A history of Chinese literature / by Herbert A. Giles.

  • Herbert Giles
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of Chinese literature / by Herbert A. Giles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    55/464 page 43
    CHAPTER IV MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS Names of the authors who belong to this period, B.C. 600 to B.C. 200, and of the works on a variety of subjects attributed to them, would fill a long list. Many of the latter have disappeared, and others are gross forgeries, chiefly of the first and second centuries of our era, an epoch which, curiously enough, is remarkable for a similar wave of forgery on the other side of the world. As to the authors, it will be seen later on that the Chinese even went so far as to create some of these for antiquity and then write up treatises to match. There was Sun TztJ of the 6th century B.C. He is said to have written the Ping Fa, or Art of War, in thirteen sections, whereby hangs a strange tale. When he was discoursing one day with Prince Ho-lu of the Wu State, the latter said, “ I have read your book and want to know if you could apply its principles to women. Sun Tzu replied in the affirmative, where- upon the Prince took 180 girls out of his harem and bade Sun Tzu deal with them as with troops. Accord- ingly he divided them into two companies, and at the head of each placed a favourite concubine of the Prince. But when the drums sounded for drill to begin, all the girls burst out laughing. Thereupon Sun Tzu, without a moment’s delay, caused the two concubines in com-
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