Book Title: Text of Confucianism Part 01
Author(s): James Legge
Publisher: Oxford

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Page 2687
________________ PT. III. SECT. X. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-SZE. 207 belonging to the region of nothingness. He is like the water which flows on without the obstruction of matter, and expands into the Grand Purity. Alas for what you do, (O men)! You occupy yourselves with things trivial as a hair, and remain ignorant of the Grand Rest! 8. There was a man of Sung, called Zhâo Shang, who was sent by the king of Sung on a mission to Khin. On setting out, he had several carriages with him; and the king (of Khin) was so pleased with him that he gave him another hundred. When he returned to Sung, he saw Kwang-zze, and said to him, 'To live in a narrow lane of a poor mean hamlet, wearing sandals amid distress of poverty, with a weazen neck and yellow face! ;-that is what I should find it difficult to do. But as soon as I come to an understanding with the Lord of a myriad carriages, to find myself with a retinue of a hundred carriages,--that is wherein I excel.' Kwang-gze replied, 'When the king of Khăn is ill, the doctor whom he calls to open an ulcer or squeeze a boil receives a carriage; and he who licks his piles receives five. The lower the service, the more are the carriages given. Did you, Sir, lick his piles ? How else should you have got so many carriages ? Begone!' 9. Duke Âi of La asked Yen Ho, saying, 'If I employ Kung-nt as the support of my government, will the evils of the state be thereby cured?' The 1 The character for "face' generally means 'ears;' but the Khang-hsî dictionary, with special reference to this paragraph, explains it by 'face.'-The whole paragraph is smart and bitter, but Lin Hsî-kung thinks it too coarse to be from Kwang-tze's pencil. Digitized by Google

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