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Well fashioned is the bow adorned with horn, |
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And swift is its recoil. |
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Brothers and relatives by affinity, |
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Should not be treated distantly. |
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When you keep yours at a distance, |
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The people all do the same with theirs. |
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What you teach, |
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The people all imitate. |
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Those brothers who are good, |
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Continue to display much generous feeling; |
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But between brothers who are not good, |
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Their intercourse is marked by troubles. |
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People who have no conscience, |
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Repine against each other, each one holding his own point of view; |
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One gets a place, and shows no humility -- |
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Till they all come to ruin. |
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An old horse, notwithstanding, thinks himself a colt, |
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And has no regard to the future. |
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It is like craving a superabundance of food, |
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And an excess of drink. |
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Do not teach a monkey to climb trees; -- |
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[You act] like adding mud to one in the mud. |
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If the sovereign have good ways, |
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The small people will accord with them. |
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The snow may have fallen abundantly, |
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But when it feels the sun's heat, it dissolves. |
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You are not willing to discountenance [those parties], |
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And so they become [more] troublesome and arrogant. |
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The snow may have fallen largely, |
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But when it feels the sun's heat, it flows away. |
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They become like the Man or the Mao; -- |
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This is what make me sad. |
Published
by The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, © Copyright 2003
by Anne Kinney and the University of Virginia