Another interpretation is "upon your captain's feet visible from beneath the screen."
When the doorkeeper gave this second message, Robber Chê said, "Bring him before me!" Thereupon Confucius hurried in, and avoiding the place of honour stepped back and made two obeisances.
Robber Chê, flaming with anger, straddled out his two legs, and laying his hand upon his sword glared at Confucius and roaring like a tigress with young, said, "Ch'iu! come here. If what you say suits my ideas, you will live. Otherwise you will die."
"I have heard," replied Confucius, "that the world contains three classes of virtue. To grow up tall, of a beauty without compare, and thus to be the idol of young and old, of noble and lowly alike,—this is the highest class. To be possessed of wisdom which embraces the universe and can explain all things,—this is the middle class. To be possessed of courage which will stand test and gather followers around,—this is the lowest class.
"Now any man whose virtue belongs to either of these classes is fit to occupy the place and title of ruler. But you, Captain, unite all three in yourself. You are eight feet two in height. Your expression is very bright. Your lips are like vermilion. Your teeth like a row of shells. Your voice is like a beautiful bell;—yet you are known as Robber Chê. Captain, I blush for you.
"Captain, if you will hearken to me I will go south for you to Wu and Yüeh, north to Ch'i and Lu, east to Sung and Wei, and west to Chin and Ch'u. I will have a great wall built for you of many li in extent, enclosing hamlets of many hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, over which State you shall be ruler. Your relations with the empire will enter upon a new phase. You will disband your men. You will gather your brothers around you. You will join in worship of your ancestors. Such is the behaviour of the true Sage and the man of parts, and such is what the world desires."
"Ch'iu! come here," cried Robber Chê in a great rage. "Those who are squared by offers and corrected by words are the stupid vulgar masses. The height and the beauty which you praise in me are legacies from my parents. Even though you did not praise them, do you think I should be ignorant of their existence? Besides, those who flatter to the face speak evil behind the back. Now all you have been saying about the great State and its numerous population simply means squaring me by offers as though one of the common herd. And of course it would not last.
"There is no State bigger than the empire. Yao and Shun both got this, yet their descendants have not territory enough to insert an awl's point. T'ang and Wu Wang both sat upon the Imperial throne, yet their posterity has been obliterated from the face of the earth.
Hardly in Chuang Tzŭ's time.
Was not this because of the very magnitude of the prize?