Book XXIII.
*66. Chap. I. Yen-tu [OMITTED] (On Poison).
Animal and vegetable poison is the hot air of the sun. All
beings filled with the solar fluid contain some poison. Snakes,
scorpions, and some plants have plenty of it. Ghosts, which consist
of the pure solar fluid, are burning poison, which eventually kills.
There is poison in some diseases, in a sun-stroke for instance and in
lumbago.
Wang Ch`ung discovers real poison in speech, in beauty, and
in several tastes, which only metaphorically might be called poisonous,
and mixes up the subject still more by improper symbolism.
67. Chap. II. Po-tsang [OMITTED].
This chapter is directed against the extravagance in funerals,
on the score that the dead have no benefit from it.
68. Chap. III. Sse-wei [OMITTED].
There is a popular belief that four things are dangerous
and bring misfortune viz. to enlarge a house at the west side, to
allow a banished man to ascend a tumulus, the intercourse with
women, during the first month after they have given birth to a
child, and the rearing of children born in the 1st and the 5th months,
who will cause the deaths of their parents. Wang Ch`ung combats
these superstitions.
69. Chap. IV. Lan-shih [OMITTED].
Wang Ch`ung discourses on the common belief that in building
one must pay attention to an unpropitious time, which may be
warded off by amulets. He further speaks of the spirits of the
year, the months, etc.
