116. Cited in Huang, Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China, 12.

117. Ibid., 12–19. See also Chen Lang, “Mad but not Chan,” 251.

118. Hsieh Yu-wei, “Filial Piety and Chinese Society,” 167–187. One cannot speak of a conflict benevolence contra propriety in the case of Mencius’s anti-formalistic stance over the rescuing of a drowning sister-in-law (Mencius, 4, part one, 17).

119. David Wong, “Comparative Philosophy: Chinese and Western.”

120. Alan Chan, “Does xiao come before ren?”

121. Respectively from Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 (Li Su Lan 離俗覽, Gao Yi 高義) and Hanshi waizhuan 韓詩外傳 (6.12), cited by Roetz, Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age, 93–100.

122. Lienüzhuan, by Liu Xiang 劉向 (77–6 BCE). The prototype of these widows is likely the widow from Liang who remained unmarried even though she had many suitors. She even rejected the king of Liang 梁, and maimed herself by cutting off her nose (Lienüzhuan 4.14/40/2–3, cited by Guarde-Paz, “Moral Dilemmas in Chinese Philosophy,” 91).

123. Guarde-Paz, “Moral Dilemmas in Chinese Philosophy,” 91–92. The worth of notice is the re-actualization of the extreme cases of female heroism re-proposed in the late imperial period with the printing of illustrated copies of the Biographies of Women that testify to the new orthodox efforts in women’s moral education (see Bussotti, “Images of Women in Late Ming,” 83, 97, 115–116).

124. Radice, “Confucius and Filial Piety,” 194. The Stratagems of the Warring States (Zhanguo ce 戰國策) presents a different case: a concubine is in a moral conundrum, torn between her loyalties to her master and her mistress. The wife poisons a drink for her husband and tells his concubine to serve it to him. The concubine’s solution is to spill the drink, concealing both her knowledge of the drink’s poison and her unwillingness to poison the master. However, her master then beats her for spilling the drink, not realizing that she saved his life. The woman’s sacrifice and loyalty are not praised at all. The anectode is not a moral dilemma, but rather a parable from a political strategy viewpoint, as “Loyalty and trustworthiness offend the ruler” (Zhong xin de zui yujunzhe 忠信得罪於君者). The episode aims at criticixing the connection between moral perfection and political success. See Radice, “Confucius and Filial Piety,” 194–195.

125. Anne Cheng, “Filial piety with a vengeance.”