1 晏平仲.
2 Ana. II. iv.
3 Ana. IX. vi.
4 娶宋之幵官氏.
5 名曰鯉, 而字伯魚.
6 為委吏. This is Mencius's account. Sze-ma Ch'ien says 嘗為季氏吏, but his subsequent words 料量平 show that the office was the same.
7 Mencius calls this office 乘田, while Sze-ma Ch'ien says 為司職吏.
superior:-- that is all I have to care about [1].' It does not appear whether these offices were held by Confucius in the direct employment of the State, or as a dependent of the Chi family in whose jurisdiction he lived. The present of the carp from the duke may incline us to suppose the former.
3. In his twenty-second year, Confucius commenced his labors as a public teacher, and his house became a resort for young and inquiring spirits, who wished to learn the doctrines of antiquity.
[Sidebar] Commencement of his labors as a teacher. The death of his mother. B.C. 531-527.
However small the fee his pupils were able to afford, he never refused his instructions [2]. All that he required, was an ardent desire for improvement, and some degree of capacity. 'I do not open up the truth,' he said, 'to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out any one who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner of a subject to any one, and he cannot from it learn the other three, I do not repeat my lesson [3].'
His mother died in the year B.C. 527, and he resolved that her body should lie in the same grave with that of his father, and that their common resting-place should be in Fang, the first home of the K'ung in Lu. But here a difficulty presented itself. His father's coffin had been for twenty years where it had first been deposited, off the road of The Five Fathers, in the vicinity of Tsau:-- would it be right in him to move it? He was relieved from this perplexity by an old woman of the neighborhood, who told him that the coffin had only just been put into the ground, as a temporary arrangement, and not regularly buried. On learning this, he carried his purpose into execution. Both coffins were conveyed to Fang, and put in the ground together, with no intervening space between them, as was the custom in some States. And now came a new perplexity. He said to himself, 'In old times, they had graves, but raised no tumulus over them. But I am a man, who belongs equally to the north and the south, the east and the west. I must have something by which I can remember the place.' Accordingly he raised a mound, four feet high, over the grave, and returned home, leaving a party of his disciples to see everything properly completed. In the meantime there came on a heavy storm of rain, and it was a considerable time before the disciples joined him. 'What makes you so late?' he asked. 'The grave in Fang fell down,' they said. He made no reply, and they repeated their
1 Mencius, V. Pt. II. v. 4.
2 Ana. VII. vii.
3 Ana. VII. viii.
answer three times, when he burst into tears, and said, 'Ah! they did not make their graves so in antiquity [1].' 'Confucius mourned for his mother the regular period of three years,-- three years nominally, but in fact only twenty-seven months. Five days after the mourning was expired, he played on his lute, but could not sing. It required other five days before he could accompany an instrument with his voice [2].
Some writers have represented Confucius as teaching his disciples important lessons from the manner in which he buried his mother, and having a design to correct irregularities in the ordinary funeral ceremonies of the time. These things are altogether 'without book.' We simply have a dutiful son paying the last tribute of affection to a good parent. In one point he departs from the ancient practice, raising a mound over the grave, and when the fresh earth gives way from a sudden rain, he is moved to tears, and seems to regret his innovation. This sets Confucius vividly before us,-- a man of the past as much as of the present, whose own natural feelings were liable to be hampered in their development by the traditions of antiquity which he considered sacred. It is important, however, to observe the reason which he gave for rearing the mound. He had in it a presentiment of much of his future course. He was 'a man of the north, the south, the east, and the west.' He might not confine himself to any one State. He would travel, and his way might be directed to some 'wise ruler,' whom his counsels would conduct to a benevolent sway that would break forth on every side till it transformed the empire.
4. When the mourning for his mother was over, Confucius remained in Lu, but in what special capacity we do not know. Probably he continued to encourage the resort of