Largesse For the Loyalist: the Dangers of a World Adrift In Avarice

Here is the secret monologue of many: "I am loyal, a servant most true! That is until...I am not paid in full, Then I turn to tattle, and to trash Your trust with treason, high and foul! As dreaded foes tread freely upon you, I will make merry in your misery!" "You may hate me, but faith is not free, Loyalty demands largesse, and a fee! For the times are adrift in seas of greed, Full of subtle hints, hidden in sly smiles: You there! Heed and hear: Pay me well Or prepare to be quelled!" Poem inspired by Mencius' important exhortation: Mencius had an audience with King Hui of Liang. The king said, "....You must have some ideas about how to benefit my state." Mencius replied, "Why must Your Majesty use the word 'benefit'' All I am concerned with are the benevolent and the right. If Your Majesty says, 'How can I benefit my state?' your officials will say, 'How can I benefit my family,' and officers and common people will say, 'How can I benefit myself.' Once superiors and inferiors are competing for benefit, the state will be in danger. When the head of a state of ten thousand chariots is murdered, the assassin is invariably a noble with a fief of a thousand chariots, When the head of a fief of a thousand chariots is murdered, the assassin is invariably head of a subfief of a hundred chariots. Those with a thousand out of ten thousand, or a hundred out of a thousand, had quite a bit. But when benefit is put before what is right, they are not satisfied without snatching it all. By contrast there has never been a benevolent person who neglected his parents or a righteous person who put his lord last. Your Majesty perhaps will now also say, 'All I am concerned with are the benevolent and the right. Why mention 'benefit?' '' All rights released into Public Domain