Han Qingyan, circuit intendant of Suzhou and Songjiang, understood astronomy. He once told me:
“When I was magistrate of Baoshan, in the sixth month, I was out in the fields catching locusts. I rose at the fourth watch and sat on a folding chair directing the clerks and runners, when I saw a guest-star fly into the Southern Dipper. I remembered privately what the book of prognostications says: ‘He who sees this calamity will die a sudden death within a month. The remedy is to cut off about an inch of hair and perform the paces of Yu three times, east then west; then you may shift the calamity onto another.’ At the time I at once waved the clerks away and did as the book prescribed. Not long after, the clerk in charge of the office records, a man named Li, died for no reason at all, cutting open his own belly with a small knife. I was unharmed. Li was a candidate whose paper I had passed; he was young and a good writer. I had not expected him to take the calamity in my place, and it grieves me to think of it.”
I said to Han, in jest: “Your art of prognostication is certainly marvellous. But we who know nothing of astronomy often sit up at night and see a great many flying stars go to and fro. If one of them went into the Southern Dipper, we should not know the counter-charm at all. What would become of us?”
He said: “Those who know no astronomy — even if they see a flying star enter the Southern Dipper, it does them no harm.”
I said: “Then why on earth did you take the trouble to learn astronomy, adding this one extra item, and bringing misfortune on yourself and on others?”
Han laughed heartily and could not answer.
