AS THEIR similar titles suggest, chapter 16, “A Mountain of Persuasions,” and chapter 17, “A Forest of Persuasions,” are collections of brief, persuasive utterances that share the same literary form and didactic function in the text. Given these similarities, we have chosen to treat these chapters together as a pair and to follow chapter 21 of the Huainanzi, “An Overview of the Essentials,” which similarly summarizes these chapters together. Their purpose seems to be to provide a kind of repository of aphorisms that could be used in a variety of settings where the performative aspects of language were crucial, such as in oral deliberation, instruction, and debate. According to the summary in chapter 21, the brief utterances collected in these two chapters would enable the reader “to skillfully and elegantly penetrate and bore open the blockages and obstructions of the many affairs and thoroughly and comprehensively penetrate and pierce the barriers and hindrances of the myriad things.” These “talking points” then would give a person engaged in oral argument or instruction a kind of arsenal of well-turned phrases with which to capture the essence of difficult concepts and thereby avoid potential snags and obstructions.
The Chapter Titles
The character 
can be read, as we explain at greater length later, as either shuo or shui. We read the titles of chapters 16 and 17 as “Shui shan” 
and “Shui lin” 
and have translated them as “A Mountain of Persuasions” and “A Forest of Persuasions.” Even though an alternative reading of “Shuo shan” and “Shuo lin” (with the rendering “A Mountain of Talk” and “A Forest of Talk”) also would be legitimate, we have chosen “Persuasions” to highlight the particular genre of persuasive oratory collected in these chapters and to underscore its possible function in oral argument and debate. In other words, the short sayings collected in these chapters were meant both to illustrate and to persuade the listener to accept some fundamental point about the nature of a wide array of topics from the “many affairs” to the “myriad things.”
We believe the various readings and usages of this character, shuo /shui 
, are important keys to understanding the manner in which oral literature—by which we mean any composition (either transmitted orally or recorded in writing) that was meant to be performed orally rather than simply read—was collected, collated, anthologized, and interpreted to serve the broader philosophical purposes of various Warring States and Han collections.
The character 
is found in a number of chapter and book titles from the late Warring States period through the Han dynasty, with several distinct readings and related connotations as shuo and shui. When read as shuo, the term in its most general sense of “talk” indicates the originally oral character of materials collected in a chapter or book or materials in the literary form of a spoken story. In this broadest sense, shuo could be either short expressions or narratives or more extended conversations between two or more people. Thus Liu Xiang’s famous collection Shuo yuan 
might be rendered A Garden of Talk. It was likely given that title to indicate the author’s intention of creating an anthology of various types of oral lore and performative literature. Its chapter titles give a sense of the collection’s range, from well-known brief maxims, ditties, or sayings (Tan cong 
[A Thicket of Remarks]) to exemplary exchanges between famous statesmen and philosophers trying to persuade those who held power to accept their particular point of view (Shan shui 
[Admirable Persuasions]) to outright remonstrations meant specifically to critique and redirect the actions or policies of a ruler (Zheng jian 
[Upright Remonstrances]). When read as shuo, the character could also denote more specifically an “explanation” or “illustration,” as in the “Nei chu shuo” 
(Inner Collection of Illustrations), “Wai chu shuo” 
(Outer Collection of Illustrations), and “Shuo yi” 
(Illustrations of Questionable [Conduct]) chapters of the Hanfeizi.
Read as shui, the character indicates a particular form of oral exchange or discourse for which we use the English term “persuasion” somewhat unconventionally as a countable noun. Accordingly, shui could be understood as a particular type of shuo —that is, as a recorded conversation or exchange in which the chief speaker tries to persuade the listener of a clearly articulated point of view or policy position. As Xunzi explained, a successful persuasion adheres to a carefully modulated series of techniques of oration:
Approach the topic with dignity and gravity; dwell on it with seriousness and sincerity; hold to it with firmness and strength; clarify it by providing examples and precepts; illustrate it by making distinctions and differences; and present it with exuberance and ardor. If you make it something precious, rare, noble, and sublime, your persuasion will always and invariably be well received. Even if you do not persuade others [of your point], none will fail to esteem you. This may indeed be described as “being able to bring esteem to what one esteems.” A tradition says: “It is only the gentleman who is capable of bringing esteem to what he esteems.” This expresses it.1
A well-known early example of such a usage of the term denoting a collection of persuasions is the similarly titled “Shui lin” (A Forest of Persuasions) chapter of the Hanfeizi. The “Shui nan” 
(The Difficulties of Persuasion) chapter of the Hanfeizi discusses the principal challenges that might impede a successful persuasion. (According to the Hanfeizi, the greatest difficulty is “to know the mind of the one to be persuaded, so as to match your persuasion to it.”) A Han example of a similar usage of shui is the “Shan shui” (Admirable Persuasions) chapter of the Shuo yuan, in which a number of outstanding persuasions are collected.
Summary and Key Themes
Both chapters 16 and 17 open with introductory paragraphs meant to frame the chapters as a whole and elucidate their main purpose. Chapter 16 begins with an anecdote in which the Way is related to the subject of “form and names”—that is, speech. This playful anecdote, reminiscent of the Zhuangzi, recounts a conversation between a person’s po 
(substantive spirit) and hun 
(ethereal spirit). These are fitting characters to embody within a single figure, and to frame a discussion of, the dual aspects of the Way: what has form and what is formless. This critical distinction between what has form and what is formless is used throughout the Huainanzi to harmonize and demonstrate the unity of two apparently separate approaches to the Way. Here this distinction reminds the reader that speech may assume various forms as particular expressions of the Way in a given moment and in a given context but that words do not possess universal or eternal validity. They are useful as transitory and instrumental expressions of the formless and inexpressible “Dark Mystery” or “Ancestor” that is the ultimate sense of the Way. So we also are given to understand that the forms of the myriad things are contingent and transitory, not fixed and immutable, that only the Way is unchanging.
Chapter 17 begins with three short analogies cautioning the reader that “just because something is suitable for a particular time is not enough to make it valuable [always].” This brief preamble reiterates an argument appearing elsewhere in the text: that the standards of ancient times—things that were suitable to a particular era, time, or circumstance—do not enjoy eternal relevance or universal validity. Even though an earthen dragon is made in times of drought and a straw dog in times of epidemic, such things are “sovereign” only at those particular times. When the time passes, these things lose their efficacy. So, too, with words: certain words fit certain occasions; the same expression is not suitable to all occasions. One thus must choose one’s words judiciously, employing the right expressions for the context. One must employ the “sovereign” expression.
To do so, chapters 16 and 17 have collected an astounding array of “persuasions,” exceeding in number and variety of topic all surviving collections that had been compiled before the Huainanzi was completed and surpassed only by the later Western Han collection, Liu Xiang’s Shuo yuan. Chapter 16 of the Huainanzi collects 162 sayings, and chapter 17 brings together 246. Some are accompanied by brief editorial comments that clarify their meaning in some way. These collections of persuasive oratory, with their titles suggesting the height of a mountain and the number and density of trees in a forest, indicate that together they represent a particular genre of persuasion. In fact, the various subjects addressed in these persuasions are just the point: they enable the reader to “wander in accord with Heaven and Earth” rather than be limited to “follow[ing] a path made by a solitary footprint or adher[ing] to instructions from a single perspective,” as chapter 21, “An Overview of the Essentials,” explains. We might speculate that armed with such a comprehensive collection, the reader would be equipped with a wide variety of “talking points” commensurate with every conceivable aspect of the Way and suitable for any oral debate or discussion.
Sources
The collections of persuasions most relevant to chapters 16 and 17 of the Huainanzi are the earlier Hanfeizi and later Shuo yuan. These texts help us understand how this particular genre of performative literature was collected and preserved through the ages. Chapters 22 and 23 of the Hanfeizi, “Shui lin shang” and “Shui lin xia” (A Forest of Persuasions, Parts 1 and 2), with the same title as chapter 16 of the Huainanzi, are the most pertinent here. The duplication of the title by the Huainanzi authors suggests that these chapters belong to the same genre of persuasive oratory and that Hanfeizi 22 and 23 are examples of such literature of which the Huainanzi authors were well aware.
This chapter, and others in the Hanfeizi that preserve this genre of persuasive oratory, collects “persuasions” in various guises. The first genre, a more typical and longer form of persuasion characteristic of the Hanfeizi and other Warring States texts, generally is in the form of an anecdote with an oral element following a more or less set literary form. It usually consists of a narrative frame setting the scene, historical or mythical figures (often a holder of political power and a “persuader” trying to convince him of something), the pronouncement meant to persuade, and a response. As a kind of denouement, the response may take the form of verbal approval or disapproval or action indicating that the recipient of the persuasion has either embraced or rejected what has been proposed. The editorial comment that sometimes follows the persuasion proper shapes the persuasion along the philosophical lines intended by the author of the specific collection.2 The following excerpt from Hanfeizi 22, which revolves around the colorful and insatiable Earl Zhi, exemplifies this type of persuasion:
Earl Zhi demanded territory from Viscount Huan of Wei. Viscount Huan of Wei did not yield it. Ren Zhang said: “Why do you not yield it to him?” Viscount Huan responded: “He is demanding territory from us for no reason. This is why I refused to yield it to him.” Ren Zhang responded: “If he demands territory without reason, neighboring states surely will grow fearful of him. If the earl’s desires increase without cease, the world surely will grow apprehensive of him. [But] if you give him territory [now], Earl Zhi will surely grow arrogant and slight his enemies so that neighboring states surely will grow fearful of him and form mutual alliances. If you rely on the troops of states forming mutual alliances to address a state that slights its enemies, Earl Zhi’s life will not be long. The Book of Zhou states: ‘When you desire to conquer, you must first assist; when you desire to take, you must first give.’ It would be best to give Earl Zhi territory and thereby feed his arrogance. Moreover, why would you hesitate to join with the rest of the world to conspire against the Zhi clan so that our state alone would become a target for Earl Zhi?” The Viscount responded: “Superb.” He then gave Earl Zhi a fief of ten thousand households. Earl Zhi was greatly pleased. Earl Zhi then demanded territory from [Viscount Xiang of] Zhao. [Viscount Xiang of] Zhao refused to grant it. Consequently Earl Zhi besieged Jinyang. The states of Hann and Wei plotted against Earl Zhi from beyond [Jinyang] while the state of Zhao responded to him from within [Jinyang], and Earl Zhi was ultimately destroyed.3
The second common literary treatment of a persuasion is typically briefer and decontextualized. It is a short oral pronouncement, usually without a narrative frame or an identified speaker or listener.4 The point of these persuasive utterances seems to be their very commonplace character and unremarkable lineage. They appear to be a kind of public wisdom handed down through the ages, highly prized not because they derive from the mouth of the sages but because they capture enduring truths. What is recorded is a brief statement, often characterized by parallelism or rhyme that exhibits varying degrees of transparency to the modern reader. Some stand out for their pithiness or wittiness, while others appear to relate to quite banal aspects of the phenomenal world. Whatever the particular meaning might be, the didactic point to be extracted from the pronouncement is sometimes identified by an editorial comment that directly follows a given pronouncement. Examples of this shorter form of persuasive utterance may be found in such texts as the Hanfeizi’s chapter 23, “A Forest of Persuasions, Part 2” (Shui lin xia) and the Shuoyuan’s chapter 16, “A Thicket of Remarks” (Tan cong). The following are three such examples:
Example 1
Saying: “Among birds there is one called the cuckoo. It has a heavy head and a curved tail. When it is about to take water from the river, it inevitably falls on its head. Only when it flattens its wings with its mouth can it drink from the river.”
Comment: “When people do not have enough to drink, they too must find their wings.”5
Example 2
Saying: “There is a type of worm called a ‘tapeworm.’ It has a single body and two mouths. When it struggles to get food, the two mouths bite one another so that each mouth kills the other and eventually the tapeworm kills itself.”
Comment: “When ministers struggle over their affairs and forget the state, they all belong to the likes of a tapeworm.”6
Example 3
Saying: “When buildings are whitewashed and furniture is cleaned with water, then they are immaculate.”
Comment: “Human conduct and character is just the same. When there is no place left to be whitewashed or cleaned, then faults are few.”7
The sayings collected in chapters 16 and 17 of the Huainanzi resemble most closely this second (shorter) form of persuasive utterance and therefore comprise an important collection of such materials from the time between when the Hanfeizi and Shuoyuan collections were compiled. In fact, as the next example demonstrates, we find the same persuasive utterance used for different interpretive aims in these three collections:
Hanfeizi 23
Saying: “Eels resemble snakes; silkworms resemble caterpillars. When people see snakes, they become alarmed and frightened; when they see caterpillars, their hair stands on end. But fishermen hold eels and women pick up silkworms.”
Comment: “Thus, where benefit resides, everyone resembles a Meng Ben or Zhuan Zhu [in their courage].”8
Huainanzi 17.56
The eel and the snake,
the silkworm and the caterpillar—
In appearance they belong to the same category. But how they are liked or disliked makes them different.
Shuoyuan 16
The eel is akin to the snake; the silkworm is akin to the caterpillar. When people see a caterpillar or snake, none fails to be personally alarmed. [Yet] women cultivate silkworms and fishermen handle eels. Why do they not loathe such things? Desiring to make a living, those who hunt fish must get wet, and those who hunt prey must hasten their pace, but not because they like to do so. It is due to the circumstances of the situation.9
The Chapters in the Context of the Huainanzi as a Whole
The existence of collections of shui from the Warring States period and the Western Han dynasty suggests that there was a clear demand for them from bureaucrats, advisers, teachers, and others who regularly offered lessons or advice to others and tried to influence their actions. We can think of such collections as handbooks for people who knew that they would be asked to speak on a regular basis. A modern analogy might be the many collections of jokes, anecdotes, and apt turns of phrase for masters of ceremony, toastmasters, and after-dinner speakers.
But if we are correct in believing that the primary audience for the Huainanzi was the actual or aspiring ruler of a kingdom or an empire, it is necessary to ask about the value of a collection of persuasions for such a figure. A ruler might have been more likely to be moderating and listening to court debates than marshaling persuasions to make points of his own. For this highly selective audience, a ruler might want these collected shui on hand to shape his own participation in court debates, but he might also want to have them in mind as persuasions that he was likely to hear from debaters in his presence. That is, they should prepare him for stereotyped arguments that his advisers and other participants might use in court sessions, so he could distinguish genuinely new ideas from hackneyed talking points. In this context, the comment in “An Overview of the Essentials” that these persuasions
skillfully and elegantly penetrate and bore open the blockages and obstructions of the many affairs
and thoroughly and comprehensively penetrate and pierce the barriers and hindrances of the myriad things (21.2)
takes on a subtle double meaning. The “blockages and obstructions” concerned might be the rhetorical obfuscations that debaters in the ruler’s own presence offered and that he could detect through his own familiarity with such stereotyped talking points.
Of course, this effect is not limited to an imperial “audience of one.” Anyone who engages in oratory might benefit by adding to his rhetorical arsenal the persuasions collected in these two chapters, and he would also recognize when another speaker was using these same prepackaged arguments. Thus the use of such material was always a two-edged sword: Did these persuasions help a speaker be seen as a brilliant orator, or did they leave him open to a charge of using stale and stereotypical arguments? It would seem impossible to have one effect but not the other.
A Note on the Format of chapters 16 and 17
The paragraph numbers used in chapters 16 and 17 follow those of D. C. Lau’s Concordance to the Huainanzi and replace the references by chapter, page, and line that we have used in all but these two chapters. In a few cases, where we believe that Lau has conflated two or more sayings, we have divided the paragraph and renumbered the subsequent parts of it with the letters “a,” “b,” and so on, such as 4, 4a, and 4b.
Sarah A. Queen and John S. Major
1. Xunzi, chap. 5, “Fei xiang.” Translation modified from Knoblock 1988, 1:209.
2. The vast majority of persuasions collected in Hanfeizi, chaps. 22 and 23, “A Forest of Persuasions, Parts 1 and 2,” follow this format, as do those collected in Shuo yuan, chap. 11, “Admirable Persuasions.”
3. HFZ 22/47/1–7. For the Huainanzi account of this story, see 18.5.
4. There are, of course, exceptions to this general rule. For example, in the “Tan cong” chapter of the Shuo yuan, three utterances are attributed to Zengzi.
5. HFZ 23/51/17–18.
6. HFZ 23/52/1–2.
7. HFZ 23/52/4.
8. HFZ 23/51/20–21. Meng Ben was a fearless warrior from the state of Wei. Zhuan Zhu was a courageous inhabitant of Wu who assassinated King Liao of Wu, thereby permitting Prince Guang to become King Helü of Wu.
9. Shuo yuan, “Tan cong.” Interestingly, Liu Xiang conflates two Huainanzi passages here: the persuasion about “eels and snakes” comes from 17.56, and “those who hunt fish” comes from 12.3.
The po [substantive soul] asked the hun [ethereal soul],1 “How does the Way take physical form?” The hun replied, “It takes Nothing There as its physical form.” The po asked, “Does Nothing There have a physical form, then?” The hun replied, “It does not.” The po asked, “If there is Nothing There, how can one apprehend it and be informed about it?” The hun replied, “I only have ways to encounter it, that is all. When we look at it, it has no form; when we listen to it, it has no sound. We call it ‘the Dark Mystery.’ The Dark Mystery can be used to refer to the Way, but it is not the Way.” The po said, “Now I get it.” Thereupon he turned his gaze inward and reverted to himself. The hun said, “Those who have attained the Way have forms that cannot be seen and names that cannot be expressed. You still have ‘form’ and ‘name.’ How can you attain the Way?” The po said, “What use is speech, then? I shall return to my Ancestor.” The po turned to look, and suddenly the hun could not be seen. The po then turned and got a grip on himself and also entered the formless.
If not for small learning, a person would not be greatly misled;
if not for small intelligence, a person would not be greatly deluded.
No one uses running water for a mirror. Rather, you look at yourself in clear water because it is still and unmoving.
Mr. Zhan’s2 fishing [skill] could catch a thousand-year-old carp.
So hard did Zengzi tug at the planked cart [carrying his father’s coffin] that the catafalque puller was forced to stop.
When his elderly mother walked by singing, Shen Xi was moved right on the spot.3
These are clear examples of the highest attainment of the Essence.
Hu Ba4 played the se, and the sturgeons5 came up to listen.
Bo Ya6 played the qin, and the quadriga horses raised their heads while grazing.
Jie Zi[tui]7 sang about the dragon and the snake, and Lord Wen of Jin broke down in tears.
Thus,
if there is jade in the mountains, the plants and trees are enriched;
if a pool produces pearls, its banks do not dry up.
The earthworm lacks strength of muscles and bones and sharpness of claws and teeth, but
above it eats dry earth
and below it drinks of the Yellow Springs,
for it uses its mind in a unitary way.
With the clarity of what is pure, a cup of water reveals [the reflection of] an eyeball.
With the darkness of what is murky, the water of the [Yellow] River does not reveal [even the reflection of] Mount Tai.
If you stare at the sun, you will go blind.
If you listen to thunder, you will become deaf.
If you act without purpose, you will be well ordered.
If you act with purpose, you will be harmed.
Being well ordered through purposelessness is dependent on Nothingness. If you act with purpose, you will be unable to have anything. If you are unable to act without purpose, you will be unable to have anything purposeful.
One who is without words is spiritlike.
One who has words is harmed.
One who is spiritlike through wordlessness is dependent on Nothingness. Having words harms the spirit.8
That by which the nose breathes,
and that by which the ears hear—
In the end it is their Nothingness that makes them function.
Among things, none do not rely on what they have and use what they do not have.
If you do not believe this, look at the flute and reed pipes.9
Those who ponder and worry cannot sleep. If pondering and worrying are ended, then there [must be] a means by which they are ended. When both [pondering and worrying] are completely extirpated, one may attain [a state of] Potency and Purity.
Sages spend their lives talking about governing. What is of use is not their words [as such] but what they have to say. Singers use lyrics, but what people really enjoy hearing is not the lyrics themselves. A parrot can speak, but it cannot engage in meaningful discourse. Why is this? It has the power of speech but does not have anything to say.
Thus if someone follows you and walks in your tracks, he cannot produce fresh footprints of his own.
A divine snake can be cut in two and grow back [the severed part], but it cannot prevent someone from cutting it in two.
A divine tortoise could appear in a dream to King Yuan [of Song],10 but it could not free itself from the fisherman’s trap.
The four directions are the gates and doors, windows and back gates of the Way;
which one you go through [determines] how you view things. Thus
fishing can be used to teach someone horseback riding;
horseback riding can be used to instruct a person in charioteering;
and charioteering can be used to teach someone how to pole a boat.
When the people of Yue studied the [unfamiliar] art of long-distance archery, they looked up at the sky and shot, but their arrows landed only five paces away because they did not change their aim.11 To stick to old ways of doing things after the times have altered is like the people of Yue practicing archery.
When the moon is seen [in the daytime], the sun steals the moon’s light. The yin cannot take precedence over the yang. When the sun comes out, the stars cannot be seen. The stars cannot compete in brightness with the sun. Thus
branches cannot be stronger than the roots;
fingers cannot be larger than the arms.
If
the bottom is light
and the top is heavy,
[an object] surely will be easy to overturn.
One pool cannot [house] two sharks;
one perch cannot [house] two male birds.
If there is one, there is stability;
if there are two, there is strife.
When water is still, it is clear and even; when it moves, it loses its evenness. Thus it is only by not moving that nothing is unmoved.
The reason why the Yangzi and the Yellow rivers can extend through a hundred valleys is because they are able to descend through them. As a general rule, only by being able to occupy a lower position will you be able to rise to the top.
In the world,
there are no two things so mutually repellent as glue and pitch,
and none more attracted to each other than ice and charcoal.
Glue and pitch detract from each another.
Charcoal and ice enhance each other.12
The crumbling of a wall is better than its building;
the melting of ice is better than its freezing
because they [thus] return to the Ancestor.
The appearance of Mount Tai is majestically high, but if you go a thousand li away from it, it looks smaller than an earthen embankment. This is because of the distance.
The tip of an autumn hair13 can get lost in the unfathomable. This means that what is so small that nothing can be placed inside it is [the same as] something so large that nothing can be placed outside it.
Orchids grow in dark valleys. They are no less fragrant just because no one [happens to] wear them.14
Boats ply rivers and oceans. They are no less buoyant just because no one [happens to] ride in them.
The Superior Man practices Rightness. He does not stop doing so just because no one [happens to] know about it.
When a piece of jade is moistened, it looks bright. [When struck], its sound is slow and harmonious. How expansive are its aspects! With no interior or exterior, it does not conceal its flaws or imperfections. Close up, it looks glossy; from a distance, it shines brightly. It reflects like a mirror revealing the pupil of your eye. Subtly it picks up the tip of an autumn hair. It brightly illuminates the dark and obscure. Thus the jade disk of Mr. He and the pearl of the marquis of Sui emerged from the essence of a mountain and a spring. When the Superior Man wears them, he complies with their purity and secures his repose. When lords and kings treasure them, they rectify the world.
Chen Chengheng’s15 threatening of Ziyuan Jie;16 Zi Han’s refusal of what he did not desire [a valuable jade] and achieving what he most desired [a reputation for covetlessness]; Confucius’s seeing a man catching cicadas;17 Duke Sheng of Bo holding his lance and whip upside down;18 the daughter of the king of Wey asking Duke Huan of Qi to punish her [instead of invading her state]; Zengzi looking at Zi Xia and asking, “Why are you so fat?”;19 Duke Wen of Wei seeing a man with the leather side and the fur side of his garment reversed and carrying straw [and making fun of him]; Ni Yue20 untying the closed knot for the king of Song:
These are all cases in which from a tiny instance one can see the whole situation.
A man was marrying off his daughter. He counseled her, “Go, but be careful not to do anything good.” She replied, “If I don’t do anything good, should I do something bad?” [Her father] responded, “If you shouldn’t even do anything good, how much less should you do anything bad!” This was [how she could] keep her natural qualities intact.21
Those who are in prison consider a day a long time.
Those who are about to be executed in the marketplace consider a day to be very short.
The length of a day has a set standard, but
from where one person stands it is short
and from where another stands it is long.
This is because their center is not balanced. Thus when one uses what is not balanced to consider what is balanced, then what one takes to be balanced will not be balanced.
If you marry off a daughter to a man with a disease that makes him impotent, then when the husband dies, [people will] say, “The woman put him off.” Later she will find it difficult to remarry.
Thus,
you cannot sit near a house that is ready to collapse;
you cannot stand next to a wall that is about to fall over.
A man who is held in jail has no illnesses.
A man who faces execution is fat and healthy.
A man who has been castrated lives a long time.
Their minds are free of entanglements.
A doctor constantly treats illnesses that are not [yet] illnesses; thus he prevents illnesses.
A sage constantly deals with calamities that are not [yet] calamities; thus he prevents calamities.
One who has mastered carpentry does not use an angle rule or marking cord;
one who excels at shutting himself away does not use a door and latch.
Chunyu Kun’s warning of a fire hazard is [an example of] the same kind of thing.22
When what is clear mixes with what is muddy, [muddiness] is diminished and diluted.
When what is muddy mixes with what is clear, [clarity] is overturned and subverted.
When the Superior Man resides in the Good, he resembles the wood gatherer
who,
upon seeing a twig, picks it up
and, upon seeing a green onion, plucks it too.
When the two qi [contend] in Heaven, they cause rainbows;
when the two qi [contend] on Earth, they cause emissions;
when the two qi [contend] in a human body, they cause disease.23
Yin and yang cannot make it be both winter and summer [simultaneously].
The moon does not know daylight;
the sun does not know night.
A good archer shoots and does not miss the target. That is good for the archer, but not good for the target.
A good fisherman never loses a fish. That is good for the fisherman, but not good for the fish.
Thus where there is that which is good, there also is that which is not good.
If you compare [the sounds of] bells and chimestones,
close by the sound of bells is richer,
but far away the sound of the chimestones is clearer.
There are certainly things that
are better near than far away,
[and others that are] better far away than near.
Now it is said that
rice grows in water, but it cannot grow in a turbulent flow [of water].
The zhi fungus grows on mountains, but it cannot grow on barren boulders.
A lodestone can attract iron, but if you put it near bronze it will not move.
When the waters are vast, the fish are huge;
when the mountains are high, the trees are tall.
But if you extend its area too much, its Potency will be diminished. It is like a potter making a vessel. If he makes it large but not thick enough, it will be all the more likely to break.
A sage does not blow before the wind [does it for him];
he does not destroy in advance of the thunder.
He acts only when he cannot avoid it, and so he has no entanglements.
As the moon waxes and wanes above,
snails and clams respond below.24
Those of the same qi25 bestir each other;
they cannot get very far apart.
If you
grasp a crossbow and call a bird
or brandish a club and beckon a dog,
then what you want to come will surely go away instead.26 Thus,
a fish cannot be hooked without bait;
an animal cannot be lured with an empty trap.
If you tear off an ox’s hide and stretch it to make a drum, you can use it to direct the multitudes of the Three Armies.27 But from the ox’s point of view, it would be better to wear a yoke and continue working.
A robe of white fox fur is worn by the Son of Heaven as he sits at court. But from the fox’s point of view, it would be better to be running around in the meadow.
If you lose a sheep but gain an ox, no one would fail to [consider it] a beneficial loss.
If you cut off a finger to avoid being beheaded, no one would fail to [consider it] a beneficial act.
Thus human emotion,
when surrounded by benefits, struggles to gain as much as possible
and, when surrounded by harm, struggles to get as little as possible.
A general dares not ride a [conspicuous] white horse.
An escaped prisoner dares not carry a torch at night.
A wine shop proprietor28 dares not keep a dog that bites people.
The rooster knows the approaching dawn;
the crane knows the middle of night;
but neither can avoid the pot and the platter.
If there is a fierce beast in the mountains, because of that the forest’s trees are not cut down.
If there are poisonous insects in the garden, because of that the greens are not picked.
Thus if a state has worthy ministers, it can defend itself [against attacks at a distance of] a thousand li.29
To be a Confucian and yet squat in the village lanes,30
or to be a Mohist and yet play the pitch pipes at court,31
is like someone who wants to conceal his tracks but walks in the snow
or who tries to rescue a drowning man without getting his clothes wet.
He repudiates what he practices and practices what he repudiates.
If someone drinks in the dark, he invariably will spill his drink.
If you enable him to hold the cup level, he will not spill any, even if he is a fool.
For this reason, he who does not identify with harmony and yet is able to succeed in his affairs—in the world there has never been such a thing.
If you look for beauty, you will not get it.
If you do not look for beauty, you will acquire beauty.
If you look for ugliness, you will not get it.
If you do not look for ugliness, you will acquire ugliness.
If you do not look for beauty and [also] do not look for ugliness, then you will be without beauty or ugliness. This is called “Mysteriously the Same.”32
Shen Tudi33 [tied] a stone on his back and jumped into deep water. But drowning yourself cannot be considered a protest.
Xian Gao used deception to preserve Cheng34 But deception should not be taken as a standard.
Some actions [are effective as] a single response but may not be repeatedly practiced.
An effusive person is like the sound of the hundred-tongue [bird].35
A reticent person is like a door whose hinges have not been greased.36
If one of the six domestic animals is born with an additional ear or eye, it is unlucky, [but] it is recorded in the books of omens.37
A hundred men trying to lift a gourd is not as good as one person grabbing it and running off. Thus there certainly are situations in which a crowd is not as good as a few people.
Two people pull a cart, and six more push behind. Thus there certainly are affairs in which mutual cooperation is necessary for success.
If two people are drowning, they cannot rescue each other, but if one is on shore, he can [save the other]. Thus identical things cannot set each other in order. It is necessary to depend on difference; only then there will be a good outcome.
Where below [ground] there is “hidden moss,”38 above it there will be rabbit floss.39
Where above [ground] there is a patch of milfoil, beneath it there will be hidden a turtle.
A sage knows from external appearances what lies within. He uses the visible to know the hidden.
Taking pleasure in military matters does not make one a soldier;
taking pleasure in literature does not make one a Confucian.
Liking formulas does not make one a doctor;
liking horses does not make one a charioteer.
Knowing music does not make one a court drummer;
knowing flavors does not make one a chef.
This is to have an approximation [of the skill] but not yet to have earned a reputation as a master [of that skill].
Armor does not [protect against arrows] at a distance of less than ten paces. Beyond a hundred paces, [arrows] contend [with the armor so as to pierce] deeply or shallowly. If deep, they will penetrate the five vital organs; if shallow, they will graze the flesh and stop. The distance between life and death cannot be attributed to the principles of the Way.
The king of Chu lost his [pet] ape,40 and [to recapture it] he destroyed every tree in the forest.
The prince of Song lost his pearl, and [to recover it] he wiped out all the fish [in the lake he drained].
Thus when a meadow blazes with fire, the forest worries.
When the ruler wants a plank, his officials cut down a tree.
When the ruler wants a fish, his officials dry up a valley.
When the ruler wants an oar, his underlings give him a whole boat.
When the ruler’s words are like threads, his underlings’ words are like rope.
When the ruler likes one thing, his underlings praise it twice.
When the ruler faults three [people], his underlings kill nine.
Great Officer Zhong knew how to strengthen Yue, but he did not know how to preserve his own life.41
Chang Hong knew the reason why Zhou would endure, but he could not discern why he would perish.
[They] knew what was distant but did not perceive what was close at hand.
To fear a horse will throw you and thus not daring to mount one;
to be anxious that a cart might overturn and thus not daring to ride in one:
these are cases of an “empty calamity” causing you to avoid real benefits.
Those who are unfilial or unbrotherly might sometimes scold their fathers and mothers. When you have children, you cannot rely on their necessarily being filial, but even so you nourish and raise them.
When the Fan clan42 was defeated, someone stole their bell, slung it on his back, and ran away. It made a clanging noise. Fearing that someone might hear it, the thief covered his ears. That he would fear others might hear it was reasonable, but for him to cover his own ears was perverse.
A sheng cannot be bigger than a dan because a sheng is contained within a dan.43
A night cannot be longer than a year, because a night is contained within a year.
Humaneness and Rightness cannot be greater than the Way and its Potency because Humaneness and Rightness are contained within the Way and its Potency.
If the needle goes first and the thread follows, you can make a tent.
If the thread [were to] go first and the needle to follow, you could not make [even] a garment.
The needle makes [possible] the curtain;
the basket makes [possible] the wall.
Whether an enterprise succeeds or fails necessarily starts from what is small. This is to say that it is a gradual process.
In dyeing things,
if something is at first blue and you dye it black, that is possible;
if something is first black and you [wish to] dye it blue, that is not possible.44
If an artisan
applies the lacquer first and then applies the cinnabar over it, that is possible;
if he applies the cinnabar first and then the lacquer over it, that is not possible.
Everything is like this: you cannot fail to attend to what is first and what is last, what is on top and what is underneath.
When the water is muddy, fish gasp for air [near the surface].
When your body is overworked, your spirit is disordered.
You rely on a matchmaker to bring about a marriage, but you cannot rely on the matchmaker to make the marriage successful.
You rely on people to relate to one another, but you cannot rely on people to be close.
If people’s actions correspond and their inclinations45 are the same, even if they are separated by a thousand li, they can follow one another.
If people’s inclinations are not the same and their actions differ, even though their gates face one another, they will not communicate [with one another].
Though the waters of the sea are vast, it does not accept carrion and weeds.46
The sun and moon do not respond to things not of the same qi [as themselves];
the Superior Man does not associate with those not of his own type.
People do not love the hand of [the legendary master artisan] Chui, but they do love their own fingers.
People do not love the pearls of the Yangzi and the Han rivers, but they do love their own belt hooks.
You might mistake a bundle of firewood for a ghost
or fire and smoke for an emanation [of qi].
If you mistake the firewood for a ghost, you [might] turn and run away;
if you mistake smoke for an emanation you [might] kill a pig and boil a dog [as sacrifices].
To prejudge things like this is not as good as reflecting about them later.
A skillful workman is good at measuring things carefully.
A knowledgeable person is good at preparing [for future possibilities].
When [the great archer] Yi was killed [in an ambush] by [men wielding] peach-wood clubs, he had no chance to shoot [his arrows].
When [the mighty wrestler] Qingji was killed by swords and spears, he had no chance to grapple [with his attackers].47
Someone who wanted to put a stop to slander went from door to door saying, “I really did not have an affair with my elder sister-in law!” The slander increased more and more.
Trying to stop words with more words
or affairs with more affairs
is like making piles of dirt to ward off dust
or using armloads of firewood to douse a fire.
Spouting words to expunge slander is like using black dye to clean something white.
An arrow at ten paces will pierce rhino-hide armor. At three hundred paces, it cannot even pierce the plain white silk of Lu.48
The great horse Qiji can travel a thousand li in a day, but when he has used [his strength] to the utmost and the harness is taken off, he collapses.
If a great family attacks a small family, that is taken to be oppression;
if a great state annexes a small state, that is taken to be worthiness.
Little horses are in the same category as big horses,
[but] petty knowledge is not in the same category as great knowledge.
To wear sheepskin and labor for wages is quite ordinary;
to wear leopardskin and carry a bamboo basket [like a laborer] would be very strange.
To use what is pure and white to do something filthy and disgusting is like bathing and then mucking out a pigsty, or perfuming oneself with artemisia and then carrying a pig to market.
If you treat an abscess and do not distinguish between the good [flesh] and the bad and repulsive flesh but merely cut it all off,
or if you till the fields and do not distinguish between sprouts and weeds and simply hoe indiscriminately,
would this not be fruitless?
To spoil a pond to seek a turtle,
to wreck a house to look for a fox,
to dig up [the floor of] a room to search for a mouse,
to cut off the lips to cure a toothache:
These are the ways of [the tyrant] Jie and [Robber] Zhi. A Superior Man does not do this.
To kill a warhorse but catch a fox,
to acquire two ordinary turtles and lose a divine tortoise,
to chop off the right arm but struggle for a single hair,
to break the [legendary sword] Moye to struggle for an [ordinary] carving knife:
How can using knowledge in this way suffice to be called lofty?
It is preferable to be pricked with a needle a hundred times than to be slashed by a knife just once.
It is preferable to pull something heavy just once than carry something light for a long time.
It is preferable to eat sparingly for a month than to starve for ten days.
For ten thousand to stumble is better than for one to fall into a pit.
There was a person who praised someone for working well beyond capacity, hulling grain until sunrise. But still the quota was not filled, and so it was as if the person deserved censure. When the case was investigated, it was discovered that the person [who did the work and was fraudulently praised] was his mother. Thus when petty people praise others, it can be harmful instead.49
In a family to the east, the mother died. Her son cried but was not sorrowful. A son from a family to the west saw this and returned home to his mother, saying, “Mother, why don’t you die right away? I would certainly cry very sorrowfully for you!”
Now if someone really wants his mother to die, if she did die, he certainly would not be able to cry sorrowfully for her.
[Likewise,] if someone says, “I have no free time to study,” even if he had free time, he would still not be able to study.
You might see a hollow log floating and understand how to make a boat
or see flying leaves spinning in the air and understand how to make a cart [wheel]
or see a bird scratching and understand how to write characters:
This is to acquire things by means of correlative categories.
Taking what is not right to do right;
taking what is not proper to do [what is] proper:
This is like
running naked to chase a madman,
robbing things to give them to beggars,
stealing bamboo strips to write laws on them,
squatting to recite the Odes and the Documents.
If broken and cast aside, [the great sword] Moye could not [even] cut meat.
Grasped tightly and not released, a [hair from a] horse’s tail cuts jade.
The sage has no [unvarying] stopping point or starting point. [He regards] this year as worthier than the past and today as better than yesterday.
A horse that looks like a deer could be worth a thousand pieces of gold, but there is no deer in the world worth a thousand pieces of gold.
Jade must be worked on with grit to become an object of art.50
There are jade disks worth a thousand pieces of gold, but no grit is worth even a trifling amount.
If you get light through a crack [in the wall], it can illuminate a corner;
if you get light from a window, it can illuminate the north wall;
if you get light from a doorway, it can illuminate everything in the room, omitting nothing.
How much more [would be illuminated] if the light received were from the whole universe! There would be nothing in the world it did not illuminate.
Looking at things in this way,
if what you get [light from] is small, what you see is shallow;
if what you get [light from] is large, what is illuminated is vast!
The Yangzi River issues from the Min Mountains;
the Yellow River issues from Kunlun;
the Ji River issues from Wangwu;
the Ying River issues from Shaoshi;
the Han River issues from Bozhong.
Flowing separately, eddying or rushing, they eventually empty into the Eastern Sea.
[The places] from where they flow are different;
[the place] to which they return is one.
Those who are penetrating in their studies are like the axle of a cart. Within the turning wheel hubs, it does not itself move, but with it one travels a thousand li. Ending [its rotation, the wheel] begins again, turning like an inexhaustible stream.
Those who are not penetrating in their studies are like [one who is] confused and muddled. If you tell him [the location of] east, west, south and north, when he is standing there he is clear about them, but when he turns his back he does not get it. He does not understand the crux of the matter.
Cold cannot produce cold;
heat cannot produce heat.
What is not cold or not hot can produce cold and heat. Thus what has form comes from the formless, and the not-yet-Heaven-and-Earth gave birth to Heaven and Earth—how profoundly subtle and expansively vast it is!
The falling of the rain cannot soak anything. Only when it stops [by hitting something] can it soak anything.
The shooting of an arrow cannot pierce anything. Only when it stops [by hitting something] can it pierce anything.
Only stopping can stop all stoppings.
In accord with the high ground, you build a terrace.
Following low ground, you dig a pond.
In each case one follows its natural tendency; one does not dare do more.
The way in which sages uses things is like
using red ribbon to tie up straw dogs,
making earthen dragons to seek rain.
Straw dogs: he uses them to seek prosperity.
Clay dragons: he uses them to obtain food.
A man from Lu was good at making hats; his wife was good at making cloth shoes. When they went [south] to Yue, they became greatly distressed and impoverished.
To take skill to a place where it cannot be used is like
planting lotuses on a mountaintop,
or cultivating a fire within a well;
grasping fishing tackle and climbing a mountain,
or shouldering an ax and entering an abyss.
It is hard to get what one wants like this.
To take a chariot to [the marshy land of] Yue
Or ride a raft to [the dry land of] the Hu:
Though you may have an inexhaustible desire [to do these things], you will not be able to accomplish them.
The king of Chu had a white ape. When the king himself shot at it, the ape grabbed his arrows to show off. He ordered Yang Youji51 to shoot it. When [Yang] began to draw the bow and aim the arrow, [even] before he shot, the ape hugged a tree and shrieked.
This is hitting the target before hitting the target.
As for [ritual emblems like] the jade disk of Mr. He and the jade half-disk of the Xiahou clan,52 if [courtiers] bow courteously and advance with them, they create harmony and amity. [But] at night because of thieves, they create resentment. Such is the difference between the right time and the wrong time.
When one paints [a picture] of the face of Xi Shi, it is beautiful but cannot please;
when one draws with a compass the eyes of Meng Ben, they are large but cannot inspire awe;
What rules form53 is missing from them.
There are people such as elder and younger brothers who divide things between themselves without measuring. The multitudes praise the Rightness of that. This can only [be called] “measureless”; therefore it cannot be obtained through measurement.
Ascending a high place makes people want to look out;
approaching a deep place makes people want to peer down.
The location makes this so.
Archery makes people precise.
Fishing makes people circumspect.
The activity makes this so.
If someone said that by killing a worn-out ox we could avert the death of a good horse, nobody would do it. If an ox is killed, the one who kills it will be executed. To face certain execution in order to redeem a death that might not occur—there has never been anyone able to act in this way.54
The Jisun clan55 took control of the ducal house. Confucius was pleased. He first went along with what the Jisun did and later entered the government under them. He said: “To use the bent to make something straight—what’s wrong with that? To use the straight to make something bent—that’s a policy that cannot be followed.”
This is called following different paths to the same wickedness.
When the majority are crooked, they cannot tolerate the straight;
when the majority are bent, they cannot tolerate the upright.
Thus,
when people are in the majority, they eat wolves;
when wolves are in the majority, they eat people.
Those who want to be evil must seem to shine forth their uprightness;
those who want to be crooked must seem to establish their straightness.
From ancient times to the present, for the Public Way to not be established and for private desires to achieve currency has never been heard of [except through] taking the good and entrusting it to the wicked.
Popular rumor is like a forest:
it flies without wings.
If three people say there is a tiger in the market,
the whole village will turn out to chase it.
[Animals] that float and sink do not try to wash or bathe; it is already enough for them to be in the middle of the water.
Thus,
animals that eat grass do not rush to change their pastures;
insects that live in water do not rush to change their rivers.
They may carry out small alterations, but they do not stray from their constant habits.
There are false beliefs;
there are breaches of propriety.
Wei Sheng died under the pillars of a bridge.56 This was a case of a belief being false.
Mr. Kong [Kong Bo] did not mourn the death of his repudiated mother. This was a case of propriety being breached.57
Zengzi took his stand on filial piety. He would not walk past a village called Defeated Mother.
Mozi opposed music. He would not enter the city of Courtsong.58
Confucius59 took his stand on incorruptibility. He would not drink from Robbers’ Well.
This is what is called “nourishing the will.”
[Tyrant] Djou used ivory chopsticks and Jizi sighed;
the people of Lu used figurines in burials and Confucius sighed.
Thus sages see frost and anticipate ice.
When birds are about to arrive, people spread out nets to await them. What catches the bird is a single eye of the net, but a single-eyed net will never catch a bird.60
Now a person who dons armor prepares for an arrow to strike him. If he knew for sure where the arrow would hit, he could wear just one tiny scale of armor.
Matters sometimes cannot be measured beforehand;
things sometimes cannot be foreseen.
Thus sages cultivate the Way and await the right time.
A homely piebald cow, hornless and tailless, still had her nose pierced and was put in a halter. She gave birth to a calf, and it was sacrificed. When the impersonator of the dead and the invoker carried out the sacrificial ceremony and drowned it in the river, would the Earl of the Yellow River61 be ashamed of its origin and refuse the sacrifice?
Acquiring an army of ten thousand men does not compare to hearing one word that is apposite;
acquiring the pearl of the marquis of Sui does not compare to understanding from whence events arise.
Acquiring the jade disk of Mr. Gua62 does not compare to understanding where events will lead.
One who selects a fine steed does not use it to chase a fox or a raccoon dog if he is preparing to shoot a deer or a stag.
One who sharpens a sword with a whetstone does not use it to cut plain silk robes if he is preparing to slash rhino-hide armor.
Thus,
“With high mountains he looks to the summit,
with scenic byways he travels to the end.”63
What this [ode] refers to is such a person.
To see a crossbow pellet and expect a roast owl;
to see an egg and expect dawn to end the night;
to see a hemp seed and expect finished cloth:
although there is a principle here, still one cannot hasten the sunset.
If an elephant loses its tusks, it does not begrudge the person who profits from them;64
if a person dies and leaves behind his bed mat, he does not resent the person who takes it.
If a person is able to use what is of no benefit [to others] to benefit himself, that is permissible.
A madman runs to the east. The person pursuing him also runs to the east. They are the same in running to the east, but the reasons why they are running to the east are different.
A drowning person enters the water. The person rescuing him also enters the water. They are the same in entering the water, but the reasons why they are entering the water are different.
Thus,
sages equate life and death;
fools also equate life and death.
Sages equate life and death because they fully comprehend the rationale of making distinctions;
fools equate life and death because they do not know where benefit and harm lie.
On account of Humaneness and Rightness, King Yan of Xu lost his state. [But] losing a state is not necessarily due to Humaneness and Rightness.
On account of loyalty, Bi Gan lost his life. [But] being executed is not necessarily due to loyalty.
Thus,
one who is cold shivers;
one who is afraid also shivers.
They are the same in name but differ in substance.
The Moonglow Pearl came from a cricket oyster.
The great jade tablet of Zhou came from a dirty stone.
The divine tortoise of Dazai came from a city moat.
The ruler of [a state of] ten thousand chariots wears a hat not worth more than a pennyweight to ride a chariot worth a hundred pieces of gold.
The skin of an ox made into a drum directs the multitudes of the Three Armies.
Someone who wants to learn songs and ballads must begin with the zhi and yu [tunings] and the yue and feng [classical airs].
Someone who desires beauty and harmony must first start with the [classical compositions] “Yang’a” and “Cailing.”65
In both cases he must study what he does not wish to study in order to get to what he does wish to study.
To attract cicadas, you try to make your fire bright;
to catch fish, you try to make your bait fragrant.
By making your fire bright, you thereby attract and catch them;
by making your bait fragrant, you thereby lure and profit from them.
If you want to get fish, you must [first] channel water;
if you want to get birds, you must [first] plant trees.
Where water collects, fish abound;
where trees flourish, birds flock.
If you enjoy bow hunting, you start by equipping yourself with bowstrings and arrow shafts;
if you enjoy fishing, you start by equipping yourself with fine-mesh and large-mesh nets.
It is not possible to secure any advantage without having the right equipment.
When you give someone a horse but [first] take off the harness,
when you give someone a chariot but [first] detach the yoke rings,
what you have kept is [worth] little,
and what you have given away is [worth] a lot.
Thus the peasants have a saying: “If you boil beef without salt, you defeat the purpose.”
[Tyrant] Jie had some accomplishments.
[The sage] Yao had some departures from the Way.
[The ugly] Mo Mu66 had some beautiful points.
[The great beauty] Xi Shi had some ugly points.
Thus
among the laws of a perished state, there are some that may be followed;
among the customs of a well-governed state, there are some that may be rejected.
The round and sharp-pointed [ritual] jades,67 placed amid filth and mud, would not be rejected even by a fastidious person.
A worn-out fish trap or rice steamer, placed on felt cushions, would not be taken even by a greedy person.
That in which beauty is present, even if soiled, cannot be disparaged by the ages;
that in which ugliness is present, even if elevated, cannot be valued by the ages.
If with spring you lend and with fall you tax, the people will be pleased.
If with spring you tax and with fall you lend, the people will be resentful.
The gains and losses are the same, but the happiness and anger are distinct; the seasons make the difference.
If you “indulge” a fish, you do not catch him but let him dive in the deep;
if you “reward” a monkey, you do not carry him away but let him swing from the trees.
You let them pursue what brings them benefit, that is all.
Sable fur that is mottled
cannot compare with
fox fur that is uniform.
Thus, people detest nothing more than someone whose conduct is not consistent.
One who judges horses may miss a [fine] horse, but the fineness of the horse is still there during the judging.
Now someone sets a fire;
some add fuel to make it burn;
others pour on water to extinguish it.
Before either has had any effect,
the resentment [that follows the one]
and the gratitude [that follows the other]
are already far apart.
A man from Ying [in Chu] was buying a beam for a house and sought a timber three hand spans in diameter. Someone gave him the axle of a cart. Kneeling down to measure it, he discovered that although it was thick enough, it was not long enough.
Qu Boyu used Potency to transform;
Gongsun Yang used slicing to punish.
Their goal was the same.
When a sick person is lying on his mat,
what a physician uses are needles and stones;
what a shaman uses are [sacrificial] grain and rushes;
their objectives are compatible.
The fox-head [plant] cures a rat bite;
the rooster-head [plant] cures a tumor;68
powdered mosquitoes clot blood;
pecked wood cures a toothache.
These are example of things that are extended within like categories.
To use grease to kill a tortoise,
feathered darts to shoot a hedgehog,
ash from rotted wood to breed flies,
[and the fact] that if exposed to the sight of crabs, lacquer will not dry69—
These [are examples of] things that cannot be extended within like categories.
What can be extended or not extended [within categories] resembles what “is not” but [really] is; or what “is” but [really] is not. Who can comprehend their subtleties?
There are no pure white foxes in the world, and yet there is pure white fox fur; it is put together from many pieces of white fur. A person who loves to study resembles the king of Qi when he ate chicken. He had to eat several tens of chicken feet before he was satisfied.
A knife is handy for cutting hair, but when it comes to felling a large tree, without an ax you won’t [be able to] cut it down. Thus among cutting implements, there certainly are ones that are appropriate and others that are not.
If you look at only a square inch of an ox, you will not know that it is bigger than a sheep. But take an overall look at both their bodies, and you will know that the difference between the two is very great.
If a pregnant woman sees a rabbit, the child will be born with a cleft palate.
If she sees a deer, the baby will have four eyes.
If a little horse has big eyes, it cannot be called a big horse.
If a big horse has a blind eye, it can be called a blind horse.70
There are things that seem to be so and things that seem not to be so.
Thus,
cut off your finger and you might die;
cut off your arm and you might live.
Categories of like things cannot necessarily be extended.
If you [want to] sharpen a sword, you must have a soft whetstone.
If you [want to] strike bells and chimestones, you must have a damp wooden mallet.
For the hub of a wheel to be strong, the spokes must be weak.
Two hard things cannot harmonize with each other,
two strong things cannot submit to each other.
Thus [soft] wutong wood can cut horn, and horsehair can cut jade.
A matchmaker doesn’t [make a point of] studying deception, but when she does her work, it gives rise to untrustworthiness.
A man of upstanding bravery doesn’t [make a point of] studying battle, but he bravely takes his stand and gives rise to indomitableness.
Thus,
the Superior Man does not enter a jail because it might harm his kindness;
he does not enter a market because it might harm his purity.
The accumulated [effect of things] cannot be overlooked.
When [people] walk, they do not use their hands, but if [a person’s] hands are tied, he cannot walk swiftly.
When [birds] fly, they do not use their tails, but if [a bird’s] tail is bent, it cannot fly very far.
In what is used we use what is not used.
Thus,
what is used for seeing does not itself see;
what is used to beat a drum does not itself make a sound.
By tasting one piece of meat, you can know the flavor of a potful.
By suspending feathers and charcoal [in a balance beam],71 you can know the humidity of the air.
One uses the small to illuminate the large.
By seeing one leaf fall, you can know that the year will soon end;
By noticing ice in a jug, you can know the temperature throughout the world.
One uses the near to assess the far.
If three people [walk] shoulder to shoulder, they cannot go out the door;
if two people follow each other, they can go anywhere in the world.
Treading the ground makes footprints [which remain behind];
walking in bright sunlight makes shadows [which do not].
These are easy [to observe] but difficult [to explain].
When King Zhuang [of Chu] executed [his minister] Li Shi,72 Sunshu Ao mended his [official] cap and laundered his robe.73
Duke Wen [of Jin] discarded his [worn-out] rush mats and [relegated] to the rear those [soldiers] whose faces were blackened [with hardship and age]. Maternal Uncle Fan [therefore] declined to return with him.74
When the mulberry leaves fall, the elderly lament.
Ordinary cooking pots are used daily but are not of substantial value.
The Zhou royal ding are not used for cooking but cannot be considered valueless.
There certainly are things whose usefulness consists of not being used.
If land is flat, water will not flow;
if the weights are equal, the balance beam will not tilt.
Excessiveness in anything will necessarily provoke a response. Thus there certainly are things that find great use in not being used.
To undress and then to wash is possible.
To wash and then to undress is not possible.
To sacrifice and then to feast is possible.
To feast and then to sacrifice is not possible.
In the sequence of things, in each case there is [a way] that is proper.
On the day of a sacrifice, to call someone a son of a bitch;
on one’s wedding night, to mention funeral clothing;
on the day of a wine party, to talk of raising a funeral altar
[is] to cross the Yangzi or the Yellow River and speak of the waves of the marquis of Yang.75
Someone said, “If one knew that on a certain day there would be a great amnesty, many people would be killed [beforehand].”
Someone else said, “If one knew that on a certain day there would be a great amnesty, many people would stay alive [as a result of it].”
In looking at the amnesty, they were alike, but in considering it beneficial or harmful, they differed.
Thus,
sometimes you blow on a fire and it burns more brightly;
sometimes you blow on a fire and it goes out.
The reason you blow on it differs.
If someone cooked a cow and feasted his village but then cursed his landlord’s mother,76 not only would his kindness not be repaid, but he would put his life in danger.
King Wen [of Chu] had a sunken chest.
Bao Shen77 was a hunchback.
Together they brought good government to Chu.
Pi Chen78 became wise when he left the capital; he thereby brought about the success of Zichan’s affairs.79
A dwarf asked a tall man about heaven. The tall man said, “I don’t know.” The dwarf replied, “Even if you don’t know, you’re still closer than I am.”
Thus whenever you ask about affairs, you must ask someone close to them.
“Robbers make it hard to get there,” said the lame man to the blind man. The blind man carried [the lame one] and went on his way; they both arrived alive. [This was because] each used his own ability.
To force a mute person to speak or a lame person to walk [would be] to lose [the use of] their actual abilities.
A man from Ying was going to sell his mother. He said to a [prospective] buyer, “This mother is old. Please feed her well and don’t let [her life] be bitter.” This is to carry out a large offense against Rightness while hoping to perform a small act of Rightness.
The movement of armored bugs [e.g., mollusks, turtles] facilitates rigidity;
the movement of asexual bugs [e.g., bees and wasps] facilitates poisonous stinging.
The movement of black and brown bears facilitates seizing and grasping;
the movement of rhinos and oxen facilitates butting and goring.
No animals abandon their strong points to use their shortcomings.
Governing a country is like hoeing a field. One gets rid of harmful plants, that is all.
When one washes, some hairs fall out, but we don’t stop [washing] merely for that reason. What one loses is little and what one gains is much.
A whetstone is not sharp, but it can sharpen metal.
A bow maker’s frame is not straight, but it can straighten a bow.
Thus there definitely are things
that [although] not straight can make things straight;
that [although] not sharp can make things sharp.
With strength we value agility;
with knowledge we value acumen.
When the results are the same, speed is considered superior;
when the triumph is equal, sluggishness is considered inferior.
The reason we value [the great sword] Moye is because it responds to things by cutting sharply and cleanly.
But a doorsill may break suddenly from the constant vibrations of ox carts.
Although Confucius encountered difficulties in [the borderlands of] Chen and Cai, [for that reason] to abandon the six arts80 would be foolhardy.
Although doctors sometimes are unable to cure their own illnesses, [for that reason] not to use medicine when one falls ill would be rash.
Translated by Sarah A. Queen and John S. Major
1. In Han belief, living humans had two souls: the po 
, a substantive, earthy, corporeal soul associated with yin, which was buried with the body after death and consumed funerary offerings; and the hun 
, an ethereal soul associated with yang, which left the body at the time of death. See also 7.6 and 9.2; and chap. 9, n. 2.
2. See 1.6 and 6.1. Here Zhan He is called Zhan Gong; gong 
must be understood here not as “duke” but as an honorific term for a respected older man.
3. Shen Xi 
was a man variously said to have been from Zhou or Chu. Having lost his mother when he was young, he was once strangely moved by the song of an old beggar woman. On closer inspection, she turned out to be his long-lost mother. His story is recorded in Lüshi chunqiu 9.5.
4. Hu Ba 
appears in Xunzi 1. According to Gao You, he was a man of Chu. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1632n.7.
5. Following Lau’s (HNZ, 154n.1) identification of yin-yu 
as xun 
.
6. Bo Ya 
(also known as 
) was a master musician who famously broke his instrument when Zhongzi Qi, the person who most appreciated his music, died. See Lüshi chunqiu 14.2. The story of his effect on horses is recorded in Xunzi 1.
7. Jie Zitui 
(also known as Jie Zhitui 
) was a knight of Jin who accompanied Duke Wen of Jin during his long years in exile but who alone among the duke’s retinue was not rewarded on the latter’s accession to the ducal throne. Many versions of Jiezi Tui’s legend appear in various texts. He is said to have gone as far as cutting off some of his own flesh to feed Duke Wen when provisions had run low and the group was starving. Gao You relates a version of Jie Zitui’s legend (alluded to here in the Huainanzi) in which Jie sang a song comparing himself to a snake that had nurtured and been abandoned by a dragon (i.e., Duke Wen), moving the duke to tears of regret. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1634n.9. Shiji 39 records an alternative version of this story in which Jie writes a snake/dragon poem on the gates of the ducal palace.
8. We omit the next three characters (zhi shen zhe 
) as being a stray fragment that does not belong here.
9. That is, the nose and the ears (like wind instruments) rely on both their physical structure and their empty passages to function.
10. King Yuan of Song 
poses a historiographic puzzle. This name appears in many Warring States and Han texts, but reconstructed chronologies of the period do not seem to accommodate his historicity. Only one Song ruler for whom a clear record exists took the title of king: King Kang of Song (r. 329–286 B.C.E.), the last ruler of Song before its destruction. There was a Duke 
Yuan of Song (r. 531–517 B.C.E.), but he lived too early to fit plausibly into many of the contexts in which “King Yuan” is evoked in later texts. Qian Mu 
believes that “King Yuan” may have been a crown prince of Song, son of King Kang, who briefly held the throne during the crisis surrounding the state’s collapse (Xian Qin zhuzi xinian 
, 2nd ed. [Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1956; repr., Taipei: Dongda, 1990], 402–4). Zhuangzi 26 reports that Lord Yuan 
(in this case, most likely Duke Yuan) encountered a dream tortoise claiming to be an emissary of the god of the Yangzi on his way to the god of the Yellow River that had been caught in a fisherman’s basket. The ruler summoned the fisherman, retrieved the turtle, and killed it so as to use its shell for prognostication.
11. Commentators explain that the people of Yue were familiar with shooting overhead (e.g., at birds in trees) but not at shooting at things far away. They were unable to adapt their familiar technique to a new goal.
12. Glue will not stick to pitch; each “steals” the other’s stickiness. Charcoal was used to insulate ice in ice houses during the summertime. See also 11.18; and chap. 11, n. 96.
13. The tip of a downy hair just beginning to emerge through an animal’s skin in autumn is a standard ancient Chinese metaphor for the smallest possible thing.
14. Many species of orchids have little or no scent; nevertheless, orchids (lan 
) are strongly associated with fragrance in Chinese literary imagery.
15. Chen Chengheng is the same as Chen Chengchang. See 13.8.
16. Ziyuan Jie 
(also known as Ziju 
) was a grandee of Qi who served at the court of Duke Jian. Chen Chengheng threatened Ziyuan Jie because the latter would not join in his plot to assassinate Duke Jian of Qi.
17. This refers to a story in Zhuangzi 48 (ZZ 48/19/18) about a man who could capture the insects on the end of a pole by being able to concentrate his whole spirit on the task.
18. Duke Bo of Sheng was so preoccupied with a rebellion that he injured his chin with a whip held upside down and was not even aware of it. See 12.46.
19. See 7.15; and Hanfeizi, chap. 7.
20. Ni Yue 
was a logician of Song who is said to have defeated all the debaters at Jixia by arguing the proposition that “a white horse is not a horse.” He “untied” (i.e., “solved”) the duke’s knot by showing that it could not be untied. See 17.193; and chap. 18, nn. 131, 132.
21. The father’s advice seems useful; a good strategy for a young bride entering her husband’s household was to avoid being conspicuous in any way.
22. Chunyu Kun warned a neighbor that his chimney was defective and might cause a fire. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1651n.25.
23. Yin and yang (the two qi) are always simultaneously present in everything, but usually in unequal amounts; thus one or the other is naturally dominant. When they are present with equal force and contend for dominance, the effects described result.
24. A similar statement appears in 4.9.
25. Some editions use the character qi 
, which in this usage means something like “nature” (almost equivalent to xing 
), while others use qi 
, as in 16.21. There is a clear point of congruence of the terms, but qi 
appears to be correct here. See 4/34/23: jie xiang qi qi, jie ying qi lei 
. This expresses the same idea as tong qi xiang dong 
here.
26. A passage in 1.6 makes a similar point.
27. See 16.111.
28. Baozhe 
, shopkeeper, explained by the commentators as the proprietor of a wine shop. He dares not keep a biting dog because it would frighten away his customers.
29. This sentence is transposed from 16.59, following the suggestion of Wang Niansun. See Lau, HNZ, 157, 159.
30. A major violation of etiquette. Compare 16.79.
31. Mozi opposed music as wasteful.
32. Some commentators interpret the “beauty” and “ugliness” of this passage as referring to one’s reputation. See also Laozi 56; and Zhuangzi 24 (ZZ 24/10/27).
33. Shentu Di 
was a minister of King Djou of Shang who committed suicide out of shame that he could not reform his ruler.
34. Zuozhuan, Xi 33; Gongyang zhuan, Xi 33.
35. That is, the blackbird, which can imitate the songs of many other birds. Also called the turn-tongue (fan she 
). See 5.5.
36. That is, his voice has become rusty from disuse.
37. The lives of most animals pass unnoticed; these anomalies, though bad omens, receive a kind of immortality by being recorded in writing.
38. That is, fuling, written 
or 
, which is said to grow on the roots of pine trees and to embody the “hidden spirit” of the tree. See Shiji 128/3b–4a.
39. A parasitic plant that has no roots.
40. See 16.89.
41. That is, Wen Zhong. He was forced to commit suicide by a suspicious king. See Shiji 28/7a–b; and Zuozhuan, Ai 3.
42. The Fan clan 
was one of the “six ministerial clans” of the Jin. The clan was destroyed and its territory divided among the Hann, Zhi, Zhao, and Wei clans in 458 B.C.E.
43. For these and other weights and measures, see app. B.
44. For a similar argument, see 2.7.
45. Qu 
here is equivalent to qu 
in the following line; in this context, we take both as having the sense of “inclinations.”
46. A similar statement is found in 17.141.
47. These stories of Yi the Archer and the wrestler Qingji are alluded to in 14.4.
48. An almost identical statement appears in 17.222.
49. That is, the praise itself drew attention to the case, and thus it was discovered that the mother of the convict laborer was in fact doing the work for him.
50. A similar point is made in 17.28 and 19.5.
51. Yang Youji appears in 13.11 in an anecdote about King Gong of Chu. That is presumably the “king of Chu” in this anecdote as well.
52. For Mr. He’s jade disk, see 6.3 and 16.19; and chap. 14, n. 57; for the jade half-disk of the Xiahou clan, see 7.6, 13.15, and 17.2.
53. For the term junxing 
, see also 17.61; compare the “ruler of [all] notes” (yin zhi jun 
) in 3.29 and 6.4.
54. That is, the horse might not die after all, but the one who kills the ox will be executed. The commentators explain that an ox is crucial to agriculture and that to kill one is a capital offense.
55. The Jisun clan 
was one of the three branch lineages descended from Duke Huan of Lu (r. 712–694 B.C.E.) that became the most powerful factions in that state during the late Spring and Autumn period. Gao You tentatively identifies the head of the Jisun clan during this period as either Ji Kangzi 
(d. 468 B.C.E.) or Ji Huanzi 
(d. 492 B.C.E.). See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1688n.1.
56. He drowned in a rising river while waiting for a woman who never arrived despite her promise. See also 13.11 and 17.242.
57. Kong Bo 
was a great-grandson of Confucius. His mother had been repudiated by his father, but he nevertheless should have mourned her.
58. Zhaoge 
(Courtsong) was the name of a pre-Anyang capital of the Shang dynasty. Supposedly the court music of Shang was composed there, so Mozi, who opposed music, considered it a place to avoid. See Le Blanc and Mathieu 2003, 773n.40.
59. Correcting “Zengzi” to “Confucius,” as suggested by Liu Wendian. See Lau, HNZ, 163n.5.
60. A similar statement appears in 17.176.
61. He Bo 
, not (as the name might suggest) a human ruler, but a god. See also 17.210.
62. Regarded as the same as the jade disk of Mr. Bian 
or Mr. He 
. See chap. 14, n. 57; and 6.3, 16.19, and 16.90.
63. Odes 218.
64. Compare 17.113.
65. “Yang’a” 
(Sunny Slope) and “Cailing” 
(Brightly Colored Water Chestnuts) were famous melodies of the state of Chu.
66. Mo Mu 
was the wife of the Yellow Emperor. Alhough ugly, she was virtuous. See Lüshi chunqiu 14.7.
67. Wan 
and yan 
, ritual jade implements, said to represent mercy and severity, respectively.
68. Both “fox-head” and “rooster-head” are medicinal herbs, the first a kind of bean and the second a type of water lily.
69. A similar statement appears in 6.3. According to later Chinese pharmacopeias, a poultice of crushed shellfish was used to treat the rash caused by exposure to raw lac sap (the lac tree is related to poison sumac). But the enzymes in the shellfish medicine also are capable of preventing lacquer from drying properly, so it must be kept away from lacquer that is still being manufactured. We are grateful to Anthony Barbieri-Low (private communication) for this insight.
70. There is a play on words here. The character miao 
, “blind in one eye,” has the eye radical on the left, and the character for “few” (i.e., “small” with an additional stroke) on the right.
71. If you place feathers in one end of a scale and charcoal in the other and it balances evenly in dry weather, then the charcoal end will drop down when it is humid (because charcoal absorbs moisture better than feathers). Such a device could act as a sort of weather-forecasting tool.
72. According to Gao You, Li Shi 
was a “devious official.” See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1716n.10. Yu Dacheng proposes that the characters in his name be transposed to produce “Scribe Li” 
. See Lau, HNZ, 166n.6.
73. He anticipated that he would be promoted to serve in Li Shi’s place.
74. Maternal Uncle Fan (also known as Hu Yan [d. 622 B.C.E.]) was the uncle of Duke Wen of Jin and one of his most influential advisers. The story of his refusing to return home is recorded in Hanfeizi 32. Duke Wen was returning from a ten-year exile; Maternal Uncle Fan was outraged by his treatment of his faithful veterans.
75. All these are examples of inappropriate behavior. The “waves of the marquis of Yang” are sudden waves in the river, caused by the drowned marquis’s ghost, that can overturn boats and cause people to drown. See 6.1.
76. Literally, “the mother of his neighbor to the east.” “Eastern neighbor” is a conventional term meaning “landlord.”
77. Bao Shen 
served as prime minister of Chu during the reign of King Wen.
78. Pi Chen 
was an influential minister of Zheng. According to Gao You, he was unable to devise plans in the capital, only in the countryside, so Zichan would take him out into the countryside to discuss policy. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1722n.2.
79. The message of all these examples is that contrary to expectations, unpromising people sometimes prove useful.
80. The “six arts” of Confucianism were rites, music, archery, charioteering, writing, and mathematics.
To apply the standards of a bygone era in governing the world [today] is like a passenger in a boat who lost his sword in midstream. Right away he made a mark on the boat, intending to come back at night to look for the sword. His lack of knowledge of how to sort things out was certainly profound! Now to follow the footprints in one small corner [of the world] and not to know how to wander in accord with Heaven and Earth—no confusion can be greater than that. Just because something is suitable for a particular time is not enough to make it valuable [always]. It can be compared with making earthen dragons in time of drought or making [sacrificial] straw dogs during an epidemic. They are sovereign only at a particular time.
The torn remnants of a baby’s swaddling cloth1 are of value for treating bites of the qiu insect,2 but it is not the jade half-disk of the Xiahou clan.3
It has no antiquity and no present,
no beginning and no end.
Before there were yet Heaven and Earth, it generated Heaven and Earth. It is the profoundly subtle and expansively grand.
Where feet tread is shallow, but we [must] rely on where we do not tread before we [can] walk.
What a knowledgeable person knows is narrow, but we [must] rely on what we do not know before we [can] understand.
A swimmer uses his feet to kick and his hands to sweep [through the water]. But if you have not mastered the technique of swimming, the more you kick, the more you will get into trouble. When you do learn to swim, it is not [just] a matter of hands and feet.
Birds fly back to their home;
rabbits return to their burrow;
dying foxes head for their lair;
gnats hover over the water.
All things rely on what bring them into being.
One does not give a mirror to a person who has lost his sight;
one does not give a pair of shoes to a person who has lost a foot;
one does not give a ceremonial cap to a person from Yue;
they are of no use to them.
Although a hammer has a handle, it cannot pound itself;
although eyes can see a hundred paces away, they cannot see their own eyelids.
Dogs and pigs do not eat from plates and cups. Carelessly they fatten their bodies; [consequently] self-regard hastens their own deaths.
Phoenixes fly more than a thousand ren4 high; consequently, no one can reach them.
The moon illuminates the sky, but it is swallowed by the toad;5
the deng6 reptile wanders in the fog, but it is endangered by the cricket;
the crow’s strength vanquishes the sun, but it submits to the zhuizha bird.7
[Things] can possess [both] strengths and weaknesses.
No one lives longer than a child who dies in infancy;
Ancestor Peng was short lived.8
If the rope is short, it cannot be used to draw water from the depths;
if the implement is small, it cannot be used [on things that are] abundantly large.
It is not within its capacity.
Anger arises from non-anger,
action arises from non-action.
Look for the formless and you will see what you look for.
Listen for the soundless and you will hear what you listen for.
The best flavor does not satiate;
the highest language does not embellish.
The highest joy does not [elicit] laughter;
the loftiest sound does not call out.
The greatest artist does not chop;
the greatest cook does not carve;
the greatest hero does not fight.9
When you attain the Way, its Potency follows. This is like the correspondence of the [pitch-pipe] note Yellow Bell and the [pentatonic] note gong, or the correspondence of the [pitch-pipe] note Great Budding and the [pentatonic] note shang —their consonance cannot be altered.
If someone is gambling for [a piece of tile], his pace will be measured.
If he is gambling for gold, he will be excited.
If he is gambling for jade, he will be very ill at ease.
For this reason, if what you value is external, then what is internal will be dulled.10
When you pursue a wild animal, your eyes will not notice Mount Tai.
When you crave and desire something external, your perception will be impaired.
Those who hear the sound of a sound are deaf.
Those who hear the sound of no sound are discerning.
Those who are neither deaf nor discerning have penetrated through to spirit illumination.
The diviner grasps the tortoise shell;
the shaman arranges the [milfoil] slips.
When inquiring about their calculations, how can it be numbers that we ask about?
Those who are dancing set the beat while those sitting unconsciously clap their hands in unison. What brings them to that point is the same.
The sun rises in the Bright Valley
and sets in the Abyss of Anxiety.11
No one is aware of its movements,
but in a moment’s time
it turns your head around.
No one wants to learn to ride a dragon, but everyone wants to learn to ride a horse.
No one wants to learn to rule ghosts, but everyone wants to learn to rule men.
[People] hasten after what is of use.
To dismantle a gate to make firewood;
to plug a well to make a mortar:
When people do things, sometimes they are that stupid.12
Water and fire repel each other, but when a small cauldron lies between them, the five flavors are harmonized.
Bone and flesh13 attract each other, but when slander intervenes, the father–son relationship is threatened.
Now when the means by which you nurture something harms what you nurture, it is like shaving the foot to fit the shoe or trimming the head to fit the hat.
Calamus repels fleas and lice but attracts centipedes.14 It alleviates a minor irritation but invites a great harm. Thus small pleasures [can] undermine significant benefits.
A collapsing wall does not compare with one that does not [collapse].15 But it is better than a falling-down house.
That the bi and yuan [jade ritual objects] become implements is due to the merits of the grit;16
that the Moye [sword] cuts so cleanly is due to the strength of the whetstone.
When the cunning rabbit is caught, the hunting dog is cooked.
When the high-flying bird is shot down, the strong crossbow is put into storage.
The gadflies that accompany a thoroughbred go a thousand li but do not fly. They do not have stores of grain, yet they do not starve.
Suppose you have an accidental fire and it happens to rain. Having the accidental fire is unfortunate but its happening to rain is fortunate. Thus within ill fortune there is good fortune.
The purveyor of coffins desires human illness and plague;
the hoarder of grain desires yearly drought and famine.
When water is still, it is level.
When it is level, it is clear.
When it is clear, it reveals the shapes of things.
Nothing can hide; thus it can be used to make things correct.
Where streams dry up, valleys become empty.
Where hills level off, gorges fail to flow.
Where lips dry out, teeth grow cold.
[Although] river water runs deep, its silt lies in the mountains.
From the same plain white silk,
one piece might be used for a [mourning] cap
and one piece for socks.
The cap is worn on the head,
but the socks are worn on the feet.
If you know yourself, you cannot be enticed by things.
If you understand life and death, you cannot be put off by danger.
Thus a good swimmer cannot be frightened by wading.
No blood relationship is closer than one’s own bones and flesh; they unite joints and connective tissue. But when the mind loses control over them, they can turn around and cause harm to oneself. How much more so is that true with more distant [relations].
The sage’s relation to the Way is like that of the sunflower to the sun. Although he does not begin and end with it, he faces it with utter sincerity.
The imperial reservoir overflows in times of flooding and dries up in times of drought, [but] the sources of the Yangzi waters are deep springs that cannot dry up.
An awning that is not framed cannot screen out the sun.
A wheel that is not spoked cannot turn fast.
Nonetheless, frames and spokes are not in themselves sufficient to be relied on.
Metal overcomes wood, but it is not possible to destroy a forest with a single knife.
Earth overcomes water, but it is not possible to plug the Yangzi with one clod of earth.
When a cripple sees a tiger and he does not run away, it is not due to his bravery but because his situation is not conducive to it.17
What is tilted readily overturns.
What is slanted readily topples.
A person who is close is readily helped.
A place that is damp readily [gets] rain.
When the rat is caught, the trap moves;
when the fish is hooked, the float jerks;
when the load is moved, the cart squeaks.
Straw dogs can stand, but they cannot walk.
The “snake-bed” plant resembles the miwu plant,18 but it cannot [give off] a scent.
No one who says
Xu You had no Potency
or Wu Huo had no strength
could fail to show disgrace in his face. No one fails to avoid revealing his own inadequacies.
Suppose the stride of a rabbit were made as big as that of a horse. It could keep up with the sun and pursue the wind. If [a rabbit] actually became [as big as] a horse, though, it would not be able to run at all.
In winter there might be thunder and lightning,
and in summer there might be frost and snow.
Nevertheless, the inherent tendencies of heat and cold do not change. Small differences are not enough to hinder constant principles.
The Yellow Emperor produced yin and yang.
Shang Pian produced ears and eyes;
Sang Lin produced shoulders and arms.19
Nüwa used these to carry out the seventy transformations.20
To talk all day, one would need the traits of a sage;
to hit a bull’s-eye a hundred times [in a row], one would need the skill of an [Archer] Yi or a Peng Meng.21
But the present era does not praise them; such adherence to standards is reviled.
Both the ox’s hoof and the pig’s skull are bone, but the world does not heat-crack them [for divination]. The reason why we must ask the tortoise if an outcome will be good or bad is because people have been doing so for years.
If you live near the Ao granary, you do not eat more because of it;
if you live close to the Yangzi or the Yellow River, you do not drink more because of it.22
You hope to fill your stomach; that is enough.
The orchid and the iris give forth their fragrance23 but never [live to] see the frost.
The owl24 evades the weapons [of his attackers], but his life ends in the fifth month.25
The tongue or the teeth—which decays first?
The spear handle or the blade—which dulls first?
The bowstring or the arrow—which snaps first?
The eel and the snake,
the silkworm and the caterpillar—
In appearance they belong to the same category. But how they are liked or disliked makes them different.
Jin used the Chuiji jade disk to acquire [the states of] Yu and Guo;26
the Rong chieftain Li used a beautiful woman to destroy the state of Jin.27
Deaf people cannot sing, for they have no means to imagine music.
Blind people cannot observe, for they have no means to discern things.
If you watch the archer, you will lose sight of his skill.
If you watch the calligrapher, you will lose sight of his passion.
If you focus on what is there [on the outside], you will lose sight of what is preserved [on the inside].
If nothing from ancient times could ever be improved, then solid wagon wheels would never [have evolved into] wheels with separate hubs.28
If you get a female musician to blow through the reed pipes
and [another] musician to put his fingers on the holes,
even though they might keep the beat, no one could stand to listen to it. [The music] would lack its ruling form.29
If you have the same illness as one who is dying, it will be difficult to be a good doctor [for him];
If you share the same Way as a state that is perishing, it will be difficult to make plans for it.
When you make rice for your guest but eat greens yourself, you [show that you] prize reputation more highly than reality.
A nursing bitch will bite a tiger;
a brooding hen will peck a fox.
When their [maternal] concern has been aroused, they do not take account of [relative] strengths.
What makes the shadow crooked is the [original] form;
what makes the echo distorted is the [original] sound.
When emotions are divulged, the inner [sentiment] is easy to infer;
when flowers are untimely, [their fruit] is inedible.
If you go to Yue,
you can go by boat
or go by carriage.
The routes are different, but the destination is the same.
Good-looking men do not [all] have the same body.
Beautiful women do not [all] have the same face.
But they all are pleasing to the eye.
Pears, oranges, dates, and chestnuts do not have the same flavor,
but they all are satisfying to the palate.
There are people who rob and get rich, but not all rich people are necessarily robbers.
There are people who are pure and poor, but not all poor people are necessarily pure.
Reed floss is like [silk] floss but cannot be used as floss (to pad winter clothing);
hemp [fiber] is not in the category of cloth, but it can be made into cloth.
If you come out of a forest, you cannot follow a straight path.
If you traverse a pass, you cannot tread [as straight as] a marking cord.
The means by which Yi shot far and pierced the center of small things was not the bow and arrow.
The means by which Zaofu drove fast and far was not the reins and bit.
The sea retains what it has expelled;30 thus it is expansive.
The wheel returns where it has gone; thus it is far-reaching.
Mutton does not long for ants, but ants are drawn to mutton because it smells rank.
Pickling brine does not long for gnats, but gnats are drawn to pickling brine because it is sour.
By tasting a small piece of meat, you know the flavor of the whole cauldron.
By suspending a feather over hot coals, you know the dryness and humidity of the qi.31
By the small, you judge the large; by the near, you extrapolate the far.
A ten-qing reservoir can irrigate forty qing of land,32
[but] a one-qing reservoir cannot irrigate four qing of land.
The decrease in scale from large to small is like this.
Under the light of a bright moon you can see far, but you cannot write in minuscule.
On a very foggy morning you can write in minuscule, but you cannot see beyond a few feet.
An artist concerned about a single hair will lose sight of the face.
An archer who aims at a small [point] will miss the big [target].
To dig out a rat hole and ruin the village gate,
to burst a small pimple and erupt a great boil
resembles
a pearl with a defect,
a jade with a flaw:
Leave it alone and it will remain whole;
remove it and you will spoil it all.
A bird that builds a nest makes its home in the dense forest because it is safe.
An animal that digs a hole relies on a raised embankment because it is convenient.
Prince Qingji could run as fast as tailed deer and [ordinary] deer, and he caught rhinoceroses and tigers with his bare hands. Placed in a dark room, though, he could not even catch a tortoise or a turtle because conditions were not conducive to it.33
Tang banished his ruler and enjoyed a glorious reputation.
Cui Shu assassinated his prince and was greatly despised.
What they did was comparable; why they did it was different.
Lü Wang encouraged the old to be vigorous.
Xiang Tuo34 caused the young to be proud.
[People] admire those of [their own] kind.
What causes the leaves to fall is the wind that shakes them.
What causes the water to cloud are the fish that stir it.
The markings of tigers and leopards attract archers;
the agility of monkeys and apes brings hunters.35
Moving one chess piece is not sufficient to display your wisdom.
Plucking one string [of an instrument] is not sufficient to show your sorrow.
If a three-inch pipe has no stopper [in its lower end], the whole world cannot fill it.
If a ten-dan vessel has a stopper [in its drain hole], a hundred pecks will suffice.
Using a bamboo pole to measure the depth of the Yangzi River and, when the bamboo pole has reached its limit, considering that the water’s [depth] has been measured, is [truly] deluded.
Those who fish hasten to the deeps;
those who fell trees hasten to the mountains,
for [they know] what they hurry after will be there.
In the morning, people hasten to the market;
in the evening they stroll leisurely home,
for what they sought is gone.
Sable fur that is mottled cannot compare with fox fur that is uniform.36
A white jade disk with spots is not highly treasured.
This describes the difficulty in achieving purity.
The ghosts of those who died in battles hate spirit shamans;
robbers and thieves hate barking dogs.
It is easy to make sacrifices of millet and meat at an altar of the soil without a village;
it is easy to pray for prosperity at an altar of grain without a state.37
A tortoise lacks hearing, but his sight cannot be fooled; its quintessence lies in its clear sight.
A blind musician lacks sight, but his hearing cannot be obstructed; his quintessence lies in his acute hearing.
The posthumous son does not yearn for his father, for there is no impression in his mind. He does not see his image as he dreams because he has never laid eyes on his form.
A cobra cannot grow legs;
tigers and leopards cannot be made to climb trees.38
A horse does not feast on lard;
a hawfinch does not peck up millet;
[but] not because they are abstemious.
When Qin penetrated the Yao Pass, Wei built up its ramparts.
Starving horses in the stables are still and silent, but throw down some hay by their side and the covetous heart is born.
When you draw a bow and shoot, without the [whole] bowstring the arrow would not fly. But [the portion of] the bowstring that makes the shot is just one part in a hundred.
The Way and its Potency can be taken as a constant [model];
expediency cannot be taken as a constant [model].
Thus,
[someone who] slips through the pass [and flees the country] cannot be [allowed to] return;
an escaped prisoner cannot be rehabilitated.
A ring can be used to illustrate a circle, but it cannot necessarily be used as a wheel.
A silk cord can be used to make edging for a sandal, but it cannot necessarily be used as a ribbon.
The sun and the moon do not rise together.
Foxes do not form male twosomes.
The spirit dragon has no mate.
Fierce beasts do not form herds.
Birds of prey do not pair off.
If you follow a marking cord to cut [things], you will not make a mistake.
If you suspend a scale to weigh [things], you will not go wrong.
If you set up a gnomon to look into the distance, you will not be confused.39
If you subtract years [from your age], you will incur jealousy from your younger brother.
If you add years [to your age], you will incur suspicions from your elder brother.
Better just to follow principles and act according to what is suitable.
People do not see the dragon in flight. It can rise so high because the wind and rain serve it.
Where grubs proliferate, trees snap.
Where fissures widen, walls crumble.
Things that are hung up will eventually fall down.
Limbs that stick out will eventually break off.
If you endure freezing cold and do not die, you will not impair your sturdiness.
If you face scorching heat and do not suffer sunstroke, you will not lose your sturdiness.
But if you have never been unsturdy, you will lose your sturdiness.40
When a bath is prepared, the lice console one another;
When a large building is finished, swallows congratulate one another.
Sorrow and joy are far apart.
When Liuxia Hui41 saw the sweetmeats, he said, “[These] can nourish the elderly.”
When Robber Zhi saw the sweetmeats, he said, “[These] can grease the door bolt.”
What they saw was the same, but how they would use it was different.
The silkworm eats but does not drink. In thirty-two days it transforms.42
The cicada drinks but does not eat. In thirty days it sheds its skin.
The ant neither eats nor drinks. In three days she dies.
When people eat riverstones,43 they die; when silkworms eat them, they avert starvation.
When fish eat ba beans, they die; when rats eat them, they grow corpulent.
Correlative categories cannot necessarily be inferred.
Tile is made with fire, but you cannot get fire from it;
Bamboo grows in the water, but you cannot get water from it.
To scatter dust around and want to keep from getting dirty;
to wrap yourself in furs and fan yourself too;
—wouldn’t it be better just to wear appropriate clothes?
Dry bamboo has fire [within it], but without a fire drill it will not ignite;
within the earth there is water, but without a spring it will not emerge.
The maladies of oysters and elephants44 are the treasures of humankind. But human maladies—who would treasure them?
If you are so worried about the wine seller’s profits that you do not buy his wine, you will just go thirsty.
If you are so worried about the chariot driver’s profits that you do not hire his chariot, you will not reach your destination.
If you seize fire to throw it at someone else, you will be burned first instead.
If your neighbor’s mother died, you [would] go over to shed tears with him. But if your own wife died, you would not weep [publicly] because [people would] consider it a violation [of propriety].
In the Country of Naked People, in the western regions, birds and beasts [and people] do not avoid one another; together they all are as one.
If you grab a single piece of roasting meat, you will burn your fingers.
If you stand ten paces away from ten thousand dan of roasting meat, you will not burn to death.
Though the same with respect to their qi, they differ with respect to how much is amassed. [The difference between] great and small courage is like this.
With a mat six feet long,
if you lay it flat to be stepped over, even an inept person could do it;
if you stand it on end to be jumped over, even a highly talented person would not find it easy.
This is because the conditions have been changed.
A hundred plums is sufficient to make vinegar for a hundred people,
[but] one plum is not sufficient to make vinegar45 for one person.
Forbidding the world to eat because [one person] was killed by food,
forbidding the world to ride because [one person] was injured by a carriage, would be perverse.
If you use a hook, you are quiet;
if you use brushwood,46 you tap the boat;
if you use a trap, you press it down;
if you use a net, you lift it up.
The means differ, but in getting fish they are the same.
When you see an elephant’s tusk, you know he was bigger than an ox.
When you see a tiger’s tail, you know it was bigger than a fox.
One portion appears, and the remaining one hundred portions are known.
Small states do not fight in the space between large states;
two deer do not fight when there is a rhinoceros close by.
If you assist the sacrificer, you get to taste the offering.
If you aid a brawler, you get injured.
If you take shelter under an unlucky tree, you will be struck by lightning.
Some call it a zhong, some call it a long.47
Some call it a li, some call it a deng.48
The name is different, but the reality is the same.
Se meaning “head lice”
and se meaning “a musical instrument made from a hollow piece of wood”:
The name is the same, but the reality is different.
The sun and the moon want to shine, but drifting clouds can cover them.
Orchids and irises want to endure, but autumn winds will vanquish them.
If a tiger has a cub that cannot grasp and tear [prey with its claws], it will kill the cub right away because it is not fierce enough.
A jade seal carved in the shape of a tortoise is something the worthy turns into an ornament;
topsoil dispersed in the fields is something the capable turns into wealth.
To give a drowning person gold and jade is not as good as a few feet of rope.
In looking at writings,
if there is the character “wine” above, the character “meat” will certainly be below.49
If” year” is above, “month” will certainly be below.
We can pick them out according to their categories.
If you’re covered with dust and you squint, that is a good reason; but if you cover [your eyes] before you have [even] gone out your door, that is contrary to the Way.50
The butcher dines on coarse vegetables.
The carriage maker travels on foot.
The potter uses broken bowls.
The carpenter lives in cramped quarters.
The one who makes it does not [necessarily] use it;
the one who uses it is not willing to make it.
With the wheel hub [properly] set up, each of its thirty spokes makes full use of its strength but does not detract from the others. If you take one spoke alone and set it into the hub, discarding all the others, how would it be possible to go ten thousand li?
If you walk at night, you close your eyes and stretch your hand in front of you.51
If you cross [a body of] water, you untie your horses and take a boat.
In doing things, there are appropriate [actions], and there are things that should not be done.
Tangerines and pomelos have their native places.
Phragmites reeds and metataxis vines have places where they cluster.
Wild animals with identical feet follow one another in migration.
Birds with identical wings follow one another in flight.
Rainwater from the fields empties into the sea;
words whispered in someone’s ear can be heard for a thousand li.
When Su Qin walked slowly, people said, “Why is he walking?”
When he hurried along, they said, “Why does he hurry?”
When he galloped his horse, they said, “Why does he gallop?”
Whatever he did, people discussed it. Many activities bring much criticism.
If the skin is nowhere to be seen,
where will you look for the hair?52
If you fear the head and fear the tail,
what about all that is hidden in the body?
To want to see the nine continents [of the world]53 when your feet have not gone [even] a thousand li;
to be ignorant of the sources of government and education but to wish to reign over myriads of people—
these things are difficult!
If [the prey is] too obvious, it will be taken;
if [the bird is] too leisurely, it will be shot down.
Thus,
Great Purity is as if sullied;
Great Potency is as if deficient.54
If you have never planted nor harvested, yet grain fills your warehouses;
if you have never raised mulberry trees or silkworms, yet silk fills your sacks,
then you obtained them [through conduct] not in accord with the Way, and their use must be contradictory [to the Way].
The sea does not accept floating carrion;
Mount Tai does not elevate the petty person.55
The bladder is not offered up on an offering stand;56
the piebald horse does not qualify for sacrifice.
Using a fan to cool yourself in midsummer but not knowing enough to put it away when winter comes;
raising the hem of your clothing when crossing a stream but not knowing enough to lower it when you reach the [other] bank—
[some people] are unable to respond to alterations.
There are mountains that have no forests.
There are valleys that have no wind.
There are rocks that have no metal.
The people sitting in a hall all have different belt hooks, but they all hold their sashes closed in the same way.
Duke Xian [of Jin]’s worthiness [did not save him from being] deceived by Lady Li.57
Shusun [Bao]’s58 knowledge [did not save him from being] tricked by Shu Niu.59
Thus when Zheng Zhan60 entered Lu, the Spring and Autumn Annals said, “A deceitful person is coming, a deceitful person is coming!”
When the gentleman has wine,
the rustic beats his ceramic jar.61
Though [the gentleman] does not show
approval, he also does not show scorn.
By nature, people find silk suitable, but when being shot at, they suit up in armor. Thus they find that what doesn’t suit them serves very suitably.
When the spokes are set into the hub of a wheel, each meeting its respective hole, they do not pierce one another. It resembles officials, each of whom tends to his respective duties and does not interfere with the others.
Because he had avoided being shot by wearing armor, he wore it to enter water;
because he had crossed a river by holding on to a gourd, he used it to smother a fire.
We can say he did not understand how to categorize things.
When the Superior Man presides over the people, it is like
using a rotted rope to drive a racehorse,
treading on thin ice with a jiao dragon beneath it,
or entering a forest and encountering a nursing tiger.
Skillfully using others is like the feet of a millipede; though numerous they do not harm one another.
Or like the lips and the teeth, the hard and the soft rub up against each other but do not overcome each other.
The beauty of clear wine begins with the plow and the spade;
the beauty of fine brocade begins with the shuttle and the loom.
Rough linen when new is not as good as burlap;
burlap when old is not as good as rough linen.
Some things are best when new;
others are best when old.
A dimple is attractive on a cheek, but on the forehead it is ugly;
embroidery is appropriate on a robe, but on a cap it is reprehensible.
Horse teeth are not ox hoofs.
Sandalwood roots are not catalpa branches.
Thus if you see the root of their singularity, the myriad things can be known.
When it is formed, a stone is hard;
when it emerges, an orchid is fragrant.
When they are young, they [already] possess these qualities;
when they mature, they [become] obvious.
Propping it up or knocking it over,
thanking him or scolding him,
gaining it or losing it,
permitting it or forbidding it—
they are a thousand li apart.
To dirty your nose but to powder your forehead,
to have [dead] rats rotting in the courtyard but to burn incense in the palace,
to go in the water but to hate to get wet,
to embrace the odorous but to seek out the fragrant,
—even someone who is good at things cannot manage these.
Second sprouts are not harvested; flowering plants that grow large too early miss their [proper] season and wilt.
Do not say that things are unlucky. After all, a rice pot will not fall into a well by itself.
If you pull out a hairpin and get a spark, why should you be surprised?
To prevent someone from crossing a river is possible, but if a person has already reached the middle of the river, it is not possible to prevent him from crossing.
Seeing a single stripe of a tiger, you do not know how fierce he is.
Seeing a single hair of a steed, you do not know how well he runs.
Larva produce dragonflies;
tiny eggs produce mosquitoes;
rabbit-tooth [insects] produce dragon ants.
What things have for their making
emerges from what cannot be reasoned.
Those who do not know this are amazed;
those who know this do not think it strange.
Bronze sparkles with green;
gold sparkles with yellow;
jade sparkles with white.
An oilseed lamp shines dimly;
a tallow lamp shines richly.
You can use
the obscure to know the obvious
and the external to know the internal.
Simulated meat62 cannot be tasted by the mouth;
the appearance of ghosts and spirits cannot be perceived by the eyes;
the pleasure of seizing a shadow cannot assume reality in the heart.
Winter ice can crack;
summer trees can bear fruit.
The right moment is hard to get and easy to lose.
When the trees are thick and luxuriant on all sides, you can chop them down all day long, and no one would know [the difference]. But when the autumn winds bring down the frost, in just one night, they [all] die of cold.
To force-feed someone with a fever,
to give cold drinks to someone with sunstroke,
to pull on the rope to rescue a hanged person,
to throw a stone to save a drowning person:
[Although] one wants to help, [these things] do harm instead.
Although you may wish to prevent runaway horses, you need not rush out the door for [every] rumbling cart;
although you want to be careful when taking wine, you need not cling to your sleeping mat.
Once Meng Ben63 reaches into a rat hole, the rats will die in no time; [nevertheless] they assuredly will bite his fingers because he has lost his positional advantage.
When clouds rise in the mountains, the bases of pillars grow damp.
When the fuling fungus is dug up, the [parasitic] convolvula vine dies.
When one house is lost to fire, one hundred houses burn.
When liars plot in secret, the “hundred names” become sun-bleached bones.64
When grain gets wet, it becomes warm;
when clay pots are fired, they emit water.
In water there is fire;
in fire there is water.
Swift lightning breaks stone.
Yin and yang erode each other.65
These are natural forces.
When hot [bath] water is poured into a river, it does not increase [its volume] by much. When floodwaters drain into the sea, although they cannot increase its expanse, they still add to what was already there.
A one-eyed net cannot catch a bird.66
A baitless hook cannot catch a fish.
If you meet up with a scholar and lack propriety, you will not catch his respect.
The convolvula vine has no roots, but it can grow.
The snake has no feet but it can go.
A fish has no ears, but it can hear.
A cicada has no mouth, but it can sing.
They all have what makes them so.
The crane lives for a thousand years, so it may fulfill its wanderings; the mayfly is born in the morning and dies in the evening but gets its fill of enjoyment.
When [the tyrant] Djou minced Earl Mei, King Wen plotted with the Lords of the Land against him.
When [the tyrant] Jie showed no gratitude toward one who remonstrated, Tang had the people weep for him.
A wild horse does not butt into a tree;
a mad dog does not throw himself into a river;
and even a deaf insect does not immolate itself.
How much more so should people [avoid self-destruction].
If you like bears but feed them salt;
if you like otters but give them wine to drink;
though you may wish to raise them well, this contradicts their Way.
If it made you happy, you might destroy a boat to get its rudder;
if it were your heart’s desire, you might destroy a bell to get its clapper.
For every small disgrace Master Guan accomplished something glorious.
For every hundred deceptions Su Qin performed one honest act.
Where a target is displayed, bow and arrows gather.
Where a forest’s trees flourish, hatchets and axes enter.
It is not that someone summoned them. The force of circumstance attracts them.
The expectation of a reward might lead you to rescue a drowning man; still, it also certainly benefits the drowning man.
If a boat is as likely to sink as to float, even a fool would not set foot on it.
Even [the famous horse] Qiji,
if he did not go when spurred on,
or if he failed to stop when reined in,
would not be selected by the ruler of men to travel [a single] li.
Those who criticize my conduct wish to be my friends;
those who demean my goods wish to barter with me.
Water blended with water is not worth drinking.
A one-stringed se is not worth listening to.
A fine horse will die from being tied up;
an honest scholar will grow poor from being upright.
A worthy is spurned at the court;
a beautiful woman is spurned at the palace.
When the traveler thinks [of his loved one] on the road,
the one at home dreams in her bed.
When the kindly mother sighs in Yan [in the north],
her son misses her in Jing [in the south].
These are [cases of] Essence going back and forth.
Where red meat hangs, crows and magpies gather.
Where hawks and buzzards soar, throngs of birds disperse.
Whether creatures disperse or gather depends on how they respond to one another.
If you eat [someone’s] food, don’t destroy his utensils;
If you eat fruit [from a tree], don’t break its branches.
If you block up a spring, you’ll go dry;
If you turn your back on your roots, you’ll grow rotten.
Interlacing brushstrokes cannot extend far.
Linked rings cannot be separated.
The way to “solve” them is by not separating them.67
Going down to the river and hoping for a fish is not so good as going home and knotting a net.
A moon-bright pearl is
an oyster’s ailment
but my profit.
Tigers’ claws and elephants’ tusks are
good for the animals
but harmful to me.68
An easy road and a fine horse make people want to gallop.
Drinking wine and feeling happy make people want to sing.
To do what you know is right can certainly be called decisiveness.
To do what you know is wrong can surely be called delusion.
An arrow’s speed cannot carry it more than two li. But if you go a hundred stages without resting,69 you can go a thousand li.
Sages live in the yin;
the masses live in the yang.70
Sages walk in the water
where they leave no traces;
the masses walk on frost
where their tracks remain.
Different notes cannot be heard from the same pitch pipe;
Different shapes cannot be accommodated within the same body.
The peasants work hard, and the nobleman is nourished thereby;
The foolish speak, and the man of knowledge selects therefrom.
If you abandon a flourishing forest to gather amid dead trees,
If you don’t shoot a swan but do shoot a crow,
It will be difficult to make plans with you.
If a broad hill has no gullies, the spring and streams cannot be very extensive. But even a narrow creek can fill a wetland of a thousand qing.71
If we see things in bright light, we can distinguish them [as clearly] as jade and stone.
If we see things in dim light, we must remain in doubt.
To take the immensity of the world and entrust it to the talent of a single person is like hanging a weight of a thousand jun on a single branch of a tree.
To carry one’s son while climbing a wall is considered unlucky. Should one person fall, two will be injured.
Someone who excels at initiating things is like a person who rides in a boat and sings a sad song. One person sings and a thousand others join in.
You cannot plow but you want grain;
you cannot weave but you want fine clothes.
Not to do the work but to look for the benefit—that is hard.
If there are some who flourish, there must be others who decline;
if there are some who wear fine silks, there must be others who wear coarse hemp.
There is a bird that stirs up the waves.72 On account of this, [even] the Earl of the [Yellow] River avoids the tides, for he fears the bird’s sincerity [of purpose].73 If even a single warrior comes forth [ready to] die, [an army of] a thousand chariots will not take it lightly.
If a cobra bites you, if you treat it with the hejin plant74 you will recover. There certainly are things that are very harmful75 yet can instead be beneficial.
A sage living in times of disorder is like being under a broiling sun in summer and waiting for dusk. Between the mulberry and the elm, the passage gets easier to bear.76
Though the water is level, it will certainly have waves.
Though the scale is correct, it will certainly have errors.
Though the markings on a measuring rule are consistent, there are sure to be discrepancies.
What is not a compass or a square cannot fix squares and circles;
What is not a level or a marking cord cannot establish the crooked and the straight.
Thus, those who use compasses, squares, levels, and marking cords also have compasses, squares, levels, and marking cords within them.
Only when the boat overturns do we see who are the skilled swimmers.
Only when the horses bolt do we see who are the good charioteers.
If you chew something and it has no flavor, you will not be able to get it down your throat.
If you look at something but it has no form, you will not be able to get a concept of it in your mind.
With a rhinoceros and a tiger behind you and the pearl of the marquis of Sui in front of you, do not try to grab [the pearl]. First avoid the calamity, and then go for the profit.
If you are pursuing a deer, you do not pay attention to rabbits; if you are making a deal for goods worth a thousand [pieces of] gold, you do not haggle over a penny or an ounce of silver.
Bows must first be adjusted; later you can seek out the strong ones.
Horses must first be trained; later you can seek out the fine ones.
People must first prove trustworthy; later you can seek out the able ones.
The potter discards a rope, but the chariot maker grabs it.
The butcher throws away a piece of scrap metal, but the blacksmith takes it.
Priorities differ.
The brilliance of a hundred stars does not compare to the radiance of the single moon.
The light from ten open windows is incomparably [brighter] than that from a single doorway.
An arrow from ten paces can penetrate rhinoceros hide [armor]. At its limit, though, it cannot pierce the thin white silk of Lu.77
Even something higher than Mount Tai cannot be seen if you turn your back; the tip of an autumn hair can be examined if you look at it.
Mountains produce metals but are cut by them.
Trees engender grubs but are eaten by them.
People generate affairs but are harmed by them.
Even a skillful foundryman cannot cast wood;
even a master carpenter cannot carve metal.
The form and nature [of the materials] make that so.
You do not carve a pure white jade;
you do not inscribe a beautiful pearl.
The basic material is more than enough [already].
Thus,
if it strides forth without resting, even a lame turtle can go a thousand li;
if you pile things up without stopping, you can amass a great heap.
If a wall is made from earth, trees will grow from beneath it. They have no particular purpose [in doing so]; they just have an affinity for it.
The Way of employing people is like drawing fire from a mirror:
If you’re too far away [from the tinder], you won’t get anything;
if you’re too close, it won’t work.
The right [distance] lies between far away and close.
Observing the dawn, he [calculates] the shift [of the sun] at dusk;
measuring the crooked, he tells [how far] something departs from the straight and level.
When a sage matches things up, it is as if he holds up a mirror to their form; from the crooked [reflection], he can get to the nature [of things].
Yang Zhu came to a fork in the road and shed tears because he could go either south or north.
Mo Di saw raw silk and wept because it could be dyed either black or yellow.78
The accord between [one who] leaves and [one who] stays behind is like a bell and a chimestone tuned in the same way. After a thousand years of separation, they would still [make] the same note together.
Birds that are not harmful are not shot, even if they are nearby;
birds that are a nuisance are not allowed to escape, even if they are far away.
If you buy wine that has turned sour,
if you buy meat that is spoiled,
and you still go back to the wineshop or the butcher that is not far from your home, you must really be someone who likes to seek things close by.
If you respond to
cheating with cheating
and deceit with deceit, it is like
wearing a straw cape to douse a fire
or digging a ditch to stop the water. Your problems will just proliferate.
Xi Shi and Mao Qiang were not alike in their appearance but in judging their good points, the world considered them equally beautiful.
Yao, Shun, Yu, and Tang made laws that were different, but in winning the hearts of the people they were alike.
Sages
raise matters at the proper time and
accomplish things by following natural [tendencies].
When it rains hard, they prepare rain barrels;
When it is dry, they construct an earthen dragon [to pray for rain].
While weaving, a woman from Linzi thought of her absent [lover]; thus the cloth she made was coarse. If there is a beautiful woman [left] at home, her cloth will be like unraveled threads.
[Music] in the zhi and yu modes79 is something the ears of the vulgar cannot comprehend. But if it is [something with] a catchy consonance and quick tempo, they will sit down and enjoy it.
If you walk past a storehouse with hands clasped behind your back, it would be strange if you did not have robbery in mind.
Likewise, someone who has been disrespectful to a person’s ghost walks past their ancestral shrine and sets its branches aquiver.
Yang Chufu of Jin attacked Chu and saved Jiang.80
Thus releasing a captive does not rely on removing the yoke;81 it relies on attacking [the one] wielding the stick.
If the tree is large, its roots grip strongly;
if a mountain is high, its foundation is firm.
The longer your stride, the farther you will go;
the bigger your body, the more spread out your bones and joints will be.
If a madman hurts someone, no one will resent him personally.
If a small child scolds an elderly person, no one will hate [the child].
The intent to do evil is absent.
Wei Sheng’s trustworthiness82 was not as good as Sui Niu’s deceit [which saved his country].83 Yet how much less [admirable] is one who is never trustworthy?
The one who worries over the father’s illness is the son, but the one who cures him is the physician.
The one who presents sacrifices is the celebrant, but the one who prepares them is the cook.
Translated by Sarah A. Queen and John S. Major
1. Commentators generally agree that the text is corrupted here. It currently reads cao shi zhi lie bu 
, “the Cao clan’s tattered cloth,” but the Gao You commentary evinces that the character 
(clan) is an interpolation. Moreover, the word 
is a lexical variant for 
, which means “baby’s swaddling cloth.” According to Gao You, a folk cure for insect bites was to burn a soiled swaddling cloth and apply the ashes to the affected area. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1728–29n.6.
2. The qiu 
was a type of noxious insect, not clearly identifiable.
3. A huang 
was a type of ritual jade implement in the shape of a half disk. For the half disk of the Xiahou clan, part of the ducal regalia of the state of Lu, see 7.6, 13.15, and 16.90.
4. One ren is eight Chinese feet.
5. During an eclipse, according to legend.
6. Lau, HNZ 17/169/1. According to legend, a kind of flying snake.
7. According to legend, the sun is personified as a three-legged crow that flies across the sky each day. The zhuizha 
is a legendary bird, perhaps resembling a dove, that announces the dawn even before the cock does, thus rousing the sun crow from its sleeping perch on the Fusang Tree in the east.
8. Ancestor Peng 
was a descendant of Zhuan Xu who was enfeoffed by the sovereign Shun at Peng. According to legend, he lived to be more than eight hundred years old. This paradox is quoted from Zhuangzi 2 (ZZ 2/5/21). The point is that there is no fixed standard of comparison; a baby who dies young is long-lived compared with a mayfly, whereas Ancestor Peng was short-lived compared with a mountain.
9. We follow Lau (who himself is following Yu Yue) in emending these three lines in accordance with Lüshi chunqiu, chap. 4. See Knoblock and Riegel 2000, 72. See also Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1736n.5. The line “the greatest cook does not carve” is apparently a reference to the famous “Cook Ding” passage in Zhuangzi, chap. 3. Note, however, that the unemended form of this line can be understood to mean “the greatest dou [ritual vessel] does not display [sacrificial] offerings,” which resonates with 16.137: “The Zhou royal ding [ritual vessels] are not used for cooking but cannot be considered valueless.”
10. This persuasion is quoted from Zhuangzi 19 (ZZ 19/50/22–23). See also Mair 1997, 177.
11. For the mythical path of the sun across the sky, see 3.25; and Major 1993, 102–5.
12. Following the interpretation of Gao You. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1741n.5.
13. That is, the actual constituents of a physical body, but the term also is a metaphor for blood relatives.
14. Centipedes were said to bore into the ear. See 20.38.
15. Interestingly, 16.15 seems to make the opposite point: “When a wall has crumbled, it is superior to when it was standing” (because it has returned to its origin).
16. Jian 
is an abrasive stone or grit used to shape jade. Similar comments about grit appear in 16.81 and 19.5. Bi and yuan were types of disk-shaped jade ritual implements, known in China from predynastic antiquity. See 17.2.
17. The phrase shi bu bian 
, which we translate as “his situation is not conducive to it,” implies both that the crippled person’s ability is impaired relative to an ordinary person’s and that his strength is inferior to the tiger’s. Compare 17.80.
18. Miwu 
(Ligusticum wallichii, known as Sichuan lovage) is used medicinally to treat headache, menstrual cramps, and other painful symptoms.
19. Both Shang Pian 
and Sang Lin 
are mythical divine beings.
20. By means of which she created everything in the world.
21. Peng Meng 
was a legendary archer of high antiquity. Having learned all that Yi could teach of the art of archery, he killed his teacher so as to be the greatest archer in the world. See Mencius 4B.24. He appears in 1.6 as Feng Mengzi.
22. A similar statement appears in 7.12.
23. See chap. 16, n. 9.
24. Literally gu zao 
, “drum herald,” understood by commentators as referring to an owl.
25. Supposedly, thick owl soup was traditionally served in the fifth month. This whole sentence is rather obscure, and its interpretation is heavily dependent on the glosses of commentators. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1752n.14.
26. Zuozhuan, Xi 2. See also 7.16, 10.47, 11.7, and 18.5.
27. Compare 7.16 and 17.145.
28. The terms chuiche 
and chanyue 
are extremely obscure. Chuiche means something like “pounding cart,” which some commentators take as a reference to carts with solid (i.e., spokeless) wheels made from single logs. Commentators differ on the meaning of chanyue (or jue), but the most plausible explanation appears to be that it refers to a type of cart whose wheel, hub, and axle are made as separate pieces, as is the standard Chinese chariot.
29. For the term junxing 
, “ruler of form,” see 16.91. See also the “ruler of [all] notes” (yin zhi jun 
) in 3.29 and 6.4.
30. Presumably, a reference to the flow and ebb of waves on a beach.
31. See 16.133.
32. One qing equals a hundred mu; one mu 
equals about one-sixth acre.
33. Compare the use of shi bu bian 
here and in 17.43. In both cases, the combination of external conditions and inherent capabilities makes the task difficult.
34. Xiang Tuo 
was a precocious youngster who at the age of seven supposedly instructed Confucius. The story is subjected to an extended critique by Wang Chong in Lun heng 78.
35. This paraphrases Zhuangzi 7 (ZZ 7/20/20), where it is attributed to Laozi; it does not, however, appear in the received version of the Daodejing. This saying, with minor variations in wording, also appears in 10.92 and 14.4. Here we take zha 
as a phonetic loan for cuo (or ce) 
, “pursuit,” as in those earlier occurrences of the passage.
36. The same statement appears in 16.119.
37. The deities of such neglected temples are impoverished and willing to accept whatever sacrifices they can get.
38. This statement betrays unfamiliarity with leopards, which often climb trees.
39. Gnomons (biao 
) can be used to determine both direction and distance. See 3.43–3.45.
40. In other words, someone whose sturdiness has never been tested cannot be considered sturdy.
41. Liuxia Hui 
was a grandee of Lu during the Spring and Autumn period. He is much praised in the Mencius as a moral paragon.
42. In other words, it undergoes metamorphosis and becomes a pupa.
43. Youshi 
, said to be a kind of mineral.
44. This refers to oysters growing pearls and to elephants losing their tusks. The statement thus appears to reflect a mistaken belief that elephants shed their tusks as deer shed their antlers. See also 16.107 and 17.195.
45. Reading he 
as suan 
, as suggested by Lau, HNZ, 176n.2.
46. To make a weir to trap fish.
47. Both zhong 
and long 
mean “burial mound.”
48. Both li 
and deng 
are kinds of bamboo rain-covers.
49. Ancient Chinese texts were typically written in vertical columns, so “below” here has the meaning of “next.”
50. This is apparently a criticism of eremitism: if you retire from office after spending some time in the “dust” of the world of affairs, that is permissible, but to refuse to engage in public affairs at all is not in accordance with the Way.
51. A variant of this saying occurs in 10.91.
52. Compare Zuozhuan, Duke Xi, year 14: “When the skin has been lost, where can you place the hair?” See Legge 1895, vol. 5, The Ch’un Ts’ew [Chunqiu] with the Tso chuen [Zuozhuan], 162.
53. For Zou Yan’s theory that the world comprises nine continents (jiu zhou 
), see John S. Major, “The Five Phases, Magic Squares, and Schematic Cosmography,” in Explorations in Early Chinese Cosmology: Papers Presented at the Workshop on Classical Chinese Thought Held at Harvard University, August 1976, ed. Henry Rosemont Jr., Journal of the American Academy of Religion Studies, vol. 50, no. 2 (1984; repr., Charleston, S.C.: Booksurge, 2006), 133–66; see esp. 134–37.
54. Compare Laozi 41.
55. Meaning, apparently, that the sacred Mount Tai will not allow itself to be climbed by an unworthy person.
56. A zu was a kind of raised platter used to hold meat placed on the sacrificial altar.
57. The chieftain of the Rong tribe sent the beautiful Lady Li 
to seduce Duke Xian 
(r. 676–651 B.C.E.). See 7.16 and 17.57.
58. Shusun Bao 
(d. 538 B.C.E.), a grandee of Lu, was head of the Shusun clan; he served for a time as prime minister.
59. Shu Niu 
was a knight who served as Shusun Bao’s steward and enjoyed his total trust. He tricked Shusun Bao into killing his own two sons and eventually starved him to death when he became ill and was bedridden. The story is recorded in Zuozhuan, Zhao 4; and Hanfeizi 30.
60. Zheng Zhan 
was a grandee of Zheng during the Spring and Autumn period. When Qi was ascendant, Zhan counseled that Zheng should switch its allegiance to Chu. The judgment of him as a “deceitful person” is recorded in the Chunqiu Gongyang zhuan, Zhuang 17.
61. The object of doing so is to beg some wine from the gentleman.
62. Xiang rou 
can be taken literally to mean “elephant meat,” but that leads to the demonstrably false statement that “elephant meat cannot be tasted by the mouth.” The extended meaning of xiang (representational, simulated) is correct here, as the statement refers to simulated goods made of wood, ceramic, or other materials for burial with the dead—a practice that was gaining currency at the time the Huainanzi was written.
63. See chap. 9, n. 91. Meng Ben was known for his acute vision. See 16.91. The rats “would die in no time,” even though he could not see them, because of his skill at finding, catching, and killing them, but this would come at a cost to Meng Ben himself.
64. That is, they will be killed in battle. Note the pun here: “hundred names” normally means “the common people,” but here it also has the more literal meaning of “one hundred commoners,” in parallel with the “one hundred houses” of the previous line.
65. The phrase yin yang xiang bo 
also occurs in 3.2 as an explanation of thunder, and in 4.19 five times as part of an explanation of how mineral ores grow and mature within the earth. See chap. 3, n. 5.
66. A similar statement appears in 16.103.
67. The implication seems to be that linked circles—for example, interlinked rings of jade—can be separated only by breaking them. Compare the story of Ni Yue (16.20), who “solved/untied” the knot of Song by recognizing that it could not be untied. See also 18.21 and chap. 18, n. 132.
68. See 17.113.
69. Bai she bu xiu 
; she means a “stage”—that is, a day’s journey.
70. Sages conceal their virtues and stay in the background, whereas ordinary people live more visible lives.
71. One qing equals a hundred mu. See n. 32.
72. Commentators describe it as a great eagle that flies close to the water’s surface and flaps its wings to roil the waters, thereby exposing fish that it then grabs and eats.
73. Cheng 
here implies something like an irresistible perfection of will.
74. The hejin 
plant is not securely identifiable; presumably, from context, it is a poisonous plant that is also an antidote to poison.
75. Following Lau’s (HNZ 17/183/11) reading of the passage and rejecting the interpolation of qing er fan 
before zhong 
, as suggested by Tao Hongqing and other commentators. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1817n.9.
76. This is a reference to the [Fu]Sang mulberry tree of the east, from the branches of which the sun crow rises at dawn, and the Jian elm tree of the west, on whose branches the sun crow perches at sunset.
77. An almost identical statement appears in 16.68.
78. Once the choice was made, the potentiality would be lost.
79. Zhi and yu are two of the five pentatonic notes; the reference is to stately music that takes those notes as dominant.
80. Zuozhuan, Duke Wen, year 3 (624 B.C.E.). The Zuo account states that Chu was besieging Jiang. Du You’s commentary to the passage records that the Chu commander, Zizhu, lifted the siege on hearing that the Jin army was on the march for Chu and that the Jin army also withdrew on hearing that the siege was lifted.
81. Possibly a reference to the cangue, a heavy wooden yoke that criminals were made to wear as a punishment. But that interpretation is speculative; the text may be simply making an analogy between an (enslaved) captive and an ox.
82. See 13.11 and 16.100; and ZZ 29/88/10. Wei Sheng waited for a woman under a bridge. When she did not come, he continued to wait for her until he was drowned by the rising waters.
83. Sui Niu 
. The identity of this figure is unclear. Gao You associates him with Xian Gao, the merchant of Zheng who was able to stave off a surprise attack by Qin through subterfuge. See 12.40. Yu Yue suggests that 
is a mistake for 
, making this figure “Mr. Sui,” or Sui He 
, a rhetorician who served the early Han court. Yu Shengwu rejects that reading and proposes that 
is a mistake for 
. Thus the two characters are not a proper name at all but mean “to present cattle,” making the entire phrase read “the deceit of presenting cattle.” This would explain the association with Xian Gao, as part of his ruse was to present the Qin army with some cattle, claiming that they were a gift of the ruler of Zheng. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1828n.15.