Filial Conduct孝行篇

The Book of Songs says, "My father bore me, my mother reared me. Alas, alas for my father and mother, who toiled to bring me forth. I would repay their deep kindness, but it is boundless as the wide heaven."

Confucius said, "Body and hair and skin are received from father and mother, and not to dare to damage or wound them is the beginning of filial duty. To stand on one's own and walk the Way, to make a name for later generations and so bring honor to father and mother, is the end of filial duty."

In serving his parents, the filial son fulfills his reverence while they are at home, fulfills their joy while he supports them, fulfills his anxiety when they are ill, fulfills his grief when they die, and fulfills his solemnity at the sacrifice.

Therefore, to love others while not loving one's own parents is called going against virtue (悖德), and to revere others while not revering one's own parents is called going against propriety (悖禮).

Because the noble man serves his parents with filial duty, his loyalty can be carried over to his ruler. Because he serves his elder brother with deference, his obedience can be carried over to his elders. Because he keeps order while at home, his governing can be carried over into office.

The Quli says, "One who is another's child must report when he goes out and present himself when he returns. The places where he goes about must be fixed, and what he practices must have a course of study. In his ordinary speech he does not call himself old. One twice his age he serves as a father; one ten years older he serves as an elder brother; one five years older he walks abreast of, a little behind."

While father and mother are alive, do not roam far, and if you do go, there must be a fixed place you go to.

The age of one's father and mother must not be left unknown. On the one hand it gladdens; on the other it frightens.

While the father is alive, watch the son's intent; after the father is gone, watch the son's conduct. If for three years he makes no change in his father's way, he may be called filial.

Master Yichuan said, "One who has no father or mother should grieve twice over on his birthday. How could he bear to set out wine and strike up music and make it a joy? For one whose parents are both living, it is all right."

Taigong said, "Be filial to your parents, and your own child will be filial too. If you yourself are already unfilial, how will your child be filial?"

The filial and obedient beget filial and obedient children in their turn; the defiant beget defiant children in their turn. If you do not believe it, only look at the water at the edge of the eaves: drop by drop it falls without going astray.

Master Luo (Luo Congyan) said, "Under heaven there are no parents who are in the wrong."

Only when you have reared a child do you know a parent's kindness; only when you have stood on your own do you know how hard others have toiled.

Mencius said, "There are three unfilial things, and having no heir is the greatest of them."

Rear a child against old age; store up grain against hunger.

Zengzi said, "When your father and mother love you, rejoice and do not forget it. When your father and mother dislike you, be in awe but bear no resentment. When your father and mother have a fault, remonstrate but do not defy them."

Confucius said, "Three thousand offenses belong under the five punishments, and no guilt is greater than being unfilial."

Zengzi said, "Of filial duty and loving-kindness — among all conduct nothing comes before filial duty. When filial duty reaches heaven, wind and rain follow their seasons. When filial duty reaches earth, the ten thousand things are transformed and flourish. When filial duty reaches people, every blessing comes crowding in."

(Ten characters are missing here and are marked with △.)

The Palban ga (八反歌) — the song of eight turns of the heart that are the wrong way round.

When a small child scolds me, my heart feels only gladness; when my father or mother is angry with me, my heart is unwilling instead. The one gladdens, the other does not sit well. Why should the heart that meets a child and the heart that meets a parent be so far apart? I urge you, when you meet a parent's anger today, look on that parent as you would look on a child.

When children pour out a thousand words, you listen and never tire; but let a parent open his mouth once, and at once you say he meddles too much. It is not meddling — it is that a parent's heart is caught on you, and that a white-haired head has known and gone through much. I urge you, receive an old person's words with reverence, and do not let a mouth that still smells of milk argue over long and short.

The filth of a small child's waste your heart neither shuns nor minds, yet when the tears and spittle of an aged parent fall, there is a look of loathing and dislike instead. Where did this six-foot body come from? Your father's seed and your mother's blood made your frame. I urge you, treat with reverence one who is growing old. In their strong years their sinews and bones wore away for you.

I see you go into the market at dawn and buy cakes and buy sweets besides. Little is heard of offering them to father and mother; much is said of giving them to the children. The parent has not tasted them and the child is full first. A heart set on one's child is nothing beside the good heart set on one's parent. I urge you, put out cake money enough, and serve a white-haired parent whose days are few.

In the medicine shops of the market there are only pills to fatten a child, and none to make a grown person strong. For what reason are the two looked on so differently? When the child falls ill and the parent falls ill as well, treating the child is nothing beside treating the parent's sickness. Even the flesh you cut from your thigh is your parent's flesh come back. I urge you, hurry and preserve the lives of both your parents.

In wealth and honor it is easy to keep a parent, and still the parent is always somehow ill at ease. In poverty and low estate it is hard to rear a child, and still the child suffers neither hunger nor cold. It is one strand of heart and two roads, and in the end doing for the child is not like doing for the parent. I urge you, serve your parents as you rear your children, and do not push every matter off on the house not being rich.

There are only two parents to support, and still brothers quarrel over it; there may be ten children to rear, and you take them all on alone. Whether the child is full and warm you ask about always, but your father's and mother's hunger and cold are not in your mind. I urge you, spend your full strength in supporting your parents. At the start, the clothes and food that were yours were taken from theirs.

Your parents are kind to you ten parts in ten, and you do not think of their kindness; your child is filial in one part, and at once you spread his name abroad. Toward parents you are in the dark, toward a child in the light. Who understands a parent's heart in rearing a child? I urge you, do not vainly trust in your children's filial duty. The example your children follow is in your own person.

Son Sun (孫順) was poor at home, and he and his wife hired themselves out to other households to support his mother. They had a child who kept taking his grandmother's food. Son Sun said to his wife, "The child takes his grandmother's food. Another child we can have, but a mother is hard to seek again."

So he carried the child on his back to the northern outskirts of Mount Chwisan to bury him. As he dug the ground, a most wonderful stone bell suddenly came out, and he was startled and thought it strange. He struck it for a trial, and its sound was deep and lovely. His wife said, "That we have found this marvelous thing is surely the child's own blessing. We must not bury him." Son Sun thought so too, and they took the child and the bell home, hung it from a beam, and struck it.

The king heard that the bell's sound was clear and carried far and was out of the ordinary, and when he had looked into the matter closely he said, "Long ago, when Guo Ju would have buried his son, heaven bestowed a cauldron of gold. Now, when Son Sun would have buried his child, the earth has brought forth a stone bell. The earlier case and the later match exactly." He granted him a house and gave him fifty seok of rice a year.

Hyangdeok (向德) met with a year of famine and plague, and his father and mother were starving and sick and near death. Hyangdeok did not take off his clothes day or night, and comforted them with all his heart. When he had nothing to feed them with, he cut the flesh of his thigh and made them eat it, and when his mother broke out in a boil he sucked it and it healed at once. The king thought well of this and gave him a very generous reward, ordered a gate of honor raised at his village, and set up a stone to record the affair.

Mister Do (都氏) was poor at home but utterly filial. He sold charcoal and bought meat, and never let his mother's table go without it. One day he was late at the market and was hurrying home when a kite suddenly snatched the meat away. Mister Do came home crying bitterly, and the kite had already dropped the meat in his yard.

One day his mother fell ill and asked for ripe persimmons out of season. Mister Do wandered through the persimmon groves and did not notice the day grow dark, when a tiger blocked the road before him again and again, showing that he meant him to mount. Mister Do rode more than a hundred li to a mountain village, sought out a house, and lodged there. Before long the host brought out food from a memorial rite, and there were ripe persimmons among it. Mister Do was glad, and asked where the persimmons had come from, and told his own case as well. The host answered, "My late father was fond of persimmons, so every autumn we choose two hundred of them and store them in a cave. By this fifth month no more than seven or eight are ever sound, but this time we have found fifty sound ones, and I wondered at it in my heart. This is heaven moved by your filial devotion." And he gave him twenty of them.

Mister Do thanked him and went out the gate, and the tiger was still lying there waiting. He rode home, and the dawn cock was crowing. Later, when his mother died at her appointed span, Mister Do wept tears of blood.