Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/416

382 winter weather, it is frost, it is snow, which bring out the luxuriance of the pine and the fir.


 * See Lun Yü, ix, 27.

I regard it as a positive blessing to be thus situated as I am."

Thereupon he turned abruptly round and went on playing and singing.

At this Tzŭ Lu hastily seized a shield and began dancing to the music, while Tzŭ Kung said, "I had no idea of the height of heaven and of the depth of earth."

The ancients who attained were equally happy under success and failure. Their happiness had nothing to do with their failure or their success. once attained, failure and success became mere links in a chain, like cold, heat, wind, and rain. Thus Hsü Yu enjoyed himself at Ying-yang, and Kung Poh found happiness on the hill-top.


 * Whither he retired after a reign of 14 years.

Shun offered to resign the empire to his friend Pei Jen Wu Tsê.

"What a strange manner of man you are!" cried the latter. "Living in the furrowed fields, you exchanged such a life for the throne of Yao. And as if that was not enough, you now try to heap indignity upon me. I am ashamed of you."

Thereupon he drowned himself in the waters of Ch'ing-ling.


 * "But how about preservation of life?" asks Lin Hsi Chung with a sneer.