Boyi and Shuqi

Boyi (Chinese: 伯夷; pinyin: Bó Yí, lit. 'Eldest Brother Even^[1]') and Shuqi (Chinese: 叔齊; pinyin: Shū Qí, lit. 'Third Brother Equal^[2]') were two Dongyi brothers from Guzhu (modern Hebei province, near Tangshan), a Dongyi vassal state under the Shang dynasty.^[3] According to tradition, they lived at the time of the transition between the Shang dynasty and the Zhou dynasty (approximately 1046 BCE). They are remembered in literary culture for their personal and moral virtue, loyalty, and pacifist idealism.^[4] Sometimes they are referred to together just as "Boyi", after the elder brother.^[5]

Boyi and Shuqi represent some paradoxes in ethics: Boyi refused to take over rule of his father's kingdom because he felt his father preferred his younger brother and going against his father's wishes would not be in accord with filial piety. Shuqi refused the rule because it would be unfilial to allow his older brother to be bypassed. So the two fled together. Then, after the overthrow of the Shang dynasty to which they had pledged loyalty (and which theoretically owned the land and its produce by divine right), the two brothers faced the dilemma of disloyalty in eating the food of the new (in their opinion, usurping) dynasty or remaining loyal in spirit to the former dynasty. Thus the two were left with starvation as the final option.