Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 27.djvu/147

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SECT. I. PT. I.
THE THAN KUNG.
129

I want for nothing but to die in the correct way." They then raised him up, and changed the mat. When he was replaced on the new one, before he could compose himself, he expired.

19. When (a father) has just died, (the son) should appear quite overcome, and as if he were at his wits end; when the corpse has been put into the coffin, he should cast quick and sorrowful glances around, as if he were seeking for something and could not find it; when the interment has taken place, he should look alarmed and restless, as if he were looking for some one who does not arrive; at the end of the first year's mourning, he should look sad and disappointed; and at the end of the second year's, he should have a vague and unreliant look.

20. The practice in Kû-lü of calling the (spirits of the dead[1]) back with arrows took its rise from the battle of Shǎng-hsin[2]. That in Lû of the women making their visits of condolence (simply) with a band of sackcloth round their hair took its rise from the defeat at Hû-thâi[3].

21. At the mourning for her mother-in-law, the Master instructed (his niece), the wife of Nan-kung Thâo[4], about the way in which she should tie up her hair with sackcloth, saying, "Do not make it very high, nor very broad. Have the hair-pin of hazel-wood, and the hair-knots (hanging down) eight inches."

22. Mǎng Hsien-jze, after the service which ended


  1. See p. 108, par. 32; p. 112, par. 15; and often, farther on.
  2. In B.C. 638. See the Зo Kwan of that year.
  3. See in the Зo Kwan, under B.C. 569.
  4. This must have been the Nan Yung of the Analects, V, i, 2.
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