Page 62 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

30 CHINESE PORCELAIN.

Siang lay clown on the ice till, by the warmth of his body, it
melted, and two carp presented themselves, which he handed
over to his
step-mother.
XII. Wu Meng. As a boy he did not drive the mosquitoes
off his lest should attack his In later life
body they parents.
he became a famous necromancer, and crossed a river
against
the wind He is also said to
by waving a white feather fan.
have killed a serpent which devastated the region of Kiang-si.
XIII. Kwoh K'u and his wife, being too to
poor support
both their child and his aged mother, proceeded to dig a grave,
intending to bury the child so that there might be the more
for their aged mother. While digging they came upon a bar of
" A
gold, on which was inscribed the words, gift from heaven
to Kwoh K'u ; let none deprive him of it."
XIV. Yang Hiang. Met his death at the age of fourteen by
himself under the talons of a that had attacked
throwing tiger
Yang Hiang's father, who thus escaped.
XV. Ts'ai Shun. During a famine he supported his mother
wild berries her the he retained
by collecting ; giving ripe, only
the unripe ones for himself. On her death, he refused to leave
her coffin, though told the house was on fire, and the dwelling
remained uninjured. As she had always been greatly alarmed
at thunder, during a storm he used to repair to her grave, and
"
call out, Be not afraid, mother ; I am here."
XVI. Luk Su, first century A.D. Imprisoned for political
intrigue, his jailer was so taken with the devotion he showed
for his mother that he was set free.
XVII. While alive his mother had a terror of
Wang Ngai.
thunder, so after her death, on the occurrence of thunder-
storms, he would always proceed to her grave and screen it
from the elements until the storm had
passed.
XVIII. third a.d. the winter
Meng Tsung, century During
his old mother a for made from
expressing longing soup young
bamboo-shoots, he went into the woods bewailing the impossi-
of his being able, at that season of the to
bility year, gratify
his mother's wish, when suddenly the bamboos around him put
forth
young sprouts.
XIX. Yu K'ien Low, an official under the Ts'i a.d.
dynasty,
500. Distinguished by devotion to his father. On being
informed that his father could not recover, he is said to have