Scholars › Philosopher / Thinker
Xu You
Recluse of legend who, in the stories of Zhuangzi and later writers, refused the empire when Yao offered it and washed his ears in the Ying River
A thatched pavilion open on three sides stands among tall bamboo; one person sits with their back turned at the veranda rail beside a zither and a stack of bamboo slips, while a stone path runs to a calm pond reflecting clouds and distant hills.
Also known as Zi Wuzhong
Xu You is a recluse of legend whose story is told in the Zhuangzi, the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) and later books. In the Zhuangzi, when the sage king Yao offers him the empire he refuses, saying that the wren nesting in the deep forest needs no more than one branch. The Shiji says that Yao offered him the realm and that Xu, thinking the offer shameful, fled into hiding; Sima Qian adds that when he climbed Mount Ji he was shown a grave said to be Xu You's. Huangfu Mi's Biographies of Lofty Men (Gaoshi zhuan) gives him the courtesy name Wuzhong and a home at Huaili in Yangcheng, and says he farmed below Mount Ji north of the Ying River; when Yao then asked him to be chief of the nine provinces, he washed his ears in the Ying so as not to have heard it. In the same book the hermit Chaofu, finding the water fouled, led his calf upstream to drink.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; legendary contemporary of Yao