Confucius

Backstory

He was born in 551 BC in Zou, near Qufu, in the small state of Lu. His father, an old soldier famous for his strength, died when he was three; his young mother raised him in poverty. 'In my youth I was poor,' he said, 'so I learned many humble skills': he kept a lord's granaries and his herds, and at fifteen set his heart on learning. By thirty he was teaching anyone who came, rich or poor, for a bundle of dried meat. He served Lu as governor of a town and then as Minister of Crime, until the duke, given eighty dancing girls by the rival state of Qi, stopped coming to court. At fifty-five he left with his disciples and wandered for fourteen years from state to state, looking for one ruler who would govern by virtue: he was surrounded in Kuang, threatened in Song, starved between Chen and Cai, and laughed when someone said he looked like a lost dog. At sixty-eight he came home to teach and to edit the old books — the Songs, the Documents, the Rites, the Music, the Changes — and to write the Spring and Autumn Annals. He buried his son and his dearest disciple, Yan Hui. When a qilin was caught in a hunt in the west in 481 BC, he wept that his Way had come to an end and laid down his brush. He died in 479 BC. His disciples wrote down what he had said; the world calls it the Analects.