Lanshi — Against the Taboos of Time𧬘時篇
世俗起土興功，歲月有所食，所食之地必有死者。假令太歲在子，歲食於酉，正月建寅，月食於巳，子、寅地興功，則酉、巳之家見食矣。見食之家，作起厭勝，以五行之物懸金木水火。假令歲月食西家，西家懸金，歲月食東家，東家懸炭。設祭祀以除其凶，或空亡徙以辟其殃。連相仿效，皆謂之然。如考實之，虛妄迷也。
The common world says that when earth is broken and work is raised, the Year and the Month have something they eat, and in the ground they eat there will surely be a death. Suppose the Grand Year is at the branch zi: then the Year eats at the branch you. In the first month the branch yin is set up, and the Month eats at the branch si. So when work is raised on the ground of the branches zi and yin, the houses of the branches you and si are eaten. A house that is eaten raises a charm to press the thing down and overcome it, hanging up metal, wood, water and fire, the things of the five elements. Suppose the Year and the Month eat the western house: the western house hangs up metal. Suppose they eat the eastern house: the eastern house hangs up charcoal. They set out sacrifices to take away the ill, or they flee and move away in vain to escape the calamity. One after another they copy each other, and all say that it is so. But when the truth of it is examined, it is an empty and reckless delusion.
何以明之？夫天地之神，用心等也。人民無狀，加罪行罰，非有二心兩意，前後相反也。移徙不避歲月，歲月惡其不避己之衝位怒之也。今起功之家，亦動地體，無狀之過，與移徙等。起功之家，當為歲所食，何故反令巳、酉之地受其咎乎？
How is this made clear? The spirits of Heaven and earth are all alike in the use of their minds. When the people are unruly, guilt is laid on them and punishment is carried out. The spirits have not two minds and two intents, so that what comes after is contrary to what came before. When a man moves house and does not avoid the Year and the Month, the Year and the Month hate him for not avoiding the place that stands against them, and are angry with him. Now the house that raises work also stirs the body of the earth, and the fault of being unruly is the same as in moving house. The house that raises the work ought to be eaten by the Year. For what reason is it turned about, so that the ground of the branches si and you receives the blame?
豈歲月之神怪移徙而〔不〕咎起功哉！用心措意，何其不平也。鬼神罪過人，猶縣官謫罰民也。民犯刑罰多非一，小過宥罪，大惡犯辟，未有以無過受罪。無過而受罪，世謂之冤。今巳、酉之家，無過於月歲，子、（家）〔寅〕起宅，空為見食，此則歲冤無罪也。且夫太歲在子，子宅直符，午宅為破，不須興功起事。空居無為，猶被其害，今歲月所食，待子宅有為，巳、酉乃凶。
Can it be that the spirits of the Year and the Month think it strange that a man moves house, and yet lay no blame on raising work! In the use of their minds and the setting of their intent, how uneven they are. When ghosts and spirits find fault with a man, it is like the district officer reproving and punishing the people. The people break the punishments in many ways, not in one way only. A small fault is pardoned its guilt and a great evil meets the law, and none has ever received guilt without a fault. To receive guilt without a fault is what the world calls a wrong. Now the houses of the branches si and you have no fault toward the Month and the Year, yet the branches zi and yin build a house and those houses are eaten for nothing. This is the Year wronging the guiltless. Further, when the Grand Year is at the branch zi, the house of zi is zhifu and the house of the branch wu is po, and they need not raise work and begin affairs. They dwell empty and do nothing, and still they suffer the harm. Yet what the Year and the Month eat waits until the house of zi does something, and only then are si and you unlucky.
太歲，歲月之神，用罰為害，動靜殊致，非天從歲月神意之道也。
The Grand Year is the spirit of the Year and the Month. In using punishment to do harm it brings one thing to pass when men stir and another when they are still. This is not the way in which Heaven follows the intent of the spirits of the Year and the Month.
審論歲月之神，歲則太歲也，在天邊際，立於子位。起室者在中國一州之內，假令揚州在東南，使如鄒衍之言，天下為一州，又在東南，歲食於酉，食西羌之地，東南之地安得凶禍。假令歲在人民之間，西宅為酉地，則起功之家，宅中亦有酉地，何以不近食其宅中之酉地，而反食佗家乎！且食之者審誰也？如審歲月，歲月天之從神，飲食與天同，天食不食人，故郊祭不以為牲。如非天神，亦不食人。天地之間，百神所食，聖人謂當與人等。推生事死，推人事鬼，故百神之祀皆用眾物，無用人者。物食人者，虎與狼也。歲月之神，豈虎狼之精哉？倉卒之世，谷食乏匱，人民飢餓，自相啖食。豈其啖食死者，其精為歲月之神哉？歲月有神，日亦有神，歲食月食，日何不食？積日為月，積月為時，積時為歲，千五百三十九歲為一統，四千六百一十七歲為一元，增積相倍之數，分余終竟之名耳，安得鬼神之怪、禍福之驗乎？如歲月終竟者宜有神，則四時有神，統元有神，月三日魄，八日弦，十五日望，與歲月終竟何異？歲月有神，魄與弦復有神也？一日之中，分為十二時，平旦寅，日出卯也。十二月建寅卯，則十二月時所加寅卯也。日加十二辰不食，月建十二辰獨食，豈日加無神，月建獨有哉？何故月建獨食，日加不食乎！如日加無神，用時決事非也。如加時有神，獨不食非也。
When the spirits of the Year and the Month are examined and discussed, the Year is the Grand Year, which is at the border of Heaven and stands in the place of the branch zi. The man who raises a house is within one province of the Middle Kingdom. Suppose Yangzhou is in the southeast. Even if it is as Zou Yan said, and all under Heaven is one province, it is still in the southeast. If the Year eats at the branch you, it eats the land of the Western Qiang, and how then does the land of the southeast get an ill disaster? Suppose the Year is among the people, and the western house is the ground of the branch you. Then within the house that raises the work there is also a ground of you. Why does it not eat the ground of you close at hand inside that house, and instead eat another man's house! And who, examined closely, is it that eats? If it is indeed the Year and the Month, then the Year and the Month are the spirits that follow Heaven, and their drinking and eating is the same as Heaven's. Heaven, when it eats, does not eat men, and so at the suburban sacrifice no man is made the victim. And if they are not spirits of Heaven, they do not eat men either. What the hundred spirits between Heaven and earth eat, the sage said, ought to be the same as what men eat. Men reason from the living to serve the dead, and from men to serve the ghosts, and so the sacrifices to the hundred spirits all use the many kinds of things, and none uses a man. The creatures that eat men are the tiger and the wolf. Are the spirits of the Year and the Month the essence of tigers and wolves? In a world of sudden upheaval grain runs short, the people starve, and they devour one another. Can the essence of those who ate the dead become the spirits of the Year and the Month? If the Year and the Month have spirits, the Day has a spirit too. The Year eats and the Month eats. Why does the Day not eat? Days heaped up make a month, months heaped up make a season, seasons heaped up make a year. One thousand five hundred and thirty-nine years make one tong, and four thousand six hundred and seventeen years make one yuan. These are numbers heaped up and doubled one against another, names for dividing the remainder and coming to an end. How can there be in them the strangeness of ghosts and spirits, or the proof of ill and good fortune? If what comes to its end in a year or a month ought to have a spirit, then the four seasons have spirits, and the tong and the yuan have spirits. On the third day of the moon there is the first light, on the eighth the half, on the fifteenth the full. How does this differ from the ending of a year or a month? If the Year and the Month have spirits, do the first light and the half moon have spirits again? One day is divided into twelve hours. Daybreak is the branch yin and sunrise is the branch mao. The twelve months set up yin and mao, and so what is added to the hours of the twelve months is yin and mao. The Day adds the twelve stations and does not eat, and the Month sets up the twelve stations and alone eats. Can it be that in the Day's adding there is no spirit, and that only in the Month's setting up there is one? For what reason does the Month's setting up alone eat, while the Day's adding does not eat! If there is no spirit in the Day's adding, then using the hour to decide affairs is wrong. If the added hour has a spirit, then that it alone does not eat is wrong.
神之口腹，與人等也。人飢則食，飽則止，不為起功乃一食也。歲月之神，起功乃食，一歲之中，興功者希，歲月之神飢乎？倉卒之世，人民亡，室宅荒廢，興功者絕，歲月之神餓乎？且田與宅俱人所治，興功用力，勞佚鈞等。宅掘土而立木，田鑿溝而起堤，堤與木俱立，掘與鑿俱為。起宅，歲月食；治田，獨不食。豈起宅時歲月飢，治田時飽乎？
The mouth and belly of a spirit are the same as a man's. A man eats when he is hungry and stops when he is full. He does not eat only once when work is raised. If the spirits of the Year and the Month eat only when work is raised, then, since in a whole year those who raise work are few, are the spirits of the Year and the Month hungry? In a world of sudden upheaval the people are gone, houses lie waste, and those who raise work are cut off. Do the spirits of the Year and the Month then starve? Moreover, fields and houses are both what men order, and in raising work and using strength the toil and the ease are evenly the same. For a house men dig the earth and set up timber, and for a field they cut a ditch and raise a bank. Bank and timber are both set up, and digging and cutting are both done. When a house is raised the Year and the Month eat, and when a field is ordered they alone do not eat. Are the Year and the Month hungry at the time of raising a house and full at the time of ordering a field?
何事鈞作同，飲食不等也？
How is it that the work is even and the doing the same, yet the drinking and eating are not alike?
說歲月食之家，必銓功之小大，立遠近之步數。假令起三尺之功，食一步之內，起十丈之役，食一里之外，功有小大，禍有近遠。蒙恬為秦筑長城，極天下之半，則其為禍宜以萬數。案長城之造，秦民不多死。周公作雒，興功至大，當時歲月宜多食。聖人知其審食，宜徙所食地置於吉祥之位。如不知避，人民多凶。經傳之文，賢聖宜有刺譏。今聞筑雒之民四方和會，功成事畢，不聞多死。說歲月之家，殆虛非實也。且歲月審食，猶人口腹之飢必食也。且為巳、酉地有厭勝之故，畏一金刃，懼一死炭，同閉口不敢食哉！
Those who explain the eating of the Year and the Month must weigh the work as small or great and set the number of paces as near or far. Suppose a work of three feet is raised: they eat within one pace. Suppose a labor of ten zhang is raised: they eat beyond one li. The work has its small and its great, and the disaster its near and its far. Meng Tian built the Great Wall for Qin, reaching over half of all under Heaven, and so the disaster it made ought to be counted by tens of thousands. But look at the making of the Great Wall: the people of Qin did not die in great numbers. The Duke of Zhou built the city of Luo, and the work he raised was very great, so at that time the Year and the Month ought to have eaten many. If the sage knew that they truly ate, he ought to have shifted the ground they ate and set it in a lucky and blessed place. And if he did not know how to avoid it, the people would have met with much ill. In the words of the classics and the commentaries the worthy and the sage ought to have some reproach for it. Now it is heard that the people who built Luo came together in accord from the four quarters, and that the work was completed and the affair finished, and it is not heard that many died. Those who explain the Year and the Month are near to empty, and not real. Further, if the Year and the Month truly eat, it is like a man's mouth and belly, which must eat when they are hungry. Would they then, because there is a pressing charm in the ground of the branches si and you, fear one blade of metal and dread one dead coal, and all shut their mouths and not dare to eat!
如實畏懼，宜如其數。五行相勝，物氣鈞適。如（秦）〔泰〕山失火，沃以一杯之水，河決千里，塞以一掊之土，能勝之乎？非失五行之道，小大多少不能相當也。
If they really fear and dread it, it ought to match in number. In the overcoming of the five elements one by another, the breath of the things must be evenly matched. If Mount Tai catches fire and a single cup of water is poured on it, or the He bursts for a thousand li and a single handful of earth is used to stop it, can they overcome it? It is not that the way of the five elements is lost. It is that small and great, many and few, cannot match each other.
天地之性，人物之力，少不勝多，小不厭大。使三軍持木杖，匹夫持一刃，伸力角氣，匹夫必死。金性勝木，然而木勝金負者，木多而金寡也。積金如山，燃一炭火以燔爍之，金必不消，非失五行之道，金多火少，少多小大不鈞也。五尺童子與孟賁爭，童子不勝，非童子怯，力少之故也。狼眾食人，人眾食狼。敵力角氣，能以小勝大者希；爭強量功，能以寡勝眾者鮮。天道人物，不能以小勝大者，少不能服多。以一刃之金，一炭之火，厭除凶咎，卻歲之殃，如何也！
In the nature of Heaven and earth and the strength of men and creatures, the few do not overcome the many and the small does not press down the great. Let the three armies hold wooden staves and one common man hold a single blade, and let them stretch their strength and match their breath: the common man will surely die. The nature of metal overcomes wood, yet where wood wins and metal loses it is because the wood is much and the metal is little. Heap metal up like a mountain and light one coal fire to burn and melt it: the metal will surely not melt. It is not that the way of the five elements is lost. The metal is much and the fire is little, and few and many, small and great, are not even. If a child of five feet strives with Meng Ben, the child does not win. It is not that the child is timid. It is because his strength is little. Where wolves are many they eat men, and where men are many they eat wolves. In matching strength and measuring breath, those who can overcome the great with the small are few. In striving for the stronger place and weighing the work, those who can overcome the many with the few are rare. In the way of Heaven and in men and creatures the small cannot overcome the great, and the few cannot subdue the many. Then to press down and drive away the ill fault with the metal of one blade and the fire of one coal, and to turn back the calamity of the Year, what is that!