You sir are the Lord of thunder! I think the animist gods for all the different creatures and things of nature was so much more sophisticated than our monotheism. It's much closer to reality, if there are in fact gods, since we all know there are flood dragons.
I always liked 'Analects' 11.12 -- a disciple asks Confucius how to be of service to the spirits, and Confucius says, hang on there buddy, you don't even know how to serve people yet.
Honestly, he probably would’ve! There are places in the Analects where he really is funny — Wolfgang Behr had a talk called “How The Master Once Got All Het Up” about some of his outbursts.
Team Zhuangzi here — Laozi got me into Chinese, but Zhuangzi (the guy who claimed to be unsure whether he was a butterfly) kept me in it: he was the master of Axial Age snaps.
The recension in 新輯搜神後記 has Zhang Gou traveling out to work by boat and keeping his food in the rushes 菰蘆, and then hiding there later to keep watch. The cite is to 開元占經 — or one variant, at any rate; the version on ctext isn’t quite as verbose. 新輯 also quotes the voice as saying “人砍傷某甲”, and suggests the line in the popular edition is a garbling of that with the 太平廣記 text, which has “砍傷我矣”.
Oh, that's really interesting! 於田中耕 called a very different image to mind for me. Hadn't seen that version -- one thing that tipped me toward "vessel" was that the version I saw has him putting it "inside" 裏 rather than "amid" 中 the dingus. It looks like the 太平御覽 and 太平廣記 have different versions of this too -- https://ctext.org/text.pl?node=584328&if=en&show=parallel
Since the text doesn’t seem to be anywhere online, here's a quick OCR of that version (my mistake earlier — it actually follows one of the 太平御覽 versions):
You sir are the Lord of thunder! I think the animist gods for all the different creatures and things of nature was so much more sophisticated than our monotheism. It's much closer to reality, if there are in fact gods, since we all know there are flood dragons.
I always liked 'Analects' 11.12 -- a disciple asks Confucius how to be of service to the spirits, and Confucius says, hang on there buddy, you don't even know how to serve people yet.
Confucius was a funny guy! He could have been really good at stand-up.
Honestly, he probably would’ve! There are places in the Analects where he really is funny — Wolfgang Behr had a talk called “How The Master Once Got All Het Up” about some of his outbursts.
And I think Lao Tzu would have been a David Letterman, or maybe even a Dick Cavett, which is before your time.
Team Zhuangzi here — Laozi got me into Chinese, but Zhuangzi (the guy who claimed to be unsure whether he was a butterfly) kept me in it: he was the master of Axial Age snaps.
I'm not really sure if I'm a lizard or not. I've been perplexed for many years.
The recension in 新輯搜神後記 has Zhang Gou traveling out to work by boat and keeping his food in the rushes 菰蘆, and then hiding there later to keep watch. The cite is to 開元占經 — or one variant, at any rate; the version on ctext isn’t quite as verbose. 新輯 also quotes the voice as saying “人砍傷某甲”, and suggests the line in the popular edition is a garbling of that with the 太平廣記 text, which has “砍傷我矣”.
Oh, that's really interesting! 於田中耕 called a very different image to mind for me. Hadn't seen that version -- one thing that tipped me toward "vessel" was that the version I saw has him putting it "inside" 裏 rather than "amid" 中 the dingus. It looks like the 太平御覽 and 太平廣記 have different versions of this too -- https://ctext.org/text.pl?node=584328&if=en&show=parallel
Since the text doesn’t seem to be anywhere online, here's a quick OCR of that version (my mistake earlier — it actually follows one of the 太平御覽 versions):
吳興人章苟者[1]，五月中於田中耕。乘小船以歸，飯籮魚鮭置舡中，著菰裏。晚饑取食，而飯亦已盡。如此非一。後日晚於菰蘆中伺之，見一大蛇偷其食。苟即以鉟(步悲反)。叉之[2]，蛇便走去。苟乘船逐之，至一坂，有穴，蛇便入穴。但聞號哭云：「人斫傷某甲[3]。」或云：當如何?」或云：「符敕雷公[4]，令霹靂殺奴。須臾，雲雨四合，震雷傷苟[5]。苟於是跳梁大罵云：「天公[6]我貧窮展力耕墾[7]。蛇來偷食我飯，罪當在蛇，反更來霹靂我耶？許是無知雷公。雷公若來，今當以鉟斫汝腹破。須臾，雲雨輒開，乃更還霹靂向穴中，諸蛇死者數十。
本條《開元占經》卷102，《太平御覽》卷13、卷764引作《續搜神記》，《太平廣記》卷456作《搜神記》，疑誤。
今據《御覽》卷13參酌諸書校輯。
[1] 章荷者《御寛》卷13「荷」作「荀」，《開元占經》《四庫全書》本作「狗」，鈔本「狗」、「荷」並用，今從《御覽》卷764及《廣記》。
[2] 苟即以鉟叉之 《御覽》卷764「鉟」作「鋘」，《廣記》作「鈠」舊本同《開元占經》作』鑊」，又「叉」作刈」。
[3] 但聞號哭云人斫傷某甲 《開元占經》作「但聞啼哭，人云斫某甲」，《廣記》作「但聞啼聲云斫傷我矣」。舊本據《廣記》輯然又改「矣」爲「某甲」，致文義不通。
[4] 符敕雷公 《御覽》卷13、《廣記》「符敕」作「付」舊本同。據鈔本《開元占經》改。
[5] 震雷傷苟 《廣記》作「霹靂覆苟上」。
[6] 天公 《廣記》作「天使」，舊本同。
[7] 墾 《搜神後記》中華書局校注本訛作「懇」。