Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/224

Rh Ch'un-yü K'un  4th cent. B.C. A famous conTeraationalist and wit of the Ch4 State, who declared that his capacity for drink varied with his company, that is, from a single cap with the Emperor to a cask with a bevy of courtesans who had shown all their other male companions to the door. Hence the phrase ^ ^ ^ f^ * ^ed for *'being in clover*' in a vidoos sense. He was contemporary with Mencius; and on one occasion tried to entrap the Master into admitting that, because men and women should not touch each other's hands, a man ought to allow his sister-in-law to drown before his eyes. On another occasion, when the Gh'u State was about to attack the Ch4 State, he was ordered by the Prince of Gh4 who was his father-in-law, to proceed to the Chao State and ask that an army might be sent to their assistance ; to which end the Prince supplied him with 100 lbs. of silver and 10 chariots, as offerings to the ruler of Chao. At this Ch'un-ytl laughed so immoderately that he snapped the lash of his cap; and when the Prince asked him what was the joke, he said, "As I was coming along this morning, I saw a husbandman sacrificing a pig's foot and a single cup of wine; after which he prayed, saying, "0 God, make my upper terraces fill baskets, and my lower terraces fill carts; make my fields bloom with crops, and my barns burst with grain!" And I could not help laughing at a man who offered so little and wanted so much." The Prince took the hint, and obtained the assistance he required.

Chung Chün  (T. ^^Y 2nd cent. B.C. A precocious  youth, who at 18 years of age was placed among the selected scholars of the empire. He attracted the notice of the Emperor Wu Ti, and became a Supervising Censor. Within three or four years he was sent on a mission to the Hsiung-nu, and later on to Annam, where he fell a victim to local intrigues and perished