by which a country might be made to flourish. Confucius answered: No single sentence can be expected to have such a virtue as this. But there is the common saying: "To be a good king is difficult; to be a good minister is not easy." He who realises the difficulty of being a good king—has he not almost succeeded in making his country prosper by a single sentence?—Is there a single sentence, continued the Duke, by which a country can be ruined?—Confucius answered No such power can reside in any single sentence. But there is a saying:
"I have no joy in kingly rule, I rejoice only because none can oppose my will." Now if the king's will is good, and none opposes it, all may be well; but if it is not good, and yet none opposes it, has he not almost succeeded in ruining his country be a single sentence?
The Duke of Shê[1] asked about the conditions
- ↑ Shê was a district of the Ch'u State, which Confucius visited in 488 B.C.. The following anecdote, told by T'an Kung, is a striking illustration of the above saying. Travelling with his disciples, the Master came across a woman weeping and wailing beside a grave, and inquired the cause of her grief. "Alas!" she replied. My father-in-law was killed here by a tiger; after that, husband; and now my son has perished by the same death."—"But why, then, do you not go elsewhere?"—"The government here is not harsh," answered the woman.—"There!" cried the Master, turning to his disciples, "remember that. Bad government is worse than a tiger."
insidious gift of eighty beautiful singing-girls from the Ch'i State. See Introduction, p. 16.
