Book I (part 5)

You, Sir, have a large tree and are troubled because it is of no use;--why do you not plant it in a tract where there is nothing else, or in a wide and barren wild? p. 175 [paragraph continues] There you might saunter idly by its side, or in the enjoyment of untroubled case sleep beneath it. Neither bill nor axe would shorten its existence; there would be nothing to injure it. What is there in its uselessness to cause you distress?' Footnotes 164:1 See notice on pp. 127, 128, on the Title and Subject-matter of the Book. 164:2 The khwän and the phäng are both fabulous creatures, far transcending in size the dimensions ascribed by the wildest fancy of the West to the kraken and the roc. Kwang-dze represents them as so huge by way of contrast to the small creatures which he is intending to introduce;--to show that size has nothing to do with the Tâo, and the perfect enjoyment which the possession of it affords. The passage is a good specimen of the Yü Yen ( ) metaphorical or parabolical narratives or stories, which are the chief characteristic of our author's writings; but the reader must keep in mind that the idea or lesson in its 'lodging' is generally of a Tâoistic nature. 165:1 There may have been a book with this title, to which Kwang-dze appeals, as if feeling that what he had said needed to be substantiated. 165:2 This seems to be interjected as an afterthought, suggesting to the reader that the phäng, soaring along at such a height, was only an exaggerated form of the common phenomena with which he was familiar. 166:1 In Chinese, Mang Zhan; but this is not the name of any particular place. The phrase denotes the grassy suburbs (from their green colour), not far from any city or town. 166:2 The great state of the South, having its capital Ying in the present Hû-pei, and afterwards the chief competitor with Khin for the sovereignty of the kingdom. 166:3 Taken by some as the name of a tortoise. 166:4 This and the Ming-ling tree, as well as the mushroom mentioned above, together with the khwän and phäng, are all mentioned in the fifth Book of the writings of Lieh-dze, referred to in the next paragraph. 167:1 Or 'the patriarch Phäng.' Confucius compared himself to him (Analects, VII, i);-'our old Phäng;' and Kû Hsî thinks he was a worthy officer of the Shang dynasty. Whoever he was, the legends about him are a mass of Tâoistic fables. At the end of the Shang dynasty (B. C. 1123) he was more than 767 years old, and still in unabated vigour. We read of his losing 49 wives and 54 sons; and that he still left two sons, Wû and Î, who died in Fû-kien, and gave their names to the Wû-î, or Bû-î hills, from which we get our Bohea tea! See Mayers' 'Chinese Reader's Manual,' p. 175. 167:2 The founder of the Shang dynasty (B.C. 1766-1754). In Lieh-dze his interlocutor is called Hsiâ Ko, and Dze-kî. 168:1 We can hardly tell who this Yung-dze was. Sung was a duchy, comprehending portions of the present provinces of Ho-nan, An-hui, and Kiang-sû. 168:2 See note on the title of Book XXXII.