The chuan says: "How about rain coming after sacrifices for
rain?"
"There is no connection. It is like rain when there have been
no sacrifices."[2]
"When stars fall and trees give out sounds, the people of a
state are all afraid. How about that?"
"These are the changes of heaven and earth, the transformations
of yin and yang, and things that occur but seldom. It is all
right to be astonished at them; to fear them is wrong. Now the
pseudo-eclipse[3]
of the sun and of the moon, the unexpected[4]
appearance of strange stars, wind, and rain out of season—there
is no generation that does not at some time have [one of] them. If
those in charge are enlightened and the government is equitable,
though all should occur at once, there would be no harm in it.
If those in charge are ignorant and the government is harsh,
should they all be lacking, still there would be no benefit in it.
Now in regard to disasters in the world, it is evil portents among
men that are most to be feared."
"What do you mean by evil portents among men?"
"Bad plowing harms the crop; bad hoeing harms the harvest.
If the government is harsh,[5]
it loses [the support of] the people.
When the fields are overgrown with weeds and the crop is poor,
when grain sells dear and the people are hungry, when there are
dead men in the roads, when bandits and rebels rise up together,
when superior and inferior are at odds, when neighbors treat each
other with violence and those whose gates are on opposite sides
of the street steal from each other, when li and i are not cultivated,[6]
when cattle and horses interbreed and the six domestic
animals[7]
produce prodigies, when servants and inferiors slay[8]
their masters, when father and son are suspicious of one another—
these I call evil human portents: they are the products of
disorder."
There is a traditional saying: "The calamities of heaven and
earth are hidden in their [time of] coming[9]
and the classical
books[10]
do not speak of the prodigies of nature." Transformations
that have no use and calamities that are not impending should
be left alone.[11]
But the duties (i) of prince and minister, the
relationship of father and son, and the distinctions between man
and woman[12]
—these are to be "cut and polished"[13]
and not
neglected.
The Ode says,[14]
As from the knife and the file,
As from the chisel and the polisher!
