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商〔適〕蟲篇

　變複之家謂蟲食穀者，部吏所致也。貪則侵漁，故蟲食穀。身黑頭赤，則謂武官；頭黑身赤，則謂文官。使加罰於蟲所象類之吏，則蟲滅息，不復見矣。

夫頭赤則謂武吏，頭黑則謂文吏所致也。時或頭赤身白，頭黑身黃，或頭身皆黃，或頭身皆青，或皆白若魚肉之蟲，應何官吏？

時或白布豪民、猾吏被刑乞貸者，威勝於官，取多於吏，其蟲形象何如狀哉？

蟲之滅也，皆因風雨。案蟲滅之時，則吏未必伏罰也。

陸田之中時有鼠，水田之中時有魚，蝦蟹之類，皆為穀害，或時希出而暫為害，或常有而為災，等類眾多，應何官吏？

魯宣公履畝而稅，應時而有蝝生者，或言若蝗。蝗時至，蔽天如雨，集地食物，不擇穀草。察其頭身，象類何吏？變複之家，謂蝗何應？

建武三十一年，蝗起太山郡，西南過陳留、河南，遂入夷狄，所集鄉縣以千百數。當時鄉縣之吏，未皆履畝，蝗食穀草，連日老極，或蜚徙去，或止枯死。當時鄉縣之吏，未必皆伏罪也。

夫蟲食穀，自有止期，猶蠶食桑，自有足時也。生出有日，死極有月，期盡變化，不常為蟲。使人君不罪其吏，蟲猶自亡。

夫蟲，風氣所生，蒼頡知之，故“凡”、“蟲”為“風”之字，取氣於風，故八日而化。

生春夏之物，或食五穀，或食眾草。食五穀，吏受錢谷也，其食他草，受人何物？

倮蟲三百，人為之長。由此言之，人亦蟲也。人食蟲所食，蟲亦食人所食，俱為蟲而相食物，何為怪之？

設蟲有知，亦將非人曰：“女食天之所生，吾亦食之，謂我為變，不自謂為災。”凡含氣之類，所甘嗜者，口腹不異。人甘五穀，惡蟲之食；自生天地之間，惡蟲之出。

設蟲能言，以此非人，亦無以詰也。夫蟲之在物間也，知者不怪，其食萬物也不謂之災。

甘香渥味之物，蟲生常多，故穀之多蟲者粢也。稻時有蟲，麥與豆無蟲。必以有蟲責主者吏，是其粢鄉部吏常伏罪也。

神農、後稷藏種之方，煮馬屎以汁漬種者，令禾不蟲。如或以馬屎漬種，其鄉部吏鮑焦、陳仲子也。是故後稷、神農之術用，則其鄉吏〔可〕免為奸。何則？

蟲無從生，上無以察也。蟲食他草，平事不怪，食五穀葉，乃謂之災。桂有蠹，桑有蠍，桂中藥而桑給蠶，其用亦急，與穀無異。蠹蠍不為怪，獨謂蟲為災，不通物類之實，暗於災變之情也。

穀蟲曰蠱，蠱若蛾矣。粟米饐熱生蠱。夫蠱食粟米，不謂之災，蟲食苗葉，歸之於政。

如說蟲之家，謂粟輕苗重也。蟲之種類，眾多非一。魚肉腐臭有蟲，醯醬不閉有蟲，飯溫濕有蟲，書卷不舒有蟲，衣襞不懸有蟲，蝸疽瘡螻症蝦有蟲。或白或黑，或長或短，大小鴻殺，不相似類，皆風氣所生，並連以死。生不擇日，若生日短促，見而輒滅。變複之家，見其希出，出又食物，則謂之災。災出當有所罪，則依所似類之吏，順而說之。

人腹中有三蟲，下地之澤，其蟲曰蛭，蛭食人足，三蟲食腸。順說之家，將謂三蟲何似類乎？

凡天地之間，陰陽所生，蛟蟯之類，蜫蠕之屬，含氣而生，開口而食。食有甘不，同心等欲，強大食細弱，知慧反頓愚。他物小大連相齧噬，不謂之災，獨謂蟲食穀物為應政事，失道理之實，不達物氣之性也。

然夫蟲之生也，必依溫濕。溫濕之氣，常在春夏。秋冬之氣，寒而乾燥，蟲未曾生。若以蟲生，罪鄉部吏，是則鄉部吏貪於春夏，廉於秋冬。雖盜蹠之吏以秋冬署，蒙伯夷之舉矣。

夫春夏非一，而蟲時生者，溫濕甚也，甚則陰陽不和。陰陽不和，政也，徒當歸於政治，而指謂部吏為奸，失事實矣。

何知蟲以溫濕生也？以蠱蟲知之。穀乾燥者，蟲不生；溫濕饐餲，蟲生不禁。藏宿麥之種，烈日幹暴，投於燥器，則蟲不生。如不幹暴，閘喋之蟲，生如雲煙。以蠱閘喋，准況眾蟲，溫濕所生，明矣。

《詩》雲：“營營青蠅，止於籓。愷悌君子，無信讒言。”讒言傷善，青蠅汙白，同一禍敗，《詩》以為興。

昌邑王夢西階下有積蠅矢，明旦召問郎中龔遂，遂對曰：“蠅者，讒人之象也。夫矢積於階下，王將用讒臣之言也。”

由此言之，蠅之為蟲，應人君用讒。何故不謂蠅為災乎？如蠅可以為災，夫蠅歲生，世間人君常用讒乎？

案蟲害人者，莫如蚊虻，蚊虻歲生。如以蚊虻應災，世間常有害人之吏乎？

必以食物乃為災，人則物之最貴者也，蚊虻食人，尤當為災。必以暴生害物乃為災，夫歲生而食人，與時出而害物，災孰為甚？

人之病疥，亦希非常，疥蟲何故不為災？

且天將雨，蟻出蚋蜚，為與氣相應也。或時諸蟲之生，自與時氣相應，如何輒歸罪於部吏乎？天道自然，吉凶偶會，非常之蟲適生，貪吏遭署。人察貪吏之操，又見災蟲之生，則謂部吏之所為致也。

Chapter XXXIV. Remarks on Insects (Shang-ch`ung).

The phenomenalists maintain that the eating of grain by insects is caused by the officials of the various departments. Out of covetousness they make encroachments, which results in the insects eating the grain. Those with black bodies and red heads are called military officers, those with black heads and red bodies, civil officers. If these officers related to insects be punished, the insects desist from their ravages, and are seen no more.

If those red heads are supposed to be produced by military officers, and the black heads, by civilians, sometimes insects have red heads and white bodies, or black heads and yellow bodies, or their heads as well as their bodies are yellow, or both are green, or both white, as is the case with worms in fish or meat. To which officials do these correspond?

Sometimes influential citizens disturb officials, interceding for those who are to be tortured. Their ascendancy is greater than that of office-bearers, and their usurpations are more varied than those of officers. How are their corresponding insects shaped?

Insects are usually destroyed by wind and rain, but at that time the officials are not necessarily subjected to punishment.

On dry land there are always mice, and in paddy fields, fish and crabs, which all injure the grain. Either they seldom come out and suddenly cause damage, or they are always there, doing mischief. Their kinds are very numerous. To which officers are they related?

Duke Hsüan of Lu levied the land tax on each acre, when simultaneously larvæ of locusts were born. ¹ Some say that they resemble winged ones. When locusts appear, they obscure the sky, falling down on the earth like a shower of rain. They eat everything, making no difference between grain and other plants. Judging by their heads and bodies, which class of officials do they represent? With which do they tally in the opinion of the phenomenalists?

In the thirty-first year of Chien-wu,² locusts rose in the T`aishan circuit. ³ They went to the south-west, passing Ch`ên-liu⁴ and Ho-nan,⁵ and then entered the country of the I and Ti. In hundreds and thousands of districts and villages they alighted, but the officers of these places had not all measured the fields for taxation. ⁶ Locusts eat grain and grass, and, in a few days, reach the end of their life. Either they proceed on their journey, or they stop, dry up, and die. But at that time the local authorities are not all liable to punishment.

The insects' eating of grain has its term, as the silkworms' feeding on mulberry leaves has a limit. Their breeding takes a number of days, and they die after a number of months. Having completed their span, they are transformed, and do not always remain grubs. If the sovereign does not punish his officers, ⁷ the insects die nevertheles, of their own accord.

Insects are produced by the fluid of wind. Ts`ang Hsieh knew it, and therefore formed the character fêng (wind) ⁸ of fan (all) ⁹ and ch`ung (insects). ¹⁰ Having received their fluid from wind, they are bred in eight days. ¹¹

The insects of spring and summer either live on the Five Grains, or on other herbs. As they eat the Five Grains, officers collect money and grain, but what manner of things do they exact, when the insects feed on other herbs?

Among the three hundred naked animals man takes precedence, consequently he is an animal also. Man eats the food of insects, and insects likewise eat what man lives on. Both being animals, what wonder that they eat each other's food.

Were insects endowed with intelligence, they would scold man saying, "You eat the produce of Heaven, and we eat it as well. You regard us as a plague, and are not aware that you are yourself a calamity to us. Inasmuch as all animated beings like the taste of something, their mouths and bellies are not different. Man likes the Five Grains, and detests the insects for eating them, he is himself born between Heaven and Earth, and detests the coming forth of insects."

Thus the insects would censure man, if they could speak, and he would be unable to refute their charges. The existence of insects amongst other creatures is nothing wonderful for the knowing, and that they eat so many things, the latter do not consider an exceptional calamity.

In fragrant and succulent plants there are always insects in great numbers. Therefore of all kinds of grain millet has most insects, rice has them at times, wheat and beans never. If the officials be always made responsible for the existence of insects, the departmental officers of villages growing millet would invariably be culpable.

The system of Shên Nung and Hou Chi of sowing grain consisted in boiling horse dung and soaking the seeds in liquid manure, lest they should be damaged by insects. ¹² Thus, by soaking the seeds in horse dung, the village officers would become Pao Chiao¹³ and Ch`ên Chung Tse.¹⁴ How could these officers get rid of all viciousness by merely employing the method of Hou Chi and Shên Nung, since, in case no insects were produced with the crop, the emperor could not discover their guilt?

As long as insects content themselves with other plants, it is not the custom to see anything extraordinary in them, but no sooner do they feed on the Five Grains, than it is called a calamity. Cassia trees have wood-worms, and mulberry trees, wood-fretters. Cassia furnishes medicine, and mulberry trees serve as food for silkworms. Their usefulness is very great, no less than that of grain. To see nothing wonderful in these wood-worms and wood-fretters, and to decry insects as a disaster, shows ignorance of the real character of the various classes of animals, and a misconception of the nature of calamitous phenomena.

By insects we usually understand those which feed on grain, grubs are like moths. When millet and rice turn mouldy, the fermentation produces grubs. Now these grubs eating millet and rice are not considered disastrous, whereas, when insects eat the leaves of corn, it is laid to the charge of the government.

If in the course of discussion they urge that millet is of much less consequence than corn in general, we reply that there is the greatest variety of insects, and not only one species. When fish and meat rot, worms are produced, and so they are, when mincedmeat and gravy are not covered, or when cooked rice gets warm and damp, or when the scrolls of books are never unrolled, or when garments are folded together and not hung up. Diseased snails, ¹⁵ flies, mole-crickets, ¹⁶ and crabs all have parasites: some are white, some black, some long, some short. They are greatly diverse in size, and they are by no means all similar. All are the upshot of the fluid of wind, which they keep up to their end. They cannot choose their days of life, and when their life-time is very short, they perish almost as soon as they appear. Struck with the rarity of their appearance and with the fact that when they come out, they eat something, the phenomenalists call them a calamity, but a calamity presupposes some guilt. Therefore they put forward such officials as bear some resemblance to them.

Man has three worms in his intestines. The worms living in low marshes are called leeches. They eat man's feet, ¹⁷ as the three worms eat his bowels. To whom will these critics, so fond of similarities, compare the three worms?

All creatures that are born between Heaven and Earth from the Yin and the Yang, such as ant-dragons and entozoa, reptiles and vermin, ¹⁸ are imbued with the fluid, while alive; they open their mouths to eat, and what they eat, they either like or do not like. Their instincts are the same, and their propensities similar: the strong and big ones devour the weak and small ones, the shrewd and clever hurt the blunt-minded. If other creatures, big or small, lacerate one another, it is not regarded as a calamity. Therefore only to consider this an echo of the actions of government if insects eat grain, is to misunderstand the true principles and to ignore the real nature of the animal fluid.

The birth of insects depends upon warm and damp weather. As a rule, the air is warm and damp in spring and summer, and it is cold and dry in autumn and winter, when insects are not yet produced. If the village officers are made responsible for the growth of insects, then these officers must be covetous in spring and summer, and disinterested in autumn and winter. Even though they be functionaries like robber Chê, they would in their offices imitate the conduct of Po Yi in autumn and winter.

Spring and summer are not always the same; when insects grow, it must be exceedingly warm and damp. Exceedingly means that the Yin and the Yang are not in harmony. For a disharmony of the Yin and the Yang the government has to account, to which alone it can be ascribed. Consequently it is preposterous to point to the depravity of the officials of the various departments.

Whence do we know that insects grow from warmth and dampness? From noxious insects. Grain being dry, insects do not grow, but when it becomes warm and damp, it moulds and putrefies, and the growth of insects can no further be precluded. If the grains of stored up old wheat are dried in the hot sun, and then put in a dry vessel, insects do not generate, but should the seeds not be dry, voracious grubs would grow like clouds and mist. The analogy of voracious grubs makes it evident that all insects owe their birth to warmth and dampness.

The Shiking says: ["They buzz about, the blue flies, lighting on the fences. O happy and courteous sovereign, do not believe slanderous speeches."] ¹⁹ Slanderous reports injure honest men, just as the blue flies pollute white things. The damage is the same, and the Shiking therefore used this image.

The king of Ch`ang-yi dreamt that below the western flight of stairs the dirt of flies was piled up. The next morning, he summoned the officer of the Guards Kung Sui, and asked his opinion. Kung Sui replied, "The flies are emblems of slanderers. The fact that their dirt is piled up below the stairs, denotes that Your Highness is going to listen to the insinuations of slanderous officers." ²⁰

According to this view, flies as insects would tally with the prince's lending his ear to defamations; why not regard them as a calamity then? If flies may be looked upon as a calamity, they live troughout the year; but does a ruler always listen to slanderers?

Of insects hurtful to mankind, none are worse than mosquitoes and gad-flies, which are generated the whole. year. In case mosquitoes and gad-flies represent some calamity, are there always officers on earth preying upon their fellow-people?

Provided that the eating of animals be a calamity, then man being the noblest of all creatures, mosquitoes and gad-flies feeding upon him must be the worst of calamities. If to be accounted a calamity, animals must have unexpectedly been produced and have hurt others, which annoyance is greater, that of creatures produced the whole year and feeding on man, or that of others appearing but occasionally and doing mischief?

Itching is an occasional and not a constant complaint; wherefore are the insects producing it not held to be calamitous?

Moreover, when Heaven is about to rain, ants come out, and gnats fly about, thus conforming to the weather. Perhaps the birth of all insects of itself, accords with the temperature, but why then incriminate the officials of the various departments? The principle of Heaven is spontaneity, good and bad luck happen by chance. Rare insects happen to be produced, when covetous officials happen to be in office. Noticing their transactions and observing the simultaneous growth of noxious insects, people presume that it has been caused by the officials.

Notes

1. In 594 b.c. Duke Hsüan introduced a new tithing system. Cf. Ch`un-ch`iu, Duke Hsüan 15th year. Tso Ch`iu Ming condemns this measure as contrary to rule. The locusts are regarded by Wang Ch ung as a retribution for this unjust mode of taxation.

2. 55 a.d.

3. The present T`ai-an-chou in Shantung.

4. A circuit comprising the modern K`ai-fêng-fu in Honan.

5. Ho-nan-fu.

6. Therefore the locusts could not be considered a punishment for unjust taxation.

7. For those offences for which the insects are supposed to have made their appearance.

8. .

9. .

10. .

11. This explanation is forced and certainly erroneous. It would be to the point, if the character designated some insects, and not wind, for to whom would the two components "all" and "insects" suggest the idea of wind? The explanation given by Wieger, Rudiments 12, Leçons étymologiques p. 77 is not satisfactory either. He submits that the ancient character was composed of sun, movement, and expansion, and that this combination suggests the atmospheric currents produced by the action of the sunbeams. I suppose that in the character is the phonetic, and the radical. is a crawling animal, a reptile, and describes the crawling, the undulating of the currents of air. Some ancient forms of are formed of , a current, instead of , a reptile, and from the antique form we infer that and occurring in other characters, were originally connected:--- and are nothing else than a viper with a big head, a synonym for a reptile = .

12. A method still followed to the present day.

13. A recluse of the Chou epoch, celebrated for his purity. Tse Kung is said to have blamed him for living in a country the government of which he condemned, and under a prince whom he despised. Pao Chiao took these words so much to heart, that he withered up into dead wood.

14. Another hermit. Cf. Vol. I, p. 427, Note 4.

15. . My translation is a conjecture. Perhaps the latter character "an ulcer" is spurious.

16. I have omitted translating , some insect or reptile not mentioned in the dictionaries.

17. When a man passes through marshes, leeches may stick to his feet, and suck his blood.

18. for which the dictionaries only give the meaning "to wriggle." Here it must be a substantive.

19. Shiking Part II, Book VII, Ode 5 (Legge, Classics Vol IV, Part II, p. 394).

20. This story is narrated in the biography of the king of Ch`ang-yi, Ch`ien Han-shu, chap. 63, p. 18r. The king was a grandson of the emperor Han Wu Ti.


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Published by The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, © Copyright 2003 by Anne Kinney and the University of Virginia