Gems of Chinese Literature/Liu Tsung-yüan-Revenge

by Liu Tsung-yüan

IT is on record that during the reign of the Empress Wu, a man named Hsü, whose father had been executed for some misdeed, slew the presiding magistrate and then gave himself up to the authorities. A suggestion was made by one of the Censors of the day that, on the one hand, the son should suffer death for his crime; on the other, that a memorial to him should be erected in his native village. Further, that the case should be entered as a judicial precedent.

I consider this suggestion to be wholly wrong. Honours and rewards originated in a desire to prevent aggression. If therefore a son avenges the death of a guilty father, the former should be slain without mercy. Administration of punishment was also organised with the same object. If, therefore, officers of government put the laws in operation without due cause, they too should be slain without mercy. Though springing from the same source, and with the same object in view, honours and punishments are applicable to different cases and cannot be awarded together. To punish one deserving of reward is to cast a slur upon all punishment: to honour one deserving of punishment is to detract from the value of all honours. And if such a case were to be admitted as a precedent for future generations, then those eager to do their duty, and those anxious to avoid evil, would equally find themselves in a strange dilemma. Is this the stuff that law is made of?

Now, in adjusting reward and punishment, praise and blame, the wise men of old adhered closely to fixed principles, while allowing for such modifications as special circumstances might demand. Their end and aim was a consistent uniformity. And it has ever been the chief object of judicial investigations to distinguish between right and wrong, and to administer justice with impartial hand. Hence the impossibility of applying honour and punishment to the same case.

Let me explain. Suppose that Hsü’s father had committed no crime, but had been wrongfully done to death by the magistrate, out of spite or in a rage; and suppose the magistrate and other officials to have treated the matter as of small account, to have rejected all claims, to have turned a deaf ear to all entreaties;―then, if the son, scorning to live under the same heaven, his head pillowed by night upon his sword, his heart brimful of wrong, had struck the murderer to earth, careless of the death to come upon himself,―then I would say that he was a noble fellow who did his duty and deserved the thanks of shame-faced officials for relieving them of their responsibilities of office. Why talk of condemning him?

But if Hsü’s father was really guilty, and the magistrate rightly put him to death, in that case it was not the magistrate but the law which took his life; and can a man feel a grudge against the law? Besides, to slay an official in order to be avenged upon the law he administers, is simply open rebellion against properly-constituted authority. Such an offender should indeed suffer death for his crime in accordance with the statutes of the empire; but he should hardly be honoured at the same time with a memorial.

The above-mentioned Censor further went on to say, “Every man has a son, and every son is under the same obligations to his parents. If then it is admissible for sons to slay the murderers of their fathers, the result will of course be an endless chain of slaughter.” But here the Censor totally misunderstands the purport of social obligations. The man whom society deems qualified for revenge is one who struggles beneath a terrible load of wrong, with no means of redress. It is not one who, when a guilty father has rightly perished under the knife of the executioner, cries out, “He killed my parent. I will kill him!” oblivious of all questions of right or wrong, and presuming on one’s own strength as against another’s weakness. This would amount to complete overthrow of all those great principles upon which our system is based.

In the days of the Chou dynasty, the peace officers arranged the vendette of the people. If a man was deservedly put to death, they would not allow any revenge to be taken; and disobedience to this order was punished capitally, the State interfering as the aggrieved party, in order to prevent endless reprisals by sons of murdered fathers. Again, in Kung-yang’s Commentary to the Spring and Autumn the principle is stated thus:―“If a man is wrongfully put to death, his son may avenge him. But if rightly, and yet the son avenges his death, this is to push to extremes the arbitrament of the sword, while the source of all the evil still remains untouched.” And in my opinion this principle would be lawfully applied to the present case. Not to neglect vengeance is the duty of a son: to brave death is heroic; and if Hsü, without breaking the social code, proved himself a man of filial piety and heroism, he must necessarily have been a man of lofty virtue; and no man of lofty virtue would ever oppose the operation of his country’s laws. His case should not therefore be admitted as a precedent, and I pray that the decree may be rescinded accordingly.