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 ¥v°O, ¤Õ¤l¥@®a, p. 5. See also Mencius, V. Pt. II. i. 4.; et al.
2 See Chiang Yung's Life of Confucius, ¥h¾|©P¹C¦Ò.
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