The Sayings of Confucius.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
XVIII
Confucius said: “In three of the Yin there was love”.
Men said: “Why not leave, Sir?”
He answered: “Whither could I go and not be thrice dismissed for upright service? To do crooked service what need to leave the land of my forefathers?”
Again he said: “I am old: I have no use for him.”
Confucius went his way.
Confucius went his way.
Confucius alighted and fain would have spoken with him. But hurriedly he made off: no speech was to be had of him.
Ch´ang-chü said: “Who is that holding the reins?”
“K´ung Ch´iu,” answered Tzu-lu.
“What, K´ung Ch´iu of Lu?”
“The same,” said Tzu-lu.
“He knows the ford,” said Ch´ang-chü.
Tzu-lu asked Chieh-ni.
“Who are ye, sir?” he answered.
“I am Chung Yu.”
“The disciple of K´ung Ch´iu of Lu?”
“Yes,” said Tzu-lu.
“The world is one seething torrent,” answered Chieh-ni, “what man can guide it? Were it not better to choose a master who flees the world, than a master who flees this man and that man?”
And he went on hoeing without stop.
Tzu-lu went back and told the Master, whose face fell.
“Can I herd with birds and beasts?” he said. “Whom but these men can I choose as fellows? And if all were right with the world, I should have no call to set it straight.”
Tzu-lu asked him: “Have ye seen the Master, Sir?”
The old man answered: “Thou dost not toil with my limbs, nor canst thou tell one grain from another; who is thy Master?”
And planting his staff in the ground, he began weeding.
Tzu-lu bowed and stood before him.
He kept Tzu-lu for the night, killed a fowl, prepared millet, feasted him, and presented his two sons.
On the morrow Tzu-lu went to the Master, and told what had happened.
The Master said: “He is in hiding.”
He sent Tzu-lu back to see him; but when he reached the house the man had left.
Tzu-lu said: “Not to take office is wrong. If the ties of old and young are binding, why should the claim of king on minister be set aside? Wishing to keep his person clean, he flouts a foremost duty. A gentleman takes office at the call of right, aware though he be, that the cause is lost.”
The Master said: “Po-yi and Shu-ch´i would not bend the will, or shame the body.
“We can but say that Liu-hsia Hui and Shao-lien bent the will and shamed the body. Their words jumped with duty; their deeds answered our hopes.
“We may say of Yü-chung and Yi-yi that they lived in hiding, but gave the rein to the tongue. They were clean in person: their retreat was timely.
“But I am unlike all of these: I know not ‘must’ or ‘must not.’”