The Sayings of Confucius.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
XIV
The Master said: “Hire when right prevails, hire when wrong prevails, hire is always shame.”
The Master said: “I call that hard to do: I do not know that it is love.”
Asked what he thought of Tzu-hsi, the Master said: “Of him! What I think of him!”
Asked what he thought of Kuan Chung, the Master said: “He was the man who drove the Po from the town of Pien and its three hundred households, to end his days on coarse rice, and no word of wrong could he find to say.”
The Master said: “A man wise as Tsang Wu-chung, greedless as Kung-ch´o, bold as Chuang of Pien, skilful as Jan Ch´iu, and graced with courtesy and music, might be called a full-grown man. But to-day who asks the like of a full-grown man? Who in sight of gain remembers right, in face of danger will risk his life, and cleaves to his word for a lifetime, however old the bond, him we must call a full-grown man.”
Kung-ming Chia answered: “That is saying too much. My master speaks when it is time to speak, so none weary of his speaking: he laughs when he is merry, so none weary of his laughter: he takes what it is right to take, so none weary of his taking.”
“It may be so,” said the Master; “but is it?”
The Master said: “Duke Huan gathered the nobles together, without help from chariots of war, through the might of Kuan Chung. What can love do more? What can love do more?”
The Master said: “Through Kuan Chung helping Duke Huan to bend the nobility, and tame the world, men have fared the better from that day unto this. But for Kuan Chung we should wear our hair down our backs and the left arm bare: or should he, like the ploughboy and his lass, their troth to keep, have drowned in a ditch, no man the wiser?”
When the Master heard of this, he said: “He is rightly called Wen (cultured).”
K´ang said: “If that be so, how does he escape ruin?”
Confucius answered: “With Chung-shu Yü in charge of the guests, the reader T´o in charge of the Ancestral Temple, and Wang-sun Chia in charge of the troops, how should he come to ruin?”
Confucius cleansed himself, went to court, and told Duke Ai, saying: Ch´en Heng has murdered his prince. Pray chastise him.”
The duke said: “Tell the three chiefs.”
Confucius said: “Following in the wake of the ministry I dared not leave this untold; but the prince says, ‘Tell the three chiefs.’”
He told the three chiefs. It was vain.
Confucius said: “Following in the wake of the ministry I dared not leave this untold.’
The Master said: “Never cheat him: withstand him to the face.”
As they sat together, Confucius asked him: “How is your lord busied?”
He answered: “My lord tries to pare his faults, and tries in vain.”
When the envoy had left, the Master said: “An envoy, an envoy indeed!”
Tzu-kung replied: “That is what ye say, Sir.”
The Master said: “What talents Tz´u has! Now I have no time for this.”
Confucius answered: “I dare not wag a glib tongue; but I hate stubbornness.”
“And how would ye meet good?” said the Master. “Meet evil with justice: meet good with good.”
Tzu-kung said: “Why do ye say, Sir, that no man knows you?”
The Master said: “Never murmuring against Heaven, nor finding fault with men; learning from the lowest, cleaving the heights. I am known but to one, but to Heaven.”
Tzu-fu Ching-po told this to Confucius, saying: “My lord’s mind is surely being led astray by the duke’s uncle, but strength is yet mine to expose his body in the market-place.”
The Master said: “The doom has fallen if truth is to win: it has fallen if truth is to lose. Can Liao, the duke’s uncle, fight against doom?”
The gate-keeper asked him: “Whence comest thou?”
“From Confucius,” he answered.
“The man who knows it is vain, yet cannot forbear to stir?” said the gate-keeper.
The Master said: “Where there’s a will, that is lightly done.”
The Master said: “Why pick out Kao-tsung? Men of old were all thus. For three years after the king had died, the hundred officers acted each for himself, and obeyed the chief minister.”
The Master said: “A man bent on shaping his mind.”
“Is that all?” said Tzu-lu.
“On shaping his mind to give happiness to others.”
“And is that all?”
“On shaping his mind to give happiness to the people,” said the Master. “To shape the mind and give happiness to the people, for this both Yao and Shun still pined.”
The Master said: “Unruly when young, unmentioned as man, undying when old, spells good-for-nothing!” and hit him on the leg with his staff.
The Master said: “I have seen him sitting in a man’s seat, seen him walking abreast of his elders. This shows no wish to improve, only hurry to be a man.”