Precocious Wit世説新語 夙惠第十二

A guest came to Chen Taiqiu and stayed the night, and Taiqiu set Yuanfang and Jifang to cook the rice.

While the guest and Taiqiu were discussing, the two of them were tending the fire, and they both left it to listen in secret. As they cooked they forgot to set the steamer mat, and the rice fell down into the pot.

Taiqiu asked, "You were cooking rice. How is it that it has not steamed through?"

Yuanfang and Jifang knelt upright and said, "While you were speaking with your guest we both listened in secret, and as we cooked we forgot to set the steamer mat, so that it has all turned to gruel."

Taiqiu said, "Then did you take in much of it?"

They answered, "We remember it dimly."

The two sons knelt upright and spoke it out together, taking it from each other turn by turn, and nothing in the talk was left out.

Taiqiu said, "If that is so, gruel alone will do. Why must it be rice?"

He Yan at the age of seven was as bright and clever as a spirit, and Emperor Wu of Wei loved him as something rare.

Since He Yan was living inside the palace, he wished on that account to make him his son.

He Yan then drew a square on the ground and placed himself inside it.

People asked him why, and he answered, "It is the cottage of the He family."

Emperor Wu of Wei understood, and at once sent him back outside.

When Emperor Ming of Jin was a few years old, he sat on Emperor Yuan's knee.

Someone came from Chang'an, and Emperor Yuan asked for news of Luoyang and let his tears stream down.

Emperor Ming asked why he wept, and his father told him in full what it had meant to cross to the east.

Then he asked Emperor Ming, "In your own mind, which is farther, Chang'an or the sun?"

He answered, "The sun is farther. I have never heard of anyone coming from beside the sun, so it can be known at once."

Emperor Yuan thought him remarkable.

The next day he gathered his ministers for a feast, told them what his son had said, and asked him the question over again.

This time he answered, "The sun is nearer."

Emperor Yuan lost his color and said, "Why do you say otherwise than yesterday?"

He answered, "When I lift my eyes I see the sun, but I do not see Chang'an."

Gu He, the Minister of Works, was holding pure conversation with the worthies of the day. Zhang Xuanzhi and Gu Fu were his grandsons, the one on his daughter's side and the one on his son's, and both were seven years old, and they were playing beside the couch.

They heard the talk at the time, but their looks and their minds seemed to be elsewhere.

When it grew dark under the lamp, the two children set out between them what the guests and the host had said, and nothing at all was left out.

Lord Gu crossed over his mat, took them by the ear, and said, "I did not expect a declining house to bring forth such a treasure again."

When Han Kangbo was a few years old his house was bitterly poor, and even in the great cold he got no more than a jacket.

His mother, Lady Yin, made it herself. She had Kangbo hold the smoothing iron and said to him, "Put on the jacket for now. Before long I shall make you lined trousers."

He said, "It is enough already. I have no need of lined trousers."

His mother asked him why, and he answered, "The fire is inside the iron, and yet the handle is hot. Now that I am wearing the jacket, below must be warm as well, and so there is no need."

His mother thought him quite remarkable, and knew that he would be a vessel of the state.

When Emperor Xiaowu of Jin was twelve, on winter days he wore no lined clothes but only five or six layers of plain silk shirts, and at night he piled up mattresses and mats.

Lord Xie remonstrated with him. "The sacred body should be kept to a constant way. Your Majesty is too cold by day and too warm by night, and I fear this is not the art of caring for the body."

The emperor said, "By day there is movement, by night there is stillness."

Lord Xie came out and sighed, "His Majesty's grasp of principle is not less than the late emperor's."

When Huan Xuanwu died, Huan of Nanjun was five years old.

As soon as the mourning clothes were put off, Huan, the General of Chariots and Cavalry, was taking leave of the civil and military officers who had escorted their late lord, and he pointed them out to the lord of Nanjun and said, "These are all the old clerks and aides of your house."

Huan Xuan wailed aloud at the words, and his grief cut those beside him.

Whenever the General of Chariots and Cavalry looked at his own seat he would say, "When Lingbao is grown, this seat should go back to him."

He reared him and cherished him beyond a son of his own.