Yesterday I mentioned the behavior in animal world and the fact that we are not any better than some of them. This reminds me of a ci by Yuan Haowen in Jin Dynasty. Yuan Haowen wrote a preface, like an explanation of the ci. You will be able to appreciate the emotional bond among animals after learning this story. It is something like this –

On the way to take an exam, Yuan Haowen met a goose-hunter with two geese. He told Yuan what happened that day. “This morning I captured two geese, one escaped from the net. I killed the other one. The free one refused to fly away, mourning over the dead one with a sad crying sound, circling above them, then committng suicide by plunging its head against a rock.”

Yuan who understood the inseparable emotional bond between geese bought the dead ones from the hunter, buried them together and called their tomb “The Tomb of Geese” [yan qiu]. Hence this famous ci. It is a beautiful work. I wish I could translate it but I dare not try for fear of grossly distorting the beauty of the original work.