“INTEGRATING CUSTOMS” is an extensive treatise on the subject of ritual. “Ritual,” in the context of both ancient Chinese thought and the text of the Huainanzi, encompassed all forms of symbolic action from the most austere to the most mundane, ranging from the grand sacrifices of the imperial cult to the small courtesies (such as bowing) that transpired between people at a chance meeting. “Integrating Customs” explores the origins of ritual in cosmic and human history and discourses on how the current sage-ruler should establish the rituals appropriate to his age.
The Chapter Title
Like many of the chapter titles of the Huainanzi, that of chapter 11 is a verb–object phrase: “Qi su” 
. The verb, qi, is a richly multivalent word, among whose meanings are “to equalize,” “to put on a par,” “to bring together,” and “to bring into agreement.” The object, su, means “customs,” with a general connotation of “folkways.” As an adjective, su can be used to express the meaning of “common,” “unrefined,” or “vulgar.”
The title “Qi su” is a clear allusion to that of chapter 2 of the Zhuangzi, the “Qi wu lun” 
,1 variously translated as “The Discussion of Making All Things Equal” or “The Sorting That Evens Things Out.”2 Previous American and European scholars have thus translated qi su as “Equalizing Customs / Placing Customs on a Par,”3 and this is undoubtedly one meaning that the title would have evoked for a Han readership. In this context, the title refers to the perspective that views all “customs,” whether the crude folkways of non-Sinic people living at the periphery of the empire or the elegant ceremonials of the imperial court, as being normatively indistinguishable from one another.
This is only one dimension of the concept of qi su, however; the term is not merely passive or perspectival. Chapter 11 calls on the ruler to harmonize the prevailing and divergent cultural practices in the empire so that customary variation will not obstruct the integral functioning of the universal imperium envisioned by the text. As the summary provided in chapter 21 declares, the teachings of chapter 11 enable one to
unify the weaknesses and strengths of the various living things,
equate the customs and habits of the nine Yi [tribes],
comprehend past and present discourses,
and thread together the patterns of the myriad things. (21.2)
From this summary, we can see that even though a translation like “Placing Customs on a Par” is valid, “Integrating Customs” better preserves the self-conscious parallel between the chapter titles in the Huainanzi and the Zhuangzi. A common double entendre is implied in both texts: the dao of the Qi wu lun integrates all things in the universe in much the same way that the sage of the Huainanzi integrates all the customs of the world. Thus we render the title of the chapter as “Integrating Customs.”
Summary and Key Themes
Whereas “ritual” was a matter of supreme importance for Confucians (ru),4 “Integrating Customs” immediately makes clear that ritual is the “creation of a declining age” (11.1) and does not rank among the forces to which the Huainanzi grants primacy and maximum potency. Thus the title of the chapter speaks more generically of “customs,” implicitly asserting (in opposition to Confucius and others) that no set of “rituals,” no matter how sophisticated or wisely conceived, can be ultimately normative. The validity of any “ritual” is contingent on its appropriateness to the time and place in which it is practiced, and the distinction between the tribal customs of the “barbarians” living outside the Han domain and the rituals of the Han court is ultimately arbitrary. The willingness to grant normative validity to non-Han customs was unusual in the milieu of early Han China and may reflect the physical location of the kingdom of Huainan near the ethnically diverse southern frontier of the Han Empire.
Although the text may deem ritual to be a latter-day phenomenon of secondary potency, it openly admits that ritual is indispensable to effective rulership in the current age. This admission is tactically astute, as in pragmatic terms it is unlikely that any imperial government during the Han dynasty could have succeeded without ritual. The cycle of sacrifices and feasts held in honor of various ancestral spirits and divinities at the imperial court was a vast enterprise that drew heavily on the state treasury and kept hundreds (if not thousands) of functionaries employed.5 Moreover, these ceremonial functions of the court could not be separated from the “practical” organs of government. Protocols and rituals joined court ceremonial offices with the functional bureaus engaged in the day-to-day exercise of imperial power. Attempting to reorganize the Han government in the absence of ritual would be the equivalent of burning a house down and rebuilding it from the ground up.
In the Han, the topic of ritual also was seen as a matter of some urgency because of the new scope of imperial rule. Even though ritual had been a prime topic of statecraft thinking during the entire Warring States period, the consolidation of imperial rule and the spread of imperial authority outward under the Qin and Han had created a new critical awareness of cultural diversity throughout the imperial domain. Not only were there striking differences in ritual and custom among the Sinic people united under the empire, but, with the expansion of the territorial boundaries into the non-Sinic world, imperial officials now had to face the challenge of governing people who had no knowledge of or sense of participation in the culture of the central court.6 Under these conditions, anyone who lacked advice on how one might “integrate customs” had little of value to offer the rulers of the Han domain.
These tactical concerns naturally lead us to question whether the Huainanzi ’s admission of the utility of ritual is hypocritical or self-contradictory. The text’s theory of “deep history” does offer some rationalization in this regard. In earlier ages of human history (closer to the cosmic origins of the universe), it was possible to rule only on the basis of the Way and its Potency. But as human society matured and human civilization became more complex, the natural process of devolution made it impossible to establish order without artifices like ritual. The Han came to power in a latter age and thus were compelled to use those implements that current social and historical conditions demanded.
“Integrating Customs” invests ritual with intrinsic value and power as an indispensable tool of the current age. In this respect, the text’s perspective is like that of the Han Confucians. Ritual is an effective implement of rule because when the channels of power are ritualized, the exercise of state authority does not require the dehumanizing application of threats or bribery. Beyond this, unlike rewards and punishments, which act only on people’s bestial impulses of greed and fear, ritual provides a medium through which human beings may be saved from their self-destructive impulses and gradually transformed so that their spontaneous responses to conditions and events become more harmonious and constructive.7
The Huainanzi diverges from the Confucian theory of ritual in its view of how rituals originate and are maintained. The Confucians would insist that the only effective path to human perfection involves the acceptance and practice of normatively correct rituals. Accordingly, the ritual order must be reproduced and maintained through painstaking study and reconstruction of the ritual institutions of the ancient sages. Unlike Confucians, the Huainanzi holds that human perfection does not require ritual. There was thus a time when there were sages but not rituals. Sages could create rituals, but ritual itself was never (nor is it now) an indispensable path to sagehood itself. Past sages are therefore not the only or even the best source of effective rituals for the present. The key to creating effective ritual (if and when it is needed) is in the mystical self-cultivation of the sage-ruler in the current age. Only a sage who has come to personally embody the Way and its Potency can produce and maintain rituals that are perfectly suited to creating order and harmony in the current age and to integrating the culturally diverse peoples under his rule.
Sources
The rather deflated view of ritual implied by the title “Integrating Customs” naturally raises the question of why the Huainanzi would devote an entire chapter to this topic. This may be answered in part by reference to the text’s claim of comprehensiveness. When the Huainanzi was composed, there already existed a voluminous literature on ritual and its relationship to government. Three texts devoted to ritual—the Liji (Record of Rites), the Yili (Ceremonial and Rites), and the Zhouli (Rites of Zhou)— were ultimately included in the classical canon propounded by the Confucians at the Han court. These Confucian ritual texts, especially the Liji, provide the clear intellectual context in and against which “Integrating Customs” was created.
Numerous parallels and influences may be found in the Liji and chapter 11 of the Huainanzi, although when these texts echo each other, the context and rhetoric of the shared passages are often quite divergent. For example, in chapter 31 of the Liji (“Fang ji” 
, one of the four chapters of the Rites reputed to have been written by, or otherwise associated with, Confucius’s grandson Zisi),8 we read that “the rites accord with human feeling and make for them an ordered pattern,”9 a line that appears verbatim in “Integrating Customs.” In the Liji, however, this principle is adduced by demonstrating how ritual serves to curb people’s worst impulses, “Thus in his control of wealth and nobility, the sage makes it so that the people will not be arrogant when wealthy, or miserly when poor, or insolent to their seniors when noble.”10 In the Huainanzi, by contrast, this line states that ritual is most effective when it corresponds most closely to what is spontaneous to human nature:
The three-year mourning period forces a person to what he cannot reach; thus he supplements his feelings with pretense.
The three-month observance breaks off grief, coercing and hacking at nature.
The Confucians and the Mohists do not [find the] origin [of their doctrines] in the beginnings and ends of human feelings and are committed to practicing mutually opposed systems. (11.8)
Another example of parallelism between the Rites and the Huainanzi is the famous second phrase of the “Zhong yong”:11 “following nature is called the Way.”12 An only slightly altered version of this axiom forms the opening line of “Integrating Customs”: “Following nature and putting it into practice is called ‘the Way.’” The conclusions the Huainanzi derives from this principle are quite different from those of the “Zhong yong,” however:
For this reason,
when Humaneness and Rightness were established, the Way and Potency receded;
when Ritual and Music were embellished, purity and simplicity dissipated.
This argument, coming at the very beginning of the chapter (11.1), is based on Laozi 38: “When the Way is lost, then there is Potency; when Potency is lost, then there is Humaneness; when Humaneness is lost, then there is Rightness; when Rightness is lost, then there is Ritual.”13 By contrast, the authors of the “Zhong yong” attribute ultimate normative authority to the rites of Zhou antiquity: “If one comprehends the rites of the suburban altar and the altar of the soil, and the significance of the di and chang [sacrifices], one may order the kingdom as if holding it in one’s palm.”14
The date of the Liji ’s composition is a matter of some complexity and controversy. Thus when comparing “Integrating Customs” with those chapters in the Rites containing parallel passages, the question of which text was the “source” for the other is an open one. The Rites was composed through a much more fluid and decentralized process than the Huainanzi was;15 thus the mechanism by which parallel passages appeared in both texts may have been very complicated. The Rites may be citing the Huainanzi; the inverse may be true; or both texts might be sourcing other material circulating in written or oral forms of various kinds. What can be inferred with some certainty, however, is that a debate over the nature and origins of ritual took place in the Former Han, and the patron and authors of the Huainanzi were resolved to engage it.
The Chapter in the Context of the Huainanzi as a Whole
The position of “Integrating Customs” in the structure of the Huainanzi reflects the philosophical priorities underpinning the text as a whole. In the same way that the Huainanzi describes the cosmos moving farther and farther through time from the undifferentiated and potent state of its cosmogonic origins, the text itself moves from a discussion of the Way, the concept in which it invests ultimate value, through successively less fundamental concerns. In this context, the place of “Integrating Customs,” after chapters on cosmology and personal cultivation but before those on rhetoric and military affairs, represents the medial role to which the Huainanzi authors consign ritual in their system of prescriptions for the Han era. The opening section of this chapter recapitulates the argument in chapter 8 that Humaneness, Rightness, and Ritual are symptoms of, and arise only in successive stages of, an age of decline. Chapter 11 then builds on that fundamental assertion. Although ritual is thus shown to be a secondary concern, an imperfect substitute for primordial rule by means of the Way and its Potency, it is counted as more essential to efficacious governance in the current age than are modes of instrumental cunning or naked state power.
Andrew Meyer
1. The relationship between the titles “Qi su” and “Qi wu lun” may be more than an allusion, as the authors of the Huainanzi may have appended the latter title to the second chapter of the Zhuangzi. See Harold D. Roth, “Who Compiled the Chuang Tzu?” in Chinese Texts and Philosophical Contexts: Essays Dedicated to Angus C. Graham, ed. Henry Rosemont Jr. (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Press, 1991),118.
2. Respectively, Burton Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968); and Graham 1982.
3. Wallacker 1962. Csikszentmihalyi 2004, 18, also translates this title as “Equalizing Customs”; Le Blanc and Mathieu 2003 translate it as “De l’équivalence des mœurs.”
4. For a discussion of the term ru and its translation as “Confucians,” see the introduction to this book.
5. For a review of the Han state structure, see Hans Bielenstein, The Bureaucracy of Han Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
6. For a study of the expanding geoethnographic scope of Han rule, see Yü Ying-shih, “Han Foreign Relations,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 1, The Ch ’in and Han Empires, 221 b.c.–a.d. 220, ed. Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 377–462.
7. For Confucian ritual theory, see Herbert Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (New York: HarperCollins, 1972), 1–17; and Paul Goldin, Rituals of the Way: The Philosophy of Xunzi (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Press, 1999), 55–82.
8. For an extensive study of these texts, see Jeffrey K. Riegel, “The Four ‘Tzu Ssu’ Chapters of the Li Chi: An Analysis of the Fang Chi, Chung Yung, Piao Chi, and Tzu I” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1978).
9. Liji 31.2/139/14.
10. Liji 31.2/139/15.
11. That is, the “Doctrine of the Mean,” another of the supposed “Zisi” chapters of the Liji, often also printed as an independent text as one of the Confucian “Four Books.”
12. Liji 32.1/142/21.
13. Laozi 38/13/17. A devolutionary argument based on Laozi 38 is also found in 8.3. See the introduction to chap. 8.
14. Liji 32.13/144/21–22.
15. For a recent discussion of the exemplary case of one of the four “Zisi” chapters, see Edward L. Shaughnessy, “Rewriting the Zi Yi: How One Chinese Classic Came to Read as It Does,” in Rewriting Early Chinese Texts (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 63–130.
Following nature and putting it into practice is called “the Way”;1
attaining one’s Heaven[-born] nature is called “Potency.”
Only after nature was lost was Humaneness honored;
only after the Way was lost was Rightness honored.
For this reason,
when Humaneness and Rightness were established, the Way and Potency receded;
when Ritual and Music were embellished, purity and simplicity dissipated.2
Right and wrong took form, and the common people were dazzled;
pearls and jade were revered, and the world set to fighting [over them].
These four were the creations of a declining age and are the implements of a latter age. [11/93/20–22]
Now Ritual
distinguishes the revered and the lowly,
differentiates the noble and the base.
Rightness is what unites sovereign and minister, father and son, elder brother and younger brother, husband and wife, friend and friend.
What the current age considers Ritual [demands] reverence and respect yet [causes] jealousy.
What it considers Rightness is boastful and condescending yet [is deemed] potent.
[Because of them,]
ruler and minister oppose each other;
blood kin become resentful of one another.
This is to lose the basis of Ritual and Rightness. Thus [government] is confused and complicated.
When water accumulates, it generates fish that eat one another;
when earth accumulates, it generates beasts that [devour] one another’s flesh;
when Ritual and Rightness are embellished, they generate false and hypocritical scholars.
To blow on ashes yet not to want to get a mote in one’s eye,
to wade through water yet not to want to get soaked:
these [things] are impossible.
In antiquity, the people were naïve and ignorant, [and] they did not know west from east. The [expressions on] their faces did not exceed their feelings [within], [and] their words did not outstrip their deeds.
Their clothes were warm and without pattern;
their weapons were blunt and had no edge.
Their songs were joyful yet without warbling;
their sobbing was mournful yet without shouting.
They dug wells and drank,
plowed fields and ate.
They had nothing with which to adorn their beauty, nor did they grasp for acquisitions.
Kinsmen did not praise or deprecate one another;
friends did not resent or revere one another.
Upon the creation of Ritual and Rightness and the valuation of goods and wealth, deception and falsehood sprouted, [and] blame and praise proliferated together; resentment and reverence arose in concert. Because of this,
there was the perfection of Zeng Can and Xiao Ji,
the perversity of Robber Zhi and Zhuang Qiao.
Thus where there is the Great Chariot3 and the Dragon Banner,4 the feathered canopy and hanging straps, teams of horses and columns of riders, there must be the wickedness of drilling [peep]holes and removing crossbars, digging up graves and climbing over walls. Where there are cunning patterns and complex embroidery, fine cloth and gossamer silk, there must be clomping along in straw sandals and those whose short coats have unfinished hems. Thus it is clear that high and low depend on each other, the short and the long give form to each other. [11/93/24–11/94/4]
Now the frog becomes the quail, [and] the water scorpion becomes the dragonfly.5 These all give rise to what is not of their own kind. Only the sage understands their transformations.
When the Hu [northern “barbarians”] see hemp, they do not understand that it can be used to make cloth.
When the Yue [southern “barbarians”] see fleece, they do not know that it can be used to make a [felt] rug.
Thus with one who does not comprehend things, it is difficult to discuss transformation. [11/94/6–8]
In ancient times, Grand Duke Wang6 and Duke Dan of Zhou met with each other after receiving fiefs.
Grand Duke Wang asked the Duke of Zhou, “How will you govern Lu?”
The Duke of Zhou said, “I will exalt the noble and draw close to my kindred.”
The Grand Duke said, “Henceforward Lu will grow weaker!”
The Duke of Zhou asked the Grand Duke, “How will you govern Qi?”
The Grand Duke said, “I will raise up the worthy and promote those of merit.”
The Duke of Zhou said, “In later generations, there will certainly be a ruler who rises through assassination.”
Afterward, Qi grew daily larger, to the point of becoming hegemon. After twenty-four generations, [the ducal house] was replaced by the Tian clan.7 Lu grew daily smaller, being destroyed in the thirty-second generation. Thus the Changes says,
“Treading on frost, hard ice descends.”
The sages’ perception of outcomes at their origin is [truly] subtle!8 Thus the “mountain of dregs” originated with the use of ivory chopsticks; the “roasting beam” originated with a hot ladle.9 [11/94/10–15]
Zilu saved someone from drowning and accepted an ox by way of thanks. Confucius said, “[People in] the state of Lu will certainly favor saving [others] from calamity.”
Zigong ransomed someone and did not accept gold from the [state] treasury.10 Confucius said, “No one in Lu will pay ransom for anyone again.”
By accepting, Zilu encouraged virtue;
by refusing, Zigong put a stop to goodness.
Confucius’s clarity was such that
he used the small to know the great, [and]
he used the near to know the distant.
He was one who penetrated reasoning.
Viewed on this basis, although incorruptibility has its place, it cannot be universally practiced. Thus
when one’s actions accord with customs, they may be followed;
when one’s affairs correspond to one’s abilities, they are easily accomplished.
Arrogant falsehood that deludes the age and haughty conduct that separates one from the masses—these the sage does not take as customs for the people.
Wide mansions and broad houses, series of doors and spacious rooms, these are what [make] people secure, but if birds enter them, they are afraid.
Tall mountains and difficult passes, deep forests and thick grass, these are what delight tigers and leopards, but if people enter them, they are terrified.
River valleys and broad ponds, deep water and profound springs, these are what serve the [water] turtle and the monitor lizard, but if people enter them, they die.
The “Xian Pool” and the “Riding on Clouds,” the “Nine Shao” and the “Six Ying,”11 these are what people delight12 in, but if birds and beasts hear them, they are alarmed.
Deep valleys and sheer cliffs, tall trees and spreading branches, these are what please monkeys and apes, but if people climb them, they tremble.
Their forms are different and their natures divergent, thus
what delights one upsets the other;
what makes one secure endangers the other.
Now, with regard to all that is covered by Heaven and supported by Earth—all that is illuminated by the sun and overseen by the moon—make each facilitate its nature, rest secure in its position, occupy what is appropriate to it, and accomplish what it is able. Thus even
the stupid have their strong points;
the wise have that for which they are not equipped.
A pillar cannot be used as a toothpick;
a hairpin cannot support a house.
A horse cannot carry heavy loads;
an ox cannot chase in fast [pursuit].
Lead cannot be used to make a sword,
and bronze cannot be used to make a crossbow;
iron cannot be used to make a boat,
and wood cannot be used to make an ax.
Each is
used where it is best suited
and applied to what is appropriate to it,
thus all the myriad things are placed on a par, and none transgresses the others.
A bright mirror is convenient for reflecting a form, but for steaming food, it does not measure up to a bamboo basket.
A sacrificial ox with red hair13 is fit to be offered up in the [ancestral] temple, but for bringing rain, it does not match a black snake.14
Viewed on this [basis], there is no [distinction] of noble or base among things.
If one values things in accordance with what ennobles them, there is nothing that is not noble.
If one degrades things in accordance with what debases them, there is nothing that is not base. [11/94/15–30]
Uncut jade can never be thick enough;
jade inlay can never be thin enough;
lacquer can never be black enough;
rice powder can never be white enough.
These four are opposites, yet when urgently [needed], they are equal, their usefulness is the same. Now of furs and straw garments, which is more urgently [needed]? If one encounters rain, then furs are useless, when one ascends the [regal] hall, straw is not worn. These things alternate in being “emperor.”15 They are comparable to boats and chariots, mud sledges and sand chariots, [palaces and] tents—each definitely has its appropriate [use]. Thus Laozi says,
“Do not elevate the worthy.”
This means that one [should] not put fish in trees or plunge birds into the depths. [11/95/1–4]
When Yao ruled the world,
Shun was his minister of education; Xie16
was his minister of war;
Yu was his minister of works;
Lord Millet was his minister of agriculture;
Xi Zhong was his palace craftsman.
In his guiding of the myriad people,
those who lived near the water were fishers;
those who lived in the mountains were foresters;
those who lived in valleys were herdsmen;
those who lived on the plains were farmers.
Their location was appropriate to their occupation;
their occupation was appropriate to their tools;
their tools were appropriate to their functions;
and their functions were appropriate to the people [who used them].
On marshes and coastlines, nets were woven;
on hillsides and slopes, fields were plowed.
They obtained [things]
by using what they had to exchange for what they lacked,
using what they were skilled [in making] to exchange for what they were incapable [of producing].
For this reason,
those who rebelled were few;
those who obeyed were many.
It was comparable to rolling chess pieces on the ground. The round ones will roll into depressions; the square ones will rest on high [ground]. Each follows what is natural to it. How can there be superior and inferior? It is like the wind encountering pitch pipes, spontaneously activating them; each responds with a high or a low [note]. [11/95/6–11]
Monkeys and apes, on obtaining a luxuriant tree, do not quit it for a cave;
porcupines and badgers, on finding an embankment, do not quit it for a hedge.
Nothing
abandons what is of benefit to it
and seeks out what is of harm to it.
For this reason,
neighboring states can see one another,
and each can hear the sound of the other’s chickens and dogs,17
yet
footprints never reach the rulers’ boundary;
cart ruts never run beyond a thousand li —
everyone rests in what makes him secure.
Thus a chaotic state seems full;
an ordered state seems empty;
a collapsing state seems lacking;
a surviving state seems to have surplus.
The emptiness is not a lack of people; it [arises from] each maintaining his
position.
The fullness is not a plethora of people; it [arises from] each chasing after nonessential [tasks].
The surplus is not an abundance of goods; it [arises from] desires being restricted and affairs being few.
The lack is not a dearth of wealth; it [arises from] the people being agitated and expenses being excessive.
Thus
the methods and statutes of the former kings were not inventions; they were compliance.
Their prohibitions and executions were not initiatives; they were preservation. [11/95/13–18]
What controls all objects is not objects, it is harmony.
What controls harmony is not harmony, it is people.
What controls people is not people, it is the ruler.
What controls the ruler is not the ruler, it is desire.
What controls desire is not desire, it is nature.
What controls nature is not nature, it is Potency.
What controls Potency is not Potency, it is the Way. [11/95/20–22]
If the original nature of human beings is obstructed and sullied, one cannot get at its purity and clarity—it is because things have befouled it. The children of the Qiang, Dii, Bo, and Dee [barbarians] all produce the same sounds at birth. Once they have grown, even with both the xiang and diti interpreters,18 they cannot understand one another’s speech; this is because their education and customs are different. Now a three-month-old child that moves to a [new] state after it is born will not recognize its old customs. Viewed on this basis, clothing and ritual customs are not [rooted in] people’s nature; they are received from without.
It is the nature of bamboo to float, [but] break it into strips and tie them in a bundle and they will sink when thrown into the water—it [i.e., the bamboo] has lost its [basic] structure.
It is the nature of metal to sink, [but] place it on a boat and it will float—its positioning lends it support.
The substance of raw silk is white, [but] dye it in potash and it turns black.
The nature of fine silk is yellow, [but] dye it in cinnabar and it turns red.
The nature of human beings has no depravity; having been long immersed in customs, it changes. If it changes and one forgets the root, it is as if [the customs one has acquired] have merged with [one’s] nature.
Thus
the sun and the moon are inclined to brilliance, but floating clouds cover them;
the water of the river is inclined to purity, but sand and rocks sully it.
The nature of human beings is inclined to equilibrium, but wants and desires harm it.
Only the sage can leave things aside and return to himself.
Someone who boards a boat and becomes confused, not knowing west from east, will see the Dipper and the Pole Star and become oriented. Nature is likewise a Dipper and a Pole Star for human beings.
If one possesses that by which one can see oneself, then one will not miss the genuine dispositions of things.
If one lacks that by which one can see oneself, then one will be agitated and ensnared.
It is like swimming in Longxi:19 the more you thrash, the deeper you will sink.
Confucius said to Yan Hui, “I serve you by forgetting [you], and you also serve me by forgetting [me]. Although it is so, even though you forget me, there is still something that has not been forgotten that persists.”20 Confucius understood the root of it.
The actions of one who gives free rein to desires and loses his nature have never been correct.
Controlling one’s person [in this way leads to] danger;
controlling a state [in this way leads to] chaos;
leading an army [in this way leads to] destruction.
For this reason, those who have not heard the Way have no means to return to nature.
Thus the sage-kings of antiquity were able to attain it in themselves, and their orders were enacted and their prohibitions were binding. Their names were carried down to later ages, [and] their Potency spread throughout the Four Seas. [11/95/24–11/96/7]
For this reason, whenever one is about to take up an affair, one must first stabilize one’s intentions and purify one’s spirit.
When the spirit is pure and intentions are stable,
only then can things be aligned.
It is like pressing a seal into clay:
if it is held straight, [the impression] will be straight;
if it is held crookedly, [the impression] will be crooked.
Thus
when Yao chose Shun, he decided simply with his eyes;
when Duke Huan chose Ning Qi, he judged him simply with his ears.
If on this basis one were to give up technique and measurements and rely on one’s ears and eyes, the [resulting] chaos would certainly be great. That the ears and eyes can judge is because one returns to feelings and nature.
If one’s hearing is lost in slander and flattery
and one’s eyes are corrupted by pattern and color,
if one then wants to rectify affairs, it will be difficult.
One who is suffused with grief will cry upon hearing a song;
one suffused with joy will see someone weeping and laugh.
That grief can bring joy
and laughter can bring grief—
being suffused makes it so. For this reason, value emptiness. [11/96/6–12]
When water is agitated, waves rise,
when the qi is disordered, the intellect is confused.
A confused intellect cannot attend to government;
agitated water cannot be used to establish a level.
Thus the sage-king holds to the One without losing it, and the genuine dispositions of the myriad things are discovered, the four barbarians and the nine regions all submit. The One is the supremely noble; it has no match in the world. The sage relies on the matchless; thus the mandate of the people attaches itself [to him]. [11/96/14–16]
One who practices Humaneness must discuss it [in terms of] grief and joy;
one who practices Rightness must explain it [in terms of] grasping and yielding.
If the human eye does not see beyond ten li and one wants to comprehensively reach all people within the [four] seas, grief and joy will not suffice.
If one does not have the amassed wealth of the world and wants to comprehensively supply the myriad people, [material] benefit cannot be enough.
Moreover, pleasure, anger, grief, and joy arise spontaneously from a stimulus. Thus,
a cry issues from the mouth,
tears flow from the eyes—
all burst forth within
and take form externally.
It is like
water flowing downward
or smoke rising upward:
What compels them? Thus,
though one who forces oneself to cry feels pain, he does not grieve;
though one who forces intimacy will laugh, there is no harmony.
Feelings come forth within, and sounds respond externally. Thus,
the jug of food of Xi Fuji was better than the Chuiji jade of Duke Xian of Jin,21
the bound meat-strips of Zhao Xuanmeng were more worthy that the great bell of Earl Zhi.22
Thus [though] ritual may be elaborate, it does not suffice for effecting love, yet a sincere heart can embrace [those at] a great distance. [11/96/18–23]
Thus,
in caring for his family, Gongxi Hua23 resembled one living among friends.
In caring for his family, Zeng Can resembled one serving an austere lord or a fierce ruler.
[Yet] in terms of caring, they were as one.
The Hu people strike bones together [to seal an oath];
the Yue people make cuts in their arms;
[the people of] the Middle Kingdom smear their mouths with blood.
The origins of all [these customs] are different, but in terms of [establishing] trust, they are as one.
The Three Miao [tribes] bind their heads with hemp;
the Qiang people bind their necks;
the [people of] the Middle Kingdom use hat and hairpin;
the Yue people shear their hair.
In regard to getting dressed, they are as one.
According to the institutes of Thearch Zhuan Xu, if wives did not avoid men on the roads, they would be beaten at a four-way crossroads. Now in the capital, men and women touch shins and rub shoulders in the street. In regard to being customs, they are as one.
Thus the rites of the four Yi [“barbarians”] are not the same, [yet] they all
revere their ruler,
love their kin,
and respect their elder brothers.
The customs of the Xian and Yun are opposite, [yet] they both
are kind to their children
and venerate their elders.
Birds in flight form a line;
beasts in the field form groups,
who was there to teach them? [11/97/1–6]
Thus the state of Lu observed the rites of the Confucians and practiced the arts of Confucius. Its territory was stripped away and its name brought low; it was unable to befriend those nearby or attract those far away.
King Goujian24 of Yue shaved his head and tattooed his body; he did not have leather caps or jade belt ornaments; [he lacked] the postures of bowing and bending. Even so he defeated Fuchai at Five Lakes; facing south he was hegemon of the world. All twelve feudal rulers from north of the Si River led the nine Yi [tribes] in paying court [to him].
In the countries of the Hu, Mo, and Xiongnu, [people] leave their limbs unwrapped and their hair unbound; they sit cross-legged and talk back [to their superiors]. Yet their states have not collapsed, and they do not necessarily lack Ritual.
King Zhuang of Chu wore thin lapels on a broad robe,25 [yet] his commands were effective throughout the world, and as a consequence he became hegemon of the Lords of the Land.
Lord Wen of Jin wore clothes of coarse cloth and sheepskin, and he belted his sword with leather, [yet] his might was established within the seas. How can it be that only the rites of Zou and Lu [may be] called Rites? For this reason,
when entering a state, one follows their customs,
when entering a household, one respects their taboos.
If one does not violate a prohibition in entering,
if one does not go forward contrary [to custom],
then even on traveling to the (countries of) the Yi or Di or to the Country of the Naked, or going beyond the farthest limits of chariot tracks, one will have no trouble. [11/97/8–13]
Ritual is the patterning of substance.
Humaneness is the application of kindness.
Thus Rites accord with human feeling and make for them an ordered pattern, and Humaneness bursts forth as a blush that appears in one’s countenance.
When Ritual does not surpass substance
and Humaneness does not surpass [the proper degree of] kindness,
this is the Way of ordering the world.
The three-year mourning period26 forces a person to what he cannot reach; thus he supplements his feelings with pretense.
The three-month observance27 breaks off grief, coercing and hacking at nature.
The Confucians and the Mohists do not [find the] origin [of their doctrines] in the beginnings and ends of human feelings and are committed to practicing mutually opposed systems [for] the five grades of observance.28 Sorrow and grief are contained in feelings; burial and interment correspond to nurturing.29
Do not force people to do what they are incapable of;
do not interrupt what people are able to complete.
When standards and measurements do not deviate from what is proper, there is no source from which slander and flattery can arise.
In antiquity, it was not that they did not know the elaborate rites of ascending and descending, turning and circling, the postures of the “dignified” and “hastening” steps.30 They felt that these wasted the day, burdened the people, and were useless; thus they instituted only those rites that aided substance and expressed one’s intentions.
It was not that they were unable to display bells and drums, array pipes and flutes, brandish shields and axes, hoist plumes and banners. They felt that these wasted wealth and disordered government; [thus] they instituted only music that sufficed to harmonize joy and expound one’s intentions; the tune did not exceed the pleasure [it expressed].
It was not that they were unable to exhaust the state and mislead the people, empty the treasury and waste wealth, sending off the dead with pearls in their mouth, wrapped in scales [of jade], girdled in cotton and bamboo. They felt it impoverished the people, interrupted their work, and was of no aid to dry bones and rotting flesh. Thus burials were sufficient to gather the remains and cover the grave, that is all.
Of old when Shun was buried at Cangwu, stalls were not altered in the marketplace [and] when Yu was buried at Mount Kuaiji, farmers did not move their fields. They were clear about the division between death and life, the mean between expenditure and frugality. Chaotic kingdoms are not this way.
Their words and conduct are at odds;
their feelings and facial expressions are opposed.
Their rituals are binding to the point of oppression;
their music is stirring to the point of license.
They revere death to the point of harming life;
they extend mourning to the point of obstructing work.
For this reason, their customs are corrupting to the age; flattery and slander sprout at court; thus the sage abandons and does not use them. [11/97/15–26]
Rightness is following the patterns and doing what is appropriate;
Ritual is embodying feelings and establishing a design.
Rightness is appropriateness;
Ritual is embodiment.31
Of old,
the Youhu32 clan acted with Rightness and perished; they understood Rightness but did not understand appropriateness.
Lu instituted Rites and was pared down; they understood Rites but not embodiment.
In the rites of Youyu,33 the altar was made of earth; sacrifices were to the central eaves; the tombs were one mu square; his music34 was the “Pool of Xian,” the “Bearing Clouds,” and the “Nine Harmonies.”35 His clothing gave prominence to yellow.36
The altar of the lords of Xia was made of pine; they sacrificed to the door [god]; their tombs were walled; and their coffins were shrouded.37 Their music was the nine movements38 of the “Pipes of Xia,” the “Six Dance Troops,” the “Six Lines,” and the “Six Blossoms.”39 Their clothes gave prominence to green.
In the rites of the Yin, their altar was made of stone; they sacrificed to the gate; [and] their tombs were planted with pines. Their music was the “Great Melody” and “Morning Dew.”40 Their clothing gave prominence to white.
In the rites of the Zhou, their altar was made of chestnut; they sacrificed to the stove; their tombs were planted with cypress; their music was the “Grand Martiality,” the “Three Elephants,” and the “Beneath the Mulberry.” Their clothing gave prominence to red.41
Their Ritual and Music were contradictory; their clothes and regulations were opposed; yet none lost the affection [appropriate to] kinship and remoteness, the discipline of superior and inferior. Now to seize on one ruler’s methods and statutes while rejecting the customs transmitted from ages [past] is like tuning a se and [then] gluing the bridges in place.42 [11/98/1–9]
Therefore the enlightened ruler clothes himself with rites and propriety [and] girdles himself with discipline and conduct. His clothes suffice
to cover his frame,
to follow the ancient canons,
to accommodate bowing and bending,
to convenience his body and frame,
to ease his movement and steps.
He does not strive for an extraordinary or beautiful appearance or a cornered, diagonal cut.
His belt suffices
to tie a knot and gather the flaps,
to bind tightly and cinch fast.
He feels no urgency that [it be made of] round and square patterned [embroidery].43
Thus he institutes Rites and Rightness; he acts with utmost Moral Potency, but he is not fixated on the Confucians and the Mohists. [11/98/11–13]
What is called “clarity” does not refer to seeing another, it is seeing oneself, that is all.
What is called “acuity” does not refer to hearing another, it is hearing oneself, that is all.
What is called “attainment” does not refer to understanding another, it is understanding oneself, that is all.
Thus the person is where the Way is lodged; when the person is achieved, the Way is achieved. As for achievement of the Way,
in seeing, it is clarity,
in listening, it is acuity,
in speech, it is impartiality,
in conduct, it is compliance.
Thus the sage shapes and fashions things
the way the carpenter chops, pares, drills, and fastens;
the way the cook slices, cuts, divides, and separates.
Each detail achieves what is appropriate to it, and nothing is broken or harmed. A clumsy artisan is not this way.
Big things become so blocked up that nothing can penetrate them;
small things become so tenuous that nothing can get around them.
He is
agitated in his mind,
shaky in his hands,
and makes things worse.
As for the sage’s chopping and paring things,
he splits them, he halves them,
he separates them, he scatters them.
[Those that are] already dissolute, already lost, he unites again.
Having emerged from their root, they return again to their gateway.
Already carved, already polished, they return again to simplicity.
Merged, they are the Way and its Potency,
separated, they are standards and decorum.
He concentrates44 and penetrates the Mysterious Obscurity;
he disperses and responds without form.
How can even Ritual, Rightness, discipline, and conduct exhaust the source of perfect order? [11/98/15–22]
Many of those who oversee affairs in the world depart from the source of the Way and its Potency, saying that Ritual and Rightness suffice to order the empire. One cannot discuss techniques with people like them. What is called “Ritual and Rightness” is the methods, statutes, ways, and customs of the Five Thearchs and the Three Kings. They are the remnants of a [former] age. Compare them to straw dogs and earthen dragons when they are first fashioned.45
They are patterned with green and yellow,
wrapped with silk and embroidery,
bound with vermilion silk,
clothed in white and black garb.
Grandees wear the peaked cap to send them off and welcome them. Once they have been used, they are buried in the soil and grown over by grass and brambles, that is all. What is there to be valued in them?
Thus in the time of Shun, the Youmiao did not pay tribute. At this, Shun cultivated [good] governance and ceased military [operations]; thus he grasped the shield and battle-ax and danced with them.46
In the time of Yu, there was a great flood in the world. Yu ordered the people to gather earth and wood, forming hills and mounds to lodge [the dead].
When King Wu attacked [the tyrant] Djou, he carried the corpse [of his father] on the march. All within the seas was not yet pacified; thus [the custom] of three years’ mourning began.
Yu encountered the calamity of the flood, the tasks of ditches and embankments; thus those who died in the morning were buried in the evening.
These all are examples of how the sage follows alterations and responds to the times, views the form and effects what is appropriate. Now to cultivate the staff and battle-ax and laugh at the hoe and the spade, or to know of the three-year [mourning period before burial] and reject [burial after only] one day, is [as absurd as] to follow the ox and reject the horse, or to take up the zhi tone but laugh at the yu tone.47 Responding to transformation like this is no different from playing “Beneath the Mulberry” by plucking only one string. [11/98/24–11/99/5]
Now to desire to follow transformation and respond to the times on the basis of the alterations of a single era can be compared to wearing straw in winter and fur in summer.
A single aim cannot be used for a hundred shots;
a single garment cannot last the entire year.
The aim must respond to high and low;
the garment must be appropriate to cold or heat.
For this reason,
in different ages, affairs alter,
when times shift, customs change.
Thus the sage
assesses the age in establishing methods;
follows the times in initiating affairs.
The kings of high antiquity performed the feng [sacrifice] on Mount Tai and the shan [sacrifice] on Mount Liangfu.48 The seventy or more sages [all] had methods and standards that were different. They were not deliberately opposed to one another; it was that times and the age were different.
For this reason,
they did not follow already established methods;
they followed those for which there was a basis.
Methods that had a basis were those that extended and shifted with transformations. He who can extend and shift with transformations is the noblest among men, that is all. [11/99/7–11]
Thus,
the songs of Hu Liang49 can be followed, but how he created his songs cannot be [re]created.
The methods of the sages can be observed, but how they established their methods cannot be plumbed.
The words of disputing scholars can be heard, but how they formulate their words cannot be given form.
The Chunjun sword50 can be cherished, but Ou Ye’s51 skill cannot be evaluated.52
Now Wang Qiao and Chi Songzi53
exhaled and inhaled,
spitting out the old and internalizing the new.
They cast off form and abandoned wisdom;
they embraced simplicity and returned to genuineness;
in roaming with the mysterious and subtle
above, they penetrated to the clouds and Heaven.
Now if one wants to study their Way and does not attain their nurturing of the qi and their lodging of the spirit but only imitates their every exhale and inhale, their contracting and expanding, it is clear that one will not be able to mount the clouds and ascend on the vapors.
The Five Thearchs and the Three Kings
viewed the world as a light [affair],
minimized the myriad things,
put death and life on a par,
matched alteration and transformation.
They embraced the great heart of a sage by mirroring the dispositions of the myriad things.
Above, they took spirit illumination as their friend;
below, they took creation and transformation as their companions.
Now if one wants to study their Way and does not attain their pure clarity and mysterious sagacity, yet maintains their methods, statutes, rules, and ordinances, it is clear that one cannot achieve order.
Thus it is said:
“Obtaining ten sharp swords is not as good as attaining the skill of Ou Ye;
obtaining one hundred fleet horses is not as good as attaining the arts of Bo Le.” [11/99/11–18]
The ultimate greatness of the Uncarved Block is its being without form or shape;
the ultimate subtlety of the Way is its being without model or measure.
The roundness of Heaven cannot be tested by the compass;
the squareness of Earth cannot be tested by the [carpenter’s] square.
From furthest antiquity to the present days is called “extension-in-time”;
The four directions [plus] up and down are called “extension-in-space.”54
The Way is within their midst, and none can know its location. Thus,
With those who cannot see far, one cannot speak of greatness;
With those whose intelligence is not capacious, one cannot discuss ultimacy.
Of old,
Feng Yi attained the Way and thus became immersed in the Great River,
Qin Fu55 attained the Way and thus lodged on Kunlun.
Through it [i.e., the Way],
Bian Que56 cured illness,
Zaofu drove horses,
Yi shot [arrows],
Chui worked as a carpenter.
What each did was different, yet what they took as the Way was one.
Now those who penetrate things by embodying the Way have no basis on which to reject one another. It is like those who band together to irrigate a field—each receives an equal share of water.
Now if one slaughters an ox and cooks its meat, some will be tart, some will be sweet. Frying, stewing, singeing and roasting, there are myriad ways to adjust the flavor, but it is at base the body of a single ox.
Chopping down a cedar or camphor [tree] and carving and splitting it, some [of it] will become coffins or linings, [and] some [of it] will become pillars and beams. Cutting with or against the grain, its uses are myriad, but it all is the material from a single tree.
Thus, the designations and prescriptions of the words of the Hundred Traditions are mutually opposed, but they cleave to the Way as a single body.
Compare it [i.e., the Way] to silk, bamboo, metal, and stone.57 In concert, they all [make] music. The sound and tradition of each is different, but none is lost from the structure.
The assessment methods of Bo Le, Han Feng, Qin Ya, and Guan Qing58 were all different, but their understanding of horses was as one.
Thus the methods and statutes of the Three Augusts and the Five Thearchs vary, but their attainment of the people’s hearts was equivalent.
Tang entered Xia and used their methods;
King Wu entered Yin and used their rituals.
[The tyrants] Jie and Djou were destroyed using [these methods and rituals],
yet Tang and Wu used them to create order. [11/99/20–11/100/2]
Thus,
[even] when the knife and saw are laid out, if one is not a good craftsman, one cannot shape the wood.
[Even] when the furnace and the earthen molds are prepared, if one is not a skillful smith, one cannot shape the metal.
Butcher Dan cut up nine cows in one morning,59 and his knife was sharp enough to split a hair.
Cook Ding used his knife for nineteen years, and his knife was as if just cast and sharpened.60
Why is this? It roamed among the many spaces.
The compass, the square, the angle rule, and the marking cord are the tools of the skillful but do not make one skilled. Thus if the se has no strings, even a music master61 could not make a tune. [Yet] strings alone cannot produce sorrow. Thus strings are the tools of sorrow; they do not cause one to be sorrowful. The master artisan’s construction of the repeating crossbow, the revolving aperture, the hidden lock, and trompe l ’oeil inlays62 enters into the darkest of subtleties, the ultimate of spiritlike harmony. What wanders in the spaces between the heart and the hand, and is not in the realm of things, is something [even] fathers cannot teach to their sons. A blind musician’s abandoning thought on encountering things, releasing the spirit and rising to dance, [thus] giving it form with strings, is something [even] an elder brother cannot describe to his younger brother.
Now,
one who makes [something] true uses the level;
one who makes something straight uses the marking cord.
Making true or straight without being in the line or on the level is an art that cannot be shared. When one strikes the [note] gong, gong responds; pluck the jue [string], and [another] jue [string] moves. This is the mutual response of identical tones.63 What does not correspond to any of the five tones, but to which all twenty-five strings respond, is the Way, which cannot be transmitted.64 Thus,
solitude is the lord of form;
silence is the ruler of tone. [11/100/4–13]
In the world, “right” and “wrong” have no immutable basis. Each age affirms what it [deems] right and rejects what it [deems] wrong.65 What each calls right and wrong is different, [yet] each [deems] itself right and others wrong. Seen from this [basis],
there are facts that accord with one’s self, yet they are not originally “right.”
There are those that are repellent to one’s heart, yet are not originally “wrong.”
Thus,
those who seek what is “right” do not seek the pattern of the Way; they seek what accords with their selves.
Those who reject what is “wrong” do not criticize what is crooked, they discard what is repellent to their hearts.
What is repellent to me is not necessarily not in accord with others.
What accords with me is not necessarily not rejected by custom.
The “right” of the utmost right has no wrong;
the “wrong” of the utmost wrong has no right.
This is genuine “right” and “wrong.”
As for its being “right” here and “wrong” there, “wrong” here and “right” there, this is called “one right, one wrong.” This one “right” and “wrong” is one corner [of the universe]. The unity [of all] “rights” and “wrongs” is the whole cosmos.66 Now if I want to chose a “right” and lodge there, chose a “wrong” and abandon it, I still cannot know, among what the age calls “right” and “wrong,” which is “right,” and which is “wrong.”67 [11/100/15–21]
The Laozi says:
“Ruling a great state is like cooking a small fish.”68
Those who favor leniency say [it means] “Do not disturb it too much”;
those who favor strictness say, “Give it salt and vinegar, that’s it.”
Duke Ping of Jin let slip words that were not correct. Music Master Kuang raised his qin and bumped into him, so that he tripped on his robe and [struck] the wall. The courtiers wanted to plaster [the damaged spot]. Duke Ping said, “Leave it. This will [remind] me of my fault.”69
Confucius heard this and said, “It is not that Duke Ping did not cherish his body, but that he wanted to attract those who would admonish him.”
Han [Fei]zi heard this and said, “The assembled officials abandoned Ritual and were not punished. This is to condone transgression. This is why Duke Ping did not become hegemon!”70
There was a guest71 who presented someone to Mizi.72 When the visitor73 left, Mizi said, “Your visitor has only three faults.
He looked at me and laughed, this is arrogance.
In conversation he did not mention his teacher, this is effrontery.
His manner was light and his words were deep, this is rebelliousness.”
The guest said,
“He looked at you and laughed, this is impartiality.
In conversation he did not mention his teacher, this is comprehensiveness.
His manner was light and his words were deep, this is loyalty.”
Thus the demeanor [of the visitor]74 was the same,
but one thought him a gentleman, [and]
the other thought him a petty man.
This is the difference of one’s own perspective. [11/100/23–11/101/4]
Thus,
if what they choose and discard correspond, then the words [of a minister to a ruler] will be [deemed] loyal, and they will become increasingly intimate. If their persons are distant, then [although their] plans are appropriate, suspicion will arise.
If his own mother were to treat her son’s scalp boils and blood flowed past his ears, those who saw would consider it the utmost of love. If it were his stepmother, then those passing would think it was jealousy.
The dispositions of these affairs are the same; the point of view is different. From the top of the city wall
oxen look like sheep,
sheep look like pigs,
because where one stands is high.
Peer at your face in a pan of water and it is round;
peer at it in a cup of water and it is oval.
The shape of one’s face has not altered from what it was. It is now round, now oval because where one looks at it is different.
Now although I want to rectify my person in facing things, how can I, without deliberation, know the viewpoint from which the age peers at me? If I turn and transform and race along with the age, this is like trying to flee the rain. There is nowhere to go where I will not get wet.
If I constantly want to reside in emptiness, then I cannot become empty. If I do not make myself empty and become empty spontaneously, none of my goals will not be met.75
Thus one who comprehends the Way is like the axle of a cart. He himself does not move, yet with the wheel he reaches one thousand li. He turns at the limitless origin. One who does not comprehend the Way is as if lost and confused. If you tell him east, west, south, north, his position is clear. As soon as there is a turn, he strays and suddenly does not grasp it; again he is lost and confused. Thus to the end of his days, he is a servant to others, like a weather vane76 in the wind. He is not stable for an instant. Thus the sage embodies the Way and returns to nature; he does not transform in facing transformation, thus he comes close to withdrawal. [11/101/4–14]
In an ordered age,
the structure is easy to maintain;
its affairs are easy to do;
its rites are easy to practice;
its duties are easy to fulfill.
For this reason,
no person occupies two offices;
no officer manages two affairs.
Scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants [keep] separate communities and [live in] different regions.
Farmers discuss strength with one another;
scholars discuss conduct with one another;
artisans discuss skill with one another;
merchants discuss numbers with one another.
Thus,
scholars have no negligent conduct;
farmers have no wasted effort;
artisans have no odious tasks;
merchants have no debased goods.
Each rests secure in his nature; they are not able to interfere with one another.
Thus when Yi Yin started earthworks,
those with long legs were set to treading on shovels,77
those with strong backs were set to carrying earth,
those who were blind in one eye were set to [reading the] level,
hunchbacks were set to applying stucco.
Each had (a task) that was appropriate to him, and people’s natures were put on a par.
The people of Hu are accustomed to horses;
the people of Yue are accustomed to boats.
They have different forms and separate categories.
If they exchange tasks, they will be upset;
if they lose their positions, they will be denigrated;
if they achieve their [potential] force, they will be honored.
The sage takes up [both] and uses them; their worth is as one [to him]. [11/101/16–21]
Foreknowledge and farsightedness,
vision reaching to a thousand li away,
are the zenith of human talent,
yet in an ordered age this is not expected of the people.
Broad learning and strength of will,
eloquent speech and fluent words,
are the perfection of human intelligence,
yet the enlightened ruler does not demand this of his subordinates.
Disdaining the age and scorning [material] things,
being uncorrupted by vulgarity,
are the upright conduct of a scholar,
yet in an ordered age these are not used to transform the people.
The repeating crossbow and the hidden lock,
the curved knife leaving no trace,78
are the most marvelous [products] of human skill,
yet an ordered age does not make these the task of the people.
Thus Chang Hong and Music Master Kuang had foreknowledge of calamity and good fortune; their words contained no failed plans; yet they could not serve in office among the many.
Gongsun Long79 broke arguments and repelled words, distinguishing like and unlike, discriminating between the hard and the white, [yet] he could not share his Way with the multitude.
Beiren Wuze80 rejected Shun and threw himself into the Qingling Pool, [yet] he could not serve as a model for the age.
Lu Ban and Mozi made kite hawks out of wood and they flew, not landing for three days,81 yet no one could employ them as carpenters.
Thus
what is so lofty as to be unreachable cannot be the measure of humans;
conduct that cannot be matched cannot be made the custom of the kingdom. [11/101/23–11/102/3]
[One who] can judge heavy and light by holding [things] without being off by a zhu or a liang82 the sage does not use; [instead,] he hangs things on the scales.
[One who] can judge high and low [deviations from the horizontal] by sight without being off by a foot or an inch the enlightened ruler does not employ; [instead,] he seeks it with the water level.
Why is this? Human talent cannot be employed reliably, but standards and measures can be passed down from generation [to generation].
Thus
the order of the kingdom may be maintained with the foolish,
and the control of the army can be used with the powerful.
If you wait to harness [only] Yaoniao or Feitu,83 then you will not mount a chariot in this age.
If you wait to be matched only with Xi Shi or Mao Qiang, then you will not be married to the end of your life.
This being so, if people have made do without awaiting the heroes of antiquity, it is because they went along with what they had and used it. Qiji could traverse one thousand li in a single day. An inferior horse requires ten rest stops, but in ten days it will still get there. Looking at it from this [perspective], human talent cannot be exclusively relied on, yet the techniques of the Way can be universally practiced. In the methods of a chaotic age,
the lofty is made the measure, and those who do not reach it are incriminated;
duties are weighty, and those who cannot overcome them are punished;
tests are perilous, and those who do not dare are executed.
The people are trapped by these three demands, thus
they ornament their intelligence and cheat their superiors;
they commit depravity and shirk [their duties].
Thus although there are harsh laws and severe punishments, one cannot contain their wickedness. Why is this? Force is insufficient. Thus a maxim says:
“When a bird is desperate, it grasps for food with its beak;
when a beast is desperate, it roots for food with its horns;
when a person is desperate, he deceives.”
This says it. [11/102/5–13]
The standard of the Way and Potency is comparable to the sun and moon.
[Moving] south of the Yangzi or north of the Yellow River cannot change its position.
Speeding across one thousand li cannot alter its location.
Choosing and rejecting, rites and customs are comparable to a home.
The house to the east calls it “the west house”;
the house to the west calls it “the east house.”
Even if Gao Yao ordered it for them, he could not fix its location.84
Thus,
choosing and rejecting are equal;
blame and praise are rooted in custom.
Intentions and conduct are matched;
failure and success reside in the [circumstances of] the time.
Tang and Wu’s accrual of conduct and accumulation of goodness can be matched. Their meeting Jie and Djou was a bequest of Heaven. Now if you have the intention of Tang or Wu yet lack the timely [circumstances] of [encountering] Jie and Djou and want to complete the task of a hegemon or king, you will not get close to it.
In the past, King Wu raised the spear and grasped the battle-axe in conquering Yin.
He held the jade tablet and leaned on the wooden cane in attending court. When King Wu died, the people of Yin revolted. The Duke of Zhou moved into the Eastern Palace and mounted the royal chariot. Assuming the position of the Son of Heaven [and] with his back to the screen, he convened the Lords of the Land. He exiled Cai Shu, executed Guan Shu,85 conquered Yin, and punished the Shang. Sacrificing to King Wen, after seven years he gave over the government to King Cheng. Now that King Wu was first martial and then civil is not that his intentions had altered; it was that he responded to the times. That the Duke of Zhou exiled his older brother and executed his second brother was not that he was not humane; it was that he was rectifying chaos. Thus when one’s affairs comprehend the age, one’s merit will be complete; when one’s tasks accord with the times, one’s name will be established. [11/102/15–22]
In the past, Duke Huan of Qi convened the Lords of the Land with ceremonial chariots; withdrawing, he punished his state with the battle-axe.
Duke Wen of Jin convened the Lords of the Land with war chariots; withdrawing, he managed his kingdom with Ritual and Rightness.
Duke Huan was soft at first and hard later.
Duke Wen was hard at first and soft later;
yet in their orders being carried out throughout the world, their authority controlling the Lords of the Land, they were the same. They had investigated the alterations of the strategic situation.
The ruler of Lu wanted to make Yan He86 his prime minister, yet [Yan He] was unwilling. [The duke] sent someone with silk as an advance [gift], but [Yan He] cut a hole in his wall and absconded, [later] becoming a renowned warrior in the world. If he had met with Shang Yang or Shen Buhai, the death penalty would have extended to the third [degree of relatedness] of his family, not to mention his own person!87 The age often singles out people of antiquity and looks up to their conduct. All ages have those who are the same, yet their nobility is not known. It is not because their talent was inferior; it is because the times were not right.
For crossing the Yangzi or the Yellow River, six [horses like] Qiji or four Northern Di stallions do not match the convenience of a hollow log. The dynamic of the location makes it so. For this reason, a person who establishes his merit is relaxed about his conduct yet meticulous about the time. The common people of the current age
take completed merit as worthiness,
triumph over adversity as intelligence,
encountering difficulty as foolishness,
and dying for duty as stubbornness.
I regard each as having reached one’s limit, that is all. [11/102/24–11/103/2]
Prince Bi Gan was not unaware of [the strategy of] disheveling his hair and feigning madness to avoid [injury to] his person.88 However, he took joy in [maintaining] upright conduct and utmost loyalty in dying for his duty; thus he would not do it.
Bo Yi and Shu Qi89 were not unable to accept a salary and hold office to extend their merit. However, they took joy in departing from the age and acting loftily in transcending the multitude; thus they would not serve.
Xu You and Shan Juan were not incapable of grasping the world, pacifying the realm in making the people virtuous. However, they were ashamed to allow things to pollute their harmony; thus they would not accept it.
Yu Rang and Yao Li90 were not unaware of enjoying one’s home, resting content with one’s wife and children in living easily. However, they took joy in extending their sincerity and fulfilling obligation in dying for their ruler; thus they would not refrain.
Now,
if we follow Jizi in viewing Bi Gan, he was foolish.
If we follow Bi Gan in viewing Jizi, he was base.
If we follow Guan [Zhong] and Yan [Ying] in viewing Bo Yi and Shu Qi, they were stubborn.
If we follow Bo Yi and Shu Qi in viewing Guan and Yan, they were greedy.
Their choosing and rejecting negated each other; their wants and desires were mutually opposed; yet each took joy in his affairs. Who can be employed [to judge] which was correct?
Zengzi said: “When you strike [the side of] a boat in the water,
the birds hear it and fly high;
the fish hear it and plunge deep.”91
Where each tends is different, yet each attains what is suitable to it.
Huizi92 crossed the Mengzhu [Marsh] with a retinue of one hundred chariots. Zhuangzi saw him and threw away his leftover fish.93
The pelican drinks several dou of water, yet it is not enough.
If the cicada gets so much as a mouthful of mist, it is full.94
Earl Zhi had all three Jin [states], and his desires were not sated;
Lin Lei’s95 and Rong Qiji’s clothes were ragged and tattered, but their thoughts were unperturbed.
Viewing it from this [perspective], each of their predilections and conduct was different, how could they refute one another?
One who highly values life will not harm himself for profit;
one who establishes discipline will not negligently avoid difficulty when faced with it;
one who lusts for emolument will not consider his person in the face of profit;
and one who loves reputation will not [accept] gain in neglect of Rightness.
These standards set against one another are like ice and charcoal, angle rule and marking cord;96 when will they ever accord? If you take the sage as a standard, then he comprehensively covers and completely contains them, so there never can be a “right” and a “wrong.”
The flying bird favors the nest;
the fox favors the burrow.
Nesters attain a perch when the nest is complete;
burrowers attain a rest when the burrow is made.
Choosing and rejecting, conduct and Rightness are also the perch and rest of human beings. [When] each takes joy in what makes him secure [and] arrives at his destination, [then] he is called a “complete person.” Thus the standard of the Way combines them and puts them on a par. [11/103/4–17]
In the Way of the ordered state,
superiors do not give harsh orders;
officials do not confuse the government;
scholars do not falsify their conduct;
artisans do not make licentious use of their skill.
Its affairs are regular and untroubled;
its implements are complete and unornamented.
A chaotic age is not like this.
Those who partake in conduct vie to outdo one another in loftiness;
those who partake in Ritual take pride in [surpassing] one another in artifice.
Chariots are excessively carved;
implements are exhaustively engraved.
Those who seek goods vie for those that are hard to obtain as treasures.
Those who value writing fix complexity and distortions as [signs of] intelligence.
They compete to create false disputations. Accumulating for a long while without cease, these are of no aid to order. Craftsmen make exotic implements. Complete only after a year has passed, these do not increase utility.
Thus the laws of the Divine Farmer said:
“If a man is able-bodied97 and does not farm, someone in the world will be hungry as a result.
If a woman does not weave over the course of a year, someone in the world will be cold as a result.”
Thus each man farming for himself
and each wife personally spinning
was made the priority of the world. In guiding the people,
he did not value goods that were hard to obtain;
he did not take useless objects as implements.
For this reason,
those who did not exert strength in farming did not have the means to nourish life;
those who did not exert effort in weaving did not have the means to cover their bodies.
Surplus or dearth came back to each person individually.
Clothing and food were plentiful;
wickedness and deviance did not appear.
[People were] secure, happy, and without incident, and the world was at peace.
Thus Confucius and Zeng Can had nowhere to practice their goodness,
Meng Ben and Cheng Jing98 had nowhere to effect their might. [11/103/19–26]
In the customs of a declining age, people employ their understanding and skill to [create] the fake and the false; they ornament every kind of useless [thing].
They value goods from distant places,
treasure materials that are hard to obtain,
and do not accumulate the instruments for nurturing life.
They dilute what is concentrated in the world;
they fragment what is uncarved in the world;
they corral and subjugate horses and oxen as sacrificial beasts. They fool the myriad people, turning the pure into the sullied. Nature and destiny fly away; all is chaotic and confused. Sincerity and trust are thrown into turmoil; people lose their genuine dispositions and nature.
With this there appears
kingfisher feathers, rhino [horn] and ivory, embroidery and elegant patterns to confuse their eyes;
grass-fed and grain-fed [animals]; the aromas of Jing and Wu to tempt their mouths;
[the sound of] bells, drums, pipes and flutes, strings, bamboo, metal, and stone to seduce their ears;
choosing and rejecting, conduct and Rightness, Ritual and discipline, criticism and argumentation to bind their minds.
At this point, the common people are turbulent and confused; all day they chase after profit. They are vexed and shallow. The laws and Rightness negate each other; conduct and profit oppose each other. Even ten Guan Zhongs could not bring [this situation] to order. [11/103/28–11/104/4]
Moreover, the rich have
carriages draped with red silk and embroidery;
and horses ornamented with plumes and ivory.
Their tents and seat cushions,
silken clothes and belts,
have interweaving [patterns of] green and yellow;
they cannot be pictured.
In the summer the poor wear hemp clothes belted with rope; they gulp beans and drink water to fill their bellies and to repel the heat. In the winter their wools and furs are torn and tattered; their short hemp coats do not cover their frames; and they blow into the stove’s mouth. Thus, while in being registered as commoners in the household registers, they are no different, the [actual] difference between the rich and the poor cannot even compare with that between the ruler and a slave or a captive.
Those who employ strange arts and practice deviant ways have enough to last a generation.
Those who maintain rectitude, follow order, and do not acquire negligently cannot avoid the calamity of hunger and cold.
Yet we want the people to discard the branches and return to the root. This is like opening up a spring and stopping its flow. Moreover,
carving, polishing, cutting and engraving are what harm the tasks of farmers.
Embroidering cloth and patterning belts are what impair the work of women.
When the task of farmers is abandoned
and women’s work is injured,
this is the root of hunger and the source of cold. One who can avoid committing crime and facing punishment when both hunger and cold arrive has never been known. [11/104/6–13]
Humaneness and depravity reside in timeliness, not in conduct;
profit and harm reside in fate, not in intelligence.
Among the soldiers of a defeated army brave warriors will flee; the commander cannot stop them.
Within the ranks of a victorious army, cowards will march to their deaths; the fearful cannot run away.
Thus when the Yangzi and the Yellow River overflow, the fathers and sons, elder and younger brothers, of a single village will abandon one another and flee. They will fight to mount high mounds or to climb high hills. Those who are fleet of foot will get there first; they cannot look after one another. When the age is happy and wills are set on peace, if they see the people of a neighboring kingdom drown, they still will grieve for them, how much more so for their own family and kin!
Thus,
when one’s person is secure [and] kindness reaches to the neighboring kingdom, one will exert oneself to the utmost.
When one’s person is endangered, then one forgets one’s family and kin, [and] Humaneness offers no solution.
One who is swimming cannot save [another] from drowning; his hand and feet are occupied.
One who is burning cannot save [another] from the flames; his body is in pain.
If the people have surplus, they will yield;
if they lack enough, they will fight.
When they yield, then Ritual and Rightness are generated;
if they fight, then tyranny and chaos will result.
If you knock on someone’s door and ask for water or fire, none will fail to give it, because they have enough to lend.
In forests no one sells firewood;
on lakes no one sells fish;
Because there is a surplus. Thus,
when things are plentiful, desires are reduced,
when demands are fulfilled, fighting ceases.
During the time of the king of Qin [i.e., Qin Shihuangdi], some people cooked their own children because material benefits were insufficient.
When the Liu clan took control of the government, widows took in orphans because there was surplus wealth.
Thus,
when the age is ordered, petty people will maintain rectitude; they cannot be enticed by profit.
When the age is in chaos, gentlemen will commit wickedness; the law cannot restrain them. [11/104/15–24]
Translated by Andrew Meyer
1. This line echoes the famous opening lines of the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean).
2. Like 8.3, which this passage closely resembles, these lines paraphrase Laozi 38.
3. Taking dalu 
as equivalent to dalu 
; commentators describe this as a royal chariot.
4. A banner with two intertwining dragons, a symbol of the Son of Heaven. See Zhou li 6.3/80/5.
5. Wallacker 1962, 30nn.30, 31. For similar metamorphoses, see 4.11 and 5.3.
6. Grand Duke Wang (Taigong Wang 
) is said to have been the military commander of the Zhou army at the battle that resulted in the overthrow of the Shang dynasty. His Jiang clan ruled Qi until overthrown by the Tian.
7. The Tian was a clan of Qi vassals who overthrew the ruling Jiang house and established themselves as “dukes” (subsequently “kings”) of Qi.
8. Following Sun Yirang’s reading of yan 
as yi 
(11/94/14). The quotation is from Changes, hexagram 2, Kun 
.
9. These two phrases allude to traditional stories about the tyrant Djou, the evil last ruler of the Shang dynasty. Djou was supposed to have had a drinking party so excessive that at the end a mountain was made from the dregs of the wine consumed. He is also said to have invented the pao luo, a metal beam kept white hot by coals across which one condemned to torture was forced to walk. According to the Huainanzi, each of these monstrosities had incipient beginnings, the former in the frivolous use of ivory chopsticks at Djou’s court (the first sign of his predilection for luxury), and the latter in the accidental burning of someone by a hot ladle (the initial inspiration for the pao luo torture). The “roasting beam” is also mentioned in 2.14, 10.89, 12.35, 15.2, and 21.4.
10. This story is told in 12.12.
11. These all are types of ancient music. Xian chi 
, “Pool of [Shaman] Xian,” is also the name of a constellation. See 3.4, 3.19, 3.25, and 4.16; and Major 1993, 199.
12. The character 
here implies both le (joy) and yue (music).
13. Lau, HNZ, 94n.12; Wallacker 1962, 55n.54.
14. See 11/94/29. The li 
is said to be a snake with supernatural qualities. See Wallacker 1962, 55n.55. Some editions read “spirit snake” instead of “black snake.” See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1125n.10.
15. Reading chang 
as di 
. The quotation is from Laozi 3.
16. Xie 
, according to tradition, was the ancestor of the Shang royal house. He is mentioned in the “Canon of Shun” of the Documents.
17. Laozi 80.
18. The xiang 
and diti 
were interpreters employed to facilitate interactions between the Chinese Central States and their “barbarian” neighbors. See the similar phrasing that appears in the Lüshi chunqiu: “[All states] that do not use the xiang and di interpreters” (LSCQ 17.6/105/16). Their exact functions are unknown. See Chen Qiyou 
, Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi 
, 2 vols. (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 1984), 2:1108, 1112n.7; Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1134n.8; and 20.8.
19. Longxi was a commandery in the northwestern territory of the Han Empire (in what is today Gansu Province). “Swimming in Longxi” evidently was or became a recognizable trope for a dangerous or foolhardy activity, but if there was an antecedent text that helps explain why, it has been lost. Ying Ju (d. 252) evokes it in his “Letter to Cousins Junmiao and Junwei” (Wen xuan 42:1918–22). Li Shan’s (d. 689) commentary to the Wen xuan cites this Huainanzi passage by way of explanation, thus by the Tang period, whatever source text (if any) to which the Huainanzi is alluding must have been lost.
20. This reproduces part of a dialogue found in Zhuangzi 21 (21/57/16–18). See the translation of the Zhuangzi parallel in Burton Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 224. As Watson notes, the meaning here is not completely transparent in either the Zhuangzi parallel or the Huainanzi context. The sense seems to be that true personal advancement depends on “forgetting” the constituents of individual identity. Thus Confucius teaches best when he forgets Yan Hui, and Hui studies best when he forgets Confucius. What “persists” in the wake of such forgetting is pristine nature, which is merged with the Way.
21. Xi Fuji gave Duke Wen of Jin some food when the latter wandered through Cao in exile, thus establishing himself in the duke’s good graces after he assumed the title of hegemon. See Zuozhuan, Xi 23. See also 12.22 and 18.18. Duke Xian of Jin used the offer of the Chuiji jade as a ruse to destroy the states of Yu and Guo. See 7.16, 10.47, 17.87, and 18.5; and Zuozhuan, Xi 2.
22. Zhao Dun (Xuanmeng) gave some dried meat to a starving man who later spared Zhao’s life. See Zuozhuan, Xuan 2; and LSCQ 15.4/84/8–18. Earl Zhi used the gift of a great bell as a ruse to destroy the Qiuyou people. See ZGC 24/8/22–29 and LSCQ 15/2/82/8–14.
23. Gongxi Hua 
was a disciple of Confucius. See Analects 7.34 and 11.22, 26.
24. Goujian 
ruled Yue from 491 to 465 B.C.E. See Shiji 41.
25. Following the gloss in Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1145n.34.
26. That is, the lengthy mourning period advocated by Confucius and his followers.
27. The brief mourning period advocated by Mozi and his followers.
28. Following Xu Shen. See Zhuang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1148n.3.
29. The authors of the Huainanzi are distinguishing between feelings (such as sorrow and grief ), which are internal, and actions (such as specific rites of burial and interment), which reflect learned behavior (nurture) and thus are external.
30. The Caiqi 
and Sixia 
were music purportedly played at state occasions at the Zhou court. When the occasion called for walking, the Sixia would be played, and when protocol demanded hurrying, the Caiqi would be played. See Zhou li (Rites of Zhou), Spring Offices, the Master of Music (yue shi).
31. Wang Yinzhi feels that this sentence should be omitted. See Lau, HNZ, 98n.1.
32. The Youhu 
were a clan that rebelled against the Xia upon the investiture of their second king, Qi.
33. Youyu 
—that is, the sage-king Shun.
34. The musicological history outlined in this section roughly parallels that laid out in Lüshi chunqiu 5.5. The two texts share most of the same basic elements and sequence them in the same chronological order. LSCQ, however, begins the sequence earlier, before the reign of the Yellow Emperor, so the two texts do not closely accord until the latter eras of the Shang and Zhou.
35. For the referent of “Pool of Xian,” see 3.4 and 4.16. “Pool of Xian” is listed as accompanying a Zhou-dynasty ritual dance in Zhou li 3.21/41/16. “Bearing Clouds” 
is invoked in CC 5/18/17; Wang Yi’s commentary equates it with the “Cloud Gates” 
, an ancient musical form mentioned throughout the early literature. The “nine harmonies” 
are also mentioned in the Zhou li as part of the ritual repertory of the Zhou, where they are rendered as 
.
36. This and the following three paragraphs describe the historical succession from the era of sage-kings through Xia, Shang, and Zhou, according to the “mutual overcoming” order of the Five Phases as indicated by the attributes and colors described for each reign. Earth (yellow) is overcome by Wood (green), which is overcome by Metal (white), which is overcome by Fire (red). The next stage in the sequence would be Water (black). An implicit argument is being made here for Water and black to be the appropriate emblems of the current dynasty.
37. The sha was a fan-shaped shroud draped over the coffin of the entombed.
38. Lau takes the phrase 
to refer to two proper nouns: the “Pipes of Xia” and the “Nine Perfections.” There is little corroboration for the reading of “Nine Perfections,” however, so we followed Knoblock and Riegel’s 2000, 150, translation of the parallel passage in LSCQ 5.5, rendering 
as “nine movements.”
39. The “Pipes of Xia” are mentioned in Liji 29.4/137/15. The “Six Dance Troops” 
, “Six Lines” 
, and “Six Blossoms” 
are unique to the Huainanzi and its parallel Lüshi chunqiu text.
40. The “Great Melody” is translated on the acceptance of Lau’s proposed emendation from 
to 
. The latter is a form of ancient music mentioned in Zhou li 3.21/41/12. “Morning Dew” 
is first mentioned as a form of ancient music in the Lüshi chunqiu.
41. “Grand Martiality” is given as the name of a Zhou musical form in the Zhou li. “Three Elephants” 
and “Beneath the Mulberry” 
are first mentioned in the parallel Lüshi chunqiu text.
42. The syntax of the original text is convoluted, but this seems to be the sense of the metaphor. Chinese zitherlike instruments, such as the twenty-five-string se, had wooden bridges that could be moved back and forth along the strings to adjust their pitch. A Three Kingdoms (220–265 C.E.) text contains this anecdote: “A man of Qi went to a man of Zhao to study the se. He relied on [the teacher] to first tune it, then glued the bridges in place and went home. For three years he could not play a single melody” (Handan Chun 
[fl. ca. 221 C.E.], Xiao lin 
). Something akin to this anecdote seems to be the context of the Huainanzi ’s imagery.
43. We follow Sun Yirang’s comments in translating wenju shuduan 
as “round and square patterns.” We also follow Sun in dropping the final character, xie 
, from the end of the sentence. Xie literally means “shoes,” and Sun notes that it would be incongruent for the text to begin discussing shoes at this point. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1156n.27.
44. The character in the original text, zhuan 
, literally means “to turn.” It comprises the semantic element zhuan 
(to concentrate) plus the “cart” radical on the left. The latter zhuan (concentrate) seems to fit the context of the passage better.
45. This refers to two forms of ancient ritual practice. Straw dogs were made to carry the transgressions of the community, and earthen dragons were fashioned to pray for rain.
46. This refers to a particular martial ritual dance performed in the ancestral temple.
47. Yu and zhi were two of the tones on the Chinese pentatonic scale; thus this phrase means something like “they laugh at F sharp on the basis of A flat.”
48. The feng 
and shan 
sacrifices were considered the most august prerogative of the imperial government from Qin times onward. Their preimperial origins (if any) are obscure. The earliest information on them is recorded in Shiji 28.
49. Although the current text of the Huainanzi gives this figure’s name as 
, several commentators suggest emending this to 
on the basis of Tang citations. No extant early texts mention Hu Liang, but the commentaries to two Tang-era encyclopedias gloss the name as that of “an excellent singer of antiquity” (Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1163n.20).
50. A fabled sword, comparable to Excalibur in Arthurian legend.
51. Ou Ye 
(Smelter Ou) was a fabled sword maker of Yue during the reign of King Goujian (r. 496–465 B.C.E.). He is mentioned in texts such as the Yue jue shu and Wu Yue chunqiu.
52. Emending the text to preserve the parallelism with the context that precedes it. The original reads: “A pure steel sword can not be cherished, but Ou Ye’s skill can be valued [gui].”
53. Wang Qiao 
and Chi Songzi 
(usually rendered 
) were fabled adepts whose personal cultivation had elevated them to the level of “immortals” 
and imbued them with uncanny powers. Hanfeizi 20 mentions Chi Songzi; both figures are prominent in lore about immortals from the Han onward.
54. For the terms yu 
(extension in space) and zhou 
(extension in time), see chap. 3, n.1.
55. Qin Fu
is evidently the same legendary figure who appears in a roughly parallel passage in Zhuangzi 6. There his name is given as Kan Pi 
. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1167n.3.
56. Bian Que 
was physician of legendary skill who lived in the late sixth century B.C.E.
57. That is, stringed instruments, wind instruments, bells, and chimestones.
58. Han Feng 
, Qin Ya 
, and Guan Qing 
were fabled horse assessors of olden times and are mentioned in tandem as adhering to mutually distinctive methods in LSCQ 20.8/138/5–9, although the names of Han Feng and Guan Qing are rendered slightly differently. For Bo Le, see 11.10 and 12.25.
59. Guanzi 29 records this incident but gives no further information about Butcher Dan.
60. Cook Ding is a sagely chef famously portrayed in Zhuangzi 3.
61. Following Xu Shen’s gloss of 
as 
. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1172n.23.
62. The term lianji 
is reasonably securely identifiable as a “repeating crossbow.” Translations of the other terms in this sentence are tentative. The sliding shutter mechanism of the famous Han gilded lamp in the shape of a servant, from the tomb of Dou Wan, may be an example of a yun kai 
,“revolving aperture.” See Historical Relics Unearthed in New China (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1972), pl. 99. For xuanzuo 
, which seems to mean “fool-the-eye inlay,” see the cunningly contrived and deceptive objects named as “extravagances of wood” in 8.9. See Lau, HNZ 8/65/1–3.
63. This is an example of musical resonance often cited as a demonstration of greater “cosmic” resonance. Gong and jue are tones in the pentatonic scale. If two stringed instruments in the same room are tuned to each other, when the gong string on one is struck, the corresponding string on its counterpart will vibrate.
64. This paragraph echoes a passage in 6.4.
65. Some of the sense of the Chinese has been sacrificed to smooth English usage here. The original text literally reads “Each age rights [shi 
] what it rights and wrongs [fei 
] what it wrongs.”
66. The text is somewhat unclear at this point. We translated it to agree with the overall sense of the passage. Tao Hongqing suggests that the text may be corrupt at this point and that it might have read originally as something like “This is the right and wrong of one corner, not the right and wrong of the cosmos” (Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1175n.4).
67. Following an emendation of the text suggested by Chen Guanlou, eliminating the characters bu zhi before “which is right and which is wrong” (Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1176n.5).
68. Laozi 60.
69. A more detailed version of this anecdote appears in HFZ 36/115/22–25.
70. The current text of the Hanfeizi does not give this judgment verbatim, but it does record a very negative assessment of Music Master Kuang’s actions.
71. This anecdote appears in ZGC 257/136/22–25.
72. Mi Zijian 
(b. 511 B.C.E.) was a disciple of Confucius. He is mentioned in Analects 5.3.
73. The character translated as “visitor” here (bin 
) is the same as that translated as “guest” in the previous sentence, but the context makes clear that the referent is different in both cases. The text seems to have been corrupted in transmission. See Lau, HNZ, 100n.8; and Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1177n.13.
74. The text refers here to “the demeanor of the guest,” but again the reference is to the person who was introduced to Mizi, not to the “guest” who introduced him.
75. Emending the text as suggested by Wang Niansun. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1179n.26.
76. The type of weather vane used in ancient China would have been a plume or a pennant on a staff set to blow in the wind. Thus the next line, “he is not stable for an instant.”
77. Emending the text in accordance with Wang Niansun and others. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1183n.2.
78. This translation breaks the parallelism of the two clauses shenji yinbi 
, jijue wuji 
. It is possible that wuji should also be translated nominally, referring to some artifact of the Western Han known as a “traceless,” the record of which has been lost. Alternatively, yinbi might be meant to modify shenji; thus the first clause would read “the repeating crossbow with its hidden lock,” and the second phrase would then mean something like “the engraving tool that leaves no traces.”
79. Gongsun Long 
(b. 498 B.C.E.) was a renowned logician of the Warring States period, famous for his assertion that “a white horse is not a horse.”
80. The legendary figure Beiren Wuze 
appears in LSCQ 19.1 and ZZ 28.
81. Mozi 49 records that Lu Ban 
(also known as Gongshu 
Ban [fl. ca. 450 B.C.E.]) constructed an ingenious bird, which Mozi himself derided as impractical.
82. A liang was an ancient unit of weight roughly comparable to an ounce. One liang was equal to twenty-four zhu.
83. Yaoniao 
and Feitu 
were famous horses of legend, sire and foal.
84. That is, even a sage could not make it consistently “the east house” or “the west house”; the terminology always depends on the frame of reference.
85. Cai Shu 
and Guan Shu 
were, like the Duke of Zhou, younger brothers of King Wu. They defied the Duke of Zhou’s assumption of the regency on behalf of the underage King Cheng. Their punishment by the Duke of Zhou is described in the Documents. See Shang shu 37/32/21– 37/34/6. See also 20.14 and 20.25; and chap. 21, n. 31.
86. Yan He 
was reportedly a hermit-knight of Lu during the reign of Duke Ai (r. 494–467 B.C.E.). A slightly altered version of this tale appears in ZZ 28 and LSCQ 2.2.
87. That is, the Duke of Lu was willing to overlook Yan He’s desire to decline office; but if a Legalist had been in control of the state, Yan He would have been liable to drastic punishment for the same act.
88. Prince Bi Gan 
was the uncle of King Djou, the wicked last ruler of the Shang dynasty. He admonished the ruler for his excesses and was put to death. Here he is implicitly contrasted with Jizi 
, another uncle and retainer of King Djou, who was able to escape Bi Gan’s fate by feigning madness.
89. Shu Qi 
was the younger brother of Bo Yi. Both died of starvation together on Mount Shouyang. See Shiji 61.
90. Yao Li 
was a retainer of King Helü of Wu who consented to being falsely incriminated and to his wife’s being executed so that he might get close to one of his king’s enemies. His story is recounted in LSCQ 11.3.
91. A parallel saying is found in 10.33.
92. Huizi 
(Hui Shi 
) was a sophist who served as chief minister of King Hui of Liang (r. 370– 319 B.C.E.).
93. Zhuangzi’s gesture was one of disgust at the display of excess he had just witnessed.
94. Following Sun Yirang’s proposed emendation. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1194n.26.
95. Lin Lei 
was, according to Xu Shen, a “worthy recluse.” See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1195n.28.
96. These two pairs are meant to exemplify cold and hot, curved and straight. For ice and charcoal, see also 16.14.
97. Zhangfu 
, “a full-grown man.”
98. Cheng Jing 
was a knight of Qi renowned for his courage during the Spring and Autumn period. He is mentioned in LSCQ 8.2.