三教平心論 2.5

2.5

When Yu Di became prime minister, Han Yu submitted a letter to flatter him. Examining the Tang history, Di was stubborn and defied orders, committing the rebellion of seizing Dengzhou without authorization; he broadly recruited warriors with the ambition of dominating Hannan for himself; he trained dancers in the eight rows of eight, his pomp and display grand and extravagant, harboring designs of usurpation. The Son of Heaven regarded him as deeply harboring treacherous plots, and Wang Yanwei considered it fortunate that his neck was spared. Thus Di was of the same ilk as Shao Cheng and Yuanji. Yet Yu chanted his praises, claiming that he had the words and deeds of sages and worthies, claiming that he possessed virtue and eloquence, and comparing him to the vastness of the *Books of Shang* and the solemnity of the *Books of Zhou*. Was not Yu's sycophancy extreme? In the past, Yuwen Shiji praised Taizong, and Taizong rebuked his flattery; the hermit Fan Zhixuan praised Song Jing, and Song Jing reprimanded his adulation. With Taizong's intelligence and martial prowess and Song Jing's unyielding uprightness, for those two men to praise them was truly not excessive, yet they could still not escape the reproach of sycophancy. How much worse with Yu Di, who secretly harbored treacherous ambitions right under the court's nose, yet Yu praised him to the utmost! Such was Yu's fawning and flattery. Clever words and a plausible appearance were shamed by Confucius; slander, obsequiousness, and adulation were warned against by Mencius. Thus Yu's conduct can once again be known.