ffice attend equally to their
functions. Owing to illness or despatch on missions their work may
sometimes be neglected. But whenever they are able to attend to
business, let them be as accommodating as though they had cognizance
of it from before, and let them not hinder public affairs on the
score of not having had to do with them.

XIV. Ministers and functionaries, be not envious. If we envy others,
they, in turn, will envy us. The evils of envy know no limit. If
others excel us in intelligence, it gives us no pleasure; if they
surpass us in ability, we are envious. Therefore it is not until
after the lapse of five hundred years that we at last meet with a
wise man, and even in a thousand years we hardly obtain one sage. But
if wise men and sages be not found, how shall the country be
governed?

XV. To turn away from that which is private and to set one's face
towards that which is public this is the path of a minister. If a man
is influenced by private motives, he will assuredly feel resentment;
if he is influenced by resentment, he will assuredly fail to act
harmoniously with others; if he fails to act harmoniously with
others, he will assuredly sacrifice the public interest to his
private feelings. When resentment arises, it interferes with order
and is subversive of law. Therefore, in the first clause it was said
that superiors and inferiors should agree together. The purport is
the same as this.

XVI. Let the employment of the people in forced labour be at
seasonable times. This is an ancient and excellent rule. Let them be
employed, therefore, in the winter months when they have leisure. But
from spring to autumn, when they are engaged in agriculture or with
the mulberry trees, the people should not be employed. For if they do
not attend to agriculture, what will they have to eat? If they do not
attend to the mulberry trees, what will they do for clothing?

XVII. Decisions on important matters should not be rendered by one
person alone: they should be discussed by many. But small matters
being of less consequence, need not be consulted about by a number of
people. It is only in the discussion of weighty affairs, when there
is an apprehension of miscarriage, that matters should be arranged in
concert with others so as to arrive at the right conclusion.*

*The above is taken almost verbatim from Aston's translation of the
Nihongi.

For a document compiled at the beginning of the seventh century these
sev