1. Tsae Go asked about the three years' mourning for parents, saying that one year was long enough.

2. "If the superior man," said he, "abstains for three years from the observances of propriety, those observances will be quite lost. If for three years he abstains from music, music will be ruined.

3. "Within a year, the old grain is exhausted, and the new grain has sprung up, and, in procuring fire by friction, we go through all the changes of wood for that purpose. After a complete year, the mourning may stop."

4. The Master said, "If you were, after a year, to eat good rice, and wear embroidered clothes, would you feel at ease?" "I should," replied Go.

20. HOW CONFUCIUS COULD BE NOT AT HOME, AND YET GIVE INTIMATION TO THE VISITOR OF HIS PRESENCE. Of Joo Pei little is known. He was a man of Loo, and had at one time been in attendance on Confucius to receive his instructions. There must have been some reason—some fault in him—why Conf. would not see him on the occasion in the text, and that he might understand that it was on that account, and not that he was really sick, that he declined his visit, the sage acted as we are told. But what was the necessity for sending a false message in the first place? In the notes to the 仪礼, III. 1, it is said that Joo Pei's fault was in trying to see the master without using the services of an internuncius.将命者,—see XIV. 47. I translate the last 之 by him, but it refers generally to the preceding sentence, and might be left untranslated.

5. The Master said, "If you can feel at ease, do it. But a superior man, during the whole period of mourning, does not enjoy pleasant food which he may eat, nor derive pleasure from music which he may hear. He also does not feel at ease, if he is comfortably lodged. Therefore he does not do what you propose. But now you feel at ease and may do it."

6. Tsae Go then went out, and the Master said, "This shows Yu's want of virtue. It is not till a child is three years old that it is allowed to leave the arms of its parents. And the three years mourning is universally observed throughout the empire. Did Yu enjoy the three years' affection for his parents?"

21. THE PERIOD OF THREE YEARS' MOURNING FOR PARENTS; IT MAY NOT ON ANY ACCOUNT BE SHORTENED; THE REASON OF IT. 1. We must understand a 曰, either before 三, or, as I prefer, before 期, which is read ke, up. 1st tone, the same as 朞, XIII. 10. On the three years' mourning, see the 31st book of the Le-ke. Nominally extending to three years, that period comprehended properly but 25 months, and at most 27 months. 2. 此以人事言之,—Tsze-go finds here a reason for his view in the necessity of 'human affairs'. 3. 此以天时言之,—He finds here a reason for his view in 'the seasons of heaven'. 燧 means either 'a piece of metal',—a speculum,—with which to take fire from the sun, or 'a piece of wood', with which to get fire by friction or 'boring'(钻). It has here the latter meaning. Certain woods were assigned to the several seasons, to be employed for this purpose, the elm and willow, for instance to spring, the date and almond trees to summer, &c. 钻燧改火=钻燧以取火, 又改乎四时之木, 'In boring with the 燧 to get fire ,we have changed from wood to wood through the ones appropriate to the four seasons.' 4. Coarse food and coarse clothing were appropriate, though in varying degree to all the period of mourning. Tszego is strangely insensible to the home-put argument of the Master 稻 is to be understood here as 谷之美者'the most excellent grain'. The 夫 are demonstrative. 7.予之不仁也 responds to all that has gone before, and forms a sort of apodosis. Conf. added, it is said, the remarks in this par. that they might be reported to Tsze Go, lest he should 'feel at ease' to go and do as he said he could. Still the reason which the Master find for the statute-period of mourning for parents must be pronounced puerile.