ABSTRACT
The most influential and popular Daoist work in Warring States China was the Zhuangzi, named after and reputedly authored by a sage from the town of Meng. Kongzi's most influential and popular follower in Warring States China was a sage named Mengzi, an almost exact contemporary of Zhuangzi. In her Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation, Martha Cheung provides only a single passage from the Mengzi. In explaining a poem, one should not allow the words, in their literary patterning, to obscure the lines, and one should not allow the lines to obscure what is compellingly present in the writer's mind. The right way is to read with empathy in order to meet and grasp what is compellingly present in the writer's mind. As the botanical metaphor of the four shoots' rootedness in the soil suggests, Mengzi theorizes them as part of an extended metaphor or conceit for human ethical growth based on the growing of plants.
