“To live with your wife,” exclaimed Hui Tzŭ, “and see your eldest son grow to be a man, and then not to shed a tear over her corpse,―this would be bad enough. But to drum on a bowl, and sing; surely this is going too far.”
“Not at all,” replied Chuang Tzŭ. “When she died, I could not help being affected by her death. Soon, however, I remembered that she had already existed in a previous state before birth, without form, or even substance; that while in that unconditioned condition, substance was added to spirit; that this substance then assumed form; and that the next stage was birth. And now, by virtue of a further change, she is dead, passing from one phase to another like the sequence of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. And while she is thus lying asleep in Eternity, for me to go about weeping and wailing would be to proclaim myself ignorant of these natural laws. Therefore I refrain.”
ON HIS OWN DEATH-BED.
When Chuang Tzŭ was about to die, his disciples expressed a wish to give him a splendid funeral. But Chuang Tzŭ said, “With Heaven and Earth for my coffin and shell; with the sun, moon, and stars as my burial regalia; and with all creation to escort me to the grave,―are not my funeral paraphernalia ready to hand?”[1]
“We fear,” argued the disciples, “less the carrion kite should eat the body of our Master;” to which Chuang Tzŭ replied, “Above ground, I shall be food for kites; below, I shall be food for mole-crickets and ants. Why rob one to feed the other?
“If you adopt, as absolute, a standard of evenness which is so only relatively, your results will not be absolutely even. If you adopt,
- ↑ Compare the following lines by Mrs. Alexander, from The Burial of Moses:―
And had he not high honour?―
The hillside for his pall;
To lie in state while angels wait
With stars for tapers tall;
And the dark rock pines like nodding plumes
Above his bier to wave,
And God's own hand in that lonely land
To lay him in the grave.
