Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 27.djvu/180

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162
THE Lî Kî.
BK. II.

being taken out, he ordered some one to draw the (bier-carriage) for him. This moved on for three paces and stopped; in all for three times; after which the ruler retired. The same proceeding was gone through, when the bier entered the ancestral temple, and also at the place of (special) grief[1].

4. Men of fifty, who had no carriage, did not make visits of condolence beyond the boundaries (of their states).

5. When Kî Wû-jze was lying ill in his chamber, Kiâo Kû entered and appeared before him without taking off the mourning with its even edges (which he happened to wear). "This practice," said he, "has nearly fallen into disuse. But it is only at the gate of the ruler that an officer should take off such mourning as I have on." Wû-jze replied, "Is it not good that you should act thus[2]? A superior man illustrates the smallest points (of propriety)."

At the mourning rites for Wû-jze, Зǎng Tien leant against his gate and sang[3].

6. If a Great officer pay a visit of condolence


  1. Where visitors had been lodged during the mourning rites, outside the great gate.
  2. Wû-jze was the posthumous title of Kî-sun Suh, the principal minister of Lt in the time of duke Hsiang (B.C. 572-543). He was arrogant, and made other officers pay to him the same observances as to the ruler; but he was constrained to express his approval of the bold rectitude of Kiâo.
  3. This is added by the writer, and implies a condemnation of Зǎng Tien, who did not know how to temper his censure of the minister, as Kiâo Kû had done. But there must be an error in the passage. Tien (the father of Зǎng Shǎn) could have been but a boy when Wû-jze died.