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186
THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK. XXX
BOOK XXX.
Part III. SECTION VIII.
Yüeh Kien, or · Delight in the Sword-fight?.'
Formerly, king Wăn of Kâo2 delighted in the sword-fight. More than three thousand men, masters of the weapon, appeared as his guests, lining the way on either side of his gate, and fighting together before him day and night. Over a hundred of them would die or be (severely) wounded in the course of a year, but he was never weary of looking on (at their engagements), so fond was he of them. The thing continued for three years, when the kingdom began to decay, and other states to plan measures against it.
The crown-prince Khwei’ was distressed, and laid the case before his attendants, saying, “If any one can persuade the king, and put an end to these swordsmen, I will give him a thousand ounces of
1 See vol. xxxix, pp. 158, 159.
2 Probably king Hui-wăn (B. C. 298–265) of Kâo, one of the states into which the great state of Zin was subdivided, and which afterwards all claimed the sovereignty of the kingdom. In this Book Kwang-zze appears as a contemporary of king Wăn, which makes the formerly' with which the paragraph commences seem strange.
8 Sze-mâ Khien says nothing of king Wăn's love of the swordfight, nor of this son Khwei. He says that in 265 Wăn was succeeded by his son Tan (), who appears to have been quite young.
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