copy; 2004 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
Spring and Autumn Annals and Tso Chuan Concordance
Table to Couvreur
Tch'ouen Ts'iou et Tso Chouan. Texte
chinois avec traduction française. Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique de Ho
Kien fou, 1914, 3 vols. in-8, I f. n. ch. + 661, 585, 328 pp. Cathasia,
Paris⿿Leiden, facsimile reissue in 3 vols. 680, 592, 836 p.Shih-san-ching chu-shu
NOTE
Fraser, E.D.H. (comp.), Index to
the Tso Chuan, revised by J.M.S. Lockhart, Oxford University Press,
London, 1930.
Cordier, Henri, Bibliotheca
Sinica. Ernest Leroux, Paris 1904-24. Columns 1384-5, 1773-4.
Yüan, Tung-li, ????, China in
Western Literature, a continuation of Cordier's Bibliotheca Sinica Far Eastern Publications, Yale
University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1958, p. 293f.
Ch'un-ch'iu ching chuan
yin-te ????. Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, No. 17.
4 volumes, Peiping 1937. Combined Concordance to the Ch'un-ch'iu, Kung-yang chuan ???? and Tso-chuan with an introduction by Wm. Hung. Punctuated text
in Vol. I; word by word index in Vols II-IV.
Shih-san-ching so-yin ????.
Compiled by Yeh Shao-chün ????. K'ai-ming shu-tien ????. Shanhai 1934. Sentence
Index.
Appendixes.-
I. Specimens of the Commentaries of Kung-Yang and Kuh-Leang.
II. A Letter Questioning the Confucian Authorship of the Ch'un Ts'ëw by Yuen Mei of the Present Dynasty
Was the Ch'un Ts'ëw made
by Confucius?
1. In the prolegomena to vol. I., on page 1, I have said that of the five King or classical works, the authorship, or compilation rather, of which is loosely attributed to Confucius, 'the Ch'un Ts'ëw is the only one which can rightly be described as of his own making.' If I had been as familiar with the Ch'un Ts'ëw in 1861 as I am now, instead of appearing, as in that judgment, to allow that it is an original Work of the sage, I should have contented myself with saying that of it alone has the making been claimed for him. The question as to what he really did in the matter of this Classic is one of great perplexity.
Mencius' account of the
Ch'un Ts'ëw.
2. The earliest authority who speaks on the
subject is Mencius. No better could be desired; and the glowing account which
he gives of the Work excites our liveliest expectations. His language puts it
beyond doubt that in his time, not far removed from that of Confucius, there
was a book current in China, called the Ch'un Ts'ëw, and accepted without
question by him and others as having been made by the sage. "The world," he
says, 'was fallen into decay, and right principles had dwindled away. Perverse
discourses and oppressive deeds were again waxen rife. Cases were occurring of
ministers who murdered their rulers, and of sons who murdered their fathers.
Confucius was afraid, and made the Ch'un ts'ew.'
Ejus stylus, tunc historicus. Confucius aiebat,
Hæc equitas, tunc ego Khieou privatim sumpsi illam.'
3. The making of a history, indeed, is different from the making of a poem, the development of a philosophy, and other literary achievements in which we expect large results of original thought.
What we are to expect in
a history.
In those we look for new combinations of the phænomena of human character, and new speculations on the divine order of the universe,⿿'things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.' But from the historian all that we are entitled to require is a faithful record of facts. If he would win our special approval, he must weave his facts into an interesting nar rative, trace their connexion with one another, and by unfolding the motives of the actors teach lessons that may have their fruit in guiding and directing the course of events in future generations. The making of history should be signalized by the vigour and elegance of the composition, and by the correct discrimination of on, im partiality, and comprehensiveness of the author's judgments.
Our disappointment in
reading with such expectation the Ch'un Ts'ëw.
When, with these ideas of what a history
should be, we look into the Ch'un Ts'ëw, we experience immediately an intense
feeling of disappointment. Instead of a history of events woven artistically
together, we find a congeries of the briefest possible intimations of matters
in which the court and State of Loo were more or less concerned, extending over
242 years, without the slightest tincture of literary ability in the
composition, or the slighest indication of judicial opinion on the part of the
writer. The paragraphs are always brief. Each one is designed to commemorate a
fact; but whether that fact be a display of virtue calculated to command our
admira tion, or a deed of atrocity fitted to awaken our disgust, it can hardly
be said that there is anything in the language to convey to us the shadow of an
idea of the author's feeling about it. The notices, for we cannot call them
narratives, are absolutely unimpas sioned. A base murder and a shining act of
heroism are chronicled just as the eclipses of the sun are chronicled. So and
so took place;⿿that is all. No details are given; no judgment is expressed. The
reader may be conscious of an emotion of delight or of indigna tion according
to the opinion which he forms of the event mentioned, especially when he has
obtained a fuller account of it from some other quarter; but there is nothing
in the text to excite the one feeling or the other. Whether the statements
found in the Ch'un Ts'ëw be all reliable, and given according to the truth of
the facts, is a point of the utmost importance, which will be duly considered
by and by. I am at present only concerned to affirm that the Work is not at all
of the nature which we should suppose from our previous conception of it as a
history by a great man, and from the accounts given of it by Confucius himself
and by Mencius.
4. The saying of
Confucius that he had made the righteous decisions in the Ch'un Ts'ëw.
If I have given in these remarks a
correct, though brief, idea of what the Ch'un Ts'ëw is, we know not what to
make of the state ment of Confucius quoted by Men cius, that he had himself
ventured to make the righteous decisions contained in it. Whether the book
which we now have be that which Confucius is said to have made, or another, we
examine it in vain for any 'righteous decisions,' for any decisions indeed of
any kind, on the events which are indicated in it. This difficulty is a Gordian
knot which I do not see any way of untying, and I have often wished that I
could cut it by denying the genuineness of the present Ch'un Ts'ëw altogether.
There can be no doubt, however, that the
expression in Mencius about 'the righteous decisions' has had a most powerful
and perni cious influence over the interpretation of the Classic. Chaou K'e,
the earliest commentator on Mencius, explains the passage as intimat ing that
the sage in making the Ch'un Ts'ëw exercised his preroga tive as 'the
unsceptred king.' A subject merely, and without any order from his ruler, he
yet made the Work on his own private authority; and his saying that he ventured
to give his own judg ments on things in it was simply an expression of his
humility.
Hundreds of critics, from Kungyang and
Kuhlëang downwards, have tried to interpret the Classic on the principle of
finding in almost every paragraph some 'righteous decision;' and in my notes I
have in a hundred places pointed out the absurdities in which such a method
lands us. The same peculiarity of the style, such as the omission of a
clanname, becomes in one passage the sign of censure and in another the sign of
praise.
1. What were Confucius' authorities for the events which he has chronicled in the Ch'un Ts'ëw? In proceeding to an inquiry into the Sources of the Work, it will be well to give at the com mencement an explanation of its name.
The two characters, translated literally,
simply mean Spring and Autumn. 'Anciently,' says Maou K'eling, 'the
historiographers, in recording events, did so with the specification of the
day, the month, the season, and the year, to which each event belonged; and to
the whole they gave the name of annals. It was proper that under every year
there should be written the names of the four seasons, and the entire record of
a year went by the name of Spring and Autumn, two of the seasons, being a
compendious expression for all the four.'
2. The name Ch'un Ts'ëw
was in use before the time of Confucius.
That we are not to seek for any deep or
mystical meaning in the title is still more evident from the fact that the name
was in use before it was given to the compila tion of Confucius. The first
narrative of the Tso Chuen under the second year of duke Ch'aou, when Confucius
was only eleven years old, shows that this was the case in Loo. Then the
principal minister of Tsin, being on a visit to the court of Loo, examined the
documents in the charge of the grandhistoriographer, and 'saw,' we are told,
'the Yih with its diagrams and the Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo.'
But the records, or a class of the records,
of every State in the kingdom of Chow appear to have been called by this name
of Spring and Autumn. In the 'Narratives of the States,' the appoint ment of
ShuhHëang to be tutor to the heir-apparent of the State of Tsin is grounded on
'his acquaintance with the Ch'un Ts'ëw.'
4. The Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo supplied, it
seems to me, the materi als for the sage's Work;⿿if, indeed, he did any thing
more than copy out what was ready to his hand. Ho Hëw, the famous Han editor of
Kungyang's commentary on it, in his introductory notes to the first year of
duke Yin, quotes from a Min Yin to the effect that Confucius, having received
the command of Heaven to make his Ch'un Ts'ëw, sent TszeHëa and others of his
disciples, fourteen men in all, to seek for the historical records of Chow, and
that they got the precious books of 120 States, from which he proceeded to make
his chronicle.
5. The nature of the
Ch'un Ts'ëw of the States.
The Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo then was the source
of the Ch'un Ts'ëw of Confucius. The chronicles or annals which went by this
name were the work of the historiographers or recorders, who, we know, were
attached to the royal court and to the courts of the various feudal princes. I
have spoken of those officers in the prolegomena to vol. III. p. 11, and in
those to vol. IV., pp. 24⿿26. Pan Koo in the same chapter from which I have
made a quotation from him in the preceding paragraph, says that the
historiographers of the Left recorded words, that is, Speeches, Charges, etc.,
and those of the Right recorded affairs; that the words formed the Shoo, and
the affairs the Ch'un Ts'ëw.
But if we are to judge of what the Ch'un Ts'ëw of the States were from what the one Ch'un Ts'ëw preserved to us is, the state ment that they contained the records of events cannot be admitted without considerable modification. There can have been no details in them, but only the briefest possible compends of the events, or references to them.
That there were the records of events, kept in the offices of historiography, must be freely admitted, and it will appear, when I come to speak of the commentary of Tso K'ëwming, that to them we are mainly indebted for the narratives which impart so much interest to his Work. But the entries in the various Ch'un Ts'ëw were not made from them,⿿not made from them fairly and honestly as when one tries to give in a very few words the substance of a narrative which is before him. Those entries related to events in the State itself, at the royal court, and in other States with which it maintained friendly relations. Communications about remarkable and ominous occurrences in one State, and about important transactions, were sent from it to others, and the receiving State entered them in its Ch'un Ts'ëw in the terms in which they were made out, without regard to whether they conveyed a correct account of the facts or not. Then the great events in a State itself,⿿those connected with the ruling House and the principal families or clans in it, its relations with other States, and natural phænomena supposed to affect the general wellbeing, also found a place. Sometimes these things were recorded under the special direction of the ruler; at other times we must suppose that the historiographers committed them to their tablets as a part of their official duty. How far truth, an exact conformity of the record with the circumstances, was observed in these entries about the internal affairs of a State, is a point on which it is not competent for me at this point of the inquiry to pronounce an opinion.
6. In the prolegomena to vol. IV. p. 25,
referring to the brief account which we have in the official Book of Chow of
the duties of the historiographers of the Exterior at the royal court, I have
made it appear that they had charge of the Histories of all the States,
Maou K'eling's account
of the contents of the Ch'un Ts'ëw of the States.
They were merely, he says, 'slips of
subjects,' and not 'sum maries' or synopses,⿿containing barely the mention of
the subject to which each of them referred.
After further illustrating the nature of the notices, Maou observes correctly, that to look in them for slight turns of expression, such as the mention of an individual's rank, or of his clanname, or the specification of the day when an event à²ccurred without the month, and to find in the presence or absence of these particulars the expression of praise or blame, is no better than the gropings of a man in a dream. In this I fully agree with him, but as he has said that the 'slipnotices of the Ch'un Ts'ëw' should not be inconsistent with the facts in a detailed narrative of the events to which they refer, he seems to push the point as to the colourlessness of the notices to an extreme, when he adds the following illustration of it on the authority of a brother of his own:⿿'The deaths of princes and great officers recorded in the Ch'un Ts'ëw took place in various ways; but they all appear under the same form⿿"died." Thus in V. xxiv. 5 it is said that "Ewoo, marquis of Tsin, died," the fact being that he was slain; in X. viii. 2 it is said that "Neih, marquis of Ch'in, died," the fact being that he strangled himself; in II. v. 1 it is said that "Paou, marquis of Ch'in, died," the fact being that he went mad and died; in XI. xiv. 6 it is said that "Kwang, viscount of Woo, died," the fact being that he did so of wounds received in battle; in XI. iii. 2 it is said that "Ch'uen, viscount of Woo, died," the fact being that he burned himself to death; in III. xxxii. 3 it is said that "the Kungtsze Ya died," the fact being that he was com pelled to take poison; in X. iv. 8 it is said that "Shuhsun P'aou died," the fact being that he was starved to death; in X. xxv. 7 it is said that "Shuhsun Shay died," the fact being that he did so in answer to his own prayers; and in X. xxix. 3, it is said that "Shuh E died," the fact being that he did so without any illness. The one word "died," is used in such a variety of cases, and it is only one who knows profoundly the style of the text who can explain the comprehensive meaning of the term.'5 But there is no meaning in the term beyond that of dying, and the conclusion of the mind is that the death in dicated by it was a natural one. It is not history in any proper sense of the term which is given in such an undiscriminating style.
7. Did Confucius in
compiling his Ch'un Ts'ëw add to or take from his authorities?
The reader has now a sufficiently accurate idea of what all the annals that went under the name of Ch'un Ts'ëw were, of what especially the Ch'un Ts'ëw still existing and with which we have to do is. It only remains for me in this section to inquire whether we have reason to believe that Con fucius made any changes in the style of the Ch'un Ts'ëw to Loo.
On this point, as on so many others
connected with the Work, we have not sufficient evidence to pronounce a very
decided opinion. We are without a single word about it from Confucius himself,
or from any of his immediate disciples; and from later scholars and critics we
have the most conflicting utterances regarding it. I have quoted a few words on
p. 9, from Szema Ts'ëen's account of the Ch'un Ts'ëw, but I now give the whole
of it:⿿'The master said, "No! No! The superior man is distressed lest his name
should not be honourably mentioned after death. My principles do not make way
in the world;⿿how shall I make myself known to future ages?" On this, from the
records of the historians he made the Ch'un Ts'ëw, commencing with duke Yin,
coming down to the 14th year of duke Gae, and thus embracing the times of
twelve marquises. He kept close in it to [the annals of] Loo, showed his
affection for Chow, and purposely made the three dynasties move before the
reader.
A thousand expressions of opinion,
modelled upon that of Szema Ts'ëen, might easily be adduced, all, it seems to
me, as I have said already, prompted by an endeavour to reconcile the existing
Work with the accounts of the Ch'un Ts'ëw given in Mencius. As we come down the
course of time, we find the scholars of China less positive in the view that
Confucius made any change in the text of the Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo. Choo He says,
'The entries in the Ch'un Ts'ëw, that, for instance, "Such a man did such a
thing" are according to the old text of the historiographers of Loo, come down
to us from the stylus of the sage, transcribing or retrenching. Nowadays,
people, when they see the Ch'un Ts'ëw, are sure to say. "Such and such a
character has its stigma for such and such a man," so that Confucius thus took
it on him, according to his pri vate views, to dispense without authority his
praise or blame. But Confucius simply wrote the thing correctly as it was, and
the good or evil of it was manifest of itself. If people feel that they must
express themselves as I have said, we must get into our hands the old text of
the historiographers of Loo, so that, comparing it with what we now have, the
difference and agreement between them would be apparent. But this is now
impossible.'
Chaou Yih adduces two paragraphs from the
'Annals of the Bamboo Books,' which, he thinks, may be the original form of two
in the Ch'un Ts'ëw. The one is⿿'Duke Yin of Loo and duke Chwang of Choo made a
covenant at Koomeeh,'
With regard to the entry in III. vii. 2, that 'at midnight there was a fall of stars like rain,' referring, we must believe, to a grand appearance of meteors, Kungyang tells us that the old text of the historiographers was⿿'It rained stars to within a foot of the earth, when they reascended'? Certainly the text was not altered here by Confu cius to express either praise or censure. And if Kungyang was able thus to quote the old text, it is strange he should only have done it in this solitary instance. If it had been so different from the present, with his propensities he would not have been slow to adduce it frequently. I must doubt his correctness in this case.
After the first entry under the 14th year of duke Gae, with which according to all Chinese critics the labours of Confucius terminated, Tsoshe gives no fewer than 27 paragraphs, bringing the history down to the death of the sage in Gae's 16th year. Those paragraphs were added, it is said, from the Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo by Confucius' disciples; and I can see no difference between the style in them, and in the more than a thousand which passed under the revision of the master.
Is it a sign of my having imbibed something of the prejudice of native scholars, of which I spoke in the end of last section, that I do not like to express my opinion that Confucius did not alter a charac ter in his authorities? Certainly he made no alterations to convey his sentiments of praise or blame;⿿the variations of style where there could be no change of sentiment or feeling underlying them forbid our supposing this.
1. Evidence of Lëw Hin's
Catalogue of the Han imperial library
Lëw Hin's catalogue of the Works in the
imperial library of the early Han dynasty, prepared, as I have shown in the
proleg. to vol. I., p. 4, about the commencement of our Christian era, begins,
on the Ch'un Ts'ëw, with two collections of the text of the Classic:⿿'The old
text of the Ch'un Ts'ëw in twelve p'ëen'; and 'The text of the Ch'un Ts'ëw in
eleven keuen or Books.'
2. Were the texts mentioned in the Han catalogue derived from the commentaries of Tso, Kungyang, and Kuhlëang, or from some other independent source? In a note to the entry about them, Yen Szekoo of the T'ang dynasty says that they were taken from Kungyang and Kuhlëang. Many scholars confine his remark to the second collection, and it gives some coun tenance to this view that the commentaries of those two masters were then in eleven Books; but it is to be observed on the other hand that with the differences which exist in their texts they could hardly have been formed into one collection. The texts in the Han Catalogue.
With regard to the first entry⿿'the old
text in twelve p'ëen'⿿it is the general opinion that this was the text as taken
from the Work of Tso. And there can be no doubt that during the Han dynasty the
text and the commentary were kept separate in that Work, for Too Yu tells us
that in his edition of it, early in the Tsin dynasty, he 'took the years of the
text and arranged them along with the cor responding years of the commentary.'
3. View on the subject of
Ma Twanlin.
There are many of the scholars of China,
who would hesitate to concur with me in this view, and prefer to abide by the
opinion of which very full expression has been given by Ma Twanlin. He says,
'Although there appears in the catalogue of the Han dynasty "The old Text of
the Ch'un Ts'ëw," yet the original text, as corrected by the master, was never
discovered; and the old texts compiled in the Han dynasty and subsequently have
all been taken from the three commentaries, and called by the name of "The
correct text." But there are many differences in the texts which appear in
those commentaries, and it is impossible for the student to decide between
them. For instance:⿿in I. i. 2 Tso gives the meeting between the marquis of Loo
and Efoo of Choo as having taken place in Mëeh (迿), while Kung and Kuh give the
name as 濧, so that we cannot tell which of these charac ters the master wrote.
So Mei(鿿) , in III. xxviii. 4, appears in Kung and Kuh as 微, and Keuehyin(忥濿),
in X. xi. 7, appears in Kung and Kuh as 屿鿿. Instances of this kind are
innumerable, but they are generally in the names of places and unimportant. In
I. iii. 3, however, we have in Tsoshe the entry 忿氿忿, which would be the notice
of the death of Shing Tsze, the mother of duke Yin, whereas in Kung and Kuh we
read忿氿忿, referring to the death of a high minister of Chow; so that we cannot
tell whose death it was that the master chronicled as having taken place on the
day Sinmaou of the 4th month of the third year of duke Yin.
'And not only so. In the 21st year of duke Sëang, both Kung yang and Kuhlëang have an entry to the effect that Confucius was then born. But in the Ch'un Ts'ëw only the births of the heirsons of the rulers of States were entered, as in II. vi. 5. In other cases, the births even of hereditary nobles, who exercised an allpowerful sway in the government of their States, like the members of the Ke family [in Loo], did not find a place in the tablets; and though the master be the teacher of emperors and kings for myriads of ages, yet at his birth he was only the son of the commandant of the city of Tsow. The historiographers of Loo would not make a record of that event, and to say that he himself afterward entered it in the classic which he prepared, is in the highest degree absurd.
'Moreover Tso, after the capture of the lin in the 14th year of duke Gae, has further protracted the text to the 4th month of the 16th year, when the death of Chungne is recorded;⿿which even Tso Chingnan considered to be not far from an act of forgery.
'Thus there are not only additions in the
three commentaries to the proper text of the Ch'un Ts'ëw of things which are
strange and partly incredible, but the authors of them added [to the text] and
suppressed [portions of it] according to their pleasure. In what they write
under the 21st year of Sëang, Kung and Kuh added to the text, to do honour to
the master from whom they had received it, and Tso made his addition in the
16th year of Gae, to show his grief for the death of the master;⿿neither
addition was in the original text of the Ch'un Ts'ëw. The three writers made
their commentaries according to what was current in men's mouths, and what they
heard with their ears, in their time, and each of them thrust in whatever
addition he desired to make. Subsequent scholars again have adopted what they
found in the three commentaries, one favouring this and another that, and
trying to make it clear; but that they have attained to the mind of the sage in
the use of his stylus, now writing down and now retrenching, a thousand years
before them, is what I am not able to believe.'
4. Ma's conclusions seem
overstrained.
I have given the whole of Ma's remarks,
because of the weight of his authority and the freedom with which he has
expressed his views. The points, however, on which he insists do not make so
unfavourable an impression on my mind against the integrity of our present text
as they did upon his. That there was not in the Han dynasty a text of the
Classic besides the texts found in the three commentaries is not so certain as
he makes out. Very possibly, as I have shown in the second paragraph, a
distinct text was found, as related by Heu Shin, in the year B.C. 153. But if
we base the text simply on what is given in the commentaries, we must feel that
we approximate very nearly to what it was when they made their appearance, to
what it had been before the tyrant of Ts'in fancied that he had made an end of
it. There is no evidence that anyone of them suppressed portions of the text as
Ma affirms; and the additions of which he makes so much are only two, one by
Kungyang and Kuhlëang (with a variation, however, to which he does not advert),
and one by Tso, for we may consider all the paragraphs that follow the account
of the capture of the lin as one addition. They were both very natural, and I
should suppose were intended originally as notes rather than additions to the
text. The various readings again in the three are really not of great
importance. Occurring mostly in the names of men and places,
I proceed in the next section to describe the three early comment aries, after which we shall be prepared to estimate the value of the Work itself.
1. The commentary of
Tso.
Of the three early commentaries the first
which made its appearance in the Han dynasty, and incomparably the most
important, was that of Tso, or of Tsok'ëw, for the opinions of scholars differ
both as to the surname and the name of the author.
2. Who Tso was
Who Tso was it is not easy to say. In the
Analects, V. xxiv., Confucius says, 'Fine words, an insinuating appearance, and
excessive respect;⿿Tsok'ëw Ming was ashamed of such things, and I also am
ashamed of them. To conceal resentment against a person, and appear friendly
with him;⿿Tsok'ëw Ming was ashamed of such conduct, and I also am ashamed of
it.'
3. First Appearance and
subsequent history of his commentry.
Leaving these speculations about the name
and person of Tso, we find that his commentary made its appearance soon after
the rise of the Han dynasty. Heu Shin to his account of the discovery of the
Ch'un Ts'ëw in the wall of Confucius house, quoted on p. 18, sub joins the
statement that Chang Ts'ang, marquis of Pihp'ing pre sented the commentary of
Tso written in the old characters of the Chow dynasty.
4. Attempt to trace Tso's
Work nearly to the time of Confucius.
Nothing need be said on the history of the
commentary of Tso since the beginning of the Han dynasty. Some of the scholars
of that age traced it back from Chang Ts'ang to nearly the time of Confucius,
and K'ung Yingtah in his preface to Too Yu's Work quotes the following from a
production of Lëw Hëang (B.C. 80⿿9) which is now lost: 'Tso K'ëwming delivered
his Work to Tsang Shin. Shin transmitted it to Woo K'e; Woo K'e to his son K'e;
K'e to Toh Tsëaou, a native of Ts'oo, who copied out selections from it in 8
books; Toh Tsëaou to Yu K'ing, who made 9 books of selections from it; Yu K'ing
to Seun K'ing; and Seun K'ing to Chang Ts'ang.'
5. The nature of Tso's
Work.
I have said that generally we have in the
Work of Tso the details of the events of which we have but a shadow or the
barest intimation in the text of the Ch'un Ts'ëw; but we have more than this.
Of multitudes of events that during the 242 years of the Ch'un Tsë period took
place in Loo and other States, to which the text makes no allusion, we have
from Tso a full account. Where he got his information he does not tell us. Too
Yu is probably correct when he says that Tso was himself one of the
historiographers of Loo.
Tso's Work compiled on a
twofold plan. He wished first to explain the text.
To myself it appears plain that Tso's Work
was compiled on a twofold plan. First, he had reference to the text of the
Ch'un Ts'ëw, and wished to give the details of the events which were indicated
in it. Occasionally also he sets himself to explain the words of that text,
being sometimes successful and sometimes not. He lays down canons to regulate
the meaning and application of certain characters, but it can hardly be said
that we find him under the influence of the 'praiseandcensure' theory. In this
respect he differs remarkably from Kungyang and Kuhlëang; and I have sometimes
fancied that the characteristic is an evidence that he lived before Mencius,
and had never read the accounts of the Classic which we find in him. His object
evidently was to convey to his read ers a knowledge of the facts given in the
master's paragraphs as if independent and isolated in their connexion with one
another. Hence he often mentions new facts which are necessary for that
purpose. As he generally introduces them chronologically, at the time of their
occurrence, he seems at times merely to increase the mass of indigested matter;
but by and by we find what he has thus related to stand in the relation of
cause to something subsequently chronicled. But his method with these additions
to the text, which are yet connected with it, is very various. As Too Yu says,
'Now he anticipates the text to show the origin of an affair; now he comes
after the text [with his narrative] to bring out fully the meaning; now he lies
alongside the text to discriminate the princi ples in it; and now he appears to
cross the text to bring together things that differ:⿿thus various according to
what he considered the requirements of the case.'
Let it be understood, however, that Tso
does not give the details of every event which the Classic briefly indicates.
We must suppose that where he does not do so, his sources of information failed
him, and he was obliged to leave the notice of the text as it was. There is the
erroneous or defective entry in III. xxiv. 9,⿿'The duke of Kwoh.' On it Tso
says nothing. So on the five paragraphs of Chwang's 26th year he has nothing to
say, while he introduces brief narratives of two other things, for the latter
of which only we can account as being given with an outlook into the future.
Generally speaking, the information given in the Chuen is scanty or abundant in
proportion to its distance from or nearness to the era assigned to its
compilation. The 18 years of duke Hwan, B.C. 710⿿693, occupy in the following
Work 37 pages; the 15 years of duke Ting, B.C. 508⿿ 494, 50 pages. The 32 years
of Chwang, B.C. 692⿿661, occupy 59 pages; the 32 of Ch'aou, B.C. 540⿿509, 173
pages. This certainly gives us for the Work one attribute of verisimilitude.
The second view of
Tso;to give a general view of the history of China during the Ch'un Tsë
period.
But while Tso intended his Work to be a
commentary on the text of the Ch'un Ts'ëw, I believe that he had in view
another and higher object, and wished to give his readers a general view of the
his tory of the country throughout all its States during the Ch'un Ts'ëw
period. The account of the Chuen quoted above from Too Yu carries us a
considerable way to this conclusion. Tso shows the origin and issue of many
events, one phase of which merely is mentioned in the text. The unconnected
entries of the classic are thus woven together, and a history is made out of
them. But the new matter introduced by him is so very much, and often having no
relation to anything stated in the text, yet calculated to bring the whole
field of the era before us, and to indicate the progress of events on towards a
different state of the kingdom, that we must suppose this to have been a
prominent object in the author's mind. This characteristic of the Work has not
escaped the notice of native scholars themselves. As early as the Tsin dynasty,
Wang Tsëeh preferred to it the commentary of Kung yang on this account. 'Tso's
style,' said he,' is so rich, and his aim so extensive, that he is to be
regarded as an author by himself, and not having it for his principal object to
illustrate the classic.'
6. Peculiarity of Tso's
composition.
Three more points in regard to Tso's Work
have yet to be considered:⿿the manner of his composition; how far his
narratives are entitled to our belief; and whether there is reason to believe
that additions were made to them by writers of the Ts'in and Han dynasties. By
the manner of Tso's composition I do not mean the general character of his
style. There is but one opinion as to that. It is acknowledged on all hands
that he was a master of his art. Condensed, yet vivid, he is eminently
pictorial. The foreign student does not for some time find it easy to make out
his meaning, but by and by he gets familiar with the style, and it then has a
great charm for him. In the words which the foremost of French sinologues once
used to me of him, Tso was un grand ecrivain.
The other two points regarding the Work, which I indicated are of more importance, and I will consider them together. Have we reason to receive Tso's narratives as reliable, having been transcribed by him from preexistent records with merely such modifications of style as suited his taste? Or did he invent some of them himself? Or were they added to by writers in the Ts'in dynasty and that of the Former Han? It is difficult to reply to these questions cate gorically. What has the greatest weight with me in favour of Tso's general credibility is the difference between his commentary and those of Kungyang and Kuhlëang. What of narrative belongs to the latter bears upon it the stamp of tradition, and evidently was not copied from written records but from accounts current in the mouths of men. It is, moreover, of comparatively small com pass. Their Works must have been written when the memory of particular events in the past had in a great measure died out. If Tso's sources of information had been available for them, they would, we may be sure, have made use of them. The internal evidence of the three Works leaves no doubt in the mind as to the priority of Tso's. And as they all made their appearance early in the Han dynasty, we are carried back for the composition of Tso's into the period of Chow. As his last entry is about an affair in the 4th year of duke Taou, who died B.C. 430, and he mentions in it the Head of the Chaou family in Tsin by his honorary epithet of Sëang tsze, which could not have been given before 424, we can hardly be wrong in assigning Tso to the fifth century before Christ. This brings him close to the age of Confucius who died in B.C. 478. Tso may then have been a young man;⿿he could hardly be a disciple enjoying that intimate association with the sage which Lew Hin, Pan Koo, and other Chinese scholars were fond of asserting. Are Tso's narratives reliable? Were they supplemented or added to.
But to maintain the general credibility of
Tso's Chuen as having been taken from authoritative sources and records
acknowledged as genuine among the States of China when he wrote, leaves us at
freedom to weigh his narratives and form our own opinion on grounds of reason
as to the degree of confidence which we ought to repose in them. There are few
critics of eminence among the Chinese who do not allow themselves a certain
amount of liberty in this respect. Ch'ing Ech'uen laid down two canons on the
subject. 'The Chuen of Tso,' he says, 'is not to be entirely believed; but only
that portion of it which is in itself credible.'
The K'anghe editors defer in general to the authority of Tso; but even they do not scruple to suppress his narratives occasionally, or to elide portions of them. They suppress, for instance, the account of the conference between the marquises of Loo and Ts'e at Këahkuh, given under XI. x. 2, considering the part which Confucius is made to play at it to be derogatory to him.
Wang Ganshih
Apart from any discussion of these instances, I venture to state my own opinion, that interpolations were made in the Chuen after Tso had put his finishing touch to it, and probably during the dy nasty of the former Han; and there are two classes of passages which seem to bear on them and in them the evidence of having been so dealt with.
[i]There are the moralizings which
conclude many narratives and are interjected in others, generally with the
formula⿿'The superior man will say,' and sometimes as if quoted from Confucius.
They have often nothing or next to nothing to do with the subject of the
narrative to which they are attached, and the manner in which they occasionally
bring in quotations from the odes reminds us of Han Ying's Illustrations of the
She, of which I have given specimens in the proleg. to vol. IV. Choo He well
asks what con nexion the concluding portion of the Chuen after I. vi. 2 has to
do with what precedes, and points out many reflections in other parts which
cannot be considered as the utterances of a superior man but the speculations
of a mere scholar.
[ii.]There is a host of passages which contain predictions of the future, or allusions to such predictions, grounded on divination, meteorological and astrological considerations, and something in the manner or deportment of the parties concerned;⿿predictions which turn out to be true. We may be sure that none of these were made at the time assigned to them in the Chuen. Some of them which had their fulfilment before the end of the Ch'un Ts'ëw period may have been current in Tso's days, and incorporated by him with his narrative. Others, like the ending of the Chow dynasty after an existence of so many hundred years, the fulfilment of which was at a later date, were, no doubt, fabricated subsequently to that fulfilment, and interpolated during the time of the first Han.
But after deducting all these suspicious
portions from Tso's Chuen, there remains the mass of it, which we may safely
receive as having been compiled by him from records made contemporane ously
with the events, and transmitted by him with the graces of his own style. It
is, in my opinion, the most precious literary treasure which has come down to
posterity from the Chow dynasty.
7. The commentaries of
Kung yang and Kuhlëang.
On the other two early commentaries, those of Kungyang and Kuhlëang, it is not necessary that I should write at so much length. There is really nothing in them to entitle them to serious attention. Down to the present day, indeed, there are scholars in China who publish their lucubrations in favour of the one or of the other; but I think that my readers will all agree with me in the opinion which I have expressed about them, when they have examined the specimens of them which are appended to this chapter.
The commentaries themselves and various Works upon them are mentioned in Lëw Hin's catalogue; ⿿ as stated above on page 17.
Kungyang.
With regard to the Work of Kungyang,
There can be no doubt, however, that it
was made public in the reign of King, and was acknowledged and admitted by his
successor Woo (B.C. 139⿿86) into the imperial college. Hoowoo was a con
temporary and friend of the scholar Tung Chungshoo;
It is not important to trace the history
of Kungyang's commentary farther on. The names of various writers on it and of
their Works are preserved, but the Works are lost till we arrive at Ho Hëw
(A.D. 129⿿183), who published his 'Explanations of Kungyang on the Ch'un
Ts'ëw.'
The commentary of Kuhlëang is, like that
of Kungyang, carried back to Tszehëa; but the line of transmission down to the
Han dynasty is imperfectly given. The general opinion is that Kuhlëang's name
was Ch'ih,
7. Speculation as to a
connexion between the commentaries of Kung and Kuh; and that these were only
one person.
One cannot compare carefully even the
specimens of the two commentaries which I have given without seeing that there
is often a great similarity between them, and having the conclusion sug gested
to the mind that the one was not made without reference to the other. It is not
to be wondered at that some scholars, like Lin Hwangchung of the Sung dynasty,
should have supposed the two to be the production of the same writer.
1.Object of this
section.
I come now to what must be considered as the most important subject in this chapter,⿿to endeavour to estimate the value of the Ch'un Ts'ëw as a document of history; and this will involve a judgment, first, on the character of Confucius as its author, or as having made himself responsible for it by copying it from the tablets of his native State and giving it to the world with his imprimatur, and, next, a judgment on the influence which it has had on the successive governments of China and on the Chinese people at large.
2. Statement of the
case.
My readers have received, I hope, a distinct idea of the nature of the Work as made up of the briefest possible notices of the events of the time which it covers, without any attempt to exhibit the connexion between them, or any expre sion of opinion as to the moral character which attaches to many of them. I have spoken of the disappointment which this occasions us, when we address ourselves to its perusal with the expectations which its general reputation and the glowing accounts of it given by Mencius have awakened. We cannot reconcile it with our idea of Confucius that he should have produced so trivial a Work; and we cannot comprehend how his countrymen, down to the present day, should believe in it, and set it forth as a grand achievement.
If there were no other attribute but this triviality belonging to it, we might dismiss it from our notice, and think of it only as of a mirage, which had from the cloudland lured us to it by the attractive appearances which it presented, all vanishing as we approached it and subjected it to a close examination. But there are other attri butes of the Work which are of a serious character, and will not permit us to let it go so readily. On p. 13 I have applied the term colourlessness to the notices composing it, meaning thereby simply the absence of all indication of feeling or opinion respecting the subjects of them on the part of the writer or compiler. But are the things so dispassionately told correct in point of fact? Are all the notices really informing, or are many of them misleading? Is the very brief summary a fair representation of the events, or is it in many cases a gross misrepresentation of them?
In what I have said in the preceding sections, I have repeatedly intimated my own opinion that many of the notices of the Ch'un Ts'ew are not true; and the proof of this is found in the contradic tions which abound between them and the events as given in detail in the Chuen of Tso, contradictions which are pointed out in my notes in hundreds of cases. It may occur to some that the Classic itself is to be believed rather than the narratives of Tso and the other commentators on it. If we are to rest in this dictum, there is of course an end of all study of the Ch'un Ts'ew period. From the Work of Confucius, confessedly, we learn nothing of interest, and now the relations of Tso which are so rich in detail are not to be credited;⿿the two centuries and a half become a blank. But it is impossible to rest in this view. The multitude of details which Tso gives makes him the principal witness in the case; but Kung and Kuh, greatly differing as they do from him in the style of their commentaries, very often bear out his statements, and are equally irreconcileable with the notices of the sage and the inferences which we naturally draw from them. How is it that the three men, all looking up with veneration to Confucius, yet combine to contradict him as they do? Kung and Kuh have their praiseandcensure theory to explain the language which the master uses; but we have seen that it is inadmissible, and it supplies no answer to the question which I have just put. And the mass of Chinese scholars and writers, for nearly 2000 years, have not scrupled to accept the history of the Ch'un Ts'ëw period given by Tso as in the main correct, maintaining at the same time their allegiance to Confucius as 'the teacher of all ages,' the one man at whose feet the whole world should sit, accepting every paragraph from his stylus as a divine oracle. The thing is to me inexplicable. There have been many times when I have mused over the subject in writing the pages of this volume, and felt that China was hardly less a strange country to me than Lilliput or Laputa would be.
3. Chinese scholars admit
that the Classic conceals things.
The scholars of China are ready, even
forward, to admit that Confucius in the Ch'un Ts'ew often conceals
[i.]It ignores
facts.
The Ch'un Ts'ew often ignores facts, and
of this I will content myself with adducing two instances. The first shall be
comparatively, if not quite, an innocent omission. The fifth Book, containing
the annals of duke He, commences simply with the notice that 'it was his first
year, the spring, the king's first month.' It is not said that 'he came to the
[vacant] seat,' that is, that he did so with the formal ceremonies proper to
celebrate his accession to the marquisate. Tso asks why this notice was not
given, and says it was because the duke He had gone out of the State. 'The
duke,' says he, 'had fled out of the State and now reentered it; but this is
not recorded, being concealed (i. e., being ignored). To conceal the wickedness
of the State was according to rule.' On the murder of duke Chwang's son Pan,
who should have succeeded to his father, Shin, who became duke He, had fled to
the State of Choo, and a boy of eight years old, known as duke Min, was made
marquis, and when, within less than two years, he shared the fate of Pan, Shin
returned to Loo, and took his place. What connexion all this had with the
omission of the usual pageantry or ceremonies, and whe ther we have in it the
true explanation of the absence of the usual notice, I am not prepared to say;
but we cannot see what harm there could have been in mentioning duke He's
flight from the State and subsequent return to it. A good and faithful
chronicler would have been careful to do so, especially if the events did
affect, as Tso says, the inauguration of the new rule.
The second instance of ignoring shall be one of more importance. It is well known that the lords of the great States of Ts'oo and Woo usurped during the Ch'un Ts'ëw period the title of king, thus renouncing their allegiance to the dynasty of Chow which acknow ledged them only as viscounts. It is by this style of viscount that they are designated in the Ch'un Ts'ëw; but the remarkable fact is that it does not once notice the burial of anyone of all the lords of Ts'oo, or of Woo. The reason is that in such notices he must have appeared with his title of king. The rule was that every feudal lord, duke, marquis, earl, or baron, should after death be denominated as kung or duke, and to this was added the honorary or sacrificial epithet by which he was afterwards to be known. When a notice was entered in the Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo, say of the burial of the marquis Ch'ungurh of Tsin, the entry was that on such and such a month and day they buried duke Wan of Tsin. But the officers, deputed for the purpose from Loo, had assisted at the burial not of any duke of Ts'oo or of Woo, but of king so and so. What were the historiographers to do? If they called the king when living a viscount, it would seem to us reasonable that they might have been satisfied to call him a duke when dead. But this would have been a direct falsification of the notification which they had received from the State of the deceased. They therefore ignored the burial altogether, and so managed to make their suzerain of Chow the only king that appeared in their annals. Confucius sanctioned the practice; or if he suppressed all the paragraphs in which the burials of the lords of Ts'oo and Woo were entered, either as dukes or kings, then specially against him lies the charge of thus shrinking from looking the real state of things fairly in the face, as if he could make it any better by taking no notice of it.
[ii.] It conceals the
truth about things.
A large list of cases of ignoring might be made out by comparing the notes and narratives of Tso with the entries of the Ch'un Ts'ëw, but the cases of concealing the truth are much more numerous; and in fact it is difficult to draw the line in regard to many of them between mere concealment and misrepresentation. I have quoted, on p. 13, from Maou K'eling many startling instances of the manner in which the simple notice 'he died' is used, covering almost every possible way of violent and unnatural death. It may be said that most of them relate to the deaths of princes of other States, and that the historiographers of Loo simply entered the notices as they were communicated to them from those States. Might we not have expected, however, that when their entries came under the revision of Confucius, he would have altered them so as to give his readers at least an inkling of the truth? But it is the same with the chronicling of deaths in Loo itself. Duke Yin was basely murdered, with the connivance of his brother who succeeded him, and all that is said about it in I. xi. 4 is⿿ 'In winter, in the 11th month, on Jinshin, the duke died.' His successor was murdered in turn, with circumstances of peculiar atrocity, and the entry in II. xviii. 2 is simply⿿'In summer, in the 4th month, on Pingtsze, the duke died in Ts'e.' In III. xxxii. three deaths are recorded. We read:⿿'In autumn, in the 7th month, on Kweisze, duke [Hwan's son] Ya died;' 'In the 8th month, on Kweihae, the duke died in the State-chamber;' 'In winter, in the 10th month, the duke's son Pan died.' Only the second of these deaths was a natural one. Ya was compelled to take poison by a half-brother Keyëw, under circumstances which are held by many critics to justify the deed. Pan who was now marquis, though he could not be entered as such by the historiographers till the year had elapsed, was murdered by an uncle, who wished to seize the marquisate for himself, without any mitigating circum stances. How is it that these three deaths, so different in their nature and attendant circumstances, are described by the same word? Here it is said 'Ya died,' and 'Pan died;' and they did not die natural deaths. In I. v. 7 it is said ⿿ 'duke [Hëaou's] son K'ow died,' and in VIII. v. 13 we have⿿'Kesun Hangfoo died;'and they both died natural deaths. What are we to think of a book which relates events in themselves so different without any difference in its forms of expression? The K'anghe editors are fond of the solution of such perplexities which says that Confucius meant to set his readers inquiring after the details of the events which he indicated; but why did he not obviate the necessity for such inquiries altogether by varying his language as it would have been very easy to do? But for the Chuen we should entirely misunderstand a great number of the entries in the text.
To take two instances of a less violent kind than these descriptions of deaths,⿿in III. i. 2, we read that 'in the 3d month the [late duke Hwan's,] wife [Wan Këang] retired to Ts'e,' and in X. xxv. 5 we read that 'in the 9th, month, on Kehae, the duke [Ch'aou] retired to Ts'e.' In both passages 'retired' is equivalent to 'fled.' Duke Hwan's widow was understood to have been an accomplice in the murder of her hus band, and to have been guilty of incest with her halfbrother, the mar quis of Ts'e;⿿she found it unpleasant, probably dangerous, for her to remain in Loo, and so she fled to Ts'e, where she would be safe and could continue to follow her evil courses. All this the historiographers and Confucius thought it necessary to gloss over by writing that she withdrew or retired to Ts'e. The case of duke Ch'aou was different. He had been kept, like several of his predecessors, in a state of miserable subjection by the principal nobles of the State, especially by the Head of the Kesun family. Instigated by his sons, highspirited young men who could not brook the restraints and shame of their condition, he attempted to cope with his powerful minister, and got the worst of it in the struggle. The consequence was that he fled to Ts'e; and the text is all that the Ch'un Ts'ëw tells us about these affairs, unless we accept its most important entry of the ominous fact that a few months before the duke's flight 'grackles came to Loo and built nests in trees!' Every one will allow that sons should speak tenderly of the errors of their parents, and ministers and subjects generally throw a veil over the faults of their rulers; but it seems to be carrying the instinctive feeling of dutiful for bearance too far when a historian or chronicler tries to hide the truth about his ruler's conduct and condition from himself and his readers in the manner of the Ch'un Ts'ëw. It should be kept in mind, moreover, that the historiographers of Loo, if Ch'aou had been the ruler of another State, would, probably, not have scrupled to say that Kesun Ejoo drove him out, and that he fled to Ts'e. Where their own State was concerned, they dared not look the truth in the face. Had Wan Këang been the marchioness of another State, they would have thought that it did not come within their province to say anything about her.
Two more instances of concealment will finish all that it is neces sary to say on this part of my indictment against our Classic; and they shall be entries concerning the king. In V. xxviii. 16, it is said that 'the king [by] Heaven's [grace] held a court of inspection at Hoyang;' and we suppose that we have an instance of one of those exercises of the royal prerogative which distinguished the kingdom in normal times. But the fact was very different. In the 4th month of the year Tsin had defeated Ts'oo in a great battle, and the States of the north were safe for a time from the encroachments of their ambitious neighbour. Next month the marquis of Tsin called a great meeting of the northern princes at which he required the king to be present. The king responded to the summons of his feudatory, and a brother of his own presided over the meeting;⿿ though both of these facts are ignored in the text. In the winter, the marquis called another meeting in Hoyang, a place in the present district of Wan, in the department of Hwaek'ing, Honan, at which also he required the presence of the king, and which is chronicled in the 16th paragraph. Tso quotes a remark of Confucius on the case,⿿that 'for a subject to call his ruler to any place is a thing not to be set forth [as an example];' but to this I would reply that, the fact being so, it should not be recorded in a way to give the reader quite a different idea of it.
The other instance is less flagrant. In V. xxiv. 4 it is said, 'The king [by] Heaven's [grace] left [Chow], and resided in Ch'ing].' The facts were that a brother of the king had raised an insurrection against him, so that he was obliged to leave his capital and the imperial domain, and take refuge in Ch'ing, where he remained until in the next year he was restored to the royal city by an army of Tsin. But as the Ch'un Ts'ëw says nothing of the troubles which occasioned the king's flight, so it says nothing about the manner in which he was restored. The whole history of the case is summed up in the paragraph that I have quoted, which conceals the facts, and of itself would not convey to us anything like an accurate impression of the actual circumstances.
[iii.]The Ch'un Ts'ëw
misrepresents.
I go on to the third and most serious charge which can be brought against the Ch'un Ts'ëw. It not only ignores facts, and con ceals them, but it also often misrepresents them, thus not merely hiding truth or distorting it, but telling us what was not the truth. The observation of Mencius, that, when the Ch'un Ts'ëw was made, rebellious ministers and villainous sons be came afraid, suggests the instances by which this feature of the Classic may be best illustrated.
Let us first take the case of Chaou Tun, according to the entry in VII. ii. 4, that 'Chaou Tun of Tsin murdered his ruler, Ekaou.' The fact is that Tun did not murder Ekaou. The marquis of Tsin was a man of the vilest character, utterly unfit for his position, a scourge to the State, and a hater of all good men. Tun was his principal minister, a man of dignity and virtue, and had by his remonstrances, excited the special animosity of the marquis, who at one time had sent a bravo to his house to assassinate him, and at another had let loose a bloodhound upon him. Wearied out with the difficulties of his position, Tun had fled from the Court, and had nearly left the State, when a relative of his, called Chaou Ch'uen, attacked the marquis and put him to death; on which Tun returned to the capital, and resumed his place as chief minister. The only fault which I can see that he committed was that he con tinued to employ his relative Ch'uen in the government; but the probability is that he had not the power to deal with him in any other way. Had he been able to execute him, and proceeded to do so, it would have been, I venture to think, a proceeding of doubtful justice. But I ask my readers whether it was right, considering all the circumstances of the case, to brand Tun himself as the murderer of the marquis.
According to Tso, the entry in the text was made in the first place by Tung Hoo, the grandhistoriographer of Tsin, who showed it openly in the court, and silenced Tun when he remonstrated with him on its being a misrepresentation of himself. Tso also gives a remark of Confucius, praising Tung Hoo, who made it his rule in what he wrote 'not to conceal!' and praising also Chaou Tun who humbly submitted to a charge of such wickedness. 'Alas for him!' said our sage. 'If he had crossed the border of the State, he would have escaped the charge.' The historiographers of Loo had entered the record in their Ch'un Ts'ëw as they received it from Tsin; but I submit whether Confucius, in revising their work, ought not to have exercised his 'pruning pencil,' and modified the misrepresenta tion. A sage, as we call him, he might have allowed something for the provocations which Tun had received, and for the wickedness of the marquis's government; he ought not to have allowed Tun to remain charged with what was the deed of another.
Let us take a second case. In X. xix. 2 we read⿿'Che, heir-son of Heu, murdered his ruler Mae.' This, if it were true, would com bine the guilt of both regicide and parricide. According to all the Chuen, Che was not the murderer in this case. He was watching his sick father, and gave him a wrong medicine in consequence of which he died. We have no reason to conclude that there was poison in the medicine which the son ignorantly gave. Some critics say that he ought to have tasted it himself before he gave it to his father. He might have done so, and yet not have discovered that it would be so injurious. There is no evidence, indeed, that he did not do so. The result preyed so on the young man's mind that he resigned the State to a younger brother, refused proper nourishment, and soon died. Even if it were he himself who insisted on the form of the entry about his father's death, Confucius, if he had feeling for human infirmity, would have modified it, and not allowed poor Che to go down to posterity charged with the crime of parricide, which, if we had only the Ch'un Ts'ëw, there would be no means of denying.
Let us take a third case. It may seem to come properly under the preceding count of concealment of the truth, but I introduce it here, because of its contrast with the record in the next case which I will adduce. In X. i. 11, it is said,⿿'In winter, in the 11th month, on Keyëw, Keun, viscount of Ts'oo, died.' The vis count, or king as he styled himself, was suddenly taken ill, of which Wei, the son of a former king, was informed, when he was on his way, in discharge of a mission, to the State of Ch'ing. He returned immediately, and entering the palace as if to inquire for the king's health, he strangled him, and proceeded to put to death his two sons. Here certainly was a murder, which ought to have been recorded as such. No doubt, the murderer caused a notification to be sent to other States in the words of the Ch'un Ts'ëw, saying simply that Keun had died, as if the death had been a natural one, and the historiographers had chronicled it in the terms in which it reached them; but ought not Confucius, in such a case especially, to have corrected their entry? To allow so misleading a statement to remain in his text was not the way to make 'rebellious ministers afraid.'
The fourth case relates to the death of the above Wei, also called K'ëen, the murderer of his king. Twelve years afterwards he him self came to an evil end. In X. xiii. 2 it is said⿿'In summer, in the 4th month, the Kungtsze Pe of Ts'oo returned from Tsin to Ts'oo, and murdered his ruler K'ëen in Kank'e.' The real facts were these. Wei or K'ëen displayed in his brief reign an insatiable ambition, and was guilty of many acts of oppression and cruelty. Having despatched a force to invade Seu, he halted himself at Kan k'e to give whatever aid might be required. Certain discontented spirits took the opportunity of his absence from the capital to organize a rebellion, which was headed by three of his brothers, one of whom was the Kungtsze Pe. This Pe had fled to Tsin when K'ëen murdered Keun, and was invited by the conspirators from that State back to Ts'ae in the first place, and forced to take command of the rebel forces. These were greatly successful. They advanced on the capital of Ts'oo, took possession of it, and put to death the sons of the absent king. The intelligence of these events threw him into the greatest distress and consternation. His army dispersed, and he took refuge with an officer who remained faithful to him, and in his house he strangled himself in the 5th month, unable to endure the disgrace and misery of his condition. What are we to make of such opposite and contradictory methods of describing events? Wei murdered Keun; and the deed is told as if Keun had died a natural death. The same Wei strangled him self, and the deed is told as if it had been a murder done by the Kungtsze Pe. Pe was led by the device of a brother, K'etsih, to kill himself in the 5th month, perhaps before Wei had committed suicide. The Ch'un Ts'ëw says of this event that 'Ketsih put to death⿿not murdered⿿the Kungtsze Pe;' and we may suppose that K'etsih, who became king, sent word round the States that Pe had murdered his predecessor; but surely Confucius ought to have taken care that the whole series of transactions should not be misrepresented as it is in his paragraphs.
Let us take a fifth case. In XII. vi. 8 it is said that 'Ch'in K'eih of Ts'e murdered his ruler T'oo.' In the previous year, Ch'ook'ëw, marquis of Ts'e, had died, leaving the State to his favourite son T'oo, who was only a child. His other sons, who were grown up, fled in the winter to various States. Ch'in K'eih, one of the principal ministers of the State, finding that the government did not go on well, sent to Loo for Yangsang, one of Ch'ook'ëw's sons, who had taken refuge there, and so managed matters in Ts'e that he was declared marquis, and the child T'oo displaced. Yet K'eih had no malice against T'oo, and so spoke of him in a dispute which he had with Yangsang, not long after the accession of the latter, as to awaken his fears lest the minister should attempt to restore the degraded child. The consequence was that he sent a trusty officer to remove T'oo from the city where he had been placed for safety to another. Whether it was by the command of the new marquis, or on an impulse originating with himself, that officer took the opportunity to murder the child on the way. This man, therefore, whose name was Choo Maou, was the actual murderer of T'oo. If he were too mean in position to obtain a place in the Ch'un Ts'ëw, the murder should have been ascribed to Yangsang or the marquis Taou, by whose servant and in whose interest, if not by whose command, it was committed. To ascribe it to Ch'in K'eih must be regarded as a gross misrepresentation. I cannot think that the existing marquis of Ts'e could have sent such a notification of the event to Loo, for for him to make Ch'in K'eih responsible for the deed was to declare that his own incumbency of the State was unjust, as it was Ch'in K'eih who had brought it about. Are we then to ascribe the entry entirely to Confucius? And are we to see in it a remarkable proof of his hatred of rebellion and usurpation, and his determination to hold the prime mover to it, however distant, and under whatever motives he had acted, responsible for all the consequences flowing from it?
The sixth and last case which I will
adduce may be said not to be so contrary to the letter of the facts as the
preceding five cases, and yet I am mistaken if in every western reader, who
takes the trouble to make himself acquainted with those facts, it do not awaken
a greater indignation against the record and its compiler than any of them. In
VII. x. 8 we read that 'Hëa Ch'ingshoo of Ch'in murdered his ruler P'ingkwoh.'
The circumstances in which the murder took place are sufficient, I am sure, to
make us pro nounce it a case of justifiable homicide. Hëa Ch'ingshoo's mother,
a widow, was a vile woman, and was carrying on a licentious con nexion with the
marquis of Ch'in and two of his ministers at the same time.
4. What are we to think
from the Ch'un Ts'ëw of Confucius?
It remains for me, having thus set forth the suppressions, the concealments, and the misrepresentations which abound in the Ch'un Ts'ëw, to say a few words on the view which we must take from it of Confucius as its author or com piler. Again and again I have spoken of the triviality of the Work, and indicated my opinion of its being unworthy of the sage to have put together so slight a thing. But these positively bad characteristics of it on which I have now enlarged demand the expression of a sterner judgment.
The appointment of historiographers, at
whatever period it first took place, was intended, no doubt, to secure the
accurate record of events, and Confucius tells us, Ana. XV. xxv., that 'even in
his [early] days a historiographer would leave a blank in his text,' that is,
would do so rather than enter incorrectly anything of which he was not sure. I
have mentioned on p. 45 the exaggerated idea of his duty which was cherished
and manifested by Tung Hoo the grandhistoriographer of Tsin; and in Tso's Chuen
on IX. xxv. 2, we have a still more shining example of the virtue which men in
this office were capable of displaying. There three brothers, his toriographers
of Ts'e, all submit to death rather than alter the record, which they had made
correctly, that 'Ts'uy Ch'oo of Ts'e murdered his ruler Kwang,' and a fourth
brother, still persisting in the same entry, is at last let alone. These
instances serve to show the idea in which the institution originated, and that
there were men in China who understood it, appreciated it, and were prepared to
die for it. Such men according to Confucius' testimony were no more to be found
in his time. According to the testimony of a thousand scholars and critics, it
was because of this fact,⿿the few faithful his toriographers in the past and
the entire want of them in the present, ⿿that the sage undertook the revision
of the Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo. Might not the history of the institution in that
anteChristian time be adduced as a good illustration of what Lord Elgin once
said, that 'at all points of the circle described by man's intelligence, the
Chi nese mind seems occasionally to have caught glimpses of a heaven far beyond
the range of its ordinary ken and vision?'
Well⿿we have examined the model summary of
history from the stylus of the sage, and it testifies to three characteristies
of his mind which it is painful to have thus distinctly to point out. First, he
had no reverence for truth in history,⿿I may say no reverence for truth,
without any modification. He understood well enough what it was,⿿the
description of events and actions according as they had taken place; but he
himself constantly transgressed it in all the three ways which I have
indicated. Second, he shrank from looking the truth fairly in the face. It was
through this attribute of weakness that he so frequently endeavoured to hide
the truth from himself and others, by ignoring it altogether, or by giving an
imperfect and misleading account of it. Wherever his prejudices were concerned,
he was liable to do this. Third, he had more sympathy with power than with
weakness, and would overlook wickedness and oppression in authority rather than
resentment and revenge in men who were suffering from them. He could conceive
of nothing so worthy of condemnation as to be insubordinate.
I have written these sentences about
Confucius with reluctance, and from the compulsion of a sense of duty. I have
been accused of being unjust to him, and of dealing with him inhumanly.
Nothing stands in the way of this improvement so much as the devotion of its scholars and government to Confucius. It is he who leads them that causes them to err and has destroyed the way of their paths.
5.Influence of the Ch'un
Ts'ëw on Chinese governments and the people.
The above sentence leads me to the last point on which I proposed to touch in this section,⿿the influence which the Ch'un Ts'ëw has had on the successive govern ments of China and on the Chinese people at large. And here I will be brief.
A great part of the historical literature
of the country continues still to be modelled after our Classic and the Chuen
of Tso. Immedi ately after the Chow dynasty the name of Ch'un Ts'ëw was given
to a species of Work having little affinity with that of Confucius. We have the
Ch'un Ts'ëw of Leu Puhwei, the chief minister of Ts'in, Luh Këa's Ch'un Ts'ëw
of Ts'oo and Han,
But the influence of the Ch'un Ts'ëw on the literature of China is of little importance excepting as that influence has aided its moulding power on the government and character of the people; and in this respect it appears to me to have been very injurious. The three defects of Confucius which have left their impress so clearly on his Work have been painfully conspicuous in the history of the country and the people down to the present day. The teachings of Mencius, bringing into prominence the lessons of the Shoo and the She concerning the different awards of Providence, according as a government cherished or neglected the welfare of the people, have modified the extreme reverence for authority which was so remarkable in Confucius; but there remain altogether un mitigated the want of reverence for truth, and the shrinking from looking fairly at the realities of their condition and relations. And these are the great evils under which China is suffering at the present day. During the past forty years her position with regard to the more advanced nations of the world has been entirely changed. She has entered into treaties with them upon equal terms; but I do not think her ministers and people have yet looked this truth fairly in the face, so as to realize the fact that China is only one of many independent nations in the world, and that the 'beneath the sky,' over which her emperor has rule, is not all beneath the sky, but only a certain portion of it which is defined on the earth's surface and can be pointed out upon the map. But if they will not admit this, and strictly keep good faith according to the treaties which they have accepted, the result will be for them calamities greater than any that have yet befallen the empire. Their lot has fallen in critical times, when the books of Confucius are a very insufficient and unsafe guide for them. If my study of the Ch'un Ts'ew help towards convincing them of this, and leading them to look away from him to another Teacher, a great aim of my life will have been gained.
It was the [duke's] first year, the spring, the king's first month.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿ 'What is meant by 忿年? The first year of the ruler.
What is meant by 濥 (spring)? The first season of the year.
What is meant by 翿 (the king)? It means king Wan.
Why does [the text] first give "king," and then "first month?" [To show that] it was the king's first month.
Why does it [so] mention the king's first month?
To magnify the union of the kingdom [under the dynasty of Chow].
Why is it not said that the duke came to the [vacant] seat? To give full ex pression to the duke's mind.
In what way does it give full expression to the duke's mind? The duke intended to bring the State to order, and then restore it to Hwan.
What is meant by restoring it to Hwan?
Hwan was younger, but nobler [than the duke by birth]; Yin was grown up, but lower [than Hwan by birth]. The difference between them in these respects, however, was small, and the people of the State did not know [their father's intention about the succession]. Yin being grown up and a man of worth, the great officers insisted on his being made marquis. If he had refused to be made so, he did not know for certain that Hwan would be raised to the dignity; and supposing that he were raised to it, he was afraid that the great officers might not give their assistance to so young a ruler. Therefore the whole transaction of Yin's elevation was with a view [in his mind] to the elevation of Hwan.
But since Yin was grown up and a man of worth, why was it not proper that he should be made marquis?
Among the sons of the wife proper, the succession devolved on the eldest, and not on the worthiest and ablest. Among a ruler's sons by other ladies of his harem, the succession devolved on the noblest, and not on the eldest.
In what respect was Hwan nobler [in rank] than Yin?
His mother was of higher position [than Yin's mother].
Though the mother was nobler. why should the son be [also] nobler? A son was held to share in the nobility of his mother; and a mother shared in the [subsequent] nobility of her son.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'Although there was nothing to be recorded [under the first month], it was necessary to specify it;⿿its being the commence ment [of the rule] required this attention to be paid to it.
Why is it not said that the duke came to the [vacant] seat? To give full expression to the duke's mind.
In what way does this give full expres sion to the duke's mind? It tells that Yin did not himself care to be duke.
What is meant by saying that he did not himself care to be duke? That he intended to resign the marquisate to Hwan.
Was it correct in him [to wish] to resign it to Hwan? It was not correct.
The Ch'un Ts'ëw gives full expression to men's excellent qualities, but does not do so to their evil;⿿why should it give such expression to [the intention of] Yin which was not correct?
With a view to show detestation of Hwan.
How does that detestation of Hwan appear?
Yin intended to resign in his favour, and yet Hwan murdered him;⿿showing Hwan's wickedness. Hwan murdered him, and yet Yin would have resigned in his favour;⿿showing Yin's goodness.
If Yin was thus good, why do you say that he was not correct?
In the Ch'un Ts'ëw, what is righteous is held to be noble, and not what is [merely] kind. It would lead forward in the [straight] path, and not in the crook ed. A filial son tries to display the ex cellent qualities of his father, and not the evil ones. The father was not correct, but perverse, in seeking to give the State to Hwan. Notwithstanding, he over came this perversity of mind, and the State was given [at last] to Yin; but Yin had fathomed the purpose of their father, and thereon would have given the State to Hwan;⿿carrying out their father's wickedness. That there should be elder brother and younger brother is in the order of Heaven. A man receives his sonship from his father; and a feudal prince receives his rank from the king. To disannul the order of Heaven, and forget his ruler and father in order to do a small kindness, is what is called walking in a small path. Looking at Yin. we may say that he could make light of a State of a thousand chariots, but could not tread the way that is right.'
The people of Sung seized Chae Chung of Ch'ing.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿
'Who was Chae Chung?
The chief minister of Ch'ing.
Why is he not mentioned by his name?
Because of his worth.
What worthiness was there in Chae Chung?
He is to be considered as knowing how to act according to circumstances.
In what way did he know to act accord ing to circumstances?
Anciently the capital of Ch'ing was in Lëw. A former earl of Ch'ing was on friendly terms with the duke of Kwei; and having an intrigue with his wife, he took the capital of Kwei, transferred that of Ch'ing to it, and left Lëw to become a wilderness. After the death of duke Chwang, Chae Chung was going to inspect the state of Lëw; and as his road lay through Sung, the people of that State seized him, and said, "Drive out Hwuh (Chwang's eldest son, who was now earl of Ch'ing) for us, and raise Tuh (Hwuh's brother) to the earldom."
If Chae Chung did not do as they re quired, his ruler must die, and the State perish. If he did as they required, his ruler would exchange death for life, and the State be preserved instead of perish ing. Then by and by, [by his gradual management], Tuh might be sent forth as before, and Hwuh might return as before. If these things could not be secured, he would have to suffer [under the imputation of evil conduct], but yet there would be the State of Ch'ing. When the ancients acted according to the exigency of circumstances, they acted in the way in which Chae Chung now did.
What is meant by acting according to the exigency of circumstances?
It is acting contrary to the ordinary course of what is right, yet so that good shall result. Such a course is not to be adopted apart from the imminent danger of death or ruin. There is a way to re gulate the pursuing of it. A man may adopt it when the censure and loss will fall on himself, but not to the injury of another. A superior man will not slay another to save himself, nor ruin another to preserve himself.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿
人 [people] here means the duke of Sung.
Why is he designated 人 (the people, or one of the people)?
To condemn him'
In spring, in the second month, the king [by] Heaven's [grace] sent Këa Foo to ask for carriages.
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿
'Why was this entry made?
By way of censure.
Censure of what?
The kings did not ask for anything. To ask for carriages was contrary to propriety.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿
'Anciently the feudal princes at the [proper] times presented to the son of Heaven their offerings of the things which they had in their States. He might thus decline, but he did not demand or ask for, [anything]. To ask for carriages was contrary to propriety; to ask for money was still more so.
The marquis of Ke made a grand leaving of his State.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿
'What is meant by "made a grand leaving?"
That [the State] was extinguished.
Who extinguished it?
Ts'e.
Why does [the text] not say that Ts'e extinguished it?
It conceals the fact out of regard to duke Sëang. The Ch'un Ts'ëw conceals things out of regard to men of worth.
What worthiness was there in duke Sëang?
He was taking vengeance.
Vengeance for what?
For the boiling of his remote ancestor duke Gae at [the court of] Chow, through his being slandered by a marquis of Ke. The action of duke Sëang at this time is considered as a carrying by him to the utmost of his service of his ancestors.
How so?
When he was about to avenge the [old] wrong, he consulted the tortoise shell, and was told that he would lose half his army. [He observed], "Though I should die myself, the answer should not be considered unlucky."
How many generations removed from him was the remote ancestor?
Nine.
May an injury be avenged after nine generations?
Yes; even after a hundred.
May [the Head of] a clan take such vengeance?
No.
Why then may [the ruler of] a State do it?
The ruler and the State are one. The disgrace of a former ruler is the same as the disgrace of the ruler of today. The disgrace of the ruler of today is the same as the disgrace of a former ruler.
How are the ruler and the State con sidered as one?
The ruler regards the State as his body, and one ruler comes after another;⿿ hence the ruler and the State form one body.
But the present [marquis of] Ke had been guilty of no offence;⿿was not this [extinction of him] a case of rage?
No. If there had been in the ancient time an intelligent son of Heaven, the [then] marquis of Ke would have been taken off, and there would have been no [more any] marquis of Ke. His not having been taken off, and there being still a marquis of Ke, was the same as if there were no intelligent son of Heaven. Anciently the princes had their occasions of meeting together, and their inter changes of court and complimentary vis its, when they made reference in their language to their predecessors as furnish ing the ground of their intercourse; but nothing of the kind ever took place between Ts'e and Ke;⿿it was incumbent on them not to exist together under the same sky. Therefore [when Ts'e] set about removing the marquis of Ke, it could not but remove [the State of] Ke.
If there had been [now] an intelligent son of Heaven, could duke Sëang have done what he did?
No.
Why then did he do it?
When there is in the highest position [as it were] no son of Heaven, and below him no president of the quarter of the kingdom, one can for himself repay his longstanding wrongs and obligations of a contrary kind.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿
'"Made a grand leaving" is as much as to say that [the marquis] did not leave a man behind him. It tells us that the people did not cease to follow him till all were gone in the space of four years. The marquis of Ke was a worthy prince, and the marquis of Ts'e extinguished his State. The text does not say so, but that he made a grand leaving of it, thereby not allowing [the injurious action of] a small man towards a superior man to appear.
An army of Yu and an army of Tsin extinguished Hëayang.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿'Yu was a small State; why is it that it is here made to take precedence of a great one? To make Yu take the lead in the wickedness.
Why is Yu made to take the lead in the wickedness?
Yu received the bribes with which those who [were going to] extinguish the State [of Kwoh] borrowed a way through it, and thus brought on its own ruin.
How did it receive [those] bribes? Duke Hëen [of Tsin] gave audience to his great officers, and asked them why it was that he had lain all night without sleeping. One of them advanced and said, "Was it because you did not feel at ease [in your mind]? or was it because your [proper] bedfellow was not by your side?" The duke gave no answer, and then Seun Seih came forward and said, "Was it because Yu and Kwoh were ap pearing to you?" The duke motioned to him to come [more] forward, and then went with him into an inner apartment to take counsel. "I wish," said he, "to attack Kwoh, but Yu will go to its relief, and if I attack Yu, Kwoh will succour it; ⿿what is to be done? I wish to consid er the case with you." Seun Seih replied, "If you will use my counsel, you shall take Kwoh today, and Yu to morrow; why should your lordship be troubled?"
"How is this to be accomplished?" asked the duke. "Please let [me go to Yu]," said the other, "with your team of K'euh horses and your white peih of Ch'uykeih, and you are sure to get [what you want]. It will only be taking your valuable [peih] from your inner treasury, and depositing it in an outer one, and taking your horses from an inner stable, and tying them up in an outer one;⿿your lordship will lose nothing by it." The duke said, "Yes; but Kung Chek'e is there. What are we do with him?" Seun Seih replied, "Kung Che k'e is indeed knowing; but the duke of Yu is covetous, and fond of valuable curios;⿿he is sure not to follow his min ister's advice. I beg you, considering everything, to let me go." The deliberation ended with duke Hëen's adopting the proposed course; and when the duke of Yu saw the valuable [offer ings], he granted what [Tsin] asked. Kung Chek'e did indeed remonstrate, saying, "There are the words of the Re cord, 'When the lips are gone, the teeth are cold.' Yu and Kwoh are the saviours of each other. If they do not give mutual help, Tsin will today take Kwoh, which Yu will tomorrow follow to ruin. Do not, O ruler, grant what is asked." The duke did not follow his advice, and ended by lending a passage [through his State to Tsin] to take Kwoh. In the fourth year after, Tsin returned, and took Yu. The duke of Yu [came], carrying the peih and leading the horses, when Seun Seih said [to the marquis of Tsin], "What do you now think of my plan?" "It has succeeded," said duke Hëen. "The peih is still mine; but the teeth of the horses are grown longer." This he said in joke.
What was Hëayang?
A city of Kwoh.
Why is the name not preceded by the name of the State?
It is dealt with as if had been itself a State.
Why so?
Because [the fate] of the ruler of the State was bound up with its fate.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'The use of the term "extinguished," when it is not a State that is spoken of, arises from the importance of Hëayang.
Yu had no army;⿿why is its army mentioned here?
Because it took the lead of Tsin [in the affair], and it was necessary therefore to speak of its army.
How did it take the lead ofTsin?
It presided over the extinguishing of Hëayang. Heayang was a strong city of Yu and Kwoh. If it could be extinguished, then both Yu and Kwoh might be dealt with.
In what way did Yu preside over the extinguishing of Hëayang?
Duke Hëen of Tsin wanted to invade Kwoh, and Seun Seih said to him, "Why should not your lordship take your team of K'ëuh horses, and your peih of Ch'uy keih, and with them borrow a way through Yu?" "Those are the most precious things in the State of Tsin," said the duke. "Suppose Yu should receive my offerings, and not lend us the passage, in what position should we be?" "But," replied Seun Seih, "this is the way in which a small State serves a great one. If Yu do not lend us the right of way, it will not venture to receive our offerings. If it receive our offerings and lend us the way, then we shall [merely] be taking [the peih] from our own treasury, and placing it [for a time] in one outside, and taking [the horses] from our own stable, and placing them [for a time] in one out side." The duke said, "There is Kung Chek'e there;⿿he will be sure to prevent the acceptance of our offerings." "Kung Chek'e," replied the minister, "is an intelligent man, but he is weak; and moreover, he has grown up from youth near his ruler. His very intelligence will make him speak too briefly; his weakness will keep him from remonstrating vehemently; and his having grown up near his ruler will make that ruler despise him. Moreover, the attractive objects will be before the ruler of Yu's senses, and the danger will be hid behind another State. The case, indeed, would cause anxiety to one whose intelligence was above mediocrity, but I imagine that the intelligence of the ruler of Yu is below mediocrity."
On this duke Hëen sought [in the way proposed] for a passage [through Yu] to invade Kwoh. Kung Chek'e remonstrated, saying, "The words of the envoy of Tsin are humble, but his offerings are great;⿿the matter is sure not to be advantageous to Yu." The duke of Yu, however, would not listen to him, but received the offerings, and granted the passage through the State. Kung Chek'e remonstrated [again], suggesting that the case was like that in the saying about the lips being gone and the teeth becoming cold, after which he fied with his wife and children to Ts'aou.
Duke Hëen then destroyed Kwoh, and in the fifth year [of our duke He] he dealt in the same way with Yu. Seun Seih then had the horses led forward, while he carried the peih in his hand, and said, "The peih is just as it was, but the horses' teeth are grown longer!"
In spring, in the king's first month, on Mowshin, the first day of the moon, there fell stones in Sung, five of them. In the same month, six fish-hawks flew backwards, past the capital of Sung.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿
'How is it that the text first says, "there fell," and then "stones?
There fell stones is a record of what was heard. There was heard a noise of some thing falling. On looking at what had fallen, it was seen to be stones. On examination it was found there were five of them.
What is the meaning of "in the same month?"
That the thing occurred just within this month.
Why is the day not given?
It was the last day of the moon.
Why does the text not say so?
The Ch'un Ts'ëw does not enter the last day of the moon. When anything happened on the first day of the moon, it was so written; but although anything happened on the last day of the moon, the day was not given.
Why does the text say "six," and then "fish-hawks?""Six fish-hawks backwards flew" is a record of what was seen. When they looked at the objects, there were six. When they examined them, they were fish-hawks. When they examined them leisurely, they were flying backwards.
Why is this account given of [these] five stones and six fish-hawks? It is the record of a strange thing.
But strange things in other States are not recorded;⿿why is this given here?
Because [Sung belonged to the descendants] of the kings [of Shang].'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'Why does the text first say "there fell," and then "stones?" There was the falling, and then the stones.
"In Sung" means within the four quarters of that State. The number following after indicates that the stones were scattered about. [The language] has respect to the hearing of the ears.
"In the same month" says definitely that it was not on the same day, but [some time] in the month.
In "six fish-hawks flying backwards, past the capital of Sung," the number is put first, indicating that [the birds] were collected together. [The language] has respect to the seeing of the eyes.
The master said, "Stones are things without any intelligence, and fish-hawks creatures that have a little intelligence. The stones, having no intelligence, are mentioned along with the day [when they fell], and the fish-hawks, having a little intelligence, are mentioned along with the month [when they appeared]. The superior man [even] in regard to such things and creatures records nothing rashly. His expressions about stones and fish-hawks being thus exact, how much more will they be so about men! If the language had not been as it is about the five stones and six fish-hawks, the royal way would not have been fully exhibited."
Where the people collect is called "the capital."'
In winter, in the tenth month, on Këahwoo, Shuhsun Tihshin defeated the Teih in Hëen.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿'What is meant by "the Teih?"
A gigantic Teih. There were three brothers, one of whom went to Ts'e, an other to Loo, and the third to Tsin. The one that went to Ts'e was killed by the king's son Ch'ingfoo. The one who came to Loo was [now] killed by Shuhsun Tihshin. I do not know anything about the one who went to Tsin.
Why is the word "defeated" used?
To magnify the affair.
Why is the day specified?
To magnify the affair.
Why is the place given?
To magnify the affair.
Why is the thing recorded?
As a record of what was strange.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿
'How is it that we find here "defeated," and nothing about "leading a force?"
The language indicates that the defeat was only of one man.
How is "defeated" used with reference to one man?
Because he [was equal to] a multitude.
It is recorded that there were three gigantic Teih, who, one after another, threw the Middle States into confusion, and whom tiles and stones could not hurt. Shuhsun Tihshin was a skilful archer, and sent an arrow into the eye [of this one]. The giant's body stretched over 9 acres. His head was cut off, and put into a carriage, when the eyebrows ap peared over the crossbar. In these circumstances, why is it not said that he was captured? Anciently they did not inflict a second wound, nor capture a grayhaired enemy. Captured is not used here, to conceal the thing out of regard to Loo.
The giant that went to Ts'e was killed by the king's son Ch'ingfoo. Nothing is known about the one who went to Tsin.'
The people of Tsin undertook to establish Tsëehtsze as viscount of Choo, but did not [or, were not able to] do so.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says :⿿
'What is meant by 紿 (to restore)? It means to [make to] enter.
Why is it said they were not able to restore him?
To magnify that fact.
Why is it magnified?
Keih Keueh of Tsin led a force of 800 chariots of leather, to instate Tseehtsze in Choolow;⿿a force surely more than sufficient for the purpose. But when he [proposed] to instate him, the people of Choolow said, "Tsëehtsze is the son of a daughter of Tsin, and K'wohtseu of a daughter of Ts'e. Try them on your fingers;⿿there will be four for Ts'ëeh tsze, and six for K'wohtseu. If you will compel us by the power of your great State, we do not yet know whether Ts'e or Tsin will take the lead. In rank the men are both noble, but K'wohtseu is the elder." Keih Keueh said, "It is not that my strength is insufficient to instate him, but in point of right I cannot do so." With this he led his army away, and therefore the superior man magnifies his not instating [Tsëehtsze].
The actor hore was Keih Keueh of Tsin;⿿why is he called 人 (a man)?
To condemn him.
Why is he condemned?
Not to allow a great officer to take it on him to displace or to set up a ruler.
How does it not allow this?
The actual [statement] allows it, but the style does not allow it.
Why does the style not allow it?
According to the right idea of a great officer, he cannot take it on him to dis place or appoint a ruler.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'[The leader here] was Keih Keueh;⿿why is he called 人 (man)?
To make light of him.
Why does [the text] make light of him?
He had 800 chariots with their long naves, extending over a thousand le of ground. He passed by Sung, Ch'ing, T'ang, and Sëeh, and entered at length a State of a thousand chariots, wishing to change the ruler whom the people had set up. But when he came beneath the wall of its capital, he then knew [the error of his enterprise]. How late was he in coming to that knowledge!
"He was not able to instate." It is not said that he had invaded Choo;⿿how is mention made of his inability?
That "was not able" shows that [suc cess] was forbidden by righteousness. Tsëehtsze's mother was a daughter of Tsin, and K'wohtseu's was a daughter of Ts'e. K'wohtseu was the proper [successor] to their father], and Tsëehtsze was not.
On Sinsze there was a sacrifice in the grand temple, when Chung Suy died at Ch'uy.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿' Who was Chungsuy?
The Kungtsze Suy.
Why is he not here styled Kungtsze?
By way of censure.
Why is censure expressed?
Because of his murder of [Wan's] son Ch'ih.
But why was not the censure (or, de gradation) expressed at the time when he committed that murder?
Because he had [then] been guilty of no offence against [duke] Wan, and there had [since] been no year [in which to signify his offence] against [Wan's] son.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'This looks as if he had first reported the execution of his mission and then died.
He was a Kungtsze;⿿why does he appear here simply as Chung?
To treat him as if his relationship [to the ducal family] had been distant.
Why deal with him so?
To vitiate the notice of his dying. If he had not been so dealt with, that notice would not have been vitiated.
Why then mention his dying at all?
To convey censure of [duke] Seuen.
Why to censure [duke] Seuen?
On bearing of the death of a great officer, he should have removed the musi cians and finished the business [in which he was engaged].
For the first time a tax was levied from the produce of the acres.
COMMENTARY
The chuen of Kungyang says:⿿
'What is the meaning of ??
For the first time.
What is meant by levying a tax from the acres?
Walking over the acres, and levying part of the produce.
Why is an entry made of this first levying part of the produce of the acres [generally]?
To condemn it.
What was there to condemn in it? The introduction of the system of walking over the acres, and levying part of the produce.
What was there to condemn in the introduction of this system? Anciently a tithe was taken [for the State] by the mutual labour of the people on the public fields.
Why did they anciently appoint this system?
The tax of a tenth [thus procured] is the justest and most correct for all under the sky. If more than this tenth be taken, we have great Këehs and little Këehs. If less, we have great Mih and little Mih. A tithe is the justest and most correct for all under the sky. When a tithe is the system, the sounds of praise [everywhere] arise.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿' ?? means for the first time. Anciently, a tenth of the produce was levied by the mutual cultivation of the public fields, and the others were not taxed. To commence levying part of the produce from [all] the acres was not right. Anciently, 300 paces formed a le, and a square of that size was called the nine-squares fields, consisting of 900 acres, of which the public fields formed one portion. If the yield from the private fields was not good, the officer of agriculture was blamed. If the yield from the public fields was not good, the people were blamed. [The record of] this first levying part of the produce from all the acres blames the duke for putting away the system of the public fields, and walking over all the fields to take a tithe of them, because he thereby required from the people all their strength. Anciently, [the people] had their dwellings in the public fields; there were their wells and cooking places; there they grew their onions and scallions.'
On Këahtsze the new temple took fire, when we wailed for it three days.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿ 'What was the new temple?
The temple of duke Seuen.
'Why is duke Seuen's temple called the new temple?
[The duke] could not bear to say [directly that it was his father's temple].
Why is it said that they wailed for it three days?
It was a rule that, when a temple was burned, there should be a wailing for three days.
Why was this entry of the burning of the new temple made?
To record the calamity.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'The new temple was the temple of the duke's father.
To wail for three days was expressive of [great] grief, but that grief, was ac cording to the rules of propriety.
In consequence of the near relationship, [the duke] did not dare to call it by his father's honorary title;⿿thereby show ing his respect.
The language being respectful, and the grief great, there is no condemnation of duke Ch'ing to be sought here.'
K'wanhwan, earl of Ch'ing, went to the meeting; but before he had seen the [other] princes, on Pingseuh he died at Ts'aou.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿ 'What was Ts'aou?
A city of Ch'ing.
When a prince died anywhere within his own territories, the place was not mentioned;⿿why is it mentioned here?
To conceal the fact.
To conceal what fact?
His murder.
Who murdered him?
His great officers.
Why does not the text say so?
The thing is concealed on account of the Middle States?
Why so?
When the earl of Ch'ing was about to go to the meeting of the States in Wei, his great officers remonstrated with him, saying, "The Middle States are not worth adhering to; you had better join with Ts'oo.' When the earl objected to this counsel, they said, "If you think that the Middle States are righteous, they [notwithstanding] invaded us when we were mourning [for the last earl]; if you say that they are strong, yet they are not so strong as Ts'oo." With this they murdered him.
Why is he named⿿" the earl of Ch'ing, K'wanyuen?"
[To express sorrow] that having been wounded, and being on his return [to his capital], be died before he reached his halting place.
As he did not see the [other] princes, why is it said that he went to the meeting?
To express fully his purpose.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'As he had not seen [other] princes, how is it said that he went to the meeting?
To express fully his purpose.
According to the rules, princes were not named when they were alive;⿿why is he so named here?
Because of his death.
If he is named because of his death, why is the name placed before the statement that he went to the meeting?
To show that he died through going to the meeting.
How does it show that he died through going to the meeting?
The earl of Ch'ing was going to meet [the princes of] the Middle States, and his ministers wished him to follow Ts'oo. Not succeeding, they murdered him, and he died.
Why is it not mentioned that he was murdered?
Not to allow it to appear that barbarous people (i. e., the ministers who wished to follow the barbarous Ts'oo) had dealt so with a prince of the Middle States.
The place was outside [the capital]; on the day he had not crossed the borders [of the State]; the day of his death and the time of his burial [are given, as if all] had been correct.'
In the 12th month, Goh, viscount of Woo, invaded Ts'oo, and died in an attack on one of the gates of Ch'aou.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿'What is meant by 鿿亿巢忿?
That he entered a gate in Ch'aou and died.
In what way had he entered a gate in Ch'aou and died?
He had entered a gate of Ch'aou and died.
Why does the viscount of Woo appear with his name Yeh?
[To show that] he was wounded and died before he could return to the station [of his own troops].'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëaug says:⿿'In consequence of being engaged in an invasion of Ts'oo, he attacked one of the gates of Ch'aou and died.
The words "of (or, at) Ch'aou" show that that place was outside Ts'oo. By attacking the gates of Ch'aou, he [would be able to] invade Ts'oo.
A prince was not named when alive. Here the name, properly given to him when dead, is taken and placed before his invasion of Ts'oo, to show that it was in consequence of that invasion that he died.
How does it show that it was through his invasion of Ts'oo that he died?
Anciently, when [the army of] a great State was passing by a small city, the rule was that that small city should man its walls and ask what was its offence. Yeh, the viscount of Woo, in [proceeding to] invade Ts'oo, came to Ch'aou, and entered one of its gates, when the gate keeper shot him, so that he returned to the station [of his troops], wounded by an arrow, and died. Although an under taking be of a civil nature, there should be at the same time military preparation. [The entry] condemns Ch'aou for not manning its walls and asking what was its offence, [and also] condemns the viscount of Woo for his careless exposure of himself.'
In autumn, in the seventh month, the viscount of Ts'oo, the marquises of Ts'ae and Ch'in, the baron of Heu, the viscounts of Tun, Hoo, and Shin, and the Hwae tribes, invaded Woo. They seized K'ing Fung of Ts'e, and put him to death.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿'This was an invasion of Woo;⿿how is it that the paragraph tells us of the seizure of K'ing Fung of Ts'e?
He was taken off in behalf of Ts'e.
How was it that he was taken off in behalf of Ts'e?
K'ing Fung had run away to Woo, and Woo had invested him with Fang
In that case why is it not said that they invaded Fang?
Not to allow to the feudal princes the right of granting investiture.
What was the crime of K'ing Fung?
He had exercised a pressure on the ruler of Ts'e, and thrown that State into confusion.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'Here they must have entered [the place where K'ing Fung was] and slain [him];⿿why does the text not mention that entering?
K'ing Fung had been invested with Chungle of Woo.
Why does it not say that they invaded Chungle?
Not to allow to Woo the right of granting investiture.
Why is "Ts'e" put before "K'ing Fung" like a clanname?
[To show that] he was punished in behalf of Ts'e. King Ling sent a man to go round the army with him, and pro claim, "Is there anyone like K'ing Fung of Ts'e who murdered his ruler?" K'ing Fung said to the man, "Stop a moment; I also have a word to say." With this he cried out, "Is there anyone, who, like the Kungtsze Wei of Ts'oo, murdered the son of his elder brother, and made himself ruler in his place?" The soldiers all laughed and chuckled.
K'ing Fung had murdered his ruler, but that crime is not mentioned here in connexion with him, because he was not subject to king Ling, and the text would not allow to Ts'oo [the right] to punish him. It is a part of the righteousness of the Ch'un Ts'ëw to employ the noble to regulate the mean, and the worthy to regulate the bad, but not to employ the disorderly to regulate disorder. Do we not have the same sentiment in what Confucius said, "Let a man who himself cherishes what is wicked punish another, and that other will die without submitting to him?"'
In summer, in the fifth month, on Mowshin, Che, heirson of Heu, murdered his ruler Mae. In winter, there was the burial of duke Taou of Heu.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿'How do we have the burial recorded here, while the ruffian [murderer] was not yet punished? The thing did not amount to a murder.
How did it not amount to a murder?
Che gave [his father] medicine, and the medicine killed him.
In these circumstances why does the text say that Che murdered him?
To censure Che for not fully discharging the duty of a son.
How does it censure his failure in that?
Yohching Tszech'un, when watching his sick [father], would give him an additional dish of rice, [and watch] eagerly whether it made him better; or he would give him a dish less, and watch the result eagerly. He would put on him a garment more, or a garment less, than usual, in the same way. Che gave the medicine, and the medicine killed [his father], and therefore the superior man charged him with murdering him.
In the [former] entry that 'Che, heir son of Heu, murdered his ruler Mae," the superior man allows the charge against Che; in the [second] entry about the burial of duke Taou, he pardons Che. He pardons Che, that is, he withdraws the charge against him.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'The mention of the day along with the murder shows that the death was a natural one. As it was so, Che did not murder [his father]. Though he did not murder him, it is said that he did;⿿to reprove Che. Che said, "I am the same as a murderer, and will not stand in my father's place." On this he resigned the State to his brother Hwuy, wept and wailed, and lived on congee, without taking a grain of rice, till in less than a year he died. The superior man here reproves him according as he reproved himself.
The specification of the day of the death and of the season of the burial does not allow Che to lie under the charge of murdering his father.
When a son is born, if he escape not death from fire or water, it is the crime of his mother; if he have grown up to a boy with two tufts of hair, and do not go to a teacher, it is the crime of his father; if he go to a teacher, and his studies are desultory, and his mind do not become intelligent, it is the crime of himself; if he become intelligent, and the fame of his name be not heard of, it is the crime of his friends; if the fame of his name be heard of, and the officers do not bring him into notice, it is the crime of the officers; if the officers bring him to notice, and the king do not employ him, it is the fault of the king. The heirson of Heu did not know [his duty] to taste the medicine [for the ruler], and that ruler was involved [in the consequences of his ignorance].
In the [duke's] first year, in spring, the king's.......In summer, in the sixth month, on Mowshin, the duke came to the vacant seat.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿'How is it that Ting has no first month [in his first year]?
[The mention of] the first month is to adjust the [ruler's] coming to the [vacant] seat; and Ting's having no first month is because his coming to the [vacant] seat was later.
How was it later?
[The coffin of] duke Ch'aou was [still] outside [the State], and whether it would be allowed to enter or not was not yet known.
How was it not yet known?
It depended on the Head of the Ke family.
In [the records about] Ting and Gae there are many obscure expressions. If they⿿the rulers⿿had read the text and inquired about its explanation, they would not have known whether they were charged with crime or not.
As it was on Kweihae that duke [Ch'aou's] coffin came from Kanhow, how was it that it was Mowshin before [Ting] ascended the [vacant] seat?
When the coffin had been placed right between the two pillars, then he ascended the [vacant] seat. My master Shintsze said, 'When the funeral rites of the [former] ruler had been settled in the State, then [the new ruler] took the [vacant] seat.
The day of taking that seat should not be given;⿿how is it given here?
It is a record of what took place in Loo itself.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'The text does not mention the first month, because Ting had no first month [in his first year].
Why had Ting no first month?
Because duke Chaou's death was not a proper death, and Ting's commencement of his rule was not a proper commence ment. As Chaou's was not a proper death, Ting could not have a proper beginning. It is not said [here] that he came to the [vacant] seat, because [Chaou's] coffin was outside the State.
The coffin was now placed in state, and so he took the [vacant] seat Ting's having no first year shows that there was something which prevented him from having it. But the reason of its not being said that he came to the vacant seat when the year [in which duke Ch'aou died] was expired, was that [the coffin] of the former duke was [still outside] The notice of coming to the [vacant] seat was the regular way of declaring that the State was passed from one ruler to another. If the former did not die a proper death, the latter could not have a proper beginning; and vice versa. The notice that duke [Ting] came to the [vacant] seat on Mowshin, is an instance of the care observed [in such a matter];⿿it was necessary that Ting's accession should be thus definitely marked.
How is the day of the duke's accession given?
[To show that] it was on the day Mowshin.
It was on Kweihae that duke [Ch'aou's] coffin came from Klanhow;⿿ how was it not till Mowshin that [Ting] took the [vacant] seat?
The proper ceremonies in the State must be gone through for the [former] ruler, before that could be done. Shin tsze said, "When the coffin was placed right between the two pillars, his succes sor took the [vacant] seat."
The great affairs within a State were mentioned with the day. The taking the [vacant] seat was a great affair for the ruler;⿿why is it [generally] given without the day?
It was made to commence with the year, and not regulated by the day.
Why then is the day given here?
To give emphasis to it.
In what way does it give emphasis to it?
To have taken the [vacant] seat when the year was expired, would have been hazardous; and besides there was a point of righteousness in the case. Before the coffin [of his predecessor] was set in state, a prince would not dare to show himself as ruler to the ministers, even though he had the charge of the son of Heaven. There might be a death equally in Chow and in Loo. From Chow a message of condolence would be sent, but not from Loo. In Chow they would say,"He was our subject; we may send to condole [on his death]." In Loo they would say, "He was our ruler. Was like our father. We cannot send a great officer [to offer our condolences]." In this way from Chow they sent to condole, but not from Loo, for the time was not long removed from Ch'ing and K'ang. The king was the most honourable; yet [the new ruler of Loo] would not dare to leave his father's coffin, and go to Chow on a visit of condolence; how much less would he show himself as ruler to the ministers, before the coffin was placed in State!
Yangsang of Ts'e entered [the capital of] that State. Ch'in K'eih of Ts'e murdered his ruler T'oo.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿ ' Murderers and setters up [of new rulers] are not mentioned as high ministers (i.e., with clanname and name following the name of the State);⿿how is such a notice given here?
Because of [Ch'in K'eih's] deceit.
How did he show his deceit?
Duke King said to him, "I wish to make Shay (i.q.Tso's T'oo) my successor; what do you say to it?" He replied, " Whomsoever you would be pleased to see as ruler. and wish to appoint as your successor, I will support him; and whomsoever you do not wish so to appoint, I will not support. If your lordship wish to appiont Shay, I beg to be allowed to support him." Yangsang said to Ch'in K'eih. "I have heard that you will not be willing to raise me to the marquisate." The minister said, "In a State of a thousand chariots, if you wish to set aside the proper heir and appoint one who is not so, you must kill the proper heir. My not supporting you is the way I take to preserve your life. Fly." And hereupon he gave Yangsang a seal-token of jade, with which he fied.
When duke King died, and Shay had been made marquis, Ch'in K'eih had Yangsang brought back, and kept him in his house. When the mourning for duke King was over, and all the great officers were at court, Ch'in K'eih said, "My mother is celebrating a sacrifice with fish and beans; I wish you all to come and renovate me at it." All accepted the invitation, and when they were come to his house, and sitten down, he said" I have some buffcoats which I have made; allow me to show them to you." To this they assented, and he then made some stout fellows bring a large sack into the open court. The sight of this frightened the officers, and made them change colour; and when the sack was opened, who should come forth from it but the Kung tsze Yangsang? "This," said Ch'in K'eih, "is our ruler." The officers could not help themselves, but one after another twice did obeisance with their faces to the north, and accepted [Yangsang] as their ruler; and from this he went and murdered Shay.'
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'It was Yangsang who entered [Ts'e], and murdered his ruler;⿿how is it that Ch'in K'eih is represented as taking the lead in the deed?
Not to allow Yangsang to be ruler over T'oo.
Why does [the text] not allow Yang sang to be ruler over T'oo?
Yangsang was the proper heir [of Ts'e], and T'oo was not.
If T'oo were not the proper heir. why is he called the ruler?
Although he was not the proper heir, he had received the appointment [from his father].
"Entered" denotes that the enterer is not received. Since T'oo was not the proper heir, why use that style?
As he had received the appointment, that style might be employed.
Why is the name of the State used as if it were Yangsang's clanname?
He took the State from T'oo.
The duke had a meeting with the marquis of Tsin and the viscount of Woo at Hwangch'e.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kungyang says:⿿'Why is [the lord of] Woo styled viscount?
Because Woo took the direction of the meeting,
If Woo took the direction of the meet ing, why does [the text] first mention the marquis of Tsin?
Not to allow a barbarous [State] to take the direction of the Middle States.
What is the force of 忿 before the viscount of Woo?
It serves to point out the meeting as one of two presiding chiefs.
As [the text] does not allow a barbarous [State] to take the direction of the Middle States, why does it represent the meeting as one of two presiding chiefs?
Because of the weight of Woo.
How had Woo so much weight? Woo being there, the [other] princes of the kingdom would not dare not to come.
COMMENTARY
The Chuen of Kuhlëang says:⿿'Is not the viscount of Woo advanced at this meeting in Hwangch'e? Here it is that he is [styled] viscount.
Woo was a barbarian State, where they cut their hair short and tattooed their bodies. [Its ruler now] wished, by means of the ceremonies of Loo and the power of Tsin, to bring about the wearing of both cap and garment. He contributed [also] of the products of the State to do honour to the king approved by Heaven. Woo is here advanced.
Woo was the greatest State of the east. Again and again it had brought the small States to meet the feudal princes, and to unite with the Middle States. Since Woo could do this, was it not loyal? Woo is here advanced. King is the most honourable title, and viscount is comparatively mean. [The ruler of Woo, however,] declined the honourable title, and was content with the mean one, to meet with the other princes and do honour to the king approved by Heaven. Fooch'ae, king of Woo, used to say, "Bring me a good cap." Confucius said, "Great was Fooch'ae!" Fooch'ae could not have told you about the caps [of different ranks], but he wished for a cap.
I have found the following letter in a large collection of the letters of the writer, published first, with glosses, in 1859 by Hoo Kwang tow (迡忿濿), a great admirer of them, under the title of 鿳注尿忿山濿尺翿. The writer, Yuen Mei (袿濿), styled Tszets'ae (孿濿) and Këenchae (簡齿), was a member of the Hanlin college, and died in 1797, at the age of 82. The letter was written in reply to Yeh Shooshan (迿濸山). also a member of the Hanlin college.
[translation]
'I have received your "Recondite Meanings of the Ch'un Ts'ëw," in which your exquisite knowledge is everywhere apparent. While availing yourself of [the Works of] Tan Tsoo and Chaou K'wang, you have far excelled them, and that of Hoo. Ganting is not worthy to be spoken of [in comparison with yours]. But in my poor view I always feel that the Ch'un Ts'ëw was certainly not made by Confucius.
'Confucius spoke of himself as "a transmitter and not a maker (Ana. VII. i.)." To make the Ch'un Ts'ëw was the business of the historiographers. Confucius was not a historiographer, and [he said that] "he who is not in a particular office has nothing to do with plans for the administration of its duties (Ana. VIII. xiv.);"⿿ how should he have usurped the power of the historiographers, and in an unseemly way made [this Work] for them?
'In the words, "It is [the Ch'un Ts'ëw] which will make men know me, and make men condemn me (Mencius, III. Pt. ii. IX. 8)," he appears to take the posi tion of an unsceptred king; but not only would the master not have been willing to do this, but the ruler and ministers and historiographers of Loo would not have borne it.
'It is said that "Confucius wrote what he wrote and retrenched what he re trenched, so that neither Yëw nor Hëa were able to improve a single character (See the quotation from Szema Ts'ëen, on p. 14)." Now the stylus of Confucius ceased its labours when the lin was taken, but the Ch'un Ts'ëw is continued after that, which happened in [the spring of] Gae's 14th year, and only ends with the record of Confucius' death in the 16th year;⿿whose stylus have we during those three years, and by whom was this portion of the work improved? It is clear that, as Loo had its historiographers, the preservation or the loss of the Ch'un Ts'ëw had no connexion with Confucius.
'Of all the books [about Confucius] there is none so trustworthy as the Analects. They tell us that the subjects which he taught were the Odes, the Shoo, and the maintenance of the rules of Propriety (Ana. VII. xvii.), and how, stimulating him self, he said, that, [if his life were prolonged], he would give fifty years to the study of the Yih; but there is not half a character in them about the Ch'un Ts'ëw.
'When Han Seuentsze was on a complimentary visit to Loo (See above, p. 8), he saw the Yih with its diagrams and the Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo. In the "Narratives of the States," under the State of Ts'oo, we find Shin Shuhshe, the tutor of the eldest son of king Chwang, teaching him the Ch'un Ts'ëw (Ib.), and under the State of Tsin we have Yangsheh Heih celebrated for his acquaintance with the Ch'un Ts'ëw (Ib.). Thus before Confucius, the States of the four quarters of the kingdom had long had their Ch'un Ts'ëw. Perhaps when Confucius returned from Wei to Loo, in his leisure from his correcting labours on the Ya and the Sung (Ana. IX. xiv.), he happened to read the Ch'un Ts'ëw, and made some slight improvements in it, so that we find Kung and Kuh quoting from what they call "the unrevised Ch'un Ts'ëw." On this we cannot speak positively; but certainly there was no such thing as the making of the Ch'un Ts'ëw. What is still more ridiculous, Loo T'ung laid the three commentaries up high on his shelves, and would only look at the text to search out the beginning and end [of the things referred to]. But [if we adopt that plan], we have the entry that "the king [by] Heaven's [grace] held a court of inspection in Hoyang (V. xxviii. 16)," which is to the effect that king Sëang of Chow held a court of inspection, without any cause, at a spot so far⿿a thousand le⿿[from his capital]. Then again, dukes Yin and Hwan were both murdered, and the text simply says that they died. In this way the upright stylus of the sage turns out not to be equal to that of Tung Hoo of Tsin, or to Ts'e's historiographer of the South. What is there [in the Ch'un Ts'ëw] to serve as a warning to make rebellious ministers and villainous sons afraid?'
[end translation]
Having arrived at my own conclusions about the Ch'un Ts'ëw before I met with Yuen Mei's letter, I was astonished and gratified to find such a general agreement between his views and mine. He puts on one side with remarkable boldness the testimony of Mencius, on which I have dwelt in the first section as presenting the greatest difficulty in the way of our accepting the Ch'un Ts'ëw as the work of the sage. He would fain deny, as I have said I should be glad to do, that Confucius had anything to do with compiling the chronicle; but the evidence is too strong on the opposite side, and his supposition, that Confucius, without any great purpose, made some slight improvements in the Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo towards the end of his life, does not satisfy the exigencies of the case. He has the same opinion that I have of the serious defects of the Work, and on that account he would deny any authorship of Confucius in connexion with it; while I have ventured to reason on those defects as symptomatic of defects in the character of the compiler.
While not scrupling to brush away traditions with a bold hand, Yuen yet mentions one which served his purpose,⿿that Confucius ceased his labours on the Ch'un Ts'ëw when the lin was taken in the 14th year of duke Gae. Some say that it was the appearance of the lin which induced Confucius to set about the compilation of the classic as a lasting memorial of himself. Others say that the appearance of the lin was to signalize the conclusion of the sage's Work, but how long he had been engaged upon it previously they do not pretend to say. Nothing really is known upon the subject; and the silence of the Analects in regard to it, to which Yuen calls attention, is really noteworthy.
With Tables of Solar Eclipses; Of
the Years and Lunar Months of the Whole Period; And of the Kings, and the
Princes of the Principal Fiefs; From the Commencement to the Close of the Chow
Dynasty.
1. I have observed on p. 10 that natural phænomena, supposed to affect the general wellbeing of the State, formed one class of the things recorded in the Ch'un Ts'ëw. Of this nature were eclipses of the sun, included by Maou K'eling, in the note on pp. 11, 12, among the "calamities and ominous occurrences," that are the 18th of the divisions under which he arranges all the subjects of these Chronicles. It must not be supposed that these eclipses were re corded with a view to the accumulation of astronomical facts for any scientific purpose;⿿the whole doctrine of the ancient Chinese concerning them was that given in the 9th ode of Book IV., Part II. of the She, made on occasion of an eclipse before the Ch'un Ts'ëw period, and which gives us the first certain date in ancient Chinese history.
But whatever was the motive for recording the eclipses, they are of the utmost value for determining the chronology of the time comprised in our Classic. It contains altogether the entries of thirtysix eclipses, the table of which given by Mr. Chalmers at the conclusion of his article on the "Astronony of the ancient Chinese," in the prolegomena to my third volume, with his own calculation of the times of their occurrence, I reproduce here with some slight variations. The eclipses recorded in the Ch'un Ts'ëw determine its chronology.
AS RECORDED IN THE TEXT. No. Duke's sac. title. Year of Rule. Year of Cycle. Moon. Day of Cycle. 鿠忬 3 58 II. 6 I. 桿忬 3 9 VII. 29 total. II. " " 17 23 x. III. 迿忬 18 42 III. IV. " " 25 49 VI. 8 V. " " 26 50 XII. 60 VI. " " 30 54 IX. 7 VII. 忿忬 5 3 IX. 45 VIII. " " 12 10 III. 7 IX. " " 15 13 V. X. 濿忬 1 32 II. 60 XI. " " 15 46 VI. 38 XII. 宣忬 8 57 VII. 1 total. XIII. " " 10 59 IV. 53 XIV. " " 17 6 VI. 40 XV. 濿忬 16 23 VI. 3 XVI. " " 17 24 XII. 54 XVII. 西忬14 39 II. 32 XVIII. " " 15 40 VIII. 54 XIX. " " 20 45 X. 53 XX. " " 21 46 IX. 47 XXI. " " 21 46 X. 17 XXII. " " 23 48 II. 10 XXIII. " " 24 49 VII. 1 total. XXIV. " " 24 49 VIII. 30 XXV. " " 27 52 XII. 12 XXVI. 濭忬 7 3 IV. 41 XXVII. " " 15 11 VI. 54 XXVIII. " " 17 13 VI. 11 XXIX. " " 21 17 VII. 19 XXX. " " 22 18 XII. 10 XXXI. " " 24 20 V. 32 XXXII. " " 31 27 XII. 48 XXXIII. 宿忬 5 33 III. 48 XXXIV. " " 12 40 XI. 3 XXXV. " " 15 43 VIII. 17 XXXVI. 忿忬" 14 57 V. 57 XXXVII. BY CALCULATION. Year. Month and day. New style. Chinese Moon. Day of Cycle. ⿿719 February 14 III. 6 Visible at sunrise. ⿿708 July 8 VIII. 29 Total about 3h. P.M. ⿿694 October 3 XI. 7 Visible⿿Afternoon. ⿿675 April 6 v. 49 Sunset. ⿿668 May 18 VI. 8 Morning. ⿿667 November 3 XII. 60 Morning. ⿿663 August 21 IX. 7 Afternoon. ⿿654 August 11 IX. 45 Afternoon. ⿿647 March 29 V. 7 Afternoon. ⿿644 January 28 III. 21 Not visible. ⿿625 January 26 III. 60 Visible at Noon. ⿿611 April 20 V. 38 Sunrise. ⿿600 September 12 X. 1 Total 3h. 30m. P.M. ⿿598 February 26 IV. 53 Visible at Sunrise. ⿿591 October 5 XI. 8 Not visible ⿿574 May 1 VI. 3 Visible at Noon. ⿿573 October 17 XI. 54 Morning. ⿿558 January 8 II. 32 Noon. ⿿557 May 23 VI. Intercul. 54 Scarcely visible at Sunrise. ⿿552 August 25 X. 53 Noon. ⿿551 August 13 IX. 47 Noon. ⿿551 September X. No Eclipse. ⿿550 December 30 II. 10 Visible at Sunrise. ⿿548 June 12 VII. 1 Total about 1h. 15m P.M. ⿿548 July VIII. No Edipse. ⿿545 October 7 XI. 12 Visible in the Morning. ⿿534 March 11 IV. 41 Forenoon. ⿿526 April 10 V. 54 Forenoon. ⿿524 August 14 IX. 10 Afternoon. ⿿520 June 3 VII. 19 Forenoon. ⿿519 November 18 XII. 10 Afternoon. ⿿517 April 1 V. 32 Sunrise. ⿿510 November 7 XII. 48 Forenoon. ⿿504 February 10 III. 48 Noon. ⿿497 September 15 X. 3 Forenoon. ⿿494 July 15 VIII 17 Forenoon. ⿿480
2. In the table in the prolegomena to vol.
III. Mr. Chalmers has referred these eclipses in the Ch'un Tsëw to the
emperors, or kings rather, of Chow in whose reigns they occurred; as we have to
do here only with the period of the Ch'un Ts'ëw, I have substituted for the
titles of the kings those of the marquises of Loo, in connexion with whom the
eclipses are mentioned in the text of the Classic. At his request also I have
given the years in his calculation as⿿719,⿿ 708, etc., instead of B.C. 719,
708, etc., as being in accordance with the usage of astronomers.
Results of the comparison
of the eclipses as recorded and calculated
Comparing now the times of the 36 eclipses
as recorded and calculated, it will be seen, first, that two of them are
entirely erroneous, and could not have taken place at all. Two eclipses are
given as having occurred in the 21st and 24th years of duke Sëang,
corresponding to⿿551 and⿿548, on successive months;⿿a thing physically
impossible. On p. 491 of this volume I have given the remark of a scholar of
the T'ang dynasty that such a thing perhaps did occur in anciént times! No
reasonable account of the twice repeated error has ever been given. Possibly
two eclipses did occur some time during the Ch'un Ts'ëw period on the months
and days mentioned, but in other years; and the tablets of them got misplaced,
and appear where they now do. In the mean time the records must be regarded as
entirely erroneous.
It will be seen, secondly, that two more of the eclipses are somehow given incorrectly. The 10th is recorded as happening in the 1st month of the 15th year of duke He, corresponding to ⿿644. As proved by calculation, there was an eclipse in the 3d Chinese moon of that year, but it was not visible in Loo. This error, like the two former ones, must be left unexplained. The 15th eclipse appears as having occurred in the 17th year of duke Seuen, corresponding to ⿿591, in the 6th month, on the cycle day Kweimaou. But there was then no eclipse. Chinese astronomers discovered this error in the time of the eastern Tsin dynasty; but they have found no way of accounting for it. They have called attent'on, indeed, to the fact that an eclipse was possible on the 1st day of the fifth month; but that would be visible only in the southern hemisphere. It occurred to Mr. Chalmers, however, to try the 7th year of duke Seuen, and he found that that year, in the 6th month, on Kweimaou, which was then the day of the new moon, there was an eclipse visible in Loo. No doubt, this was the eclipse intended in the text, inaccurately arranged under the 17th year instead of the 7th. This happy rectification of one error shows in what direction the rectification of the other errors is to be sought.
It will be seen, thirdly, that of the
remaining 32 eclipses, the years, months, and cycledays of 18, as determined by
calculation, agree with those which are given in the text, while of the other
14 the years and cycle-days agree, and the months are different, generally by
one month or two, and in two cases by three months. The dif ference of the
months, however, gives confirmation to the truthfulness of the text, showing,
indeed, that it is not absolutely correct, but proving, to my mind, that the
historiographers entered the eclipses in the current months of the years when
they were observed. In order to make those current months agree with the true
months it would have been necessary that the process of intercalation should be
regularly and scientifically observed. But it was not so observed in the time
of the Ch'un Ts'ëw. In proof of this I need only refer the reader to what Mr.
Chalmers has said on the subject in the prolegomena to vol. III. p. 99, and to
his valuable table of the years and months of the Ch'un Ts'ëw, which concludes
this section. There was not room for the same error with the cycle-days. No
science was required in their application. Each successive day had its name
determined by the successive terms of the cycle; and, when these were
exhausted, the historiographers had only to begin again. Whether the months
were long or short, and whether the year contained an intercalary month or not,
the cyclical names of the days were sure to be given correctly. All that was
necessary was not to let any day go by unmarked. Those 14 eclipses,
3. The chronology is
determined by the eclipses;⿿as in par. 1.
It is hardly necessary to point out how the long list of eclipses thus verified determines the chronology of the Ch'un Ts'ëw period. The first eclipse occurred in the 3d year of duke Yin, in ⿿719, and therefore we know that the period commenced in ⿿721. The last eclipse occurred in the last year of duke Ting, in ⿿494, from which we have only to subtract 14 years of duke Gae's rule to get the last year of the period; and indeed in the supplementary text we have an eclipse occurring in Gae's 14th year, or in ⿿480.
I have called attention in the preceding paragraph to the fact of the cycle-days being always given correctly for the eclipses. So they generally are for other events; but sometimes they are given wrong,⿿as will be seen by comparing the subjoined table with the text, the days which could not be verified being omitted in the table. The errors of this kind, which are on the whole wonderfully few, are for the most part pointed out in the notes, according to the calculations of Too Yu, who says that there must be an error of the month or of the day. In some cases there may be a corruption of the cyclical names through carelessness of transcribers, which would give an error of the day; more frequently, I believe, the month is wrongly given, through the same irregularity of interca lation which has made the months given for the eclipses differ from the true months as ascertained by calculation.
4. The different
commencements of the year in the three ancient dynasties.
I take this opportunity to touch on
another subject which has often perplexed students of ancient Chinese
history,⿿the different commencements of the year in the three great ancient
dynasties of Hëa, Shang, and Chow. According to the representations of the
scholars of the Han and all subsequent dynasties, the beginning of the year was
changed, to signalize the new dynasty, by an exercise of the royal prerogative.
Indeed, the phrase 'san ching,'
As has been pointed out in the 'Astronomy of the ancient Chinese' by Mr. Chalmers, after the establishment of the Han dynasty, the Chinese endeavoured to open communications with the west; and from India they must have received great additions to their astronomical knowledge. Their scholars became able to make a reformation of the calendar; and adopting the maxim of Confucius, that the seasons of Hëa should be followed, they determined and arranged that the year should thenceforth commence with the beginning of spring, as it has since, with more or less of correctness, done.
The above observations show that of the four 'correct beginnings of the year,' (including that of Ts'in), one only was correct, and the proper nomenclature regarding them would be 'one correct and three erroneous beginnings.' They should also end the partial and bigoted pretensions of Chinese writers, when they talk of the universal knowledge of their ancient worthies, and the more culpable partiality and bigotry of some Sinologues who try to bear out their assertions.
5. In the following table the intercalary months are indicated by a line. The principal guide in determining them has been the cycle-days given in connexion with many of the events referred to. According to the theory of the Chinese year, as explained in vol. III., p. 22, there ought to be 7 intercalary months in every 19 years. It will be seen that during the Ch'un Ts'ëw period these months were introduced very irregularly.
The small figures denote the cyclical numbers of the days men tioned in the text, so far as they can be verified. A small capital (E) indicates an eclipse. The most important thing to be observed in the table is the changing position of the first month, sometimes preceding, sometimes following, the winter solstice, without any apparent rule.
Cyclical Number of Shortest Day. Lunar Months According to Confucius. Years. The small figures are the Cyclical numbers of days mentioned in the History.
TABLE MISSING
1. The dates of events in
the Tso Chuen often differ from the dates in the text.
The chronology of the Ch'un Ts'ëw period, as it appears in the Tso Chuen, is the same as that which appears in the text; but the dates of many events mentioned in both differ by one or two months; and where those dates are at the end or beginning of a year, the years to which they are assigned will also differ. This circumstance has wonderfully exercised the ingenuity of the Chinese critics; but a sufficient solution of the want of correspondence is found, in much the greater number of cases, in the fact that the feudal States were by no means agreed in using the commencement of the year prescribed by the dynasty of Chow. I have shown, in par. 4 of last section, that the Shang and Chow dynasties adopted each a different month for the beginning of the year from that employed by the dynasty of Hëa, not by arbitrary exercise of sovereignty to signalize their possession of the kingdom, but in consequence of the disorder into which the months of the year had fallen through the neglect or irregularity of intercalation. The peculiarity now under notice further shows the feebleness of the sway exercised by the kings of Chow over the feudal States, for several of those ruled by chiefs of the Chow surname yet continued to hold to the Hëa beginning of the year.
For example, in the narrative introduced by Tso after I. iii. 3, we are told that Ch'ing sent plundering expeditions into the royal domain, which 'in the 4th month carried off the wheat of Wan, and in the autumn the rice of Ch'ingchow;' meaning evidently the 4th month and the autumn of the Hëa year.
Again, in V. v. 1, we are told that 'in spring, the marquis of Tsin put to death his heirson Shinsang,' whereas, according to the Chuen, the deed was done in the 12th month of the preceding year. In V. x. 3, Le K'ih of Tsin murders his ruler in the first month of the year, whereas, according to the Chuen, he did so in the 11th month of the previous year. In V. xv. 13, a battle was fought between Tsin and Ts'in in the 11th month, while in the Chuen it takes place in the 9th. Tsin evidently regulated its months after the Hëa calendar.
In Ts'e, whose princes were of the surname Këang, it would appear that the year continued to commence with the natural spring, for in VI. xiv. 9 the murder of Shay, marquis of Ts'e, appears as taking place in the 9th month, whereas the Chuen gives it in the 7th.
In Sung, where the descendants of the kings of Shang held sway, they naturally followed the calendar of Shang. Thus in I. vi. 4, an army of Sung appears as taking Ch'angkoh in winter, while Tso says it did so in the autumn. And in the Shoo, V. viii., containing the charge to the viscount of Wei on his appointment to be the first duke of Sung, it would appear from par. 1 that authority is given to him to use all the institutions of his ancestors.
This varying commencement of the year among
the feudal States of Chow may be substantiated from other sources besides the
Ch'un Ts'ëw and the Tso Chuen.
2. What I have said in the above paragraph goes strongly to support the genuineness of Tso's narratives. There are some other dates, however, in his commentary to which my attention has been called by Mr. Chalmers, and which would seem to show that they were introduced at a later period; some of them perhaps in the Han dynasty. Tso gives the day of the winter solstice in two years;⿿the 5th of duke He, and the 20th of duke Ch'aou. In the former case, B.C. 654, he says that the day Sinhae (the 48th cyclical number) was the day of the winter solstice, and the first day of the first month; but this is an error of one day in regard to the new moon, and of three days in regard to the solstice, which fell that year on Keahyin (the 51st cyclical number). In the latter case, B.C. 521, he says that the solstice fell on the day Kech'ow (the 26th cyclical number), whereas it fell on Sinmaou, two days later, and the day of new moon was also one day later. 'Here,' says Mr. Chalmers, 'the far ther back the greater the error, so that the date and the method could not have been handed down from any previous time. If a year had been sought in duke He's time, when the new moon and solstice coincided, 646 would have been right; and 665 (646 + 19) or 627 (646⿿19) would also have been the proper commencement of a cycle of 19 years, which might have been repeated down to the end of the Ch'un Ts'ëw period without much error. The error accumulates in reckoning onwards of course as well as in reckoning back, so that by the time of the Han dynasty the cycle would have to be shifted on to another set of years. But the text of the Chuen, and the commentary which you give under the 20th year of duke Ch'aou, were evidently written from a Han point of view. Twenty two cycles of 19 years are reckoned back from the time of the emperor Woo,⿿say B.C. 103 (103 + 19 X 22 = 521), and it is affirmed that in 521 the solstice coincided with the new moon because it did so in 103. But it did not do so, nor did the new moon then fall on the day assigned to it. That a writer near the time of Con fucius should give wrong dates is very likely; but that they should be systematically wrong, so as to agree with an imperfect method of calculation adopted some centuries later, and founded on observations then made⿿about B.C. 103⿿of the actual position of the sun and moon, is so improbable that I cannot believe it. The Metonic cycle cannot be repeated twentytwo times without incurring an error of two or three days.'
Again, on IX. xxviii. 1, and in some other passages, Tso mentions the place of the year-star or Jupiter, and Mr. Chalmers contends that they were all interpolated at a subsequent date. On the case in IX. xxviii. 1, he observes:⿿'The position of the planet Jupiter was observed in the year B.C. 103, and recorded correctly by Szema Ts'ëen, in Sing-ke (Sagittarius-Capricorn); and he thought, as the writer of the notices in the Tso Chuen evidently did likewise, that Jupiter's period was exactly 12 years. But if this had been the case, Jupiter should not have been in Singke in the 28th year of duke Sëang, B.C. 544, because the intervening time of 441 years is not divisible by 12. Moreover, Jupiter was not really in Singke in B.C. 544, but he would be there in 542, two years later. How then did the writer of the Chuen say that Jupiter was in Singke, or ought to have been there, but "had licentiously advanced into Heuen-hëaou (Capricorn-Aquarius)?" Probably because such was the course of the planet, and such the Chinese manner of viewing it 240 (12 x 20) years later,⿿say in B.C. 304. It might be 12 years before or after. And the writer, knowing this, ventured to count back two centuries and a half in cycles of 12, and then to affirm that the same phæno menon had been observed B.C. 544, and to found a story thereon. He could not have lived earlier than the time of Mencius. He might have been later. Jupiter in fact gains a sign every 86 years, or he completes seven circuits of the starry heavens in about 83 years instead of 84, and hence the discrepancy of 3 years, or 3 signs, between the observations of Szema Ts'ëen and those on which Tso based his calculations. If he, or any authorities he had to quote from, had observed the planet in B.C. 544, they would have said it was in Ta-ho (Libra-Scorpio), not in Sing-ke, and much less in Heuen-hëaou. There would then have been a discrepancy of 5 signs between him and Szema instead of 3. In the matter of the "year star," as in that of the winter solstice, Tsoshe is systematically wrong.'
I am not prepared to question the conclusions to which Mr. Chalmers thus comes regarding the dates of the winter solstice, and the positions of the planet Jupiter, given in Tso's commentary. But instead of saying, as he does, that Tso could not have lived earlier than the time of Mencius, and may have lived later, I would say that the narratives in which the Year-star is mentioned were made about that time, and interpolated into his Work during the Ts'in dynasty or in the first Han. They will come under the second class of passages for the interpolation of which I have made provision on p. 35 of the first Chapter. But after all that Mr. Chalmers has said, my faith remains firm in the genuineness of the mass of Tso's narratives as composed by him from veritable documents contemporaneous with the events to which they relate.
3.Events not dated with
reference to the years of the kings of Chow.
Before passing on from the chronology of the text and of the Tso Chuen, it deserves to be pointed out that neither in the Classic nor the Commerntary have we any indication of the dating of events with reference to the age of the dynasty of Chow or to the reigns of its kings. In each State they spoke of events with reference to the years of their own rulers. The Classic, divided into twelve Books according to the years of the twelve marquises of Loo, is one example of this. Another is found in the Chuen on VI. xvii. 4, where a minister of Ch'ing, defending his ruler against the suspicions of Tsin, runs over various events, giving them all according to the years of the earl of Ch'ing, without reference to those of the king of Chow or of the marquis of Tsin. We have a third in the Chuen at the end of II. ii., where Tso gives a resumé of certain affairs of Tsin, prior to the Ch'un Ts'ëw period, specifying them by the years of duke Hwuy of Loo.
Frequently, in order to make definite the date of an event, some other well known event, contemporaneous with it, is referred to. Thus, in the Chuen after IX. ix. 5, when the marquis of Tsin asks the age of the young marquis of Loo, Ke Wootsze replies that he was born in 'the year of the meeting at Shasuy.' Again, in X. vii., in the 4th narrative appended to par. 4, a panic in Ch'ing is referred to 'the year when the descriptions of punishments were cast;' and on par. 8 it is said that one of the sons of the marquis of Wei was born in 'the year when Han Seuentsze became chief minister of Tsin, and went among the other States, paying complimentary visits.'
I need not adduce more examples. In these two ways are the dates of events determined:⿿by referring them to the years of some ruler of a State, or to some event of general notoriety, contempo raneous with them. They are not in any single instance determined by reference to the era of the dynasty or to the reigns of the kings of Chow. This peculiarity seems again to indicate that the sway which Chow exercised over the States was feeble and imperfect. Chaou Yih calls attention to the fact that the princes or nobles in the early part of the Han dynasty continued to exercise the preroga tive of dating events from the year of their appointment or succession, and that the practice was stopped when the emperors of Han began to feel secure in their possession of the empire. It was in truth but a nominal supremacy which was yielded to the kings of Chow.
I. Kings of Chow. Surname
Ke (??). Given, as are the princes of the States, with their sacrificial
titles.
II. Princes of Loo. Surname
Ke. Marquises.
I have not given the date of the accession of the preceding nine marquises, it being difficult to make it out in several cases. Hwuy brings us to the Ch'un Ts'ëw period.
Under Muh Loo entirely lost its independence. After him we have:⿿30, Kung (忱), 375; 31, K'ang (康); 32, King (濯), 342; 33, P'ing (平); 34, Wan (濿); 35, K'ing (頿), who was reduced to the condition of a private man by king K'aouleeh of Ts'oo in B.C. 248.
III. Princes of Wei (衿).
Surname Ke. Marquises; but for some time they had the title of Pih (伯), as
presiding over several other States.
Under Shin Wei lost its independence, and became attached to Wei (魿). We have after him:⿿36, Shing (迲), 371; 37, Ch'ing (濿; he was reduced in rank); 38, P'ing (平), 331; 39, Tsze Keun (忣忿; still farther reduc ed); 40, Hwae Keun (濷忿), 281; 41, Yuen Keun (忿忿), 250; 42, Keun Këoh (忿觿), who was reduced to the condition of a private man by the second emperor of Ts'in.
IV. Princes of Ts'ae (迡).
Surname Ke. Marquises.
V. Princes of Tsin (濿).
Surname Ke. Marquises.
For several rules Tsin had been maintaining a failing struggle against that branch of the ruling House which had been established with the title of earl in K'euhyuh (濲沿); and Hwan Shuh (?桿忿) and Chwang (迿伯), chiefs of K'euhyuh, enter in some lists into the line of the princes of Tsin. At last Ch'ing, the successor of Chwang Pih, put Min to death, in 678, and was acknowledged by the king as ruler of Tsin. He is:⿿
In his second year Tsing was deprived of his State and title. It had, indeed, been only a nominal position which the representatives of T'ang Shuhyu had for some time enjoyed, for they were merely puppets in the hands of the marquis of Wei (魿). The great State of Tsin was broken up into three great marquisates, which subsequently claimed to be kingdoms;⿿those of Wei (魿), Chaou (趿), and Han (鿿), the independent existence of which dates from 402, and which continued till they were absorbed by Ts'in.
VI. The princes of Ts'aou
(濹). Surname Ke. Earls.
Pihyang was made captive by Saag in 486, and Tsaou was then extinguished.
VII. Princes of Ch'ing
(鿭). Surname Ke. Earls.
Seu was murdered in 395; but before that Ch'ing had become entirely dependent on the new State of Han. This allowed one other marquis known as Keun Yih (忿乿), or duke K'ang (康), to be named; but extinguished the State in 374.
VIII. The princes of Woo
(忳). Surname Ke. First, earls; then viscounts. After a time usurped the title
of king.
The State of Woo, under a branch of the House of Chow, began before the rise of the Chow dynasty, under T'aepih (太伯; the eldest son of the lord of Chow afterwards kinged as king T'ae by his greatgrandson the duke of Chow), who fled from Chow, along with his next brother, under the circumstances referred to in Ana. VIII. i. He was the first ruler of Woo. We have:⿿
In Chowchang's time king Woo overthrew the dynasty of Shang, and confirmed him in the possession of Woo as a fief of the dynasty of Chow, with the title of earl. The point about the title is not clear; and we do not know when earl was exchanged for viscount. After Chowchang we have:⿿
In his time Woo first began to have communication with the northern States which constituted the kingdom of Chow proper. Most of the names of its princes do not sound like Chinese names.
In 472 the king of Yueh extinguished Woo, when Fooch'ae killed himself.
IX. The princes of Yen
(翿). Surname Ke. Sometimes called marquises, sometimes only earls. In the end
assumed the title of king.
Descended from Shih, duke of Shaou (忬忬奭), often mentioned in the Shoo (See V.xvi., et al.). He was the first ruler of Yen. Eight of his descendants, whose names and years cannot be ascertained are said to have ruled in it, and we come to:⿿
He was made captive, and the State extinguished, by Ts'in in 221.
X. The princes of Ch'in
(鿳). Surname Kwei (嬿), as being descended from Shun. Marquises.
King Woo, it is said, gave his eldest daughter in marriage to a Kwei Mwan (嬿溿), the son of his chief potter, and invested him with Ch'in. He was the first marquis, and is known as duke Hoo (迡忬). After him come:⿿
Gae strangled himself in 533, and the State was held by a prince of Ts'oo till 528, when the Kwei line was restored. We have:⿿
Min was killed, and the State extinguished by Ts'oo, in 478,⿿the year in which Confucius died.
XI. The princes of Sung
(宿). Surname Tsze (孿), as being the descendants of the sovereigns of Yin or
Shang, the representatives of T'ang the Successful.
Yen took the title of king in 317, but Sung was extinguished by Ts'e in 285, and Yen fled to Wan and there died. Indeed from the time of duke Taou, Sung had become dependent on Ts'e. There is much difficulty in fixing the number of years that dukes King and the second Ch'aou ruled.
XII. The princes of Ts'e
(齿). Surname Keang (姿), as being descended from Yaou's chief minister.
Marquises.
1. Shangfoo (尿翶), who appears to have been one of the principal advisers of Wan and Woo both in peace and war, was invested by Woo with Ts'e, and is known as T'ae Kung (太忬). Then we have:⿿
For a considerable time the princes of Ts'e had been at the mercy of the Heads of the Ch'in (鿳) family, the most powerful in the State. A prince of Ch'in took refuge in Ts'e in B.C. 671 (See the Chuen on III. xxii.3), and his descendants ere long grew into a powerful clan, and conceived the idea of superseding the line of Këang. They were known as Ch'ins (鿳), but that surname they exchanged for T'ëen (翰);⿿it is not known when or why. In 390 T'ëen Ho (翰忿) removed duke K'ang from his capital, and placed him in a city near the sea, where he might maintain the sacrifices to his ancestors; and there he led an inglorious life till 378, when the line of Keang came to a close. T'een Ho made application to the king of Chow and to the feudal princes to be acknowledged himself as marquis of Ts'e, which was acceded to, and his first year dates from 385.
Of the line of T'ëen in Ts'e we have:⿿
Këen continued till the first year of the dynasty of Ts'in, B.C. 220, when he made his submission to the new Power, and the independent existence of Ts'e ceased.
XIII. The princes of Ts'oo
(??). Surname Me (??). Viscounts.
They claimed to be descended from the ancient emperor Chuenheuh (顿頿＿ ; but the first who had the surname Me appears to have been a Kelëen (季鿣), about the dawn of historic times. A Yuh Heung (鬻翿) is mentioned with distinc tion in the time of king Wan, and his greatgrandson, Heung Yih (翿繹) is mentioned with distinction in the time of king Wan, and his greatgrandson, Heung Yih (??), was invested with Ts'oo by king Ch'ing, as a viscount. It was not very long till the title of viscount was discarded, and that of king usurped. The Hëung was a clan name, derived from Yuh Heung.
XIV. The princes of Ts'in
(秦). Surname Ying (嬴). At first only earls.
They claimed to be descended from the ancient emperor Chuenheuh, through Pihe (伯翳) or Pihyih (伯翿), the forester of Shun (Shoo, II. i.22), who is said to have given him the surname of Ying. Szema Ts'ëen traces the family down through the Hëa and Shang dynasties, but there is much that is evidently fabulous in the statements which he makes. At last we arrive at the time of king Hëaou of Chow, who was so pleased with the ability displayed by Feitsze (鿿孿), a scion of the family, in keeping cattle, that he employed him to look after his herds of horses, 'between the K'ëen and the Wei (汧渭乿鿿),' and invested him with the small territory of Ts'in, as chief of an attached State, there to maintain the sacrifices to the Ying. Feitsze occupies the first place in the list of the princes of Ts'in.
Sëang gave important assistance to the House of Chow in the troubles connected with the death of king Yëw, and the removal of the capital by king P'ing to the east, and his rank was raised in 769 to that of earl, and Ts'in had now an independent existence anong the other fiefs of Chow. Its territory was also greatly increased, and Sëang received, what Chinese writers think wss of evil omen, the old domain of the princes of Chow from mount K'e westwards
Became king in 245, and succeeded in establishing his sway. over all the other States in 220, from which year dates the commencement of the Ts'in dynasty. He reigned under the style of 姿翿帿, emperor the First, till 209. In 208 he was succeeded by his son, emperor the Second (亿丿翿帿), and with his death in 204 the shortlived dynasty may be said to have ended.
IT SEEMS DESIRABLE AT THE CLOSE OF THIS CHAPTER TO APPEND A TABLE OF THE CYCLE OF SIXTY.
Considered in Relation to Its
Territorial Extent; The Disorder which Prevailed; The Growth and Encroachments
of the Larger States; And the Barbarous Tribes Which Surrounded It.
1. Territorial extent and
component States.
On the territorial extent of the kingdom of Chow, and the names of the feudal States composing it, during the Ch'un Ts'ëw period, I have nothing to add to what I have said on the same subjects for the period embraced in the Book of Poetry, on pp. 127⿿131 of the prolegomena to volume IV. A study of the large map accompanying this Chapter, in its twofold form, with the names on the one in English and on the other in Chinese, will give the reader a more correct idea of these points than many pages of description could do. The period of the Book of Poetry overlapped that of the Ch'un Ts'ëw by more than a hundred years. No new State arose during the latter, though several came into greater prominence than had formerly belonged to them; and the enlargement of territory which took place arose chiefly from the greater development which the position of Tsin, Ts'oo, and Ts'in enabled them to give themselves.
2. Disorder of the Ch'un
Ts'ëw period;⿿referred to its causes.
It is often said that the period embraced in
the Ch'un Ts'ëw was one of disorder,⿿a social and political disorganization to
be compared with the physical disorder caused by the inundating waters which
called forth the labours of the great Yu so many ages before.
The process of degeneracy and disintegration, however, was very marked from the beginning of the 9th century. It is an acknowledged fact that about B.C. 880 the chief of the powerful southern State of Ts'oo usurped for a time the title of king, and wished to declare himself independent of the kings of Chow. When the Ch'un Ts'ëew period opens upon us, we find existing an all but anarchal condition of things. There was virtually no king in China in those days, and the lord of each feudal State did what was right in his own eyes. In 706, the earl of Ch'ing the most recently established of all the States, if perhaps we should except Ts'in, engaged in hostilities with the king himself, who was wounded in the battle between them.
King Woo and the duke of Chow had parcelled
out their conquest ⿿the kingdom of Shang⿿among the scions of their own family
and their adherents of other surnames, with the representatives of T'ang the
Successful and other great Names in the previous history of the country. How
many the feudal States, great and small, were at the most, I will not venture
to say even approximately. The theory of the constitution left them very
considerable liberty in the administration of their internal affairs, and in
their relations with one another. They were to be content with their allotments
of territory and not infringe on those of their neighbours, maintaining a good
mutual understanding by means of court visits
But this beautiful theory of government
presupposed a wonderful freedom from jealousy and ambition on the part of the
feudal lords, and an overwhelming superiority of force on the part of the king;
and, neither of these things existing, the constitution of the kingdom was torn
into shreds. Instead of the harmony which the principles of benevolence and
righteousness, carried out with courtesy and in accordance with the rules of
propriety, should have produced, we find the States biting and devouring one
another, while the large and strong oppressed and absorbed the small and weak.
In the Chuen on IX. xxix. 7, during a dispute at the court of Tsin on some
encroachments which Loo had made on the territory of K'e, an officer reminds
the marquis of what Tsin itself had done in the same way. 'The princes,' said
he, 'of Yu, Kwoh, Tsëaou, Hwah, Hoh, Yang, Han, and Wei were Kes, and Tsin's
greatness is owing to its absorbing of their territories. If it had not
encroached on the small States, where would it have found territory to take?
Since the times of Woo and Hëen, we have annexed many of them, and who can call
us to account for what we have done?' The fact was that Might had come to take
the place of Right; and while states men were ever ready to talk of the
fundamental principles of justice, benevolence, and loyalty, the process of
spoliation went on.
3. To ameliorate the evils arising from this
state of disorder and anarchy, and to keep it moreover in check, there arose
during the Ch'un Ts'ëw period the singular device of presiding chiefs,⿿the
system of one State taking the lead and direction of all the others, and
exercising really royal functions throughout the kingdom, while yet there was a
profession of loyal attachment to the House of Chow. The seeds of this
contrivance were sown, perhaps, at the very commencement of the dynasty, when
the dukes of Chow and Shaou were appointed viceroys over the eastern and
western portions of the kingdom respectively, and other princes were made, on
their first investiture, 'chiefs of regions,
Five of these presiding chiefs are named
during the time under our review
Sëang of Sung was not entitled to a place among the five chiefs, either from his own character, or from the strength and resources of his State. He appears rather as a madman than a man of steady purpose; and many scholars exclude his name from the category, and introduce instead Hohleu of Woo or Kowts'ëen of Yueh. Nor is Muh of Ts'in much better entitled to the place assigned to him, for though he was a prince of very superior character to Sëang, his influence was felt only in the west of the kingdom, and not by the States generally. Chwang of Ts'oo, moreover, did certainly exercise the influence of a chief over several of the States, but he was not acknowledged as such by the king of Chow, and the title of king which he claimed for himself sufficiently showed his feeling and purpose towards the existing dynasty. Still he and other kings of Ts'oo called the States frequently together, and many responded to their summons, knowing that a refusal would incur their resentment, and be visited with direst punishment.
I am inclined to believe that the system of presiding chiefs, or rather of leading States, did in a degree mitigate the evils of the prevailing disorder. Ts'e and Tsin certainly kept in check the encroachments of Ts'oo, which, barbarous as it was, would other wise have speedily advanced to the overthrow of the House of Chow. Yet the system increased the misery that abounded, and if it retarded, perhaps, the downfall of the descendants of king Woo, it served to show that that was unavoidable in the end. It was most anomalous,⿿ an imperium in imperio,⿿and weakened the bond of loyal attachment to the throne. Of what use were the kings of Chow, if they could not do their proper work of government, but must be continually devolving it on one or other of their vassals? No line of rulers can continue to keep possession of the supreme authority in a nation, if their incompetency be demonstrated for centuries together. The sentimental loyalty of Confucius had lost its attractions by the time of Mencius, who was ever on the outlook for 'a minister of Heaven,' who should make an end of Chow and of the contentions among the warring States together.
But the system also increased the expenditure of the smaller States. There still remained their dues to the kings of Chow, even though they paid them so irregularly that we have instances of messengers being sent from court to Loo, and doubtless they were sent to other States as well, to beg for money and other supplies. But they had also to meet the requisitions of the ruling State, and sometimes of more than one at the same time. There are many allusions in the narratives of Tso to the arbitrariness and severity of those requisitions. On X. xiii. 5, 6, for instance, we find Tsze ch'an of Ch'ing disputing on this point with the ministers of Tsin. 'Formerly,' said he, 'the sons of Heaven regulated the amount of contribution according to the rank of the State. Ch'ing ranks as the territory of an earl or a baron, and yet its contribution is now on the scale of a duke or a marquis. There is no regular rule for what we have to pay; and when our small State fails in rendering what is required, it is held to be an offender. When our contributions and offerings have no limit set to them, we have only to wait for our ruin.' It is evident, as we study the history of this system of a leading State, that there was no help to come from it to the House of Chow, and no permanent alleviation of the evils under which the nation was suffering.
4.The growth of some of
the States an important subject of study.
The causes of it. At the close of the Ch'un Ts'ëw period the kingdom was in a worse and more hopeless condition than at its commencement; and it seems strange to us that it did not enter into the mind of Confucius to forecast that the feudal system which had so long prevailed in China was 'waxen old and ready to vanish away.' But what State was to come out victorious from its conflicts with all the others, and take the lead in settling a new order of things? Only the event could reveal this, but it could be known that the struggle for supremacy would lie between two or three powers; and the study of their growth supplies one of the most important lessons which the Work of the sage and the Commentary of Tso are calculated to teach us.
A glance at the map shows us that the China proper of Chow was confined at first within narrow limits. Even at the beginning of the Ch'un Ts'ëw period it consisted of merely a few States of no great size, lying on either side of the Yellow River, from the point where its channel makes a sudden bend to the east onwards to its mouth.
North of the Royal Domain was Tsin, but, though a fief dating from the commencement of the kingdom, its growth had been so slow, that it is not till the second year of duke He, B.C. 657, that it appears in Confucius' text, on the eve of its subjugation of the small States of Yu and Kwoh. This was the first step which Tsin took in the career of enlargement by which it ere long attained to so great a size.
South of the Domain was Ts'oo; and, though it had been founded in the time of king Ch'ing, it does not appear in the text of our Classic till the tenth year of duke Chwang, B.C. 683. It is then called King, and we do not meet with it under the name of Ts'oo till the first year of duke He, B.C. 658.
West from the Domain was Ts'in, the first lord of which was given a local habitation and name only in B.C. 908; and it did not become an independent fief of the kingdom till the year 769. Its first appearance in our text is in the fifteenth year of duke He, B.C. 644.
A long way east from Ts'oo, and bordering on the sea, was the State of Woo, which, though claiming an earlier origin than the kingdom of Chow itself, is not mentioned in the classic till the seventh year of duke Ch'ing, B.C. 583.
But it will be observed that these four States had from their situation grand opportunities for increasing their territory and their population; and the consequence was that before the end of the Ch'un Ts'ëw period each of them occupied an extent of country many times larger than the Royal Domain, while Ts'oo was nearly as large as all the Middle States, as those of Chow proper were called, together. The way in which it and Tsin proceeded was by extinguishing and absorbing the smaller States adjacent to them, and by a constant process of subjugating the barbarous tribes, which lay on the south and west of Ts'oo, and on the north and east of Tsin. Ts'in lay farther off from the settled parts of the country, and its princes had not so much to do in absorbing smaller States, but they early established their sway over all the Jung, or the wild hordes of the west. The leadership, which I have said in the preceding paragraph is improperly ascribed to duke Muh of Ts'in as being over the feudal States belonged to him in his relation to the Jung. The sea forbade any extension of the border of Woo on the east, but it found much land to be occupied on the north and south, and its armies, going up the Këang or Yangtsze, met those of Ts'oo, and fought with them for the possession of the country between that great river and the Hwae.
The States of Chow proper had little room
for any similar expansion. They were closely massed together. From the first
immigration of the ancestors of the Chinese tribe, their course had been
eastwards and mainly along the course of the Yellow River, and most of the
older occupants of the country had been pushed before them to the borders of
the sea. Ts'e extended right to the sea, and so did Ke which the other
absorbed. Then came the small States of K'e and Keu, the latter of which had a
sea border, while they do not seem to have ever thought of pushing their way
into what is now called the promontory of Shantung. The people of both K'e and
Keu were often taunted by the other States with belonging themselves to the E
barbarians. South from Keu there was a tract extending inland a considerable
way, occupied by E tribes and the half-civilized peo ple of Seu, and reaching
down to the hordes of the Hwae, which Loo pleased itself with the idea of
reducing,
Woo for a time made rapid progress, and seemed as if it would at least wrest the sovereignty of the south from Ts'oo; but its down fall was more rapid than its rise had been. It was extinguished by Yueh a very few years after the close of the Ch'un Ts'ëw period, and Yueh itself had ere long to succumb to Ts'oo.
Thus, as time went on, it became increasingly clear that the final struggle for the supreme power would be between Ts'in and Ts'oo. If Tsin had remained entire, it would probably have been more than a match for them both; but the elements of disorganization had long been at work in it, and it was divided, about the year B.C. 400, into three marquisates. The lords of these soon claimed, all of them, the title of king, and the way in which they maintained for a century and a half the struggle with Ts'in and Ts'oo shows how great the power of Tsin unbroken would have been. Ts'e and Yen also assumed the royal style, and made a gallant defence against the powers of the west and the south; but they would not have held out so long as they did but for the distance which inter vened between them and the centres of both their adversaries. Ts'in at last bore down all opposition, and though of all the great. States that developed during the Ch'un Ts'ëw period it was the latest to make its appearance, it remained master of the field. From the kings of Chow it cannot be said to have met with any resistance. Their history for three hundred years before the extinction of the dynasty is almost a blank. They continued to hold a nominal occupancy of the throne so long only because there were so many other princes contending for it.
The above review of the closing centuries of the dynasty of Chow, and of its overthrow by the king of Ts'in, seems to prove, brief as it has been, that, given a number of warring States or nations, vic tory will in the long run declare itself in favour of that one which has the most extensive territory and the largest population. Ts'in and Ts'oo, when they first came into contact with the States of Chow proper, were, no doubt, inferior to them in the arts of civiliza tion generally, and among these of the art of war; but they had vast resources and a rude energy, which compensated in the first place for want of skill, and they soon learned from their adversaries whatever was required for their effective application. A fixedness of purpose and recklessness in the expenditure of human life characterized their measures, and the struggle came at last to be mainly between themselves. It ended more from the exhaustion of the combatants than from any real superiority on the part of Ts'in.
While the downfall of Chow has led me thus to speak of the success which must inevitably attend the efforts of the combatant whose resources are the greatest, if the contents of my volume led me to trace the history of China downwards for a few more years, it would be as evident that, while material strength is sure, when not deficient in warlike skill, to gain a conquest, it cannot consoli date it. The brief existence of the Ts'in dynasty seemed but to afford a breathing time to the warring States, and then China became once more horrid with the din of arms. Most of the States which had contended over the throne of Chow again took the field, and others with them, until, after sixteen years more of strife and misery, the contest was decided in favour of the House of Han, which joined to force of arms respect for the traditions of the coun try, and a profession at least of reverence for the virtues of justice and benevolence.
6. An endeavour made to
put an end to war by covenant.
An incident occurred during the time of duke Sëang which deserves to have attention called to it, as illustrating the saying that 'there is nothing new under the sun,' where we should not expect its illustration. The strife between Ts'oo and Tsin was then at its height; and the States generally were groaning under the miseries which it occasioned. It occurred to Hëang Seuh, a minister of Sung, that he would be deserving well of the country if he could put an end to the constant wars. The idea of a Peace Society took possession of his mind. He was by no means without ability himself, and had a faculty for negotiation and intrigue. He was, no doubt, sincerely desirous to abate the evils which abounded, but we are sorry to find that he was ambitious also 'to get a name' for himself by his measure, and had an eye to more substantial advantages as well. How his scheme worked itself out in his own mind we do not know; but after long brooding over it, he succeeded in giving it a practical shape, which may have been modified by the force of circumstances.
Being on friendly terms with the chief ministers of Tsin and Ts'oo, he first submitted his plan to them, and procured their assent to it. In Tsin they said, 'War is destructive to the people and eats up our resources; and it is the greatest calamity of the small States. Seuh's plan will perhaps turn out impracticable, but we must give it our sanction; for if we do not, Ts'oo will do it, and so improve its position with the States to our disadvantage.' Similarly they reasoned and agreed in Ts'oo, Ts'e, and Ts'in, The great powers appeared all to be willing.
Having succeeded thus far, Seuh proceeded to call a meeting of the States generally, and in the summer of 535 the representatives of not fewer than fourteen of them met in the capital of Sung. Various jealousies were displayed in making the arrangements preliminary to a covenant. Ts'e and Ts'in were exempted from taking the oath, so that the agreement was narrowed to a compact between Ts'oo and Tsin, and the States which adhered to them respectively; and though this would secure a temporary peace to the kingdom, yet the two other great States, being left unbound, might take advan tage of it, to prosecute their own ambitious designs. Ts'oo, more over, displayed a fierce and unconciliating spirit which promised ill for the permanence of the arrangement. However, the covenant was accepted with these drawbacks. There should be war no more! And to assure so desirable an end, the princes who had been in the habit of acknowledging the superiority of Ts'oo should show their respect for Tsin by appearing at its court, and those who had been adherents of Tsin should similarly appear at the court of Ts'oo. Thus these two Powers would receive the homage of all the States; and it was implied, perhaps, that they would unite their forces to punish any State which should break the general peace. Nothing was said of the loyal service which was due from them all to the kings of Chow; and Ts'in and Ts'e were left, as I have said, unfettered, to take their own course. I apprehend that the princes and ministers who were at the meeting separated without much hope of the pacification being permanent;⿿as indeed it did not prove to be. Hëang Seuh alone thought that he had accomplished a great work; and without being satisfied, as we wish that he had been, with the consciousness that he had done so, he proceeded to ask a grant of lands and towns from the duke of Sung as a reward for 'arresting the occasion of death.' His application was acceded to, but it did not take effect. Seuh showed the charter of the grant which he had obtained to Tszehan the chief minister of the State, who said to him, 'It is by their arms that Tsin and Ts'oo keep the small States in awe. Standing in awe, the high and low in them are loving and harmonious, and thus the States are kept quiet, and do service to the great powers, securing their own pre servation and escaping ruin. Who can do away with the instruments of war? They have been long in requisition. By them the lawless are kept in awe, and accomplished virtue is displayed On them depends the preservation or the ruin of a country;⿿and you have been seeking to do away with them. Your scheme is a delusion, and there could be no greater offence than to lead the States astray by it. And not content with having escaped punishment, you have sought for reward!" With this he cut the document in pieces and cast it away, while Seuh submitted, and made no further claim to the grant which had been assigned to him.
So ended the first attempt which was made in the world to put an end to war on principles of expediency and by political arrangements. It was a delusion and proved a failure; but there must have been a deep and widespread feeling of the miseries which it was intended to remove, to secure for it its temporary acceptance. Though a delusion it was, it was a brilliant one. Though Seuh was a dreamer, I have thought that his name should have prominent mention given to it. More than two thousand years have elapsed since his time; Christianity, calling to universal 'peace on earth,' has come into the field; and under its auspices nations unheard of, it may be said unborn, in the era of the Ch'un Ts'ëw, have attained a wondrous growth, with appliances of science and a development commerce, which were then allunknown:⿿and is it still a delusion to hope for arrangements which will obviate the necessity of a recurrence to 'the last resort,' the appeal to the force of arms?
6. The rude tribes in
China and around it.
Of the wild tribes which infested the territory of China pro per during the Ch'un Ts'ëw period, and surrounded it on every side, it is impossible to give an entirely satisfactory account. After we have gathered up the information supplied by Confucius and the Commentary of Tso, there occur questions connected with them to which we do not find any reply.
In the Shoo V. ii., at the final struggle of king Woo with the last king of Shang, we find 'the Yung, the Shuh, the Këang, the Maou, the Wei, the Loo, the P'ang, and the Puh,' eight tribes from the south-west, having their seats mostly in the present provinces of Szech'uen and Hoopih, all assisting the former. As most of them appear during the Ch'unTs'ëw period, occupying the same locations, the probability is, that, when Shang was subdued, they received their share of the spoils, and returned to their fastnesses. Some honours and titles may have been conferred, besides, on their chiefs by Woo, but it does not appear that they acknowledged any allegiance to the House of Chow. If they did, we may be sure it was nothing more than nominal.
The wild tribes are generally divided into
four classes, called by different names, according to their situation relative
to the Middle States. There were the Jung,
First, of the Jung. Seven divisions of these are indicated.
[i.] At the beginning of the period, we find tribes in the neighbourhood of Loo, which are simply called Jung, and whose seat was in the present district of Ts'aou, department Ts'aouchow. Yin is introduced twice in his 2d year covenanting with them. In his 7th year, we find them making captive an earl of Fan, on his return from Loo to the royal court, and carrying him off with them to their own settlements. Duke Hwan covenants with them in his 2d year. Duke Chwang in his 18th year pursues them across the Tse river; and in his 20th year they are invaded by a force from Ts'e. In his 24th year they make an inroad into the State of Ts'aou, and compel a Ke, who may have been the earl of it, to flee to Ch'in. The duke appears in his 26th year conducting an expedition against them; and after that we hear nothing more about them. We may suppose that they were then finally subdued, and lost their individuality among the population of Loo.
[ii.] There were the 'Northern Jung,'
[iii.] There were the 'Jung of LuhhWan,'
[iv.] There were the 'Jung of Yangk'eu,
Ts'euenkaou, and about the E and the Loh,'
[v.] There were the 'Man,'
[vi.] There were the 'Dog Jung,'
[vii.] There were the 'Le Jung,'
The above are all the tribes of the Jung mentioned in the Ch'un Tsëw and in Tso, excepting the Loo Jung, of whom I shall have to speak when we come to the Man of the South. Neither the sage nor his commentator had occasion to bring forward any others, for only these made their appearance in connexion with the States of China during the Ch'unTs'ëw period. There were, however, many more tribes, which constituted, properly speaking, the Jung of the west, by the absorption of which it was that Ts'in reached such an eminence of power.
Second, of the Teih. Szema Ts'ëen and Too
Yu, the latter led away probably by Szema, place some tribes of these on the
west of the Ho; but so far as the evidence of Confucius and Tsoshe goes, they
are all to be sought on the east of that river, and appear extending from it,
along the north of the different States, as far as the pre sent Shantung. Up to
the time of duke Seuen, we read in the text only of the Teih, but subsequently
there appear two great divisions of them,⿿the 'Red Teih,'
Of the Red Teih six tribes seem to be
specified:⿿the 'Kaoulohs of the eastern hills,'
Of the White Teih there were three
tribes:⿿the 'Seenyu,' or the 'Chungshan,'
I will now give an outline of what is related about the Teih in the text and in Tso.
[i.] While there is no intimation of any general distinction among their tribes.
They appear first in the 32d year of Chwang, invading the small State of Hing, which was by no means able to cope with them. Ts'e went in the first place to its rescue, but in the first year of He Hing removed its principal city to a situation where it would be more out of the way of the Teih, and the forces of Ts'e, Sung, and Ts'aou are introduced as fortifying the new capital.
About the same time the Teih attacked the more considerable State of Wei, and nearly annihilated it. In the 2d year of Min, they took its chief city, the inhabitants of which fled across the Ho. There only 730 people, men and women, could be got together again, and when to them were added the inhabitants of the two other chief towns of the State, the whole did not amount to more than 5,000 souls. This gives us a correct, but not an exalted idea, of the resources of many of the States of Chow in those days. Ts'e went to the help of Wei, as it had done in the case of Hing, gathered up the ruins of the State, and called out the other States to prepare a new capital for it.
While the Teih were thus successful against Hing and Wei, they came into contact with the Power which was ultimately to destroy their independence. In the 2d year of Min, the marquis of Tsin sent his eldest son against the settlements of the Kaoulohs. Other expeditions followed, and in the 7th year of He a general of that State inflicted a defeat on a portion of the Teih; but, when urged to follow up his victory, he said that he only wanted to frighten them, and would not accelerate a rising of all their tribes. The consequence was that in the following year we have the Teih retaliating by an invasion of Tsin.
In duke He's 10th year they penetrated into
the Royal Domain, and overthrew the State of Wan,
In He's 31st year we find them again actively engaged against Wei, which was compelled to make another change of its capital. It was able, however, the year after, to make in its turn an incursion into their settlements, when they entered into a covenant with it, and left it unmolested till the 13th year of duke Wan. Meanwhile they continued their incursions into Ts'e, and went on to attack Loo and Sung, notwithstanding a check which they received from Tsin in the last year of duke He. Loo also defeated them in the 12th year of Wan.
[ii.] In the time of duke Seuen and subsequently, we read no more in the same way of the Teih, but of the Red and the White Teih. Of the latter we have an earlier mention in the Chuen, in the account of the battle of Ke, when Tsin defeated the Teih, as I have mentioned above. It is then said that a viscount of the White Teih was taken prisoner. From some hints which are found in Tso it appears that about this time jealousies began to spring up among the Teihs themselves. The Red tribes were trying to assert a superiority which the White would not allow, and so they were left, unsupported, to cope with Tsin for which they were by no means a match.
That great State had now consolidated its resources, and it made short work of the Red Teih. They invaded it in Seuen's 4th and 7th years, and met with little opposition; Tsin purposely retiring before them to increase their arrogance. But in his 15th year an army entirely reduced the tribe of the Loos, and carried off their viscount Yingurh; and next year another army similarly reduced the Këahs and the Lëwyu. In the 3d year of Ch'ing, Tsin and Wei joined in an invasion of the Tsëangkaoujoo, with whom they dealt probably in the same way; for we have no further mention of the Red Teih. Wherever the Teih are mentioned after this, other circumstances show that the White Teih are meant.
[iii.] The White Teih made a bolder resistance, nor was Tsin ever able to destroy the independence of the tribe of the Sëenyu.
In the 8th year of Seuen, we find the White Teih associated with Tsin in the invasion of Ts'in. They would seem to have broken off entirely from the Red Teih, and to have been willing to join with the State which was in deadly hostility with them. Three years after, the marquis of Tsin had a great meeting, at a place within their territories, with all their tribes.
The alliance thus formed between them and Tsin was not very lasting. In the 9th year of Ch'ing, they are confederate with Ts'in and Ts'oo in invading Tsin; but they took nothing by their fickle ness, for Tsin inflicted a defeat upon them in Ch'ing's 12th year.
In Sëang's 18th year, an embassy from them visited the court of Loo,⿿for what purpose we cannot tell. Nor are they again mention ed in the sage's text, though the Chuen speaks frequently of them.
In Sëang's 28th year, they appear, with the States which acknow ledged the presidency of Ts'oo, visiting at the court of Tsin,⿿in accordance with the treaty of Sung. It would thus appear that they had gone over finally to the side of Ts'oo. They soon suffered for their course. In Ch'aou's first year, an army of Tsin, under Seun Woo, defeated them at Taloo. In his 12th year, the same commander put an end to the independent existence of the Fei tribe, and carried away their viscount prisoner. So he dealt with the Koo tribe in Ch'aou's 15th year; but he subsequently restored its viscount, which seems to have encouraged them to revolt again, and in Ch'aou's 22d year, 'Seun Woo a second time extinguished Koo.'
The Sëenyu were not so easily disposed of. Tsin attacked this tribe in Ch'aou's 12th year, and in his 13th and 15th, but without any decisive success. In the 3d year of Ting the army of Tsin was defeated by it, but returned to the attack in the following year, assisted by a force from Wei. Soon after this, the great families of Tsin began contending among themselves, and no effective action could be taken against the Sëenyu. The tribe maintained its independence on into the period of the Warring States, and finally yielded to the kingdom of Chaou about the year B.C. 296.
Third, of the E. Confucius is reported, in
the Analects, IX. xiii., as declaring that he would like to go and live among
'the nine E,' on which expression it is generally said that there were nine
tribes of the E. There may have been so many originally, and Confucius may have
used a phrase which had come down as descrip tive of them from a former time.
But we do not find nine tribes, nor even half that number, mentioned in the
Ch'un Ts'ëw or in Tso's Commentary. I believe that the power of the E tribes
had been broken, and that many of them had disappeared among the inhabitants of
the eastern States, before the time under our notice. We have to do only with
the 'E of the Hwae river,'
[i.] The tribes of the Hwae were the only E whose power and numbers were considerable in the Ch'un-Ts'ëw period. The Chuen on V. xiii. 3 mentions that they were at that time distressing the State of K'e, so that they must have penetrated a long way north from the river about which lay their proper seats. From that time, for more than a hundred years, we do not again meet with them; but in the 4th year of duke Ch'aou, at the first meeting of the States called by Ts'oo, we find that the chiefs of these tribes were also present, and that they went on, immediately after, under the leading of Ts'oo, to invade Woo. One other reference to them is all that occurs;⿿under the 27th year of Ch'aou. Then, in the meeting at Hoo, Fan Hëentsze of Tsin, when enumerating the dif ficulties in the way of restoring duke Ch'aou to Loo, says that the Head of the Ke family had succeeded in securing the adherence of the Hwae E. All these tribes fell in the end to the lot of Ts'oo.
[ii.] Këae was the name of a small tribe of the E.⿿in the present Këaou Chow, department of Laechow. In the 29th year of duke He, their chief comes twice to the court of Loo, when Tso tells a ridiculous story about his interpreting the lowing of a cow. His visit, no doubt, had reference to an incursion which his tribe made the year after into Sëaou, a dependency of Sung. Këae must have been absorbed either by Ts'e or by Loo.
[iii.] Lae was in the present district of Hwang, department. Tangchow,⿿on the borders of Ts'e. Its original inhabitants appear to have been brought to comparative civilization, and been ruled by a viscount of the surname Këang, before the Ch'unTs'ëw period. We find Ts'e, however, in constant hostility with it from its first appearance in the 7th year of duke Seuen to its extinction in the 6th year of Sëang.
[iv.] Kinmow was the principal town of a small tribe of E,⿿in the present district of Eshwuy, department Echow. Its capture by Loo is mentioned in the 9th year of duke Seuen, and afterwards it appears, in the Chuen on X. viii. 6, as the most eastern city belonging to the State.
Fourth, of the Man. We have not much
information in the Ch'un Ts'ëw or in Tso about the tribes of the south, and
that for the same reason which I have mentioned as making our authorities
almost silent about the Jung proper, or the hordes of the far west. Ts'oo kept
the Man under its control, and lay between most of their tribes and the States
of Chow, so that the two hardly came into contact or collision, and the
historiographers of the States had little occasion to refer to what was taking
place among the southern populations. What we find related about them will be
given under the divisions of the 'Loo Jung,'
[i.] In the Chuen at the beginning of the
13th year of duke Hwan we have an account of a fruitless expedition from Ts'oo
against the small State of Lo,
[ii.] It is only in the Chuen just referred to, in the 16th year of duke Wan, that mention is made of the 'many tribes of the Man.' There was then, we are told, a great famine in Ts'oo, and the people of Yung, who are also mentioned in the Speech at Muh, and who had by this time coalesced into a State of some order and civilization, took advantage of it to incite a general rising of all the tribes of the south against that Power. The Man came to join in the movement from their seats in what are now the departments of Shinchow and Yuenchow in Hoonan. It was a critical time in the history of Ts'oo, and it was proposed that the capital should be abandoned. But bolder counsels prevailed; an army took the field; assistance came from Ts'in and Pa; the Man were severed from the combination, and made a covenant on their own account; and Yung was extin guished, that is, the sacrifices of its chiefs were abolished, and it was reduced to be a city of Ts'oo. There is no further mention of the Man in the Ch'unTs'ëw period. It was not till the time of the Warring States that Ts'oo succeeded in depriving them of their independence.
[iii.] The Puh, it has been seen, were among
the auxiliaries of king Woo in the conquest of Shang. The 'hundred' or many
tribes of them took a principal part in the rising against Ts'oo, of which I
have just spoken, and appear in it under the direction of the people of Keun,
Only twice more are they mentioned in the Chuen. In Chaou's 9th year, on occasion of a dispute between Chow and Tsin, the representative of the royal court says boastfully that, when Woo subdued Shang, Pa, the Puh, Ts'oo, and Tang were the territories of the kingdom in the south; and in his 19th year, we have Ts'oo preparing a naval expedition against the Puh. What became of them afterwards I have not been able to ascertain.
[iv.] Pa in the time of the Ch'unTs'ëw appears as a State ruled by viscounts of the surname Ke. It has left its name in the present district of Pa, department Chungk'ing, Szech'uen. In the Chuen on the 9th year of duke Hwan, we find it in good relations with Ts'oo, and cooperating with that State in the siege of Yëw, a city in the present department of Yunyang, Hoopih. Under the 18th year of duke Chwang, Tso tells us that Pa then revolted from Ts'oo, and invaded it, its army advancing even to attack Ts'oo's capital. The only other mention of it is in the text of Wan's 18th year, in connexion with the rising of the southern tribes against Ts'oo, when, as has been stated above, Pa and Ts'in came to the assistance of the latter. In the time of the Warring States, Pa fell to the share of Ts'in.
I have thus gathered up into as brief space as possible the information that we derive from the Ch'un Ts'ëw and Tso about the rude and uncivilized or semicivilized tribes that infested the kingdom of Chow or surrounded it. The strongest impression which I receive from the review is one of grave doubt as to most of what we are told about the previous dynasties of Shang and Hëa. Is it possible that they could have held the territory occupied by the States of Chow for a thousand years before the rise of king Woo, and that we should find it, five and six cen turies after his time, in the condition which is revealed to us by the sage and his commentator? I do not think so. We have seen that the China of Chow was a small affair; that of Shang and Hëa must have been much smaller;⿿extending not so far towards the sea on the east, and to a smaller distance north and south of the Yellow river. It was evidently, however, in the plan of Providence that by the Chinese race all the other tribes in the space now included in China proper should be first broken to pieces and stript of their individualities, and then welded as into one homogeneous nation. Its superior culture and capabilities fitted it for this task; and the process went on very gradually, and with many disturbances and interruptions, frequently with 'hideous ruin and combustion.' Having first made good a settlement along the Yellow river, in the southwestern parts of the present Shanse, and perhaps also on the other side of the stream, the early immigrants sent forth their branches, scions of different families, east, west, north, and south, as so many suckers, among the ruder populations sparsely scattered about, which gradually gathered round them, till they lost their original peculiarities, and were prepared to be collected into larger communities, or into States. The first stage in the formation of the Chinese nation terminated with the ascendency of the State of Ts'in and the establishment of its shortlived dynasty.
We have seen that of the more considerable
of the wild tribes during the Ch'unTs'ëw period their chiefs had titles like
the princes of the States of Chow. We read of the viscounts of the Loos, of
Fei, of Koo, and of the Këang Jung, and of the baron of the Le Jung; and it has
been asked whence they derived those titles.
There is one passage in the Chuen which shows that the tribes differed from the Chinese not only in their habits of life, but also in their languages. In the account of the meeting at Hëang in the 14th year of duke Sëang, which was attended by the representatives of more than a dozen States, and by the chief of at least one of the Jung tribes, who was a viscount (though the text does not say so), Fan Seuntsze appears as wanting on behalf on Tsin to seize the viscount, who belonged to the Këang Jung or the Jung of Luh-hwan, attributing the loss of Tsin's power and influence to unfavourable reports of its proceedings leaking out through them among the other States. The viscount makes a good defence, and says in conclusion:⿿'Our food, our drink, and our clothes are all different from those of the Flowery States; we do not exchange silks or other articles of introduction with their courts; their language and ours do not admit of intercourse between us and them:⿿what evil is it possible for us to have done?' If it was so with those Jung, it was the same, doubtless, with other tribes as well; and they had, probably, different languages among themselves, or at least different dialects of the same language which would render communication between them difficult. Even where the outlying chiefs or princes claimed connexion with the House of Chow, or traced their first appoint ment to it, the languages spoken in their States may have been different from that of China proper. I have pointed out how the names of the lords of Woo, both in structure and sound, do not appear to be Chinese. And in the account of Tsze-wan who had been chief minister of Ts'oo, given in the Chuen on VII. iv., his name of Now-woo-t'oo is explained by reference to the fact that he had been suckled by a tigress, when he was a child and cast away in a forest. The people of Ts'oo, we are told, called suckling now, and their name for a tiger was woot'oo; and hence when the child was grown up, he was known by the name of Now-woo-t'oo, or Tiger-suckled. It would so happen that the languages of the people, who were not of a Chinese origin, and of their chiefs, would differ for a time; but in the end, the culture and the force of the superior race prevailed to bring the language and other characteristics into conformity with it.
1. In the 忿丿綿註翿 (See proleg. to vol. I., p. 129):⿿
[i.] 濥秿左忳註翿＿忭忿忷, 'The Ch'un Ts'ëw and the Chuen of Tso, with Commentary and Explanations; in 60 Books;'
[ii.] 濥秿忬羿忳註翿＿亿忿快忷, 'The Ch'un Ts'ëw and the Chuen of Kungyang, with Commentary and Explanations; in 28 Books;'
[iii.] 濥秿榿梿忳註翿＿亿忿忷, 'The Ch'un Ts'ëw and the Chuen of Kuhlëang, with Commentary and Explanations; in 20 Books.'
The above three Works are of course K'ung Yingtah's editions of the labours of Too Yu, Ho Hëw, and Fan Ning, on the text of the Ch'un Ts'ëw and the early Commentaries of Tso-she, Kung-yang, and Kuhlëang;⿿of all of which I have spoken in the first chapter of these prolegomena. K'ung's own explanations are as learned and prolix as in the case of the other Classics. Very little is to be gleaned after him from the books that have come down to us of the dynasties from the Han to the T'ang. I have generally used the edition of the thirteen King by Yuen Yuen; and to the text of the She in it I have referred in the prolegomena to vol. IV., p. 172. The student should use no other, where this is procurable. The above Works all contain Yuen's examination of K'ung's texts (濥秿＿左忳＿忬羿忳＿榿梿忳＿註翿＿校忿訿).
4. 欽宿濥秿忳說彿线 'Compilation and Digest of Com mentaries and Remarks on the Ch'un Ts'ëw. By imperial authority.' In 40 Books, the first two being occupied with intro ductory matter. The Work was ordered and its preparation entrusted to a committee of the principal scholars of the empire in 1,699, the 38th year of the period K'anghe, and appeared in 1,721, the 60th year of the same. I have generally called it the K'anghe Ch'un Ts'ëw. It deserves the praise which I have bestowed on the imperial editions, in the present dynasty, of the Shoo and the She, though I have been disposed to dissent more frequently from the decisions of the editors themselves. They drew in preparing it from 134 writers:⿿3 of the Chow dynasty; 10 of the Han; 1 of the Tsin; 2 of the Suy; 13 of the T'ang; 57 of the Sung; 12 of the Yuen; and 36 of the Ming.
According to their plan, there are subjoined to the text occasionally brief notices of the different readings, the pronunciation of characters, and the matter. Then follow the Commentaries of Tso, Kungyang, Kuhlëang, and Hoo Gankwoh (迡宿忿, styled 康侯), for the most part in full; but the editors sometimes take it on them to curtail or even suppress them entirely where they think them to be in error.
Hoo Gankwoh was a scholar and officer of the Sung dynasty (born in 1,074; died in 1,138). His commentary on our classic, in 30 Books, is not intrinsically of much value, but it was received on its publication with great applause by Kaou Tsung, the first emperor of the southern Sung dynasty; and all through the Ming dynasty its authority was supreme. It formed the standard for competitors at the literary examinations. Having given those four Commentaries, the editors draw upon their host of Authorities (鿿說), and conclude, when they think it necessary, with their own decisions (桿).
6. There was published in 1,677, at the district city of Keunshan (崿山), department Soochow, Këangsoo, a large collection of Works on the Classics, under the title of 鿿忿堿綿解, taken from the name of the hall or library of the gentleman to whom the books belonged. The expense of publication seems to have been borne by a Manchoo, called Nahlan Ch'ingtih, with the style of Yungjoh (紿迭濿德, 容 迥). The Collection contains 33 Works on the Ch'un Ts'ëw, all but the last by writers of the Sung and Yuen dynasties. I have had the opportunity of consulting:⿿
[i.] 濥秿忳, 'Commentaries on the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 15 Books; by Lew Ch'ang (忿濿; styled 忿翶); born 1,019, died 1,077. The author had written an earlier Work on the Ch'un Ts'ëw, called濥秿欿衡. The one under notice remained in manuscript, until the publication of the Collection in which we now find it, Still there seems no doubt of its genuineness. Lëw draws largely on the three early Commentaries, but decides between them according to his own judgment, having adopted, however, the praise-and-censure theory from Kungyang and Kuhlëang.
[ii.] 濥秿忳, 'Commentaries on the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 20 Books, by Yeh Mungtih (迿夢徿; styled 尿迿,and also called 翳濿). These last two characters are generally prefixed to the title of the Work, to distinguish it from the preceding and others. The author was born in 1,077, and died in 1,148. He shows on the one hand his dissent from Sun Fuh and others who wished to discard the three early Commentaries altogether, and not go beyond the text for its explanation, and on the other hand from Soo Cheh, who held to Tsoshe and paid no regard to Kung and Kuh.
[iii.] 濥秿鿿說, 'A general Exposition of the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 13 Books; by Hwang Chungyen ( 黿仲翿; styled 迥濦), a scholar of the Sung dynasty, who seems for some reason or other not to have advanced beyond his first degree. His Work was completed in 1,230. He entirely discards the praise-and-censure theory, and is more than necessarily independent in his treatment of the three early Commentaries.
[iv.]濥秿鿿註, 'Collected Comments on the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 11 Books; by Chang Hëah (張洽 ; styled 忿德 ), a scholar of the first half of the 13th century. He had previously prepared a Work on the classic, which he called 濥秿鿿忳; and, dissatisfied with the finish of it, he prepared the present one, in which he strove to imitate the style and manner of Choo He on the Analects and Mencius;⿿and hence its name of 鿿註. It is a useful Work, very perspicuous.
[v.]濥秿濿忿, 'The meaning of the Ch'un Ts'ëw Catechetically elicited.' In 20 Books; by Leu Takwei (忿大忭 ; styled 忭忿, and also called 樸鿿, who took his 3d degree in 1,247. The catechetical form enables the author to bring out his views with force; but there is nothing which can be called peculiarly his own. As between the early commentators, he adheres to Tso for the facts, and to Kuhlëang for the principles, having much to say against Kungyang, and more against Ho Hëw.
[vi.] 访濥秿編, 'Digest to help in reading the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 12 Books; by Ch'in Shin (鿳深; styled 孿微), who lived both in the Sung and Yuen dynasties. He had given to his study the name of 渿忨齿, which characters often enter into the title of his Work. He makes constant use of Tso's Commentary, but is an advocate of the views of Hoo Gankwoh.
[vii.] 濥秿諸忿統紿, 'The Records in the Ch'un Ts'ëw arranged under the States to which they severally belong.' In 22 Books; by Ts'e Lek'ëen ( 齿履謿; styled 伯濿). His preface is dated in 1,319. The peculiar character of the Work is shown in the title. He has placed the notices belonging to Loo before those of Chow;⿿very naturally, it seems to me, but the critics profess to be shocked by the arrangement. A good deal of freedom is shown in the handling of subjects.
[viii.] 濥秿濿忿, 'The meaning of the Ch'un Ts'ëw Catecheti cally elicited.' In 10 Books; by Ch'ing Twanhëoh (稿端學; styled 濿忿, called also 穿齿), who took his third degree in 1,321. He was much employed in the office of historiography, and composed the Work next mentioned and another on the Ch'un Ts'ëw before he felt equal to this, which is reckoned his chef d'æuvre. It betrays a sceptical disposition in reference to the three early Commentaries, and is particularly rich in adducing the opinions of the Sung scholars.
[ix.] 濥秿濬義, 'The proper Meaning of the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 30 Books; by Ch'ing Twanhëoh above. This was his earliest Work on our Classic, and shows the same tendencies which are fully developed in 'The Meaning Catechetically elicited.' He gives the names of 176 Works and Authors, which he had consulted in preparing for his task.
[x.] 濥秿諸忳濿鿿, 'All the Commentaries on the Ch'un Ts'ëw in one view.' In 24 Books; by Le Lëen (濿廿; styled 衿簡). The Author's preface bears date in 1,349, towards the end of the Yuen dynasty. The substance of the three early Commentaries, and of their editors, Too Yu, Ho Hëw, and Fan Ning, of K'ung Yingtah, Hoo Gankwoh, Ch'ing Ech'uen, Ch'in Foolëang (鿳忿迯 ), and Chang Hëah, is all to be found here, with the judgments on their different views of Le Lëen himself. It is a Work of great value.
[xi.] 濥秿師說, 'My Master's Teachings on the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 3 Books; by Chaou Fang (趿汸 ; styled 孿常), First pub lished in 1,348. The author had studied under Hwang Tsih (黿澤), famous for his knowledge of the Yih King and the Ch'un Ts'ëw; and here he gives what he had learned from him on the true meaning of those Classics, and the successes and failures of previous commentators.
[xii.] 濥秿屬辭, 'The Style and Expression in the Ch'un Ts'ëw on similar Subjects.' In 15 Books; by the same author as the above. This is an ingenious attempt to make out the principles by which Confucius was guided in his work of compiling the Ch'un Ts'ëw from the historiographers of Loo. His principal Authorities are Too Yu and his own master Hwang Tsih; but he often differs from them. He did his work well; but we have seen that all conclusions on the subject must be very uncertain.
[xiii.] 濥秿左氿忳裿註, 'Supplementary Comments on the Chuen of Tsoshe.' In 10 Books, by the same Chaou Fang. A valuable Work. The writer has before him the three early Commentaries, and it is his object to correct errors and supply defects in Tso from Kungyang and Kuhlëang. He has also before him the labours of Too Yu on Tso and of Ch'in Foolëang on Kuhlëang, and he endeavours 'to take what is long in the one to supplement what is short in the other.'
19.濥秿鿿便, 'The Laws of the Ch'un Ts'ëw Explained.' By Too Yu; in 10 Books. This was a production of Too Yu, after he had completed his great Work on Tso's Chuen. It contains laws of style under 42 heads; then proceeds to the names of places, genealogies, and Too's scheme of the chronology of the Ch'un-Ts'ëw period. It seems to me that three different Works of Too have here got mixed together. Choo Etsun mentions the Laws of Style as a Work by itself, published under the Sung dynasty in 15 Books; noting that he had not been able to see it. He also notices the Chronology as a Work by itself, saying that only Too's preface to it remains. Indeed the whole was long supposed to be lost, but it was reproduced, as we have it now, in 1,777, from a Collection made in the period Yungloh (1,403⿿1,424) of the Ming dynasty.
20. The 翿渿綿解, contains several Works on the Ch'un Ts'ëw by the scholars of the present dynasty. I have used:⿿
[i.] 左忳濿解裿正, 'Supplement, with Corrections, to Too's Explanations of the Tso Chuen.' In 3 Books; by Koo Yenwoo (See proleg. vol. IV., p. 101). Contains many useful hints for the translator of Tso. Koo makes much use of two scholars of the Ming dynasty,⿿Shaou Paou (鿵寶 ) and Foo Sun (忿鿿), who had made it their business to discover the mistakes of Too.
[ii.] 學濥秿鿨筿, 'Jottings in the study of the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 10 Books; by Wan Szeta (迬濯大; styled 忿宿); born in 1,633, died in 1,783. Wan was well acquainted with the Le Ke, the official Book of Chow, and the E Le, and most of his remarks are based upon them. Chinese scholars praise him as having always good ground for what he says. I confess I have been inclined to call in question⿿now his Authorities, and now his interpretation of them.
[iii.] 濥秿毿氿忳. 'Commentary on the Ch'un Ts'ëw by Maou.' This is the work of Maou K'eling of whom I have had much to say in my previous volumes. In 35 Books. It is everywhere referred to in my notes. Occasionally one has to differ from the author, but his views have in general commanded my approval. I thought at one time of simply translating his Work instead of giving all the Tso Chuen; but I considered that to do the latter would be more useful for students. Agreeing for the most part with Tso, Maou seems glad when he finds reason to differ from him; and he makes How Gankwoh his butt.
[iv.] 濥秿簡濸忿誤, 'Errors in the Tablets of the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In two Books; by Maou K'eling. This is a defence of the text of Tso against the different readings that are found in Kung and Kuh.
[v.] 濥秿屬辭毿亿訿, 'An Exhibition of the Style of the Ch'un Ts'ëw according to the analogies of the Subjectmatter.' In two Books. Also by Maou K'eling. It contains a good demonstration of the baselessness of the praise-and-censure theory, and is intended to vindicate Maou's own four laws of interpretation, given in the introduction to his Commentary.
[vi.] 濥秿說, 'Discourses on the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 15 Books; by Hwuy Szek'e (濠士奿 ; styled 仲忿). He was also called 忿農 ; and these two characters are often prefixed to the titles of his Works. This one on the Ch'un Ts'ëw is of great value. The notices in the Classic are all classified; the views or illustrations of them afforded in the early Commentaries adduced; and the whole adjudicated on by the author.
[vii.] 濥秿忰翿迿實, 'The Geography of the Ch'un Ts'ëw Examined and Determined.' In 4 Books; by Këang Yung (See proleg. vol. IV., p. 98, n. 6). Displays much research; and is particularly valuable as bringing down the identifications of the ancient places to the geographical arrangements of the country at the present day. A foreigner is apt to err, as I have sometimes done in this matter, by accepting the geographical determinations in the K'anghe edition of our classic, and then finding that the arrangement of departments and districts in a province has since been changed.
[viii.] 濥秿左忳尿翿, 'Short Glosses on the Ch'un Ts'ëw and Tso Chuen.' In one Book; by Shin T'ung (沿彤; styled 忠鿲 , and also 濿堿), who lived from 1,688 to 1,752, and was employed by the government in various literary tasks. He published 'short glosses' on several of the other classics as well as the Ch'un Ts'ëw. I have found them useful.
[ix.] 濥秿左忳裿註, 'Supplementary Comments on the Ch'un Ts'ëw and Tso Chuen.' A Work similar to the above. In 8 Books; by Hwuy Tung (濠棿; styled 宿宿). It had been growing up in his family for three generations, until he revised the labours of his father, grandfather, and greatgrandfather, added to them his own researches, and published it in 1,768. The reader of Too Yu will get considerable help from it.
[x.]濥秿正辭, 'The Language of the Ch'un Ts'ëw Determined and Regulated.' In 13 Books; by Chwang Ts'unyu (迿孿迿), a scholar of the K'ëenlung period. The Work is for the most part an examination of the Classic according to the views and nomenclature of Kungyang and Ho Hëw.
[xi.] 濥秿左忳裿翿, 'Supplementary Explanations of the Ch'un Ts'ëw and Tso Chuen.' In 5 Books; by Tsëaou Seun (翦循 ; styled 翿堿 and 鿿堿). The writer's principal object was to supplement K'ung Yingtah's Explanations of Too Yu's comments on Tso.
[xii.] 濥秿左忳裿註, 'Supplementary Comments on the Ch'un Ts'ëw and Tso Chuen.' In 3 Books; by Ma Tsunglëen (馬宿翿). Intended as a supplement to the Work with the same title by Hwuy Tung, noticed above.
[xiii.] 忬羿使氿鿿便, 'On the Laws of Ho Hëw in explaining the Commentary of Kungyang.' In 10 Books; by Lëw Fung luh (忿鿢祿; styled 翳翫), a scholar of the Këak'ing period. A Work similar in design to No. x.
[xiv.] ?忬羿使氿解詿箿, 'Glosses on Ho Hëw's Explanations of Kungyang.' In 1 Book; also by Lëw Fungluh.
[xv.⿿xviii.] 翼墨宿詿＿穿梿廢翾翳使＿左氿濥秿迿譿＿箴迿翲詿. These are four Works by the same author. I have not translated the titles because they refer to controversies in the Han dynasty between Ho Hëw and Ch'ing K'angshing. The writer's object is to maintain the authority of Kungyang and even of Kuhlëang against Tsoshe.
[xix.] 濥秿翰濿箿, 'Glosses on the different readings in the text of the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 13 Books; by Chaou T'an (趿忦), a scholar of the Këak'ing period.
[xx.] 忬羿禮說, 'Remarks on the rules of ceremony insisted on by Kungyang.' In 1 Book; by Ling Shoo (淩濿 ); of the same period. He was a believer in Kungyang.
[xxi.]綿義述迿, 'Recollections of Lessons on the meaning of the Classics.' In 10 Books, three of which are occupied with the Ch'un Ts'ëw. By Wang Yinche, whose 'Recollections of Lessons in the She' are noticed in the proleg. to vol. IV., p. 178.
41. 濥秿忰忿迿翥, 'An Examination into the Names of places in the Ch'un Ts'ëw.' In 14 Books; by Kaou Szeke (髿士奿 ; styled 澹人), a great scholar of the K'anghe period. The writer sometimes defeats his end by the minuteness of his researches. The Work is valuable, but not so convenient for the student as that on the same subject by Këang Yung, which I have already noticed.
42. 濥秿大亿表, 'The principal things in the Ch'un Ts'ëw exhibited in a tabular form.' In 50 Books, with one Book of Plates, and an Appendix. By Koo Tungkaou (???; styled ??), a scholar and officer of the K'anghe and K'ëenlung periods. I have met with no Work on the Ch'un Ts'ëw more exhaustive, and cer tainly with none from which I have myself derived more