at the beginning of the INTRODUCTION.
- See Legge’s Classics, vol. V, Prolegomena p. 27. Legge thinks that the Tso Chuan must have been written in the 5th century, but not before 424 B.C.
- See Mencius III. 1. iii. 13-20.
- When Wu first appears in the Ch’un Ch’iu in 584, it is already at variance with its powerful neighbour. The Ch’un Ch’iu first mentions Yüeh in 537, the Tso Chuan in 601.
- This is explicitly stated in the Tso Chuan, XXXII, 2.
- There is this to be said for the later period, that the feud would tend to grow more bitter after each encounter, and thus more fully justify the language used in XI. § 30.