Week Two-Metzger

98b-99t [Qin]. If the Keeper of the Guest Lodge (KGL) had chosen not to follow Lord Shang’s law against providing lodging to undocumented persons (99t), would the Keeper’s counter-factual trespass be an example of the mercy that LS had in such short supply (99b)? If so, then mercy seems to be something beyond expression in the law; indeed, mercy accompanies the suspension of a law’s application. Working within the KGL Scenario, KGL would say to himself/herself, “although the law applies here, I [as KGL] choose to put the law’s implementation in abeyance because of X.” Now, it is possible that the law could have supplied the X’s. For example, the law, “Do not give lodging to a person who lacks proper credentials,” (99t) could have included the statement “unless persons are clearly in distress--claiming that their proper credentials have been stolen by bandits.” With such an addition, the law itself might be described as “merciful,” and I might give the law and not KGL credit for being merciful. But I would still have the option to give KGL credit for mercy if I assumed that people (like KGL) always choose whether or not to obey a law. Who says? As summarized by KGL, LS’s law (99t) does not include a mercy clause (“+ unless”). But LS himself imagines that there’s a possibility KGL might give him lodging even without the “proper credentials” (99t). SQ may simply be creating an irony or a sense of “poetic justice” as even LS (the law’s architect) might hope for KGL’s disobedience, and this irony might then prompt readers to re-examine their evaluation of LS’s accomplishments, if only in terms of their results. But SQ’s use of irony may have implications for my understanding of the law’s power. If a law cannot foreclose choice, then the power of law rests not in the law but in those who make the choice to implement or suspend the law at any given moment. In such terms, mercy—more than obeying or creating laws—expresses/tests/actualizes legal power unless it is blocked by fear of punishment (as it may be for KGL, 99t) or by hate (as in Wei’s refusal to give LS asylum ,99t, 1^st indented para.). 

[38b-39t, Qin] In the words of Wei Liao (WL), the king of Qin (KQ) might be likened to a predatory animal with the chest of a hawk, the voice of a jackal, not to mention a “man of scant mercy” with the heart of a tiger or a wolf (38b). WL’s insult prompts me to consider how the appearances captured by an insult (nose = hawk’s beak? 38b) may reveal something of KQ’s predatory heart (38b). Working within the constraints of WL’s imagery, there is a place where mercy can be found, if it exists:  mercy is within; it’s a matter of heart (though not a tiger or wolf’s, 38b). But WL also indicates that recognizing/seeing KQ “scant mercy” requires more than a look at KQ’s physiognomy. Surely, WL did not simply look at KQ’s nose/chest and conclude that “if the king of Qin should ever get his way with the world, then the whole world will end up his prisoner” (39t). No, WL’s assessment seems to be based on his interactions with KQ: “I am a mere commoner, yet when he receives me he acts as though he were my inferior” (39t). Based on what some might think to be simply a breach in etiquette, WL concludes that KQ would make everyone his prisoner (39t). Observing a person’s etiquette may be as superficial as looking at someone’s face, but there is something in what a sage (WL in this instance) can see on the surfaces—namely, with some people or events, I should not make the mistake of attributing an inner depth to them. When, for example, KQ enfeoffs a tree (46t), I thought KQ did so ironically because he tired of his advisors’ reminders that fiefdoms serve a necessary socio-political function (44, 1^st intended para.). Only after the “book burnings” (55m), the “I’m the True Man” (57t), the search for immortals and magic herbs (61b), KQ’s fear of big fish (61b-62t) did I begin to think that KQ might have believed he could enfeoff a tree. Perhaps, SQ writes the kind of history which allows, without the presumption of depth, the superficialities to resonate. So, the discoveries in SQ’s work are more related to the “through lines” or tendencies that emerge, often in hindsight. Within a stretch of text, I can see what WL sees: that all along KQ has worn his heart on his sleeve.