Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/390

356 A disciple of Lao Lai Tzŭ


 * A sage of the Ch'u State.

while out gathering fuel, chanced to meet Confucius. On his return, he said, "There is a man over there with a long body and short legs, round shoulders and drooping ears. He looks as though he were sorrowing over mankind. I know not who he can be."

"It is Confucius!" cried Lao Lai Tzŭ. "Bid him come hither."

When Confucius arrived, Lao Lai Tzŭ addressed him as follows:—

"Ch'iu! Get rid of your dogmatism and your specious knowledge, and you will be really a superior man."

Confucius bowed and was about to retire, when suddenly his countenance changed and he enquired, "Shall I then be able to enter upon ?"

"The wounds of one generation being too much," answered Lao Lai Tzŭ, "you would take to yourself the sorrows of all time. Are you not weary? Is your strength equal to the task?

"To employ goodness as a passport to influence through the gratification of others, is an everlasting shame. Yet this is the common way of all, to lure people by fame, to bind them by ties of gratification.

"Better than extolling Yao and cursing Chieh is oblivion of both, keeping one's praises to oneself. These things react injuriously on self; the agitation of movement results in deflection.