How did it receive [those] bribes? Duke Hien [of Tsin] gave audience to his great officers, and asked them why it was that he had lain all night without sleeping. One of them advanced and said, “Was it because you did not feel at ease [in your mind]? or was it because your [proper] bedfellow was not by your side?” The duke gave no answer, and then Seun Seih came forward and said, “Was it because Yu and Kwoh were appearing to you?” The duke motioned to him to come [more] forward, and then went with him into an inner apartment to take counsel. “I wish,” said he, “to attack Kwoh, but Yu will go to its relief, and if I attack Yu Kwoh will succor it; what is to be done? I wish to consider the case with you.” Seun Seih replied, “If you will use my counsel, you shall take Kwoh to-day and Yu to-morrow; why should your lordship be troubled?” “How is this to be accomplished?” asked the duke. “Please let [me go to] Yu,” said the other, “with your team of Kiuh horses and your white peih of Chui-keih, and you are sure to get [what you want]. It will only be taking your valuable [peih] from your inner treasury and depositing it in an outer one; your lordship will lose nothing by it.” The duke said, “Yes; but Kung Che-kí is there. What are we to do with him?” Seun Seih replied, “Kung Che-kí is indeed knowing; but the Duke of Yu is covetous, and fond of valuable curios; he is sure not to follow his minister’s advice. I beg you, considering everything, to let me go.” ... etc., etc.
The following, as a brief sample of the Kuh Liang commentary, takes up the narrative where we have broken off. There is so much that is similar in these two latter exegeses as to lead to the belief that they were composed with reference to each other.
On this Duke Hien sought [in the way proposed] for a passage [through Yu] to invade Kwoh. Kung Che-kí remonstrated, saying, “The words of the envoy of Tsin are humble, but his offerings are great; the matter is sure not to be advantageous to Yu.” The Duke of Yu, however, would not listen to him, but received the offerings and granted the passage through the State. Kung Che-kí remonstrated [again], suggesting that the case was like that in the saying about the lips being gone and the teeth becoming cold; after which he fled with his wife and children to Tsao.
Duke Hien then destroyed Kwoh, and in the fifth year [of our Duke Hí] he dealt in the same way with Yu. Seun Seih then had the horses led forward, while he carried the peih in his hand, and said: “The peih is just as it was, but the horses’ teeth are grown longer!”[319]
Meagre as are the items of the text, they show, together with its copious commentaries, the methodical care of the early Chinese in preserving their ancient records. The hints which these and other books give of their intellectual activity during the eight centuries before Christ, naturally compel a higher estimate of their culture than we have hitherto allowed them.[320]
The sixth section of the Catalogue has already been noticed as comprising the literature of the Hiao King.
The seventh section contains a list of works written to elucidate the Five Classics as a whole, and if their character for originality of thought, variety of research, extent of illustration, and explanation of obscurities was comparable to their size and numbers, no books in any language could boast of the aids possessed by the Wu King for their right comprehension. Of these commentators, Chu Hí of Kiangsí, who lived during the Sung dynasty, has so greatly exceeded all others in illustrating and expounding them, that his explanations are now considered of almost equal authority with the text, and are always given to the beginner to assist him in ascertaining its true meaning.
The eighth section of the Catalogue comprises memoirs and comments upon the Sz’ Shu, or ‘Four Books,’ which have been nearly as influential in forming Chinese mind as the Wu King. They are by different authors, and since their publication have perhaps undergone a few alterations and interpolations, but the changes either in these or the Five Classics cannot be very numerous or great, since the large body of disciples who followed Confucius, and had copies of his writings, would carefully preserve uncorrupt those which he edited, and hand down unimpaired those which contained his sayings. None of the Four Books were actually written by Confucius himself, but three of them are considered to be a digest of his sentiments; they were arranged in their present form by the brothers Ching, who flourished about eight centuries ago.