Skip to main content

A mother does not weep at her son's death

When Kung-fu Wên-po of Lu died, his mother did not weep. Chi-sun, hearing of this, said, "Kung-fu Wên-po’s mother is a virtuous woman. If she does not weep at her son's death, there must be a reason." He sent a man to make inquiries. The mother replied, "Formerly I had this son of mine serve Chung-ni. When Chung-ni left Lu, in sending him off my son did not go beyond the suburbs of the capital of Lu; in making him presents, he did not give him the family's precious objects. When my son was sick I did not see any gentleman come to visit him, and when he died I did not see any shed tears for him. But on the day of his death there were ten of his female attendants who, putting on sackcloth and white mourning clothes, followed him to the grave. This shows that toward gentlemen he was lacking, and toward women too generous. This is why I did not weep," The Ode says:

Here is this man,
With virtuous words, but really not good.

鲁公甫文伯死,其母不哭也。季孙闻之,曰:“公甫文伯之母、贞女也。子死不哭,必有方矣。”使人问焉。对曰:“昔、是子也,吾使之事仲尼,仲尼去鲁,送之,不出鲁郊,赠之,不与家珍。病、不见士之视者;死、不见士之流泪者;死之日,宫女縗绖而从者,十人。此不足于士,而有馀于妇人也。吾是以不哭也。”《诗》曰:“乃如之人兮,德音无良”。

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The wonderful pear-tree

Once upon a time a countryman came into the town on market-day, and brought a load of very special pears with him to sell. He set up his barrow in a good corner, and soon had a great crowd round him ; for everyone knew he always sold extra fine pears, though he did also ask an extra high price. Now, while he was crying up his fruit, a poor, old, ragged, hungry-looking priest stopped just in front of the barrow, and very humbly begged him to give him one of the pears. But the countryman, who was very mean and very nasty-tempered, wouldn't hear of giving him any, and as the priest didn't seem inclined to move on, he began calling him all the bad names he could think of. " Good sir," said the priest, " you have got hundreds of pears on your barrow. I only ask you for one. You would never even know you had lost one. Really, you needn't get angry." "Give him a pear that is going bad ; that will make him happy," said one of the crowd. "The o...

The Legend of The Three-Life Stone

The Buddhist believe metempsychosis, or the migration of the souls of animated beings, people's relationships are predestined through three states of life: the past, present, and future life. Legend has it that there's a road called Yellow Spring Road, which leads to Fogotten River. Over the river there's a bridge called Helpless Bridge (Naihe Bridge), at one end of the bridge sits a crimson stone called Three-life Stone. When two people die, they take this route to reincarnation. if they carve their name on the Three-life Stone together while they pass the stone, they are to be predestined to be together in their future life. Although before their rebirth they will be given a MengPo Soup to drink and thereby their memory of past life are obliterated. In reality, San-Sheng Shi (三生石), or Three-Life Stone is located beside Flying Mountain near the West Lake, Hangzhou. On the stone, there is seal with three Chinese characters that say "The Three-life Stone," and a de...

The Fox and The Tiger

ONE day a fox encountered a tiger. The tiger showed his fangs and waved his claws and wanted to eat him up. But the fox said: 'Good sir, you must not think that you alone are the king of beasts. Your courage is no match for mine. Let us go together and you keep behind me. If the humans are not afraid of me when they see me, then you may eat me up.' The tiger agreed and so the fox led him to a big high-way. As soon as the travellers saw the tiger in the distance they were seized with fear and ran away. Then the said: 'You see? I was walking in front; they saw me before they could See you.' Then the tiger put his tail between his legs and ran away. The tiger had seen that the humans were afraid of the fox but he had not realized that the fox had merely borrowed his own terrible appearance. [This story was translated by Ewald Osers from German, published by George Bell & Sons, in the book 'Chinese Folktales'.  Osers noted that this story was ...