鐔津文集 16.20

16.20

Master Han wrote an elegy for Ouyang Zhan, saying that Zhan served his parents with utmost filial piety and was benevolent to his wife and children; he also said: 'His loving-kindness and filial devotion were most exalted.' Yet the Tang figure Huang Pu, in his biography of Zhan, stated that Zhan died from a single grief over a singing courtesan, and mocked Zhan for being unfilial; he cited Meng Jian's poem weeping for Zhan: 'May later generations not fall into delusion; delusion forfeits one's true nature.' Pu was Zhan's fellow townsman, so his evaluation of Zhan should certainly be accurate. The *Tan Gong* says: 'At the funeral of Wenbo, Jing Jiang leaned upon the bed and did not weep, because Wenbo had won too much of the affections of women, and she suspected him of neglecting the rites.' How much worse is it to die for the sake of a woman and leave behind sorrow for one's parents! That Master Han praised Zhan's filial piety as exalted—is this not deceiving himself out of partiality for his partisan? Is it not inferior even to Jing Jiang's knowledge of ritual? (Note: The reason for Zhan's death also appears in the *Taiping Guangji*.)