Free and Easy Wandering莊子 內篇 逍遙遊

In the northern sea there is a fish, and its name is Kun. The Kun is so large that no one knows how many thousand li it measures. It changes and becomes a bird, and its name is Peng. The back of the Peng too is so wide that no one knows how many thousand li it measures. When it rouses itself and flies, its wings are like clouds hanging from the sky. When the sea moves, this bird makes ready to remove to the southern sea. The southern sea is the Pool of Heaven.

The Qi xie (齊諧) is a book that sets down strange things. The words of the Xie say, "When the Peng removes to the southern sea, it beats the water for three thousand li, and it mounts the whirlwind and climbs ninety thousand li, and it goes six months before it rests."

The shimmer of the air and the motes of dust are living things blowing upon one another with their breath. The sky is blue and blue. Is that its own color, or is it that the sky is far off and has no end? When the Peng looks down, it sees no more than this.

And if water is not piled deep, it has no strength to carry a large boat. Pour a cup of water into a hollow in the floor and a blade of grass will be a boat on it, but set the cup there and it sticks to the bottom, for the water is shallow and the boat is large. If wind is not piled deep, it has no strength to carry great wings. So the bird must go up ninety thousand li, and then the wind lies beneath it, and only then does it ride upon the wind. Only when it bears the blue sky on its back and nothing blocks its way does it set out for the south.

The cicada and the young dove laughed at it and said, "We spring up and fly, and we strike the elm and the birch, and sometimes we do not even reach them and drop to the ground. What is the use of going up ninety thousand li and heading south?"

One who goes to the green fields nearby eats three meals and comes back with his belly still full. One who goes a hundred li pounds his grain the night before. One who goes a thousand li gathers provisions for three months. What do those two creatures know?

Small knowledge does not reach great knowledge, and a short life does not reach a long life. How is this known? The mushroom that is born in the morning and dies does not know the first day of the month from the last, and the summer cicada does not know spring from autumn. This is a short life. South of Chu there is a tree called the mingling, and it takes five hundred years for its spring and five hundred years for its autumn. In high antiquity there was a tree called the dachun, and it took eight thousand years for its spring and eight thousand years for its autumn.

Yet Pengzu alone is famous now for having lived long, and the crowd would match themselves against him. Is this not sad?

This is what Tang asked Ji about.

"North of the land where no hair grows there is a dark sea, and it is the Pool of Heaven. There is a fish there, several thousand li across, and no one knows its length, and its name is Kun. There is a bird there, and its name is Peng. Its back is like Mount Tai, and its wings are like clouds hanging from the sky. It mounts the whirlwind that turns like a ram's horn and climbs ninety thousand li, and it cuts through the clouds and bears the blue sky, and then it sets out for the south and goes to the southern sea."

A quail laughed at it and said, "Where is that one going? I leap up and rise no more than a few fathoms before I come down, and I flutter among the mugwort, and this too is the utmost of flying. Where is that one going?" This is the division between the small and the great.

So a man whose knowledge is fit for one office, whose conduct suits one district, whose virtue matches one ruler and who is therefore employed by one state, looks upon himself just as that quail does. Song Rongzi smiled at such a man. Though the whole world praised him he was not spurred on, and though the whole world blamed him he was not cast down. He had settled the division between inner and outer, and he had marked off the borders of honor and disgrace, and that was all. He was not anxious about the affairs of the world. Even so, there was still something in him that was not yet established.

Liezi rode upon the wind and went about, cool and light and fine, and he came back after fifteen days. He was not anxious about calling down good fortune. He was spared the labor of walking, but there was still something he depended on.

But one who rides the true course of heaven and earth, and drives the changes of the six breaths, and roams in the endless, what would he depend on? Therefore it is said, the utmost man puts forward no self, the spirit man puts forward no merit, the sage puts forward no name.

Yao handed the world over to Xu You and said, "The sun and the moon have come out, and still the torch is not put out. Set beside their light, is it not a vain thing? The timely rain has fallen, and still the fields are being watered. Set beside its soaking, is it not wasted labor? If you take your stand, sir, the world will be governed, and yet I still hold the seat. I look at myself and find myself wanting. Let me hand the world over to you."

Xu You said, "You govern the world, and the world is already governed. If I were now to take your place, you would be telling me to get myself a name. A name is the guest of the substance. Are you telling me to become a guest?

A wren nests in the deep forest and needs no more than one branch. A mole drinks from the river and needs no more than a bellyful. Go home and rest, my lord. The world is of no use to me. Even when the cook does not tend the kitchen, the invoker at the sacrifice does not step over the wine jar and the chopping board to take his place."

Jianwu asked Lian Shu, "I heard words from Jieyu. They were large and hit nothing, and they went out and did not come back. I was startled and afraid at his words. They were like the Milky Way and had no end. They were wildly wide of the mark and not close to human feeling."

Lian Shu said, "What were the words?"

"He said, 'On Mount Miaoguye there lives a spirit man. His skin is like ice and snow, and he is soft and yielding like a maiden. He does not eat the five grains but breathes the wind and drinks the dew. He rides the breath of the clouds and drives a flying dragon, and he roams beyond the four seas. When his spirit gathers, the ten thousand things do not sicken and the grain ripens.' I took this for mad talk and did not believe it."

Lian Shu said, "So it would be. A blind man cannot share in the sight of patterns, and a deaf man cannot share in the sound of bell and drum. Are deafness and blindness only of the body? Knowledge has them too. Those words were spoken of you.

That man, that virtue, would draw the ten thousand things together and make them one. Though the world begged him to put down its disorder, why would he wear himself out making the world his business? Nothing can harm that man. A great flood may reach the sky and he does not drown. A great drought may melt metal and stone and scorch the hills of earth, and he does not feel the heat. Out of his very dust and chaff one could mold a Yao or a Shun. Why would he make outward things his business?"

A man of Song laid out his money on zhangfu caps and went to Yue, but the people of Yue cut their hair and marked their bodies and had no use for them. Yao governed the people of the world and set the government of the realm in order, and then he went to see the four masters on Mount Miaoguye, north of the Fen river, and he stood dazed and forgot his world.

Huizi said to Zhuangzi, "The king of Wei gave me the seed of a great gourd. I planted it and it grew, and the fruit held five bushels. I filled it with water, but it was not firm enough to bear its own weight. I split it to make dippers, but they were so broad and flat that they held nothing. It was not that the thing was not big and hollow. I smashed it because it was of no use."

Zhuangzi said, "You are truly clumsy, sir, at using what is large.

There was a man of Song who was good at making a salve that kept the hands from chapping, and his house had washed silk floss for generations. A traveler heard of it and asked to buy the recipe for a hundred pieces of gold. The whole clan gathered and talked it over and said, 'We have washed floss for generations and have never got more than a few pieces of gold. Now in one morning we can sell the craft for a hundred. Let us give it to him.'

The traveler got it and spoke of it to the king of Wu. When Yue attacked, the king of Wu made him a general. In winter he fought the men of Yue on the water and beat them badly, and the king cut off land and enfeoffed him.

Keeping the hands from chapping was one and the same thing, and yet one man was enfeoffed for it and another never got beyond washing floss. It was because they used it differently.

Now you have a gourd that holds five bushels. Why do you not think of making it into a great tub and floating on the rivers and lakes, instead of worrying that it is too broad and flat to hold anything? You still have a mind stopped up with brushwood, sir."

Huizi said to Zhuangzi, "I have a great tree, and people call it the ailanthus. Its great trunk is knotted and swollen and does not meet the ink line. Its small branches are curled and bent and do not meet the compass and the square. It stands by the road and no carpenter looks at it. Now your words too are large and of no use, and everyone alike turns from them."

Zhuangzi said, "Have you alone never seen the wildcat and the weasel? They crouch low and lie in wait for what comes abroad. They leap east and west and do not shrink from high or low. Then they are caught in the trap and they die in the net.

Now that black ox is as large as clouds hanging from the sky. It can be great, but it cannot catch a rat.

Now you have a great tree and you are troubled that it is of no use. Why do you not plant it in the land where nothing at all is, in the broad and boundless field, and wander idly beside it doing nothing, and lie down and sleep beneath it at your ease? The axe will not cut it short, and nothing will harm it. Though there is nothing it can be used for, where is the hardship in that?"