Gems of Chinese Literature/T‘an Kung-Burial of Confucius

by T‘an Kung

A certain man travelled from afar to witness the funeral obsequies of Confucius. He stayed at the house of Tzŭ-hsia, who observed, “A sage conducting a funeral is one thing: a sage’s funeral is another thing. What did you expect to see? Do you not remember that our Master once said, ‘Some persons pile up earth into square, others into long-shaped tumuli. Some build spacious mausolea, others content themselves with small axe-shaped heaps. I prefer the heaps.’ He meant what we call horse-neck heaps. So we have given him only a few handfuls of earth, and he is buried. Is not this as he would have wished it himself?”