa, and made him mount the royal chariot. As he took hold of the strap, and mounted the carriage, he looked up to heaven, and called out, 'O Ruler, O Ruler, could you not have spared me this?' Prince Sâu did not dislike being ruler;-he disliked the evil inseparable from being so. It may be said of him that he would not for the sake of a kingdom endanger his life; and this indeed was the reason why the people of Yüeh wanted to get him for their ruler.
BK. XXVIII.
2. Han1 and Wei1 were contending about some territory which one of them had wrested from the other. 3ze-hwâ 3ze 2 went to see the marquis Kâo-hsi (of Han), and, finding him looking sorrowful, said, 'Suppose now that all the states were to sign an agreement before you to the effect that "Whoever should with his left hand carry off (the territory in dispute) should lose his right hand, and whoever should do so with his right hand should lose his left hand, but that, nevertheless, he who should carry it off was sure to obtain the whole kingdom;" would your lordship feel yourself able to carry it off?' The marquis said, 'I would not carry it off,' and 3ze-hwâ rejoined, 'Very good. Looking at the thing from this point of view, your two arms are of more value to you than the whole kingdom.
But
1 Two of the three states into which the great state of 3in was divided about the beginning of the fifth century B.C.
A native, we may call him a philosopher, of Wei. Began his rule in B.C. 359.
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