CHAPTER 1

1. Yang Ho wished to see Confucius, but Confucius would not go to see him. On this, he sent a present of a pig to Confucius, who, having chosen a time when Ho was not at home, went to pay his respects for the gift. He met him, however, on the way.

2. Ho said to Confucius, "Come, let me speak with you." He then asked, "Can he be called benevolent , who keeps his jewel in his bosom,

HEADING OF THIS BOOK.—阳货第十七, 'Yang Ho, No. XVII.'—As the last Book commenced with the presumption of the Head of the Ke family, who kept his prince in subjection, this begins with an account of an officer, who did for the head of the Ke what he did for the duke of Loo. For this reason—some similarity in the subject matter of the first chapters—this Book, it is said, is placed after the former. It contains 26 chapters.

1. CONFUCIUS' POLITE BUT DIGNIFIED TREATMENT OF A POWERFUL, BUT USURPING AND UNWORTHY, OFFICER. 1. Yang Ho, known also as Yang Hoo(虎), was nominally the principal minister of the Ke family, but its chief was entirely in his hands, and he was scheming to arrogate the whole authority of the state of Loo to himself. He first appears in the Chronicles of Loo about the year B.C.503, acting against the exiled duke Ch'aou; in B.C.504, we find him keeping his own chief, Ke Hwan a prisoner, and, in 501, he is driven out, on the failure of his projects, a fugitive into Ts'e. At the time when the incidents in this ch. occurred, Yang Ho was anxious to get, or appear to get, the support of a man of Conf. reputation, and finding that the sage would not call on him, he adopted the expedient of sending him a pig, at a time when Conf. was not at home, the rules of ceremony requiring that when a great officer sent a present to a scholar, and the latter was not in his house on its arrival, he had to go to the officer's house to acknowledge it. See the Le-ke, XIII. Iii. 20. 归 is in the sense of 馈, 'to present food', properly 'before a superior'. Confucius, however, was not to be entrapped. He also timed (时, as a verb) Hoo's being away from home(亡), and went to call on him. 2. 迷其邦, 'deludes, confuses, his country', but the meaning is only negative,= 'leaves his country to confusion'. 亟, read k'e, up. 3d tone, 'frequently'. 明—我与,—all this is to be taken as the remark of Yang Ho, and a曰supplied before日. 我与; 与, in the dict., and by the old interpreters, is here explained, as in the translation by 待, 'to wait for'.

and leaves his country to confusion?" Confucius replied, "No." "Can he be called wise, who is anxious to be engaged in public employment, and yet is constantly losing the opportunity of being so?"Confucius again said, "No." "The days and months are passing away; the years do not wait for us." Confucius said, "Right; I will go into office."