Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/80

 68 CHINESE LITERATURE

Chuang Tzii said, ' With heaven and earth for my coffin and shell, with the sun, moon, and stars as my burial regalia, and with all creation to escort me to the grave, are not my funeral paraphernalia ready to hand ? '

" ' We fear/ argued the disciples, ' lest- the carrion kite should eat the body of our Master ' ; to which Chuang Tzu replied, 'Above ground I shall be food for kites, below I shall be food for mole-crickets and ants. Why rob one to feed the other ? ' "

The works of LIEH TztJ, in two thin volumes, may be procured at any Chinese book-shop. These volumes profess to contain the writings of a Taoist philosopher who flourished seme years before Chuang Tzii, and for a long time they received considerable attention at the hands of European students, into whose minds no suspicion of their real character seems to have found its way. Gradually the work came to be looked upon as doubtful, then spurious ; and now it is known to be a forgery, possibly of the first or second century A.D. The scholar for he certainly was one who took the trouble to forge this work, was himself the victim of a strange delusion. He thought that Lieh Tzu, to whom Chuang Tzii devotes a whole chapter, had been a live philosopher of flesh and blood. But he was in reality nothing more than a figment of the imagination, like many others of Chuang Tzu's characters, though his name was less broadly allegorical than those of All-in- Extremes, and of Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing, and others. The book attributed to him is curious enough to deserve attention. It is on a lower level of thought and style than the work of Chuang Tzu ; still, it contains much traditional matter and many allusions not found else-

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