II The Twenty-four Examples of Filial Duty
Instead of the Hsiao Hsüeh, or Teaching for the Young, which is usually grouped with The Book of Filial Duty, I have chosen The Twenty-four Examples of Filial Duty by way of illustration to the Hsiao Ching. They are naïve and terse, and yet not without their simple charm. Even where they lend themselves to exaggeration, as in the story of the old gentleman who dressed himself in gay garments and frisked in front of his very venerable parents, they are not meaningless nor devoid of humanity. The lesson to be drawn is that our duty towards our parents is the first obligation in life, and that we should go, if necessary, to all lengths to fulfil it. Nothing is known of the authorship of these stories, or the time in which they are written. Each story is accompanied by its commentary, and probably the stories themselves originated during the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644), the commentaries belonging mostly to the latter years of that dynasty. The period dealt with in these tales is a very wide one, and ranges from the time of the great Emperor Shun (circa 2300 B.C.) down to the Sung dynasty (A.D. 900-1200). There have been many editions of The Twenty-four Examples in Chinese, mostly embellished with quaint and original woodcuts, of which the figure on the cover of the present volume, kindly supplied by Mrs. Lionel Giles, is an example.