solemnization of that would bring the duke back to his right mind. No such result followed. The ceremony was hurried through, and portions of the offerings were not sent round to the various ministers, according to the established custom. Confucius regretfully took his departure, going away slowly and by easy stages [1]. He would have welcomed a message of recall. But the duke continued in his abandonment, and the sage went forth to thirteen weary years of homeless wandering.
8. On leaving Lu, Confucius first bent his steps westward to the State of Wei, situate about where the present provinces of Chih-li and Ho-nan adjoin.
[Sidebar] He wanders from State to State. B.C. 497-484.
He was now in his fifty-sixth year, and felt depressed and melancholy. As he went along, he gave expression to his feelings in verse:--
'Fain would I still look towards Lu,
But this Kwei hill cuts off my view.
With an axe, I'd hew the thickets through:--
Vain thought! 'gainst the hill I nought can do;'
and again,--
'Through the valley howls the blast,
Drizzling rain falls thick and fast.
Homeward goes the youthful bride,
O'er the wild, crowds by her side.
How is it, O azure Heaven,
From my home I thus am driven,
Through the land my way to trace,
With no certain dwelling-place?
Dark, dark; the minds of men!
Worth in vain comes to their ken.
Hastens on my term of years;
Old age, desolate, appears [2],'
A number of his disciples accompanied him, and his sadness infected them. When they arrived at the borders of Wei at a place called I, the warden sought an interview, and on coming out from the sage, he tried to comfort the disciples, saying, 'My friends, why are you distressed at your master's loss of office? The world has been long without the principles of truth and right; Heaven is going to use your master as a bell with its wooden tongue [3].' Such was the thought of this friendly stranger. The bell did indeed sound, but few had ears to hear.
1 史記, 孔子世家, p. 5. See also Mencius, V. Pt. II. i. 4.; et al.
2 See Chiang Yung's Life of Confucius, 去魯周遊考.
3 Ana. III. xxiv.
Confucius's fame, however, had gone before him, and he was in little danger of having to suffer from want. On arriving at the capital of Wei, he lodged at first with a worthy officer, named Yen Ch'au-yu [1]. The reigning duke, known to us by the epithet of Ling [2], was a worthless, dissipated man, but he could not neglect a visitor of such eminence, and soon assigned to Confucius a revenue of 60,000 measures of grain [3]. Here he remained for ten months, and then for some reason left it to go to Ch'an [4]. On the way he had to pass by K'wang [5], a place probably in the present department of K'ai-fung in Ho-nan, which had formerly suffered from Yang-hu. It so happened that Confucius resembled Hu, and the attention of the people being called to him by the movements of his carriage-driver, they thought it was their old enemy, and made an attack upon him. His followers were alarmed, but he was calm, and tried to assure them by declaring his belief that he had a divine mission. He said to them, 'After the death of king Wan, was not the cause of truth lodged here in me? If Heaven had wished to let this cause of truth perish, then I, a future mortal, should not have got such a relation to that cause. While Heaven does not let the cause of truth perish, what can the people of K'wang do to me [6]?' Having escaped from the hands of his assailants, he does not seem to have carried out his purpose of going to Ch'an, but returned to Wei.