Four Books, Text and Commentary, with Proofs and Illustrations
[1],' says that he went thither in his sixteenth year, and having
foiled an officer of the State, named Yo So, in a conversation on
the Shu Ching, his opponent was so irritated at the disgrace put
on him by a youth, that he listened to the advice of evil
counsellors, and made an attack on him to put him to death. The
duke of Sung, hearing the tumult, hurried to the rescue, and when
Chi found himself in safety, he said, 'When king Wan was
imprisoned in Yu-li, he made the Yi of Chau. My grandfather made
the Ch'un Ch'iu after he had been in danger in Ch'an and Ts'ai. Shall
I not make something when rescued from such a risk in Sung?'
Upon this he made the Chung Yung in forty-nine p'ien.
According to this account, the Chung Yung was the work of
Tsze-sze's early manhood, and the tradition has obtained a
wonderful prevalence. The notice in 'The Sacrificial Canon' says,
on the contrary, that it was the work of his old age, when he had
finally settled in Lu, which is much more likely [2].
Of Tsze-sze in Pi, which could hardly be said to be out of
Lu, we have only one short notice,-- in Mencius, V. Pt. II. iii. 3,
where the duke Hui of Pi is introduced as saying, 'I treat Tsze-sze
as my master.'
We have fuller accounts of him in Lu, where he spent all the
latter years of his life, instructing his disciples to the number of
several hundred [3], and held in great reverence by the duke Mu.
The duke indeed wanted to raise him to the highest office, but he
declined this, and would only occupy the position of a 'guide,
philosopher, and friend.' Of the attention which he demanded,
however, instances will he found in Mencius, II. Pt. II. xi. 3; V. Pt.