穆叔論不朽穆叔论不朽

In the spring of the twenty-fourth year, Mushu went on a mission to Jin. Fan Xuanzi came out to meet him and put a question to him: "The ancients had a saying, 'to die and not decay.' What does it mean?" Mushu did not answer. Xuanzi went on: "My forebears, before the time of Yu, were the Taotang clan. Under the Xia they were the Yulong clan; under the Shang, the Shiwei clan; under the Zhou, the Tang and Du clans. Now that Jin presides over the covenant of the central states, we are the Fan clan. Is this what the saying means?" Mushu said: "From what I, Bao, have heard, that is called hereditary office. It is not 'not decaying.' In Lu there was a former grandee named Zang Wenzhong. He is gone, but his words still stand. Is that not what it means? I have heard it said: 'Highest is to establish virtue; next, to establish deeds; next, to establish words.' What does not fall away even after a long time — that is what is called not decaying. As for keeping a surname, receiving a clan name, guarding the ancestral temple and keeping its offerings unbroken from one generation to the next: there is no state without families like that. That is only hereditary emolument at its grandest. It cannot be called not decaying."