Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/120

 io8 CHINESE LITERATURE

should leave him now ; ' and accordingly he ordered them to accompany the dead monarch to the next world, those who thus perished being many in number.

" When the interment was completed, some one sug- gested that the workmen who had made the machinery and concealed the treasure knew the great value of the latter, and that the secret would leak out. Therefore, so soon as the ceremony was over, and the path giving access to the sarcophagus had been blocked up at its innermost end, the outside gate at the entrance to this path was let fall, and the mausoleum was effectually closed, so that not one of the workmen escaped. Trees and grass were then planted around, that the spot might look like the rest of the mountain."

The history by Ssu-ma Ch'ien stops about 100 years before Christ. To carry it on from that point was the ambition of a scholar named Pan Piao (A.D. 3-54), but he died while still collecting materials for his task. His son, PAN Ku, whose scholarship was extensive and pro- found, took up the project, but was impeached on the ground that he was altering the national records at his own discretion, and was thrown into prison. Released on the representations of a brother, he continued his work ; however, before its completion he became in- volved in a political intrigue and was again thrown into prison, where he died. The Emperor handed the un- finished history to PAN CHAD, his gifted sister, who had been all along his assistant, and by her it was brought to completion down to about the Christian era, where the occupancy of the throne by a usurper divides the Han dynasty into two distinct periods. This lady was also the author of a volume of moral advice to young women, and of many poems and essays.

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