Wei, lamenting the fate which prevented him from crossing the
stream, and trying to solace himself with poetry as he had done
on leaving Lu. Again did he communicate with the duke, but as
ineffectually, and disgusted at being questioned by him about
military tactics, he left and went back to Ch'an.
He resided in Ch'an all the next year, B.C. 491, without
anything occurring there which is worthy of note [2]. Events had
transpired in Lu, however, which were to issue in his return to
his native State. The duke Ting had deceased B.C. 494, and Chi
Hwan, the chief of the Chi family, died in this year. On his death-
bed, he felt remorse for his conduct to Confucius, and charged his
successor, known to us in the Analects as Chi K'ang, to recall the
sage; but the charge was not immediately fulfilled. Chi K'ang, by
the advice of one of his officers, sent to Ch'an for the disciple
Yen Ch'iu instead. Confucius willingly sent him off, and would
gladly have accompanied him. 'Let me return!' he said, 'Let me
return [3]!' But that was not to be for several years yet.
In B.C. 490, accompanied, as usual, by several of his
disciples, he went from Ch'an to Ts'ai, a small dependency of the
great fief of Ch'u, which occupied a large part of the present
provinces of Hu-nan and Hu-pei. On the way, between Ch'an and
Ts'ai, their provisions became exhausted, and they were cut off
somehow from obtaining a fresh supply. The disciples were quite
overcome with want, and Tsze-lu said to the master, 'Has the
superior man indeed to endure in this way?' Confucius answered
him, 'The superior man may indeed have to endure want; but the
mean man

l Ana. XVII. vii.
2 Tso Ch'iu-ming, indeed, relates a story of Confucius, on the