Gems of Chinese Literature/Chuang Tzŭ-Independence

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Gems of Chinese Literature
translated by Herbert Allen Giles

Independence by Chuang Tzŭ

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CHUANG TZŬ.

4th century b.c.

[A most original thinker, of whom the Chinese nation might well be proud. Yet his writings are tabooed as heterodox, and are very widely unread, more perhaps on account of the extreme obscurity of the text than because they are under the ban of the Confucianists. What little is known of Chuang Tzŭ's life may be gathered from some of the extracts given. He is generally regarded as an advanced exponent of the doctrines of Lao Tzŭ. So late as the 4th century a.d., the work of Chuang Tzŭ appears to have run to fifty-three chapters. Of these, only thirty-three now remain; and several of them are undoubtedly spurious, while into various other chapters, spurious passages have been inserted.]

1518635Gems of Chinese Literature — IndependenceHerbert Allen GilesChuang Tzŭ

Chuang Tzŭ was one day fishing, when the Prince of Ch'u sent two high officials to interview him, saying that his Highness would be glad of Chuang Tzŭ's assistance in the administration of his government. The latter quietly fished on, and without looking round, replied, “I have heard that in the State of Ch'u there is a sacred tortoise, which has been dead three thousand years, and which the prince keeps packed up in a box on the altar in his ancestral shrine. Now do you think that tortoise would rather be dead and have its remains thus honoured, or be alive and wagging its tail in the mud?” The two officials answered that no doubt it would rather be alive and wagging its tail in the mud; whereupon Chuang Tzŭ cried out “Begone! I too elect to remain wagging my tail in the mud.”