Wuyi Woods

Zilu, Zengxi, Ran Qiu and Gongxi Hua were sitting together one day and Confucious said, ‘Do not think that I am a little bit older than you and therefore am assuming airs. You often say among yourselves that people don’t know you. Suppose someone should know you, I should like to know how you would appear to that person.’ Zilu immediately replied, ‘I should like to rule over a country with a thousand carriages, situated between two powerful neighbours, involved in war and suffering from famine. I should like to take charge of such a country and in three years, the nation would become strong and orderly.’ Confucious smiled at this remark and said, ‘How about you, A Qiu?’ Ran Qiu replied, ‘Let me have a country sixty or seventy li square or perhaps only fifty or sixty li square. Put it in my charge, and in three years, the people will have enough to eat, but as for teaching them moral order and music, I shall leave that to the superior man.’ [Turning to Gongxi Hua] Confucious said, ‘How about you A Chi?’ Gongxi Hua replied, ‘Not that I say I can do it, but I’m will to learn this. At the ceremonies of religious worship and at the conference of the princes, I should like to wear the ceremonial cap and gown and be a minor official assisting at the ceremony.’ ‘How about you A Dian?’ The latter [Zengxi] was just playing on the se, and with a bang he left the instrument and arose to speak. ‘You know my ambition is different from theirs.’ ‘It doesn’t matter, said Confucious, ‘we are just trying to find out what each would like to do.’ Then he replied, ‘In late spring, when the new spring dress is made, I would like to go with five or six grown-ups and six or seven children to bathe in the River Chi’i, and after the bath go and enjoy the breeze in the Wuyi woods, and then sing on the way home’. Confucious heaved a deep sigh and said, ‘You are the man after my own heart’