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PT. III. SECT.VI.
THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-BZE.
149
BOOK XXVIII.
Part III. SECTION VI. Zang Wang, or Kings who have wished to resign
the Throne ?!
1. Yâo proposed to resign the throne to Hsü Ya, who would not accept it. He then offered it to Zze-kâu Kih-fa?, but he said, 'It is not unreasonable to propose that I should occupy the throne, but I happen to be suffering under a painful sorrow and illness. While I am engaged in dealing with it, I have not leisure to govern the kingdom.' Now the throne is the most important of all positions, and yet this man would not occupy it to the injury of his life; how much less would he have allowed any other thing to do so! But only he who does not care to rule the kingdom is fit to be entrusted with it.
Shun proposed to resign the throne to Zze-kâu Kih-po?, who declined in the very same terms as Kih-fd had done. Now the kingdom is the greatest of all concerns, and yet this man would not give his life in exchange for the throne. This shows how they who possess the Tâo differ from common men.
1 See vol. xxxix, pp. 156, 157.
? We know nothing of this man but what is related here. He is, no doubt, a fictitious character. Kih-fd and Kih-po are supposed to be the same individual. See Hwang-f0 MI, I, 7.
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