[Sidebar] From his birth to his first public employments. B.C. 551-531. daughters,-- to the number of nine, and no son. By a concubine he had a son, named Mang-p'i, and also Po-ni [5], who proved a cripple, so that, when he was over seventy years, Heh sought a second wife in the Yen family [6], from which came subsequently Yen Hui, the favourite disciple of his son. There were three daughters in the family, the youngest being named Chang-tsai [7]. Their father said to them, 'Here is the commandant of Tsau. His father and grandfather were only scholars, but his ancestors before them were descendants of the sage sovereigns. He is a man ten feet high [8], and of extraordinary prowess, and I am very desirous of his alliance. Though he is old and austere, you need have no misgivings about him. Which of you three will be his wife? 'The two elder daughters were silent, but Chang-tsai said, 'Why do you ask us, father? It is for you to determine.' 'Very well,' said her father in reply, 'you will do.' Chang-tsai, accordingly, became Heh's wife, and in due time gave 1 防叔. 2 伯夏. 3 叔梁紇. 4 偪陽. 5 孟皮, 一字伯尼. 6 顏氏. 7 徵在. 8 其人, 身長十尺. See, on the length of the ancient foot, Ana. VIII. vi, but the point needs a more sifting investigation than it has yet received. birth to Confucius, who received the name of Ch'iu, and was subsequently styled Chung-ni [1]. The event happened on the twenty-first day of the tenth month of the twenty-first year of the duke Hsiang, of Lu, being the twentieth year of the emperor Ling, B.C. 552 [2]. The birth-place was in the district of Tsau [3], of which Heh was the governor. It was somewhere within the limits of the present department of Yen-chau in Shan-tung, but the honour of being the exact spot is claimed for two places in two different districts of the department. The notices which we have of Confucius's early years are very scanty. When he was in his third year his father died. It is related of him, that as a boy he used to play at the arrangement of 1 名邱, 字仲尼. The legends say that Chang-tsai fearing lest she should not have a son, in consequence of her husband's age, privately ascended the Ni-ch'iu hill to pray for the boon, and that when she had obtained it, she commemorated the fact in the names -- Ch'iu and Chung-ni. But the cripple, Mang-p'i, had previous been styled Po-ni. There was some reason, previous to Confucius's birth, for using the term ni in the family. As might be expected, the birth of the sage is surrounded with many prodigious occurrences. One account is, that the husband and wife prayed together for a son in a dell of mount Ni. As Chang-tsai went up the hill, the leaves of the trees and plants all erected themselves, and bent downwards on her return.