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Description
The 24 Paragons of Filial Piety are based on a compilation of Confucian tales of exemplary behavior by children to their elders. In this tale, Chi Shun went into the forest to gather mulberries for his widowed mother, throwing the ripe, black mulberries into one basket and unripe, red berries into another. In the woods he was seized by two robbers, who asked about the sorting of the berries. Chi Shun explained the sweeter, ripe berries were for his mother, and the sour unripe berries he would eat himself, and begged the the men not to kill him, for then his mother would have no one to look after her. The robbers were moved to compassion by his answer, and supplying the boy with food from their own stores, released him. In the top panel the two robbers threaten Cai Shun on a mountain path. The two, armed with a staff and a sword and with their robes tucked up under their belts and their sleeves tied back, stand over a kneeling boy in a Chinese robe pleading for his life. In the bottom panel a child in a black plaid kimono and a blue sash is bent over picking thing up off the ground. He hold a sack in his left hand. A woman in a blue flowered kimono and red obi stands nearby looking down at him. In this print the excess length of her kimono is clearly visible below the obi where it has been pulled up and held by the koshi-himo belt. Over this she has tied the broad date-fime belt, and finished it with the obi - jime, a narrow braided cord. She holds a straw basket in her left hand and wears thick-soled sandals. A tree and flowering plants frame the print to the right.
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