The Faithful Dog

On the Huai River there was a blind beggar, whose name none knew; people simply called him “Blind Zhang.” Zhang had no family, only a yellow dog he kept, which followed him as he begged for food. The dog was clever: it would lead the beggar around pits and hollows and over bridges, and, meeting people, would wag its tail and beg pity; whatever food it got, it always offered to the beggar first, and ate only the rest. The beggar loved it as a son, and though starving, could not bear to abandon it.

One year in winter, in a great snow, Zhang fell ill in a ruined temple. The dog went out, carried in grass and floss to spread beside him, then went out again to beg for food, carrying back whatever cakes and morsels it got. But Zhang's illness deepened by the day, and within a few days he died there in the temple.

Zhang being dead, the dog guarded the body and would not leave. Seeing anyone pass, it would tug at their clothes and draw them to the body, howling plaintively, as if begging them to shroud and bury him. At first the villagers did not understand; then they pitied it, but the poor were many, and none would take on the task. So the dog went out daily to beg for money — carrying back broken coins and scraps of cake to lay before the body, keeping watch by day, lying by it at night, not shunning wind or snow, thus for ten days.

A rich old man, hearing of it and marveling, went to see; and seeing the dog gaunt to the bones, still lying by the body and not leaving, he was moved, and said: “Even a dog is thus; can a man be less than a dog?” So he gave money, provided a coffin for Zhang, and buried him in the fields.

The burial done, the dog lay on the grave; called, it would not come; fed, it would not eat, only crying mournfully toward the mound. On the seventh day the dog too died beside the grave, wasted to skin and bone, its head still turned toward the mound. The villagers, honoring its righteousness, buried the dog to the left of Zhang's grave and set a small stone reading “Grave of the Faithful Dog.” To this day those who pass can still point it out and tell the tale.

The Chronicler of the Strange says: Zhang was but a blind beggar, with no means to keep a dog, yet the dog repaid him with its death. The dog's repayment was not for the food, but for the sincerity with which it was treated. The beggar looked on the dog as a son, and so the dog looked on the beggar as kin; in life they depended on each other, in death it died for him — carrying coins to beg his burial, refusing food to keep his grave. Even the righteous men of old, how did they surpass this? There are those today who eat their lord's stipend and receive others' kindness, yet cast it off as a thing discarded; set beside this yellow dog, does the sweat not stand on their brows? That a man should be less than a dog — how can one bear to sigh at it!