Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/146

 134 CHINESE LITERATURE

A " southerner " who was present sneered at the shallow- ness of the conceit, and immediately wrote down the following :

" If home, with the ivild geese of autumn,

wJre going,

Our hearts will be off ere the spring flowers

are blowing?

An official of the Sui dynasty was Fu I (A.D. 554-639), who became Historiographer under the first Emperor of the T'ang dynasty. He had a strong leaning towards Taoism, and edited the Tao-Te-Ching. At the same time he presented a memorial asking that the Buddhist religion might be abolished ; and when Hsiao Yu, a descendant of Hsiao Yen (above), questioned him on the subject, he said, " You were not born in a hollow mul- berry-tree ; yet you respect a religion which does not recognise the tie between father and son ! " He urged that at any rate priests and nuns should be compelled to marry and bring up families, and not escape from con- tributing their share to the revenue, adding that Hsiao Yii by defending their doctrines showed himself no better than they were. At this Hsiao Yii held up his hands, and declared that hell was made for such men as Fu I. The result was that severe restrictions were placed for a short time upon the teachers of Buddhism. The Emperor T'ai Tsung once got hold of a Tartar priest who could "charm people into unconsciousness, and then charm them back to life again," and spoke of his powers to Fu I. The latter said confidently, " He will not be able to charm me ; " and when put to the test, the priest completely failed. He was the originator of epitaphs, and wrote his own, as follows :

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