good omen, but his sword is the terror of the wicked.


The God of War

Still another patron deity of literature is the God of War. "How,"
it may be asked, "can so peaceful a people as the Chinese put so
peaceful an occupation as literature under the patronage of so warlike
a deity as the God of War?" But that question betrays ignorance of the
character of the Chinese Kuan Ti. He is not a cruel tyrant delighting
in battle and the slaying of enemies: he is the god who can _avert
war and protect the people from its horrors_.

A youth, whose name was originally Chang-shêng, afterward changed to
Shou-chang, and then to Yün-chang, who was born near Chieh Liang,
in Ho Tung (now the town of Chieh Chou in Shansi), and was of an
intractable nature, having exasperated his parents, was shut up in a
room from which he escaped by breaking through the window. In one of
the neighbouring houses he heard a young lady and an old man weeping
and lamenting. Running to the foot of the wall of the compound, he
inquired the reason of their grief. The old man replied that though
his daughter was already engaged, the uncle of the local official,
smitten by her beauty, wished to make her his concubine. His petitions
to the official had only been rejected with curses.

Beside himself with rage, the youth seized a sword and went and killed
both the official and his uncle. He escaped through the T'ung Kuan, the
pass to Shensi. Having with difficulty avoided capture by the barrier
officials, he knelt down at the side of a brook to wash his face;
when lo! his appearance was completely transformed. His complexion