Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/39

CAP. I.] : A personage of whom nothing is really known. He is considered by the best authorities to have been of Chuang Tzŭ's own creation. This, however, did not prevent some enterprising scholar, probably of the Han dynasty, from discovering a treatise which still passes under Lieh Tzŭ's name.

He could ride upon the wind, and travel whithersoever he wished, staying away as long as fifteen days. Among mortals who attain happiness, such a man is rare. Yet although Lieh Tzŭ was able to dispense with walking, he was still dependent upon something.


 * Sc. the wind.

But had he been charioted upon the eternal fitness of Heaven and Earth, driving before him the elements as his team while roaming through the realms of For-Ever,—upon what, then, would he have had to depend?


 * That is, nourished upon the doctrines of inaction, the continuity of life and death, etc., which will be dealt with in later chapters.

Thus it has been said, "The perfect man ignores self; the divine man ignores action; the true Sage ignores reputation."


 * His—for the three are one—is a bliss "beyond all that the minstrel has told." Material existences melt into thin air; worldly joys and sorrows cease for him who passes thus into the everlasting enjoyment of a transcendental peace.

The Emperor Yao : B.C. 2356. His reign, coupled with that of Shun