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Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/970

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A Chinese Biographical Dictionary
951


saperstition , being under the conviction that all strange phenomena were open to simple and natural explanations. On one occasion he had a bow hanging up in the room where he was giving a banquet to some friends. A guest, who saw the reflection of the bow in his wine, thought he had swallowed a snake, and on his return home became seriously ill. To Euang invited him to come again to the house, and showed him that his snake was an illusion caused by the bow; whereupon he straightway recovered.

To Yang ^ ^ . Father of Yo I. When travelling as a student 2504 he felt a longing to see his wife, and returned home. His wife took a knife and approached the web at which she had been working, and pointed^ out how the cloth grew from single threads to inches, and from inches to yards. *'And if you," she added, ^'halt in the career of study which is to perfect you as a man, 'tis the same as if I were- to cut the unfinished web from this loom.'* Thereupon he went back to his studies and stayed away for seven years, while his wife supported her mother-in-law by spinning.

Tu Chan ^ jj^. 3rd cent. B.C. A dwarf and jester, who flourished 2505 at the Courts of the First and Second Emperors. Yu Chu. See Aohakpa.

Yu Jo ^ ^ (T. -^ ^ and -^ ^ ). Born about B.C. 520. 2506 One of the disciples of Confucius. Upon the death of the Master, his likeness to Confucius caused all the disciples, except TstogTs'an, to make him their chief. But shortly afterwards, being unable to explain how it was that Confucius could predict the birth of flve sons to a certain childless old man, he was compelled to resign the position. He was killed in battle during an invasion of his native State of Lu by the forces of the Wu State about B.C. 450. Under the T*ang dynasty he was ennobled as ~\^ 'fj^, and under the Sung dynasty as ^ f^ >0| ; and in A.D. 730 his tablet was placed in the Confucian Temple.