The King and His People
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
梁惠王曰:‘寡人之于国也,尽心焉耳矣。河内凶,则移其民于河东,移其粟于河内;河东凶亦然。’
English translation
King Hui of Liang said, ‘I have done all I can for my state. When famine strikes Henei, I move its people to Hedong and send grain from Hedong to Henei. When famine strikes Hedong, I do the same in reverse.’
Original Chinese text
‘察邻国之政,无如寡人之用心者。邻国之民不加少,寡人之民不加多,何也?’
English translation
‘Looking at the governments of neighboring states, I see none so attentive as mine. Yet their populations do not shrink, and mine does not grow. Why?’
Original Chinese text
孟子对曰:‘王好战,请以战喻。填然鼓之,兵刃既接,弃甲曳兵而走。或百步而后止,或五十步而后止;以五十步笑百步,则何如?’
English translation
Mencius replied, ‘Your Majesty is fond of war, so let me use a battle as an example. The drums thunder, weapons meet, and soldiers throw off their armor and flee, dragging their arms behind them. Some stop after a hundred paces, others after fifty. What would you say if those who ran fifty paces laughed at those who ran a hundred?’
Original Chinese text
曰:‘不可,直不百步耳,是亦走也。’曰:‘王如知此,则无望民之多于邻国也。’
English translation
The king said, ‘They cannot. They merely did not run a full hundred paces; they fled all the same.’ Mencius replied, ‘If you understand that, Your Majesty, do not expect your population to outnumber that of your neighbors.’
Original Chinese text
‘不违农时,谷不可胜食也;数罟不入洿池,鱼鳖不可胜食也;斧斤以时入山林,材木不可胜用也。’
English translation
‘Do not disrupt the farming seasons, and there will be more grain than people can eat. Keep fine-meshed nets out of the ponds, and fish and turtles will be plentiful. Cut trees only at the proper time, and timber will be abundant.’
Original Chinese text
‘谷与鱼鳖不可胜食,材木不可胜用;是使民养生丧死无憾也。养生丧死无憾,王道之始也。’
English translation
‘When grain, fish, and turtles are more than people can eat, and timber more than they can use, they can support the living and bury the dead without regret. That is the beginning of kingly rule.’
Original Chinese text
‘五亩之宅,树之以桑,五十者可以衣帛矣;鸡豚狗彘之畜,无失其时,七十者可以食肉矣;百亩之田,勿夺其时,数口之家可以无饥矣。’
English translation
‘Plant mulberry trees around a five-mu homestead, and people of fifty can wear silk. Raise chickens, piglets, dogs, and grown pigs without missing the proper seasons, and people of seventy can eat meat. Do not take time away from the cultivation of a hundred-mu field, and a household of several people need not go hungry.’
Original Chinese text
‘谨庠序之教,申之以孝悌之义,颁白者不负戴于道路矣。七十者衣帛食肉,黎民不饥不寒,然而不王者,未之有也。’
English translation
‘Attend carefully to the teaching in local schools, stressing respect for parents and elder siblings, and the gray-haired will no longer carry loads on their backs or heads along the roads. If people of seventy can wear silk and eat meat, and ordinary people suffer neither hunger nor cold, there has never been a ruler who failed to win the allegiance of the realm.’
Original Chinese text
‘狗彘食人食而不知检,涂有饿莩而不知发。人死,则曰:‘非我也,岁也。’’
English translation
‘Dogs and pigs eat food fit for people, yet no one restrains this waste. The roads hold people dead from hunger, yet no one opens the granaries. When people die, the ruler says, “It was not my doing; it was the harvest.”’
Original Chinese text
‘是何异于刺人而杀之,曰:‘非我也,兵也。’王无罪岁,斯天下之民至焉。’
English translation
‘How is that different from stabbing someone to death and saying, “It was not I; it was the weapon”? Your Majesty, stop blaming the harvest, and people from across the realm will come to you.’