On the open ground between the states of Chen and Cai, a band of travelers was surrounded and could not get away.

The grain was gone. The followers fell sick and could not get up.

The old man at the center did not stop. He went on reciting and teaching, playing the zither and singing.

Zilu could not stand it. He came to him angry: "Does a gentleman also come to the end of his road?"

The old man was sixty-three. Seven years earlier he had been acting chief minister of Lu.

I. A Pleased Look

I wrote about that year in the Hereditary House of Confucius. In the fourteenth year of Duke Ding of Lu, Confucius was fifty-six. Promoted from Minister of Justice to acting chief minister, he looked pleased.

A disciple reminded him that a gentleman is said to feel no fear when disaster comes and no joy when fortune comes. Confucius said: "There is such a saying. But is there not also one about taking pleasure in using high rank to defer to others?"

He shared in governing for three months. Sellers of lambs and piglets stopped padding their prices. Men and women walked on separate sides of the road. Nobody picked up what others dropped. Visitors from every quarter did not need to petition officials; they were all looked after and went home satisfied.

Qi grew afraid. If Confucius governs, its people said, Lu will become hegemon, and Qi, its nearest neighbor, will be swallowed first.

The Qi grandee Li Chu had an idea: first try to spoil his work; if that fails, cede land then. It would not be too late.

So Qi chose eighty beautiful women, dressed them in patterned robes, taught them the Kangle dance, added thirty teams of decorated horses, and sent the lot to the ruler of Lu. The dancers and horses were displayed outside the High Gate on the south side of the Lu capital.

Ji Huanzi, the grandee who ran the state, went to look in plain clothes. Then he went again, and again. Then he talked the duke into an outing on the pretext of an inspection tour, and they watched all day and neglected the business of state.

Zilu said: "Master, you can leave now."

Confucius was waiting for one more thing. Lu was about to hold the suburban sacrifice to Heaven, he said. If the sacrificial meat was sent to the grandees as ritual required, he could still stay.

Ji Huanzi accepted the women from Qi and did not hold court for three days. After the sacrifice, no meat was sent to the grandees.

Confucius left and spent the night at Tun. The music master Ji, who saw him off, said: "Master, the fault is not yours."

Confucius said he would sing a song instead: "The mouths of those women can drive a man away; the pleas of those women can bring a man to ruin. So let me wander at ease to the end of my years."

When Ji returned, Ji Huanzi asked what Confucius had said. Ji told him exactly. Ji Huanzi sighed: "The Master blames me because of that troupe of slave girls."

He knew. He had accepted them anyway.

II. The Man Who Looked Like Yang Hu

Confucius went first to Wey. Duke Ling of Wey asked his salary in Lu. "Sixty thousand measures of grain." Wey paid him the same.

Before long someone slandered him to Duke Ling, and the duke had Gongsun Yujia go in and out of his lodging. Afraid of being charged with something, Confucius left after ten months.

On the road to Chen he passed through Kuang. Yan Ke, who was driving, pointed his whip at the wall: last time I came in here, it was through that gap.

The people of Kuang heard and took him for Yang Hu of Lu, who had once brutalized them. Confucius also looked like Yang Hu. They held him for five days.

Yan Yuan, who had fallen behind, arrived last. Confucius said: "I thought you were dead." Yan Yuan said: "While you live, how would I dare to die?"

The siege tightened and the disciples were afraid. Confucius said: "King Wen is dead, but is not his culture here with me? If Heaven meant to destroy this culture, those who come after would never have received it. Since Heaven has not destroyed it, what can the men of Kuang do to me?"

Hard words. What actually got him out was something more practical: he sent a follower to serve Ning Wuzi, a grandee of Wey. Only then could he leave.

III. Jade Behind a Curtain

Back in Wey, Duke Ling's consort Nanzi sent word: gentlemen from every quarter who wish to be brothers to our lord always come to see me. I would like to see you.

Confucius declined, could not get out of it, and went.

Nanzi sat behind a curtain of fine hemp. Confucius entered, faced north and bowed his head to the ground. Nanzi bowed twice from behind the curtain, her jade pendants chiming.

Afterward Confucius said he had not wanted to see her, but having seen her he had answered with proper courtesy. Zilu was still displeased. Confucius had to swear: "If I have done wrong, may Heaven reject me! May Heaven reject me!"

A month or so later Duke Ling rode out with Nanzi, the eunuch Yong Qu riding with them, and had Confucius follow in a second carriage as they paraded through the market.

Confucius said: "I have never seen anyone who loves virtue as much as he loves beauty." He felt disgraced and left Wey.

In Song he was practicing ritual with his disciples under a great tree. Huan Tui, the Song minister of war, wanted to kill him and had the tree pulled down. The disciples urged him to hurry. Confucius said: "Heaven gave me my virtue. What can Huan Tui do to me?"

He left all the same.

IV. A Stray Dog

In Zheng the master and his disciples lost one another. Confucius stood alone at the east gate of the outer wall.

A man of Zheng told Zigong: there is a man at the east gate. His forehead is like Yao's, his neck like Gao Yao's, his shoulders like Zichan's; but from the waist down he falls three inches short of Yu. Worn out and forlorn, like a dog that has lost its home.

Zigong repeated it to his teacher.

Confucius laughed with pleasure. "Looks are a small matter. But a dog that has lost its home? Exactly so! Exactly so!"

Compared to sage kings, he let it pass. Called a stray, he owned it.

V. The River He Did Not Cross

Confucius stayed in Chen for three years. Jin and Chu were fighting for supremacy and took turns attacking Chen; Wu raided it too. Chen was always under arms. Confucius said: "Let us go home! Let us go home! The young men of my village are bold and ambitious and have not forgotten where they began."

He left Chen and passed through Pu just as a rebellion broke out there, and the rebels stopped him. Among his disciples was Gongliang Ru, who had followed him with five carriages of his own, a tall, able man of great strength. I suffered with the Master at Kuang, he said, and now we suffer again. This is fate. Rather than suffer it twice, I will fight to the death. He fought so fiercely that the people of Pu took fright. If you will not go to Wey, they said, we will let you out. They swore a covenant and released him by the east gate.

Confucius went straight to Wey.

Zigong asked: "Can a covenant be broken?" Confucius said: "It was sworn under duress. The spirits do not hear it."

Duke Ling was delighted to hear he had come and met him outside the city. But the duke was old and slack in government, and in the end did not employ him. Confucius sighed: "If anyone would employ me, in a single year things would be in hand, and in three years there would be results."

He meant to go west to see Zhao Jianzi of Jin. At the Yellow River he heard that two worthy Jin grandees, Dou Mingdu and Shunhua, had been put to death. He faced the water and sighed: "How fine the river is, how vast! That I do not cross it is fate."

Zigong asked what he meant. Confucius said that before Zhao Jianzi had his way he needed those two men to govern; once he had his way, he killed them. Cut open the womb and kill the young, and the qilin will not come to the fields. Drain the marsh to catch the fish, and the dragons will not harmonize yin and yang. Overturn the nest and break the eggs, and the phoenix will not fly. Even birds and beasts know to avoid what is unjust. How much more should I?

He did not cross. He went back to Wey.

One day Duke Ling asked him about battle formations. Confucius said: "Of sacrificial vessels I have heard something. Of military matters I have never learned."

The next day the duke was talking with him when he saw wild geese flying over. He kept looking up at them. His attention was not on Confucius.

Confucius left and went to Chen again.

Around that time Ji Huanzi of Lu fell gravely ill. Carried in a litter, he looked at the city of Lu and sighed: "This state was nearly on the rise once. Because I offended Confucius, it did not rise." He told his heir, Ji Kangzi: after I die you will surely be chief minister of Lu; when you are, you must call Zhongni back.

Ji Huanzi died a few days later. Kangzi wanted to send for Confucius, but the grandee Gongzhi Yu objected: our late lord employed him and did not see it through, and the other states laughed at us. Employ him again and fail again, and they will laugh a second time.

So the man Lu summoned was Confucius's disciple Ran Qiu.

Seeing Ran Qiu off, Zigong told him privately: if they give you real power, use it to bring the Master home.

VI. Asking the Way to the Ford

Confucius moved from Chen to Cai, and then to She. The lord of She asked Zilu what kind of man Confucius was, and Zilu did not answer. When Confucius heard, he said: why didn't you tell him that I am the kind of man who "studies the Way without tiring, teaches without growing weary, forgets to eat when roused, forgets his worries in his joy, and does not notice old age coming on"?

On the road back from She to Cai, two recluses, Changju and Jieni, were plowing side by side. Confucius sent Zilu to ask where the ford was.

Changju asked: who is that holding the reins? Zilu said: Kong Qiu. "Kong Qiu of Lu?" "Yes." "Then he knows where the ford is."

Jieni said to Zilu: "The whole world is drifting this way. Who can change it?" Rather than follow a man who avoids bad people, why not follow men who avoid the whole world? He went on covering the seed and did not stop.

Zilu came back and reported. Confucius said, disappointed: "One cannot flock with birds and beasts. If the world had the Way, I would not be trying to change it."

Another time Zilu met an old man carrying a bamboo basket on his staff and asked: have you seen my master? The old man said: "Your four limbs do no work; you cannot tell the five grains apart. Who is your master?" He planted his staff in the ground and went on weeding.

VII. The Wilderness

Confucius had been in Cai three years when Wu attacked Chen. Chu sent troops to rescue Chen and camped at Chengfu. Hearing that Confucius was between Chen and Cai, the king of Chu sent envoys to invite him.

The grandees of Chen and Cai conferred. Confucius is a worthy man, they said, and his criticisms strike at the faults of the lords. He has been staying between Chen and Cai all this time, and nothing we grandees do suits him. Chu is a great state. If Chu employs him, we who run Chen and Cai are in danger.

So together they sent out conscript laborers and surrounded Confucius in the open country.

That is where this story began. They could not move; the food ran out; the followers lay sick. Confucius went on reciting, playing and singing.

Zilu asked: does a gentleman also come to the end of his road? Confucius said: "A gentleman holds firm when he is at the end of his road. A small man at the end of his road will do anything."

Zigong's face changed too. Confucius asked him: Ci, do you take me for a man who has learned a great deal and remembers it? Zigong said: yes. Is that not so? Confucius said: "No. I have one thread that runs through it all."

Confucius knew his disciples were resentful. He called three of them in, one at a time, and asked each the same question.

First Zilu: "The Ode says: 'Neither wild buffalo nor tiger, yet we roam the wilderness.' Is my Way wrong? Why am I here?"

Zilu said: perhaps we are not yet humane enough, so people do not trust us. Perhaps we are not yet wise enough, so people do not let us through.

Confucius said: if the humane were always trusted, how could there have been Boyi and Shuqi, who starved? If the wise always got through, how could there have been Prince Bigan, whose heart was cut out?

Zilu went out and Zigong came in. The same question.

Zigong said: Master, your Way is too great; that is why the world cannot accommodate you. Why not lower it a little?

Confucius said: a good farmer can sow but cannot guarantee the harvest; a good craftsman can be skillful but cannot please everyone. A gentleman can cultivate his Way and set it in order, but he cannot make himself accepted. "Now you do not cultivate your Way but seek to be accepted. Ci, your aim is not far-reaching!"

Zigong went out and Yan Hui came in. The same question again.

Yan Hui said: Master, your Way is too great, so the world cannot accommodate it. Even so, you push it forward. What harm is there in not being accepted? "Only when you are not accepted do you see the gentleman!" If our Way is not cultivated, that is our shame. If it is fully cultivated and still not used, that is the shame of those who rule states. "What harm in not being accepted? Only when you are not accepted do you see the gentleman!"

Confucius laughed with pleasure. "Is that so, son of the Yan family! If you were a rich man, I would be your steward."

The man trapped in the wilderness had laughed twice. Once at the east gate of Zheng, at himself as a stray dog. Once here, at a disciple who understood him.

VIII. Seven Hundred Li

Confucius sent Zigong to Chu. King Zhao of Chu sent troops to meet him, and only then did he get free.

King Zhao meant to enfeoff Confucius with seven hundred li of registered land. His chief minister, Zixi, asked four questions. Does Your Majesty have an envoy to the lords like Zigong? No. A counselor like Yan Hui? No. A general like Zilu? No. An official like Zai Yu? No.

Then he said: when Chu's founder was enfeoffed by Zhou, he got the rank of viscount and fifty li. King Wen at Feng and King Wu at Hao each began with a hundred li and ended ruling the world. If Kong Qiu gets territory, with worthy disciples to help him, that is no blessing for Chu.

The king dropped the idea. That autumn King Zhao died at Chengfu.

Jieyu, the madman of Chu, passed Confucius's carriage singing: "Phoenix, phoenix, how your virtue has declined! What is past cannot be remonstrated with; what is to come can still be pursued. Give it up, give it up! Those who govern now are in peril!" Confucius got down, wanting to talk with him. Jieyu hurried off, and they never spoke.

That year Confucius was sixty-three; it was the sixth year of Duke Ai of Lu. He went back from Chu to Wey.

IX. Home

Later, Ran Qiu commanded troops for the Ji family and defeated Qi at Lang. Ji Kangzi asked him: did you learn warfare, or is it in your nature? Ran Qiu said: "I learned it from Confucius."

Kangzi asked what kind of man Confucius was. Ran Qiu said that employing him brings a good name; spread his Way among the people or set it before the spirits, and there is nothing to regret. Kangzi asked: may I call him back? Ran Qiu said: if you do, just do not let small men hem him in.

Just then Kong Wenzi of Wey, planning to attack Taishu, came to Confucius for advice. Confucius said he knew nothing about it, went home and ordered the carriage made ready: "A bird can choose its tree. Can a tree choose its bird?"

Ji Kangzi drove out Gonghua, Gongbin and Gonglin, and sent gifts to welcome Confucius. Confucius returned to Lu.

"Confucius had been away from Lu for fourteen years in all when he returned."

Duke Ai and Ji Kangzi both asked him about government, but Lu never employed him, and he no longer sought office. He put the Odes and Documents in order and corrected the rites and music. In old age he read the Changes until the leather thongs binding the bamboo slips had broken three times.

In spring of the fourteenth year of Duke Ai, there was a hunt at Daye. A charioteer of the Shusun family named Chu Shang caught an animal and thought it ill-omened. Confucius went to look and said: "It is a qilin." He sighed: "My Way is at an end!" And: "No one understands me!"

Zigong asked: why do you say no one understands you? Confucius said: "I do not resent Heaven, I do not blame men. I study what is low and reach what is high. The one who understands me is Heaven, perhaps."

He began to compose the Spring and Autumn Annals from the records of Lu, from Duke Yin to the fourteenth year of Duke Ai. He said: "Later ages will know me by the Spring and Autumn Annals, and condemn me by it too."

The next year Zilu died in Wey.

Confucius fell ill. When Zigong came to see him, he was strolling slowly at his gate, leaning on a staff. "Ci, why are you so late?" Then he sighed and sang: "Mount Tai is crumbling! The beam is breaking! The wise man is withering!" And he wept.

Seven days later he died, aged seventy-three, on the jichou day of the fourth month in the sixteenth year of Duke Ai of Lu.

Epilogue

I have been to Lu. In the Master's hall I saw his carriage, his robes and his ritual vessels, and the scholars practicing the rites at his old home at the proper seasons. I lingered there and could not bring myself to leave.

The world has had many kings and worthies. They were glorious in their day and finished when they died. Confucius was a commoner, yet his teaching has passed down more than ten generations, and scholars honor him.

In his lifetime a stranger at the east gate of Zheng called him a stray dog. Hungry in the wilderness between Chen and Cai, he asked his disciples: "Is my Way wrong? Why am I here?"

It was Yan Hui who gave the answer: "Only when you are not accepted do you see the gentleman."

Sources and editorial boundaries

1. Core source: Shiji ch. 47, "The Hereditary House of Confucius," from his acting chief ministership in the fourteenth year of Duke Ding through his death, burial and the Grand Historian's comment. Read in the classical Chinese transcription on Chinese Wikisource; no modern translation was copied. The first-person historian is a literary device, not Sima Qian's own text. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷047

2. Cross-checks: Analects, "Wei Ling Gong" 15.1–15.2 (the question about formations, running out of food in Chen, "a gentleman holds firm," "one thread"); "Weizi" (Changju and Jieni, the old man with the basket, Jieyu); "Zihan" (danger at Kuang, "King Wen is dead"); "Xianjin" (Yan Yuan falling behind at Kuang; "those who followed me in Chen and Cai"); "Shu'er" ("Heaven gave me my virtue"); "Yong Ye" (meeting Nanzi, Zilu's displeasure, the oath); Mencius, "Jin Xin II" ("the gentleman's distress between Chen and Cai was because he had no connections with either rulers or ministers"). The epithets for Boyi and Shuqi (starved) and Bigan (heart cut out) were checked against Shiji ch. 61 and ch. 3. All on Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/論語/衞靈公第十五 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/論語/微子第十八 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/論語/子罕第九 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/論語/先進第十一 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/論語/述而第七 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/論語/雍也第六 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/孟子/盡心下 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷061 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷003

3. Dates: The Shiji places Confucius's birth in the 22nd year of Duke Xiang of Lu (conventionally 551 BCE); his acting chief ministership at age 56 in the 14th year of Duke Ding (496 BCE); "that year Confucius was sixty-three, the sixth year of Duke Ai" (489 BCE), the year of the Chen–Cai ordeal and of King Zhao's death at Chengfu; the qilin in the 14th year of Duke Ai (481 BCE); and his death on the jichou day of the fourth month of the 16th year of Duke Ai, aged 73 (479 BCE). "Fourteen years in all" away from Lu is quoted as written and not converted to dates. The Shiji gives no separate year for his departure from Lu; "seven years earlier" rests on the two ages, 56 and 63, stated in the text. Ji Huanzi's illness is placed in "autumn" after the third year of Duke Ai; the story says only "around that time."

4. Differing accounts: (1) The Shiji says the grandees of Chen and Cai, fearing Chu would employ Confucius, sent laborers to surround him; the Analects says only that "in Chen the food ran out," right after Duke Ling's question and "the next day he left," with no siege; Mencius explains the ordeal as having "no connections above or below." The story follows the Shiji and leaves the difference open. (2) The three-question dialogue on "neither buffalo nor tiger" appears only in the Shiji. (3) Jieni's words read "drifting" (youyou) in the Shiji and "flooding" (taotao) in the Analects; the story follows the Shiji. (4) The Analects adds that the old man with the basket put Zilu up for the night; the Shiji omits it, and so does the story. (5) The Shiji separates Duke Ling's question about formations from the hunger in Chen by years of travel; the Analects runs them together. The story follows the Shiji.

5. Fact and narrative: All speech comes from the sources above; plain-language renderings are modern editorial paraphrase. No weather, scenery, inner thoughts or invented dialogue has been added. Physical descriptions (resembling Yang Hu, nine feet six inches tall) are as the Shiji records them. The execution of Shaozheng Mao, recorded in the Shiji, is outside this story's thread and is not included. "He knew. He had accepted them anyway," "Compared to sage kings, he let it pass. Called a stray, he owned it," and "had laughed twice" are editorial linking comments, not claims of the sources. The epilogue's "I have been to Lu" rests on the Grand Historian's comment at the end of ch. 47. Yan Hui's own life is left for story 27.

6. Map: The site of the siege between Chen and Cai is not recorded and is not mapped. One place is pinned: the Lu capital (present-day Qufu area, Shandong, using the OpenStreetMap reference point for Qufu, 35.5957, 116.9875), for 496 BCE and for his death and burial "north of the Lu city on the Si" in 479 BCE. The point stands for the Qufu area, not the exact site of the old Lu city or the tomb. Chengfu, where King Zhao camped and died, is not mapped: more than one ancient place bore that name and commentators differ. Kuang, Pu, Chen, Cai, She, the east gate of Zheng and other places are left unplaced.

7. Rights: The ancient sources are in the public domain. The Chinese and English texts are original contemporary narrative.