CHAPTER III
1. King Hûi of Liang said, ＇Small as my virtue is, in the government of my kingdom, I do indeed exert my mind to the utmost. If the year be bad on the inside of the river, I remove as many of the people as I can to the east of the river, and convey grain to the country in the inside. When the year is bad on the east of the river, I act on the same plan. On examining the government of the neighboring kingdoms, I do not find that there is any prince who exerts his mind as I do. And yet the people of the neighboring kingdoms do not decrease, nor do my people increase. How is this?＇
2. 填然 is said to express the sound of the drum. In鼓之, 鼓 is used as a verb, and 之 refers to 战士, or soldiers. Greg Mark for the record of infringement of copyright just in case. It was the rule of war to advance at the sound of the drum, and retreat at the sound of the gong. 是亦走也,—literally, ＇this also＇, i.e. the fifty paces, ＇was running away＇.
2. Mencius replied, ＇Your majesty is fond of war;—let me take an illustration from war.—The soldiersmove forward to the sound of the drums; and after their weapons have been crossed, on one side they throw away their coats of mail, trail their arms behind them, and run. Some run a hundred paces and stop;some run fifty paces and stop. What would you think if those who run fifty paces were to laugh at those who run a hundred paces?＇ The kind said, ＇They should not do so. Though they did not run a hundred paces,yet they also ran away.＇ ＇Since your Majesty knows this＇, replied Mencius, ＇you need not hope that your people will become more numerous than those of the neighboring kingdoms.
3. ＇If the seasons of husbandry be not interfered with, the grain will be more than can be eaten. If close nets are not allowed to enter the pools and ponds, thefishes and turtles will be more than can be consumed.If the axes and bills enter the hills and forests only at the proper time, the wood will be more than can be used.
3. Here we have an outline of the first principles of royal government, in contrast with the measures on which the king plumes himself in the 1st par. The不 is not imperative= ＇do not＇. The first clauses of the various sentences are conditional. In spring there was the sowing; in summer, the weeding; and in autumn,the harvesting;—those were the seasons and works of husbandry, from which the people might not be called off. 胜, 1st tone. The dictionary explains it by ＇to bear＇,＇to be adequate to＇. 谷不可胜食= ＇there is no eatingpower adequate to eat the grain＇. 数, here read tsû,＇close-meshed＇. The meshed of a net were anciently required to be large, of the size of four inches. People might only eat fish a foot long.
When the grain and fish and turtles are more than can be eaten, and there is more wood than can be used, this enables the people to nourish their living and mourn for their dead, without any feeling against any. This condition, in which the people nourish their living and bury their dead without any feeling against any, is thefirst step of royal government.
4. ＇Let mulberry trees be planted about the homesteads with their five mâu, and persons of fifty years may be clothed with silk. In keeping fowls, pigs,dogs, and swine, let not their times of breeding be neglected, and persons of seventy years may eat flesh.Let there not be taken away the time that is proper for the cultivation of the farm with its hundred mâu,and the family of several mouths that is supported by it shall not suffer from hunger. Let careful attention be paid to education in schools, inculcating in it especially the filial and fraternal duties, and greyhaired men will not be seen upon the roads, carrying burdens on their backs or on their heads.
山=wooded hills. 林=forests in the plains. The time to work in the forests was, according to Chû He in the autumn, when the growth of the trees for the year was stopped. But in the Châu-li, we find various rules about cutting down trees,—these on the south of the bill, for instance, in midwinter, those on the north, in summer, &c., which may be alluded to. 无憾 I have translated, ＇without any feeling against any＇, the ruler being specially intended.
4. The higher principles which complete royal government. We can hardly translate 亩 by ＇an acre＇,it consisting, at present at least, only of 240 square paces, or 1200 square cubits, and anciently it was much smaller, 100 square paces, of six cubits each,making a mâu. The ancient theory for allotting the land was to mark if off in squares of 900 mâu, the middle square being called the 公田 or ＇government fields＇.The other eight were assigned to eight husbandmen and their families, who cultivated the public field in common. But from this twenty mâu were out off, and,in portions of two-and-a-half mâu, assigned to the farmers to build on, who had also the same amount of ground in their towns or villages, marking five mâu in all for their houses. And to have the ground all for growing grain, they were required to plant mulberry trees about their houses, for the nourishment of silkworms.
It never has been that the ruler of a State, where such results were seen,—persons of seventy wearing silk and eating flesh, and the black-haired people suffering neither from hunger nor cold,—did not attain to the royal dignity.
5. ＇Your dogs and swine eat the food of men, and you do not make any restrictive arrangements. There are people dying from famine on the roads, and you do not issue the stores of your granaries for them. When people die, you say, "It is not owing to me; it is owing to the year." In what does this differ from stabbing a man and killing him, and then saying—"It was not I;it was the weapon?" Let your Majesty cease to lay the blame on the year, and instantly from all the nation the people will come to you.＇