Questioning the Spirit of the Soil土靈問
劉夢得曰。天獨陽。不可問。問於大鈞。然則配天尊者后皇。后皇不可問。問於后皇所統五土之靈曰。汝特天地間垚然一物也。非特埋金玉石鐵瓦礫朽帑無情之物。亦能埋人矣。聖若孔丘。賢若顔氏。淸如伯夷。孝如曾子。剛腸者子儀。烈膽者李愬。文之雄者韓柳。詩之豪者李杜。其鴻識巨量。英精逸狀。與天角壯。汝忍埋之乎。佞若江充。惡如梁冀。罔君者斯高。盜國者安史。其姦腥毒臭。似不堪受。汝亦容埋乎。對曰。甚矣子之誤也。萬物歸根於土。自然之數也。何擇而不埋乎。我本爲天所命。爲地所尸。物無巨細善惡。皆得埋之。雖然。於其人也。有埋骨埋精魄者。有埋骨不能埋精魄者。汝得聞乎。若聖若賢。若廉孝忠烈。若才之豪逸者。其精也歸天。否則復生於人間。或爲順子純臣。或爲烈士英人。故其骨可埋。其精魄不可埋也。若佞若賊若欺罔回慝者。則吾能錮其精囚其魄。以我之坎陷之。以我之厚掩之。猶以爲慊以吾所藏巨石以檻之。以吾所出湧水以墊之。故非特埋其骨。亦能埋其精魄矣。予曰善乎。遂書其對。
Liu Mengde (劉夢得) said: "Heaven, being Yang (陽) alone, cannot be questioned, and so I question the Great Potter's Wheel (大鈞)." If that is so, then what stands high as heaven's mate is Houhuang (后皇). And since Houhuang too cannot be questioned, I question the spirits of the five soils that Houhuang commands.
"You are only one towering thing between heaven and earth. It is not merely things without feeling that you bury — gold and jade and stone and iron, tiles and gravel and rotting goods — but you can bury men as well. Sages like Kong Qiu (孔丘), worthies like Master Yan, pure men like Bo Yi, filial sons like Master Zeng, Guo Ziyi (郭子儀) whose bowels were firm, Li Su (李愬) whose gall was fierce, Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan the champions of prose, Li Bai and Du Fu the heroes of poetry — their great discernment and broad capacity, their outstanding essence and excellent bearing contended in vigor with heaven itself, and yet did you bear to bury them? Flatterers like Jiang Chong (江充), evil men like Liang Ji, Li Si (李斯) and Zhao Gao (趙高) who deceived their sovereign, An Lushan and Shi Siming who stole the state — their crooked rankness and poisonous smell would seem hard to take in, and yet did you receive and bury these as well?"
It answered: "This is too much — how wrong you are! That all things return their roots to the soil is the course of nature. What should I choose not to bury? I am by origin what heaven has appointed and what earth has entrusted, and without regard to great or small, good or evil in things, I can bury them all.
"But in the case of men there are those whose bones I bury and whose essence and soul I bury too, and there are those whose bones I bury but whose essence and soul I cannot bury — have you heard of this? Those who are like sages and like worthies, who are pure and filial and loyal and fierce, and those whose talents are heroic and outstanding: their essence returns to heaven, or else is born again into the world of men. Some become dutiful sons and unalloyed servants of the state, and some become fierce scholars and outstanding men. Therefore their bones can be buried, but their essence and soul cannot. As for those who are like flatterers and like thieves, who deceive and are crooked, I can imprison their essence and put their souls in gaol. I drop them into my pits and cover them with my thickness; and counting even that not enough, I make a cage of the great stones I keep and drown them in the welling water I send forth. Therefore it is not only their bones that I bury: I can bury their essence and their soul as well."
I said: "Well said." And so I set down that answer.