Horae Sinicae: Translations from the Popular Literature of the Chinese/Dissuasive from feeding on Beef
"I request, good people, that you will listen to what I have to say. In the whole world there is no distress equal to that of an ox. In spring and summer, in autumn and winter, he diligently exerts his strength: during the four seasons there is no respite to his labours.
"I, an ox, drag the plow, a thousand pound weight, fastened to my shoulders. Hundreds and thousands of lashes are, by a leathern whip, inflicted upon me. Curses and abuse in a thousand forms, are poured upon me. I am driven with threatenings rapidly along, and not allowed to stand still. Through the dry ground or the deep water, I with difficulty drag the plow. With an empty belly, the tears flow from my eyes. I hope in the morning, that I shall be early released; but who does not know that I am detained till the evening? If with a hungry belly I eat the grass in the midst of the field, the whole family, great and small, insulting abuse me. I am left to any species of herb, amongst the hills, but you, my master, yourself receive the grain that is sown in the field. Of the Chen Paddy, you make rice, of the No Paddy, you make wine. You have cotton, wheat, and herbs, of a thousand different kinds. Your garden is full of vegetables. When your men and women marry, amidst all your felicity, if there be a want of money, you let me out to others. When pressed for the payment of duties, you devise no plans, but take and sell the ox, that plows your field. When you see that I am old and weak, you sell me to the butcher to be killed. The butcher conducts me home and soon strikes me in the forehead with the head of an iron hatchet, after which, I am left to die in the utmost distress. My skin is peeled off, and my bones scraped:—but when was I their enemy? When men in life are greatly distressed, I apprehend that it is in consequence of having before neglected virtue. My belly is ripped open, and my bowels taken out; my bones also are taken; the sharp knife scrapes my bones, and cuts my throat. These who sell me, do not grow rich; those who eat me, do not grow fat; those who kill me, are most decidedly bad men. They take my skin to cover the drum by which the country is alarmed, and the gods are grieved. If they continue to kill me, in time there will not be oxen to till the ground, and your children and grand-children must use the spade. I am fully persuaded after mature consideration, that the wicked persons who kill oxen, will, in the next life, be transformed, each of them, into an ox, like me."
Believe and act according to the above: engrave and publish it; hence your merits and your virtue will be boundless.[2]