By-and-by, one of them, named Tzŭ-yü, fell ill, and another Tzŭ-ssŭ, went to see him. “Verily God is great!” said the sick man. “See how he has doubled me up. My back is so hunched that my viscera are at the top of my body. My cheeks are level with my navel. My shoulders are higher than my neck. My hair grows up towards the sky. The whole economy of my organism is deranged. Nevertheless, my mental equilibrium is not disturbed.” So saying, he dragged himself painfully to a well, where he could see himself, and continued, “Alas, that God should have doubled me up like this!”
“Are you afraid?” asked Tzŭ-ssŭ. “I am not,” replied Tzŭ-yü. “What have I to fear? Ere long I shall be decomposed. My left shoulder may become a cock, and I shall herald the approach of morn. My right shoulder will become a cross-bow, and I shall be able to get broiled duck. My buttocks will become wheels; and with my soul for a horse, I shall be able to ride in my own chariot. I obtained life because is was my time; I am now parting with it in accordance with the same law. Content with the natural sequence of these states, joy and sorrow touch me not. I am simply, as the ancients expressed it, hanging in the air, unable to cut myself down, bound with the trammels of material existence. But man has ever given way before God: why then, should I be afraid?”
By-and-by, another of the four, named Tzŭ-lai, fell ill, and lay gasping for breath, while his family stood weeping around. The fourth friend, Tzŭ-li, went to see him. “Chut!” cried he to the wife and children; “begone! you balk his decomposition.” Then, leaning against the door, he said, “Verily God is great! I wonder what he will make of you now. I wonder whither you will be sent. Do you think he will make you into a rat's liver[1] or into the shoulders of a snake?”
“A son,” answer Tzŭ-lai, “must go whithersoever his parents bid him. Nature is no other than a man's parents. If she bid me die quickly, and I demur, then I am an unfilial son. She can do me no wrong. She gives me form here on earth; she gives me toil in
- ↑ The Chinese believe that a rat has no liver.
