At seventy, (an officer) did not wait till the court
was over (before he retired). At eighty, he
reported every month (to the ruler's messenger) that
he was still alive; at ninety, he had (delicate food)
sent to him regularly every day.
At fifty, one was not employed in services requiring strength; at sixty, he was discharged from bearing arms along with others; at seventy, he was exempted from the business of receiving guests and visitors; at eighty, he was free from the abstinences and other rites of mourning.
When one received at fifty the rank (of a Great officer), at sixty he did not go in person to the school[1]. At seventy he resigned office; and then and afterwards, in mourning he used only the unhemmed dress of sackcloth (without adopting the privations of the mourning rites)[1].
The kings of the three dynasties, in nourishing the old, always caused the members of families who were advanced in years to be brought to their notice[2]. Where an officer was eighty, one of his friends was free from all service of government; where he was ninety, all the members of his family were exempted from them. So also it was in the case of the blind.
(Shun), the lord of Yü, entertained the aged (who had retired from the service) of the state in (the school called) the higher hsiang, and the aged of
the common people in (the school called) the lower
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Does this intimate, that if he had learned better at school, when young, he might have become a Great officer earlier? He was now too old to learn.
- ↑ The government could not attend to all the aged; but it wished to hear of all cases of remarkable age, and would then do what it could for them.
