| Za Ji II: |
Zi-gong having gone to see the agricultural sacrifice at the end of the year, Confucius said to him, 'Ci, did it give you pleasure?' The answer was, 'The people of the whole state appeared to be mad; I do not know in what I could find pleasure.' The Master said, 'For their hundred days' labour in the field, (the husbandmen) receive this one day's enjoyment (from the state);--this is what you do not understand. (Even) Wen and Wu could not keep a bow (in good condition), if it were always drawn and never relaxed; nor did they leave it always relaxed and never drawn. To keep it now strung and now unstrung was the way of Wen and Wu.' |
