The Wisdom of Confucius - 6 books in One Edition - Confucius

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who may in certain eventualities hope for future promotion to the full rank of wife. The present Empress-Dowager of China is a case in point. She was originally a handmaid, but after giving birth to the last Emperor, she was promoted in 1858 to the rank of Empress, and for many years acted as joint regent with the Empress-Dowager her senior, who had no children, and died in 1 88 1. It cannot be denied that Confucius’ father was ;ery patient with his wife, for it seems he gave her nine chances before he took a handmaid in his despair. This handmaid gave birth to a son, who was a cripple. The gallant soldier was now seventy years of age. In China daughters do not count for so much as sons, and are often killed as useless incumbrances, the great object being to have at least one son to peiform religious rites, those rights which the Romans used to call sacra privuta. Confucius’ father appears to have resolved therefore in his old age to stake everything upon a supreme effort, and he married a mere girl. Either he or she, or both of them, went to pray for a son at a temple on Mount JVi-k’iu, a spot which I mark on the map with a circle. The offspring of the union was Confucius, whose personal name was K’iu, and whose second name was Chung-ni or ” Ni the Second ” (his crippled brother having been the First). The chief feature in Confucius, as a baby, was that the crown of his head was concave instead of being convex, a peculiarity which must have given him a singular appearance. K l iu means “a mound,” and some say he was so called because his forehead protruded. In China personal names of great folk are tabued, sometimes in writing as well as speech. Hence, if it is ever found absolutely necessary to use the word K l iu, the ^difficulty is surmounted by omitting one stroke, and thus making it a little different. In speech the word ” So-and-so ” is substituted : thus instead of saying ” Mr. Mound Hole,” the Chinese say “Mr. So-and-so Hole.” There is no tabu to the cognomen or second name, and so we have the characters chung-ni in daily use. Owing to one historian having used the expression ” wild union ” in connection with Confucius’ mother, some authors have supposed that the soldier “kept company in the wilderness ” ; but judicious commentators explain that a man is not supposed to go a-courting after 64, nor a woman to begin it before 14; and that the “wild union” in question did not refer to the absence of due ceremony in the marriage, but to the fact that the husband was unusually spry and the wife unusually precocious for their respective ages. This interesting event took place in the year 551 before Christ; and two or three years later the father died. He was buried at a spot eight miles east of Confucius’ own grave, as will shortly be explained in full.

      We may pass rapidly over the events which took place during Confucius’ youth. They are of slender importance, and, such as they are, we know but little of them. At the age of six he was observed to take pleasure in playing with sacrificial vessels and in imitating ceremonial movements, much as English children of .the same age sometimes play at holding church services. He is supposed to have gone to school at the age of seven, but the best authorities, Chinese and European, are not satisfied upon this point, which in any case is just what a Chinese boy would do, and still usually does. Confucius himself informs us that, at fifteen, his whole mind was devoted to study. What is certain is that his mother removed with him to the town where his descendants now live : this town is marked on the map with a star, and is eight miles west of the spot where his father was buried. In Chinese it is called JPiih-fu, or, ” Crooked Hill,” on account of the winding eminence, a mile long, which runs through the city. About 600 years before Confucius’ birth, the first Emperor of the imperial dynasty of Chow enfeoffed the regent, his uncle, Duke of Chow, as feudal prince at Crooked Hill, styling this feudal State Lu. It had an area, or perhaps circuit, of 330 English miles. As we shall soon see, the Duke of Chow’s tomb is still there and Confucius always took him as a model. Amongst other things Duke Chow invented the compass or ” South-pointing cart.” The circumstance of our hero’s widowed mother being a mere girl, and consequently unable, through maidenly modesty, to follow her venerable husband to the grave, led to Confucius’ remaining for some years in ignorance of a fact so transcendently important from a Chinese point of view the exact position of his father’s grave : perhaps matters were made worse by the name of his father’s village being transferred to the new residence, just as with us Ann Hathaway’s cottage might have been called Stratford if Shakespeare’s mother had taken him to live there. This circumstance may also account for the conflicting statements of European visitors as to the exact sites of the existing house and temple of the Confucius family.

      All authorities clearly agree that Confucius married at the age of 19, that is, after passing 18 new year’s days subsequently to his birth; for in China, a man born on the 3ist December is considered to be two. years old on the following day, whilst a man born on the 2nd of January would still be two years old on the 3ist of December in the following year: so that there may be 700 days difference between the ages of two people both nominally in their igth year. Thus we find, as we go along, that the simplest Chinese facts have to be tested before we can nail them down fairly before our eyes and understandings. In Confucius’ case the birth really did take place in the nth moon, but the next dynasty made some alterations in the calendar, and what was the nth moon in Confucius’ time became the ist moon of the following year a few centuries later : moreover, although we are told the exact day, the accounts disagree in such a way that there is a discrepancy of some days to account for. All that we can say for certain, therefore, is that according to our way of reckoning, Confucius was about eighteen when he married.

      The next year a son was born, and received the name of ” Fish No. i,” with the cognomen of ” Carp.” This apparently singular choice of names was made in consequence of the reigning duke having sent a congratula-tory present of a couple of carp to the young pair. The carp is the king of fish, and no doubt the duke’s action had some hidden meaning ; just as, in modern marriages, the Chinese often send a couple of geese as a present to wedded couples : the goose is supposed to be the only creature which does not marry again when its spouse dies. Nothing is known of this son except that on two occasions he is recorded to have suddenly come across his father, and to have been severely questioned as to his studies : he seems to have given his father as wide a berth as possible. The fact of the duke having deigned to congratulate a poor man like Confucius is accounted for by the latter having held, at the age of 20, the post of grain distributor : but here, again, we are confronted with a difficulty ; it is not known whether this means a post in the public granaries, and, if so, central or local ; or whether it means a relief officer. The philosopher Mencius, in alluding to this episode, says that ” a superior man may occasionally accept office purely for the relief of his poverty.” We may therefore fairly conclude that the duke gave the carp because Confucius was a ducal officer, and that Confucius accepted office, as people do in modern times, to relieve his own poverty.

      It is incidentally mentioned in the ” Conversations of Confucius ” with his disciples that he gave a daughter in marriage. Nothing more. We may therefore once more safely conclude that he had at least one daughter, who, on her marriage, would in accordance with custom cease to belong to his family.

      In his 21st year Confucius was promoted or transferred to a post resembling that of estate-agent or watcher over farms ; and a year later he collected round him a number of disciples, much after the fashion of the peripatetic philosophers of Greece. He was six inches taller than his father ; but, if we are to judge of his personal appearance by the pictures and effigies of him still exhibited in his old house, he was far from being a beautiful man, even though he may have been a commanding one. He was strong and well-built, with a large singularly shaped head, full red face, and contemplative, heavy expression. He had a long sparse beard, ill-shaped ears, a thick round-tipped nose, but flat and shovel-like ; two projecting lower teeth, gaping nostrils, and eyes which showed more white than is usual. His back was described by an admirer as being like that of a tortoise. Confucius accepted fees for his instruction, but was more particular about the diligence of the student than the amount of his present. Even at the present day teachers’ fees are invariably called ” dried meat,” or ” fuel and water,” and schoolboys always make periodical presents of food to their masters.

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